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When code is a maze, smart developers make maps

https://medium.com/@simonsmartiom/when-code-is-a-maze-smart-developers-make-maps-fbc452a48c1b
9•boxesnlines•22h ago

Comments

jarofgreen•33m ago
> Typically keep comments on a single line without line breaks — if a comment is useful, developers will scroll to read them, if it’s not they can easily scroll past it.

Disagree. Personally that sounds like a massive barrier to reading the comment to me. Limited width column text is generally regarded as easier to read, make your comments easier to read. Especially as I probably have the code open in a limited width window, as that's what I expect from code.

dozerly•29m ago
Who doesn’t have soft wrapping enabled in 2026? Line breaks are irrelevant
verdverm•24m ago
Who makes assumptions about how others do things in 2026? Line breaks are apparently relevant, review agents complain about them, soft breaks are super annoying for vim motion users, opinions are still like ani
Lindby•22m ago
Soft like breaks in a code editor? That's insane
Cockbrand•17m ago
And so the war began.

This is a bit like vim vs Emacs - everyone should be able to use their favorite setup, and the formatting should not get in the way of the engineer's preferences.

ezrabuenk•15m ago
I, in fact, do not have wrapping enabled in my IDE....
tacomagick•11m ago
You never wrote Java I see
jarofgreen•11m ago
If line breaks really were irrelevant, the author wouldn't have felt the need to give a tip all around optimising line breaks.

Personally, I would have hoped by 2026 we had better IDE's and tools for managing code in text files such that developers with different preferences for a number of characters in a column or things like how you display comments can be accommodated. Yet still teams end up arguing about what standard to use.

someothherguyy•20m ago
What? You don't like horizontally scrolling 6000 columns to read something?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_folding

jarofgreen•9m ago
Yeah, if IDE's allowed code folding of comments then the authors original problem (having to scroll past comments they thought weren't useful) wouldn't be that big a deal.
someothherguyy•6m ago
many do. for example: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/code-folding-settings.ht...

there are also extensions for vscode that do this, vim plugins, etc

jorisw•7m ago
Smart developers don’t write mazes.

> In code, comments are our signposts

No. Naming and good architecture are. Intuitive folder trees. Concise docs. Clear separation of concerns such that naming can suffice.

The more comments you need to ‘map’ your code, the worse of a job you’ve done.

iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/09/major-updates-for-apples-software-platforms-are-now-availa...
534•throw0101d•12h ago•585 comments

Linux from Scratch

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
70•sippingabonedry•2h ago•24 comments

OpenArm: An open-source 7DOF humanoid arm

https://github.com/enactic/OpenArm
37•Lwrless•1d ago•5 comments

4,400-Year-Old Tomb of Egyptian Judge Found at Saqqara with Colors on Walls

https://arkeonews.net/4400-year-old-tomb-of-an-egyptian-judge-found-at-saqqara-with-colors-still-...
99•arunbahl•2d ago•19 comments

Pion, an agent designed to run any company autonomously

https://andonlabs.com/blog/why-we-built-pion
361•lukaspetersson•13h ago•416 comments

Every invoice in Brazil's economy runs on SOAP 1.2

https://github.com/stoix-dev/sefaz-webservices-postman
67•lestx•2d ago•34 comments

Charts built for Chat

https://dbtcharts.com/blog/charts-built-for-chat/
197•thingsilearned•9h ago•62 comments

Dropping eBPF CPU Cost by About 90% with Memoization (Not AI Gen)

https://nathannaveen.dev/posts/dropping-ebpf-cpu-cost-by-90/
89•nathannaveen•16h ago•25 comments

XCancel service is suspended until further notice

https://xcancel.com/#
578•gaganyaan•20h ago•844 comments

When code is a maze, smart developers make maps

https://medium.com/@simonsmartiom/when-code-is-a-maze-smart-developers-make-maps-fbc452a48c1b
9•boxesnlines•22h ago•13 comments

Distributed Systems Classics (2017)

https://nvartolomei.com/dist-sys-classics/
276•grep_it•14h ago•60 comments

Show HN: Macros with a Behringer FCB1010 MIDI Pedalboard in macOS

https://github.com/JamesRyanATX/fcbnerd
54•fretlessjazz•7h ago•11 comments

OpenAI bots knew about the RubyGems caching vulnerability

https://tenderlovemaking.com/2026/09/11/what-a-time-to-be-alive/
426•gregnavis•18h ago•343 comments

A beginning for mathematics

https://www.daniellitt.com/blog/2026/9/13/a-beginning-for-mathematics/
196•robinhouston•15h ago•109 comments

Compressing a Flag to 11 Bits

https://read.vantezzen.io/miniflags
115•bennett_dev•2d ago•49 comments

Show HN: Redis City – Explore how Redis works in an interactive 3D model

https://poltora.dev/redis
40•poltora•2d ago•7 comments

Principles for Fast Tokio Applications

https://dial9-rs.github.io/blog/principles-for-fast-tokio-applications/
192•carllerche•15h ago•47 comments

Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)

318•david927•1d ago•985 comments

Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/09/ubuntu-2610-rust-coreutils-complete
145•theanonymousone•17h ago•130 comments

People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

https://dailyneuron.com/aphantasia-mental-imagery-brain-network/
147•giuliomagnifico•17h ago•209 comments

Steam Frame starts at $1059

https://store.steampowered.com/hardware/steamframe
624•bsimpson•13h ago•466 comments

Cloudflare AKE cuts origin HelloRetryRequests from 52% to 3.7%

https://blog.cloudflare.com/automatic-key-exchange-for-origins/
104•iamsyr•13h ago•28 comments

How my e-reader lost its stripes

https://www.serpentine.com/posts/2026/x3-stripes/
188•simonmic•14h ago•30 comments

Optimizing a Spin-Lock

https://david.alvarezrosa.com/posts/optimizing-a-spin-lock/
59•signa11•2d ago•29 comments

Backprop Alternative: Augmented Lagrangian Predictive Coding

https://pub.sakana.ai/pc-alm/
78•guld•12h ago•22 comments

The biggest dinosaurs couldn't sit on their eggs

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/titanosaur-eggs-9.7336841
33•BiraIgnacio•1d ago•13 comments

Why don't machine learning research agents overfit?

https://www.amazon.science/blog/why-dont-machine-learning-research-agents-overfit
120•Betelbuddy•14h ago•66 comments

Ex-FTC boss Khan: break out the handcuffs for AI CEOs, citing 1934 precedent

https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/09/14/ex-ftc-boss-khan-urges-uncle-sam-to-break-out-th...
135•throwworhtthrow•6h ago•67 comments

Dario, Please

https://pop.rdi.sh/dario-please/
437•0x5FC3•15h ago•208 comments

Amazon vs. Perplexity – U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/26-1444/26-1444-2026-08-04.html
201•neom•9h ago•200 comments