Top all-time · #4190
Jonas Hietala
Personal blog · jonashietala.se/blogprogrammingproductivity
Jonas Hietala's personal blog at jonashietala.se covers programming and productivity. Since 2014, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 93 times, most often “Let's create a Tree-sitter grammar”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-11, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Jonas Hietala's blog for posts on keyboard layouts, such as the T-34 layout, which one commenter praised for its research. Other comments link his Pollen and Treesitter posts.
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.
Most-linked posts?
- Let's create a Tree-sitter grammar4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-03-19
- I designed my own keyboard layout. Was it worth it?3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-11-02
- Blogging in Djot Instead of Markdown3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-02-02
- The T-34 keyboard layout3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-06-07
- First Impressions of Ghostty3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-01-06
- Microfeatures in My Blog2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-07-09
- How I did the layout for my self-published book2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-02-17
- Jonas Hietala: Packing Neovim with Fennel2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-10-29
- Exploring the Gleam FFI2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-01-11
- Designing a Personal Pebble Watchface2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-06-26
What Hacker News says?
BTW there is interesting feedback from 4 people on a Treesitter post yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39762495 (1) The top comment is from the author of difftastic (the subject here), saying that treesitter Nim plugin can't be merged, because it's 60 MB of generated C source code. There's a scalability problem supporting multiple languages. The author of Treesitter proposes using the WASM runtime, whi…
Comment linking /blog/2024/03/19/lets_create_a_tree-sitter_grammar/
on “Difftastic, a structural diff tool that understands syntax”Submitted Why I still blog after 15 years as a story · 493 points
HN discussionI wrote about my experience of moving away from a city in Sweden and moving to a small community[0]. And although the article focuses on digital nomad, I see the same problematic with the move we did as I both starting working remotely and moving away from my friends. Finding a social life, or "rooting down", is to me the most important thing for me. While I do talk with coworkers a bunch I do need to supplement it…
Comment linking /blog/2019/10/18/we_moved_away_from_the_city/
on “Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace”Submitted Rewriting my blog in Rust for fun and profit as a story · 226 points
HN discussionYes. The only issue I had on GrapheneOS was that I had to play with the location permissions a bit when I wanted to copy the BankID to GrapheneOS from another phone (I've got some pictures of that in this blog post: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2025/08/28/ill_only_buy_dev... ). All other Swedish bank accounts I've tried have also worked great (including Swish).
Comment linking /blog/2025/08/28/ill_only_buy_devices_with_grapheneos/
on “Uncomfortable Questions About Android Developer Verification”Submitted Let's create a Tree-sitter grammar as a story · 219 points
HN discussionI used this generator to build myself my own keyboard and the tool was extremely helpful. I went through a bunch of prototypes and I don't think it's possible to create a customized keyboard for yourself in one attempt. I made a fairly extensive build log from start to finish including how I got the integrated trackball to work together with QMK here: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2024/11/26/building_my_ulti...
Comment linking /blog/2024/11/26/building_my_ultimate_keyboard/
on “Cosmos Keyboard: Scan your hand, build a keyboard”Submitted I'll only buy devices with GrapheneOS as a story · 103 points
HN discussionI've been trying to improve by making a conscious effort to practice it. I've been trying to blog and even wrote a book, partly to increase my writing skills. The book that helped me the most is On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. I also wrote a blog post about some of the lessons I learned: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2023/11/25/writing_lessons_...
Comment linking /blog/2023/11/25/writing_lessons_learned_after_writing_a_book/
on “What I think about when I edit (2019)”Submitted The T-34 keyboard layout as a story · 97 points
HN discussionFurther off-topic (from the main thread), but your blog Atom feed[0] seems to be slightly broken, due to an un-escaped, literal ampersand on line 687 (Tufte style sidenotes & marginnotes in Pollen). Presumably, it's a hakyll bug, as it should do the escaping for you. (Don't have time to dig further.) [0] https://www.jonashietala.se/feed.xml
Comment linking /feed.xml
on “Pollen: the book is a program”Submitted Let's build a VORON Trident as a story · 66 points
HN discussionI'm actually using pollen to create my online book[1] and it's been very good. While I write my blog in markdown it's super nice to be able to mix real code with in your markup language. For example if you want to create a special layout for a specific page or if you want a table with subtly different properties than the rest, it's easy. It's also very powerful to extend the markup itself. I added support for Tufte…
Comment linking /blog/2019/03/04/pollen_sidenotes/
on “Pollen: the book is a program”Submitted Exploring the Gleam FFI as a story · 46 points
HN discussionI even think the Corne have too many keys and for me it's enough with a 3x5 grid plus one or two thumb keys. The big trade-off is layout complexity. My layout[0] is extremely complicated... [0]: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2024/11/26/the_current_cybe...
