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OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

https://openciv3.org/
631•klaussilveira•12h ago•187 comments

Start all of your commands with a comma

https://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2009/commands-with-comma/
16•theblazehen•2d ago•0 comments

The Waymo World Model

https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/the-waymo-world-model-a-new-frontier-for-autonomous-driving-simula...
930•xnx•18h ago•547 comments

What Is Ruliology?

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2026/01/what-is-ruliology/
34•helloplanets•4d ago•26 comments

How we made geo joins 400× faster with H3 indexes

https://floedb.ai/blog/how-we-made-geo-joins-400-faster-with-h3-indexes
110•matheusalmeida•1d ago•28 comments

Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production

https://arcadeblogger.com/2026/02/02/unseen-footage-of-atari-battlezone-cabinet-production/
43•videotopia•4d ago•1 comments

Jeffrey Snover: "Welcome to the Room"

https://www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/02/01/welcome-to-the-room/
10•kaonwarb•3d ago•9 comments

Show HN: Look Ma, No Linux: Shell, App Installer, Vi, Cc on ESP32-S3 / BreezyBox

https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo
222•isitcontent•13h ago•25 comments

Monty: A minimal, secure Python interpreter written in Rust for use by AI

https://github.com/pydantic/monty
213•dmpetrov•13h ago•103 comments

Show HN: I spent 4 years building a UI design tool with only the features I use

https://vecti.com
323•vecti•15h ago•142 comments

Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/
372•ostacke•19h ago•94 comments

Microsoft open-sources LiteBox, a security-focused library OS

https://github.com/microsoft/litebox
359•aktau•19h ago•181 comments

Hackers (1995) Animated Experience

https://hackers-1995.vercel.app/
478•todsacerdoti•20h ago•234 comments

Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

https://eljojo.github.io/rememory/
275•eljojo•15h ago•164 comments

An Update on Heroku

https://www.heroku.com/blog/an-update-on-heroku/
404•lstoll•19h ago•273 comments

Dark Alley Mathematics

https://blog.szczepan.org/blog/three-points/
85•quibono•4d ago•21 comments

Delimited Continuations vs. Lwt for Threads

https://mirageos.org/blog/delimcc-vs-lwt
25•romes•4d ago•3 comments

PC Floppy Copy Protection: Vault Prolok

https://martypc.blogspot.com/2024/09/pc-floppy-copy-protection-vault-prolok.html
56•kmm•5d ago•3 comments

Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

https://jesperordrup.github.io/vocal-guide/
16•jesperordrup•3h ago•9 comments

How to effectively write quality code with AI

https://heidenstedt.org/posts/2026/how-to-effectively-write-quality-code-with-ai/
244•i5heu•15h ago•189 comments

Was Benoit Mandelbrot a hedgehog or a fox?

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.01122
13•bikenaga•3d ago•2 comments

Introducing the Developer Knowledge API and MCP Server

https://developers.googleblog.com/introducing-the-developer-knowledge-api-and-mcp-server/
53•gfortaine•10h ago•22 comments

I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

https://infisical.com/blog/devops-to-solutions-engineering
141•vmatsiiako•18h ago•64 comments

Understanding Neural Network, Visually

https://visualrambling.space/neural-network/
281•surprisetalk•3d ago•37 comments

I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

https://kirkville.com/i-now-assume-that-all-ads-on-apple-news-are-scams/
1060•cdrnsf•22h ago•435 comments

Why I Joined OpenAI

https://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2026-02-07/why-i-joined-openai.html
133•SerCe•9h ago•118 comments

Learning from context is harder than we thought

https://hy.tencent.com/research/100025?langVersion=en
177•limoce•3d ago•96 comments

Show HN: R3forth, a ColorForth-inspired language with a tiny VM

https://github.com/phreda4/r3
70•phreda4•12h ago•14 comments

Female Asian Elephant Calf Born at the Smithsonian National Zoo

https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/female-asian-elephant-calf-born-smithsonians-national-zoo-an...
28•gmays•8h ago•11 comments

FORTH? Really!?

https://rescrv.net/w/2026/02/06/associative
63•rescrv•20h ago•23 comments
Open in hackernews

Automate all the things with Swift Subprocess

https://blog.jacobstechtavern.com/p/swift-subprocess
40•jakey_bakey•3mo ago

Comments

jbverschoor•3mo ago
Related to using Swift as scripting: https://github.com/jrz/tools (transparent compilation vs interpreting)
jakey_bakey•3mo ago
Sick!
jbverschoor•3mo ago
Thanks. Was scratching my own itch. Got frustrated with startup times for reasonably simple scripts in ruby and applescript. Rewrote some things in swift, but then got annoyed by the startup times of interpreted swift. I'm dogfooding my own tools, so I want both development and usage to be quick.
jakey_bakey•3mo ago
Thanks for sharing! :)
hooch•3mo ago
tldr;

Before:

    let process = Process()
    process.executableURL = URL(fileURLWithPath: "/bin/ls")

    let pipe = Pipe()
    process.standardOutput = pipe

    try! process.run()
    process.waitUntilExit()
    let data = pipe.fileHandleForReading.readDataToEndOfFile()
    if let output = String(data: data, encoding: .utf8) {
        print(output)
    }
After:

    let result = try await run(
        .name("ls"),
        arguments: ["-1"],
        output: .string(limit: 1 << 20)
    )
    print(result.standardOutput ?? "")
fainpul•3mo ago
Why bother with invoking shell programs instead of using built-in ways of the language to do the same task?

  let result = try! FileManager.default.contentsOfDirectory(atPath: "/etc")
  print(result)
Various other FileManager methods are available:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/fileman...

w10-1•3mo ago
OP objections to scripting in Swift are (1) requires a build step; and (2) subprocess API requires wrapping for each tool -- both are true.

