Top all-time · #1152
Joel Grus
Personal blog · joelgrus.com · on HN as joelgrusprogrammingdata
Joel Grus's personal blog at joelgrus.com covers programming and data. Since 2012, 59 different Hacker News readers have linked it 78 times, most often “Fizz Buzz in TensorFlow”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-12-22, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 11 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN commenters repeatedly link Joel Grus's 2016 'FizzBuzz in TensorFlow' joke post, often in threads on FizzBuzz interviews and machine learning. He also wrote data science book pages and a 2012 Hacker News classifier post.
- Recommended for · 11 comments
- Called the TensorFlow FizzBuzz post a fantastic, favourite and classic piece; one commenter said the book page is a good option for learning data science.
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.
Joel Grus - Software Engineer, Data Scientist & Best-Selling Author. Available for consulting on data science, machine learning, and software engineering projects.
Most-linked posts?
- Fizz Buzz in TensorFlow26 people · 29 mentions · first linked 2019-05-17
- Fizz Buzz in Tensorflow16 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2016-05-23
- Why Programming Language X Is Unambiguously Better than Programming Language Y4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2013-12-24
- Hacking Hacker News4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2012-02-17
- Data Science from Scratch: First Principles with Python3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2015-04-26
- Creating Games in Streamlit2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-02
- Ten Essays on Fizz Buzz2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-11
What Hacker News says?
Similar humour if opposite directions to an old favourite: https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “4 billion if statements (2023)”Submitted Hacking Hacker News as a story · 503 points
HN discussionYou'd think so, but writing a book only impresses recruiters. Other programmers either give you a confused look, try to argue with you, or ask you to write FizzBuzz like this: http://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “How I Made $70k Self-Publishing a Book about Ruby on Rails”Submitted Fizz Buzz in Tensorflow as a story · 378 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of one I read a few years ago “fizzbuzz in tensorflow” https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “Programming with Less Than Nothing”Submitted Data Science from Scratch: First Principles with Python as a story · 237 points
HN discussionI think a good book that is closer to Andrew NG's course would be the An Introduction to Statistical Learning (ISL)[1] Depending on your learning style, Data Science from Scratch[2] might be another good option. BTW, neither of these uses Octave like Andrew NG's course does. The first one uses R and the second uses Python. [1]: http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/ [2]: http://joelgrus.com/2015/04/26/data-science-from…
Comment linking /2015/04/26/data-science-from-scratch-first-principles-with-python/
on “Machine Learning in a Year”Submitted Fizz Buzz in Tensorflow (2016) as a story · 186 points
HN discussionOf course it's not, there's always a better way: https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “The dispassionate developer”Submitted Hacking Hacker News as a story · 132 points
HN discussionSometimes I get these questions in interviews and I really don't know if I should be offended. My resume is pretty good, and I wonder who T.F. applies to these places that they have to have such simple weeder questions. Then I get all paranoid that there is some hidden complication and soon I'm producing FizzBuzz in TensorFlow: http://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians”Submitted Why Programming Language X Is Unambiguously Better than Programming Language Y as a story · 81 points
HN discussionThe example of the OP also reminded me of Max Howell, but the only other similar story was the one of the guy who was prompted to implement fizzbuzz, and attempted to do so in Tensorflow[0]. In the latter case, I can totally understand that he might've been turned down with such a cocky (though funny) attitude, if the anecdote is true. Are there other notable cases of people who got turned down in spite of - or beca…
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “Rockstar pays $10k to modder who fixed GTA Online loading times”Submitted On the Mathematics of Spot It as a story · 9 points
HN discussionCan't believe it's already been 10 years... https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “Jev-Leftpad”Submitted Post-Prism Data Science Venn Diagram as a story · 6 points
HN discussionThere's a large number of such books, though none that are as authoritative with respect to Python (this is a statement about the size of Python's community vs. R, not necessarily about the authors): - via Wes McKinney, creator of pandas (which makes Python about as close to R as you can get): https://www.amazon.com/Python-Data-Analysis-Wrangling-IPytho... - http://joelgrus.com/2015/04/26/data-science-from-scratch-f…
Comment linking /2015/04/26/data-science-from-scratch-first-principles-with-python/
on “R for Data Science”Submitted Creating Games in Streamlit as a story · 5 points
HN discussionhttps://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “Solving Fizz Buzz with Cosines”Submitted Building a Stupid Data Product, Part 3: The Single-Page App (PureScript) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionHis point was writing a function without conditional logic, and then of course generalizing to any "fizzbuzz category" problem. I thought it was a fantastic post on a extremely well trodden subject, up there with solving fizzbuzz in Tensorflow post. ( https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/ )
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “Euler's Fizzbuzz (2020)”Submitted Fizz Buzz in Tensorflow (2016) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionJoel Grus wrote that as a joke :-) https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “Online courses vs. colleges for software engineering”Submitted Polyglot Twitter Bot, Part 4: PureScript as a story · 4 points
HN discussionAI-is-the-new-Java edition: http://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “FizzBuzz Enterprise Edition”Submitted Creating Games in Streamlit as a story · 3 points
HN discussionUnless it's fizzbuzz: https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “When to assume neural networks can solve a problem”Submitted Data Science from Scratch: Second Edition as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAlso FizzBuzz in TensorFlow: http://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
Comment linking /2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/
on “Fifty Fizzbuzzes”Submitted Building a Stupid Data Product, Part 2: The Web Service (Haskell) as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
