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bestony

15 karma · joined February 14, 2019

A software engineer living in Tianjin, China; personal X is @xiqingongzi; personal email: bestony@linux.com
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bestony··on Show HN: Is your product AI slop?
Looked at my site's statistics, 2%. Not bad; this project is developed using Claude Code & Codex, but it incorporates my own understanding of the product and design. https://goodfirstissue.org/
bestony··on Show HN: Bulk-harden all your GitHub repos' settings without an API token
Reading the local files of the browser is still not good enough. A better way to implement it might be through Browser Javascript, so users just need to press F12 to open Console, paste, and run.
bestony··on Ask HN: What are your advice for a CS/IT student for the future?
Of course. I don't think this solves all problems. But it works for the early stages of a career and the early stages of a business. Once a student gets through the most basic painful period this way, they can use the foundation they've built to move on to things that suit them better. And yes, I own a small business of my own. It's not big, but it's enough to support us.
bestony··on Ask HN: What are your advice for a CS/IT student for the future?
当然,不过我认为对于新手来说,这依然是重要的。
bestony··on Ask HN: What are your advice for a CS/IT student for the future?
Yes. But higher efficiency also makes it more likely that you'll always have a job—so you won't be completely wiped out.
bestony··on Ask HN: Specialized Agents vs. General Agents with Skills
The main issue lies in whether there are enough professional tools; an Agent generates value through the coordination of corresponding tools, and without suitable tools, it is difficult to complete these tasks. The main difference between a general Agent and a professional Agent is whether the corresponding tools are provided by default. Without these tools, while it is not absolutely impossible for a general Agent to complete these tasks, it may consume a large amount of resources. These tools may be completed through mcp, internally encapsulated CLI, etc.
bestony··on Codex is my Linux Janitor
I think your usage is quite good. I also use a similar approach. I use Codex/Claude Code as my SA; I have a git repo specifically for storing various information about my server configurations. Whenever I need to configure the server, I start from this directory, ensuring that Codex/Claude Code uses my server correctly and has a record for future reference. Moreover, the existence of Git makes the server configuration itself version-aware.
bestony··on Tesla Model Y – Best Selling Car in the World Again
As a Chinese person, if I were to buy an electric car again, I might choose the Model Y. The Model Y meets my needs for an electric car: 1. I need a large space, which is why I wouldn't choose the Model 3; 2. My budget is limited, which is why I wouldn't choose the Model X; 3. I need data openness (especially in the Agent era), so I need Tesla.
bestony··on LLMs are terrible at designing AI systems
From my perspective, this is reasonable.

The basic working principle of LLM is that the model weights are combined with the current context to predict the most likely Token; however, considering that most of the data in model training does not relate to AI Systems, LLMs are inevitably faced with difficulties when designing AI systems.

But I believe this issue will be gradually alleviated because the increasing number of open-source projects related to AI Systems will increase the amount of data for AI Systems, thus enabling the model to perform better.

However, I think this is a good thing for software engineers, because the emergence of new business needs and new product forms, the time it takes for them to be learned by the model and become a new baseline may be longer than we imagine.

bestony··on BerryBox – GitHub Actions runners at $0.002/min, billed per second
I think you have an advantage compared to the official Github Actions. What are the advantages compared to the self-hosted Actions runner? I think your website is missing a comparison page.
bestony··on Show HN: Fuel prices in 11 European countries, with maps and border comparisons
As a Chinese tourist, the biggest problem for me in Europe is not the fuel price... but what kind of driver's license I need to drive in this country (a Chinese driver's license does not fall under the International Driver's Permit, and I do not have an international driver's license).
bestony··on What have you learned that's now outdated?
BTW, the layout of this website looks very bad on my 4K monitor. It only shows two columns, and the two columns are also aligned to the left.
bestony··on What have you learned that's now outdated?
I don't actually think programming knowledge is outdated. It has just become less frequently used (because AI provides enough certainty), but these things still shape us. If we need a better software product, we still need the basic knowledge and information of programming.
bestony··on Never Bring Your Phone to the Shower
After reading it, I realized that the core issue is actually that we should create some "phone-free" environments for ourselves to reduce the intense activity of our brains, allowing the subconscious to help us discover new possibilities. In fact, besides the bathroom, it can also be the bedroom.
bestony··on Show HN: Joggo – a self-hosted GitHub Actions runner for the Windows PC you use
As a product for Windows, I believe the current installation method you have is not very suitable for Windows users. I suggest you provide an installer.exe or Installer.msi or a similar installation method. Although WSL / Powershell is available on every system, a direct installation may be more in line with the habits of the vast majority of people.
bestony··on Ask HN: What are your advice for a CS/IT student for the future?
Most people believe you should stay away from industries where AI exists; my view is that you should actively embrace AI. Society rewards those who exceed average productivity with higher value returns. At the same time, you should be aware that both businesses and individuals need people to provide certain results. You need to learn to provide certain results.