The Swift team did just release Subprocess, but it doesn't break hugely new ground. Swift has had API's for running system processes, and the best wrapper has been the Shwift library[1] which supports async operations and bash-like syntax for captures.

Wrapping tools with static functions that make convenient choices is helpful, but the real benefit comes with using type-safe API's - e.g., records for git-log output, enumerations for configuration, etc.

For the update-build-and-run dance, there are tools like clutch [2]. It helps most when you have a bunch of scripts that benefit from common (wrapping) libraries - as with builds, processing pipelines, etc. - because the common code doesn't need to be re-built, only the script.

- [1] shwift: https://github.com/GeorgeLyon/Shwift

- [2] clutch: https://github.com/swift-nest/clutch

John23832•3mo ago
I feel like Swift could be such a great language if it was only given the proper care and feeding of open source. Instead it's largely locked in the apple walled garden with tokens given to the outside.
w10-1•3mo ago
> it's largely locked in the apple walled garden with tokens given to the outside

So, the compiler, stdlib and runtime, core libraries, build system ... not enough? What else would you want?

I feel the problem is not what's in open source, but that the open-source community cannot really form, since no outsider can significantly change what the Apple contributors decide. Some of the peripheral projects have relatively free rein, but they can't compete e.g., with server libraries elsewhere.

Also, the Apple people have to track what Apple needs, so they'll put out stuff per schedule that works for them but falls apart on untested code paths. And they don't really deprecate stuff, so you end up with multiple ways to do the same thing. And there seems to be no budget for documentation, which is quite far behind esp. for concurrent programming. And so it goes.

We'll see where they get with ownership and inter-op with C/C++/Java. Concurrency + ownership + legacy + FFI inter-op => combinatoric complexity...

John23832•3mo ago
> So, the compiler, stdlib and runtime, core libraries, build system ... not enough? What else would you want?

First class IDE support (Xcode is not that). Better documentation. The build system only half works. Better packaging. I can keep going.

The swift ecosystem often feels like just enough was done to lock in iOS devs (but not enough to actually provide a good developer experience) and then they stopped because Apple has no incentive to do more than that.

> I feel the problem is not what's in open source, but that the open-source community cannot really form, since no outsider can significantly change what the Apple contributors decide. Some of the peripheral projects have relatively free rein, but they can't compete e.g., with server libraries elsewhere.

So you agree. This is exactly the point I was making.

frumplestlatz•3mo ago
> First class IDE support (Xcode is not that).

The SourceKit LSP server has worked fine for me, although I admit I spend most time in Xcode.

> Better documentation.

What’s the issue here? The documentation seems comprehensive.

> The build system only half works. Better packaging.

What are the issues with SwiftPM?

groundzeros2015•3mo ago
Concurrency has dropped a complexity nuke on this language that it will never recover from.
frumplestlatz•3mo ago
That’s quite an assertion. What specifically do you take issue with?

- `async` being all-or-nothing

- Strict `Serializable`

- ???

fingerlocks•3mo ago
Not OP, but I’ll bite.

The weird open stache {} brackets that are permitted when the last argument of a function is a closure. This is a ridiculous feature, combined with ResultBuilder, made the language worse. And I will assert that both of these awful features increased complexity for the sole purpose of making SwiftUI syntax approachable to JavaScript devs.

On the other hand, I hate react-native and prefer to not live in a world where all my software is glitchy and slow, so I understand Apple’s motivations. React-native is a threat with hip modern syntax. Apple still used the icky MVC with the crusty old CALayers.

I just hope it was worth it!

groundzeros2015•3mo ago
Swift 6:

- async coloring every function - actors coloring every function and type - everything is now in tasks - sendable/non-sendable closure especially when integrating with legacy code

You write any piece of code that touches async and you have to add 4 additional keywords

randomNumber7•3mo ago
I think the problem is that C/C++ interop in practice sucks because they made pointers annoying to use (for ideological reasons. Pointer == Evil).

It's sad because technically they have amazing C/C++ interop, but using s.th. like SDL2 to write some toy game would be way less pain in C++.

You need to link against C libraries as a compiled system language and you just need a lot of pointers to do anything meaningfull in C.

eviks•3mo ago
> The Swift code is compiled and executed, assuming all the corresponding overhead.

Unless it's cashed, of course, then you get the extra overhead on first run, but lower overhead on at the subsequent runs? This is even mentioned in the article, so what's the issue in this specific peculiarity?