Top all-time · #14818
Stan James
Personal blog · wanderingstan.com · on HN as wanderingstanculturephilosophyprogramming
Stan James writes wanderingstan, a personal blog at wanderingstan.com about culture, philosophy and programming. Since 2007, 5 different Hacker News readers have linked it 14 times, most often “The evolution of developer experience in the 20th century (2020)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (1) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
The only comment is a reply in an AI sentience debate that cites John Searle, not the blog's writing. The comments do not describe what the linked posts cover or judge their quality.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 1 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The evolution of developer experience in the 20th century (2020)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-02-01
What Hacker News says?
Indeed. Reminds me of an early 1997 interview I had about the future of Java, when it was trying hard to displace JavaScript in the browser (swing gui and such) and flash was already starting to beat it out. https://wanderingstan.com/netguide-interview-february-1997
Comment linking /netguide-interview-february-1997
on ““I am literally losing sleep” over Java (1996)”Submitted Coding styles: Are you Lewis and Clark or building an interstate? as a story · 20 points
HN discussionTypography of code : Design meets the IDE. How can the visual presentation of code be made more functional and aesthetic. Syntax highlighting doesn't have to be the zenith of how code is displayed. (Once upon a time indentation was a radical new idea!) I'd love to ideate and build prototypes with like minded coder-designers. Blog post I wrote about the steps in developer experience up till now: https://wanderingstan…
Comment linking /2020-02-04/the-evolution-of-developer-experience-in-the-20th-century
on “Ask HN: Who wants to collaborate?”Submitted The rise of subjectivity on the web: What's important to you? as a story · 2 points
HN discussion+1 for Lift. I gave a Quantified Self talk a few months ago about my first full year using it. http://wanderingstan.com/2013-10-16/video-what-ive-learned-i... Good point about the social part: I drift in and out of using it, but it certainly helps when I need to get back on track.
Comment linking /2013-10-16/video-what-ive-learned-in-a-year-of-tracking-habits
on “What I learned from writing 750 words a day for 365 days”Submitted The evolution of developer experience in the 20th century (2020) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThis little hack takes a picture every hour (webcam and screenshot) and gives visualization of your online work habits: http://wanderingstan.com/lifeslice
Comment linking /lifeslice
on “Cool hack to take a photo of yourself on every commit”Submitted The demise of AOL keywords and the future of Online Identity (2008) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionYears ago I wrote an essay on a neighboring idea, that Attention is meme sex (and Google is a dating service) . http://wanderingstan.com/2006-10-11/attention_is_meme_sex_an... >Advertisements are sometimes consensual too, as when people tune in to watch the superbowl ads. But ads often constitute a theft of attention, a non-consensual transmission of ideas. TV advertisements, email spam, billboards, flashing banner…
Comment linking /2006-10-11/attention_is_meme_sex_and_google_is_a_dating_service
on “Your Head as a Battleground, Dueling Memes”I’ve long had this gripe with MacOS. Many years ago made a flowchart to demonstrate the difference: https://wanderingstan.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/alt-tab...
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2009/07/alt-tab-flowcharts-labeled-2.png
on “AltTab: Windows Alt-Tab on macOS”> we can just agree to disagree For what it's worth, Searle is a naturalist (so he thinks brains are "just" meaty machines) and he would also disagree with you. > For example, is there any specific, measurable thing that you expect a future AI system absolutely will not be able to do? Not sure how you'd measure this, but I think sentience is most likely unachievable by AIs (at least how we're building them now). Thi…
Comment linking /files/chalmers_on_ai.pdf
on “Show HN: Whole Git repo was made with ChatGPT”I wrote a post some years ago about why screens have won over rockets. http://wanderingstan.com/2010-07-27/screens-not-rockets-medi... ) Why are we now more concerned with melding media than melding matter . I agree with the author that it's about values; now that survival, food, shelter, etc are cheaply met, our reward system has the luxury of indulging in TV watching, candy crush, etc.
Comment linking /2010-07-27/screens-not-rockets-media-over-moon
on “Does innovation arc toward decadence?”Yes! Continuing on thoughts of LLM compression, I'm now convinced and amazed that economics will dictate that all devices contain a copy of all information on the Internet. I wrote a post about it: Your toaster will know mesopotamian history because it’s more expensive not too. https://wanderingstan.com/2026-03-01/your-toaster-will-know-...
Comment linking /2026-03-01/your-toaster-will-know-mesopotamian-history-because-its-more-expensive-not-too
on “AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing”Exactly. Related: I wrote a blog post about the evolution of the developer experience a few years ago, including that tidbit: https://wanderingstan.com/2020-02-04/the-evolution-of-develo...
Comment linking /2020-02-04/the-evolution-of-developer-experience-in-the-20th-century
on “In the bad old days we had Punchcards. How did people deal with that?”
