Hacker News: Retro_Dev

New comment by Retro_Dev in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"

Retro_Dev — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 19:56:27 +0000

Attemping to write my own CDCL SAT solver right now. I've experimented in the past with a DP & DPLL SAT solver. I'm currently somewhat mentally stuck on how to create the derived clause after a conflict, but I'll get there :)

New comment by Retro_Dev in "Statement on US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5"

Retro_Dev — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 03:47:53 +0000

I hope that this brings out a bunch more real study about the qualitative metrics of these models, both to increase the confidence and accessibility of local LLMs, but also to reduce the blind worship that seems to be propagating about their miracle work in all domains.

New comment by Retro_Dev in "Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948"

Retro_Dev — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 18:33:22 +0000

No questions, but I really enjoyed the article - thank you for sharing. It amazes me how few vacuum tubes these early computers use, compared to the billions and trillions of mosfet transistors used in modern devices.

New comment by Retro_Dev in "NIST scientists create 'any wavelength' lasers"

Retro_Dev — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 23:04:35 +0000

A gamma wavelength handheld laser would be cool; "and on this petri dish, we see a dot of cells instantaneously develop cancer"

Zig – Incremental Compilation with LLVM

Retro_Dev — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 04:27:22 +0000

Article URL: https://ziglang.org/devlog/2026/#2026-04-08

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47713645

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by Retro_Dev in "Google releases Gemma 4 open models"

Retro_Dev — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 01:59:54 +0000

I'm very pleased with the performance of the largest gemma4 model (which I tested through ollama). My singular data point on whether an LLM remembers things well is whether it can translate toki pona to (and from) English. I find it easy to evaluate because I know the language. This local LLM marks the first version that 1) doesn't hallucinate words - at least, for the largest model - and 2) uses common word-phrases that other toki pona speakers use, and most importantly 3) can actually run on my laptop.

Type resolution redesign, with language changes to taste

Retro_Dev — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 01:24:47 +0000

Article URL: https://ziglang.org/devlog/2026/#2026-03-10

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47330836

Points: 401

# Comments: 268

Zig – io_uring and Grand Central Dispatch std.Io implementations landed

Retro_Dev — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 08:22:11 +0000

Article URL: https://ziglang.org/devlog/2026/#2026-02-13

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47012717

Points: 369

# Comments: 305

Zig – Package Management Workflow Enhancements

Retro_Dev — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:43:53 +0000

Article URL: https://ziglang.org/devlog/2026/#2026-02-06

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46930055

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Bypassing Kernel32.dll for Fun and Nonprofit

Retro_Dev — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 00:51:44 +0000

Article URL: https://ziglang.org/devlog/2026/#2026-02-03

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46920164

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by Retro_Dev in "Zig Libc"

Retro_Dev — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 22:28:44 +0000

There's solid reason for the translation here; the Zig core team is aiming to eliminate duplicated code and C functions, and avoid the need to track libc from multiple sources. In the future, LLMs could serve as part of this, but they are currently quite terrible at Zig (as far as I understand it, it's not a lack of Zig code samples, it's an imbalance of OLD Zig to NEW Zig, as Zig changes quite frequently).

You would need to consider if it is even worth it translating your C code. If the paradigm is identical and the entire purpose would be "haha it is now one language," surely you could just compile and link the C code with libzigc... In my opinion, it's not worth translating code if the benefit of "hey look one language" requires the cost of "let's pray the LLM didn't hallucinate or make a mistake while translating the code."

Making Redstone circuits with SAT solvers

Retro_Dev — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 01:51:52 +0000

Article URL: https://alloc.dev/2026/01/09/redstone_from_sat

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46561930

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by Retro_Dev in "LLMs Are Transpilers"

Retro_Dev — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 20:49:31 +0000

In the theoretical world where a subset of English could be formalized and proven and compiled, the complexity of the language would reduce my willingness to use it. I find that the draw of AI comes from it's "simplicity," and removing that (in favor of correct programs) would be pointless - because such a compiler would surely take forever to compile "English" code, and would not be too different from current high level languages, imo.