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Al Lowe on model trains, funny deaths and working with Disney

https://spillhistorie.no/2026/02/06/interview-with-sierra-veteran-al-lowe/
50•thelok•3h ago•6 comments

Hoot: Scheme on WebAssembly

https://www.spritely.institute/hoot/
116•AlexeyBrin•6h ago•20 comments

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

https://openciv3.org/
811•klaussilveira•21h ago•246 comments

Stories from 25 Years of Software Development

https://susam.net/twenty-five-years-of-computing.html
49•vinhnx•4h ago•7 comments

The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/02/07/ai-spending-economy-shortages/
91•1vuio0pswjnm7•7h ago•102 comments

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

https://rlhfbook.com/
72•onurkanbkrc•6h ago•5 comments

The Waymo World Model

https://waymo.com/blog/2026/02/the-waymo-world-model-a-new-frontier-for-autonomous-driving-simula...
1053•xnx•1d ago•600 comments

Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)

https://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2009/commands-with-comma/
471•theblazehen•2d ago•174 comments

U.S. Jobs Disappear at Fastest January Pace Since Great Recession

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikestunson/2026/02/05/us-jobs-disappear-at-fastest-january-pace-sin...
47•alephnerd•1h ago•14 comments

Vocal Guide – belt sing without killing yourself

https://jesperordrup.github.io/vocal-guide/
197•jesperordrup•11h ago•68 comments

Selection Rather Than Prediction

https://voratiq.com/blog/selection-rather-than-prediction/
8•languid-photic•3d ago•1 comments

Speed up responses with fast mode

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/fast-mode
9•surprisetalk•1h ago•2 comments

France's homegrown open source online office suite

https://github.com/suitenumerique
537•nar001•5h ago•248 comments

Coding agents have replaced every framework I used

https://blog.alaindichiappari.dev/p/software-engineering-is-back
204•alainrk•6h ago•312 comments

A Fresh Look at IBM 3270 Information Display System

https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/a-fresh-look-at-ibm-3270-information-display-system
33•rbanffy•4d ago•6 comments

72M Points of Interest

https://tech.marksblogg.com/overture-places-pois.html
26•marklit•5d ago•1 comments

Unseen Footage of Atari Battlezone Arcade Cabinet Production

https://arcadeblogger.com/2026/02/02/unseen-footage-of-atari-battlezone-cabinet-production/
110•videotopia•4d ago•30 comments

Software factories and the agentic moment

https://factory.strongdm.ai/
63•mellosouls•4h ago•68 comments

Where did all the starships go?

https://www.datawrapper.de/blog/science-fiction-decline
69•speckx•4d ago•71 comments

Show HN: Kappal – CLI to Run Docker Compose YML on Kubernetes for Local Dev

https://github.com/sandys/kappal
21•sandGorgon•2d ago•11 comments

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

https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo
271•isitcontent•21h ago•36 comments

Learning from context is harder than we thought

https://hy.tencent.com/research/100025?langVersion=en
199•limoce•4d ago•110 comments

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

https://github.com/pydantic/monty
284•dmpetrov•21h ago•152 comments

Making geo joins faster with H3 indexes

https://floedb.ai/blog/how-we-made-geo-joins-400-faster-with-h3-indexes
155•matheusalmeida•2d ago•48 comments

Hackers (1995) Animated Experience

https://hackers-1995.vercel.app/
553•todsacerdoti•1d ago•267 comments

Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/
424•ostacke•1d ago•110 comments

Ga68, a GNU Algol 68 Compiler

https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/PEXRTN-ga68-intro/
41•matt_d•4d ago•16 comments

An Update on Heroku

https://www.heroku.com/blog/an-update-on-heroku/
467•lstoll•1d ago•308 comments

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

https://eljojo.github.io/rememory/
348•eljojo•1d ago•214 comments

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

https://vecti.com
367•vecti•23h ago•167 comments
Open in hackernews

F-35 Fighter Jet's C++ Coding Standards [pdf]

https://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf
40•birdculture•2mo ago

Comments

sema4hacker•2mo ago
Before you read this, read "The Elements of Programming Style" by Brian Kernighan and P. J. Plauger.
jcims•2mo ago
CTRL+F security
jandrewrogers•2mo ago
Why would this be relevant?
fcpk•2mo ago
And yet the F-35 is known for having extremely problematic software with many failures that have caused it to cause crashes/ejections.
lukan•2mo ago
It has 9 million lines of code. The coding standards alone are 135 pages. Even with smart people, that sounds challenging to maintain that much C++ (I am surprised no one offered the "rust" advice yet)
laweijfmvo•2mo ago
that’s why it’s important to codify as many of those 135 pages into linters, static analysis tools, and units tests as possible.
cft•2mo ago
Rust did not exist back then. I hope they are now using it in drone codebases.
anonnon•2mo ago
> I am surprised no one offered the "rust" advice yet)

ADA/SPARK already owns this space.

JohnLocke4•2mo ago
It is often that seemingly irrelevant factors play a big role. In this case, a 141 page highly dense (and frankly boring to read) document is in its essence a liability. Engineers get bored too and it is obviously more fun to just code rather than to read a document that might aswell have been written by a lawyer.

