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US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e1vg0gjl5o
633•defrost•4h ago•578 comments

U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/july-2026-jobs-report-rcna591138
196•ceejayoz•2h ago•115 comments

Show HN: Wyzer Programming Language

https://github.com/Wyzer-Lang/wyzer
36•v0id_isgood•2h ago•13 comments

New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567m over harms to children’s mental health

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/06/new-mexico-court-meta
471•boplicity•14h ago•262 comments

AMD acquires Taalas to boost inference performance by etching models in silicon

https://www.theregister.com/systems/2026/08/06/amd-acquires-ai-chip-startup-taalas-to-boost-infer...
760•itvision•18h ago•580 comments

U.S. Lost 23,000 Jobs in July, While Unemployment Ticked Lower

https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/july-jobs-report-unemployment-0d7c08a7
36•JumpCrisscross•1h ago•1 comments

Kitesurf: Agent-first browser that runs in V8 isolates

https://blog.cloudflare.com/kitesurf/
30•m3h•4h ago•5 comments

The web server deployment model breaks at hobby scale

https://w.on-t.work/web-deployment-model
44•meetpateltech•1h ago•28 comments

Thoroughly Understanding C++ ABI

https://ykiko.me/en/articles/692886292/
14•rramadass•4d ago•5 comments

Taste Is All That's Left

https://notashelf.dev/posts/taste-is-all-thats-left
551•tsak•21h ago•416 comments

US's largest newspaper chain partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/08/americas-largest-newspaper-chain-usa-today-co-partners-with-pal...
44•cdrnsf•44m ago•10 comments

A quine in Piet – a GIF image that prints itself [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwMtzhjCzyc
48•surprisetalk•4d ago•3 comments

Scientists discover Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability on the surface of the Sun

https://nso.edu/press-release/nsf-inouye-solar-telescope-enables-major-discovery-of-a-hidden-sola...
272•neversaydie•1d ago•53 comments

Bioengineered chewing gum may offer a way to fight HPV and other microbes

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260803080917.htm
171•Audiophilip•17h ago•48 comments

TypeStax: A type scale generator with vintage audio hardware interface

https://www.typestax.com/
22•jasim•1w ago•7 comments

São Paulo resident transforms degraded area into urban forest

https://saopaulosecreto.com/en/tiquatira-linear-park-en/
221•rmason•5d ago•95 comments

GitHub Actions and Pages are experiencing degraded availability

https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/qcvjkzcs7j74
447•Footkerchief•22h ago•370 comments

Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice

https://www.sciencealert.com/radical-study-suggests-life-on-earth-arose-from-non-living-matter-twice
27•jnord•2h ago•31 comments

Show HN: textlog – A quiet, text-only microblogging platform, open-source, no JS

https://textlog.cc/about
12•stagas•3h ago•0 comments

Improving GPT‑5.6 Sol in ChatGPT, expanding GPT‑5.6 Luna access for free users

https://openai.com/index/improving-gpt-5-6-sol-in-chatgpt/
275•tedsanders•21h ago•224 comments

Welcoming the Nepalese Government to Have I Been Pwned

https://www.troyhunt.com/welcoming-the-nepalese-government-to-have-i-been-pwned/
187•gnabgib•16h ago•27 comments

Launch HN: ProvenMetal (YC S26) delivers circuit boards in days instead of weeks

https://provenmetal.com
213•willcarkner•22h ago•151 comments

Herdr is joining Y Combinator. The runtime stays open

https://herdr.dev/blog/herdr-is-joining-y-combinator/
249•collinmanderson•19h ago•175 comments

Why Estonians invite strangers into their back gardens each summer

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260731-why-estonians-invite-strangers-into-their-backyards-e...
115•koolhead17•3d ago•44 comments

The BBC Tetris Companion

https://www.leadedsolder.com/2026/07/28/bbc-bridge-companion-part-1-overview.html
38•zdw•1w ago•2 comments

My phone detects going on a run as “someone snatching my phone and running off”

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@rygorous/117047697255584965
171•luu•20h ago•301 comments

AI psychosis is the new leadership blind spot

https://www.fastcompany.com/91576086/ai-psychosis-is-the-new-leadership-blind-spot-ai-leadership-...
105•rwmj•1h ago•53 comments

Mario Meets Pareto

https://www.mayerowitz.io/blog/mario-meets-pareto
1102•theanonymousone•1d ago•162 comments

Making Postgres 300x faster for analytics: batching, operator fusion, and SIMD

https://malisper.me/how-we-made-postgres-hundreds-of-times-faster-the-query-engine/
31•poly2it•3h ago•6 comments

STV: A full-motion video codec for the Atari ST

https://medium.com/@jonas.eschenburg/stv-a-video-codec-for-the-atari-st-6e46355c50e4
78•indyjo•1w ago•10 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.