Hacker News with Generative AI: Software Development

Excellent Pull Request Reviews (michaelheap.com)
Pull request reviews are a critical part of building high-quality products, but too often, they become a rubber-stamping exercise—skim, “LGTM,” approve. This kind of review can lead to broken code, unclear documentation, and missed opportunities for improvement.
Software Development, Code Review, Best Practices
6 points by mooreds 5 hours ago | 1 comments
The Raspberry Pi RP2040 Gets a Surprise Speed Boost, Unlocks an Official 200MHz (hackster.io)
Raspberry Pi has released a new version of its pico-sdk software development kit for the RP2040 and RP2350 microcontroller families — and it comes with a speed boost for the RP2040, bumping its maximum rated clock speed to 200MHz.
Raspberry Pi, Microcontrollers, Software Development, Hardware, Speed Boost
32 points by todsacerdoti 15 hours ago | 2 comments
A Clang regression related to switch statements and inlining (nicula.xyz)
After my previous post, Eliminating redundant bound checks (read it for context if you haven’t already), I wanted to do a benchmark using the ‘optimized’ version of the increment() function, which didn’t contain any bound checks when compiled with Clang, even though we used .at() for indexing into the array.
Clang, Optimization, Benchmarking, Software Development
10 points by nicula 23 hours ago | 0 comments
Tanagram: Tools for complex codebases, inspired by 5 years of building at Stripe (tanagramdev.com)
You ever feel like your codebase is a little … spooky?
Software Development, Codebases, Stripe, Tools
55 points by feifan 1 day ago | 7 comments
Cargo Cult Programming (wikipedia.org)
Cargo cult programming is a style of computer programming characterized by the ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose.
Programming, Software Development, Software Design
7 points by KiranRao0 1 day ago | 8 comments
The reality of long-term software maintenance from the maintainer's perspective (construct.net)
I was reading about a dispute involving the Linux kernel recently (which for the record I don't think either side handled well), and I realised something: very few people seem to understand the reality of maintaining large software projects in the long term.
Software Development, Software Maintenance, Open Source
120 points by AshleysBrain 1 day ago | 28 comments
Linus Torvalds: Mauro, Shut the Fuck Up (2012) (lkml.org)
Mauro, SHUT THE FUCK UP! It's a bug alright - in the kernel. How long have you been a maintainer? And you *still* haven't learnt the first rule of kernel maintenance?
Linux, Open Source, Programming, Software Development, Controversy
8 points by nitinreddy88 2 days ago | 6 comments
My LLM codegen workflow (harper.blog)
I have been building so many small products using LLMs. It has been fun, and useful. However, there are pitfalls that can waste so much time. A while back a friend asked me how I was using LLMs to write software. I thought “oh boy. how much time do you have!” and thus this post.
Software Development, Productivity, Workflow
479 points by lolptdr 2 days ago | 154 comments
One year after switching from Java to Go (glasskube.dev)
I always told people memory is cheap, black magic is OK and efficiency doesn't matter in most cases, but boy, how wrong was I...
Programming Languages, Go, Java, Performance, Software Development
252 points by pmig 2 days ago | 475 comments
TIL: Rust does not prevent memory leaks (ycombinator.com)
I'm not a Rust developer so I have no clues about what Rust does, how it does or why it is the way it is.<p>I had a short interaction on another thread and some user told that Rust does not prevent memory leaks.<p>People talk so much about Rust memory safety and how everything must be rewritten in Rust, but if Rust does not prevent memory leaks why are people so crazy about it?
Programming Languages, Rust, Memory Management, Software Development
26 points by akagusu 2 days ago | 22 comments
Making my debug build run 100x faster so that it is finally usable (gaultier.github.io)
SIMD and dedicated silicon to the rescue.
Optimization, Performance, Debugging, Software Development
82 points by broken_broken_ 2 days ago | 20 comments
My washing machine refreshed my thinking on software estimation (cosive.com)
Software Development, Estimation, User Experience
480 points by tashicorp 3 days ago | 419 comments
Half Moon Bay Gondola System – Live Simulation (amazonaws.com)
Inspired by: Simon Wilison's blog, and The Real Python Podcast Episode 236, which lead me to find this in a google search: this article.
Simulation, Software Development, Python, Technology
8 points by HellsMaddy 3 days ago | 0 comments
Debugging an Undebuggable App (bryce.co)
Debugging, Software Development, Application Development
344 points by xmprt 3 days ago | 57 comments
Open source projects could sell SBOM fragments (thomas-huehn.com)
Scanning source files for licensing information (because the package managers‘ metadata is insufficient) is a lot of work, and a lot of wasted effort, because only rarely do companies pool their resources.
