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Zenhack
Personal blog · zenhack.netprogrammingsystems
Zenhack is a personal blog at zenhack.net about programming and systems. Since 2013, 14 different Hacker News readers have linked it 17 times, most often “Critique of Cap'n Proto Schema Language (2019)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Zenhack's posts on whether C is portable assembly, Go garbage collection pause times, Sandstorm's status and Tempest, and a critique of the Cap'n Proto schema language.
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.
Practical guides to Cap'n Proto, Python, Haskell, NixOS, binary protocols and self-hosted systems, with tested examples and primary references.
Most-linked posts?
- Critique of Cap'n Proto Schema Language (2019)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-04-11
- C Is Not Portable Assembly (2015)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-01-20
- Why Python Is Not My Favorite Language (2016)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-12-26
- Why Cross Compiling Is Hard2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-11-16
What Hacker News says?
I think their point is that C is sufficiently close to assembler that you know exactly what assembly any given line of C will produce. This is an old canard which is not really true ( https://zenhack.net/2015/08/02/c-is-not-portable-assembly.ht... ), but it's common among people who derive a sense of identity from writing C.
Comment linking /2015/08/02/c-is-not-portable-assembly.html
on “The Fastest FizzBuzz Implementation”Submitted Why Python Is Not My Favorite Language (2016) as a story · 243 points
HN discussionRe: pause times, Go's garbage collector is actually really good here; you're looking at 10s of microseconds. I'm convinced the term "systems language" doesn't have a coherent meaning at this point. See: https://zenhack.net/2018/07/14/three-funerals-in-the-name-of...
Comment linking /2018/07/14/three-funerals-in-the-name-of-clarity-3-systems.html
on “Beating C with 70 lines of Go”Submitted Reflections on NixOS as a story · 164 points
HN discussionDon't get me wrong, I like Elm a lot, but the drop in expressiveness/ability to build abstractions from Haskell is substantial. Especially when you're looking at modularity, there are a bunch of things that Elm can't abstract out that both Rust and Haskell can manage just fine. I haven't used Rust heavily enough to comment on how it compares in great detail, but comparing to Elm as a proxy for Haskell doesn't really…
Comment linking /2018/07/14/three-funerals-in-the-name-of-clarity-3-systems.html
on “Why functional programming matters (1990) [pdf]”Submitted First Class Functions in C - Because That's Totally a Good Idea as a story · 14 points
HN discussionThe biggest change lately is probably: https://zenhack.net/2023/01/06/introducing-tempest.html But yeah, Sandstorm has been in a state of "not dead but not moving fast" basically since the company went under; things picked up a bit in 2020, and I got oriented-enough on the codebase during that time to keep it floating along, but, per the post, it's never been easy going. Anyway, I wish I were answering this question…
Comment linking /2023/01/06/introducing-tempest.html
on “Sandstorm: Open-source platform for self-hosting web apps”Submitted Why Python Is Not My Favorite Language as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThere is a good critique of Cap'Proto schema language [0] on his blog. Peace to him. [0] https://zenhack.net/2019/06/25/a-critique-of-the-capnproto-s...
Comment linking /2019/06/25/a-critique-of-the-capnproto-schema-language.html
on “Cap'n Proto 1.0”Submitted Why Python Is Not My Favorite Language as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why Cross Compiling Is Hard as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Critique of Cap'n Proto Schema Language (2019) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Cross Compiling: Why Is This Hard? (Part 1) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted C Is Not Portable Assembly (2015) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted C Is Not Portable Assembly (2015) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Critique of the Cap'n Proto Schema Language as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Critique of the Cap'n Proto Schema Language (2019) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion