Top all-time · #4769
Software is Crap
Personal blog · davmac.wordpress.comsystemsprogramming
Software is Crap is a personal blog at davmac.wordpress.com about systems and programming. Since 2016, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 39 times, most often “Why do we keep building rotten foundations?”. The last post was in 2023, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Commenters link this blog's posts on the dinit init system, the C and C++ memory models, and the Dasynq event-loop library. The comments cite the posts as sources or background, without judging them.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Bugs, design failures, and neglected documentation. Let's do better.
Most-linked posts?
- Why do we keep building rotten foundations?4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-07-05
- On the vagaries of init systems4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-10-25
- Forgetting about the problem of memory3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-04-30
- Is C++ type-safe? (There’s two right answers)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-12-13
- Escape from System D, episode V2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-06-20
- Bad Utmp Implementations in Glibc and FreeBSD2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-05-04
- Understanding the C/C++ memory model2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-01-27
- Escape from System D (2)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-06-18
- Escape from System D, episode VI: freedom in sight2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-12-18
What Hacker News says?
One potential problem is if Gnome make breaking changes, it's hard for Canonical (or anyone) to use it as a base for their own UI. I've not experienced this first-hand, since I haven't used Gnome or written GTK+ apps since the 2.x days, but judging by what I've seen online they like to break APIs at each release, drop working features if/when their opinions change, and be semi-hostile to any use-case other than thei…
Comment linking /2016/07/05/why-do-we-keep-building-rotten-foundations/
on “A Thank-You Note to the Hacker News Community from Ubuntu”Submitted Why do we keep building rotten foundations? as a story · 216 points
HN discussion> If you're willing to fiddle around, there are a few good themes that don't waste so much space. The point of this "first impressions" exercise was to explore the happy path. > It's not just Gnome that does that. There's an entire generation of designers that's cargo-culting mobile designs at the moment. Breeze, KDE's default theme, is equally space-wasting. I would agree with that sentiment, though I didn't want t…
Comment linking /2016/07/05/why-do-we-keep-building-rotten-foundations/
on “Debian 10 “Buster” Released”Submitted Understanding the C/C++ memory model as a story · 150 points
HN discussion> Given that C++ now has a defined memory model, it might very well be that it's now impossible to implement C++ in a standard conforming way on exotic architectures. Also C has a defined memory model since C11 > https://davmac.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/understanding-the-c-... and it is the same as the memory model from C++11: > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Memory_model_(pro... "After it was established…
Comment linking /2018/01/28/understanding-the-c-c-memory-model/
on “AMD GCN Radeon Support in GCC 9”Submitted Escape from systemd as a story · 58 points
HN discussionsystemd has made packaging easier, and it's good at full process management, but still, it is nice to have alternatives in major distros. Even though I'm a Gentoo user, I still prefer void's runit or openbsd's rc.d system when it comes to simplicity, over OpenRC. Also, dinit looks really promising as well: https://davmac.wordpress.com/category/dinit/
Comment linking /category/dinit/
on “Alpine Linux 3.8.0 released”Submitted Escape from System D, episode VI: freedom in sight as a story · 50 points
HN discussionlate reply, I know - I only just saw this discussion - I didn't post this story to HN myself. However: I recently wrote a blog post discussion why I created Dasynq, here: https://davmac.wordpress.com/2017/12/17/introducing-dasynq/ Though I don't specifically discuss boost::asio there, I believe some of the points made there apply. Also, last time I checked, boost::asio mandated linking with threads library (at least…
Comment linking /2016/06/18/boost-asio-and-resource-deallocation/
on “Dasynq – the event-loop library”Submitted Forgetting about the problem of memory as a story · 31 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bus1 is the new Kdbus as a story · 28 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hammers and Nails, and Operator Overloads as a story · 16 points
HN discussionSubmitted On the vagaries of init systems as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Escape from System D: Alpine Linux demo image; Booting FreeBSD as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Escape from Systemd: Freedom in Sight as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bad Utmp Implementations in Glibc and FreeBSD as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Escape from System D, episode V as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why do we keep building rotten foundations? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Escape from System D, episode V as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Escape from System D (2) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Escape from systemd Episode II: Init versus the service management daemon as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Cgroups v2: resource management done even worse the second time around as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The world is on fire, but not because of C23 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted On the Vagaries of Init Systems as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Forgetting about the Problem of Memory as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Forgetting about the Problem of Memory as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Is C++ type-safe? (There’s two right answers) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bad Utmp Implementations in Glibc and FreeBSD as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted On the vagaries of init systems as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Escape from systemd as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
