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The other Sean Byrne doesn't exist

https://conic.al/writing/the-other-sean-byrne-doesnt-exist/
149•rdl•5h ago•78 comments

Qwen 3.8 27B

https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B-FP8
1141•erdaltoprak•19h ago•698 comments

Going Dark, and the era of law enforcement hacking

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/08/14/everything-is-about-to-go-dark/
343•vslira•13h ago•150 comments

In 1962, Egypt's Missile Program Lost Its Key Scientist Without a Trace

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a73358518/nazi-rocket-scientist-disappearance/
37•bookofjoe•2d ago•11 comments

Understanding WCAG 2.2 as ePub and PDF

https://doeken.org/wcag-ebook
15•doekenorg•2d ago•2 comments

Coin-sized device can hack a Boeing 737

https://www.wired.com/story/this-coin-sized-device-can-hack-a-boeing-737/
75•_tk_•2d ago•48 comments

Google is making private AI practical with homomorphic encryption

https://blog.google/security/how-google-is-making-private-ai-practical-with-homomorphic-encryption/
389•u1hcw9nx•18h ago•237 comments

Show HN: Eigendrum - Draw any shape and hear what it sounds like as a drum

https://baselashraf81.github.io/eigendrum/
6•BaselAshraf81•4d ago•1 comments

Magnitude 7.7 Earthquake – 68 km NNW of Ende, Indonesia

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000tkt2/executive
195•Bender•8h ago•47 comments

Show HN: ThoughtDAG – An editable context graph for LLM conversations

https://chenxiachan.github.io/thoughtdag/
32•chatchan•5h ago•4 comments

eigendrum

https://eigendrum.com/#p=circle
157•bookofjoe•11h ago•38 comments

RustDesk now supports true unattended remote access on Wayland

https://rustdesk.com/blog/unattended-remote-access-wayland/
295•rustdesk•17h ago•123 comments

Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3212428/firefox-is-now-the-last-major-browser-that-still-supports...
1023•DemiGuru•14h ago•388 comments

AI by Hand

https://www.byhand.ai/
305•sans_souse•18h ago•23 comments

Show HN: Silent Shark – tactical map-based WWII submarine sim

https://silentshark.app/
27•epaga•2d ago•5 comments

The Ploopy A+ Trackball Is Here

https://blog.ploopy.co/the-aplus-is-finally-here-499
104•big_toast•9h ago•49 comments

Simplifying and Refactoring Introductory Calculus (2018)

https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.03459
89•E-Reverance•9h ago•41 comments

Unearthing a 31 year old Easter egg in Ecco the Dolphin

https://32bits.substack.com/p/under-the-microscope-ecco-the-dolphin-98c
83•bbayles•2d ago•18 comments

Maximizing the value of your Claude Code sessions

https://claude.com/blog/maximizing-the-value-of-your-claude-code-sessions
223•twapi•17h ago•125 comments

Using GCC's Nested Functions with Wide Pointers and No Trampolines II

https://uecker.codeberg.page/2026-07-14.html
3•uecker•2h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How do you keep up with HN these days?

34•simonebrunozzi•4h ago•56 comments

This Hi-Fi Tape Recorder Changed Radio Forever

https://spectrum.ieee.org/magnetophon-laugh-track
46•Jimmc414•3d ago•12 comments

Introducing Toast 1

https://www.mixedbread.com/blog/toast-1
206•mplappert•18h ago•62 comments

I turned my RSS feeds into an e-ink newspaper to stop reading on my phone

https://heyjonny.dev/posts/rss-to-eink-newspaper/
187•speckx•19h ago•73 comments

Super Mario Derivations

https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/05/super-mario-derivations
104•domenkozar•1w ago•14 comments

Suspecting court of using AI, man injected prompts in filings to try to win case

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/suspecting-court-of-using-ai-man-injected-prompts-in-...
21•jnord•2h ago•12 comments

GLM-5.3: Frontier coding with emergent cyber capabilities

https://z.ai/blog/glm-5.3
1092•pella•1d ago•537 comments

Racket v9.3

https://blog.racket-lang.org/2026/08/racket-v9-3.html
88•privong•15h ago•6 comments

Ultraviolet Bird Photography

https://uvbirds.com/
147•EndXA•1w ago•24 comments

Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

https://mun-logadan.github.io/why-does-opus-5-feel-worse/
870•numeri•23h ago•792 comments
Open in hackernews

Anatomy of a SQL Engine

https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2025-04-25-sql-engine-anatomy/
168•ingve•1y ago

Comments

jimbokun•1y ago
Very nice write up enumerating all the stages of SQL query execution. Interesting even if you don’t care about the DoIt database specifically.
Austizzle•1y ago
Man, this title tripped me up for a minute because I pronounce it with the letters like Ess-Queue-Ell

So the "A" in "A ess-queue-ell" engine felt like it should have been an "An" until I realized it was meant to be pronounced like "sequel"

perching_aix•1y ago
Not necessarily, I see native speakers completely ignore this a lot.

