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“Math 2.0” will need to value mathematical progress more holistically

https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/117395269325940185
252•ent101•3h ago•213 comments

Claude Haiku 5.5

https://www.anthropic.com/claude-haiku-5-5
864•sfkgtbor•14h ago•417 comments

Classic PC demoscene productions running natively in the browser

https://treylorswift.github.io/demoscene-recomp/web/
25•adunk•2h ago•6 comments

Living off-grid: Hundred Rabbits

https://100r.ca/site/home.html
195•Muhammad523•2d ago•49 comments

The 15-year search for a band that charted once and vanished

https://shahidhussain.com/writing/search-for-salvage/
83•shahidhussain•3d ago•28 comments

Margaret Hamilton has died

https://news.mit.edu/2026/margaret-hamilton-computing-pioneer-dies-1007
1438•muglug•11h ago•161 comments

GPT‑6 and Intelligent UI for everyone

https://openai.com/index/gpt-6-for-everyone/
617•joshuawright11•14h ago•335 comments

How did Rosalind Franklin miss the helix in her iconic DNA image? She didn't

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-did-rosalind-franklin-miss-helix-her-iconic-dna-image...
165•pavel_lishin•2d ago•60 comments

'Jonathan' is the oldest land animal on Earth

https://www.404media.co/oldest-living-land-animal-jonathan-the-tortoise/
143•gumby•12h ago•67 comments

New repository settings for configuring pull request access

https://github.blog/changelog/2026-02-13-new-repository-settings-for-configuring-pull-request-acc...
14•Bluestein•2d ago•5 comments

Cleo (Mathematician)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleo_(mathematician)
139•djoldman•1d ago•28 comments

Shipping JPEG XL in Chrome

https://developer.chrome.com/blog/jpeg-xl-in-chrome
545•AshleysBrain•21h ago•357 comments

The Mathocalypse

https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10169
220•6bitquant•13h ago•252 comments

Show HN: Bigwords.page – Turn any screen into a sign. The URL is the app

https://bigwords.page/
488•SpeakingOfBrad•17h ago•138 comments

Analog Computer Simulator in the Browser

https://pavel-krivanek.github.io/The-Analog-Thing-Simulator/public/
19•adamnemecek•2d ago•5 comments

In Vienna and Beijing, the first (thorium) nuclear clocks begin to tick

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/07/science/first-nuclear-clocks-thorium-229.html
96•gumby•14h ago•17 comments

Dat-ecosystem: high level applications built on top of P2P protocols

https://dat-ecosystem.org/
9•janandonly•2h ago•2 comments

OpenAI withdraws three mathematical results

https://twitter.com/danintheory/status/2108065033070789090
32•sashank_1509•1h ago•15 comments

Docker Agent

https://github.com/docker/docker-agent
230•saikatsg•15h ago•108 comments

Sharing AI progress in mathematics

https://openai.com/index/sharing-ai-progress-in-mathematics/
1278•OfficialTurkey•1d ago•1450 comments

Push ifs up and fors down: The idiom, its algebra, and its limits

https://debasishg.github.io/blog/push-ifs-up-fors-down/
146•speckx•14h ago•66 comments

A minimal kernel in Swift, running in QEMU

https://carette.xyz/posts/minimal_swift_kernel_on_qemu/
76•surprisetalk•1d ago•14 comments

Bloody Cavemen

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n18/edmund-gordon/bloody-cavemen
3•Thevet•1d ago•0 comments

Animated ASCII Art for Web Pages

https://ascii.rest/
346•turrini•17h ago•61 comments

A 100x faster* alternative to homebrew

https://github.com/zerobrewhq/zerobrew
81•cachebag•5h ago•66 comments

How machines learned precision

https://glinscott.github.io/how-machines-learned-precision/
161•glinscott•1d ago•63 comments

Why were Victorian elites so effective?

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-seven-vices-of-highly-effective-victorians/
149•karakoram•17h ago•245 comments

Port of the TypeScript compiler, checker and lsp to Rust, by LLM

https://github.com/pingdotgg/ts-rust
52•jcbhmr•8h ago•90 comments

House with 15m underground tunnels for sale for 300k

https://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/26612080.house-15m-underground-tunnels-sale-300k/
202•librasteve•20h ago•190 comments

Navier–Stokes Lost in Translation

https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.08144
301•nill0•17h ago•183 comments
Open in hackernews

Extending a Language – Writing Powerful Macros in Scheme

https://mnieper.github.io/scheme-macros/README.html
92•textread•1y ago

Comments

neilv•1y ago
A few formatting changes might make this advanced example easier to understand:

