Top all-time · #3094
Don't Panic
Personal blog · commaok.xyzprogramming
Don't Panic is a personal blog at commaok.xyz about programming. Since 2017, 25 different Hacker News readers have linked it 34 times, most often “Sometimes Software Is Done, or Why Hugo Why (2024)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-05-24, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (13) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Josh Snyder's posts cover Go internals such as string interning, integer digit counting and binary size, plus Hugo upgrades, LLM uncertainty, and AI-assisted coding. Mostly linked as references.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 13 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Words about Go and software
Most-linked posts?
- Sometimes Software Is Done, or Why Hugo Why (2024)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-01-17
- Just in Time Software3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2025-12-24
- Integer log10: make your lookup table do more (2021)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-06-04
- Nicer struct literals in Go templates2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-06-27
What Hacker News says?
I don't quite understand why you need the messy/unsafe string interning, instead of a simple (mutex-protected) map with the m[string(b)] optimization that avoids allocations, or josharian's sync.Pool approach? https://commaok.xyz/post/intern-strings/
Comment linking /post/intern-strings/
on “netaddr.IP: a new IP address type for Go”Submitted Simpler Backoff as a story · 132 points
HN discussion100% agreed. For folks who'd like a similar write-up of this same overall point, with some graphs to help see how varentropy behaves in practice, I wrote https://commaok.xyz/post/entropix/
Comment linking /post/entropix/
on “Detecting when LLMs are uncertain”Submitted Life without line numbers for 6% smaller Go binaries as a story · 95 points
HN discussionOfftopic, but huge respect for this[1]: > Lots of people don’t want to read about AI. > I respect that. > But I’m currently steeped in the world of AI, for better or for worse, and I want to blog about it. So I’ve split this blog in half. > The normal blog, which you are reading, is now AI-free. > There’s another, at /ai that contains only AI posts. It has its own RSS feed. Thank you. It (non-AI) definitely goes to…
Comment linking /post/blog-schism/
on “Simpler Backoff”Submitted Sometimes Software Is Done, or Why Hugo Why (2024) as a story · 79 points
HN discussionAwesome find! But I wonder how easily this could be extended to 64 bit integers? That sequence in the lookup table won't fit into 64 bits if it's extended. I think you would have to fall back to just having the lookup table storing the transition data, as described in https://commaok.xyz/post/lookup_tables/ in the "A Small Step" section. And probably add a conditional in the beginning to handle very large integers t…
Comment linking /post/lookup_tables/
on “Computing the number of digits of an integer even faster”Submitted What happens when you load into x0 on RISC-V? as a story · 16 points
HN discussionThere's an error for https://www.commaok.xyz/ , for what that's worth.
Comment linking /
on “Life without line numbers for 6% smaller Go binaries”Submitted Security Through Intentional Redundancy as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThe www subdomain serves the wrong cert. https://www.commaok.xyz/ gives you an SSL error but https://commaok.xyz/ does not.
Comment linking /
on “Life without line numbers for 6% smaller Go binaries”Submitted Of Manners and Machines as a story · 4 points
HN discussionHis browser might have oppened the following link: https://www.commaok.xyz/post/no-line-numbers/ somehow. It's serving a certificate for github.com.
Comment linking /post/no-line-numbers/
on “Life without line numbers for 6% smaller Go binaries”Submitted Just in Time Software as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt's fine for me and was issued May 26. The URL when I visited was https://commaok.xyz
Comment linking /
on “Life without line numbers for 6% smaller Go binaries”Submitted Performance and Files Full of Code as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSometimes Software is Done, or Why Hugo Why (2024) https://commaok.xyz/post/on_hugo/ > When I first used Hugo I loved it. It was fast. It was simple. It just worked, as much as any software does, and it solved a real problem. > It was done. > But people kept working on it. > I’m sure that it has been improved in countless ways. But along the way it has gotten bigger and more complicated, and has broken backwards com…
Comment linking /post/on_hugo/
on “Some Notes on Upgrading Hugo”Submitted Fight Fire with Pedantry as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm using exe.dev for something like this. Well, from a laptop, but others have done it from their phone. I'd link to a blog post about my setup, but I'm still writing it. Here's someone else's blog post: https://commaok.xyz/ai/just-in-time-software/
Comment linking /ai/just-in-time-software/
on “Stop Doom Scrolling, Start Doom Coding: Build via the terminal from your phone”Submitted Just in Time Software as a story · 1 points
HN discussionJosh Snyder wrote a nice rant a while ago about updating Hugo. https://commaok.xyz/post/on_hugo/
Comment linking /post/on_hugo/
on “Some Notes on Upgrading Hugo”Submitted Integer log10: make your lookup table do more (2021) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe title is a reference back to "Is Claude Code a Compiler?" by the same author, linked from the first sentence: https://commaok.xyz/ai/is-claude-a-compiler/ And then claim is attributed right there: > The hands-down highlight was the talk by Erik Schluntz: Vibe coding in prod. > Among other things, he drew an analogy between LLMs and compilers.
Comment linking /ai/is-claude-a-compiler/
on “Claude Is Not a Compiler”Submitted Sometimes Software Is Done, or Why Hugo Why as a story · 1 points
HN discussionWho wants to deal with YAML? Sometimes the easiest way to set up a VM is by talking to your phone: https://commaok.xyz/ai/just-in-time-software/ I mean, I don't do that, but I'll type a prompt.
Comment linking /ai/just-in-time-software/
on “Clusters become personal (like PCs did)”Submitted Nicer struct literals in Go templates as a story · 1 points
HN discussionAn alternative might be to start up a VM on exe.dev. Supposedly, mobile access works out of the box [1]. I've not tried that myself since I've only been using it from my laptop, but I do prefer chatting with their coding agent in a browser tab to using Claude Code in a terminal window. [1] https://commaok.xyz/ai/just-in-time-software/
Comment linking /ai/just-in-time-software/
on “Claude Code On-the-Go”Submitted Nicer struct literals in Go templates as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Make your lookup table do more as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Life without line numbers for 6% smaller Go binaries as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