Have you ever considered pronouncing it as squirrel by the way?

kreetx•1y ago
Many (most?) non-native English speakers do pronounce it as ess-queue-ell, especially in their own languages, so yes, the use of "a" instead of "an" does look off from that perspective.
SloopJon•1y ago
When I read SQL for Dummies almost thirty years ago, it made a point of distinguishing "sequel" as a historical predecessor to standard "SQL." As I recall, the author even asserted that SQL is not an acronym/initialism for structured query language. I felt funny saying sequel for the next decade or so, because I wasn't an old timer experienced with this pre-SQL technology.

Now I usually say sequel because everyone else does. That and it rolls off the tongue better than S-Q-L.

jtolmar•1y ago
I prefer "ess queue ell" these days, but the first DBA I ever worked with pronounced it "squirrel".
gopalv•1y ago
This is a great write up about a pull-style volcano SQL engine.

The IR I've used is the Calcite implementation, this looks very concept adjacent enough that it makes sense on the first read.

> tmp2/test-branch> explain plan select count() from xy join uv on x = u;

One of the helpful things we did was to build a graphviz dot export for the explains plans, which saved us days and years of work when trying to explain an optimization problem between the physical and logical layers.

My version would end up displayed as SVG like this

https://web.archive.org/web/20190724161156/http://people.apa...

But the calcite logical plans also have that dot export modes.

https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CALCITE-4197

th0ma5•1y ago
This is really great!!
gavinray•1y ago
Calcite also has a relatively-unknown web tool for plan visualization that lets you step through execution.

It's a method from "RuleMatchVisualizer":

https://github.com/apache/calcite/blob/36f6dddd894b8b79edeb5...

Here's a screenshot of what the webpage looks like, for anyone curious:

https://github.com/GavinRay97/GraphQLCalcite/blob/92b18a850d...

ignoreusernames•1y ago
I recommend anyone who works with databases to write a simple engine. It's a lot simpler than you may think and it's a great exercise. If using python, sqlglot (https://github.com/tobymao/sqlglot) let's you skip all the parsing and it even does some simple optimizations. From the parsed query tree it's pretty straightforward to build a logical plan and execute that. You can even use python's builtin ast module to convert sql expressions into python ones (so no need for a custom interpreter!)
Abde-Notte•1y ago
Second this - building even a simple engine gives real insight into query planning and execution. Once parsing is handled, the core ideas are a lot more approachable than they seem.
albert_e•1y ago
Sorry for slight digression.

In a larger system we are building we need a text-to-sql capability for some structured data retrieval.

Is there a way one could utilize this library (sqlglot) to build a multi-dialect sql generator -- that is not currently solved by directly relying on a LLM that is better at code generation in general?

LtdJorge•1y ago
This is a SQL to X library, though. I don’t think it’s what you need.
gavinray•1y ago
You can use an LLM to generate query-builder expressions from popular libraries in whatever language.

For example, on the JVM there is jOOQ, which allows you to write something like:

  select(field("foo"), avg("bar")).from(table("todos"))
And then it will render dialect-specific SQL. It has very advanced emulation functionality for things like JSON aggregations and working around quirks of dialects.

Alternatively, you can ask an LLM to generate a specific dialect of SQL, and then use jOOQ to parse it to an AST, and then render it as a different dialect, like:

    val parser= DSL.using(SQLDialect.POSTGRES).parser()
    val parsedQuery = parser.parseQuery(postgresQuery)
    val renderedMySQL = DSL.using(SQLDialect.MYSQL).renderInlined(parsedQuery)
    println(renderedMySQL)
Unsure if functionality like this exists in other Query Builder libraries for other languages.
KyleBrandt•1y ago
Using dolthub's go-mysql-server for Grafana's upcoming SQL expressions feature (private preview in Grafana 12, but in the OSS version with a feature toggle).

GMS lets you provide your own table and database implementations, so we use GMS to perform SQL queries against Grafana's dataframes - so users can join or manipulate different data source queires, but we don't have to insert the data into SQL to do this thanks to GMS.

genai-analyst•1y ago
another digression here... sorry... i see you're trying to diy text-to-sql—at some point you're gonna hit a bunch of hiccups. like, the model writes a query that “almost” works but joins the wrong tables, or it assumes column names that don’t exist, or it returns the wrong agg because it misread the intent. and retries won’t always save you—it’ll just confidently hallucinate again.

we’ve been through all of that at wobby.ai we ended up building a system where the data team defines guardrails and reusable query templates, so the agent doesn’t just make stuff up. it can still handle user prompts, but within a safe structure. if you want to save yourself from debugging this stuff endlessly, might be worth checking out wobby.ai.