Top all-time · #5256
Nick Kallen
Personal blog · magicscalingsprinkles.wordpress.comprogrammingsystemsweb
Nick Kallen writes Magic Scaling Sprinkles, a personal blog at magicscalingsprinkles.wordpress.com about programming, systems and web. Since 2008, 15 different Hacker News readers have linked it 19 times, most often “Why I wrote Arel by Nick Kallen”. The last post was in 2009, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
A Ruby-era blog (2008-2010) on ARel and relational algebra in ORMs, criticism of ORMs, and a write-up of the cache-money caching plugin. Linked as background reading in ORM and Rails threads.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Just another WordPress.com weblog
Most-linked posts?
- Why I wrote Arel by Nick Kallen7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2010-01-29
- Why I love everything you hate about Java4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2010-02-09
- A New Declarative Caching Library for Rails2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2008-12-11
What Hacker News says?
As a counterpoint, I like this quote from Twitter's Nick Kallen: This smacks of the oft-ridiculed Java AbstractFactoryFactoryInterface. But let me put it bluntly: AbstractFactoryFactoryInterface's are how you write real, modular software–not little fart applications. http://magicscalingsprinkles.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/why-i-... [N.B. I'm not saying there isn't a lot of truth in the factorial article, it's just you…
Comment linking /2010/02/08/why-i-love-everything-you-hate-about-java/
on “How (not) to write Factorial in Java”- of · 2012-11-02
Submitted Why I love everything you hate about Java as a story · 114 points
HN discussion I'd be interested in the author's take on ActiveRecord's implementation of Relational Algebra with ARel[1]: > To manipulate a SQL query we must manipulate a string. There is a string algebra, but its operations are things like substring, concatenation, substitution, and so forth–not so useful. In the Relational Algebra, there are no queries per se; everything is either a relation or an operation on a relation. Conne…
Comment linking /2010/01/28/why-i-wrote-arel/
on “ORM is an anti-pattern”Submitted Why I wrote Arel by Nick Kallen as a story · 60 points
HN discussiondhh, tenderlove, wycats: purveyors of an anti pattern! In all seriousness, I'd love to see a criticism of ORM that takes Arel into account ( http://magicscalingsprinkles.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/why-i-... ). I have yet to see one.
Comment linking /2010/01/28/why-i-wrote-arel/
on “ORM is an anti-pattern”Submitted Why I love everything you hate about Java as a story · 59 points
HN discussionI believe it just uses it under the hood, but I'm not familiar enough with relational algebra (or ARel) to know for sure. Here's a blog post from the author: http://magicscalingsprinkles.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/why-i-...
Comment linking /2010/01/28/why-i-wrote-arel/
on “Why I Hate Frameworks”Submitted Why I love everything you hate about Java as a story · 18 points
HN discussionIt's been a long debate, and yes, it's almost like sequel. Actually, ARel positions itself into the same niche as sequel, i.e. low-level toolkit to build frameworks on. In my opinion, sequel is an absolute kick-ass sort of thing, it's just that ultra-cool if you have time and will to hack . Further reading: http://sequel.heroku.com/2010/02/06/arel-sequel-differences-... http://sequel.heroku.com/2010/02/10/arel-seque…
Comment linking /2010/01/28/why-i-wrote-arel/
on “"Calling oneself a C Programmer is like saying you're a Hammer Carpenter"”Submitted A New Declarative Caching Library for Rails as a story · 18 points
HN discussionAlso a blog post from the author about Arel here: http://magicscalingsprinkles.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/why-i-...
Comment linking /2010/01/28/why-i-wrote-arel/
on “Rails 3.0 Beta Release”Submitted Contest: 2010 Modularity Olympics as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI suggest you read this post and its comments: http://magicscalingsprinkles.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/why-i-...
Comment linking /2010/01/28/why-i-wrote-arel/
on “ClojureQL - 1.0.0 now in beta”Submitted Twitter adds filters -- commentary by an early Twitter engineer as a story · 4 points
HN discussioncache-money is great idea for a plugin. the author has a really good write up of it: http://magicscalingsprinkles.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/introd...
Comment linking /2008/12/11/introducing-cache-money/
on “Twitter Blog: Building on Open Source”Submitted The Meaning of Information Technology as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Responsible Technology Journalism as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why I wrote Arel by Nick Kallen as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Scaling Rails: Write-Through Cacheing as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
