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I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/2091544343589060625
180•bilsbie•14h ago•268 comments

Everything I own, owned

https://schlarp.com/posts/everything-i-own-owned/
1004•schlarpc•12h ago•278 comments

FDA clears blood test to aid evaluation for Alzheimer's disease

https://medicine.washu.edu/news/fda-clears-blood-test-to-aid-evaluation-for-alzheimers-disease/
65•dabinat•4h ago•18 comments

Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive

https://www.ft.com/content/5ee49718-c258-4f01-aa32-7e5b76ae5245
559•naves•17h ago•500 comments

OCR It – pull text out of un-copyable documents for your LLM

https://github.com/thiagotigaz/ocr-it
55•thiagolima•4h ago•11 comments

Executable Is a SQLite Database

https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/23/your-executable-is-a-sqlite-database
117•setheron•6h ago•14 comments

Fast drilldown dashboards from a single Parquet file

https://www.hamiltonulmer.com/customer-dashboards-r2-hyparquet/
25•v3gas•3h ago•0 comments

How I find problems to solve as a staff engineer

https://lalitm.com/post/find-problems-staff-engineer/
428•vanpra•15h ago•133 comments

Woman stranded in Spain after UK's eVisa system mistakes her for twin sister

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/24/woman-stranded-spain-uk-evisa-system-mistakes-twi...
49•giuliomagnifico•1h ago•36 comments

The Future Belongs to the Weird

https://essays.georgestrakhov.com/weird/
18•georgestrakhov•2h ago•6 comments

Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

https://www.modelrepublic.org/articles/a16z-portfolio
212•reasonableklout•4h ago•72 comments

I built a low-latency AI companion that plays Skyrim with me

https://pantel.is/projects/ai-gaming-companion/
181•pantelisk•12h ago•36 comments

Google Workspace thinks my domain is an email provider (2025)

https://blog.elis.cc/articles/google-workspace-thinks-my-domain-is-an-email-provider/
315•el1s7•15h ago•102 comments

The treasury bond mess: is this the demise of the US as a safe haven?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/24/treasury-bonds-trump-administration-debt
12•fittingopposite•29m ago•0 comments

What Is a Harness?

https://earendil.com/posts/what-is-a-harness/
468•tosh•20h ago•155 comments

My agent.md to improve LLM-assisted code quality

https://fabiensanglard.net/agent.md/index.html
327•ibobev•17h ago•138 comments

New EU-wide product repair rules come into force

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2026/0824/1588931-repair-rules/
147•austinallegro•5h ago•78 comments

How Complex Systems Fail (1998)

https://how.complexsystems.fail/
329•shortcrct•20h ago•72 comments

Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

12•kaladan•53m ago•7 comments

AI Chip Architectures

https://www.jepeake.com/ai-chip-architectures
94•Finbarr•1d ago•32 comments

Malware infects Android-based automotive head unit firmware

https://securelist.com/android-head-unit-malware/121106/
246•campuscodi•22h ago•126 comments

Over 5,200 Ebola cases recorded in Congo

https://www.afro.who.int/countries/democratic-republic-of-congo/news/over-5200-cases-recorded-dem...
62•simonebrunozzi•4h ago•17 comments

Fable and the end of the free lunch

https://www.dbreunig.com/2026/08/23/fable-the-end-of-moore-s-law.html
162•dbreunig•16h ago•153 comments

My favorite nonfiction books about cults, scams, and schemes

https://bookdna.com/best-books/nonfiction-about-cults-scams-and-schemes
241•bwb•21h ago•89 comments

Explain it to me like I'm ten

https://timharford.com/2026/08/explain-it-to-me-like-im-ten/
149•bookofjoe•17h ago•55 comments

Why is Anthropic's public writing style so unlike Claude's?

https://cmart.blog/claude-writing/
35•zdw•7h ago•24 comments

Why Sal Khan't: On Learning by Making but Teaching by Telling

https://punyamishra.com/2026/04/16/why-sal-khant-on-learning-by-making-but-teaching-by-telling/
179•the-mitr•19h ago•105 comments

Mourning Steve French

https://lwn.net/Articles/1090098/
14•mfrw•6h ago•0 comments

A website for debloated open source alternatives

https://debloat.dev/
352•ryanvogel•18h ago•109 comments

Elevated Errors for Multiple Models

https://status.claude.com/incidents/vgz5psbjmt1h
29•rob•6h ago•10 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.