Top all-time · #4757
zabirauf || Zohaib
Personal blog · zohaib.me · on HN as zabi_raufprogramming
zabirauf || Zohaib is a personal blog at zohaib.me about programming. Since 2014, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 52 times, most often “Binary pattern matching in Elixir with PNG parsing example”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-05-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Zohaib Rauf's blog for Elixir explanations of functional programming ideas such as monads, railway-oriented programming and binary pattern matching.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Blog about technology and things I learn
Most-linked posts?
- Binary pattern matching in Elixir with PNG parsing example3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-01-05
- Guts of Phoenix websocket channels2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-11-06
- A beginners guide to fine tuning LLM using LoRA2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-02-15
- Using LLMs and Cursor to finish side projects2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-01-03
What Hacker News says?
The Option/Maybe monad is very common in FP languages. I don't know if it's native in Elixir, but apparently it's pretty easy to implement: http://www.zohaib.me/monads-in-elixir-2/#maybe There are lots of ways to conceptualize monads. I think "functors that flatten" is accurate, but is just one way.
Comment linking /monads-in-elixir-2/
on “Professor Frisby's Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming (2015)”Submitted Using LLMs and Cursor to finish side projects as a story · 168 points
HN discussionI would complement it with: - Scott Wlaschin's Railway Oriented Programming (ROP): https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/rop/ and https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/recipe-part2/ - Scott Wlaschin's The "Map and Bind and Apply, Oh my!" series at https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/series/map-and-bind-and-ap... and its concept of an "elevated world". - And for Elixir Programmers, Zohaib Rauf's "Railway Oriented Program…
Comment linking /railway-programming-pattern-in-elixir/
on “Functors, Applicatives, and Monads in Pictures (2013)”Submitted WebRTC file sharing broker using Elixir Phoenix as a story · 110 points
HN discussionAn idiomatic Erlang/Elixir implementation of validation for a binary format would also give you decoding for free — see e.g. https://zohaib.me/binary-pattern-matching-in-elixir/ . So I guess it's the encoding part that's unique to how Prolog works. Which makes sense; my understanding is that in Prolog, insofar as a function encodingOf(A, B) is defined by using A and B on either side of a bind expression to equate B…
Comment linking /binary-pattern-matching-in-elixir/
on “Tar.pl – A tar creator and extractor in approx. 100 lines of Prolog”Submitted Upgradeable smart contracts in Ethereum as a story · 98 points
HN discussionSubmitted Binary pattern matching in Elixir as a story · 86 points
HN discussionSubmitted Blinking LED Using Elixir Embedded Image on Raspberry Pi as a story · 45 points
HN discussionSubmitted Monads in Elixir as a story · 40 points
HN discussionSubmitted Elixir Cowboy with IIS 8 as a story · 28 points
HN discussionSubmitted A beginners guide to fine tuning LLM using LoRA as a story · 21 points
HN discussionSubmitted Railway Oriented Programming in Elixir (2015) as a story · 19 points
HN discussionSubmitted Securing MongoDB Using Let's Encrypt Certificate as a story · 16 points
HN discussionSubmitted Binary pattern matching in Elixir with PNG parsing example as a story · 12 points
HN discussionSubmitted Railway Oriented Programming in Elixir as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted Leverage union types in Typescript to avoid invalid states as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Create messenger bots using Elixir and Microsoft bot framework as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Elixir Phoenix framework embedded image for Raspberry Pi 2 as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Spacemacs and Alchemist to make Elixir of immortality as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Binary pattern matching in Elixir with PNG parsing example as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Connecting Elixir nodes in Azure as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Using ElasticSearch in Elixir as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Using LLMs and Cursor to finish side projects as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Use Wit.ai Natural Language Processing in Elixir as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Railway Oriented Programming in Elixir (2015) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Guts of Phoenix websocket channels as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Using ElasticSearch in Elixir as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted DeepSeek-R1: A Peek Under the Hood (A Non-ML Engineer's Take) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Managing Secrets in NixOS Home Manager with SOPS as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted A beginners guide to finetuning LLM using LoRA and inference using llama.cpp as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
