<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: sclangdon</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sclangdon</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:45:33 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=sclangdon" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "I found a useful Git one liner buried in leaked CIA developer docs"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Isn't it this case no matter who wrote the code? How do you ever run anything if you're worried about bugs?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 15:10:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47088971</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47088971</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47088971</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Awsviz.dev simplifying AWS IAM policies"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>He may be referring to the fact that it could be pronounced Auschwitz. I must admit, my immediate thought on reading the name was "why would someone name their app after a concentration camp?"</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 10 Jul 2024 07:11:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40924420</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40924420</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40924420</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Valve Makes All Steam Audio SDK Source Code Available Under Apache 2.0 License"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Most games don't have the time budget for that. Visuals take precedence, and it's not easy to get to 60fps as it is, especially if you're doing a lot of other processing.<p>And stealth games especially will probably rely a lot on shadows and other visual things, which make rendering more expensive.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:40:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39445063</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39445063</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39445063</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Linux hits nearly 4% desktop user share on Statcounter"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I realise for casual users Windows is always going to be the OS of choice if for no other reason than it comes pre-installed and most people don't know how to reinstall an operating system.<p>However, Windows may be in trouble with more tech-literate people who do know how to change it. I can only speak for myself, but I've been a Windows user since 95. All but one of my programming jobs over the last 20 years have also been working on Windows. But I really dislike the direction Microsoft are taking and I find Windows to be terribly slow these days, with each version seemingly worse than the previous one. So I decided to look elsewhere.<p>A couple of months ago I bought a new laptop with the express intention of running Linux on it and giving it a good college try (I didn't want to mess around with dual-booting and I still need Windows on my main PC for work... for now). I know very little about Linux, but I've decided I'm not going to use Windows past 10 so it's time to find something else.<p>I went with Debian running dwm (Debian because I value stability over everything else, and dwm because I like the suckless philosophy) and it's honestly surprised me how good it's been. It's SO snappy. Everything is instant. It's really been a breath of fresh air.<p>I was especially dreading programming since I've solely used Visual Studio since Visual C++ 4.0 and don't really know anything else. Anyway, I went all-in and started learning Vim, GDB, and Make, and boy do I feel like I've been missing out. I'm really enjoying programming again, which for me has just become a job over the years.<p>Anyway, my point is, if tech-literate people are willing to give Linux a try, I wonder how many of them would be as surprised as I was and may make the switch permanently. With Windows getting worse, and Linux getting better, maybe more than ever.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 03 Jan 2024 15:46:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38855385</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38855385</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38855385</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "The most copied StackOverflow snippet of all time is flawed (2019)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's not that we think it's arcane or that we are in our own "bubbles of thought", it's that we aren't doing math. We're programming a computer. And a competent programmer would know, or at least suspect, that doing it with logarithms will be slower and more complicated <i>for a computer</i>. The author even points out that even he wouldn't use his solution.<p>P.S. Please look up the word literally.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 Sep 2023 18:40:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37679236</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37679236</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37679236</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "A circuit simulator that doesn't look like it was made in 2003"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Maybe, but a circuit designer is pretty high up the list of things that need to be boring and functional.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 15 Dec 2022 08:17:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33996632</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33996632</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33996632</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Sensisble Soccer"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Kim Justice has a good documentary on Sensible Software, which I highly recommend if you're at all interested in Sensible Soccer or their other games like Cannon Fodder or Mega Lo Mania.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/lJWro7NGBKo" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/lJWro7NGBKo</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 11 Oct 2022 07:21:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33160355</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33160355</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33160355</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "COBOL’s youth culture"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Things such as function overloading, operator overloading, dynamic dispatch, etc, are all conveinient but also obscure what is actually happening.<p>To take C++ as an example (I love C++ btw, this isn't another C++ bashing), a line as simple as "variable1 = variable2;", could be doing all kinds of things (including not even assigning) because of the ability to overload the asignment operator. As someone reading this line of code for the first time, you don't really know for sure what is actually happening unless you also go and read the code for "=".</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 13 Sep 2022 08:38:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32821929</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32821929</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32821929</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "COBOL’s youth culture"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My first job was as a COBOL programmer on an IBM mainframe (OS/370 I believe) for Xerox. The system was absolutely massive and incredibly difficult to navigate. There were thousands of files with names that only had 6 characters. So everything was a two-letter system code, followed by four digits. LP0456, OP0234, SB1245, etc.<p>Then, in each of those files the variables had similar names in order to cut down on unique identifiers. WP100, WP101, up to the max number you needed at any given time. It was a nightmare. There was as much external documentation to keep track of all of this stuff as there was code.<p>On top of that, you could only build programs overnight in a batch process with the rest of the system, which was run by a different team in a different country (Spain, I believe). So you would write your program in the day, phone up the guys in Spain and explain that there was a new program going in and you were responsible for it. Problem was, if your program failed to build it would hold up the whole system, which HAD to be up and running and live again by the morning. This meant that every time you made a change that went into the nightly build you also had to be on call.<p>I remember eagerly watching the build queue at 1AM, waiting for my file's turn. Then immediately shutting everything down and going to sleep the moment it was successful. If it wasn't successful, well, then you had to fix it on the spot and phone Spain again to tell them to give it another try.  Unfortunately, you rarely knew why it was failing.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:45:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32821637</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32821637</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32821637</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Cool desktops don’t change"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't really understand this idea of never taking your hands off the keyboard. Maybe people program differently to me, but most of the time I'm not typing anything. Most of my time is spent thinking. When my thoughts are clear and the problem is solved, then I type. And when I do, it's usually no more than a dozen lines at a time.