Hacker News: justinmarsan

New comment by justinmarsan in "Ask HN: What was your "oh shit" moment with GenAI?"

justinmarsan — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 11:41:05 +0000

Being self taught, there are lots of things I never formally learned, rules I know from the rule of thumb, and not the deeper knowledge... So I set out to learn the root of what can be used to measure good robust code... Spent an hour asking lots of questions, learning about LCOM, Halfstead, why circular dependencies are bad, and so on...

The next morning I figured the same LLM could compute that on my code, so I asked it to make an agent to do so, and report issues to me...

And then I ran that agent with next to no changes on a feature that had grew organisally over the last months, that I knew was messy and sometimes difficult to work on, despite being unable to precisely say why... And it did tell me exactly why, and proposed changes to improve stuff, and then implemented them...

Up until that point, I'd felt like the LLMs always produced bad code, that worked for a specific feature but often broke stuff or evolve poorly over time. Then I realized if you had the LLM do code improvements, it could do that fairly well too...

New comment by justinmarsan in "Indie game developers have a new sales pitch: being 'AI free'"

justinmarsan — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 15:23:15 +0000

The problem with AI isn't really the tool itself, it's the fact that the tool is only able to produce because it has stolen the work of real artists to rip them off, and then take their jobs...

New comment by justinmarsan in "Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds"

justinmarsan — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 15:08:27 +0000

I do bouldering and I eat fast food multiple times a week, I can definitely outclimb my poor diet... I probably helps that I don't eat breakfast though...

It's well known though that as you build muscle, your rest calorie consumption increases, so probably if you build/maintain enough muscle, then you can just outrun your intake, since you consume more without doing anything to start with...

New comment by justinmarsan in "Regardless of age, quitting cigarette smoking will add years to your life"

justinmarsan — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 12:50:00 +0000

I wouldn't be so sure... Or rather I'm not sure it's that simple.

If you compare yourself with someone that's sedentary but also not eating right, than yeah, possibly you're even with an overweight non-smoker, overweight being linked to so many diseases... But if you compare yourself to someone sedentary that eats properly, or let's say as well as you do, for the sake of good comparaison... I wouldn't be so sure... The damage you do to your lungs and heart tissues are unlikely to be offset by the little time that you spend at the gym or on your bike...

This coming from an also fairly active smoker (now vaper).

New comment by justinmarsan in "Boxxy puts bad Linux applications in a box with only their files"

justinmarsan — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 13:10:48 +0000

I don't know if the reference was on purpose, but I now have this 13 years-old remix on repeat : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHNZVAjadqY

New comment by justinmarsan in "Ask HN: Do retros that don't suck even exist?"

justinmarsan — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 09:27:49 +0000

I've been at a company that really decided to go all in on Agile and actually let teams change things to work more efficiently, and it's one of the best experiences I've had, it really had all the components that make things work.

One issue I've seen since then regarding retros is that they'll fall into two extremes. The rare one is that retros are just fun recess times that nobody gets anything out of besides doing doodles and ice breakers. The other one is that teams will try and be very action oriented and find concrete solutions to concrete problems, but will not have the emotional maturity to address difficult topics, so they're either avoid them or turn into screaming matches.

You need to feel somewhat close to your coworkers to be able to bring difficult topics with the certainty that others will know you do it for the right reasons and that you're all trying to work towards the same goal of making work more effective, pleasant and satisfying. Teams that never work on the closeness of their members cannot address important issues. You need the doodles, the inside jokes, the team spirit to be able to do that.

But you also need to have a mastermind to spot issues and then figure out ways to role play and brainstorm around those in a way that feels like playing, but ends up providing the team with actionnable solutions.

At the company i've worked at, I've had to sometimes do tasks that were really not my duties (data entry, QA work) because it was the most important thing that I could do for the team. I happily did it because I felt like it really was our project, that I'd be bringing value to customers and the company in doing it, and that our product would be better with that work done by me. I'd stay late if there was a problem I could possibly assist my coworkers with, even if I stayed for nothing or could only contribute through naive questions to try and get neurons firing... But we were a close team, despite having different roles and seniority levels, and we were all very happy to do what the project needed.

In my current company the sense of ownership isn't as important, people don't know each other as well (the team also is larger and with more turnover) so it's made of smaller groups of kinda close people.

In a perfect world everyone in all teams would be a trustable high performing dev and there would be no need for any lubricant to make the machine work smoother, but the reality is that the majority of us have pet peeves, quirks and shortcomings, the group can be a good way to mitigate those, as much as processes and methodologies, but having both is what will get you the best results, and I think this is something that is overlooked by many teams.

New comment by justinmarsan in "Only s"

justinmarsan — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 08:09:00 +0000

Even the Aria docs say you should rely on semantics and only use Aria for when that's not possible...

I'd much rather use a

New comment by justinmarsan in "Find My Device on Android"

justinmarsan — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 10:00:58 +0000

Does anyone know of a good way to have an Android phone ring from another Android phone, without sharing all account access ?

My wife keeps her phone on silent but loses it multiple times a day. We use the computer to make it ring using Find my Device, but it'd be a lot easier if I could just do it from my phone, which I can if I install the app and then add her Google account to the accounts on my phone, but then I get access (and notified of) all her emails, google photos and stuff like that.

Is there an alternative ? Some way to just have both phones agree to sync somehow and then one can make the other ring, regardless of sound settings.

New comment by justinmarsan in "Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)"

justinmarsan — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 09:03:42 +0000

Youngsters need to know how much markup and images we needed for fluid containers with rounded corners...

Also did I tell you about CSS-only triangles ?

