Hacker News: srean

New comment by srean in "Tcl/Tk 9.1"

srean — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 08:16:43 +0000

More flexible and permissive a language the easier it is to abuse. Tcl is both very flexible and permissive.

New comment by srean in "Tcl/Tk 9.1"

srean — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:01:39 +0000

I know.

I would hazard a guess that a significant fraction of HNers would have encountered TCL in silicon CAD and took with them a frustrating experience.

New comment by srean in "Tcl/Tk 9.1"

srean — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 06:04:23 +0000

Very interesting. I was not aware at all that this was an Indianism. One that I like quite a bit is the word prepone.

New comment by srean in "Tcl/Tk 9.1"

srean — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 02:36:35 +0000

You can find yourself having to work with quite unprofessionally written code. Not an uncommon experience.

New comment by srean in "Tcl/Tk 9.1"

srean — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 02:32:00 +0000

Are you sure ? Tcl is almost a decade older than javascript although subinterpreters came later. Even before subinterpreters you could have multiple Tcl interpreter instances in your code.

One could call Tcl_CreateInterp() multiple times in your code and each call would return an independent interpreter.

New comment by srean in "Tcl/Tk 9.1"

srean — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 21:07:14 +0000

Would this be the best place to learn about it

https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/Snit%27s+Not+Incr+Tcl

New comment by srean in "Writing Efficient C++ Code (2013)"

srean — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 20:50:57 +0000

To be a good performance optimize yes,you need to have done it a few times to be good at it and have acquired not just the skill but the discipline and taste.

More than having done it a few times though, what is more important is to have thrived in a space that is welcoming of intellectual curiosity and play in matters of performance. That's how one becomes good at it.

New comment by srean in "Tcl/Tk 9.1"

srean — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 20:41:05 +0000

Not to mention uplevels and upvar.

New comment by srean in "Tcl/Tk 9.1"

srean — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 20:40:11 +0000

I have a soft corner for TCL, because of its idiosyncracies and weird dynamic stringy playfulness. I would be wary of using it professionally but to play around for the fun of it ... it's just too much fun. Upvar and uplevels are crazy.

Python is that kind of cool one behaves when visiting parents of your would be spouse for the first time. Tcl on the other hand is like playing one's secret exclusive and somewhat dangerous games with kid school bestie.

Tcl/Tk pioneered the notion of a scripting language as a library. It got threading right. You can run multiple independent Tcl interpreters in the address space of your process and they can exchange messages. Entirety of interpreter state is encapsulated inside the interpreter object, no globals. To a user an it is just a pointer to an object.

No need for GIL, no need for serialization/deserialization (pickle/unpickle) ... just within process memory copy (or no copies in case data is immutable).

New comment by srean in "Writing Efficient C++ Code (2013)"

srean — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 19:48:14 +0000

And how would that staff have learned it ?

New comment by srean in "Why do we need human mathematicians anymore?"

srean — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 17:48:43 +0000

This is true of professionals in any specialized and difficult to acquire skill to be world class.

I haven't had any interaction with mathematicians that I would describe as hostile.

New comment by srean in "What Sun got wrong"

srean — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:14:33 +0000

It indeed was a fantastic place, doors nailed to the walls, trying out the newly fledged Mapreduce and Charlie's. Good times. Good times.

New comment by srean in "English: A vs. An"

srean — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 17:58:47 +0000

s/rule/rile/g

What Makes a Number System

srean — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 17:41:15 +0000

Article URL: https://numbersystems.lejdar-lukas.workers.dev/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49778059

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by srean in "Mathematical Billiards (2024)"

srean — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 16:21:50 +0000

They are a fun way to demonstrate LCM and GCD too

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

With curved reflecting boundaries and parallel rays you get the beauty of catacaustics. A familiar site in a cup of coffee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caustic_(mathematics)

New comment by srean in "English: A vs. An"

srean — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 16:06:59 +0000

No sarcasm intended, I was being literal. Me and my wife have different mother tongues. What's natural to her isn't to me and vice versa and we keep telling each other that it's easy.

New comment by srean in "English: A vs. An"

srean — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 14:42:48 +0000

Oh it seems you took it personally, whereas I mentioned "every native speaker". My intention was not to rule you, just to underscore the point that native speakers have it easier and may not be able to experience or understand the difficulties of a non-native speaker.

New comment by srean in "English: A vs. An"

srean — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 13:29:10 +0000

If you ever feel inclined to learn Hindi there is more to grapple with. The verb gender is sometimes set by the gender of the object, sometimes by the gender of the object. Which way this will go loosely depends on tense.

New comment by srean in "English: A vs. An"

srean — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 13:24:32 +0000

> As a native speaker of a language with genders, it's not complex

Said every native speaker I suppose.

New comment by srean in "Why do we need human mathematicians anymore?"

srean — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 13:19:54 +0000

> There are few fields as elitist and hostile as pure mathematics

Is that so ? Sounds hyperbolic.