Hacker News: yeetosaurusrex

New comment by yeetosaurusrex in "Elixir v1.20: Now a gradually typed language"

yeetosaurusrex — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 02:03:20 +0000

Yeah I agree learning new paradigms can give you new insights.

There's also a balance between learning new languages for fun and for the insights they give, and wanting to ship.

As an example: Prolog was mind-bending for me when I tried it and I had a lot of fun with it, but I can't imagine using it to build a product (I'm sure other people have though).

Perhaps my first comment sounded more critical than intended. I'm really excited to see where this initiative with set-theoretic types goes, and if it leads to a fully statically typed language then that will be a bonus. If that doesn't happen, then I'm still perfectly happy with the language as it is.

Elixir taught me that I don't need static types as much as I thought.

New comment by yeetosaurusrex in "Elixir v1.20: Now a gradually typed language"

yeetosaurusrex — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:30:08 +0000

I wanted to use functional programming in actual projects and Elixir's lack of static types almost stopped me from picking it up initially.

I tried it out and, although I do miss static types sometimes, immutability and not having to deal with inheritance and other OO abstractions has made the trade-off worth it for me.

Yes some people do claim that pattern matching makes up for the lack of static types. I don't agree with that, but can say that anecdotally the number of type related bugs I notice in *my* Elixir code is much lower than the number of similar bugs I used to write in languages like Python. Whether that's because of common usage of pattern matching, or community adherence to patterns like returning tuples of {:ok, result} | {:error, error}, or something else is anyone's guess.

An important point not in the heading is that gradual typing has been added without any new language syntax.

It's still not statically typed. Maybe it never will be, but this is a step in the right direction and at least they're trying.

New comment by yeetosaurusrex in "Reason – break screen addiction using AI"

yeetosaurusrex — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:39:35 +0000

Basically you have to type in a reason to open blocked apps, and an LLM reads that reason and decides if the app should get unlocked or not. The thought of having to explain myself before having to open my browser honestly makes me not want to open it, so it's surprisingly effective. Not using a third party AI service for this, so your reasons aren't stored or read by anyone. Sent over https and only in memory during inference. I'm sick of having AI added into all the software I use, but this actually uses that sentiment and redirects it to make me spend less time on my phone.

Reason – break screen addiction using AI

yeetosaurusrex — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:39:35 +0000

Article URL: https://reason-app.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47569088

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by yeetosaurusrex in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)"

yeetosaurusrex — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 03:23:12 +0000

An iOS screen addiction app. The market is pretty saturated but I think I've found a novel take that people might like. Landing page: https://reason-app.com

New comment by yeetosaurusrex in "My smart sleep mask broadcasts users' brainwaves to an open MQTT broker"

yeetosaurusrex — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 23:35:41 +0000

Codex would have refused to do any of this. For your "safety".

New comment by yeetosaurusrex in "Show HN: ZenScript – When you open Instagram, your textbook opens instead"

yeetosaurusrex — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 10:47:36 +0000

Love this idea. How hard was it to implement the intercept when over your Instagram time limit?

New comment by yeetosaurusrex in "Australian government may require age verification for GitHub access"

yeetosaurusrex — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:14:29 +0000

Yeah that's not the title, but it is something which is mentioned in the article and that piece of information is the only reason why I'm posting this here. Restricting access to a code sharing platform based on age seems like something other people on Hacker News would be interested in hearing about.

Australian government may require age verification for GitHub access

yeetosaurusrex — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:11:18 +0000

Article URL: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-24/digital-dilemna-social-media-age-ban-platforms/105807302

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45354531

Points: 15

# Comments: 4

New comment by yeetosaurusrex in "LandChad, a site dedicated to turning internet peasants into Internet Landlords"

yeetosaurusrex — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 02:46:00 +0000

Yep. Caddy is so easy to use.

New comment by yeetosaurusrex in "Tell HN: I underestimated how lonely building solo can be"

yeetosaurusrex — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 07:12:07 +0000

The main thing I'm missing at the moment is learning by osmosis from people with more experience. Learning stuff that I didn't know I didn't know. Mentorship.

Something I've been doing for general feedback is keeping my friends updated on what I'm up to and asking for their perspectives. There's a bit of a balance though cause you don't want them to associate you too strongly with your work and bring it up whenever you see them.

If you mean technical feedback then yeah not being surrounded by other engineers you can bounce ideas off kind of sucks...

Not sure how sporty you are but I have a pretty fixed weekly routine where I do sports with my friends some nights after "work" and I've found that great for forgetting about my project and pulling me away from the computer at a reasonable hour. For loneliness during the day I've found working somewhere busy helps, like a library. Maybe a nice way of framing it is that you can't get distracted by coworkers if you don't have any :)

New comment by yeetosaurusrex in "Ask HN: How's the Job Hunt Going?"

yeetosaurusrex — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 10:55:44 +0000

Based in Australia, recent graduate, market for junior positions is pretty difficult even with industry experience.