Open source, Software Development, Licensing, Security, Collaboration
113 points by Tomte 3 days ago | 62 comments
Walking the Doge (thedailywtf.com)
One thing I've learned by going through our reader submissions over the years is that WTFs never start with just one mistake. They're a compounding sequence of systemic failures. When we have a "bad boss" story, where an incompetent bully puts an equally incompetent sycophant in charge of a project, it's never just about the bad boss- it's about the system that put the bad boss in that position.
Software Development, Management, Humor
7 points by askl 3 days ago | 0 comments
Open source maintainers are feeling the squeeze (theregister.com)
Overworked, under pressure, and subjected to abuse – is it really worth it?
Open Source, Software Development, Community, Mental Health
56 points by redbell 3 days ago | 45 comments
New junior developers can’t code (nmn.gl)
Something’s been bugging me about how new devs and I need to talk about it.
Software Development, Education, Programming
110 points by mhfs 4 days ago | 133 comments
Z-Ant: An Open-Source SDK for Neural Network Deployment on Microprocessors (github.com/ZIGTinyBook)
Zant (Zig-Ant) is an open-source SDK designed to simplify deploying Neural Networks (NN) on microprocessors.
Open Source, Neural Networks, Microprocessors, Software Development
10 points by jedisct1 4 days ago | 0 comments
What Comes After Kubernetes? (2023) (mattrickard.com)
Few projects are ever “finished”, but the Kubernetes APIs have reached a steady state. Core APIs are well into v1 and the extensibility model (custom resource definitions) is stable.
Kubernetes, Cloud Computing, Software Development, Open Source
19 points by dschuessler 4 days ago | 6 comments
Vim after Bram: a core maintainer on how they've kept it going (thenewstack.io)
Vim, Open Source, Software Development, Community
227 points by MilnerRoute 4 days ago | 92 comments
Getter-Setter Pattern Considered Harmful (wolfgang-ziegler.com)
Many developers (like myself) who started their careers with OOP (Java, C#, ...) during the last decades will look at this code and find nothing wrong about it at first sight.
Software Development, Object-Oriented Programming, Design Patterns
42 points by gm678 4 days ago | 84 comments
Open source maintainers are feeling the squeeze (theregister.com)
Overworked, under pressure, and subjected to abuse – is it really worth it?
Open Source, Software Development, Community, Burnout, Work Culture
5 points by rntn 4 days ago | 0 comments
“A calculator app? Anyone could make that” (chadnauseam.com)
Mobile Apps, Software Development
1771 points by pie_flavor 4 days ago | 428 comments
Reasons to Not Parse Localized Strings (sffc.xyz)
As a programmer, it is natural to think of data as a series of one-to-one relationships between string identifiers and objects in a computer.
Programming, Localization, Software Development
37 points by johnjago 5 days ago | 47 comments
The Big TDD Misunderstanding (2022) (linkedrecords.com)
Rumors have it that the term “unit” in “unit test” originally referred to the test itself, not to a unit of the system under test. The idea was that the test could be executed as one unit and does not rely on other tests running upfront (see here and here). Another contradictive perspetive is this one: “The unit to be tested is the entire point of confusion and debate.
Software Development, Testing, Software Engineering, Unit Testing
63 points by WolfOliver 5 days ago | 83 comments
No good deed goes unpunished: can we now be sued over software we give away? (kevinboone.me)
Until recently, developers have generally assumed that the creators of open-source software are not subject to liability in negligence.
Open Source, Law, Software Development, Liability
61 points by ingve 5 days ago | 50 comments
Karol Herbst Steps Down as Nouveau Maintainer Due to Linux's Toxic Environment (phoronix.com)
Karol Herbst has been a Nouveau driver developer for over a decade working on this open-source, reverse-engineered NVIDIA Linux graphics driver. He went on to become employed by Red Hat. While he's known more these days for his work on Mesa and the Rusticl OpenCL driver for it, he's still remained a maintainer of the Nouveau kernel driver. But today he announced he's resigning as a Nouveau driver maintainer due to differences with the upstream Linux kernel developer community.
Linux, Open Source, Graphics Drivers, Software Development, Community
63 points by evujumenuk 5 days ago | 46 comments
Why I quit: kernel developer Con Kolivas (2007) (archive.org)
INTERVIEW | Linux is burdened with enterprise crap that makes it run poorly on desktop PCs, says kernel developer Con Kolivas who recently walked away from years of work on it.
Linux, Operating Systems, Software Development, Open Source, Interviews
53 points by nalinidash 6 days ago | 22 comments
Sunsetting Create React App (react.dev)
Today, we’re deprecating Create React App for new apps, and encouraging existing apps to migrate to a framework. We’re also providing docs for when a framework isn’t a good fit for your project, or you prefer to start by building a framework.
JavaScript, React, Web Development, Software Development
17 points by mariuz 6 days ago | 1 comments