Hacker News: SPBS

New comment by SPBS in "Farewell, Rust for web"

SPBS — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:30:10 +0000

> In a decade or so Go the awkward things about Go will have multiplied significantly and it'll have many of the same problems Python currently has.

The stdlib packages are far better designed in Go than in Python. “The standard library is where packages go to die” is literally not a thing in Go, in fact quite the opposite.

New comment by SPBS in "In praise of –dry-run"

SPBS — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 14:48:36 +0000

> Early in the development process, when testing the incomplete application, I remembered that Subversion (the version control system after CVS, before Git) had a –dry-run option.

> I remembered how helpful that was, so I decided to add it to my command as well.

He mentions the reason he added it, and it's a compelling enough story to be true.

Cursed Bundler: Using go get to install Ruby Gems

SPBS — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 11:05:46 +0000

Article URL: https://nesbitt.io/2025/12/25/cursed-bundler-using-go-get-to-install-ruby-gems.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46400927

Points: 26

# Comments: 3

New comment by SPBS in "PHP compile time generics: yay or nay?"

SPBS — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 11:40:41 +0000

> And as a consequence, C# can pack the value types directly in the generic data structure, instead of holding references to heap-allocated objects.

> This is very important both for cache locality and for minimizing garbage collector pressure.

How is C# just not straight-up faster than Java then? Instead of both language punching around the same weight on benchmarks? Doesn't cache locality like, have a huge effect on performance?

New comment by SPBS in "Show HN: AnydocAI – Every file exists as all file types"

SPBS — Tue, 20 May 2025 12:07:17 +0000

the page is really laggy on Edge, kills any interest in wanting to explore more (strangely, it's much snappier on Chrome)

New comment by SPBS in "Redis is open source again"

SPBS — Fri, 02 May 2025 09:44:13 +0000

> Amazon / Google / Microsoft offer managed versions of the database and make bank on it. Easily millions in revenue. Original creator / company doesn't get anything, and the hyperscaler isn't obliged to pay.

This isn't what is happening. A company called Garantia Data renamed themselves to Redis Labs and acquired the Redis trademark. They're not the original company, and they used a naming trick to present as if they are official (they are now, and nothing they did was illegal).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42256757

https://www.gomomento.com/blog/rip-redis-how-garantia-data-p...

New comment by SPBS in "Dangerous dependencies in third-party software – the underestimated risk"

SPBS — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 02:55:52 +0000

No. Scrollbars are besides the content, AI-generated content is the content. An article absolutely deserves to be called out if the author has the gall to AI-generate it and then share it on HN (or elsewhere).

New comment by SPBS in "How about trailing commas in SQL?"

SPBS — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 02:38:22 +0000

I always do this. There's usually one field that you can put at the start that never changes. But the field at the end will keep changing as you add more fields to the SELECT list.

   SELECT
      a
      ,b
      ,c
      ,d
   FROM
      Customers
   ORDER BY
      b
      ,c DESC

New comment by SPBS in "Zig; what I think after months of using it"

SPBS — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 04:52:30 +0000

Headers are missing IDs for URL fragments to jump to e.g. https://strongly-typed-thoughts.net/blog/zig-2025#error-hand... doesn't work

New comment by SPBS in "Web page annoyances that I don't inflict on you"

SPBS — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 06:45:05 +0000

> appeals to HN and nobody else

Your argument is that writers do this because of "economics", but to the detriment of readers. I don't see how this extends only to HN readers. It applies to all readers in general.

Coupled Code Is Cool

SPBS — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 17:43:42 +0000

Article URL: https://buttondown.com/jaffray/archive/coupled-code-is-cool/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42567604

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by SPBS in "A made-up name is better than no name"

SPBS — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 05:48:42 +0000

This is awful. The alternative isn't "no name", it's a full and unambiguous name (even if it's a mouthful). If you can't come up with a good short name, stick with the long one.

New comment by SPBS in "SQL style guide by Simon Holywell"

SPBS — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 06:07:44 +0000

> Spaces should be used to line up the code so that the root keywords all end on the same character boundary.

  SELECT file_hash
    FROM file_system
   WHERE file_name = '.vimrc';

This style is annoying and I wish it gained less traction. It looks neat but it puts so much burden on the query writer, especially when you modify the query and all of the sudden you need to indent multiple lines just to make them all align. You know what's neat and still easy to modify/diff? Just indent a new line for each row.

    SELECT
        file_hash
    FROM
        file_system
    WHERE
        file_name = '.vimrc';

New comment by SPBS in "Bitwarden SDK relicensed from proprietary to GPLv3"

SPBS — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 05:48:42 +0000

Built-in password managers don’t work across apps. They only work for the browsers they’re built into.

New comment by SPBS in "Some Notes on Upgrading Hugo"

SPBS — Sun, 13 Oct 2024 10:42:21 +0000

Sometimes Software is Done, or Why Hugo Why (2024)

https://commaok.xyz/post/on_hugo/

> When I first used Hugo I loved it. It was fast. It was simple. It just worked, as much as any software does, and it solved a real problem.

> It was done.

> But people kept working on it.

> I’m sure that it has been improved in countless ways. But along the way it has gotten bigger and more complicated, and has broken backwards compatibility repeatedly.

New comment by SPBS in "Are You Qualified to Use Null in SQL?"

SPBS — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 02:52:02 +0000

This is null trivia, a lot of it is not worth memorizing because it's not important. Personally I was surprised that NULL AND FALSE does not result in NULL, but who cares?

New comment by SPBS in "Master Hexagonal Architecture in Rust"

SPBS — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 09:01:25 +0000

Too much layering. Code like this makes a huge song and dance around what is ultimately issuing an SQL query to the database and returning the results. The solution must always scale scale scale, never mind that simple problems should have simple solutions. A simple solution can always be refactored into a more complex solution, but not the other way round. It's always a safe bet to start with a simple solution.

New comment by SPBS in "I give you feedback on your blog post draft but you don't send it to me (2021)"

SPBS — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 06:50:22 +0000

entertaining and very true. I will be sending this article to people next time I see them waffling on something.

New comment by SPBS in "Git Bash is my preferred Windows shell"

SPBS — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 02:54:20 +0000

I almost never used `dir` because `ls` is supported by PowerShell. Is there a reason you have to use CMD?

New comment by SPBS in "Don't defer Close() on writable files (2017)"

SPBS — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 12:01:03 +0000

I think anything other than deferring Close() and then calling Close() again explicitly is overengineering. Like anything that requires creating a cleanup function, capturing a named return value, requires contorting in unnatural ways to handle a very common scenario. Just... defer Close() the soonest you can (after checking for errors), then call Close() again at the end. Most sane providers of Close() should handle being called multiple times (I know os.File does, as well as sql.Tx ).