Hacker News: mchaver

New comment by mchaver in "Learn Programming with OCaml"

mchaver — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 23:42:06 +0000

For web frontend, it's derivative programming language, rescript, is also a secret weapon because of types, fast compilation times and first class support of React. Using React in rescript is much nicer than TypeScript.

New comment by mchaver in "My Friend Aaron"

mchaver — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 19:53:16 +0000

I initially missed the line saying it was a short story and read through most of it as personal experience until the last couple of paragraphs. That made it even more exciting, but it is still very good as a fictional story.

New comment by mchaver in "typ.ing"

mchaver — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 12:55:52 +0000

I do fondly. I also like Typing of the Dead. So much that I am working on recreating those experiences for other languages like Chinese.

New comment by mchaver in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)"

mchaver — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 18:00:37 +0000

I am working on Cangjie Workbook. I am trying to create the best in class tool for learning Cangjie. It's a Chinese input method based on decomposing characters into sub parts (not necessarily related to how they are written). It has a high learning curve, but it is a lot of fun to type with and helps you remember characters. It is a tool that I use myself. I already have a couple of users that have been giving me feedback. You can use a subset for free and without any login credentials. The complete product is available for a small monthly fee. Any feedback is welcome!

https://www.cangjieworkbook.com/

New comment by mchaver in "Why I am not going to buy a computer"

mchaver — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:55:09 +0000

> He and I can bang out tons of it in minutes that would have taken months before. We do this and then no one reads it.

Honest question, did you guys read it yourselves before asking the rest of the team to read it?

New comment by mchaver in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)"

mchaver — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 06:01:23 +0000

I've been working on a web application for learning 倉頡輸法 https://demo.cangjieworkbook.com/ , no login required for the demo version (Cangjie Input method). It's a visual way of decomposing Chinese characters. It has a high initial learning curve so I've come up with a method based on the ways QWERTY is taught. I've added a few more texts and lessons in the last month. The most time consuming part is adding annotations to characters to show how they are composed, but it is worth doing. I already have a couple of users and they have given me helpful feedback. If you are interested, check it out and let me know how it goes.

New comment by mchaver in "Interview with Mitchell Hashimoto about Ghostty and Zig"

mchaver — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 05:50:10 +0000

> I suspect that Rust will start taking over as a dominant LLM output language.

I doubt it. I think most people will become more entrenched in their favored ecosystem.

> I also suspect that in short order we'll have entirely new languages that are engineered to be ideal languages for LLMs to generate.

This is already happening. A couple months ago I came across this language that is engineered for AI and human consumption https://www.moonbitlang.com/

New comment by mchaver in "My thoughts on the Bun Rust rewrite"

mchaver — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 13:08:50 +0000

I am fine with people having principles and doing things their way. Not everything has to be a race to be the best. There are still plenty of people that appreciate traditional crafts. Anyway, if Zig+AI can be the next, greatest thing, can't someone just fork it and make it happen?

New comment by mchaver in "Yes, AI Will Take Your Job"

mchaver — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:41:17 +0000

> I wish there were options on HN to filter out "my opinion is a fact and you're all wrong" articles

Don't wish. Just vibecode it for your personal use. Seriously.

New comment by mchaver in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"

mchaver — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 13:41:49 +0000

houseguessr does not work. I could not select an answer.

New comment by mchaver in "Jobs and Software Is Fucked"

mchaver — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:07:42 +0000

If you guys are hiring, I am interested. My email and personal website are in my profile. Thanks!

New comment by mchaver in "Digital Printing of Arabic: explaining the problem (2017)"

mchaver — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 09:04:09 +0000

Probably because it's a work around and not what most people want to do. Imagine someone telling you you have to type English in Cyrillic. I know if I could no longer type out Chinese characters and had to use pinyin it would feel very odd and like something was taken away.

New comment by mchaver in "Digital Printing of Arabic: explaining the problem"

mchaver — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 09:01:20 +0000

My guess would be line height is a challenge and Naskh already exists. Then probably because these scripts are not used often in the places that are centers of software/OS development.

New comment by mchaver in "Humanity isn't ready for the coming intelligence explosion"

mchaver — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:47:47 +0000

I would say some of us are welcoming and embracing it. Others are trying to fight the good fight, but it is hard to fight the momentum that is building.

New comment by mchaver in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"

mchaver — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 21:36:25 +0000

It's very niche, but I have created a course for learning Cangjie 倉頡, which is a Chinese input system based on the visual appearance of characters (not necessarily etymologically correct). The advantage of this system is you can type most characters via unique output (there are a few collisions where you need to pick) and you do not need to pick the character from a list. This is particular useful if you work with specialized texts in Chinese.

You can find the tool at https://www.cangjieworkbook.com/ and there is a free demo linked inside. It should work on desktop and mobile web browsers.

New comment by mchaver in "Haskell Foundation 2026 Update"

mchaver — Thu, 21 May 2026 11:21:31 +0000

What do you find about bringing it into production? Is it the actual language patterns or the tools? I've done Haskell in production for over a decade now so I am not sure what challenges newcomers face.

New comment by mchaver in "There's no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going"

mchaver — Wed, 20 May 2026 09:13:37 +0000

I don't agree with the repeated mantra that technology is neutral because the creation, maintenance and promotion of technology requires lots of resources and a lot of choices. A lot of conscious effort goes into creating things, and to change the thing after someone uses it. Make it better, make it safer, make it easier to use, etc. That doesn't feel neutral to me.

New comment by mchaver in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2026)"

mchaver — Mon, 11 May 2026 19:58:12 +0000

Very nice looking game. I added it to my wishlist.

New comment by mchaver in "Why I still reach for Lisp and Scheme instead of Haskell"

mchaver — Fri, 01 May 2026 09:38:09 +0000

Yes, definitely wouldn't use print because in an async environment that will get garbled. A proper logging library is the way to go.

New comment by mchaver in "Functional programmers need to take a look at Zig"

mchaver — Fri, 01 May 2026 09:12:36 +0000

That sounds really nice. I have a couple of Haskell servers running on VMs, but the build requirements really slow down the process. I have to use dockers to help cache dependencies and avoid recompiling things that have not changed, but it is still slow and puts out large binaries.

The idea of having a language with most the batteries for a web server built-in is nice. I've never considered Golang, but it is compelling. I'll have to check it out. Though Rust keeps catching my eyes.