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Tell HN: Bob Cringely has died

328•paveworld•5h ago•60 comments

Why don't more developers "use the platform"?

https://nolanlawson.com/2026/10/03/why-dont-more-developers-use-the-platform/
59•vinhnx•2h ago•26 comments

So you think you could be an electrician?

https://asteriskmag.com/issues/15/so-you-think-you-could-be-an-electrician
136•zdw•3d ago•72 comments

We're going to need default hard budget caps on pretty much everything

https://simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/3/default-hard-budget-caps/
349•elffjs•6h ago•175 comments

The work by Valve's Timur Kristóf on improving old AMD GPUs on Linux

https://www.phoronix.com/news/XDC-2026-Valve-Timur-AMDGPU
213•speckx•11h ago•26 comments

Treachery in the Rodin Museum 3D scan verdict

https://cosmowenman.substack.com/p/rodin-museum-3d-scan-verdict
142•CosmoWenman•12h ago•70 comments

Hole Punch: Sling your spaceship around gravitational fields

https://notoriousbfg.com/hole-punch/
271•trwhite•12h ago•62 comments

Agents don't need memory, they need documentation

https://liao.gg/blog/agents-dont-need-memory
125•kmeh•13h ago•68 comments

We're working on a new RuneScape MMO

https://play.runescape.com/4
25•droidjj•5h ago•12 comments

Celebrating the 100th birthday of the kidney donated to him as a teenager

https://www.whec.com/top-news/webster-man-celebrating-the-100th-birthday-of-the-kidney-his-mom-do...
183•gscott•2d ago•42 comments

Reasons I didn't become an EMT, ranked

https://ben.stolovitz.com/posts/reasons-not-emt-ranked/
134•citelao•9h ago•68 comments

Kolibri: A Sovereign Open-Weight Model

https://aleph-alpha.com/en/blog/kolibri-has-landed-a-sovereign-open-weight-model/
567•bastitx•20h ago•311 comments

Three AI agents, two countries, and one uneven world wide web

https://royapakzad.substack.com/p/multilingual-ai-agents
24•effects•1d ago•0 comments

Fast Blur with Animated Radius

https://aras-p.info/blog/2026/10/01/Fast-blur-with-animated-radius/
20•luu•2d ago•2 comments

Your body of work thinks back at you

https://photoni.st/index.php/2026/09/25/your-body-of-work-thinks-back-at-you/
45•surprisetalk•3d ago•3 comments

Math's pedagogical curse – Grant Sanderson [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOuxo6SA8Uc
26•bobajeff•1d ago•13 comments

I stopped reviewing my agents' code. Here's what I do instead

https://alexeyindeev.substack.com/p/i-stopped-reviewing-my-agents-code
6•alexeyindeev•28m ago•0 comments

FTL: A new operating system for clouds

https://ftl-os.org/
166•romac•15h ago•66 comments

The characters of plastics (2024)

https://yarchive.net/blog/plastics/
17•thelastgallon•1d ago•4 comments

Former SR-71 engineer talks NASA's Blackbird revival program

https://www.twz.com/air/former-sr-71-engineer-talks-nasas-blackbird-revival-program
41•rkagerer•22h ago•17 comments

Show HN: Thoreau BASIC – What if BASIC hadn't gone out of fashion?

https://thoreaubasic.com/
46•Gorsefound•22h ago•14 comments

Surely you have ultra-wideband radios on your bins too?

https://sjg.io/writing/binrange-have-you-actually-put-the-bins-out/
66•simonjgreen•9h ago•31 comments

Show HN: Pi pod – Run your pi coding agent in sandboxes on your own server

https://pipod.dev/
89•edverma2•1d ago•32 comments

I quit OpenAI because its culture is broken

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/10/openai-safety-team-resignation/688881/?gift=v5U_Uz...
157•Brajeshwar•16h ago•419 comments

Woking Electrical Control Room (2016)

http://www.darbiansphotography.com/woking-electrical-control-room-urbex
136•NaOH•1d ago•26 comments

Memory-Safe WebP Decoding

https://halide.cx/blog/wpd/
54•computerbuster•1d ago•18 comments

Docker has always used microVMs (well since 2016)

https://dave.recoil.org/docker-has-always-used-microvms/
32•avsm•14h ago•22 comments

New York City should carefully measure a new tree

https://blog.willmeye.rs/new-york-city-should-carefully-measure-a-new-tree/
67•willmeyers•1d ago•13 comments

C++ Insights – See your source code with the eyes of a Compiler

https://github.com/andreasfertig/cppinsights
151•rramadass•2d ago•30 comments

RetailReady (YC W24) Is Hiring

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/retailready/jobs/bFcgIe4-implementations
1•sarah74•13h ago
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.