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Using the railway network as a flatbed scanner

https://philo.gay/linecam/
199•otherayden•3h ago•37 comments

Fixing a Bricked Framework Laptop

https://quantum5.ca/2026/08/16/fixing-bricked-amd-7040-series-framework-13-laptop-with-20-tools/
135•jp_sc•2h ago•60 comments

The Amazon Tax

https://seths.blog/2026/08/the-amazon-tax/
309•herbertl•2h ago•236 comments

Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM

https://pixelcluster.dev/VRAM-Overcommit/
387•flaburgan•8h ago•152 comments

Python Polars Cheatsheet (based on our O'Reilly book)

https://opensource.posit.co/resources/cheatsheets/polars/
61•jeroenjanssens•2h ago•8 comments

Teaching my kid to code with a modern MUD

https://tau.dev/2026/08/07/canon
126•andrewjanke•6d ago•41 comments

How I Under-Engineered My Book

https://chriskiehl.com/article/how-i-under-engineered-my-book
15•goostavos•20h ago•1 comments

One Oakland police officer made $490k in overtime

https://oaklandside.org/2026/01/29/oakland-police-overtime/
55•speckx•36m ago•62 comments

Fairphone is now officially available in the United States

https://www.fairphone.com/nl/stories/the-fairphone-gen-6-is-all-about-giving-you-more
184•Vinnl•3h ago•89 comments

Babies born under sugar rationing grew into adults with lower cancer risk

https://theconversation.com/babies-born-under-sugar-rationing-grew-into-adults-with-lower-cancer-...
67•zeristor•1h ago•11 comments

Composable Tests

https://newsletter.kentbeck.com/p/composable-tests
33•vinipolicena•2h ago•24 comments

Splitting a Git Commit

https://blog.gnoack.org/post/git-history-split
20•signa11•3d ago•9 comments

Meta Files Patent for Facial Recognition, Automatic Recording of People

https://www.privacyguides.org/news/2026/08/17/meta-files-patent-for-facial-recognition-automatic-...
147•DeepLogin•3h ago•96 comments

Google buys crashed airline Spirit's data at auction

https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/08/18/google-buys-crashed-airline-spirits-data-at-auct...
407•pseudolus•5h ago•284 comments

How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

https://timmarinin.net/2026/bluesky-screenshots/
647•gavide•17h ago•408 comments

Code-native generation of highly programmable 3D assets (2026)

https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.22738
9•baigy•1h ago•3 comments

What Happens If OpenAI Dies?

https://www.wheresyoured.at/what-happens-if-openai-dies/
24•thelastgallon•28m ago•5 comments

Show HN: Shoehorn – Quantize any model down to run on your machine

https://notactuallytreyanastasio.github.io/shoehorn/
6•rhgraysonii•1h ago•2 comments

Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

https://fabiensanglard.net/quake_shareware_cd/index.html
446•shdon•17h ago•189 comments

Baking a Model: A Metaphor for LLM Training

https://newsletter.kentbeck.com/p/baking-a-model
22•KentBeck•3d ago•1 comments

Deus Ex creator Warren Spector is retiring from game development

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/its-just-not-as-much-fun-for-me-anymore-deus-ex-creator-...
83•danbolt•2h ago•54 comments

Israel creates fake think tank in likely attempt to dupe AI chatbots

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-influence-chatgpt/
904•DeepLogin•19h ago•524 comments

Finger: Social network that never died

https://en.andros.dev/blog/54572bc7/finger-the-1971-social-network-that-never-died/
111•andros•8h ago•36 comments

GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%

https://openrouter.ai/openai/gpt-5.6-sol
579•Topfi•18h ago•382 comments

The coolest anti-surveillance tools at Defcon [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2uAsJ5EPAw
19•neom•1h ago•0 comments

Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

https://twitter.com/kuberwastaken/status/2089377982536388964
97•porridgeraisin•3h ago•31 comments

Rethinking Database Programming

https://acadia.engineering/blog/rethinking-database-programming
168•honungsburk•8h ago•80 comments

The Size of the World Wide Web

https://www.worldwidewebsize.com/
3•1970-01-01•23h ago•0 comments

Fairphone 6 and PostmarketOS working main camera

https://catcrafts.net/posts/fairphone-6-postmarketos-working-main-camera
267•pizzaiolo•17h ago•67 comments

Muse Glimmer is a memory hierarchy disguised as a 30B Transformer

https://abstractextraordinary.com/blog/how-muse-glimmer-fits-an-agent-on-your-device/
4•stepnivlk•1h ago•0 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.