    (define-syntax trace-let
      (syntax-rules ()
        [(trace-let name ([var expr] ...) body1 ... body2)
         (let f ([depth 0] [var expr] ...)
           (define name
             (lambda (var ...)
               (f (+ depth 1) var ...)))
           (indent depth)
           (display "(")
           (display 'name)
           (begin
             (display " ")
             (display var))
           ...
           (display ")")
           (newline)
           (call-with-values
               (lambda ()
                 body1 ... body2)
             (lambda val*
               (indent depth)
               (fold-left
                (lambda (sep val)
                  (display sep)
                  (display val)
                  " ")
                "" val*)
               (newline)
               (apply values val*))))]))
The biggest one is to make the rule template pattern variables all-uppercase. I also made a few other tweaks, including using indentation a little more, and naming the named-`let` variable as "loop" (I usually name it `loop` or prefix the name with `loop-` if there's more than one):

    (define-syntax trace-let
      (syntax-rules ()
        ((trace-let NAME ((VAR EXPR) ...) BODY1 ... BODY2)
         (let loop ((depth 0)
                    (VAR   EXPR) ...)
           (define NAME
             (lambda (VAR ...)
               (loop (+ depth 1) VAR ...)))
           (indent depth)
           (display "(")
           (display (quote NAME))
           (begin (display " ")
                  (display VAR)) ...
           (display ")")
           (newline)
           (call-with-values (lambda ()
                               BODY1 ... BODY2)
             (lambda val*
               (indent depth)
               (fold-left (lambda (sep val)
                            (display sep)
                            (display val)
                            " ")
                          ""
                          val*)
               (newline)
               (apply values val*)))))))
Incidentally, all-uppercase Scheme pattern variables is one of the all-time best uses of all-uppercase in any language. Second only to all-uppercase for the C preprocessor, where a preprocessor macro can introduce almost arbitrary text. Using all-uppercase for constants in some language that has constants, however, is an abomination.

(My suspicion of why Java did all-caps is that they were developing a language for embedded systems developers who were currently using C and C++, and they wanted to make it superficially look similar, even though it was an entirely different language. And then, ironically, the language ended up being used mostly by the analogue of a very different developer of the time: corporate internal information systems developers, who, as a field, didn't use anything like C. It's too late to save Java, but to all other language and API developers, please stop the insanity of all-caps constants, enum values, etc. It's not the most important thing that needs to jump out from the code above all other things.)

Y_Y•1y ago
FWIW, all-caps makes this look much worse to me. I understand that people like things like Hungarian notation, arrows over vector names, and shouting Common Lisp symbols. I understand the argument that it can make reading easier. I just can't appreciate that benefit, and it seems to me an ugly hack which obscures the abstract and general symbolic manipulation going on.

This is all highly subjective of course, de gustibus non disputandem.

neilv•1y ago
You mean aesthetically, in that interspersed all-caps makes the code visually less soothingly sensual?

I can sympathize, but let me make a non-aesthetic argument...

In large blocks of code, with all-caps, you can see at a glance where all the template substitutions are happening, and also instantly know as you're reading code what are variables and what are template substitutions?

I'm asking because one of my realizations in recent years is that not everyone reads or sees code the same way.

For example, maybe some people are stronger "visual" and some people are stronger "verbal".

For another example of a different in how people perceive and think, some people can visualize an object in their mind almost as if they're looking at it, but other people can only know and describe what it looks like without bringing a visual of it into their head.

With the benefit of the all-caps, I can glance at this and immediately see much of the structure of the template. Without all-caps, I'd have to work harder to find all the pattern variables, and the structure would be obscured.

For a bit kludgy practical matter, as I'm quickly looking at pieces of code in a template, with all-caps, I can look at a fragment of code in isolation and know what are and aren't pattern variables. Without that, I have to go read the top of the template clause (and read through any syntactic scopes of `let-syntax`) and get that in my head, until I get to the fragment of code I originally wanted to look at.

IDE support can make this unnecessary, with a hypothetical great IDE, with familiar syntax coloring. But still, if there is one thing that all-caps should be reserved for, it's something like this.

With all-caps, your code can be sensual, and the jolting all-caps bits are look out, potentially arbitrary code gets pasted into here.

mnemenaut•1y ago
https://github.com/rogerturner/scheme-macros/blob/main/examp... shows stepwise development of a trace-let [the `(example: (fn arg) => result)` forms are tests - see check-examples library]
Y_Y
•
1y ago
Since you asked, my objection is both aesthetic and semantic, though I was really referring to the semantic part above.

I think you've hit the nail on the head with this visual vs. verbal distinction.

I can add a few clarifying details. I don't use IDEs as much as basic text editors maybe with highlighting, and I try not to rely on any fancy features. It does worry me that the allcaps use you describe is (afaik) not known to the editor or interpreter, so if you make a mistake or the symbol gets out of sync with its meaning (re: pattern variables) you may have a false signal. Finally I'll say that in the end I can't suggest a good way to treat these special variables, and so maybe I don't get it, or tastes like mine would be better served by a different formalism for macros.