Top all-time · #1158
Mikito Takada
Personal blog · book.mixu.net · on HN as mixuprogrammingsystems
Mikito Takada writes Books at mixu.net, a personal blog at book.mixu.net about programming and systems. Since 2011, 62 different Hacker News readers have linked it 85 times, most often “Distributed systems for fun and profit (free ebook)”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Most-linked posts?
- Distributed systems for fun and profit (free ebook)16 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2013-10-01
- Distributed systems for fun and profit14 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2013-09-17
- Learn CSS layout the pedantic way (2015)10 people · 25 mentions · first linked 2015-10-08
- Control flow in Node.js3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-01-25
- Distributed Systems for Fun and Profit3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-12-13
- Mixu's Node book-A book about using Node.js2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-11-01
- Distributed Systems for Fun and Profit2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-07-09
- Distributed Systems for Fun and Profit2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-02-08
- Books by Mikito Takada2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-06-27
- Distributed systems for fun and profit2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-09-22
What Hacker News says?
I find layout to be the hardest part of CSS (as it deals with how elements interact). This online book was helpful for me: http://book.mixu.net/css/
Comment linking /css/
on “Show HN: A visual guide to the most popular CSS properties”Submitted Learn CSS layout the pedantic way (2015) as a story · 297 points
HN discussionStrangely no mention of High Performance Browser Networking https://hpbn.co I also would mention Distributed systems for fun and profit http://book.mixu.net/distsys/ while being not exactly about network programming, it is likely a next step for anyone who's building apps that is scattered across several backends/services connected by the network
Comment linking /distsys/
on “Beej's Guide to Network Programming (1994-2020)”Submitted Distributed systems for fun and profit as a story · 131 points
HN discussionSure, you're right. They are quite good. But just from my perspective, I've been a backend engineer for most of my professional career and wanted to pick up front end dev. With little javascript/html/css knowledge, I used a couple different resources. I'm still learning, but I've found that just the official documentation doesn't quite get you there if you want to get the full picture. I've been working through the…
Comment linking /css/
on “Eloquent JavaScript 3rd Edition (2018)”Submitted Distributed systems for fun and profit (free ebook) as a story · 77 points
HN discussionFor anyone who wants to have a deeper understanding of how CSS works, I highly recommend this short online book (freely available): http://book.mixu.net/css/ It delves deep into the underlying concepts for CSS layout as described by the spec. I think layout is the hardest part of CSS, as changes can potentially affect the whole page, so it's worth studying the fundamentals. It was written before grid was a thing, bu…
Comment linking /css/
on “Modern CSS Explained”Submitted Distributed systems for fun and profit (2013) as a story · 72 points
HN discussionSome might consider this radical, but if one considers how long CSS will be around, and intends to live in the web development world, it certainly would pay off. There's nothing like the feeling of true understanding . Not the kind of reading material most people would turn to, admittedly. I've recently found this: http://book.mixu.net/css/ It feels like a good balance between quotes straight from the spec, and expl…
Comment linking /css/
on “Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?”Submitted Mixu's Node book-A book about using Node.js as a story · 52 points
HN discussionOne guy once wrote here on HN that he does not have an intuitive feel for CSS even after 20 years working with it. Seems we just have to memorize all the rules. I think the book "Learn CSS the pedantic way" is a great resource: http://book.mixu.net/css/
Comment linking /css/
on “Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?”Submitted Mixu's Node Book - An overview of Node: Modules and npm as a story · 22 points
HN discussionI held the same belief for a long time, but now I think that CSS isn't particularly in general, but can be very hard if a few core concepts are missing. The main thing that personally made it really hard for me is that I totally forgot about the first thing you learn in CSS: _Cascading_ - Coming from saner languages, the concept that what is written at the bottom of the file has more meaning than what's at the top o…
Comment linking /css/
on “Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?”Submitted Learn CSS Layout the pedantic way as a story · 5 points
HN discussionhttp://book.mixu.net/css/ is a reasonable guide and as a backend dev, I've learned to feel more comfortable with HTML/CSS by reading through it multiple times and making flashcards in a Spaced Repetition app.
Comment linking /css/
on “In web design, everything easy is hard again”Submitted Control flow in Node.js as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe best introductory resource I have found in my career was: "Distributed Systems for Fun and Profit" by Mixu. It's about 50 pages long, and is broken down quite well. https://book.mixu.net/distsys/single-page.html
Comment linking /distsys/single-page.html
on “A distributed systems reading list”Submitted Learn CSS Layout the Pedantic Way as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI've always been a fan of Distributed Systems for Fun and Profit: http://book.mixu.net/distsys/single-page.html This was the first article that really made it all click for me
Comment linking /distsys/single-page.html
on “Ask HN: Recommended books and papers on distributed systems?”Submitted Distributed Systems for Fun and Profit as a story · 2 points
HN discussionA large portion of Chapter 1 ( https://book.mixu.net/css/1-positioning.html#float-positioni... ) is dedicated to the intricacies of floats and their special flow, explaining how their behavior can be carefully reused and adapted for alternative purposes. I'd say that's as pedantic as anything can be, especially given the lack of flexbox/grid layout when it was written.
Comment linking /css/1-positioning.html
on “Learn CSS layout the pedantic way (2015)”Submitted Distributed Systems for Fun and Profit as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYeah, according to https://book.mixu.net/ this was written in 2015, at nine years old I'd be worried about this not being super useful for modern CSS.
Comment linking /
on “Learn CSS layout the pedantic way (2015)”Submitted Books by Mikito Takada as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> But I’ve come to thinking that recommending a ton of theoretical papers is often precisely the wrong way to go about learning distributed systems theory (unless you are in a PhD program). Papers are usually deep, usually complex, and require both serious study, and usually significant experience to glean their important contributions and to place them in context. What good is requiring that level of expertise of e…
Comment linking /distsys/single-page.html
on “Distributed systems theory for the distributed systems engineer”Submitted Distributed Systems for Fun and Profit as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI can only recommend the 'Distributed systems for fun and profit' book as a follow up to this neat visualisation. http://book.mixu.net/distsys/
Comment linking /distsys/
on “Raft Visualization”Submitted Distributed systems for fun and profit as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI agree, that would be a great read. Also, I think there is value in having standard exercises that people do just as a way of learning and then talking about their learning. I've recently discovered https://book.mixu.net/css/ and want to test if it actually makes it easier to think about css layout in the context of an app. Maybe I'll find the time to work through this and do a writeup.
Comment linking /css/
on “React Tetris”Submitted Distributed systems for fun and profit as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
