Top all-time · #1966
Underjord
Personal blog · underjord.io · on HN as lawikprogrammingweb
Underjord is a personal blog at underjord.io about programming and web. Since 2019, 36 different Hacker News readers have linked it 147 times, most often “The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-05, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (15) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Lars Wikman's underjord.io for its critiques of VS Code's openness and Live Share, and for posts on Elixir, Nerves, embedded Linux, and CSS/HTML tricks like live server push without JS.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 15 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary8 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2020-08-03
- The Beam Marches Forward5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-10-26
- Complex Systems All the Way Down4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-10-24
- The Future Stack3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-05-28
- Stupid solutions: Live server push without JS3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-09-25
- It is not about Elixir3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-07-30
- Tracking users via CSS3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-09-15
- Booting 5000 Erlangs on Ampere One 192-core2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-08-07
- Unpacking Elixir: IoT and Embedded2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-04-26
- Physical Knobs and Userspace Drivers in Elixir2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-03-01
What Hacker News says?
> I honestly don't remember when they tried to snare someone to use proprietary extensions to something open VS Code? https://underjord.io/the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-ar... > they have behaved relatively nice for so long that some young adults don't know any other side of MS now Windows has been going out of its way to be hostile to users for over a decade now.
Comment linking /the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-are-proprietary.html
on “GitHub is no longer independent at Microsoft after CEO resignation”Submitted The best Parts of Visual Studio Code are proprietary as a story · 439 points
HN discussionLive Share is probably _the most_ interesting feature of the entire editor, and is not open source or usable with VSCodium. See [1] for further links. [1]: https://underjord.io/the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-ar...
Comment linking /the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-are-proprietary.html
on “The Era of Visual Studio Code”Submitted Stupid solutions: Live server push without JS as a story · 342 points
HN discussionApparently ID3 included some strange frames such as the Popularimeter (POPM) for storing emails and ratings! lawik goes through some om them in this post which I found entertaining. https://underjord.io/id3-specification-and-speculation.html
Comment linking /id3-specification-and-speculation.html
on “Mp3tag – Universal Tag Editor”Submitted Why am I interested in Elixir? as a story · 341 points
HN discussionHey, that's mine! But yeah, it includes an alternate approach to the same problem: use http chunked encoding and continually append html to the web page (which never quite finishes loading). Funnily enough, it also uses another evil trick with css background images, which TFA mentions as well: https://underjord.io/is-this-evil.html
Comment linking /is-this-evil.html
on “Stupid solutions: Live server push without JS”Submitted Using Erlang hot code updates as a story · 268 points
HN discussionBackground to the article: https://underjord.io/unpacking-elixir-iot-embedded-nerves.ht... Seems like they deploy Elixir on embedded Linux. The embedded Linux distro is Nerves which replaces systemd and boots to the BEAM VM instead as process 1, putting Elixir as close to the metal as they can. I know nothing about any of the above (assumption is I'm fool enough to try and simplify) plus I know I've misused the conc…
Comment linking /unpacking-elixir-iot-embedded-nerves.html
on “Using Erlang hot code updates”Submitted Lumen – Elixir and Erlang in the Browser as a story · 264 points
HN discussionNot for me. To be fair I didn't have types in PHP, Python or JS either. I wrote about my onboarding thoughts on Elixir here: https://underjord.io/onboarding-to-elixir.html
Comment linking /onboarding-to-elixir.html
on “An Elixir adoption success story”Submitted My trust in software, an all time low as a story · 246 points
HN discussionI've mostly transitioned off of Apple stuff. So I didn't dwell on them. My thoughts on them have also been on here a good while back. https://underjord.io/the-mac-is-losing-me.html In the end I use them all. The point is mostly that they are all disappointing. I haven't recently suffered additional annoyances from Apple, so this post speaks to recent frustrations. edit: In addition, I don't feel like I need to addre…
Comment linking /the-mac-is-losing-me.html
on “My trust in software, an all time low”Submitted Booting 5000 Erlangs on Ampere One 192-core as a story · 225 points
HN discussionI can think of a few ways, but here is an example where CSS triggers a request to track a user: https://underjord.io/is-this-evil.html
Comment linking /is-this-evil.html
on “Time-Based CSS Animations”Submitted Running an eInk Display with Elixir, Scenic and Nerves as a story · 218 points
HN discussionToo late to edit the above, but here's another! https://underjord.io/live-server-push-without-js.html Edit: more! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9457187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26273960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16312317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8602122 https://mobile.twitter.com/David3141593/status/1372281280772... https://mobile.twitter.com/binitamshah/status/1104750325473…
Comment linking /live-server-push-without-js.html
on “Time.gif (2017)”Submitted Five Buck Fatigue as a story · 207 points
HN discussionVS Code is very much the old Microsoft gimmick of EEE. https://underjord.io/the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-ar... https://ghuntley.com/fracture/
Comment linking /the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-are-proprietary.html
on “Red Hat being phased out of existence?”Submitted Tracking users via CSS as a story · 203 points
HN discussionThis sounds like a great fit for the Nerves project. It focuses on Elixir, which runs the same as Erlang. It builds firmware for Pis and other IoT on top of a thin Buildroot Linux layer, starts the Erlang VM and then that's practically your OS for building your device. Plenty of escape hatches for special needs. I've done a bunch of streams recently with clustering Pi devices using Nerves, especially fun on local ne…
Comment linking /blog.html
on “Adopting Erlang”Submitted Onboarding to Elixir as a story · 189 points
HN discussion> VS Code is open source Not quite: https://underjord.io/the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-ar... > Microsoft's Python language server (used by multiple closed-source products) Citation needed on "(used by multiple closed-source products)". > Microsoft is providing a free licence to the language server. No it isn't: https://github.com/microsoft/pylance-release/issues/4#issuec... > ... any of the code ... | ... the…
Comment linking /the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-are-proprietary.html
on “Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server”Submitted What ID3v2 could have been as a story · 166 points
HN discussionNot your parent, but this is a good starting point: https://underjord.io/the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-ar...
Comment linking /the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-are-proprietary.html
on “Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server”Submitted To Nerves from Elixir as a story · 162 points
HN discussion> Does FOSS mandate that anything and everything must be open sourced? That is not the argument you're seeing here. There is no claim that any portions of MS's other IDEs (like the older, unrelated Visual Studio) be open sourced. This is only in the context of MS playing the façade that VS Code is "Open Source" and "Microsoft hearts Open Source" that such decisions fall under scrutiny. > And no, I didn't imply that…
Comment linking /the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-are-proprietary.html
on “Microsoft Refuses to Open Source VSCode Python Language Server”Submitted Fundamentals of Object Storage in Elixir as a story · 122 points
HN discussionOne use for this is using old android tablets as ambient display screens - you just autostart a browser on an mjpeg url and update the image to update the screen. Note that mjpeg doesn't have a frame rate - it just renders the frames as they show up, so you don't actually have to keep sending them when they're not changing... except that chrome is buggy about not actually rendering the image right when it shows up :…
Comment linking /live-server-push-without-js.html
on “Show HN: MaryJane – Mjpeg server in 30 lines of async Python”Submitted My Elm Experience as a story · 114 points
HN discussion
