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NIckGeek

169 karma · joined February 16, 2016

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NIckGeek··on UnoDOS
I'm honestly shocked how dense the claudisms are here. Even the project description reads as Opus 5 vomit.
NIckGeek··on Saving 100 terabytes of memory by optimizing 1.1.1.1's DNS cache
You can make a wrapper type that abstracts the offset lookup logic with a safe interface. If it's a transparent struct then rust will compile it away into nothing but you still get the abstraction in your code.
NIckGeek··on Pixel 11 Pro Fold feels like the end of an era
You really don't notice it while you're using a folding phone.
NIckGeek··on "Don't You Just Upload It to ChatGPT?"
The fundamental issue imo is that LLMs are trained to make believable outputs. They can be complete horseshit, but because they look plausible they get treated like quality.

I swear that the intensity and time I've had to take with code reviews has gone up because LLMs are so good at making flawed code look good. I assume the same goes for everything else we use LLMs for.

NIckGeek··on The text mode lie: why modern TUIs are a nightmare for accessibility
I don't think the issue is using declarative UI frameworks, it's that the rendering engines these frameworks are outputting to are not taking accessibility into account.
NIckGeek··on Don't throw away your old PC–it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy
I feel like ARM wins over even a mobile x86 chip here, right? Like a base Mac Mini sounds ideal.
NIckGeek··on AsciiMath
I'm a big fan of AsciiMath and have been supporting it in my note taking program (MicroPad) since ~2016.

It was the key for me being able to write maths in a classroom/lecture theatre at the same speed (or faster) than those doing it by hand.

NIckGeek··on Unexpected productivity boost of Rust
Couldn't you just pass a reference to your value (i.e. `&T`)? If you absolutely _need_ ownership the function you call could return back the owned value or you could use one of the mechanisms for shared ownership like `Rc<T>`. In a GC'd functional language, you're effectively getting the latter (although usually a different form of GC instead of reference counting)
NIckGeek··on How (memory) safe is Zig? (2021)
> but in practice fails, because of pervasive use of `unsafe`.

Yes, in `unsafe` code typically dynamic checks or careful manual review is needed. However, most code is not `unsafe` and `unsafe` code is wrapped in safe APIs.

I'm aware C already has a runtime, this adds to it.

NIckGeek··on How (memory) safe is Zig? (2021)
Fil-C is impressive and neat, but it does add a runtime to enforce memory safety which has a (in most cases acceptable) cost. That's a reasonable strategy, Java and many other langs took this approach. In research, languages like Dala are applying this approach to safe concurrency.

Rust attempts to enforce its guarantees statically which has the advantage of no runtime overhead but the disadvantage of no runtime knowledge.

NIckGeek··on Translating 10M lines of Java to Kotlin
fwiw in modern-Java they have data classes:

  record Foo(String theImplementationAndStyleOfDataClasses) {}
The string is final. While sadly there is no elvis operator, the Optional type helps:

  evlis.map(e->e.operator).map(e->e.chaining)
I still strongly dislike working in Java but Java 23 is a long way ahead of the Java 6 I first learnt Java with.
NIckGeek··on Traveling with Apple Vision Pro
You typically have to stop in LA, Singapore, or the UAE. The NZ -> Europe flights are brutal, and the trip back is typically even longer.
NIckGeek··on Zed, a collaborative code editor, is now open source
About 70% of the programming I'm doing right now is in my own language. But like, my full time work is programming language research so I accept that's an uncommon use-case.
NIckGeek··on Zed, a collaborative code editor, is now open source
I just tried Zed and it is definitely really pleasant to use. I'd need at least a Java LSP to use it for real (and preferably general LSP support so I can code in my own programming languages with it) but I can see a lot of promise. If they ship a Linux release so I could use it on my desktop too they could win me over from Sublime Text/IntelliJ.
NIckGeek··on An Open-Source Espresso
There's a machine called the Meticulous which is launching a kickstarter soon which is attempting to somewhat do this. It's a lot simpler mechanically because it's just an automated lever machine (i.e. no pump).

The downside is no steam wand but tbh if I didn't already have a Decent DE1Pro I'd probably get a Meticulous or a Flair 58 and that new nanofoamer pro for milk.

NIckGeek··on <3 Deno
Node.JS and Deno are both running with V8. fetch() isn't part of the JS standard library, it's a Web API. Deno just made (the good imo) design decision to support WebAPIs over something more custom despite the fact that it's not a runtime for web apps.

Server-side WASM is the future for FaaS imo, sandboxing built in and an effective object-capability approach to dependency safety is amazing.

NIckGeek··on Ask HN: What note taking websites/applcations do you use?
LaTeX inline maths is done inside ;;LaTeXCode;; or ''AsciiMathsCode''

More info on MicroPad Markdown is in the formatting guide in the help notebook.

NIckGeek··on Ask HN: What note taking websites/applcations do you use?
I made one called MicroPad a few years ago (https://getmicropad.com) and just launched v4 a few weeks ago.

It's pretty full of features and each note is an infinite whiteboard/canvas where you can embed elements anywhere (for example I go horizontally for tangents)

NIckGeek··on Next steps for Rust in the kernel
I'd recommend learning Rust because the way Rust pushes you into writing code will lead you to write better C code, etc.

People that learn C or C++ first often end up fighting the Rust compiler a bit until they adjust their mindset.

NIckGeek··on The case for bad coffee (2015)
There are many fair trade coffee's from local roasters where there is a minimum price for the green coffee for the farmers at the start of the chain.
NIckGeek··on Lies we tell ourselves to keep using Golang
Rust is a general purpose programming language. It can do low level systems programming but it's also highly capable of doing web backends, web frontends (wasm), game design, small utility scripts, etc.

A big thing people learning Rust do my mistake is to try and use all of the low level features straight away. Rust has tools like Rc, RefCell, Arc, and RwLock that let you have a garbage collected language (well, reference counted) and not worry about any of the low level memory management details.

See things like https://ggez.rs/ for games and https://www.arewewebyet.org/ for web stuff.

Although honestly I think if you're looking for a "hot" backend web language I'd say Elixir is the more well designed one than Go.

NIckGeek··on Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company
I admire Elon's accomplishments, especially with SpaceX but I wouldn't want him in charge of Twitter.
NIckGeek··on Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app
Yeah, that's the big issue with Electron. The "Micro" came from my original plan for it, which was to have a super small python script generate static notepad pages for you to visit in your browser. Obviously that's no longer the case.
NIckGeek··on Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app
Thanks!

1. That's totally possible, although file-size could quickly become an issue with syncing the videos (there's a 50MB cap)

2. Nope, All actual client functionality is (and always will be) free + open source. Even syncing is free (up to a point).

NIckGeek··on Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app
Linux doesn't have the issue with codesigning. And no evernote doesn't (it's more of a page mechanism) and yes OneNote does but OneNote one Linux is non-existent and OneNote on the web is bad.
NIckGeek··on Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app
I rely on iframes to sandbox, and as part of that I need srcdoc. Edge will support it in the next version iirc.
NIckGeek··on Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app
Already there for maths. Syntax is in the help notepad.
NIckGeek··on Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app
I definitely wouldn't say no to something like that. It would probably make my life a little easier.
NIckGeek··on Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app
Hmm. I suspect that's because I don't do code signing?
NIckGeek··on Show HN: Open source non-linear notepad app
Syntax highlighting would be really cool.

1MB images should work perfectly fine. It is an image element right?

I have heard that the icons might be a little weird. I've been unable to test it because my install of Linux doesn't use icons. I'd appreciate help with that one if anyone can help.

Thanks for the other feedback.

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