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The original URL for this prediction will no longer be available in 11 years (2011)

http://longbets.org/601/
97•doubletwoyou•2h ago•15 comments

My server is a phone now

https://seg6.space/posts/phone-server/
244•seg6•7h ago•89 comments

Improving Heuristics for A* Pathfinding

https://www.redblobgames.com/pathfinding/heuristics/differential.html
174•bobbiechen•1w ago•18 comments

Microsoft Word for Windows 1.1a, Native X64 Port

https://github.com/jmarshall23/msword
10•BruceEel•1h ago•1 comments

Melatonin impairs morning cognition in healthy young adults

https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/46/Supplement_1/A34/7181621
63•bohaska•5h ago•21 comments

Shopify replaced Redis with MySQL for inventory reservations–and it scaled

https://shopify.engineering/scaling-inventory-reservations
148•adletbalzhanov•8h ago•81 comments

Dithered QR Codes

https://www.andrewt.net/dithered-qr-codes/wtf/
133•jmusall•7h ago•14 comments

Fastmail offers EU data region

https://www.fastmail.com/blog/fastmail-offers-eu-data-region/
369•groomlake•14h ago•188 comments

Os8088: A powerful Mac-like OS for the IBM XT, 286, 386

https://os8088.com/
123•jggonz•7h ago•50 comments

Incentives are for losers

https://www.experimental-history.com/p/incentives-are-for-losers
61•bkudria•4h ago•30 comments

Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect (2025)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44184-025-00171-5
42•davidbarker•6d ago•6 comments

_for-sale DNS records

https://specification.website/spec/foundations/for-sale-dns/
379•shaunpud•17h ago•141 comments

Making difficulty curves in games

http://www.davetech.co.uk/difficultycurves
99•hakkikonu•3d ago•35 comments

Illinois just told every operating system to start reporting your kid's age

https://itsfoss.com/news/illinois-age-verification-bill/
49•WaitWaitWha•2h ago•21 comments

Open-source interactive map for the Aug 12 total solar eclipse

https://eclipsefan.org/?v=2&t=max&layers=eclipse%2Cbesselian%2Cumbra-live%2Cshadow-3d%2Ccloud-pro...
126•MarcoDewey•11h ago•27 comments

Retraction: The App Store Rejection of the Week That Was a Correct Rejection

https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/retraction_app_store_rejection_of_the_week
113•minimaxir•3h ago•8 comments

Assert(): A Modern How To

https://fiberfs.io/blog/assert_a_modern_how_to
7•nyc_pizzadev•5d ago•0 comments

TheoremDB – A public workspace for machine mathematics

https://theoremdb.org/
24•frozenseven•5h ago•0 comments

Triton: DirectX 11 Driver for QEMU

https://blog.getutm.app/2026/introducing-triton-directx-11-driver-for-qemu/
163•electricant•17h ago•30 comments

Building a local positioning system to track runners using Ultra-Wideband

https://zeus.ugent.be/blog/25-26/12urenloop-uwb/
67•robinpdev•1w ago•5 comments

Real-time MCP interceptor that blocks .env reads and dangerous commands agents

https://marketnow.site/
7•eddyflores•3h ago•0 comments

Fixing my tooltip accessibility mistake

https://jakearchibald.com/2026/my-tooltip-a11y-mistake/
22•robin_reala•1w ago•1 comments

Finding zombies in our systems: A real-world story of CPU bottlenecks

https://medium.com/pinterest-engineering/finding-zombies-in-our-systems-a-real-world-story-of-cpu...
40•fagnerbrack•6d ago•7 comments

The Sound and Music of 'Hyper Light Drifter' [video]

https://gdcvault.com/play/1024135/The-Sound-and-Music-of
41•hyperific•3d ago•7 comments

Message your other Claude Code sessions

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/cross-session-messaging
105•mfiguiere•15h ago•44 comments

Lost my phone at the office. Claude suggested tracking Bluetooth signal strength

https://twitter.com/un1c0rnioz/status/2084686552299634805
266•ilamont•1d ago•192 comments

"Coding is solved" misses the point

https://blog.mastykarz.nl/coding-is-solved-misses-the-point/
11•listless•4h ago•4 comments

DDisasm: Reversible (bi-directional) Disassembler

https://github.com/GrammaTech/ddisasm
34•aboardRat4•6d ago•5 comments

Preventing Misfolding by Preventing Folding

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/preventing-misfolding-preventing-folding
59•surprisetalk•4d ago•3 comments

“Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

https://blog.senko.net/code-was-never-the-hard-part-is-an-insult-to-all-programmers
681•senko•16h ago•413 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.