<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: thomascgalvin</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=thomascgalvin</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 23 Sep 2026 07:39:39 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=thomascgalvin" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "JetBrains Air: A System of Products for Agentic Software Development"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>IntelliJ was the perfect IDE ... two years ago maybe? Very little that has been added since improved my experience, a bunch of it gets in my way, and I'm sick of being prompted to try the latest and greatest AI integrations.<p>I don't think that there's a better alternative at the moment, and I get the need to pump out features to keep the revenue stream going, but I miss the slimmer versions</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 22 Sep 2026 11:52:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49799786</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49799786</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49799786</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "Google's Beyond Zero: Enterprise Security for the AI Era"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is a layer on top of normal security, so this isn't a matter of compromising the "brain" <i>instead</i> of RBAC, etc, but <i>in addition to</i>.<p>Attribute-based access control is already a thing. User X logs in the US East between the hours of 6am and 6pm. If User X logs in from Russia at 3am, deny access. This seems like an evolution of that pattern</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:02:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49083170</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49083170</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49083170</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125M to Find Voter Fraud"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Ah yes, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that famous election security wing of the US Government</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:44:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993858</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993858</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993858</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "Claude Is Not a Compiler"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> A compiler will "correctly" process input into unintuitive output, but that's not always what the user intended<p>Importantly, this behavior is deterministic. If the compiler takes your code and spits out something you did not expect, it will <i>always</i> spit out that same result, given the same input. Once you figure out what went wrong, you've solved that problem.<p>Generative AI is intentionally not deterministic, and that means you're going to solve the same issues -- hallucinations, primarily -- over and over again.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:38:16 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993761</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993761</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48993761</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "Small Penis Rule"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Forced arbitration seems to be legally enforceable, and I don't see why this would be any different, but IANAL</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 06 Jul 2026 11:55:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48803423</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48803423</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48803423</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "The primary purpose of code review is to find code that will be hard to maintain"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Our entire small team thumbs up a PR before it's merged unless there's a big rush on it, and this gives everyone on the team a rough idea of the state of the codebase at any given time. There's no being blindsided like "this whole system I depend on is gone" like I had happen at far more siloed places I've worked.<p>How large is your team? Because I don't think that would scale beyond maybe five engineers<p>I'm a huge proponent of automated testing, because that catches things like "this whole system I depend on is gone" even if the guy who depends on it isn't in the room<p>I'm also a huge proponent of shared ownership of ... everything, really. It's natural for people to kind of own different pieces of a codebase, especially if it's a component they created, but that leads to silos and low bus counts. There shouldn't be one guy who owns one system that depends on one other component</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 02 Jul 2026 14:55:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48762623</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48762623</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48762623</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "The early hiring funnel is now breaking on both ends"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> I got some people who mentioned an Acronym (the project they supported "for years") and asked them to define it, and they couldn't.<p>That <i>could</i> be a valid test, but I do a lot of government contracting, and that industry is absolutely rife with acronyms nobody knows the expansion of, as well as names that were chosen because somebody thought they were cool but aren't acronyms, but everyone else assumes are acronyms, so they get the capslock treatment.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:13:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48629691</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48629691</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48629691</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "About ASCII art and Jgs font (2023)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This site certainly makes some interesting usability choices.<p>When the page loads, the article takes up about 25% of the screen, on the bottom right. It's basically in the exact place I wouldn't look for the content I loaded the page for.<p>Metadata about the article takes up just as much space at the article itself, a full quarter of the screen, even though it's only a few lines long. Once you start scrolling, there's just a massive empty gulf off to the left.<p>The menu is ... I didn't realize it was a menu at first.<p>It's actually much more readable on mobile, which might be a first for me</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:36:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48583860</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48583860</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48583860</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "Show HN: Performative-UI – A react component library of design tropes"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><a href="https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:52:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447812</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447812</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447812</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>They love programs that benefit them, and hate programs that benefit the "wrong" people. Also, the definition of "wrong people" is very easy to guess.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2026 18:40:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48125720</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48125720</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48125720</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You're asking a question that only applies to rational actors.