HN user

ern

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www.jjinux.com 1y ago

The Waterfall Model was a straw man argument from the beginning (2015)

ern
163pts171
news.ycombinator.com 2y ago

Ask HN: What low code platforms are worth using?

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86pts88
news.ycombinator.com 2y ago

Tell HN: Reminder that your LinkedIn profile is fully visible to site members

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51pts69
www.google.com 3y ago

Year Usenet Timeline (2001)

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news.ycombinator.com 3y ago

Ask HN: Are FAANG layoffs having an effect on high-profile open source projects?

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29pts19
news.ycombinator.com 3y ago

Ask HN: Does allowing downvoting encourage groupthink?

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12pts21
news.ycombinator.com 3y ago

Ask HN: What effect will lower big tech valuations have on open-source projects?

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2pts1
news.ycombinator.com 3y ago

Ask HN: What are some counter-productive security practices?

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7pts6
twitter.com 4y ago

Remember: Commenting your code is an act of self-care for your future self

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1pts1
www.abc.net.au 4y ago

Hidden In Plain Sight (migrant worker exploitation in Australia)

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1pts0
www.red-gate.com 5y ago

The Framework Myth (2011)

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1pts0
news.ycombinator.com 5y ago

Ask HN: Why do developers still write in-house frameworks?

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1pts1
mymodernmet.com 5y ago

Singapore Stops Ranking Children on Exams “Learning Is Not a Competition” (2019)

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7pts1
orbit.ing-now.com 5y ago

CZ-5B/2021-035B orbital decay

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3pts0
en.wikipedia.org 5y ago

Wikipedia: Talk-Covid 19 Misinformation

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2pts0
reneweconomy.com.au 5y ago

Google’s Sky News Australia team-up will promote climate misinformation

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6pts0
en.wikipedia.org 5y ago

Talk: Wuhan Institute of Virology (Wikipedia)

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3pts3
www.nytimes.com 5y ago

White House to Cut Funding for Risky Biological Study (2014)

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1pts0
www.nytimes.com 5y ago

Ancient Viruses Are Buried in Your DNA (2017)

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4pts0
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov 6y ago

Safety breaches are probable cause of recent SARS outbreak, WHO says (2004)

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7pts0
www.forbes.com 7y ago

A Fading Twitter Changes Its User Metrics Once Again

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2pts0
michaelochurch.wordpress.com 7y ago

Why Most Software Engineers Lose Nothing by Unionizing

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126pts75
www.cnn.com 7y ago

Why so many people are becoming allergic to meat

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6pts0
web.archive.org 8y ago

20 Year Archive on Google Groups (2001)

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2pts0
web.archive.org 8y ago

20 Year Usenet Timeline (2002)

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1pts1
unwttng.com 8y ago

Everything You Wanted to Know About Blockchains (Part 2/2)

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2pts1
softwareengineering.stackexchange.com 8y ago

Is there evidence that dependency injection improves outcomes?

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3pts2
github.com 9y ago

The new ASP.NET Core 2.0 packages can no longer be used on .NET Desktop

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124pts119
news.ycombinator.com 9y ago

Ask HN: Is Accidental Complexity Growing Faster Than Essential Complexity?

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147pts59
medium.com 9y ago

Quick guide to asking Cambridge Analytica for your data

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1pts0

I'm not from the UK, but the soft power of BBC Radio 4 in the late 90s and early 2000s (the Real Player era) made the UK seem like an advanced nation to my young and intellectually curious self. If lived in the UK at the time, I'd have been immensely proud of the quality of the programming.

Something I hate about ChatGPT is that it assumes I want my text to be rewritten instead of engaging with the content.

I like my writing style. Sure it may leave some sort of linguistic fingerprint and it may not meet some LLM’s idea of what “good” looks like, but I don’t care.

What’s worrying is that the rewrite-by-default behavior is probably there because most users want it.

Tesla’s Solar Roof uses string inverters rather than micro-inverters or power optimizers, which means that partial shading on any section of the roof can shut down production for that entire string. This is a significant design limitation that competing solar installers address with panel-level optimization technology from companies like Enphase and SolarEdge.

This seems to be overblown. I've seen plenty of string inverters around without issues, I'm not sure why this being used against Tesla in particular.

