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Open Source @Github

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We should be more ambitious with the software we build

https://danluu.com/ambitious/
333•ltratt•9h ago•289 comments

Cerebras Deploys Trillion-Parameter AI Models

https://www.cerebras.ai/blog/how-we-deploy-trillion-parameter-frontier-models-on-cerebras
109•gmays•5h ago•37 comments

Picasa Photo Viewer Rebuilt for Linux, Project Named Licasa

https://github.com/sanxchep/licasa
36•UncleJo7•2d ago•9 comments

The Goose Programming Language

https://aardappel.github.io/goose/
343•bobbydigitales•12h ago•230 comments

SpeedCrunch 1.1

https://www.speedcrunch.org/
125•LordNibbler•12h ago•22 comments

Small Programs and Languages

https://ratfactor.com/cards/pl-small
87•andsoitis•9h ago•6 comments

America has lost 200k of jobs in media, film and the arts. How much is AI?

https://www.apricitas.io/p/ai-and-the-fall-of-the-creative-class
311•gnabgib•8h ago•309 comments

Why Gopher in 2026?

https://gopher.muffinlabs.com/sdf.org/users/nervtoji/phlog/001.txt
64•andsoitis•7h ago•19 comments

How Japanese Dried Bonito Is Made

https://kottke.org/26/10/how-japanese-dried-bonito-is-made
4•bookofjoe•2d ago•1 comments

I Built a Stereo Vision Board for Hardware Hackers

https://rootkitlabs.com/2026/10/06/i-built-a-stereo-vision-board-for-hardware-hackers/
61•machinehum•4d ago•9 comments

Pragtical v3.14 Lua-based text editor adds menus, floating views, and sessions

https://pragtical.dev/blog/pragtical-v3140-release
12•rd07•4d ago•1 comments

I don't understand quantum physics (2018)

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/~doug/quantum_physics/index.html
302•rramadass•21h ago•240 comments

A story of a Figma bug that wasn't a bug at all (2021)

https://aresluna.org/this-is-a-story-of-a-figma-bug/
23•jllyhill•3d ago•1 comments

Social dynamics of toxic metal industry in medieval Europe

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/social-dynamics-of-toxic-metal-industry...
35•XzetaU8•4d ago•7 comments

FreeDNS

https://freedns.afraid.org/
278•esher•16h ago•69 comments

In Rainbows

https://hitogata.neocities.org/Rainbows
21•surprisetalk•2d ago•3 comments

The Importance of Limitations for Creativity and Learning (2023)

https://ratfactor.com/cards/limitations
57•andsoitis•9h ago•14 comments

Node2Shell evolves to HTTP2Shell, blast radius affects many HTTP libs and apps

https://www.aikido.dev/blog/python-packages-vulnerable-node2shell-brotli-cve-2026-111497
298•theanonymousone•23h ago•151 comments

Local Wikipedia: Wikipedia, but only for things a half hour walk from you

https://edjefferson.com/localwiki/
1571•sohkamyung•2d ago•245 comments

The St. Helena 5 pence coin shows Jonathan, a roughly 190 year old tortoise

https://de.numista.com/9866
112•schleck8•14h ago•33 comments

Show HN: Steal My Bitcoin

https://stealmybitcoin.com/
457•cloudlandsdev•10h ago•284 comments

Neural chip decodes interactions between brain regions

https://actu.epfl.ch/news/neural-chip-decodes-interactions-between-brain-r-2/
102•giuliomagnifico•15h ago•37 comments

Five Qwen3.8-27B models match Fable 5 Using GVS5H Harness

https://github.com/slee-persis/GVS5H
138•rzk•3h ago•48 comments

Roku developer repositories moved from GitHub to GitLab

https://blog.roku.com/developer/gitlab-move
282•cxr•15h ago•191 comments

GPU-unlock: FP/BF16 instruction issue rate on Nvidia 3000's cards

https://github.com/Zagitta/gpu-unlock
226•fragebogen•21h ago•70 comments

Reactive Optimizers: rewrite the optimizer's source code during training

https://xingjianbai.com/reactive-optimizers/
27•matt_d•3d ago•2 comments

Bbtree: Fastest Ordered Map

https://bbtree.xiangpeng.systems/post/
93•aoli-al•13h ago•10 comments

Physicists trap a single antimatter particle for a month

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-trap-a-single-antimatter-particle-for-a-month/
301•mooreds•3d ago•86 comments

Listen and read USA nuclear forces Emergency Action Messages, heard on 11175 kHz

https://missileer.watch
166•liotier•11h ago•109 comments

Making a VGA Driver in SystemVerilog

https://lukaswerner.com/post/2026-10-20@bottom-up-vga
56•derHackerman•4d ago•15 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.