Hacker News: axelerator

New comment by axelerator in "How Complex Systems Fail"

axelerator — Mon, 05 May 2025 06:03:29 +0000

Definitely some good reminders in there!

> But the converse: that successful outcomes are also the result of gambles; is not widely appreciated.

This statement however I would challenge: There is the whole ‘build fast and break shit’ culture that bets exactly on that outcome.

New comment by axelerator in "Hire HTML and CSS People"

axelerator — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 15:47:39 +0000

There are bunch of good UX principles baked into HTML and CSS. Plus to become good at HTML and CSS you will be exposed to a lot of UX talk as well.

So one could argue it's really hard to get really good at HTML and CSS and not care about UX at all.

But yes, a fool with a tool is still a fool - if that's the point you're trying to make.

New comment by axelerator in "Ask HN: What have you built with ESPHome, ESP8266 or similar hardware"

axelerator — Sat, 27 Apr 2024 19:55:43 +0000

A web interface for infrared remote controls https://www.instructables.com/Web-IR-Remote-With-Esp8266-Nod...

New comment by axelerator in "The Montreal problem: Why programming languages need a style czar"

axelerator — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 15:40:34 +0000

> Well... no. Engineers are more efficient in their own styles. Realistically, I've wasted hours setting up my editor at each new job / each project to get on board with the style

I disagree for two reasons:

1. Optimizing for what each dev is used to is optimizing for a local maximum. If they’re THAT good it won’t take them long to adjust to new defaults. Good engineers should be able to pick up a new lang quickly so some changes in the context of a language should not bog them down significantly in the long term.

2. The overly long time it took to set up tooling in a particular company or language do not outweigh the bigger advantage of being able to quickly get a grasp about what a piece of completely unfamiliar code does.

New comment by axelerator in "Triangle Grids"

axelerator — Sun, 10 Jul 2022 16:59:04 +0000

Very inspiring! I just started out to play around with the wave function collapse algorithm [1]. I'm in the middle of porting it to a cube based 3d grid. And now I'm wondering what a triangle based volume presentation would look like

[1] https://github.com/axelerator/wave-function-collapse-2d

New comment by axelerator in "Fornjot: A next-generation Code-CAD application"

axelerator — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 20:25:45 +0000

I think 3D modelling lends itself exceptionally well to the functional programming style. Rusts syntax is heavily influenced to solve a breadth of system level problems that don't exist in the "application" space this is solving.

I would argue such a system would be best implemented in a language that only has expressions. For example Elm has a wonderful geometry library [1].

[1] https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/ianmackenzie/elm-geome...

New comment by axelerator in "Why learn Racket? A student's perspective"

axelerator — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 19:46:56 +0000

I always say my appreciation for functional programming comes from having spent enough time in imperative hell.

That being said I think learning programming in an "expressions only" environment can enable the student to deal with more complex problems earlier, merely by making certain types of errors impossible.

I think the Elm programming language is the sweet spot for that.

- it does have elegant (Haskell like) syntax

- it has still a simple syntax because it deliberately omits certain features (namely typeclasses, do-notation)

- it has a self contained build system (compiler, package manager, repl, dev server) with a rich ecosystem of libraries

- it is comparatively easy to ship something tangible because it compiles to JS for the browser

New comment by axelerator in "Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no (2019)"

axelerator — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 16:00:55 +0000

But keyboards are not. Even if I’d be able to convince the maintainers of my favorite programming language to also accept some Unicode glyph as synonym to ‘==‘ how do I type it? Ligatures might not be ‘the right’ solution, but they are a highly efficient approximation. Also the cost of reversing the decision to use them is basically zero.

New comment by axelerator in "Internal Combustion Engine"

axelerator — Sat, 01 May 2021 16:50:48 +0000

I recommend trying to get started with webGL Elm [0]. It's a language that compiles to JS to run in the browser. It's a functional language and saves you from having to deal with most of the historical baggage of JS.

[0] https://lucamug.medium.com/3d-graphics-in-the-browser-with-e...

New comment by axelerator in "The Impractical but Indisputable Rise of Retrocomputing"

axelerator — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 15:21:41 +0000

I'm kind of sad they write such an article without mentioning the demoscene.

http://demoscene-the-art-of-coding.net/the-demoscene/

New comment by axelerator in "Existential Haskell"

axelerator — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 16:37:42 +0000

The irony:

"I write this not because I expect to break any new ground—all the techniques I use here are long-documented in the literature, and Haskell veterans will probably find little new in this post"

Yet I can't get rid of the feeling the article is written in a way only "Haskell veterans" are able to follow it :-)

New comment by axelerator in "Ask HN: How to be fluent in functional language speak?"

axelerator — Tue, 05 May 2020 16:11:18 +0000

I think the first step here is to put your expectations into perspective. Functional programming also is a range of complexity. If you're not used to functional programming and try to read articles targeted at the high-end you'll naturally struggle to understand them.

I still remember "not getting" OO in university in my first lecture. I had programmed BASIC, C, Pascal, PHP before. And if someone would have tried to explain me the idea by means of the visitor pattern, it would surely have made me say "eh?!?" too. So allow yourself to start slowly.

I'm also still dabbling in functional programming - at least that's what it feels like reading about monoids etc - but by actually using functional programming languages in my more serious spare time projects I feel I get a better and better understanding. And "those" articles start to speak more to me.