Hacker News: TeaVMFan

New comment by TeaVMFan in "AI slop is killing online communities"

TeaVMFan — Fri, 08 May 2026 05:40:15 +0000

This bothered me so much that in my tool for HTML-native authors, EPublish ( https://frequal.com/epublish/ ), I automatically insert a no-AI-training clause on the copyright page. Not that it will stop the kind of executives who will authorize mass unauthorized downloading of books to train their LLMs, but we have to at least take a stand.

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Show HN: Software Engineer to Novelist: Writing a Book Like Coding"

TeaVMFan — Tue, 05 May 2026 20:11:38 +0000

Thanks! It's available for Kindle Unlimited so if you subscribe to that, you can start reading right away, no checkout or payment required.

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Show HN: Software Engineer to Novelist: Writing a Book Like Coding"

TeaVMFan — Tue, 05 May 2026 20:10:49 +0000

You're the second person to recommend Obsidian to me in a week, I'll take a look. For long-form writing, I'm very comfortable with my setup from article (html-helper-mode especially), but for notes I'll look at Obsidian.

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Show HN: Software Engineer to Novelist: Writing a Book Like Coding"

TeaVMFan — Tue, 05 May 2026 20:09:16 +0000

Not open source yet, but I posted more information here: https://frequal.com/epublish/

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Show HN: Software Engineer to Novelist: Writing a Book Like Coding"

TeaVMFan — Tue, 05 May 2026 20:08:59 +0000

I made a new post about EPublish itself here: https://frequal.com/epublish/

Show HN: Software Engineer to Novelist: Writing a Book Like Coding

TeaVMFan — Sun, 03 May 2026 16:26:32 +0000

I just published my first book, Means and Motive. ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYCZJVGX )

As a software engineer, I approached writing like a software project. I used familiar tools (Emacs and HTML) for the primary writing.

I built my own tool (EPublish) to transform the HTML manuscript into an .epub file, the source for the ebook version. And I wrote shell scripts to reliably and repeatably transform the .epub version into PDF files for the printed editions.

I wrote 'design' and 'architecture' docs, describing the world, key actors, and timelines. I kept a task list of chapters and key scenes that needed to be written, in priority order. Along the way, I kept my files version-controlled so I could see the progress of the novel and edit mercilessly, without worrying about keeping old text around in backup files should I want it back for some reason.

If you've thought about writing a book, I highly recommend it. There are many similarities to the software engineering process. You'll also gain a newfound appreciation of the design, layout, and typesetting world, exactly how much work goes into each book you read.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47998570

Points: 22

# Comments: 10

New comment by TeaVMFan in "After 20 years I turned off Google Adsense for my websites (2025)"

TeaVMFan — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 23:52:26 +0000

I did the same and switched to Ethical Ads (no cookies, tracking etc.) on https://frequal.com

Ethical Ads: https://www.ethicalads.io/

First Aptera Solar EV Rolls Off Validation Assembly Line

TeaVMFan — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 04:39:25 +0000

Article URL: https://aptera.us/first-vehicle-off-validation-line/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47270935

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Deep dive into Turso, the “SQLite rewrite in Rust”"

TeaVMFan — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:27:17 +0000

For the Java ecosystem, H2 fills this gap nicely, easily handling both in- memory and remote JDBC access:

https://frequal.com/java/TheBestDatabase.html

New comment by TeaVMFan in "The First Web Server"

TeaVMFan — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 15:47:05 +0000

Sir Berners-Lee tells the story himself in this great memoir: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/tim-berners-lee/this-is...

Lots of detail and inside stories about the work it took to keep the web open and free.

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Applets Are Officially Gone, But Java Is Back In The Browser"

TeaVMFan — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 21:36:31 +0000

Applets are officially, completely removed from Java 26, coming in March of 2026. This brings to an official end the era of applets, which began in 1996. However, for years it has been possible to build modern, interactive web pages in Java without needing applets or plugins. TeaVM (https://teavm.org) provides fast, performant, and lightweight tooling to transpile Java to run natively in the browser. And for a full front-end toolkit with templates, routing, components, and more, Flavour (https://flavour.sf.net) lets you build your modern single-page app using 100% Java.

Applets Are Officially Gone, But Java Is Back In The Browser

TeaVMFan — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 21:36:31 +0000

Article URL: https://frequal.com/java/AppletsGoneButJavaInTheBrowserBetterThanEver.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46185401

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Linux Instal Fest Belgrade"

TeaVMFan — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 17:54:11 +0000

Typo in title: "Install" is missing an "l"

New comment by TeaVMFan in "It’s time to free JavaScript (2024)"

TeaVMFan — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 15:55:33 +0000

The incredibly litigious company here is Deno. Deno sued on a whim, realized they were massively unprepared, then asked the public to fund a legal campaign that will benefit Deno themselves, a for-profit, VC-backed company.

This personal vendetta will likely end with the community unable to use the term JavaScript. Nobody should support this.

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Anthropic acquires Bun"

TeaVMFan — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 02:55:04 +0000

Java runs in the browser currently, after a transpilation step (same as .ts):

https://teavm.org/

New comment by TeaVMFan in "WriterdeckOS"

TeaVMFan — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 20:03:21 +0000

I like the idea of a distraction-free writing environment.

However, when I'm writing, I find I sometimes need to do research. I suppose for the best writing flow I should block time for research and time for pure writing. However, if I discover I need to look something up, a hard block on internet access would be a problem. Of course it's a slippery slope from researching something on Wikipedia to navigating to related articles. Timed access per hour?

New comment by TeaVMFan in "What Dynamic Typing Is For"

TeaVMFan — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 17:56:00 +0000

I agree strong typing is a necessity in the front end. To prevent the language explosion issue, I recommend writing your single page apps in Java. The Flavour framework makes this quick and easy with complete maven tooling and powerful components.

Flavour book: https://frequal.com/Flavour/book.html

Flavour home page: https://flavour.sourceforge.io/

Example app: https://frequal.com/wordii

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Harvey Mudd Miniature Machine"

TeaVMFan — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 02:28:40 +0000

Great school. All- undergrad STEM education. Professors teach the classes, not TAs! And you have full access to the facilities of the 4 adjacent colleges (Pomona, CMC, Scripps, Pitzer), each prestigious in their own right.

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Show HN: Blueprint: Fast, Nunjucks-like templating engine for Java 8 and beyond"

TeaVMFan — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 15:20:50 +0000

If you're interested in Java template engines for the client side (SPAs), you can look at Flavour: https://flavour.sourceforge.io/

While templates are a big part of Flavour, it also includes routing, components, and idiomatic invocation of Java services.

The book on Flavour is here: https://frequal.com/Flavour/book.html

Example 5-letter word game single-page app made with 100% Java, 100% Flavour: https://frequal.com/wordii/

New comment by TeaVMFan in "Maintaining Weight Loss"

TeaVMFan — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 19:42:29 +0000

For the "logging" step, I created and rely on CalorieFreq, a local-first Java SPA:

https://frequal.com/cf/

It is built on the Flavour framework:

https://flavour.sf.net