Hacker News Reader

peterbotondon Labelled branches: why mercurial is better than git

this is more of an argument on preference than quality of either process. yes, we can use clay, wood or stone for sculpting.

i like that git lets me rewrite commit logs, merge them into one commit, break up commits and so on. this gives me a current-dev branch and a cleaned-up branch when needed.

peterbotondon Portable C Compiler 1.0 released

just curios: can you show the code?

peterbotondon Painless Merge Conflict Resolution in Git

git rerere --help

once you resolve a conflict git will remember, and do it for you. :-)

peterbotondon A fifteen year old TCP bug?

the lmin[1] macro will convert the uints to a long int and then do the arithmetic.

[1]static __inline long lmin(long a, long b) { return (a < b ? a : b); }

[2]static __inline u_int min(u_int a, u_int b) { return (a < b ? a : b); }

Edit: 6.3.1.8 Usualarithmetic conversions in the c-99 standard.

peterbotondon A fifteen year old TCP bug?

a better fix to use the lmin macro. libkern.h.

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/~checkout~/src/sys/sys...

peterbotondon Picol, a Tcl interpreter in 550 lines of C

tcl info var and a dict can do closure like constructs. 8.5.

8.6 has a really cool oo interface. http://tcl.activestate.com/cgi-bin/tct/tip/257.html

i do not know lisp, yet i heard tcl is like lisp without the strong type checking.

peterbotondon Ask HN: How did you become a hardcore back-end developer?

... and have at least one other os than prod and just fiddle with it, fiddle with compiler switches, optimisation random testing. occasionally look at the results and see what they mean. for example, freebsd's jails can help setup many different things. use llvm/clang and look at the warnings. these help me find potential problems. what's better than the clairvoyant code-improver/bug-fixer. :-)

peterbotondon The blind man who taught himself to see

my great grandfather gone blind years beofre i was born. when i was 5, he pointed out the birds by kind in flight and distance, and built all kind of house furniture, home repair. strangely to me, he was able to somehow 'see' the tape measure, maybe just he had a keen sense of measures. a few years later, his sight started coming back he said, then he passed. this is not such a great story, just an example the human brain and personal encouragement can go a long way. hats off to mr kish.

peterbotondon Teaching programming languages: a novel approach

just by reading the contents, i wish i had this book 20 or so years ago. back then, i had to find these subject piece by piece in books and white papers. work of a genius. thanks.

peterbotondon Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period

Hi Everyone, I am a two spacer between sentences, and a triple spacer for paragraph starters, and a newline between paragraphs. No wonder nobody reads my emails. :-)

peterbotondon Ask HN: What's the geekiest joke you know?

the classic race condition: 3 nanoseconds is a long time.:-)

peterbotondon Ask HN: What's the geekiest joke you know?

what kind of bus do mathematicians travel? -- rhombus.

what kind of ears do trains have? -- engineers.

peterbotondon While writing YAQL I accidentally discovered Lisp

tcl

peterbotondon RSS Is Dying, and You Should Be Very Worried

many users use webkit and write a program that evaluates, stores the content effectively building a personal rss.

moreover.com has many precompiled rss feeds for various subjects.

peterbotondon [dead]

thanks. i'll try that.

just tried it it does not show up as an option.

if others like the colors, i can fix it for myself. my eyes are sensitive to rich colors and glare.

peterbotondon On Why Open Source Developers run Mac OS X

man port <man> -b binary-only mode (build and install from binary archives, ignore source, abort if no archive present; do not create/recreate binary archives from source) (only applies when archive mode is enabled) </man>

another option is pkgsrc.org. i use it on a few different platforms with good success. if only macosx is your target, use macports.

peterbotondon On Why Open Source Developers run Mac OS X

macports have a lot of packages. simple to use: $ port search keyword $ sudo port install package_name

also, you have homebrew. i never used it.

and as a protable package mgmnt: pkgsrc.org. works well also.

peterbotondon Developer responds to allegations of FBI backdoor in OpenBSD IPSec

a socially engineered email to exploit the idea of sheeple do not think, just follow with the parrots. at the cost of the innocent.

peterbotondon Allegations of FBI crypto backdoors in OpenBSD IPSEC

a binary driver blob can do a better job at backdooring. or even dare to say, the hardware, network card, may have already had one built into it at the factory. i vote for a mostly fudd value of this info.

peterbotondon Ask HN: How did you discover your talent?

have a repository of your ideas, and what you completed of it, before you wonder to something else. Even a notebook and a pencil can be useful for this. cut back on sugar. :-)

peterbotondon Kinect Air Guitar

he should mention that playing air instruments while listening to music, helps keep body, spirit and mind in shape. air instrument playing has health benefits. :-)

peterbotondon Learning OS programming?

hack kernel in userspace.:-) lots of fun and let your mind bend. http://netbsd.org/docs/rump/index.html http://netbsd.org/docs/

peterbotondon The Man Who Invented the Computer

readability.

peterbotondon Most coders have sleep problems, need 'hygiene and care'

just to mention a few: - natural light light bulbs - walk outside during daytime, under sunlight as weather permits - only go to bed when sleepy

Drink water a lot. I sometimes not drink enough and get real bad headaches by the end of the day.

peterbotondon Ask HN: Mac pro alternatives

yes, it will recognise properly and use the cpus well, 10.5 or better. xcode is great. nicely configurable. i needed some adjustment from emacs to xcode, never looked back to emacs on mac. builds are stable. occasionally i had too fiddle with libraries when used 3rd party stuff. macports is your friend. dev(objc/c/c++/qt4/java/python) on mac is smooth, less clutter, good docs, easy access.

peterbotondon Ask HN: Am I doing wrong?

Learn new stuff is given as the most constant is change itself.

Solve problems with what you are most effective with.

Have fun, use the lang/os/lib/whutnut make you smile while doing it. :-)

Apply above 3 points and hack! (Repeat as needed.)

peterbotondon Ask HN: 19, developer, burnt out, advice please

go and research hard cover books of your subjects in a liberal arts univerisity's library of your choice. for a fee many will let you read books, take 2 home for 10 days, do it for 6 months, see what happens. the fee is less than a whole semester and many of the teachers, librarians are very helpful. have a good quest.

peterbotondon OpenBSD 4.8 Released

openbsd foundation. read the mailing lists and you'll see many like minded, experienced people contribute to openbsd code.

peterbotondon Math prof challenges granting of PhD to unqualified student in court

i do not have a doctorate. To the most I support prof Lukacs's stand a doctorate must be earned without a doubt. All the strength and health to him to continure his quest and keep math the best. He should be a dean, at least. :-)