Hacker News: ckdot

New comment by ckdot in "Gemini 3.1 Pro"

ckdot — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:10:51 +0000

Gemini 3.1 is surprisingly bad at coding, especially if you consider that they built an IDE (Antigravity) around it: I let it carefully develop a plan according to very specific instructions. The outcome was terrible: AGENTS.md ignored, syntax error in XML (closing tag missed), inconsistent namings, misinterpreting console outputs, which where quite clear ("You forgot to add some attribute foobar"). I‘m quite disappointed.

New comment by ckdot in "Ask HN: Why is my Claude experience so bad? What am I doing wrong?"

ckdot — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 22:28:12 +0000

1. Make sure you are using Opus model. Type /model and make sure Opus is selected. While many say sonnet is good, too, I’m not too convinced. Opus is the first model that actually convinced me to use AI as my daily driver - and I’m a developer for about 20 years. 2. Make the tasks as small and specific as possible. Don’t prompt „create a todo app with user login“ but „create a vue app where users can register, don’t do more than that“, then „build a user login“ then, „create a page to create todo items“, then „create a page to list todo items“, then „on list page, add delete functionality“ - and so on, you get the idea. 3. beware the context size. Claude code will warn you if you exceed it, but even before: the higher the context window, the higher AI will miss things. If you start a new prompt that doesn’t require the whole context of the previous one, type /clear. 4. build an agents.md or Claude.md. /init will do that for you, but it will just create a Claude.md with information that it might think are important - but easily miss things. You know best. It often also includes file and directory structure, while it could easily find out again (tree command) without that info in agents/claude file. Still I recommend: let Claude create that file, then adjust it to your needs. Only add important stuff here. The more you add, the more you spam the context. Again, try to keep context small. 5. if Claude needs a long time for finishing a task or did it wrong at first attempt, tell it to update the Claude.md with information to not do the same mistakes the next time again. 6. make sure you understand the code it created. Add conventions to agents.md that will make the code more readable (use early returns, don‘t exceed nesting level of 3, create new methods with meaningful names instead of inline comments etc.)

Good luck!

New comment by ckdot in "Why does Swiss cheese have holes?"

ckdot — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 03:13:43 +0000

In German „Swiss cheese“ simply means „Schweizer Käse“ or „Käse aus der Schweiz“ - but you’ll usually still find the exact type like Emmentaler on the label and packaging. So, as a German, it’s a bit amusing indeed.

New comment by ckdot in "Do I not like Ruby anymore? (2024)"

ckdot — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 09:59:15 +0000

Typescript is a workaround. It exists because web apps got more complex and browsers only support JavaScript. So developers need to stick to JavaScript, but they need typing, therefore TypeScript has been implemented. It’s an exception where it made sense to do so. For all other languages: if you use some dynamic language and you need typing, either wait until the language supports types natively (PHP‘s approach) or „just“ change the language. The additional complexity of an additional typing layer is huge. The complexity of TypeScript - and in general JavaScript‘s ecosystem - is incredibly huge. The biggest issue we have in software development is not that a language isn’t elegant, or you can’t write some some in 3 instead of 15 lines… the biggest problem is complexity. Developers too often forget about that. They focus on things that don’t matter. Ruby vs Python? It doesn’t make a real difference for web apps. If you want a language and ecosystem with low complexity try Go. It’s not perfect. It’s not elegant. Or PHP, which has a lot of drawbacks, but overall less complexity. I don’t say Go or PHP are the best languages out there, but you should try them to get a picture - to decide for yourself what’s important and what not.

New comment by ckdot in "I dumped Google for Kagi"

ckdot — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 20:31:30 +0000

4. Wikipedia

Am I too optimistic?

New comment by ckdot in "I dumped Google for Kagi"

ckdot — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 20:28:47 +0000

I can confirm, and for me - even if I want like Kagi - I can’t tolerate it. I’ve read it depends on the Country you’re in. In Germany, where I’m from, loading time is up to 3 seconds - while on Google it’s almost instant.

New comment by ckdot in "PHP 8.5 adds pipe operator"

ckdot — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 20:01:29 +0000

You definitely want to extract code into functions, even if you don’t need to reuse it. Functions names are documentation. And you reduce the mental load from those who read the code.

New comment by ckdot in "Research suggests Big Bang may have taken place inside a black hole"

ckdot — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 22:49:43 +0000

Block Universe. The more you think about it, the more probable it seems. Why should a universe pass time like a movie, if all moments could exist simultaneously? If there is no time, and it’s just a simulation formed in our brain, there doesn’t have to be a beginning nor end.

New comment by ckdot in "Research suggests Big Bang may have taken place inside a black hole"

ckdot — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 22:36:31 +0000

I’m not the one you were referring to, but I have similar experiences. I’m living in Germany, and most bigger companies here have such issues. I also worked for companies in Netherlands and Island, so I assume it’s an European, if not global problem. No one is concerned about keeping people busy. It’s a systemic problem. And there are multiple reasons for it. One reason is that the bigger a company grows, the more hierarchy is necessary. But increasing hierarchy will lead to people doing the work are not the people that are most responsible for it. So we have people that should do the work but they aren’t too motivated because they are not responsible enough - they are too low in hierarchy level. And we have people that are responsible but don’t do the work. They delegate. If something goes wrong or takes too long, they will have enough time and skill to find an excuse. Another issue is that you need more people to get specific things done. At some point in time these things have been done, and you actually don’t need the amount of people anymore. But you can’t quit them because of worker’s laws. You maybe even don’t want to quit them because you think you still need them. People, of course, tend to find reasons why their own work is important. And they will communicate that. And the chance is good you’ll believe that and don’t question it enough. There are more reasons for that. But it’s a fact that in many, many companies the economical results of a lot of employees is almost zero. If you don’t believe this, just google the biggest companies in Germany, pick one, apply for an office job and start to work there. It won’t take a month until you’ll find out. Btw. I don’t want to criticize the situation too much. Probably it’s good that people are employed, even if they don’t work efficiently. Otherwise the unemployment rate would be much higher. Then again, Germany‘s economy is flatlining and a crash is not unlikely.

