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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.

Visit the blog
19mentions?
14HN people?
2009–2023first – last linked?
Links on Hacker News per year · peak 7 in 2010

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.

The author on HN?

brianm · 830 karma · member since 2007

/me is a programmery kind of guy https://skife.org/

From their public HN profile, which links to this site.

Most-linked posts?

  1. The TCK Trap
    5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2010-12-07
  2. First steps with Apache Mahout
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-02-15
  3. /
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-08-26
  4. Making executable jars
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-06-22

What Hacker News says?

  1. 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”
  2. Submitted My Favorite Engineering Interview Question as a story · 139 points

    HN discussion
  3. I 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”
  4. Submitted Go is PHP for the Backend as a story · 63 points

    HN discussion
  5. If 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”
  6. Submitted The TCK Trap as a story · 11 points

    HN discussion
  7. Link 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”
  8. Submitted The TCK Trap as a story · 9 points

    HN discussion
  9. "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”
  10. Submitted Making executable jars as a story · 5 points

    HN discussion
  11. https://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?”
  12. Submitted Learning to Code as a non-programmer who coded as a story · 4 points

    HN discussion
  13. Submitted Java Daemonization with posix_spawn(2) as a story · 2 points

    HN discussion
  14. Submitted Bulkheads and architecture as a story · 2 points

    HN discussion
  15. Submitted Making Really Executable Jars (2011) as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  16. Submitted First steps with Apache Mahout as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  17. Submitted First Steps with Apache Mahout as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  18. Submitted Fundamental Components in a Distibuted System as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion
  19. Submitted Embedding Clojure as a story · 1 points

    HN discussion

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