<p>I get the impression from these people that they are constantly typing things. In fact, they're typing so much that they can't possibly waste valuable seconds using a mouse. I must be misunderstanding what they mean because that just can't be right.<p>And what's with the "you can achieve the same thing faster, without breaking your concentration" in regard to using a spell-checker or a calculator or whatever. Are you being serious? I can achieve the same thing faster? I mean how long do you think it takes to check the spelling of a word? Even if I must look it up in a physical dictionary, how long are we talking here?<p>Guys, seriously, slow down. You're going to burn out. I don't want to judge because I don't know you. Maybe you're a rockstar, but I'd guess that if you're really going this fast, the quality of your code is suffering.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 17 Jun 2022 07:38:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31775211</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31775211</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31775211</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "“World’s best” Guitar Hero player was a cheat"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Karl Jobst (does a lot of speedrunnig videos) has a video on this, which is worth watching and explains everything in detail.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/58fqNL-kvaI" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/58fqNL-kvaI</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 30 Mar 2022 07:15:27 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30852290</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30852290</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30852290</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Please put units in names"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I have a similar nitpick with boolean arguments. How many times have you seen something like: DoSomething(true, false, false)? It's much more readable if you use enums (in a language that doesn't let you specify the argument name at the call site). E.G. DoSomething(ENABLE_REPORTING, USE_UTC, OUTPUT_VERBOSE).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 21 Mar 2022 08:17:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30751579</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30751579</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30751579</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "I'm “still afraid to use spaces in file names” years old"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If you're developing on Windows, I find a good way of dealing with this to convert paths to short format before using them (E.G. GetShortPathName in kernel32.dll).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 11 Nov 2021 14:14:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29188019</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29188019</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29188019</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Attention Is My Most Valuable Asset for Productivity as a Software Developer"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think the point he's trying to make is even if you know how to deadlift correctly the amount weight involved carries a high risk of injury. Cleans on the other hand involve lower weight and so has a lower risk of injury (assuming you know how to perform it correctly, of course).</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 09 Nov 2020 11:37:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25033710</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25033710</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25033710</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Attention Is My Most Valuable Asset for Productivity as a Software Developer"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>>Take a book out of Eddie Hall's playbook who says the exact same thing... And he's literally the strongest man in the world.<p>Robert Oberst, another WSM competitor also says the same thing and talks about it on the Joe Rogan podcast (#1321 I believe). To quote:<p>"I went from football to strongman, and in football we never did deadlifts. It was all hang cleans and power cleans, which by the way, quick little tip: if you’re deadlifting to be a better deadlifter fine. If you’re not, (you’re) doing that for deadlift’s sake, don’t fucking do it. The risk to reward ratio is a joke."<p>"A lot of people are not going to like that I’m saying that. (…) If you go to any NFL gym, any college football gym, any athletics where people are actually getting paid and it matters what they’re doing, they’re not deadlifting. They’re hang cleaning and power cleaning."</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 09 Nov 2020 10:27:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25033306</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25033306</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25033306</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Here is a good video tour of a similar thing in Jordan by premier Permaculture instructor Geoff Lawton.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/6fj0oeyREeM" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/6fj0oeyREeM</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 19 Oct 2020 07:05:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24823928</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24823928</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24823928</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Staring into the COM Abyss"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm currently working on a VB6 front-end (I say front end, but it 450,000 lines so probably a bit more to it!) with C++ back-end (and it's old C++ that uses MFC containers instead of std). We also have a lot of C# extras that are called from the VB6 and also consume the C++ stuff.<p>Oh, and there is Python scripting in there somewhere too.<p>Ungh.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2020 14:55:10 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23628508</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23628508</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23628508</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Ask HN: Burning Out"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Are you sure you're burned out? It sounds to me like you just don't like working with your team lead, and he, apparently, doesn't like you too much, either.<p>Sometimes people feel threatened. Maybe you're getting a lot of praise from the founders that you're not aware of but the team lead is. Maybe your team lead resents that you fixed X and feels his own position is in danager so he's driving you out?<p>You say you won't go to the founders because you can't see how they could resolve it, but you don't seems to consider that if you really did single-handedly solve X, then the founders might move the team lead on rather than risk losing you. Founders aren't stupid, they know who the value players are. They might be well aware of what's going on, but not to the extent that they risk losing you. If they are made aware of such a thing, you might find things change for the better.<p>In short, the problem is the team lead, and if the founders are made aware of it, things might change. If they don't, find another job.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 29 Nov 2019 09:39:28 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663260</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663260</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21663260</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Show HN: MNML – 1v1 turn-based strategy game built with Rust and HTML5"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I come accross these .io games from time-to-time, and I've always wondered how they make their money. Does anyone have an insight on this?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 25 Oct 2019 12:46:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21354403</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21354403</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21354403</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by sclangdon in "Beating Decades of Optimized C with 80 Lines of Haskell"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Actually, 3 is two orders of magnitude (or just 1 depending on whether you count 1 as an order of magnitude or not) more than 0.3<p>0.3 = 3 * 10^-1, which is -1 order of magnitude<p>3 = 0.3 * 10^1, which is 1 order of magnitude<p>You are right that 5.48 is not an order of magnitude more than 1.86, however. They are the same order of magnitude.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 16 Oct 2019 07:47:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268025</link><dc:creator>sclangdon</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268025</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21268025</guid></item></channel></rss>