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Show HN: HackerBooks – HackerTube, but for books mentioned on HN

https://hackerbooks.org
1434•roansh•19h ago•239 comments

Postgres 19 is late because so many more bugs are being found now

http://rhaas.blogspot.com/2026/10/postgres-19-is-late-and-its-ais-fault.html
506•soheilpro•2d ago•319 comments

Show HN: Wikihack – HackerTube, but for Wikipedia articles mentioned on HN

https://wikihack.netlify.app
219•aizk•6h ago•71 comments

HackerTube: YouTube built from videos recommended by HN

https://karpathy.bearblog.dev/hacker-tube/
2608•karpathy•1d ago•575 comments

F/OSS Comics #13: BSD Unix, Part 3 – The Beginning of BSD Unix

https://fosscomics.com/posts/13.%20BSD%20Unix%20Part%203%20-%20The%20Beginning%20of%20BSD%20Unix/
134•joonehur•9h ago•15 comments

Bones may release proteins that slow aging and extend life span

https://www.science.org/content/article/bones-may-release-proteins-slow-aging-and-extend-life-span
121•EA-3167•9h ago•27 comments

Ask HN: Which TV do you recommend for privacy?

424•LecroJS•15h ago•557 comments

Show HN: I've updated my Linux System Call website and API

https://syscall.sh/
20•guitmz•1h ago•11 comments

Mystery of 60-Second Fluctuations in Power Grids Solved

https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/news/archive/press-release/2026/mystery-of-60-second-fluctuations-in...
139•_Microft•1d ago•63 comments

Trigger.dev customer environment variables exposed

https://trigger.dev/blog/security-incident-nov-2026
98•anurag•10h ago•40 comments

From Charlemagne to the Kitchen Boy: Reading the Hamburg Rathaus

https://alsterrunde.com/from-charlemagne-to-the-kitchen-boy-reading-the-hamburg-rathaus/
39•mertbio•4h ago•4 comments

Nibnib: Image compression with extreme decompression speed

https://github.com/raphlinus/nibnib
152•raphlinus•3d ago•25 comments

Tips for more effective fuzz testing with AFL++

https://nullprogram.com/blog/2025/02/05/
125•luu•5d ago•24 comments

China's First Frontier AI Export Controls: Mofcom Announcement No. 48

https://labs.cloudsecurityalliance.org/research/csa-research-note-china-ai-export-controls-announ...
53•jonnybgood•3h ago•33 comments

Show HN: HackerHack – HackerBooks but for Posts Posted on HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/
16•mw888•4h ago•3 comments

Copper – A minimal low-level programming language with OOP and generics

https://tibleiz.net/copper/
172•bogdanoff_2•2d ago•96 comments

Show HN: OmniDiff – Opensource, super fast, content aware Git difftool, in Rust

https://github.com/ivankovic/omnidiff
257•FabCH•22h ago•74 comments

OccupySaaS

https://occupysaas.com/
303•misswaterfairy•11h ago•173 comments

New 3D thermal invisibility cloak makes objects disappear from infrared cameras

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/10/261025073051.htm
87•stevenalowe•3d ago•37 comments

The AI cost of JavaScript frameworks

https://nolanlawson.com/2026/10/28/the-ai-cost-of-javascript-frameworks/
383•luu•1d ago•297 comments

Proving and improving the Platonic Representation Hypothesis with JEPAs

https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.39302
144•Anon84•22h ago•71 comments

One-minute frequency disturbances from synchronization in power systems

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-026-02144-0
162•croes•2d ago•52 comments

Show HN: Point your camera at a landscape to learn about its geology

https://outcrop.rocks/
210•headsupernova•3d ago•47 comments

Mathematics has changed. Let's act like it

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/11/01/mathematics-has-changed-lets-act-like-it/
321•smilelamp•16h ago•367 comments

Radiation Map of the World

https://radiaverse.com/
184•slater•4d ago•50 comments

Lenovo's 'encrypted' fingerprint USB is just an unencrypted SD card in a case

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1xl2pr3/lenovos_encrypted_fingerprint_usb_drive_is_j...
500•entryleveljobsc•20h ago•166 comments

Show HN: I rebuilt my old canvas 3D library as a small WebGL 2 library – phoria2

https://kevs3d.co.uk/phoria2/
93•kevs3d•2d ago•17 comments

The She-Wolves of Jülich

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/she-wolves-julich
30•Thevet•1d ago•6 comments

Domain hacks with unusual Unicode characters (2018)

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/11/domain-hacks-with-unusual-unicode-characters/
92•n_plus_1_acc•1d ago•56 comments

An Italian farmer found some unknown seeds in his attic and planted them

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/italian-farmer-found-unknown-seeds-attic-with-nothi...
830•ecares•1d ago•211 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.