Top all-time · #7436
Anthony Zhang
Personal blog · anthony-zhang.me/blogprogrammingsystemshardware
Anthony Zhang writes Anthony Writes Stuff, a personal blog at anthony-zhang.me about programming, systems and hardware. Since 2015, 11 different Hacker News readers have linked it 12 times, most often “Rod Logic and Mechanical Computation”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-11-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for course notes from a University of Waterloo CS241 class, which cover compilers and when regexps are enough, and for a post on rod logic, a mechanical computing scheme.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Rod Logic and Mechanical Computation6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-12-04
What Hacker News says?
EDIT - nvm, the CS241 UWaterloo course doesn't cover SSA. In case anybody's interested in learning the basics, here's some course notes to a compilers class which I love! http://anthony-zhang.me/University-Notes/CS241/CS241.html
Comment linking /University-Notes/CS241/CS241.html
on “Exploring Clang/LLVM optimization on programming horror”Submitted Owing Graph Minimization as a story · 13 points
HN discussionProblem with page. The text “rod logic” connects to a page that doesn’t exist : https://sites.google.com/site/santiagoontanonvillar/Home/leg... Does anyone know where the page moved ? Is the page : https://anthony-zhang.me/blog/rod-logic/ A good substitute ? Or is the page : https://keshav.is/building/lego-logic-gates/ A good substitute ? Shakna, what were you originally planning ? Thanks in advance.
Comment linking /blog/rod-logic/
on “Lego Mechanical Computer”Submitted Parsing JSON with Tensorflow as a story · 3 points
HN discussionRod logic seems to fit the bill ( https://anthony-zhang.me/blog/rod-logic/ ).
Comment linking /blog/rod-logic/
on “Lego Mechanical Computer”Submitted The Meticulous US Intern's Guide as a story · 2 points
HN discussionCourse notes for University of Waterloo CS241 "Foundations of sequential programs" Part of the course is understanding exactly when Regexps are good enough and when you need something more powerful. http://anthony-zhang.me/University-Notes/CS241/CS241.html
Comment linking /University-Notes/CS241/CS241.html
on “Parser generators vs. handwritten parsers: surveying major languages in 2021”Submitted Rod Logic and Mechanical Computation as a story · 2 points
HN discussionWhat I find odd about this is having to push the output rod and check where it ends up. I'm not sure how this would work in a clocked/latched system, or whether that's even possible? Does it need a reset at the end of a cycle, or can it only live in a async clockless circuit? [edit] OK I searched and found that the Zuse Z1 used this system too! And had a clocking system. This page describes the same problem and has…
Comment linking /blog/rod-logic/
on “Intro to Rod Logic (2009)”Submitted Rod Logic and Mechanical Computation (2015) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionrod logic https://anthony-zhang.me/blog/rod-logic/
Comment linking /blog/rod-logic/
on “Scissors Not Gate”Submitted JSON Parsing with Tensorflow (2017) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion