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RAG Is Simpler Than You Think

https://www.lighthousenewsletter.com/p/rag-is-simpler-than-you-think
129•j0selit0•3h ago•50 comments

Oldinsurancemaps.net is now a Charter Project

https://openstreetmap.us/news/2026/08/oim-charter-project/
73•altilunium•3h ago•11 comments

Z.ai confirms Ox Alpha is a new GLM-series model and will release its weights

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-26/china-s-z-ai-made-ox-alpha-stealth-model-that-...
134•garo-pro•1h ago•48 comments

Value Classes Still Need Compiler Sympathy

https://johan-sjolen.github.io/post/compiler-sympathy/compiler-sympathy/
40•lichtenberger•3h ago•15 comments

Show HN: Buslens – where can I get to by bus? (UK)

https://rupertlinacre.com/buslens/
50•RobinL•4h ago•32 comments

Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-m6-and-m5-ultra-for-a-big-leap-in-perform...
1187•interpol_p•22h ago•1154 comments

Stalking the Wily Hacker: 40 years later – Cliff Stoll [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=656058JxTM0
131•zoenolan•4d ago•38 comments

FDA authorizes first wearable device that monitors ketone and blood sugar levels

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-authorizes-first-wearable-device-continuo...
433•sunnynagra•16h ago•204 comments

OpenAI Jalapeño: Better than Nvidia Blackwell

https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/openai-jalapeno-better-than-nvidia
514•bmulholland•21h ago•326 comments

Queryable Executables

https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/24/actually-queryable-executables
223•rguiscard•11h ago•61 comments

New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-new-mac-studio-with-m5-max-and-m5-ultra/
778•interpol_p•22h ago•522 comments

Harvest (IBM 7950): Supercomputer for cryptanalysis at the NSA in the Cold War

https://spectrum.ieee.org/cold-war-codebreaker-nsa-ibm
50•jnord•6h ago•12 comments

Beyond Recall and the Illusion of Competence

https://var0.xyz/posts/beyond-recall-and-the-illusion-of-competence.html
14•tuxie_•1h ago•5 comments

Black hole singularity is a surface not a point

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.21590
263•raattgift•18h ago•191 comments

Maiao: Gerrit-style code review workflow for GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, others

https://github.com/runetes/maiao
95•zdw•13h ago•55 comments

New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-unveils-a-more-powerful-mac-mini-featuring-the-all-n...
505•runako•22h ago•321 comments

When str.lower() is a security vulnerability in Python

https://sethmlarson.dev/when-str-lower-is-a-security-vulnerability
139•rbanffy•15h ago•61 comments

Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/1442
999•Banditoz•18h ago•837 comments

XCancel and Nitter are receiving C&D letters from XCorp

33•mobilio•2h ago•8 comments

Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

https://www.imkylelambert.com/articles/building-a-backyard-office-the-build-and-cost-breakdown
366•surprisetalk•21h ago•222 comments

U.S. gov't moves to suppress pushback on data centers

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/u-s-govt-moves-to-suppress-pushback-on-da...
71•rbanffy•1h ago•61 comments

Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/bomb-fishing-coral-reefs
329•speckx•21h ago•173 comments

Tooltips need a delay, and then they need to skip it

https://blog.master.dev/tooltips-need-a-delay-and-then-they-need-to-skip-it/
191•ibobev•19h ago•60 comments

Run OpenBSD on DigitalOcean for $4/month

https://nil.wallyjones.com/run-openbsd-on-digitalocean-for-4month/
176•speckx•18h ago•82 comments

Don't Wordle

https://dontwordle.com/
357•Hbruz0•1d ago•127 comments

C2PA Cameras Do Not Survive Contact with Reality

https://www.da.vidbuchanan.co.uk/blog/android-c2pa.html
165•Retr0id•16h ago•107 comments

Agentic Context Management: Memory and Cost as Architecture Problems

https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.21503
61•gdad•9h ago•23 comments

Debian polls its developers on AI: permit or ban?

https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/08/26/debian-polls-its-developers-on-whether-to-burn-t...
14•lproven•1h ago•8 comments

How credit card rewards became a $9.2B wealth transfer

https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/how-credit-card-rewards-became-multibillion-dollar-...
197•conbrian•1d ago•346 comments

It's Not the End of Programming

https://mathstodon.xyz/@abuseofnotation/117161292083848755
33•boris_m•1h ago•42 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.