Top all-time · #2287
Henrik Warne
Personal blog · henrikwarne.com · on HN as henrik_wprogrammingcareer
Henrik Warne's personal blog at henrikwarne.com covers programming and career. Since 2011, 32 different Hacker News readers have linked it 437 times, most often “Book Review: Designing Data-Intensive Applications”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-15, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Henrik Warne's blog as one of the programming blogs they read, and for his review of the book Exercises in Programming Style. The comments do not judge the writing itself.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Thoughts on programming...
Most-linked posts?
- Book Review: Designing Data-Intensive Applications4 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2019-07-27
- Lessons Learned in Software Development4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2017-07-06
- Developer Book Club4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-11-08
- Lessons from Years of Tricky Bugs (2016)3 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2016-06-16
- More Good Programming Quotes (2016)3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-04-17
- Why I Love Coding (2012)3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-04-21
- Programming with ChatGPT3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-08-25
- On Code Reviews3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-12-13
- What Makes a Good Programmer?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-12-08
- Lessons from 9 More Years of Tricky Bugs3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-06-15
What Hacker News says?
It didn't take me 30 years, only 15, but I did develop problems - RSI in my arms. Luckily, it recovered, but it took a lot of effort: http://henrikwarne.com/2012/02/18/how-i-beat-rsi/
Comment linking /2012/02/18/how-i-beat-rsi/
on “My Biggest Regret as a Programmer”Submitted Exercises in Programming Style as a story · 381 points
HN discussionSo true! I've been programming professionally for 25 years, still love it! http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/ Also, it's easy to forget that being a SW developer today has a lot going for it - especially the demand. At least here in Stockholm, if you are good at what you do, you can pick and chose where to work. So no reason to stay at a place where you are not happy. http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12…
Comment linking /2014/12/08/5-reasons-why-software-developer-is-a-great-career-choice/
on “My Biggest Regret as a Programmer”Submitted Finding a new software developer job as a story · 380 points
HN discussionI agree with a lot of this. Writing for yourself is the best advice: if you write about things that interest you, maybe people with similar interests will read your blog. Also, your own understanding of the subjects you write about will grow. I've been blogging for eight years now, and it has been very rewarding. It's great to get readers, and it is great to end up on the front page of Hacker News. But it is also re…
Comment linking /2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-programming/
on “If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs”Submitted Why I Love Coding (2012) as a story · 252 points
HN discussionFor me it is: - the product is SW - great colleagues - challenging problems - cool technology - having users - good salary - good tools - max 40 hours a week - minimal bureaucracy - working remote when needed https://henrikwarne.com/2013/03/26/what-do-programmers-want/
Comment linking /2013/03/26/what-do-programmers-want/
on “When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling”Submitted Secure by Design as a story · 226 points
HN discussionYes, The Effective Engineer is newer and not so well known. I wrote about why I like it here: https://henrikwarne.com/2017/01/15/book-review-the-effective...
Comment linking /2017/01/15/book-review-the-effective-engineer/
on “Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?”Submitted Developer on Call as a story · 193 points
HN discussionI've been blogging for 7 years using Wordpress (hosted, with my name as the domain name). It's been a great experience, and I wish I had started earlier. I don't feel any pressure to blog every week or every month, but over the years the content has built up anyway. At an interview recently, I was asked several questions (e.g. What makes a great programmer, What are the most important lessons you have learnt) for wh…
Comment linking /2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-programming/
on “Have a personal web site”Submitted On Comments in Code as a story · 179 points
HN discussionTotally agree. Good programmers have a lot of knowledge that transfers well between different languages and environments in my opinion. Put another way: language syntax is accidental knowledge, but how to program is essential knowledge. More here: http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/15/programmer-knowledge/
Comment linking /2014/12/15/programmer-knowledge/
on “What I'd tell myself about startups if I could go back 5 years”Submitted More Good Programming Quotes (2016) as a story · 173 points
HN discussionReally great book! The things that stood out for me: - Optimize for learning - Invest in time-saving tools - Shorten the debugging loop - Don’t sprint in the middle of a marathon - Recovery over prevention - Automate mechanics, not decision making - Make batch processes idempotent We read it in the book club at work a year ago, and I wrote a longer review of it here: https://henrikwarne.com/2017/01/15/book-review-th…
Comment linking /2017/01/15/book-review-the-effective-engineer/
on “Effective Engineer – Notes”Submitted Book Review: Designing Data-Intensive Applications as a story · 169 points
HN discussionI think Set is quite an interesting game, playable by adults and kids alike. I've written a blog post about the odds of not finding a set among the cads on the table. I'll link it here in case somebody is interested: https://henrikwarne.com/2011/09/30/set-probabilities-revisit...
Comment linking /2011/09/30/set-probabilities-revisited/
on “Mathematical games interesting to both you and a five-year-old child”Submitted Lessons Learned in Software Development as a story · 165 points
HN discussionStrongly agree on point 3. On top of my list of requirements for places to work is "the product is software", just before "great colleagues". http://henrikwarne.com/2013/03/26/what-do-programmers-want/
Comment linking /2013/03/26/what-do-programmers-want/
on “Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation”Submitted Tidy First? as a story · 153 points
HN discussionTalking about Kevin Minnick, I can really recommend his book Ghost in the Wires, both for the story and the numerous great examples of social engineering https://henrikwarne.com/2015/12/27/social-engineering-from-k...
Comment linking /2015/12/27/social-engineering-from-kevin-mitnick/
on “Namecheap live chat social engineering leads to loss of 2 VPS”Submitted Top Surprises When Starting Out as a Software Developer as a story · 116 points
HN discussionThe Effective Engineer by Edmond Lau. Not CS, more SW dev, but it is fairly new and I thought it was very good: https://henrikwarne.com/2017/01/15/book-review-the-effective...
Comment linking /2017/01/15/book-review-the-effective-engineer/
on “Ask HN: What's the best computer science book you've read recently?”Submitted My simple knowledge management and time tracking system as a story · 104 points
HN discussionA relatively new book that isn't mentioned (but that I really like) is "The Effective Engineer" by Edmond Lau. https://www.amazon.com/Effective-Engineer-Engineering-Dispro... Edit: Here's why I like it: https://henrikwarne.com/2017/01/15/book-review-the-effective...
Comment linking /2017/01/15/book-review-the-effective-engineer/
on “The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow”Submitted Good Logging as a story · 100 points
HN discussionI agree - a fantastic book! I have written a longish summary/review of it, including the reasons why I liked it so much: https://henrikwarne.com/2019/07/27/book-review-designing-dat...
Comment linking /2019/07/27/book-review-designing-data-intensive-applications/
on “Writing a book: is it worth it?”Submitted Developer Book Club as a story · 96 points
HN discussionI completely agree that git is hard to learn. I had used both cvs and svn before moving to git, and it took me a looong time to really get git. And it wasn't a case of command line vs GUI - I prefer the command line. I wrote about some of the things that had to click for me here: https://henrikwarne.com/2018/06/25/6-git-aha-moments/
Comment linking /2018/06/25/6-git-aha-moments/
on “Git is too hard”Submitted Benefits of Continuous Delivery as a story · 82 points
HN discussion