New comment by ckdot in "Pope Francis has died"

ckdot — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 09:36:42 +0000

Why is this posted on HN, even twice? It’s not like other news sources won’t announce this. The pope had its good and bad sides, but in the end we should remind ourselves he’s just a human being. It’s OK for HN to inform about people here, but shouldn’t they be somehow related to any topics HN touches? The popes was just a guy who somehow got popular because of some quite successful religion - but I’d personally prefer keep religion out of HN.

New comment by ckdot in "Are people bad at their jobs or are the jobs just bad?"

ckdot — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 23:13:09 +0000

In Germany you have quite high minimum wages. Unions and works committees are quite common. Labor protected laws are quite strict. Sure, not every job is fun, but living with low income is not as bad as in the US. So, are people better at their jobs? Nope. Do people work better just because you pay them better? Nope. Should people get paid better, especially those with shirty jobs? Yes - of course. But there’s no reason to believe this would improve quality of work.

New comment by ckdot in "Python: Just Write SQL"

ckdot — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 09:47:47 +0000

Congrats, you just wrote your own ORM. Please mind that ORM doesn’t necessarily mean ActiveRecord, which could be considered an anti pattern.

New comment by ckdot in "My daughter's school took over my personal Microsoft account"

ckdot — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 10:28:27 +0000

I experienced similar with logging in into outlook.com and the teams app on Mac. Accounts from different companies were mixed up. If I tried to login with my account from company A I got redirected to the login page of company B. It’s a real mess.

New comment by ckdot in "Static HTML Comments"

ckdot — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 19:35:56 +0000

I don’t say to get rid of the database. Of course it makes sense to store the comments there. I say get rid of 1) the database events and 2) the Ruby logic to listen to these events. This can be done by the Ruby saving logic. It’s just over engineering to use events.

New comment by ckdot in "Static HTML Comments"

ckdot — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 09:20:56 +0000

This has to be a joke. If the Ruby implementation that saves the comment would simply contain the logic to save the static HTML file - the obvious implementation - no Postgres events are required.

New comment by ckdot in "‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)"

ckdot — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 19:55:06 +0000

Until a bigger wave will hit the dry rock.

New comment by ckdot in "German states and federal government agreed on nationwide 49€ ticket coming 2023"

ckdot — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 20:44:31 +0000

In Germany it’s not unusual that you need about 3x the time by train instead if you go by car. You can’t force those who have to commute to go by train. You have to force employers to provide (maybe not only provide, but enforce) remote work options for all the jobs where it’s simply not necessary to be on-site.

New comment by ckdot in "German states and federal government agreed on nationwide 49€ ticket coming 2023"

ckdot — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 20:35:58 +0000

Yes it’s making the ticket system much simpler. But I don’t think this was top priority. For the 9€ ticket the rule seemed to be like „you can use it everywhere locally and additionally nationally for all trains which are not ICs or ICEs“ but in reality there were still some routes where you were not allowed to use it even though the train you use is an RE. Afaik you could not know except you were looking into the terms and agreements of the Deutsche Bahn. There are two reasons why the ticket system was (and probably partially will still be) so complicated: first we have a lot of transportation companies. Each city/region has their own. And we have the Deutsche Bahn - which responsible for all the national tracks and trains. They all have their own ideas of pricing and they never appeared to be willing to work together. Also, you‘d need a good electronic system to cover all the data from all these companies to work with them but this requires some degree of digitalization which Germanys is not capable of. It’s a mess :(

New comment by ckdot in "German states and federal government agreed on nationwide 49€ ticket coming 2023"

ckdot — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 20:13:42 +0000

I‘m German. The truth is, people who right now use a car won‘t switch to public transport because of that ticket. There’s already studies about that for the 9€ ticket we previously had. So it probably won’t make a difference in co2 outcome. Also, those who benefit from that ticket, they usually still complain as they like to have back the 9€ ticket. So 49€ is still too expensive for them. Also, you need to keep in mind who is actually paying for that. This is the middle class. If you are part of the middle class in Germany chances are high that you pay more than 70% taxes & charges overall (payroll/income, trade tax, 19 % vat, electricity tax, health insurance, pension fund where it’s likely you’ll never see the money again… and so much more, I don’t even start writing about the Handelskammer). So those who work have to pay a lot to keep the system running. And those who don’t, they get - compared to other countries - much help, but they still complain. There’s something in a human that makes him unhappy which money alone can’t fix. I’m not against the 49 € ticket. I like the idea. The current government is even with all it flaws still much better than the previous one. But all those who just see the bright side of the ticket should think about the downsides, too.

New comment by ckdot in "Low-code is not a cure for overworked IT departments"

ckdot — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 19:08:23 +0000

Ok, seems like a good alternative. I didn’t know about it, in Germany it’s simply „Junior“ and „Senior“. If you are like a year or two in a company you usually are simply upgraded to „Senior“ no matter what. Even though I wouldn’t consider Junior offensive I like the system you describe much more.