Engineering has always been about more than writing code.

That's true, but it's interesting how FizzBuzz as said to be the bete noir of the average dimwitted software developer, and how much cutting-edge engineering organizations used to emphasize code in their recruitment processes.

If writing code is being replaced by "engineering judgement" it's going to need a much smaller cohort of developers. Too many opinions spoil the broth, after all.

Mythical Man Month 2 months ago

I suspect that the goalposts for AI-assisted coding will be moved the same way they've been moved for the Turing Test.

The Turing Test used to matter until it didn't (does anyone even talk about it? was there a big news conference when it was solved?). Likewise every time it becomes easier to ship software, the bar will be pushed higher by sceptics. Ultimately the gatekeeping is going to become meaningless as software becomes "too cheap to meter".

For something that was supposedly always unimportant, huge amounts of energy were spent recruiting developers based on how they produced and interacted with code.

FizzBuzz was a litmus test that showed how hopeless the average developer was. Coding interviews were the real test of programming ability. Now we're being told none of that ever mattered for real?

We should just admit that the game has changed (possibly, I'm not 100% convinced). Code WAS the bottleneck and coding ability was the bottleneck, but it may not be going forward.

In my experience, managers don't have to be hands-on, but they need to be able to recognize people with talent and unblock them do their jobs, to be able to spot process improvements, including channelling the AI hype to productive outcomes, and to be a steadying influence in a crisis (without adding noise). If a manager doesn't have technical ability, its impossible for them to do those things.

I think they simply just haven't figured out that the barrier to entry is so low, that no one really cares what their app can do, even if does something genuinely useful.

I've done a ton of low-effort vibe-coded projects that suit my exact use cases. In many cases, I might do a quick Google search, not find an exact match, or find some bloated adware or subscription-ware and not bother going any further.

Claude Code can produce exactly what I want, quickly.

The difference is that I don't really share my projects. People who share them probably haven't realized that code has become cheap, and no one really needs/wants to see them since they can just roll their own.

I'm surprised how many of my technical team use free ChatGPT in their personal lives. The rest have Claude subscriptions. I'm the only one with ChatGPT and Claude subs and I'll be switching from Claude Pro to Ckaude Max and cancelling ChatGPT, since I only use it when I hit my Claude quota.

I have been out of the loop for a couple of months (vacation). I tried Claude Opus 4.5 at the end of November 2025 with the corporate Github Copilot subscription in Agent mode and it was awful: basically ignoring code and hallucinating.

My team is using it with Claude Code and say it works brilliantly, so I'll be giving it another go.

How much of the value comes from Opus 4.5, how much comes from Claude Code, and how much comes from the combination?

I firmly believe that the heuristics that teachers/lecturers/instructors worldwide use to avoid engaging with reams of mundane text have been successfully by LLMs, and that's why they were so hostile to them initially.

They have to actually read material, and not just use the structure as a proxy for ability.

The relief second officer basically pulled up when the stall protection had been disabled and by the time the other pilot and captain realized what was happening it was too late to save the plane.

There is a design flaw though: the sidesticks in modern Airbus planes are independent, so the other pilot didn’t get any tactile feedback when the second officer was pulling back.

This is the exact sort of performative garbage that LLMs are great for. I had to do an electrical install, but the installer felt that the code required additional work (I don't think he was trying to rip us off, he sincerely believed it, since it's a volume business model).

I got ChatGPT to come up with some plausible interpretations of the electrical code that allowed the install to continue, including citations. I don't know how accurate it all was, but I sent the argument off to the installer, and he came back and did the work the next day. Even if it gets audited, the chances of the auditor picking apart the arguments are probably slim to none. He has plausible deniability.

This is also why schools and colleges are struggling. No one expected superficially "high quality" work from average and poor students, and now that they have to carefully evaluate everyone's work, they've been caught with their pants down.

Someday superficial AIs will talk to other superficial AIs and they'll deadlock, requiring humans back into the mix. Until then, it's a useful way to do bureaucratic judo.

This “manager” vs “leader” thing is slightly overdone in general.

A manager who doesn’t lead will end up the issues raised in the article.

A leader who can’t manage will face administrative chaos.