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The lost joy of music piracy

https://www.pigeonsandplanes.com/read/music-piracy-what-cd-oink-nine-inch-nails-streaming
324•mcgin•5h ago•174 comments

Inkling: Our Open-Weights Model

https://thinkingmachines.ai/news/introducing-inkling/
974•vimarsh6739•15h ago•245 comments

If you want to create a button from scratch, you must first create the universe

https://madcampos.dev/blog/2026/07/accessibility-from-scratch/
131•treve•6h ago•61 comments

Teardown: A Generic 7-Port USB 3.0 Hub That Wasn't

https://goughlui.com/2026/07/09/teardown-a-generic-7-port-usb-3-0-hub-that-wasnt/
58•speckx•3d ago•22 comments

What's the story behind the names of Cloudflare's name servers? (2013)

https://blog.cloudflare.com/whats-the-story-behind-the-names-of-cloudflares-name-servers/
39•aragonite•3d ago•37 comments

1,300 Beautiful Wildlife Illustrations from the 19th Century Now Restored

https://www.openculture.com/2026/07/explore-1300-beautiful-wildlife-illustrations-from-the-19th-c...
95•gslin•6h ago•14 comments

Grok Build is open source

https://github.com/xai-org/grok-build
446•skp1995•13h ago•495 comments

SQLite should have (Rust-style) editions

https://mort.coffee/home/sqlite-editions/
271•gnyeki•11h ago•113 comments

Governments, companies, nonprofits should invest in free, open source AI [pdf]

https://www.siegelendowment.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/fortune-david-siegel-open-source-ai.pdf
199•bilsbie•12h ago•71 comments

Stripe and Advent have made a joint offer to acquire PayPal – sources

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/stripe-advent-offer-buy-paypal-more-than-53-billion-sour...
445•rvz•1d ago•253 comments

Bluesky Trademarks ATProto

https://atproto.com/blog/at-protocol-trademark
103•chaosharmonic•8h ago•42 comments

Reynard: A real Firefox web browser for iOS 13 or later

https://github.com/minh-ton/reynard-browser
43•AbuAssar•5h ago•10 comments

In defense of not understanding your codebase

https://www.seangoedecke.com/in-defense-of-not-understanding-your-codebase/
8•saikatsg•3d ago•4 comments

I also filed the corners off my MacBook

https://www.brt.fyi/posts/mac-book-filing/
188•maxbrt•1d ago•79 comments

Making 768 servers look like 1

https://planetscale.com/blog/making-768-servers-look-like-1
80•hisamafahri•6h ago•10 comments

G# – A modern .NET language with Go, Kotlin, and Swift ergonomics

https://davidobando.github.io/gsharp/
100•serial_dev•4d ago•66 comments

High-Bandwidth Flash offers efficient storage for model weights

https://spectrum.ieee.org/high-bandwidth-flash
45•Gaishan•1d ago•17 comments

The Tokio/Rayon Trap and Why Async/Await Fails Concurrency

https://pmbanugo.me/blog/why-async-await-complect-concurrency
67•LAC-Tech•7h ago•41 comments

Rebuilding My Homelab with Compose, Ruby, IPv6, and No Kubernetes

https://www.petekeen.net/homelab-resolved/
30•zrail•4d ago•23 comments

Job queues are deceptively tricky

https://typesanitizer.com/blog/job-queues.html
89•ingve•2d ago•27 comments

Running Gemma 4 26B at 5 tokens/sec on a 13-year-old Xeon with no GPU

https://www.neomindlabs.com/2026/06/08/running-gemma-4-26b-at-5-tokens-sec-on-a-13-year-old-xeon-...
287•neomindryan•18h ago•187 comments

Launch HN: Coasty (YC S26) – An API for computer-use agents

https://coasty.ai/docs
37•nkov47•18h ago•12 comments

Netstrings (1997)

https://cr.yp.to/proto/netstrings.txt
18•signa11•4h ago•8 comments

Can LLMs Perform Deep Technical Comprehension of Computer Architecture Papers

https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.11859
55•Jimmc414•7h ago•12 comments

Command Line Interface Guidelines

https://clig.dev/
133•subset•3d ago•28 comments

LLM Networking with MikroTik

https://blog.greg.technology/2026/07/14/llm-networking-with-mikrotik.html
88•gregsadetsky•11h ago•40 comments

The Last Picture Show: A Conversation with George Lucas

https://a-rabbitsfoot.com/editorial/confessions/the-last-picture-show-a-conversation-with-george-...
16•Michelangelo11•2d ago•2 comments

Metal-Organic Frameworks, Chemistry's New Miracle Materials (2018)

https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/meet-metal-organic-frameworks-chemistry%E2%80%99s-new-miracle...
56•andsoitis•10h ago•12 comments

Duskers, the scary command line game, is getting a sequel

https://elbowgreasegames.substack.com/p/misfits-attic-announces-duskers-20
128•spacemarine1•14h ago•39 comments

Collection of Digital Clock Designs

https://clocks.dev
242•levmiseri•17h ago•47 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.