Top all-time · #7906
Alex Alejandre
Personal blog · alexalejandre.comprogrammingwriting
Alex Alejandre's personal blog at alexalejandre.com covers programming and writing. Since 2024, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 49 times, most often “John Earnest, array language audio+graphics hacker”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Alex Alejandre's programming posts, including an interview about implementing free-threading in Python. The comments cite the posts as sources rather than judging the writing.
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.
Most-linked posts?
- John Earnest, array language audio+graphics hacker5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2026-03-20
- Interview with Steve Klabnik3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-02-20
- Lobsters Interview with Ngoldbaum3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-03-12
- Lobsters Interview with matheusmoreira about Lone Lisp2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-07-17
- Janet on the x32 ABI: 32-bit Pointers, 64-bit Speed, 25% Less RAM2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-10-06
- Interview with Chicken Scheme Maintainer Sjamaan/Peter Bex2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-10-02
What Hacker News says?
Here's a recent interview with Ghostty's creator about its philosophy, goals etc. https://alexalejandre.com/interviews/interview-with-mitchell...
Comment linking /interviews/interview-with-mitchell-hashimoto/
on “Ghostty 1.4”Submitted Interview with Chicken Scheme Maintainer Sjamaan/Peter Bex as a story · 57 points
HN discussion> phonetic A phonetic respelling would destroy the languages, because there are too many dialects without matching pronunciations. Though rendering historical texts illegible, a phonemic approach would work: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_pronunciatio... But that would still mean most speakers have 2-3 ways of spelling various vowels. There are some further problems with a phonemic approach: https:/…
Comment linking /notes/phonetic-vs-phonemic-spelling/
on “OpenAI slams court order to save all ChatGPT logs, including deleted chats”Submitted Interview with Janet and Fennel Creator, Calvin Rose as a story · 24 points
HN discussion> how well git plays with pre-epoch timestamps? Tangentially, most RSS readers don't play nicely. A lot of webtooling doesn't like featuring e.g. old poetry etc. with the actual dates e.g.: https://alexalejandre.com/poetry/ I got a few e.g. newsboat to update their handling though.
Comment linking /poetry/
on “German parliament votes as a Git contribution graph”Submitted Janet on the x32 ABI: 32-bit Pointers, 64-bit Speed, 25% Less RAM as a story · 6 points
HN discussion> Human language is imprecise and allows unclear and logically contradictory things, Most languages do. "x = true, x = false" What does that mean? It's unclear. It looks contradictory. Human language allows for clarification to be sought and adjustments made. > besides not being checkable. It's very checkable. I check claims and assertions people make all the time. > That's literally why we have formal languages, "F…
Comment linking /languages/end-of-programming-langs
on “OpenAI are quietly adopting skills, now available in ChatGPT and Codex CLI”Submitted Interview with Oofoe about REBOL, Forth, Decker, Janet and the VFX Industry as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> not sure English is a bad way to outline Human language is imprecise and allows unclear and logically contradictory things, besides not being checkable. That's literally why we have formal languages, programming languages and things like COBOL failed: https://alexalejandre.com/languages/end-of-programming-langs...
Comment linking /languages/end-of-programming-langs/
on “OpenAI are quietly adopting skills, now available in ChatGPT and Codex CLI”Submitted Deliberate Practice for Developers - Koan and Kata Ideas as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> The more specific, the more brittle. The more general, the more stable. Concerns evolve/decay at different speeds, so do not couple across shearing layers. Notice how grammar/phonology (structure) changes slowly while vocabulary (functions, services) changes faster. ... > Coupling across layers invites trouble (e.g. encoding business logic with “intuitive” names reflecting transient understanding). When requiremen…
Comment linking /programming/coupling-language-and-geography/
on “Simplify your code: Functional core, imperative shell”Submitted Janet on x32: 32-bit Pointers, 64-bit Speed, 25% Less RAM as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAnother article on this topic https://alexalejandre.com/programming/no-end-of-programming-...
Comment linking /programming/no-end-of-programming-langs/
on “The foolishness of "natural language programming" (1978)”Submitted John Earnest, array language audio+graphics hacker as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIn more words: https://alexalejandre.com/languages/end-of-programming-langs...
Comment linking /languages/end-of-programming-langs/
on “Now might be the best time to learn software development”Submitted Interview with Steve Klabnik as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> In 1979 many high schools were teaching mathematics with APL! There are quite a few textbooks to learn math with APL [1] or J [2] syntax. Iverson originally wrote APL as a superior syntax for math, the programming implementation came a few years later. [1] https://alexalejandre.com/about/#apl [2] https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Books#Math_for_the_Layman
Comment linking /about/
on “Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979)”Submitted Interview with Calvin Rose, the Janet Creator as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> I earned my first paycheck coding Runescape bots in 2004 - https://alexalejandre.com/about/
Comment linking /about/
on “RuneScape Bench: MMOs for Agents [video]”Submitted Gradual Automation with Do Nothing Scripts as a story · 3 points
HN discussionTangentially, image-based development is possible, reloading images into the REPL for more interesting workflows: https://alexalejandre.com/notes/exploring-janet/#image-based... but it's a WIP.
Comment linking /notes/exploring-janet/
on “Janet: Lightweight, Expressive, Modern Lisp”Submitted Michal Wallace on Narrative Programming: Why Learn J when LLMs Code? as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> The user space is the easy part. A historical issue defining our computer landscape is that modern kernels try really hard to provide the illusion of a blocking API. You write a file, which takes time then you continue when it’s done. This is smoke and mirrors, this isn’t how hardware works at all! It’s always fire and forget: Write this, here’s a region of memory, wake me up when it’s over. It’s fundamentally asy…
Comment linking /interviews/interview-with-matklad/
on “FTL: A new operating system for clouds”Submitted Unity of Paradigms as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIn the same way that notation is a tool of thought [1] actually knowing facts paves routes[2] of possibility and impossibility (instead of pausing everything to research or drowning in too many paths). It's akin to seeing 37*55 and knowing it won't be a 20 digit number, greatly reducing your search space. Imagine feeding someone without knowing what they like (how do you choose something?) vs. "allergic to dairy"? […
Comment linking /programming/forge-deeper-thought/
on “Spaced repetition can allow for infinite recall (2022)”Submitted Lobsters Interview with Steveklabnik as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> considering the creator of Fennel Techomancy is Fennel's maintainer, but Calvin Rose created it (and then Janet). Here are interviews with both: - technomancy https://alexalejandre.com/interviews/interview-with-technoma... - calvin rose https://alexalejandre.com/interviews/interview-with-bakpakin...
Comment linking /interviews/interview-with-bakpakin/
on “Teal – A statically-typed dialect of Lua”Submitted Lobsters Interview with Sjamaan as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> alternative methods ... DSLs This strongly agrees with you: https://alexalejandre.com/languages/end-of-programming-langs...
Comment linking /languages/end-of-programming-langs/
on “GNU Octave Meets JupyterLite: Compute Anywhere, Anytime”Submitted Lobsters Interview with matheusmoreira about Lone Lisp as a story · 1 points
HN discussion