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Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"

https://lwn.net/Articles/1091231/
226•pluc•2h ago•173 comments

Indirect Calling of Nested Functions on GCC Without Executable Stack

https://uecker.codeberg.page/2026-08-29.html
22•uecker•1h ago•5 comments

SQLite as a Document Database (2020)

https://dgl.cx/2020/06/sqlite-json-support
26•lioeters•4d ago•1 comments

Show HN: Typebase – A single-folder back end you write in TypeScript

https://typebase.io
37•andrewww-dev•3d ago•4 comments

Creating the Aetheryte Radio

https://haz.ee/posts/aetheryte-radio.html
31•wonger_•1d ago•4 comments

Samsung's Processing-in-Memory (PIM)

https://chipsandcheese.com/p/hot-chips-2026-samsungs-processing
184•ingve•10h ago•65 comments

Glacier Mice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_mice
132•ostacke•4d ago•25 comments

GUIs should be fully keyboard-driven

https://ckardaris.com/blog/2026/08/28/keyboard-driven-guis.html
944•ckardaris•1d ago•463 comments

Boot a Virtual iPhone via Apple's Virtualization.framework

https://github.com/Lakr233/vphone-cli
344•hentrep•17h ago•90 comments

EVE Online moves to Python 3

https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/the-move-to-python-3-begins
137•TylerJaacks•4d ago•72 comments

Show HN: Galaxium, an experimental WebGPU space explorer

https://galaxium.app
54•guillaumec•5d ago•18 comments

Hunting Down a Go Runtime Bug on 32-Bit Embedded Systems

https://sigma-star.at/blog/2026/08/go-runtime-netpoll-bug/
74•birdculture•3d ago•8 comments

Htmx 4.0

https://four.htmx.org/announcements/2026-08-28-htmx-4.0.0-is-released
745•rmsaksida•1d ago•184 comments

U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

https://www.inventati.org/
666•exiguus•1d ago•685 comments

StemDeck, a free, open-source and local AI stem separator

https://github.com/stemdeckapp/stemdeck
167•thclpr•14h ago•45 comments

Europe's last regular standard-gauge steam passenger service

https://parowozowniawolsztyn.pl/?page_id=2141
84•GungulSurm•2d ago•21 comments

I accidentally turned LLM memory into program analysis

https://pwning.systems/posts/llm-memory-program-analysis/
217•matt_d•16h ago•64 comments

Time complexity of operations on Python's built-in types

https://docs.python.org/3.16/library/time-complexity.html
46•theanonymousone•4d ago•9 comments

Inception-style curved map for turn-by-turn directions

https://www.orbify.eu/demo/
564•smoser•1d ago•184 comments

TurboKV: Insanely fast Rust key-value store

https://github.com/kingroryg/turbokv
151•rgbimbochamp•13h ago•72 comments

Just the rumour of a bug is enough to find an exploit these days

https://anil.recoil.org/notes/rumour-is-the-exploit
359•avsm•1d ago•115 comments

Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn45vdxyvvlo
261•tosh•4h ago•309 comments

Parsing the Infamous Japanese Postal CSV

https://www.dampfkraft.com/posuto.html
5•birdculture•25m ago•0 comments

Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX

https://openai.com/index/our-decision-on-cursor-following-its-acquisition-by-spacex/
688•meetpateltech•14h ago•408 comments

Monzo Stand-In

https://monzo.com/blog/tolerating-full-cloud-outages-with-monzo-stand-in
107•coffeefuel•5d ago•47 comments

Queen Caroline turned King Arthur into an 18C royal PR strategy

https://theconversation.com/how-queen-caroline-turned-king-arthur-into-an-18th-century-royal-pr-s...
36•samizdis•4d ago•9 comments

Experiments with Plotter Art

https://sometimes.digital/posts/experiments-with-plotter-art/
82•surprisetalk•5d ago•7 comments

Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

https://www.vectorian.be/articles/2026-06-07/sumerian-king-list-paleoclimate-alignment-explorer/
120•dev_l1x_be•16h ago•73 comments

The Twelve-Factor App (2025)

https://12factor.net/
295•jxmorris12•1d ago•164 comments

Curvature Beziers: Improving on a timeless recipe

https://acko.net/blog/curvature-beziers/
140•leephillips•4d ago•23 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.