This is also why car makers name their cars things like "Jeep Expedition" or "Ford Escape". The name doesn't change the car, but it does make it more exciting.

JohnBooty•2mo ago

    In this case, a 141 page highly dense (and frankly 
    boring to read) document is in its essence a liability
So, do you think that the intent was for developers to memorize this document?

Or do you think the expectation was something more reasonable, like using this document as a tool to configure linting tools so that developers could get realtime feedback as they code?

JohnLocke4•2mo ago
No, that is not what I mean. The efficiency of a piece of knowledge is not only a function of its intrinsic value, but also how easy it is to understand. Sure, the people who are expected to read the document are smart and this is probably the best way to do it, but even Lockheed engineers are fallible.

If anything, the enemy will be defeated before they have had the time to understand the document in case it gets leaked xD

Celeo•2mo ago
If you prefer a video format with some of the highlights, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv4sDL9Ljww.
spapas82•2mo ago
This is insteresting to me especially since this is a 2005 document. Is there a reason why C++ was chosen instead of Ada which to my knowledge was the gold standard for such software ?
bri3d•2mo ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20111219004314/http://journal.th...

A large segment in this article (which is great overall) focuses on this decision. The short summary is "hiring Ada developers was hard and middleware and tooling were difficult to acquire."

While I've moved through a lot of parts of the software industry and may just be out of touch, I actually feel that this may be less the case today. I've seen a lot of school programs focus less on specific languages and frameworks and more on fundamental concepts, and with more "esoteric" languages becoming popular in the mainstream, I actually think hiring Ada developers would be a lot easier today (plus, big industry players like NVIDIA are back to using Ada since AdaCore have been so effective at pushing SPARK, which probably helps too).

jandrewrogers•2mo ago
My recollection is that it came down to two factors. Pragmatically, the pool of highly skilled C++ programmers was vastly larger and the ecosystem was much more vibrant, so development scaled more easily and had a lower maintenance risk. By 2005 they had empirical evidence that it was possible, albeit more difficult, to build high-reliability software in C++ as the language and tooling matured.

These days they are even more comfortable using C++ than they were back then due to improvements in process, tooling, and language.

cm2187•2mo ago
140 pages on coding style. This looks straight out of the CIA handbook for sabotage [1]. I am sure China or Russia have a version of that.

> (12) Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.

> (13) Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do..

> (14) Apply all regulations to the last letter.

[1] https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...

conception•2mo ago
Also see corporate grift.
eastbound•2mo ago
Funnily enough, when I look at my codebase, I often think about this handbook. I try intendedly to ascribe it to incompetence but I always have a doubt. If I only listen to my inner voice, I’d fire everyone all the time.
chrisfosterelli•2mo ago
What's the right amount of standards to have when you're writing 9 million lines of code that controls a 30,000lb machine moving through the sky at mach 1 with a human life inside?
cm2187•2mo ago
It is whatever they used for ALIS [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...

JohnBooty•2mo ago
I'm confused by the responses to this document, as if developers were expected to memorize it or consult it after every line of code.

The obvious expectation here is that these rules would be incorporated into some kind of automated linting tool.

I really need to get the fuck out of this industry.

eastbound•2mo ago
> 4.10.9 Inheritance Class hierarchies are appropriate when run-time selection of implementation is required. If run-time resolution is not required, template parameterization should be considered (templates are better-behaved and faster than virtual functions). Finally, simple independent concepts should be expressed as concrete types. The method selected to express the solution should be commensurate with the complexity of the problem.

I’m a TS + Java person. Is this specific to C++ or is it just due to control freaks with low abstraction skills?

ChrisArchitect•2mo ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46183657
moffkalast•2mo ago
This is over 200 convoluted rules with multiple subpoints on 140 pages, who the hell checks compliance with this without it taking over a decade?
Quothling•2mo ago
You should see some of the manuals I go through for our some of IoT devices. As far as how Lockheed Martin does it, this quote from the article linked by bri3d answers it:

> MISRA-C was used as the basis for the C applications and a coding standards was developed with the assistance of Bjarne Stroustrup, original author of the C++ language. For both C and C++ Static Code Analysis (SCA) tools are used to ensure that restricted features are not utilized. Arguments about the lack of reliability in either C or C++ are addressed by programming standards restrictions and SCA checks. In truth, this approach is probably more consistent and robust than the manual checks used for previous development efforts including Ada.

moffkalast•2mo ago
Alright that makes far more sense than doing it the "bureaucratic" way. Non-compliant doesn't compile. Must be really annoying working on this codebase hah.
Quothling•2mo ago
I would argue that it would be very annoying to work on a code base which wasn't like this. Having to spend so much time figuring out where your bottlenecks are and why they are there. Though you would make a fair point in regards to how much code-fascism you need when you try to make C/C++ safer than ADA. I'm sure they didn't come to this conclusion lightly, but the first thing to pop into my head is that it seems odd to do this mainly because of hiring challenges.

But C/C++ certainly did well enough for Lockheed Martin considering it's now one of their principal languages, if not the principal.

amelius•2mo ago
Did this come with a linter?
spwa4•2mo ago
Wait, no underscores? Vertical tab allowed? Form feed allowed? What would you even use them for?