Hacker News: codesnik

New comment by codesnik in "High Performance Git"

codesnik — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:17:36 +0000

i think it is the other way around. Git is pretty simple internally, and its ui is just knobs and levers to reach into that simple reliable internal structure. This is why for some people it seems like a mess - they want button "do what I want" (and all people and their needs are different), and for other people it's clean - open the throttle, engine will rev.

New comment by codesnik in "Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)"

codesnik — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:14:43 +0000

huh. I just did what you describe above (on tahoma) and was able to tab into the list of bluetooth devices, no problem.

do you have "Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard navigation" on? I thought it is on by default, but apparently it isn't. Without it "tab" only jumps between text fields and checkboxes.

There's also an "Accessibility > Keyboard > Full keyboard access", which gives more controls.

New comment by codesnik in "Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)"

codesnik — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 23:16:21 +0000

strange. Some keyboard shortcuts in os x are kinda weird and not intuitive to linux or windows users, but they are there. It's totally possible to use mac without trackpad. even cmd+tab switcher has a lot of hidden (but googlable) things: while still holding cmd after initial cmd+tab, you can close apps with q, switch to other apps with tab and (cmd+)shift+tab or left/right arrows, show app windows with down, etc. There's also a cmd+` for switching between one app's windows. I still find that distinction weird from usability perspective, but it's not too hard to adapt to it.

New comment by codesnik in "Python 3.15's JIT is now back on track"

codesnik — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 13:21:46 +0000

yes they do. check ruby for example.

New comment by codesnik in "Python 3.15's JIT is now back on track"

codesnik — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 11:46:49 +0000

I wonder, why that kind of ambiguity or complexity even comes to your mind at all. Just because python is weird?

def foo(self, arg=expression):

could, and should work as if it was written like this (pseudocode)

def foo(self, arg?): if is_not_given(arg): arg=expression

if "expression" is a literal or a constructor, it'd be called right there and produce new object, if "expression" is a reference to an object in outer scope, it'd be still the same object.

it's a simple code transformation, very, very predictable behavior, and most languages with closures and default values for arguments do it this way. Except python.

New comment by codesnik in "Python 3.15's JIT is now back on track"

codesnik — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 06:40:02 +0000

you could just treat argument initialization as an executable expression which is called every time you call a function. If you have a=[], then it's a new [] every time. If a=MYLIST then it's a reference to the same MYLIST. Simple. And most sane languages do it this way, I really don't know why python has (and maintain) this quirk.

New comment by codesnik in "Python 3.15's JIT is now back on track"

codesnik — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 06:35:20 +0000

basically all object oriented languages work like that. You access a member; you call a method which changes that member; you expect that change is visible lower in the code, and there're no statically computable guarantees that particular member is not touched in the called method (which is potentially shadowed in a subclass). It's not dynamism, even c++ works the same, it's an inherent tax on OOP. All you can do is try to minimize cost of that additional dereference. I'm not even touching threads here.

now, functional languages don't have this problem at all.

New comment by codesnik in "SSH Secret Menu"

codesnik — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 12:28:44 +0000

it starts with a pretty common char, but almost never gets in the way to the point I forget it exists. Meanwhile docker -t uses ^P which I use all the time for history instead of arrow keys. It's possible to configure it, but it's not worth the hassle on servers. Really, really annoying.

New comment by codesnik in "Why is the sky blue?"

codesnik — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 06:19:31 +0000

how does dichromatism restricts flight license? no instrumental flights? no night flights? something about perceiving warning lights on some panels?

New comment by codesnik in "Invention of DNA "page numbers" opens up possibilities for the bioeconomy"

codesnik — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 14:10:01 +0000

pcr amplifies all sequences, correct or wrong, no? and as I understand it, it works on short snippets the best.

New comment by codesnik in "De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025)"

codesnik — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 16:31:06 +0000

it'd sound reasonable, if that ownership wasn't already overconsolidated. But who says people doing that are reasonable.

New comment by codesnik in "Ask HN: Anyone have a good solution for modern Mac to legacy SCSI converters?"

codesnik — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 16:27:04 +0000

I was a kid without any PC anywhere in 40miles around me, had no idea that SCSI had to be terminated or anything. I don't remember any jumpers on the drive, though.

New comment by codesnik in "Ask HN: Anyone have a good solution for modern Mac to legacy SCSI converters?"

codesnik — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 16:25:03 +0000

nope. it was in a 3.5" bay in my standard AT box, but it was smaller, on some massive rusty metal adapter. It looks like it was from some early apple powerbook.

I've got my computer second hand from some rural school accounting department in south of Russia, circa 1994. Who knows how it got there. And who got and wired SCSI adapter compatible with ISA bus in that box.

New comment by codesnik in "Ask HN: Anyone have a good solution for modern Mac to legacy SCSI converters?"

codesnik — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:25:56 +0000

I've been 10-11 at the time, and half the games I had didn't have an obvious "quit" menu option. I hated pressing the hardware "reset" button because it meant waiting for a minute again, staring at the BIOS setup screen.

Every time I figured out a weird hidden keyboard combination to exit from yet another game was a happy day.

New comment by codesnik in "Ask HN: Anyone have a good solution for modern Mac to legacy SCSI converters?"

codesnik — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:17:37 +0000

very much not on topic, but that reminded me: my first PC (286) miraculously had a 40MB 2.5" Apple-branded HDD connected via SCSI adapter. Who knows where it was sourced from. One weird thing was that it initialized on boot for about 40 seconds, displaying nothing. I've been really surprised later seeing how fast other PCs with ATA drives were to boot. I still wonder, and maybe someone has a clue why init was so long? Is it something inherent to SCSI?

New comment by codesnik in "Git Rebase for the Terrified"

codesnik — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 10:03:41 +0000

it's just "gitflow" is unnecessary complex (for most applications). with rebase you can work more or less as with "patches" and a single master, like many projects did in 90x, just much more comfortably and securely.

New comment by codesnik in "Git Rebase for the Terrified"

codesnik — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 10:00:23 +0000

whoa. well, if it really works for you. The thing is, git has practically zero "destructive" commands, you almost always (unless you called garbage collector aggressively) return to the previous state of anything committed to it. `git reflog` is a good starting point.

I think i've seen someone coded user-friendlier `git undo` front for it.

New comment by codesnik in "Play Aardwolf MUD"

codesnik — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 09:15:41 +0000

I learned Perl scripting client for one MUD back in 2000, and that led me to web development.

Just a month ago, I remembered one MUD I've been trying out since 2003. And found that it is still online, and my password still works. Very weird feeling to log in to something 22 years later. It was pretty advanced at the time, with 256 color support, IPv6, advanced encoding support, etc. https://cryosphere.org/

New comment by codesnik in "The creator of Claude Code's Claude setup"

codesnik — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 04:59:41 +0000

well, not only their software but also hardware resources they're renting, but I agree they don't.

New comment by codesnik in "HPV vaccination reduces oncogenic HPV16/18 prevalence from 16% to <1% in Denmark"

codesnik — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 14:44:40 +0000

this is what I don't understand, why is it useless? there're multiple variants, vaccination could create reaction to a different part of the virus, etc.