Top all-time · #5442
Matt Basta
Personal blog · basta.substack.comprogrammingculture
Matt Basta writes Basta’s Notes, a personal blog at basta.substack.com about programming and culture. Since 2023, 14 different Hacker News readers have linked it 15 times, most often “No Sacred Masterpieces, that time I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Matt Basta's Substack for posts on spreadsheet software, including a piece on building an Excel-style app at Uber and the cited Excel circular reference behaviour.
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.
My regularly scheduled notes.
Most-linked posts?
- No Sacred Masterpieces, that time I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-09-15
- The imminent risk of vibe coding3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-01-30
What Hacker News says?
If you haven't already I'd recommend this blog post that was shared awhile ago by a devs experience building "Excel for Uber"[1]. Not sure if there's overlap here with their experience, but its an interesting read nonetheless. [1] https://basta.substack.com/p/no-sacred-masterpieces
Comment linking /p/no-sacred-masterpieces
on “Ask HN: What are your most common tasks and painpoints in spreadsheet software?”Submitted Don't ask me to embarrass myself as a story · 37 points
HN discussionHere's a good example of an ex-Uber employee who stole / took his excel-in-browser to his next employer: https://basta.substack.com/p/no-sacred-masterpieces "but I took the code and shoved it into my back pocket for a rainy day." Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37527720
Comment linking /p/no-sacred-masterpieces
on “Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code”Submitted Doing versus Delegating as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> You see, when formulas create a circular reference, Excel will run that computation up to a number of times. If, in those computations, the magnitude of the difference between the most recent and previous computed values for the cell falls below some pre-defined epsilon value (usually a very small number, like 0.00001), Excel will stop recomputing the cell and pretend like it finished successfully. https://basta.s…
Comment linking /p/no-sacred-masterpieces
on “Lies My Calculator and Computer Told Me [pdf]”Submitted The absolute audacity of Apple Podcasts as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The imminent risk of vibe coding as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The imminent risk of vibe coding as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted No Sacred Masterpieces, that time I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted I Ask Three Questions as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Making a cache cluster more effective as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The imminent risk of vibe coding as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Matt Basta: How I accidentally duped the Bay Area press in 2013 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Microwaves Piss Me Off as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Gumby Coin: a story about a 1958 claymation character, cryptocurrency, and pizza as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
