frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: Which function definition keyword do you prefer, def or fn?

1•winwang•8mo ago
I'm curious about what people think of `def` vs `fn`, two short keywords for starting function definitions.

...Or maybe we should subscribe to the church of `df`, haha.

Comments

sitkack•8mo ago
def could be for lots of things, fn is for functions. I don't think it matters much as long as you have one. C would have been so much easier to parse. Just copy Zig or Rust.
butlersean•8mo ago
def means define, could be used to define all kinds of things

fn isnt a legitimate short form of function

fun doesnt work because of the amusement factor

func is the only alternative we have left

sitkack•8mo ago
How about unicode or emojis?

These don't have the full fidelity as hn scrubs emojis

add = (a, b) -> a + b

a, b ⟹ a + b

λ add(a, b): ↪ a + b

johncoltrane•8mo ago
"def" is too generic.

"fn" is too cryptic.

"function" is better than the two.

MultifokalHirn•8mo ago
Agreed

The Curse of Genius

https://www.economist.com/1843/2019/04/29/the-curse-of-genius
1•andsoitis•41s ago•0 comments

Browser DevTools MCP – AI agents that can test and debug their own web code

https://medium.com/@serkan_ozal/empowering-ai-to-test-and-debug-its-own-code-introducing-browser-...
1•sozal•2m ago•1 comments

ICE agents do not have 'absolute immunity' from state prosecution

https://reason.com/2026/01/13/no-ice-agents-do-not-have-absolute-immunity-from-state-prosecution/
1•treetalker•2m ago•0 comments

Prediction Markets Turned Life into a Dystopian Gambling Experiment

https://www.theringer.com/2026/01/14/tech/prediction-markets-betting-explained-meaning-polymarket...
1•cainxinth•4m ago•0 comments

Nvidia Reportedly Ends GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Production, RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Next

https://www.techpowerup.com/345224/nvidia-reportedly-ends-geforce-rtx-5070-ti-production-rtx-5060...
3•ndiddy•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I vibecoded a language server for web assembly

https://github.com/EmNudge/wat-lsp
1•emnudge•6m ago•0 comments

Chess Programming Wiki

https://www.chessprogramming.org/Main_Page
1•Antibabelic•7m ago•0 comments

'It's AI blackface': account hailed as Aboriginal Steve Irwin is AI character

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jan/15/aboriginal-steve-irwin-ai-character-create...
1•joejohnson•7m ago•0 comments

The Death of the Cool

https://chrismarino.substack.com/p/the-death-of-the-cool
2•jger15•8m ago•0 comments

How stagnant is CPU technology?

https://lemire.me/blog/2026/01/14/how-stagnant-is-cpu-technology/
1•ibobev•9m ago•0 comments

Poking holes into bytecode with peephole optimisations

https://xnacly.me/posts/2026/purple-garden-first-optimisations/
1•ibobev•11m ago•0 comments

SIMD Programming in Pure Rust

https://kerkour.com/introduction-rust-simd
2•randomint64•11m ago•0 comments

Show HN: MarkView – Markdown viewer with folder navigation and bookmarks

https://getmarkview.com/
1•dangtung•11m ago•1 comments

Go Home, Windows EXE, You're Drunk

https://gpfault.net/posts/drunk-exe.html
2•ibobev•11m ago•0 comments

Forgejo v14.0 Is Available

https://forgejo.org/2026-01-release-v14-0/
2•todsacerdoti•12m ago•0 comments

Why Senior Engineers Let Bad Projects Fail

https://lalitm.com/post/why-senior-engineers-let-bad-projects-fail/
2•lalitmaganti•12m ago•0 comments

The Third Audience

https://dri.es/the-third-audience
1•j4mie•14m ago•0 comments

I spent a year on Linux and forgot to miss Windows

https://www.theverge.com/features/861968/year-using-linux
3•speckx•14m ago•0 comments

Ecma approves NLIP standards suite for universal AI agent communication

https://ecma-international.org/news/ecma-international-approves-nlip-standards-suite-for-universa...
1•nlip-project•14m ago•1 comments

Show HN: I recreated the "popcorn" Time Service

https://popcornph.one
1•kilroy123•15m ago•0 comments

The Mythology of Conscious AI

https://www.noemamag.com/the-mythology-of-conscious-ai/
1•Brajeshwar•15m ago•1 comments

Circadian Rest-Activity Rhythms and Incident Dementia in Older Adults

https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000214513
1•bookofjoe•16m ago•0 comments

WorkBill Devlog 001: Modern and Flexible Accounting

https://workbill.co/blog/devlog-001
1•amalinovic•17m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Why Neural Networks Need He Init, Clipping, and Momentum

https://sbondaryev.dev/articles/he-init-clipping-momentum
1•sbondaryev•17m ago•0 comments

Show HN: TinyCity – A tiny city SIM for MicroPython (Thumby micro console)

https://github.com/chrisdiana/TinyCity
2•inflam52•18m ago•0 comments

Quick Fix Archaeology – 3 famous hacks that changed the world

https://www.dodgycoder.net/2026/01/quick-fix-archaeology-3-famous-hacks-that-changed-the-world.html
2•damian2000•19m ago•0 comments

Prevent macOS from inserting a period after two spaces

https://jordaneldredge.com/macos-period-after-two-spaces-config/
1•speckx•19m ago•1 comments

One for the Treble, Two for the Time

https://tigerbeetle.com/blog/2026-01-14-bitemporality/
1•cyndunlop•23m ago•0 comments

A (mostly) POSIX-compatible make implemented in Rust

https://code.boringcactus.com/makers/
1•awalGarg•24m ago•0 comments

Who Can Handle a Loop?

https://jonatron.github.io/randomstuff/loop/
1•jonatron•25m ago•0 comments