New comment by justinmarsan in "Brandchirps – Simple Brand Monitoring"

justinmarsan — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 10:04:57 +0000

Unlike other commentators I don't think you need a free trial, but I think you need a couple of free searches per day for example. Let me try my brand and maybe a competitors, see the results and then if I try to get one more, or if I want to export the results or whatever let me know this and many other nice things are available for registered users.

Also I'd like to know how I'll be alerted, will I get an email for every single mention or is there the possibility to have hourly/daily/weekly digests ?

Either way I think this is a good alternative to the other services out there and I could probably see myself using that on a side-project soon as the fairly low price isn't a barrier to me at all ! $7 is like free except you get money, unlike the limited free trials that get very expensive for the lowest plan available.

Nice work, bookmarking and eager to see actual results !

New comment by justinmarsan in "Ask HN: Make something of the free time at work"

justinmarsan — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 15:16:04 +0000

I'm sure many people have headphones on, download courses on your phone and listen to them, or audio books, nobody needs to know where the sound is coming from !

New comment by justinmarsan in "Ask HN: Keeping sane while working remotely"

justinmarsan — Mon, 18 May 2015 10:52:48 +0000

I use to feel the exact same when I started working as a freelancer. i'd see friends once in a while but unless I decided to go out, I wouldn't more than one actual conversation a week.

Then a friend introduced me to bouldering, which islike rope climbing, but on much smaller walls, without ropes, and huge mats on the floor. I've always like sports, so I was hooked, but after 2 years now, what makes me stay is the people I've met there. I can go and exercise, get out of there completely crushed and happy, but I'll also meet people, some stronger than me who'll happily give me advices, help me, some just starting to whom I'll give an advice here and there, and after that we all have a beer, talk about our common passion for climbing, discover we have more in common and nowadays, more than half of my friends are climbers, and it's really great, we plan weekends out climbing, watch the competitions together and always have a great time.

Another nice thing is that most climbing gyms have a restaurant, wifi, when I just have to be on my computer but don't have much work to do, I just go there, plug my computer, work for a few minutes, go climbing, come back to check my emails, nobody cares, I have a great time.

So yeah, if you like sports, don't want to just lift dumbells (which I tried to do but got too booring to me) then climbing might be something great to do for your body and a place to meet really nice people. I'd just avoid rope climbing as it often requires a partner (unless you don't care bout the rope but I doubt it) and the feedback loop isn't as short (completing a 30m routes is more difficult than a 5m boulder in just one session).

The co-working space is a nice idea, though it can be quite expensive, that why I didn't do it. Cooking lunch for friends working near where you live might offer you a real break and an easy opportunity for you to see your friends too. Plenty of things you can do actually !

New comment by justinmarsan in "Ask HN: Developer looking for career advice"

justinmarsan — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 10:13:02 +0000

Getting a visa to work in the US is a nightmare so I wouldn't advise you look into that. It's costly for the employer, time consumer for both of you and the odds of getting accepted are small. If you were to find some company willing to spend the time and money to get you there through that process, you would have the job you like already and would just have stumbled upon an insanely great opportunity. It doesn't look like that's the case.

Regarding the fact that all the opportunities you find require experience... Well everybody wants someone experience, it's just must faster to get them to be working and productive. That doesn't mean all companies will find that person. Itcould be because there is more demande than people looking for a new job with that skillset or because they don't want to pay enough. When that happens, they'll have to resort to hiring someone with less experience than they hoped for, and that's where you come in. Show that you're good, have some pet projects to show you know something about the language already, be great during the interview and you could get hired.

Job offers describe the ideal candidate, not the mandatory requirements, even when it says so, companies will do with what they get so apply anyway and see how that goes. I never fully met the requirements for the jobs I applied to when I got hired, and it forced me to level up, learn new things and tackle challenges, so it's not that big of a deal and you still have a shot.

New comment by justinmarsan in "Ask HN: Gaming with one arm"

justinmarsan — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 08:00:06 +0000

My cousin has lost an arm about 10 years ago and now beats me at every single game he owns on ps3, using the standard controller. For some games he'll use his feet for the triggers, but other than that, he just plays with one hand over the controller, and has gotten really good at it.

Looking for alternative controllers might be nice, finding some way to make do with the standard one could also help him gain more agility with the one hand he has left, which will be useful for many other things in his life.

New comment by justinmarsan in "Stop sending emails for real time requests"

justinmarsan — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:45:23 +0000

IM and Phone call feel the exact same to me, except IM enables you to show your availability status to the people you're connected to.

< 30 minutes : IM if I'm available, if else call

2 hours : IM if away/busy, if else text

...

If someone appears as available and online and takes a day to answer my question, I'm not sure how I'd take it but it would piss me off.

On a sidenote, I think email is best suited for "when you're done with whatever you're doing' kind of timeframes due to the "mark as unread" which would prevent me from forgetting to reply if I decide to read what I received, realized I can't/don't want to answer right now.

New comment by justinmarsan in "Show HN : Hackathons are dead. Introducing Code in the Dark."

justinmarsan — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 12:24:52 +0000

I actually like the concept, unlike other commenters. Sure it's not creative but it definitely is coding and I think it's the perfect way to showcase real good knowledge of Html and Css, which, unlike some people seems to believe can be enjoyed as much as backend dev or JS-Heavy web apps.

New comment by justinmarsan in "Most AB-tests will fail"

justinmarsan — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 10:14:52 +0000

Have you tried MAB ? It seems like the best way to do A/B testing on small-traffic pages, let it run forever without losing much due to the reduced frequency of poorly performing variantes.

Setup your test with 3 or 4 colors, the programm will automatically pick the best one over time, so it doesn't matter how long you let it run, be it weeks months or years, and when you don't want to test it anymore you pick the one that performed the best out of the many visitors you've had over a large period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit