Top all-time · #448
Martin Sustrik
Personal blog · 250bpm.com · on HN as rumcajzprogrammingsystems
Martin Sustrik writes 250bpm, a personal blog at 250bpm.com about programming and systems. Since 2011, 126 different Hacker News readers have linked it 290 times, most often “Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ (2012)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-03, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 11 of 40 sampled comments recommend it, 3 are critical?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Sustrik's posts on C versus C++, ZeroMQ design and structured concurrency. Many call them favourites, while others dispute the C++ arguments.
- Recommended for · 11 comments
- Called a favourite, 'gems', 'awesome', 'wonderful'; 'compelling', 'good insights'; concurrency post better
- Criticised for · 3 comments
- Says the C++ posts are misinformed, such as the erase claim; disputes the C++ exception and encapsulation arguments
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.
Martin Sustrik's personal blog. Click to read 250bpm, by Martin Sustrik, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ (2012)22 people · 23 mentions · first linked 2013-08-15
- Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ (part II)10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2013-08-20
- Structured Concurrency6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2021-04-02
- Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ (2012)6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2020-10-24
- Structured Concurrency6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2016-02-07
- Finish your stuff4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2015-06-09
- Hull: An alternative to shell that I'll never have time to implement4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-04-28
- TCP and heartbeats (2013)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2013-11-15
- Dissecting Software Components' Reproductive System3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2015-06-25
- In the Defense of Spaghetti Code (2013)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2014-03-25
What Hacker News says?
Here’s a few of my personal favorite insane nostalgics: * Donald Knuth: http://tex.loria.fr/litte/knuth-interview * Linus Torvalds: http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus * Martin Sústrik: http://250bpm.com/blog:4
Comment linking /blog:4
on “Fuchsia is not Linux”Submitted Finish your stuff as a story · 406 points
HN discussionI think it happened in 2012 when this came out http://250bpm.com/blog:4 Before that, I used to hear people talking about it all the time.
Comment linking /blog:4
on “Nginx Unit”Submitted Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ as a story · 375 points
HN discussionHere another two of Sustrik's gems.. Anti-social Punishment: https://250bpm.com/blog:132/ Technocratic Plimsoll Line: https://250bpm.com/blog:176/ seems lesswrong has all of them, older and newer: https://www.lesswrong.com/users/sustrik?from=post_header
Comment linking /blog:176/
on “Accountability Sinks”Submitted Swiss Political System: More Than You Ever Wanted to Know as a story · 304 points
HN discussionOver the past year I can't stop thinking about this article: http://250bpm.com/blog:51
Comment linking /blog:51
on “Write code that is easy to delete, not easy to extend”Submitted Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ (2012) as a story · 289 points
HN discussionhttp://250bpm.com/blog:4 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3953434
Comment linking /blog:4
on “My Struggles with Rust”Submitted ØMQ: Mission Accomplished as a story · 256 points
HN discussion> Metaprogramming is an antipattern in C. Yet we often see passionate arguments in its favor, as for instance from Sústrik ( http://250bpm.com/blog:56 ) and Tatham ( https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/mp/ ) and a person on the internet who recommends replacing LAPACK with preprocessor macros ( http://wordsandbuttons.online/outperforming_lapack_with_c_me... ). Would you care to comment on its enduring popul…
Comment linking /blog:56
on “Should you learn C to “learn how the computer works”?”Submitted Suicide by Culture as a story · 235 points
HN discussionOn similar topic: http://250bpm.com/blog:89
Comment linking /blog:89
on “DNA seen through the eyes of a coder (2017)”Submitted Finish your stuff as a story · 232 points
HN discussionSort of. Here is the original proposal often referred to by Loom's architects: https://250bpm.com/blog:71/ Here is what the wiki has to say: https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/loom/Structured+Concur...
Comment linking /blog:71/
on “A categorized list of all Java and JVM features since JDK 8 to 16”Submitted Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ (2012) as a story · 223 points
HN discussionCoroutines. What a lovely concept! It's a joy to watch all the CppCon videos about C++ coroutines, primarily by Microsoft folks. "Negative-cost abstraction" is such a nice hook phrase. Friends at Meta mentioned to me a couple years ago that they started using c++ coroutines, which ended up being a big mistake because they had to face compiler implementation bugs, which must have been nasty to track down. At Google,…
Comment linking /blog:48/index.html
on “Coroutines in C (2000)”Submitted Low Hanging Fruit of Programming Language Design as a story · 216 points
HN discussionI was referring to his original rant on C++: http://250bpm.com/blog:4 and http://250bpm.com/blog:8 . They are pretty misinformed. He claims in C++ the erasing solution is O(n) where it is O(1) in C. This doesn't make any sense of course. The comments you are referring to where he moderates his position are resulting from the comments he received from the C++ community regarding his incorrect statements.
Comment linking /blog:8
on “Nanomsg – MIT-licensed ZeroMQ alternative”Submitted Unikernels: No Longer an Academic Exercise? as a story · 178 points
HN discussionIt's not like the author just made this assertion out of the blue, he previously made 2 posts about the issues he had having used C++ for ZMQ: http://250bpm.com/blog:4 http://250bpm.com/blog:8
Comment linking /blog:8
on “Nanomsg – MIT-licensed ZeroMQ alternative”Submitted Finish Your Stuff (2015) as a story · 174 points
HN discussionThe author - and creator of zeroMQ - has written a very good series of posts explaining problems they encountered with C++: http://250bpm.com/blog:4 ; these have been on HN before and generated a lot of good discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3953434
Comment linking /blog:4
on “Nanomsg – MIT-licensed ZeroMQ alternative”Submitted Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ (2012) as a story · 140 points
HN discussionHaven't seen, but thanks. Lived and worked while following some of the ideas mentioned. E.g. at the whole bottom of the page in some comment is a link to: "Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ (part II)" https://250bpm.com/blog:8/ where the author writes "Let's compare how a C++ programmer would implement a list of objects..." and then "The real reason why any C++ programmer won't design the list in the C…
Comment linking /blog:8/
on “Java is better than C++ for high speed trading systems”Submitted Structured Concurrency in High-Level Languages as a story · 130 points
HN discussion> How is the current "notion of IP for software" not sustainable? The only reason the "notion of IP for software" is a thing is that our intuitive notions of ownership don't quite work. We can't sell software without sources because nobody wants to allow a stranger to run arbitrary code on their computers. We can't sell software with sources because it's too easy to copy. We can't give away software with sources for…
Comment linking /blog:82
on “Build a salary with GitHub Sponsors”Submitted Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ (part II) as a story · 128 points
HN discussionI've done a little research into rescuers during Holocaust. You may find that interesting. http://250bpm.com/blog:125
Comment linking /blog:125
on “A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago”- vq · 2015-05-20
Submitted Why should I have written ZeroMQ in C, not C++ (2012) as a story · 122 points
HN discussion