For example, certain high-quality software; certain task scheduling, etc.

bestony··on Ask HN: What back end and database are you choosing for new projects in 2026?
I still mainly use Django and Ruby On Rails; the main advantage of these two backend technologies is that there are enough solutions available for me to use. I mainly focus on solving business problems, so a ready-made framework (with everything I need) can reduce my decision-making costs and the threshold for using it. For databases, I mainly use MySQL, mainly because I have used it a lot in the past and am familiar with it.

For infrastructure, I insist on using VPS/Cloud Compute to set up my own Docker Swarm cluster for fast iteration and to reduce the complexity of the architecture. I would even prioritize monolithic applications and give up the microservices approach.

bestony··on Which hobby do you think is most diverting and pleasurable?
When I'm by myself, I mainly read; I read various types of books, see other people's lives and their perspectives on problem-solving, which helps me understand the world from more perspectives.

Then when I'm with my wife, we mainly relax by playing chess. This includes Gomoku, Chinese Weiqi, Chess, and Chinese Chess. We have a lot of chess sets at home!

bestony··on Ask HN: Anyone here still writing code for reasons other than fun or learning?
Of course. I am still writing code.

I divide the code into two types: one is the working code that needs to solve problems, so I will focus most of my energy on adjusting the environment for the LLM, to help the LLM write code better. The other is when I want to do and research certain things, I need to know the principles of certain things, so I will focus on looking at this part of the code and understand it myself.

bestony··on Do you have a Plan B?
I started preparing my own business company in 2023, and it's small, but it's beginning to make a modest profit. This counts as my Plan B for myself. At the same time, I try to go for job interviews every year to confirm my position and value in the market.

I think it's very difficult to stay with a company for a long time today. But if your goal is to make a living through earning money, the difficulty of this thing is still acceptable.

At the same time, I have been saving money for investment for several years. Currently, I have about $50,000 for investment. So relatively speaking, I feel quite at ease, not to the point where my family's economy would collapse immediately after being laid off.

bestony··on In LLM era, can software startup survive?
The essence of business is not that anyone who can write code is guaranteed to make money. In the past, software companies made money because they possessed the ability to help enterprises complete digital/automation and solve problems. Writing code is just one way to solve problems. The vast majority of software I see today only solves the problems of its creators; they don't care or pay attention to how others' problems are solved.

Of course, you might say: "Nowadays, LLMs are so cheap that everyone can write software." But the fact is, while everyone can write software, not everyone can write a complete software. And the assumption that "everyone can write software" is currently also incorrect. Not everyone can write software.

bestony··on Pico CSS is no longer maintained
It's a pity that the currently good pure CSS frameworks seem to only have Bootstrap left standing. This leaves me with fewer choices, as someone who uses Ruby On rails / Django and doesn't want to use the new generation of frontend CSS solutions.

I might need a CSS solution that is less React-heavy, one that provides basic components and a user-friendly style system; I just need to include a CSS file (possibly a helper JS file) and then I can make style adjustments in my own application CSS.

Do you have any recommendations?

bestony··on Show HN: Sumi.css – CSS Framework
Good, there haven't been any new CSS creations lately, I hope you guys can keep updating for a while longer.
bestony··on Show HN: Computer use on the phone itself: a 2B model that operates Android apps
这个模型针对不同的应用会自己兼容么?还是需要参与到训练当中?
bestony··on Show HN: ssh ssh.place
So cool! If I wanted to make a similar product, how should I do it? Do you have any advice or research directions? I saw a company using SSH for hiring a couple of days ago, and I thought it was really cool. I also want to build something similar.
bestony··on Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
Very cool! Yesterday my wife and I watched Inside Out, and seeing the San Francisco setting felt very familiar (last year, 2025). Last year, in 2025, my wife and I went to San Francisco for our honeymoon. This website also showed me many familiar places.
bestony··on Kimi K3 with First Tree Beats GPT 5.6 Sol on a Real Engineering Task
Interesting bench
bestony··on Does code cleanliness affect coding agents? A controlled minimal-pair study
In the real world, clean code still has value.

In AI labs, they can run a task repeatedly for extended periods, eventually marking it as completed in benchmarks. But in the real world, completing tasks quickly and well remains important and valuable.

bestony··on GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra will be in Codex
Competition is still needed to allow us users to make better use of these good models.
bestony··on MCP is dead?
It sounds like what we need is a better option for converting an existing OpenAPI into an MCP Server?
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