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william1872

29 karma · joined January 5, 2026

UNIX engineer since Solaris 2.6. Shy introvert who loves sharing knowledge. Building open source safety kernels from the Scottish Highlands. Regenerative gardener when not writing C. "The code is just the math, written down."

https://github.com/SpeyTech| speytech.com

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william1872··on Why 'Hello World' Fails Safety-Critical Engineers
Good observation! The shift is intentional - safety-critical code typically doesn't "output" in the printf sense. Instead it returns status codes and modifies state that the caller inspects.

The pulse monitor example returns PULSE_OK/PULSE_ERR_* codes, and the caller queries state via pulse_status(). In a real system, that status feeds into a larger state machine or triggers hardware responses - not console output.

That said, the c-from-scratch repo (https://github.com/SpeyTech/c-from-scratch) does include demo programs with actual output for learning purposes.

The article focuses on the methodology shift rather than a complete runnable example.

Fair point though - I could add a note about where to find working demos.

william1872··on Why 'Hello World' Fails Safety-Critical Engineers
Author here. Happy to answer questions about the methodology or the c-from-scratch project.
william1872··on C-Sentinel: System prober that captures “system fingerprints” for AI analysis
Creator here. Thanks to whoever submitted this!

C-Sentinel came from 30 years of UNIX systems work and one frustration: monitoring tools tell you what happened, not why it matters.

The idea is simple: capture a system "fingerprint" (processes, configs, network, audit events), let an LLM reason about the combination of signals, and surface non-obvious risks.

Some design choices that might interest HN:

Pure C99, 99KB binary - no runtime dependencies, runs anywhere Privacy-first - usernames hashed, no PII in output Auditd integration - who accessed /etc/shadow and why "Why this score?" - explainable risk factors, not black box

Built as a wee project, launched on LinkedIn, somehow hit 23K impressions. Now here. Wild.

Happy to answer questions about the architecture, the C choices, or why I didn't use Rust (short answer: portability and simplicity).

Repo: github.com/williamofai/c-sentinel Live demo: sentinel.speytech.com