Hacker News: kbuchanan

New comment by kbuchanan in ""Be Different" doesn't work for building products anymore"

kbuchanan — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 17:28:24 +0000

I think this list demonstrates the OP's point—entrenched, resource-heavy, and reputable firms have and will continue to capture most of the markets, not for lack of competition, but by ownership over the distribution channels.

Having said that, I don't think it's all AI (this trend's been going on for a while), nor do I think startups can't thrive—as the pie gets bigger, competitors can carve out yet smaller niches, as the OP points out.

New comment by kbuchanan in "A staff engineer's journey with Claude Code"

kbuchanan — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 21:34:00 +0000

For me, working mostly in Planning Mode skips much of the initial misfires, and often leads to correct outcomes for the first edit.

New comment by kbuchanan in "Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing"

kbuchanan — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 10:07:55 +0000

Thanks for this. I'd never heard of Chiang, and now I've bought my first book!

New comment by kbuchanan in "My experience with Claude Code after two weeks of adventures"

kbuchanan — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 20:33:14 +0000

I've had the same experience, although I feel like Claude is far more than a junior to me. It's ability to propose options, make recommendations, and illustrate trade-offs is just unreal.

New comment by kbuchanan in "Apple Hearing Study shares preliminary insights on tinnitus"

kbuchanan — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 20:05:45 +0000

Supported by my experience too. My tinnitus is very real, but when I discovered just how much of a psychological component was there, it became more manageable. Little by little I thought I was losing my hearing until I had it checked—it was perfect. The audiologist helped me understand that my constant "tuning in" to the tinnitus was creating the perception that my hearing was being harmed by loud noises and leaving a high-frequency sound in its place. Which is there, but when ignored, it largely disappears.

Ex-Disney executive and Instagram influencer dies alone under the influence

kbuchanan — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:26:09 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/style/dave-rachel-hollis-disney-1ffac082

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38512294

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by kbuchanan in "Clojure Turns 15 panel discussion video"

kbuchanan — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 18:53:32 +0000

I think the bottom line with Clojure is it's not an ecosystem well-suited for non-veteran programmers. For as simple as the language is, effectively using Paredit, navigating partially documented libraries, diving into source code to see how things interact—it's tough as a new developer. I don't believe Clojure is overtly hostile to newcomers; it's just crafted by veterans, for veterans. And this is the result.

New comment by kbuchanan in "Ask HN: What companies are embracing “HTML over the wire”?"

kbuchanan — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 22:39:07 +0000

We embraced Hotwire with a Clojure backend. Favorite things:

- One language model (i.e. no JS, just our favorite backend language)

- Extremely minimal front-end tooling

- All data is manipulated with the same tools

- No client-side routing, validation, or... really much at all

P.S. We even wrote our own import-maps solution to avoid needing a JS bundler for the small stuff you can't do without JS.

New comment by kbuchanan in "Ask HN: I have diagnosed ADHD and cannot work with Slack anymore – advice?"

kbuchanan — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 23:57:03 +0000

How do you prevent ⌘+Tab from automatically jumping you between desktops? At that point, the desktops feel like impediments, not boundaries.

New comment by kbuchanan in "The Terminal for the 21st Century"

kbuchanan — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 21:34:24 +0000

Yeah, I see no reason a terminal should require an account. Turned me off too.

I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software

kbuchanan — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 16:49:21 +0000

Article URL: https://twitter.com/amasad/status/1595557790063304704

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33883054

Points: 9

# Comments: 30

New comment by kbuchanan in "Ask HN: How did you stop drinking?"

kbuchanan — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 20:33:39 +0000

Folks will naturally ask, "How did you get to this point?"

One insight into successfully walking away from addictions is recognizing that this thing (e.g. alcohol, cigarettes) is unambiguously poisonous. "When I [take/do] this, it will take more than it gives."

Hard to articulate, but it happens when the scales that painted the substance with redeeming qualities falls from your eyes. Sorta like discovering you've entertained a damaging relationship for too long. However much worth this person has, being in a relationship with them is not good for you (or others, usually).

New comment by kbuchanan in "Building a Startup on Clojure"

kbuchanan — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 15:14:48 +0000

I offered a counter example to the comment author too (Clojure has been wonderful for us), but I do wonder if there is one area where OO languages excel above functional: the shape of the code hints at the shape of the data.

In Lisp, function names describe actions. In OO, classes, inheritance, static properties, and getters and setters give at-a-glance hints as to the shape of the application's data model. In Clojure, we compensate, as you pointed out, with forms of documentation. I'll take that trade-off any day—I never want to go back to classes! But it's perhaps one reason for which Clojure has a reputation of being hard to read by other devs.

New comment by kbuchanan in "Building a Startup on Clojure"

kbuchanan — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 21:54:07 +0000

Oh man, this is not my experience. We may be different because we are a small company, and Clojure is our main language. But, we have a Clojure codebase of 90K lines, and is 10 years old. It has its problems, and while your points about an opaque data model resonate, for us, tests, specs, and assertions provide enough hints to help newcomers. And... where I disagree the most: the quality and professionalism of the developers who work on it are unparalleled. New, senior-level developers, quickly catch on to the system. I am grateful to Clojure __because__ it attracts this caliber of developer.

New comment by kbuchanan in "Who cares about diversity?"

kbuchanan — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 18:17:43 +0000

He argued that if universities cared about diversity their positions on affirmative action would be more dynamic than is commonly accepted. e.g.:

> Affirmative action would also apply more strongly to, say, immigrants from Iran, or Korea, or Israel, than to black people (or anyone else) from our own society.

The examples he uses demonstrate that, in his mind, caring about diversity requires measuring circumstance. You might argue that universities are not so shallow as he's claiming, but I don't believe the article is mere mudslinging.

New comment by kbuchanan in "Excuse me but why are you eating so many frogs"

kbuchanan — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 15:50:50 +0000

I hated college. I never finished for the frogs. But I'm a lifelong reader. I don't regret failing to get a degree, but I regret that I wasn't in the right mindset and that I could have used the time to create meaning.

New comment by kbuchanan in "Guidance to make federally funded research freely available without delay"

kbuchanan — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 19:09:31 +0000

This sounds wonderful; I'm super supportive. But, is there anyone who can articulate the trade-offs without the snark? Are there research groups that benefited from the revenue who will now have to raise even more funds?

What's made it take so long? (Beyond just "entrenched interests...")

New comment by kbuchanan in "Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters"

kbuchanan — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 16:45:56 +0000

It also bends credulity. It suggests 7 of 10 developers work for companies (or know someone who has) that fail to prevent onslaughts of their developers from leaving over deployment problems.

New comment by kbuchanan in "VCs are scared when they should be greedy"

kbuchanan — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 20:50:50 +0000

This post reminded me a little of my real estate agent's newsletter:

2007: There's never been a better time to buy! 2008: There's never been a better time to buy! 2012: There's never been a better time to buy! 2020: There's never been a better time to buy! 2022: There's never been a better time to buy!

New comment by kbuchanan in "Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions"

kbuchanan — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 16:07:21 +0000

This is a great example of how on an individual level commentators want to bend democratic processes to achieve their own goals, but, without fail, they get caught in a tangle of contradictions. What is the Supreme Court's mandate? To stop climate change? To feel out the majority's opinion and make a legal path for it?

This is why democracy is so hard: it consistently yields outcomes that are disappointing to a large segment of the population. There is no "solution" to that problem, and shouldn't be. There are pathways to curbing carbon emissions, but the reality is that too few people, as a body, want to pay that price.