Hacker News: vic20forever

New comment by vic20forever in "Visual Basic on the PC with Windows 3.1"

vic20forever — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 04:26:54 +0000

You are correct. But, that's about the only difference between VBA and VB. I was a VB developer for 10 years before I wrote my first VBA application (in Excel), and I was surprised when everything I tried to do in VBA just worked(TM).

New comment by vic20forever in "Python 3.15: features that didn't make the headlines"

vic20forever — Thu, 21 May 2026 23:59:04 +0000

Yes, but that was the standard behavior in DOS & Windows world (not including C/C++). We thought that case sensitivity was the broken behavior ;)

I was referring to the parent's statement "If a method or function call is similar enough to an existing one or a common one from other languages, to just have it silently use that." A compiler that substitutes a different function for the one I specified because it "knows what I really want" is horrifying.

New comment by vic20forever in "Python 3.15: features that didn't make the headlines"

vic20forever — Thu, 21 May 2026 23:14:02 +0000

Say whaaat? VB (v.3 through v.6, at least) wouldn't compile if you misspelled the name of a function or subroutine.

New comment by vic20forever in "The 600-year-old origins of the word 'hello'"

vic20forever — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 22:01:33 +0000

When I studied in Russia (early 90s, it was still the USSR), we learned to answer the phone with слушаю (I'm listening)

New comment by vic20forever in "Windows on Btrfs"

vic20forever — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 03:16:55 +0000

This looks like what you need: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-mount-dis...

New comment by vic20forever in "Meta Is Preparing to Notify Employees of Large-Scale Layoffs This Week"

vic20forever — Sun, 06 Nov 2022 22:16:23 +0000

"Shoot first, ask questions later"[0] when cutting staff seems like a delusional idea to me.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33496808

New comment by vic20forever in "The death of the PCIe expansion card"

vic20forever — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 20:31:42 +0000

Moving a window: Alt-Space, M, arrow keys

New comment by vic20forever in "Curio – Notebook application for note-taking and research"

vic20forever — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 05:51:00 +0000

OneNote can do simple calculations for you: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/insert-and-calcul...

New comment by vic20forever in "MIT Mathlets"

vic20forever — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 02:20:04 +0000

Click on the '+ help' label in the upper-right corner for a detailed description.

New comment by vic20forever in "Mozilla plans to remove the Compact Density option from Firefox's Customize menu"

vic20forever — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 06:36:04 +0000

Please don't do this, Mozilla.

I have a lot of open tabs on my 1920 x 1080 monitor, and switching from compact density to default (I just tested this) reduced the amount of visible text on each tab such that I couldn't identify what most of the tabs contained.

In other words, if you have a lot of tabs open at once, the reduction in usability is significant.

New comment by vic20forever in "Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?"

vic20forever — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 01:57:46 +0000

Edit and continue, Visual Basic 3, 1994

After adding a major piece of new functionality to my app, I would step through the new code, fixing each bug as it appeared, and then continue stepping. Being able to produce bug-free code after only one run-through just blew my mind.

New comment by vic20forever in "YouTube bans Steve Bannon's podcast channel"

vic20forever — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 07:13:43 +0000

There's the correct answer.

You're seeing the fruits of 70+ years of conservatives telling their audience "Everything sucks now, and everything will suck more in the future, and those people over there are to blame for all of it".

This is the reason you're seeing so many educated, affluent people among those who stormed the Capitol - they're just really, REALLY pissed off.

New comment by vic20forever in "Lambda: Turn Excel formulas into custom functions"

vic20forever — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 20:56:57 +0000

I think the Functions Translator[1][2] add-in might be worth a look to you. Note: I haven't used it myself, and it's a Microsoft Garage project, so there's no guarantee of support or maintenance.

From the description:

Functions Translator helps people use a localized version of Excel by helping translate from the US Excel function names, or research how to create a solution on the web with predominately English content.

Easily find the equivalent localized functions and formulas in any of the supported 15 languages. Functions Translator will automatically configure the language settings to US and the Localized version, and people can provide feedback on the translation of functions if it is not what they expected.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/garage/blog/2018/03/new-gara... [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/garage/profiles/functions-tr...

New comment by vic20forever in "Two Months with Powershell on a Unix"

vic20forever — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 05:07:32 +0000

>You could do that, but the way to write it in the bash way would be `dir | select -first 3`

Fyi, `dir | select -first 3` also works in PowerShell.

New comment by vic20forever in "If a MacBook Pro runs hot or shows high kernel CPU, try charging it on the right"

vic20forever — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 23:37:57 +0000

You're charging it wrong.

New comment by vic20forever in "Ask HN: What do you use to keep track of bookmarks/notes/snippets?"

vic20forever — Sat, 04 Apr 2020 18:43:49 +0000

Firefox bookmarks became much more useful to me when I started using its tagging feature. Combined with the ability to sort search results by last visited date, it gives me a complete picture of my past work on a topic at a glance.

For everything else, I'm still relying on OneNote 2016 (not the modern version), but only because I haven't yet found a suitable replacement.

New comment by vic20forever in "Ask HN: What projects are you working on now?"

vic20forever — Sun, 22 Mar 2020 03:41:37 +0000

Correct (a HAM radio operator)

New comment by vic20forever in "I2C in a Nutshell"

vic20forever — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 21:45:50 +0000

Comparison of I2C and SPI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9303405

New comment by vic20forever in "Vox Media to cut hundreds of freelance jobs ahead of California's AB5"

vic20forever — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 20:06:49 +0000

...and those unemployed people will find better jobs with other companies, since all California companies are required to comply with the new law, and the collective amount of work performed by California companies (and thus the collective number of workers required to do this work) is not affected by the new law.

New comment by vic20forever in "Computer Files Are Going Extinct"

vic20forever — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 22:04:32 +0000

How much time have we all wasted reading threads that consisted mostly of folks arguing past one another, because each participant misunderstood what the other was trying to say?

I used Usenet during the 1990s, and communication was much easier, because grammar usage was much more uniform(1)(2)

(1)Changes in the rules of grammar aren't the primary problem, IMHO. The problem is folks who don't follow any rules at all; rather, they simply string together word sequences that sound familiar.

(2)I sympathize with young folks today who don't have a good grasp of grammar. Most of my education came from reading newspapers and magazines, which still employed expert editors when I was growing up.