Hacker News: cwbrandsma

New comment by cwbrandsma in "XML Is a Cheap DSL"

cwbrandsma — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 18:31:31 +0000

So I was part of a company that did this. They used XML as a programming language, then built apps to manage the "code". This was all done to create mobile apps for old Windows Phone devices back in the Windows Phone 5 and 6 days (before iPhone).

Because of the tooling, you weren't actually writing the XML either, you used a custom built editor (a tree view with a property panel). It all sucked. I was looking at the thing trying to figure out if I could create an intermediate language with my own "compiler" to get around the xml editors they build.

Anyway, every developer hated it. All of them. Well, everyone but the guy that created the monstrosity anyway.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Physics Girl: Super-Kamiokande – Imaging the sun by detecting neutrinos [video]"

cwbrandsma — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 19:18:28 +0000

Long Covid and ME/CFS can make you fragile. At least it has for me. I never used to get emotionally overwhelmed, now I do. I don't have it as bad as she does, but I've been bedbound because of this. And being sick for months to years, already leaves you feeling on the brink of depression.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Stripe valued at $159B, 2025 annual letter"

cwbrandsma — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 16:42:43 +0000

IPOs also kill a lot of companies. Now you have a new list of investors you are obligated to attend to, and what those investors what is not always to make your company more successful, if it can make more money now.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Five years as a startup CTO: How, why, and was it worth it? (2024)"

cwbrandsma — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 22:01:28 +0000

* How much stress? * How many hours?

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2025)"

cwbrandsma — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 17:41:08 +0000

Braden Health | Boise (ONSITE) | Full-time

We are writing and maintaining health software for rural hospitals in Tennessee and Virginia. Small team, products in active development.

We are looking for a full stack developer, comfortable in backend and frontend.

Tech we use: C#, ASP.NET, TypeScript, React, Sql Server. Nice to have: knowledge of HL7, general familiarity with how hospitals work

Email resume to chris.brandsma@bradenhealth.com

New comment by cwbrandsma in "What'll happen if we spend nearly $3T on data centres no one needs?"

cwbrandsma — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 00:08:16 +0000

AI is somehow supposed to generate $1T a year by 2028? From where? Never mind the lack of electric grid capacity to keep all of this running.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Terpstra Keyboard"

cwbrandsma — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 13:18:00 +0000

She wasn't even reading it, I was telling her my name, all she had to do was repeat it and she couldn't do it.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Terpstra Keyboard"

cwbrandsma — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 12:10:29 +0000

And you will forever have your name mispronounced by English speakers that can’t wrap their tongues around the -sma or -stra ending.

Things like TerpSON, TerpSmith, Terp….

One time while voting the lady working there butchered my name 8 times, she literally could not get it right.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "GUIs are built at least 2.5 times"

cwbrandsma — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 16:42:26 +0000

* Step 2: design is "tested" with the users, later we find out the users really had no idea what was going on because they weren't really paying attention. Then the real product is delivered and they are shocked that the changes were made behind their back and without their input.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "The Seven-Year Rule"

cwbrandsma — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 21:10:59 +0000

That sucks, since I developed a neurological issue from Covid I could really use a refresh of my nervous system.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Microsoft paywalling AI features in Notepad and Paint"

cwbrandsma — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 21:47:30 +0000

Doesn't look like they are paywalling existing feature, just some new AI back functionality. Considering how much is costs to run those sorts of features I can understand.

Plus, there are lots of alternative app that are free and easy to download and install.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Delphi Is 30"

cwbrandsma — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 19:08:40 +0000

The language that could have been. I did a bunch of Delphi around the Delphi 5 and 6 era. It was a nice middle ground between VB6 and C++.

Unfortunately it made my startup more difficult to sell. Eventually Microsoft bought it, but there were a lot of rounds.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'"

cwbrandsma — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:46:18 +0000

You forgot: Engineering is requesting this. So no.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Ask HN: A friend has brain cancer: any bio hacks that worked?"

cwbrandsma — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 05:09:26 +0000

Same boat with having a chronic illness, not fatal, but no cure either. It gets tiring wading thru all the snake oil salesmen selling false hope. And it isn’t them directly, because my older family members will hear about it with “have you tried…”

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages"

cwbrandsma — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 22:14:19 +0000

I can easily tell the difference between the two, but I really don't care so long as the coffee is brewed well. I still like Maxwell House Black Silk, but at home I grind my own beans and brew in a French Press.

What I don't like is "Church Coffee", where it has brewed within an inch of its life and is the darkest, most bitter/burned flavor that ever existed.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Raw milk recalled for containing bird flu virus, California reports"

cwbrandsma — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 20:42:19 +0000

it is highly regulated, but legal in some states. The inspection process for the dairies is pretty intense as well. I would not buy it to drink, but I have used it to make some really good yogurt (and I pasteurized the milk myself).

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Marketing to Engineers (2001)"

cwbrandsma — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 17:24:15 +0000

Containers is a good example of how things can go wrong as well, especially when you aren't familiar with them, and you are looking into related technologies, like kubernetes, and suddenly you fine out you have 10 layers of terminology to understand before you can even get started.

There is a joke about functional programming: in order to understand functional programming you must first understand functional programming, and once you understand functional programming you lose the ability to explain functional programming.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "The six dumbest ideas in computer security (2005)"

cwbrandsma — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 13:15:03 +0000

Penatrate and Patch: because if it doesn’t work the first time then throw everything away, fire the developers, hire new ones, and start over completely.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "Show HN: Drop-in SQS replacement based on SQLite"

cwbrandsma — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 16:15:05 +0000

Thank you, I was scratching my head trying to figure that out.

New comment by cwbrandsma in "How to test without mocking"

cwbrandsma — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 17:15:05 +0000

Lets not forget how long it would take to spin up an enterprise database, even in memory, there are hundreds (or thousands) of tables. Also there can be multiple databases with their own schema, and each require a fair amount of data in some of those tables just to do anything..