Top all-time · #3148
Aditya Athalye
Personal blog · evalapply.org/posts · on HN as adityaathalyeprogrammingwritingcareer
Aditya Athalye writes EvalApply.org, a personal blog at evalapply.org about programming, writing and career. Since 2022, 24 different Hacker News readers have linked it 183 times, most often “Side-stepping the Secretary Problem, unwittingly”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Aditya Athalye's posts on software quality, including a 2022 piece on how to think about it and a post about not dying by a thousand cuts in code. Comments cite them as supporting points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Out here, I strive to "learn generously". My software specialties include "Full-systems" B2B SaaS development, and Functional Programming (especially Clojure). I also help software nerds write for fun, and burnout-free career growth.
Most-linked posts?
- Side-stepping the Secretary Problem, unwittingly3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2026-03-22
- Poor man's bitemporal data system in SQLite and Clojure3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-07-15
- Shell ain’t a bad place to FP: part 1/N: McIlroy’s Pipeline3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-05-15
- LLMs Are Software Diamonds3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-07-01
- Technical Debt Is Software Debt. and It's a AAA-Rated CDO2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-01-19
- Reframe Technical Debt as Software Debt. Treat It Like a AAA-Rated CDO2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-03-11
- How to think about software quality (2022)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-02-24
- Systematically Terraforming a Brownfield of Cloud Infrastructure2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-02-18
- Poor man's job runner with Clojure Agents2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-07-14
- Why and How I use “Org Mode” for my writing and more (2022)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-02-28
What Hacker News says?
Sadly, I'm going to have to update examples in my blog post... https://www.evalapply.org/posts/software-debt/index.html#sof... . Software debt is networked. I'm writing this in the wake of the aftermath of the disclosure of the log4j zero-day vulnerability. But this is only a recent example of just one kind of networked risk. With managed services we effectively add one more level to the Inception world of our softw…
Comment linking /posts/software-debt/index.html
on “CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops”Submitted Why and How I use “Org Mode” for my writing and more (2022) as a story · 217 points
HN discussionNice list! I like many of these "microfeatures" too. Some I have on my site ( https://evalapply.org ), some I don't because I don't want to require Javascript for blog functionality. I think I have a few others not in that list. This is my set of "microfeatures", which are all available in the post I linked below [1]. - All posts must have title, summary, dates (published, updated), one tag at least, and hot link to…
Comment linking /posts/emerging-from-dotemacs-bankruptcy-ide-experience/index.html
on “Microfeatures I love in blogs and personal websites”Submitted Poor man's bitemporal data system in SQLite and Clojure as a story · 172 points
HN discussionWeb app development [1]. I know I know, it's 2024 and my friends are doing very cool things with LLMs, but I started a bit late in life and am just catching up with the 20th century (and I feel just fine about it :). [1] In fact, I just published a blog post about it! Clojuring the web application stack: Meditation One : https://www.evalapply.org/posts/clojure-web-app-from-scratch...
Comment linking /posts/clojure-web-app-from-scratch/
on “Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?”Submitted Clojuring the web application stack: Meditation One as a story · 165 points
HN discussionHah, trust nolen to 1,000x something :))) I have used similar tactics in the past, but separately and definitely not in one day! For the interested: - Bad Matrix (tput blocks to the terminal): https://www.evalapply.org/posts/bad-matrix/ - Animating Text Art in Javascript (print text into fixed grid, flipbook-style): https://www.evalapply.org/posts/animate-text-art-javascript/... - oxo (format and print tic-tac-toe b…
Comment linking /posts/animate-text-art-javascript/index.html
on “Bad Apple but it's 6,500 regexes that I search for in Vim”Submitted How to think about software quality (2022) as a story · 154 points
HN discussionHere's me waffling about this question for about four paragraphs, copied below for your reading pleasure :p :) (source: https://www.evalapply.org/posts/shite-the-static-sites-from-... ) > What is a static website? > Static simply means as-is. Its inverse is "dynamic", meaning in-transit. The "static" part of "static website" corresponds to stored information. The "website" part corresponds to where from and how, the…
Comment linking /posts/shite-the-static-sites-from-shell-part-1/index.html
on “The Static Site Paradox”Submitted Side-stepping the Secretary Problem, unwittingly as a story · 100 points
