Hacker News: sergius

New comment by sergius in "Unix Isn't for Agents"

sergius — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:47:38 +0000

Unix is a base layer that provides enough abstractions to build services. Perhaps there are better abstractions if one looks at Plan 9... but that never took off unfortunately.

What they want is a framework for persisting stuff... that is an application level service... go ahead and build one.

New comment by sergius in "Why do we keep gravitating toward complexity?"

sergius — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 00:02:35 +0000

This is a perennial problem, see The Mythical Man Month

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

Or if you wan to have more fun read Systemantics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics

New comment by sergius in "A CarFax for Used PCs; Hewlett Packard wants to give old laptops new life"

sergius — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 17:47:17 +0000

Isn't that caller eBay?

New comment by sergius in "How three years at McKinsey shaped my second startup"

sergius — Wed, 07 May 2025 17:33:14 +0000

Not to mention the creation of a single point of failure for a critical service...

New comment by sergius in "The Soul of an Old Machine"

sergius — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 20:08:38 +0000

I liked M. Waldrop's book: The Dream Machine

https://press.stripe.com/the-dream-machine

New comment by sergius in "The DuckDB Local UI"

sergius — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 17:42:52 +0000

Would it be possible to install duckdb extensions in python using packages instead of dialing back home to the extension service? Lots of companies block direct connections to that service but allow packages via JFrog's Artifactory.

New comment by sergius in "Mathics: A free, open-source alternative to Mathematica"

sergius — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 02:28:03 +0000

Interestingly this is better in terms of precision but as an interface for math is still behind good old paper and pencil.

The interface is still 30+ years old...

New comment by sergius in "Show HN: GUI for editing Mermaid class diagrams"

sergius — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 17:51:48 +0000

With Draw.io embedding Mermaid diagrams and plug-ins available for VSCode and other IDEs, why is this so special?

New comment by sergius in "Raspberry Pi 500 makes an 8GB Pi 5 into a compact, inexpensive desktop PC"

sergius — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 13:59:25 +0000

And they still have soldered RAM and no option to add an SSD... who is this for?

New comment by sergius in "Cell-Based Architecture Enhances Modern Distributed Systems"

sergius — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 13:05:09 +0000

There is so much our software needs to improve to reach the level of sophistication of even plants :-)

https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2018/11/12/book-review-the-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmergy

New comment by sergius in "79 Percent of CEOs Say Remote Work Will Be Dead in 3 Years or Less"

sergius — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 14:46:26 +0000

Oh the irony: https://futurism.com/the-byte/ceos-easily-replaced-with-ai

New comment by sergius in "Writing a C Compiler: Build a Real Programming Language from Scratch"

sergius — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 12:38:07 +0000

How does it compare with N.Wirth's?

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?k...

New comment by sergius in "A Git story: Not so fun this time"

sergius — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 12:54:35 +0000

This story is missing the impact that Tom Lord's TLA had on the git design.

New comment by sergius in "We must seek a widely-applicable science of systems"

sergius — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 15:11:38 +0000

I would recommend reading:

Complexity by M. Waldrop https://commoncog.com/learning-from-waldrop-complexity/

The Systems Bible by J. Gall (This one is an odd one but it is good for developing a sense of humor) https://novelinvestor.com/notes/systemantics-how-systems-wor...

New comment by sergius in "Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500"

sergius — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 18:12:43 +0000

I wonder how this connects with this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_West_Rules%E2%80%94For...

New comment by sergius in "Arm says it wants all Snapdragon X Elite laptops destroyed"

sergius — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 12:35:23 +0000

Does this make Risk V more attractive?

New comment by sergius in "Show HN: Mesop – Open-source Python UI framework"

sergius — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 17:43:04 +0000

How does it compare to https://nicegui.io/ ?

How does it compare with https://flet.dev/ ?

Does it compete in the niche of making simple things easy and hard things possible?

New comment by sergius in "Jim Simons has died"

sergius — Fri, 10 May 2024 17:45:31 +0000

You should read these books:

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43889703

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25733505

And some of the myths you have may be dispelled :-)

New comment by sergius in "Why Rust cannot replace C++"

sergius — Fri, 03 May 2024 12:03:09 +0000

This was a more interesting comment:

https://wordsandbuttons.online/the_real_cpp_killers.html

New comment by sergius in "Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M"

sergius — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 12:46:00 +0000

Why rebuild a bridge? Watch this and wee at the cost for a tunnel these folks managed to make: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EruSZNI4th4