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Cédric

Personal blog · beust.comprogrammingphilosophy

Cédric writes Otaku, a personal blog at beust.com about programming and philosophy. Since 2007, 81 different Hacker News readers have linked it 138 times, most often “Kobalt a new build system in Kotlin by Cedric Beust”. The last post was in 2023, but the archive is still widely read.

Visit the blog
138mentions?
3recommend?
81HN people?
2007–2025first – last linked?
Links on Hacker News per year · peak 31 in 2011

Rarely recommended · 3 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?

Why HN links it

HN readers link Cédric Beust's blog for his posts on TDD pitfalls, static typing and refactoring, git and Kotlin, and the Kobalt build tool, which commenters cite as sources.

Recommended for · 3 comments
Rubik's cube page called one of the best ways to start; git article said to 'capture these thoughts fairly well'.

Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.

A personal blog and archive by Cédric.

Most-linked posts?

  1. Kobalt a new build system in Kotlin by Cedric Beust
    5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2015-10-07
  2. The pitfalls of Test-Driven Development
    4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2014-05-12
  3. A gentle introduction to dependent types
    3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-08-18
  4. /weblog/2006/10/01/dynamic-language-refactoring-ide-pick-one/
    2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2010-07-15
  5. A solution for the Rubik's cube that's easy to memorize (2003)
    2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-02-01
  6. Oracle is suing Google over Java. There’s just one tiny problem…
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-08-13
  7. /rubik
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-04-01
  8. Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-02-05
  9. /weblog/coding-challenge-wrap-up/
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-05
  10. Fun with the Anthropic Principle
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-08-20

What Hacker News says?

  1. zak_mc_kracken · 2012-01-10Recommends
    > I think git is not easy to use, and the proof of that is that at least once a month there is a "how to use git" tutorial on the front-page of HN. The command line is hard to learn, and there is no real way to learn it besides... well, learning it by heart, quirks and all. A bit like learning a foreign language. After a while, you don't notice it any more and you realize how powerful and pleasant git really is. Her…

    Comment linking /weblog/2010/04/06/git-for-the-nervous-developer/

    on “A simple guide for getting started with git”
  2. rossjudson · 2021-01-11

    Submitted Malware on My Android Phone as a story · 334 points

    HN discussion
  3. smichel17 · 2017-05-18
    It doesn't, but it eases a lot of frustration in other areas, which makes fragments slightly more bearable. The standard library[0] functions `apply` and `run` are really nice with builders. When I converted Red Moon[1] from Java to Kotlin (no functionality changes), the code base shrunk by around 1/6. [0]: http://beust.com/weblog/2015/10/30/exploring-the-kotlin-stan... [1]: https://github.com/raatmarien/red-moon

    Comment linking /weblog/2015/10/30/exploring-the-kotlin-standard-library/

    on “Kotlin Is Better”
  4. haasted · 2011-08-10

    Submitted I Like PHP as a story · 204 points

    HN discussion
  5. eta_carinae · 2012-05-12
    Here are a few more pull request tricks: http://beust.com/weblog/2010/09/15/a-quick-guide-to-pull-req...

    Comment linking /weblog/2010/09/15/a-quick-guide-to-pull-requests/

    on “Linus Torvalds won't do github pull requests”
  6. fogus · 2010-04-06

    Submitted Git for the nervous developer as a story · 98 points

    HN discussion
  7. billmcneale · 2010-08-13
    The biggest issue for Oracle is that Sun's previous CEO publicly congratulated Google about Android: http://beust.com/weblog/2010/08/12/oracle-is-suing-google-ov... Good luck defending your trademark after the CEO declares it's not really interested in doing so.

    Comment linking /weblog/2010/08/12/oracle-is-suing-google-over-java-theres-just-one-tiny-problem/

    on “Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android”
  8. eranation · 2013-02-05

    Submitted Migrating from Ember.js to AngularJS as a story · 94 points

    HN discussion
  9. lenkite · 2017-05-17Recommends
    Take a look at the Kobalt build system http://beust.com/kobalt/home/index.html

    Comment linking /kobalt/home/index.html

    on “Two years of Rust”
  10. chris_overseas · 2020-10-17

    Submitted Sneaky Sliders as a story · 34 points

    HN discussion
  11. pswenson · 2016-02-15
    there is a kotlin build system http://beust.com/kobalt/home/index.html

    Comment linking /kobalt/home/index.html

    on “Kotlin 1.0 Released: Pragmatic Language for JVM and Android”
  12. Adrock · 2011-02-24

    Submitted More thoughts on switching back to Java from Scala as a story · 21 points

    HN discussion
  13. hota_mazi · 2024-01-15
    Related: https://www.beust.com/weblog/various-ways-to-get-randomness-...