HN discussion1. A general-purpose Bitemporal Data Schema using SQLite (for storage) and Clojure (for data processing). I'm trying to see if I can "get away with it": no schema migration, no fixed views, one tenant per DB, local-first-friendliness. The general approach is "Datomic meets XTDB meets redplanetlabs/Rama meets Local First". Conceptually, the lynchpin "WORLD FACTs" table looks like this: | tx_id | valid_id | tx_t | val…
Comment linking /index.html
on “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025)”Submitted Keeping it Old-Tool: REPL habits of a grug-brained Clojure programmer as a story · 82 points
HN discussionOMG the tenor of the writing, the terrible puns... I love it! 'tis as if I am reading a sibling from a mirror universe :) Uncanny resemblances to the first post I wrote when resurrecting my blog: https://www.evalapply.org/posts/hello-world/index.html#main
Comment linking /posts/hello-world/index.html
on “The Future Is Niri”Submitted A Clojure View of "Mars Rover" as a story · 25 points
HN discussionTL;DR: https://xkcd.com/974/ "The General Problem" I've been not quite building that basic CRUD app I promised my friend, because: - A. I've ended up obsessing about the general problem of how to compose an old-skool CRUD web stack, in Clojure [1] - B. He hasn't given me any deadline. Lol. - C. He won't read this comment because he doesn't read HN :p :) [1] Plenty of options exist; biff, kit, duct, caveman... but wh…
Comment linking /posts/mycelium-clj/
on “Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)”Submitted Poor man's bitemporal data system in SQLite and Clojure as a story · 15 points
HN discussionWriting about writing is in the air! I just published a post with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the A-Team [1] :D The OP led me to `kupjao`'s series of posts on writing, and I can't help but nod my head in agreement. I'm in the choir they are preaching to! Little writing habits compound over time to help people (and teams) escape the gravity well of their "default" setting. It isn't rocket science. Just simple bull…
Comment linking /posts/writing-practices-to-10x-engineering/
on “Write to Escape Your Default Setting”Submitted Poor man's job runner with Clojure Agents as a story · 9 points
HN discussionFavourite topic! My "Bash Toolkit": https://github.com/adityaathalye/bash-toolkit My (yak-shaving-in-progress :) "little hot-reloadin' static shite generator from shell" : https://github.com/adityaathalye/shite A subtle-ish aspect is, I like to write Functional Programming style Bash. I've been blogging about it here: https://www.evalapply.org/tags/bash/
Comment linking /tags/bash/
on “Ask HN: Can I see your scripts?”Submitted What have you been curious about? as a story · 6 points
HN discussionA bitemporal data model in SQLite ... for a little SaaS app, because my friend-and-sponsor hasn't given me a deadline, nor sent irate letters asking for results. Think of it like the poor man's XTDB + Datomic, if you like. Readings and conversations have taken me to deep questions explored in works by Snodgrass [0], Jensen[1], and Jepsen [2]. Shout out to the XTDB folk for their feedback and suggestions. This is why…
Comment linking /index.html
on “Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)”Submitted Becoming a software A-Team via writing culture as a story · 6 points
HN discussionMy word, my whole blog is antipatterns (probably because I write it for me :D). Like, look at these doozies (all have lengthy preambles). There are more, but these cover all the antipatterns mtlynch mentioned. I am not at all sad, rather I am chuckling because when one doesn't care who reads the post, one can get away with such ghastly antimatter :D And, allow me to add antipattern no. N, in full display in the post…
Comment linking /tags/emacs/index.html
on “Anti-patterns in software blogging”Submitted Clojuring the web application stack: Meditation One as a story · 6 points
HN discussionAha! A fellow org-mode-rooted blogger. I see your "How to blog with Org-mode" post and raise you mine: https://www.evalapply.org/posts/why-and-how-i-use-org-mode/ :D
Comment linking /posts/why-and-how-i-use-org-mode/
on “Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?”Submitted A Consciousness Is a Dedekind Cut as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI write at https://evalapply.org and my M.O. is Writing = Thinking. This, I think, is almost always worth it. All the other stuff is a welcome positive externality. For example, readership: - I don't write for an audience, rather to sort my thoughts out, so I don't mind "looking stupid" or being wrong. - My writing is longform, without regard to "snappiness" or whatever people believe gets content distribution in a…
Comment linking /posts/hello-world/
on “Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?”Submitted Poor man's bitemporal data system in SQLite and Clojure as a story · 5 points
HN discussion100 upvotes, if I could. There is too little positive feedback in peoples' lives, if any. For this reason, I habitually cold email people who's stuff has moved me in some way (think, feel, pause etc...). Universe knows, I need it too :D So I put a "standing invitation" [1] front-and-center on my site, copying Derek Sivers and patio11. I get maybe a handful of "hello from an Internet stranger" emails, but every time…
Comment linking /index.html
on “The benefits of learning in public”Submitted Side-Stepping the Secretary Problem as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
