Top all-time · #609
ntietz.com blog - technically a blog
Personal blog · ntietz.com · on HN as ntietzprogrammingsystems
ntietz.com blog - technically a blog is a personal blog at ntietz.com about programming and systems. Since 2015, 101 different Hacker News readers have linked it 246 times, most often “Rust's iterators optimize nicely–and contain a footgun”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-17, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (14) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link ntietz's posts on Rust HashMaps, useless software and the Hurl language; commenters call one a good break down and another a fun read.
- Recommended for · 3 comments
- called a good break down, a fun read, and advised as a read for ideas
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 14 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Rust's iterators optimize nicely–and contain a footgun4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-05-20
- Throw away your first draft of your code4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-08-01
- Email addresses are not primary user identities4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-05-29
- The most important goal in designing software is understandability4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-01-19
- "Help, I see a problem and no one is prioritizing it "4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-02-27
- TIL: Versions of UUID and when to use them4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-06-30
- That boolean should probably be something else4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-06-30
- Rust needs a web framework4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-09-30
- A few weird ways of displaying Git hashes4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-08-07
- RSA is deceptively simple and fun4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-01-15
What Hacker News says?
This reminds me, and perhaps a perfect example of writing useless software[1] and the subsequent HN discussion[2]. Is it a life changer? Probably not. Was it fun to write and explore? Most likely! We definitely need to make more stuff like this. [1]: https://ntietz.com/blog/write-more-useless-software/ [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37911900
Comment linking /blog/write-more-useless-software/
on “PySkyWiFi: Free stupid wi-fi on long-haul flights”Submitted Instead of “auth”, we should say “permissions” and “login” as a story · 614 points
HN discussionhttps://ntietz.com/ Mostly just has my (tech-focused) blog, although there are aspirational placeholders for the important things in life, like coffee and homemade pizza. It has been hard to make time to write personal blog posts since my second kid was born, but I have a couple of drafts in progress that I aim to work up soon, at least when I take time off work.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Share your personal site”Submitted TIL: Versions of UUID and when to use them as a story · 310 points
HN discussionVery interesting ! You mentioned the memory usage at the end, BTreeMaps are actually better than HashMaps most of the time, at least for Rust Here's a good break down: https://ntietz.com/blog/rust-hashmap-overhead/
Comment linking /blog/rust-hashmap-overhead/
on “Fast B-Trees”Submitted Rust needs a web framework as a story · 252 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of https://ntietz.com/blog/throw-away-your-first-draft/ , previously discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37003910 .
Comment linking /blog/throw-away-your-first-draft/
on “Algorithms we develop software by”Submitted What you learn by making a new programming language as a story · 235 points
HN discussionShe addresses that, actually... https://www.ntietz.com/blog/decaf-is-good-actually/
Comment linking /blog/decaf-is-good-actually/
on “Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps)”Submitted Great things about Rust that aren't just performance as a story · 195 points
HN discussionThis is basically the outcome of not having fulfilled this: https://ntietz.com/blog/rust-needs-a-web-framework-for-lazy-... I am unapologetic about despising Ruby - Rails is pretty darn good, though. The Rails and Djangos of the programming worlds are critical for many teams that shouldn't be building their own frameworks from scratch (for any number of reasons). Attempts are being made ( https://loco.rs/ ) and time…
Comment linking /blog/rust-needs-a-web-framework-for-lazy-developers/
on “Rewrite it in Rails”Submitted In Defense of the Midwest as a story · 189 points
HN discussionI just read this https://ntietz.com/tech-blog/drawbacks-of-developing-in-cont... The author highlights some of the problems of using docker in development.
Comment linking /tech-blog/drawbacks-of-developing-in-containers/
on “You don't really need a virtualenv”Submitted Evolving my ergonomic setup (or, my laptop with extra steps) as a story · 181 points
HN discussionIt's linked in the first or second paragraph, but the author made this language https://ntietz.com/blog/introducing-hurl/
Comment linking /blog/introducing-hurl/
on “Make a New Programming Language”Submitted Covers as a way of learning music and code as a story · 158 points
HN discussionFeature flags and authorization abstract the same concept https://ntietz.com/blog/feature-flags-and-authorization/
Comment linking /blog/feature-flags-and-authorization/
on “Cloudflare Flagship”Submitted RSA is deceptively simple and fun as a story · 157 points
HN discussionSorta related, I very surprised that Rust supports variable shadowing. But this blog article satisfied me: https://ntietz.com/blog/rust-shadowing-idiomatic/
Comment linking /blog/rust-shadowing-idiomatic/
on “Proposal to reduce loop variable scoping in Go”Submitted Where are we going from here? Software engineering needs formal methods as a story · 139 points
HN discussionThe "useless" programming language that OP created is actually pretty interesting. It only uses exception throwing and catching as the only control flow and apparently that's enough to do pretty much anything. I mean, obviously I'm never going to use it, but it was a fun read. Hurl language: https://ntietz.com/blog/introducing-hurl/ HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36393673
Comment linking /blog/introducing-hurl/
on “Write More "Useless" Software”Submitted Debugging my wife's alarm clock as a story · 137 points
HN discussionUnfortunately that is on u/ntietz, if you look at the https://ntietz.com , for some reason they encoded the href ``` <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="https://ntietz.com/atom.xml"> ```
Comment linking /
on “Show HN: List (OPML) of Hacker News Users Personal Blogs”Submitted Load testing is hard and the tools are not great as a story · 135 points
HN discussionhttps://ntietz.com All roughly related to software engineering, weekly cadence. Sometimes philosophical, sometimes technical, sometimes just random observations. Mostly it's about whatever is on my mind re: software at the moment or what I'm playing around with at the time. I don't read the comments on discussion forums usually, but emails I will always read and respond to emails and I'm always grateful for the feed…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?”Submitted Making progress on side projects with content-driven development as a story · 120 points
HN discussionAnyone know what the monitor is in the blog author's home setup? https://www.ntietz.com/blog/my-portable-ergonomic-setup/ Specifically this image: https://www.ntietz.com/processed_images/keyboard-3.e1480955e... I can't find the info in any of the blog posts and can't get anything useful by zooming in on any of the images.
Comment linking /processed_images/keyboard-3.e1480955e781412e.jpg
on “3D printing my laptop ergonomic setup”Submitted They want your ethics for $105 as a story · 116 points
HN discussionFrickin' build something, man. A JSON parser. A web server. A language implementation. Something. Anything. Read the article by that lady who advocated writing useless programs[0] for more ideas. Pick a language and just go. Avoid new and shiny; the idea here is to choose the language you're most comfortable in, so it's likely to be something you've years of experience writing. Is that Java? Go nuts in Java. The ide…
Comment linking /blog/write-more-useless-software/
on “Ask HN: How can I stop obsessively trying to learn new programming concepts?”Submitted That boolean should probably be something else as a story · 105 points
HN discussion