<p>Corporations exist for one purpose: to get as much money as possible. Side concerns, which can range from "not destroying the environment" or "not destroying the economy," are objectively not their goal, nor do they consider them their responsibility. Those are things "someone else" should worry about.<p>AI destroying all jobs is similar to a nuclear arms race; these companies don't want to eliminate everyone's ability to buy things, but they don't want to be the only entity without that ability, so ...</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2026 15:06:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48122917</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48122917</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48122917</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "The AI Backlash Could Get Ugly"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>People like Altman and Musk are saying that Universal Basic Income will be necessary once AI has fully automated away most jobs, but at the same time they aggressively fight against any kind of tax policy that would allow UBI to function.<p>I am convinced that their talk of UBI is just handwaving; they're trying to convince us that there will be a solution to the destruction of the economy as we know it, so that we'll just let them do whatever they want.<p>It isn't the backlash against AI that will get ugly, it will be the backlash against the ten people who suddenly own the entire world's money supply</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2026 15:03:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48122869</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48122869</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48122869</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "Just Use Go"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Nothing about this screams LLM; it's very clearly a riff on Just fucking use HTML and Just Fucking Use Postgres<p><a href="https://justfuckingusehtml.com/" rel="nofollow">https://justfuckingusehtml.com/</a><p><a href="https://www.justfuckingusepostgres.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.justfuckingusepostgres.com/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2026 14:05:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063379</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063379</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063379</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "Just Use Go"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I like go, but a lot of little things stop me from loving it.<p>Like, enums. I get a lot out of the box when I use an enum in Java or Kotlin. Converting to/from a String is trivial. Type safety ... exists.<p>I can do that in Go, but I have to hack it in, for every single enum type I want to represent. Enums are not a thing in the language, which means its easier to keep the language in your brain all at once, but at the expense of making it harder to keep the software I'm writing in my head. Is this "enum" the same as that "enum"? I have to go read the code to figure it out.<p>But Go is excellent at a lot of things. Compile times, static binaries, resources compiled right into that binary, execution speed ... there is a lot to love.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2026 14:00:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063281</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063281</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48063281</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "I want to live like Costco people"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> and what iphone model do these americans have?<p>A smartphone is not an optional component of modern life. You need a smartphone to apply for many minimum wage jobs now</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2026 11:52:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48061800</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48061800</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48061800</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "US FDA Expected to Lift Restrictions on Dozen Peptides Previously Banned"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Peptides can have very powerful effects. Tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound) is a peptide, and it's probably the most exciting pharmaceutical in a generation.<p>There are also peptides that seem to have similar effects as regular exercise; a weekly injection <i>might</i> give you the same benefits as a daily mile run. These haven't been well studied, however, and we don't understand their safety profiles.<p>But the influencer set has taken these possibilities and run with them, because they're more interested in clicks and views that science and facts.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 20:27:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47606114</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47606114</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47606114</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "Oracle's 30k-Person Layoff Is a Preview of What's to Come"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is a preview of what's to come, but not in the way people think.<p>Oracle has dumped billions of dollars into AI, and planned to be the source of choice to build out AI data centers. They've taken on more debt in the past two years than many nation states.<p>These layoffs are entirely about cutting costs in order to manage this debt. It has nothing to do with human developers being made obsolete, or even increased developer productivity due to AI.<p>This is actually about investments in AI <i>not</i> paying dividends, and drastic cuts in personnel to keep the company solvent.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2026 20:19:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47606012</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47606012</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47606012</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I had to check if it was April Fool's Day</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:54:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47412733</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47412733</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47412733</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "Are LLM merge rates not getting better?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Anecdotally, I haven't seen any real improvement from the AI tools I leverage. They're all good-ish at what they do, but all still lie occasionally, and all need babysitting.<p>I also wonder how much of the jump in early 2025 comes from cultural acceptance by devs, rather than an improvement in the tools themselves.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2026 12:45:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47349812</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47349812</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47349812</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thomascgalvin in "HTTP Cats"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is what the internet was supposed to be</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 31 Jan 2026 15:22:11 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46837427</link><dc:creator>thomascgalvin</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46837427</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46837427</guid></item></channel></rss>