Top all-time · #5687
Brian's Waste of Time
Personal blog · skife.org · on HN as brianmprogrammingsystems
Brian's Waste of Time is a personal blog at skife.org about programming and systems. Since 2009, 14 different Hacker News readers have linked it 19 times, most often “The TCK Trap”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-02-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Brian's posts on Java's Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) licensing, especially 'The TCK Trap' on field-of-use restrictions and the classpath exception. Comments only cite or link them.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The TCK Trap5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2010-12-07
- First steps with Apache Mahout2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-02-15
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-08-26
- Making executable jars2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-06-22
What Hacker News says?
Another important one is this: FOU: field-of-use restrictions (in the TCK license). http://skife.org/java/jcp/2010/12/07/the-tck-trap.html http://jcp.org/en/jsr/results?id=5111
Comment linking /java/jcp/2010/12/07/the-tck-trap.html
on “The ASF Resigns From the JCP Executive Committee”Submitted My Favorite Engineering Interview Question as a story · 139 points
HN discussionI would love to understand more about what you exposed as filesystems and why. Is that on https://skife.org/ somewhere?
Comment linking /
on “Willscott/go-NFS: Golang NFSv3 server”Submitted Go is PHP for the Backend as a story · 63 points
HN discussionIf use the J2SE code (which is GPL with classpath exception) you can't run the TCK. Without passing the TCK you can't call it Java, and you don't get the patent license. See here: http://skife.org/java/jcp/2010/12/07/the-tck-trap.html If you use the J2ME code, presumably you can get the TCK for mobile use (and associated patent protection), but the license doesn't include the classpath exception.
Comment linking /java/jcp/2010/12/07/the-tck-trap.html
on “IcedRobot to run Android apps on OpenJDK”Submitted The TCK Trap as a story · 11 points
HN discussionLink in title is broken, is missing the http:// Use http://skife.org/java/jcp/2010/12/07/the-tck-trap.html -Brian
Comment linking /java/jcp/2010/12/07/the-tck-trap.html
on “The TCK Trap”Submitted The TCK Trap as a story · 9 points
HN discussion"The requested URL /java/jcp/2010/12/07/the-tck-trap.html http://skife.org/java/jcp/2010/12/07/the-tck-trap.html was not found on this server."
Comment linking /java/jcp/2010/12/07/the-tck-trap.html
on “The TCK Trap”Submitted Making executable jars as a story · 5 points
HN discussionhttps://skife.org/ Kind of on pause for last few years, but not dead :-)
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?”Submitted Learning to Code as a non-programmer who coded as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Java Daemonization with posix_spawn(2) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bulkheads and architecture as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Making Really Executable Jars (2011) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted First steps with Apache Mahout as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted First Steps with Apache Mahout as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Fundamental Components in a Distibuted System as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Embedding Clojure as a story · 1 points
HN discussion