frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

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

1•winwang•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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•1y ago
"def" is too generic.

"fn" is too cryptic.

"function" is better than the two.

MultifokalHirn•1y ago
Agreed

Amazon will train on Twitch streamers' content by default, unless they opt out

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/12/amazon-will-train-on-twitch-streamers-content-by-default-unless...
1•ilamont•54s ago•0 comments

Compute Futures

https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/energy/power/compute-futures.html
1•mathgenius•3m ago•0 comments

I want extern "fil-C"

https://domenkozar.com/2026/08/13/i-want-extern-fil-c/
2•domenkozar•3m ago•0 comments

Americans Love the Roar of a V-8 Engine–and They Don't Want to Give It Up

https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ram-truck-pickup-v-8-f1500-f0f8b234
1•fortran77•4m ago•1 comments

Bounded Asynchrony and Nested Parallelism for Scalable Graph Processing

https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/087d4c92-d9cc-4169-b30b-2d3bbdebebf8...
1•andsoitis•4m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Sched – On-call rotations for small teams that don't need PagerDuty

https://getsched.dev/
2•arye_lu•5m ago•0 comments

„If this was real,everyone would have been dead long ago"(German ICE fire drill)

https://www.bild.de/regional/thueringen/waeren-laengst-alle-tot-debakel-bei-ice-tunneluebung-in-t...
2•Markoff•5m ago•1 comments

X open sources its ranking algo, letting users see if they've been shadowbanned

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/13/x-open-sources-its-ranking-algorithm-letting-users-see-if-theyv...
3•thm•5m ago•0 comments

Siamese Neural Network

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_neural_network
2•Anon84•6m ago•0 comments

The Review That Praised the Bug: grading three LLM code reviews against the code

https://mrjstickel.com/projects/review-scorecard
2•MrJStickel•6m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Zod schema is a binary codec, no IDL, no codegen

https://github.com/ChiChuRita/shorn
2•chichurita•6m ago•0 comments

Fundable – the AI platform for fund and asset managers

https://fundableai.com/
2•petethomas•7m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A Free Cloud Container

https://usebench.dev/
2•saucepoint•8m ago•0 comments

Hillock – Local neuro-symbolic memory engine running in <1.2GB VRAM

https://github.com/roandejager/Hillock
2•roandejager5•9m ago•0 comments

Show HN: My first app got 97% on MacSources

https://bitvibelabs.com/tickernotch/
2•BitVibeLabs•11m ago•0 comments

Surfil On-device control plane for AI coding agents

https://surfil.com/
3•Samaradam•11m ago•0 comments

Gemini 3.7 Flash

https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/models/gemini-3.7-flash
51•thisisauserid•12m ago•21 comments

JDK 27 G1/Parallel/Serial GC Changes

https://tschatzl.github.io/2026/08/10/jdk27-g1-serial-parallel-gc-changes.html
2•0x54MUR41•13m ago•0 comments

Why Google killed its best argument for AI

https://www.hardresetmedia.com/p/why-google-killed-its-best-argument
3•pac0•13m ago•0 comments

From slow tests to slow production: Debugging with Stackprof

https://www.aha.io/engineering/articles/debugging-with-stack-prof
4•FigurativeVoid•14m ago•0 comments

Nine PBS sues Iron Mountain over blocked access to archival data

https://current.org/2026/08/nine-pbs-sues-iron-mountain-over-blocked-access-to-archival-data/
3•simonpure•15m ago•0 comments

Why and how to check your SSDs Trim correctly

https://eclecticlight.co/2026/08/13/why-and-how-to-check-your-ssds-trim-correctly/
2•Brajeshwar•15m ago•0 comments

Groupon founder Andrew Mason's farewell letter to employees (2013)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2013/mar/01/groupon-andrew-mason-fired-letter
3•bobbiechen•16m ago•0 comments

Chasing an Elusive Rails SSE Bug/Hang

https://www.babylist.com/engineering/blog/rails-sse-hang
1•wpeterson•19m ago•0 comments

SpaceXAI debuts Grok 4.6, overtaking Kimi K3's and matching GPT-5.6 Sol

https://tracking.tldrnewsletter.com/CL0/https:%2F%2Fventurebeat.com%2Ftechnology%2Fspacexai-debut...
4•countbinface•19m ago•0 comments

Tocharian Online

https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/tokol/0
6•Bluestein•20m ago•0 comments

Runta SSH access for agent runtimes

https://runta.com/blog/ssh-access-for-runta-runtimes/
5•shiqimei•20m ago•0 comments

Anthropic in talks to buy Decart AI for $6B

https://www.reuters.com/technology/anthropic-talks-buy-decart-ai-source-says-2026-08-13/
5•adamhowell•22m ago•0 comments

Natural Language Processing (NLP) Explained – AI and Human Language

https://bytetality.com/reviews/86-natural-language-processing-nlp-explained-ai-human-language
3•lava-doe•23m ago•0 comments

Scientists Taught Living Brain Cells to Play a Game

https://www.rathbiotaclan.com/cultured-neurons-improve-at-simplified-pong-under-closed-loop-feedb...
2•Akasci•24m ago•0 comments