Comment linking /blog/2024/11/26/the_current_cybershard_layout/
on “Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)”Submitted Let's create a Tree-sitter grammar as a story · 13 points
HN discussionI think there's a simple solution, but it's certainly not easy. You set aside time for this intellectual stimulation. Don't let the work drain you off energy, your focus should be elsewhere. Of course it's only really possible for very few people. But even a little bit might help. Personally we moved away from the city and to a small community. I started working remote and I've been working 60% or 80% for about a ye…
Comment linking /blog/2019/10/18/we_moved_away_from_the_city/
on “I Wasn’t Prepared for Work (2013)”Submitted The Cybershard Keyboard Layout as a story · 12 points
HN discussionI used Pollen to write a book[0] and I generally liked the experience. I didn't use it to create the ebook or PDF though as you have to create everything from scratch that way. I forked the web version[1] to make it generate the epub and I laid out the physical book using InDesign. If I ever write a book again I'd probably start looking at alternatives that make the epub/PDF generation easier. [0]: https://www.jonas…
Comment linking /blog/2024/02/17/how_i_did_the_layout_for_my_self-published_book/
on “Pollen: A publishing system written in Racket”Submitted I'll give up Neovim when you pry it from my cold, dead hands as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI wholeheartedly agree. The Ergodox is god-damned horrible for me and I've struggled a lot to find a good thumb cluster. The Ferris comes close but in the end I configured and 3D printed my own keyboard, tailored specifically for me: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2024/11/26/building_my_ulti...
Comment linking /blog/2024/11/26/building_my_ultimate_keyboard/
on “Thoughts on Mechanical Keyboards and the ZSA Moonlander”Submitted Let's create a Tree-sitter grammar as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI've made my own layouts[0][1] and I'd say the many variants of Hands Down are probably the best example of a layout that's been developed in a thoughtful manner. [0]: https://www.jonashietala.se/series/t-34/ [1]: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2024/11/26/the_current_cybe...
Comment linking /blog/2024/11/26/the_current_cybershard_layout/
on “Markov Keyboard: keyboard layout that changes by Markov frequency (2019)”Submitted A type checking error in Elixir 1.18 as a story · 5 points
HN discussionLocation: Sweden Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: No Technologies: Rust, Elixir, Python, PostgreSQL, JavaScript/Typescript, Kubernetes, Terraform, C, C++, Lisp, Lua, CSS Email: contact@arcticbytes.dev Résumé/CV: https://www.jonashietala.se/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026)”Submitted Securing my partner's digital life as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI'm a bit further on with my Trident than you are[0], and with around 350 print hours I'm starting to get into the modding swamp. There's just so many good/cool things to add! I also disqualified the Mk4 on other factors. The Mk4 not having an enclosure and the Tridet having such a small footprint was another major factor for me. (I know there's an enclosure for the Mk4, but it's very large and expensive.) Building…
Comment linking /series/voron_trident/
on “Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate”Submitted Writing Home Assistant Automations Using Genservers in Elixir as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI'll advice against keycap labels and printing a cheat sheet. Relying on them will feel better, but it's a crutch and you'll learn faster if you force yourself to do it the hard way of remembering. And before you mention it, the layout I use is quite complicated, and I still think it's much better to learn without any aid: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2022/09/06/the_current_t-34...
Comment linking /blog/2022/09/06/the_current_t-34_keyboard_layout/
on “Principles for Keyboard Layouts (2022)”Submitted Microfeatures in My Blog as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