    Comment linking /weblog/various-ways-to-get-randomness-wrong/

    on “When Random Isn't”
  14. aschobel · 2009-08-11

    Submitted Cedric Buest responds to Next-gen Java Programming Style as a story · 18 points

    HN discussion
  15. eta_carinae · 2012-03-25
    Oh dear. Please, no. Just, no. git's user interface is terrible and very counter-intuitive, but if you want to work in a team or, more to the point, be productive and leverage what git has to offer, do take the time to learn its native user interface. Related article: http://beust.com/weblog/2010/04/06/git-for-the-nervous-devel...

    Comment linking /weblog/2010/04/06/git-for-the-nervous-developer/

    on “Legit. Git for humans”
  16. fogus · 2009-11-08

    Submitted Should programming languages support unit testing natively? as a story · 16 points

    HN discussion
  17. invaliduser · 2017-01-02
    It shouldn't really matter whether the units tests are written before or after. What matters is how testable the source code is, and making sure the units tests add value. Of course, writing the tests before the actual source code of the feature enforces the fact that it's testable, but it's mainly a side effect, there's nothing inherently better. The microdesign flaws that stem in TDD (described in [1]) were real i…

    Comment linking /weblog/2014/05/11/the-pitfalls-of-test-driven-development/

    on “How I Write Tests”
  18. billmcneale · 2011-06-22

    Submitted The Fan Syndrome as a story · 14 points

    HN discussion
  19. pabl0rg · 2018-01-03
    Good points. If you go back to java development and want to try a fringe build system, Kobalt is nice and straight-forward compared to maven/gradle. You configure the project in a kotlin file using a DSL. You may never need a plugin and the DSL + Kotlin give you a hybrid of Maven and Gradle. http://beust.com/kobalt/home/index.html

    Comment linking /kobalt/home/index.html

    on “Using Java 9 Modularization to Ship Zero-Dependency Apps”
  20. fogus · 2010-06-17

    Submitted Iterators? They still make these? as a story · 13 points

    HN discussion
  21. hota_mazi · 2021-02-10
    Type erasure was the best of these options, and it's one of the main reasons why Java became even more successful than it already was, and also the main reason why there are so many languages created on top of the JVM (as opposed to .net, which supports reified generics, which complicates enormously writing languages on it, especially for interop reasons). More details: https://www.beust.com/weblog/erasure-vs-reific…

    Comment linking /weblog/erasure-vs-reification/

    on “Golang generics proposal has been accepted”
  22. stesch · 2010-08-21

    Submitted Agile people still don't get it as a story · 12 points

    HN discussion
  23. hota_mazi · 2021-08-03
    Sure: https://www.beust.com/weblog/2021/06/20/refactoring-a-dynami... Even Smalltalk's refactoring browser made mistakes which humans had to fix by hand. Which is not surprising, because in the absence of type annotation, the IDE doesn't have enough knowledge to perform safe refactorings.

    Comment linking /weblog/2021/06/20/refactoring-a-dynamically-typed-language-do-it-safely-or-automatically-but-not-both/

    on “Six Years of Professional Clojure”
  24. yourdon · 2015-03-26

    Submitted Android, Rx and Kotlin: a case study as a story · 9 points

    HN discussion
  25. a_c_m · 2013-06-16
    To read another side of the coin, someone who made the move from Ember to Angular : http://beust.com/weblog/2012/12/29/migrating-from-ember-js-t...

    Comment linking /weblog/2012/12/29/migrating-from-ember-js-to-angularjs/

    on “AngularJS versus Ember”
  26. varunkumarm · 2010-08-22

    Submitted Clojure, concurrency and silver bullets as a story · 9 points

    HN discussion
  27. billmcneale · 2011-04-01
    FYI, here is a method to solve the Rubik's cube that's optimized for memorization (it contains as few formulas as possible): http://beust.com/rubik

    Comment linking /rubik

    on “Learn to remember everything: The memory palace technique”
  28. lackbeard · 2008-05-13

    Submitted Return of the Statically Typed Languages as a story · 8 points

    HN discussion
  29. throwaway2037 · 2024-03-17
    This is a great post. I feel the same on many topics. > I was never a huge TDD believer and I’m not one today. I'll never forget this savage takedown of TDD by Cedric Beust: https://www.beust.com/weblog/the-pitfalls-of-test-driven-dev... The best rebuttal to TDD that I ever heard from a developer that I respected: "I don't care if you use TDD or whatever. When you commit code, tests need to be included." That's it.…

    Comment linking /weblog/the-pitfalls-of-test-driven-development/

    on “Losing faith in testing”
  30. llambda · 2012-02-20

    Submitted Various ways to get randomness wrong as a story · 7 points

    HN discussion

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