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llmblockchain

I prefer to roll my own dice. When I see two names I am unfamiliar with, I pick the one that sounds better when I say it out loud.

Ask HN: How feasible is the transition from webdev to embedded/firmware?

I started my career 15+ years ago doing native development (c, c++, etc), but the last decade I've been doing fullstack web applications, backend services, etc.I'd like to transition closer to my roots with a job doing primarily c, c++ or rust. The natural place seems to be in embedded development or firmware work. How feasible is the transition this late in the game? Any advice?

( Read More... | no comments | 4 points | on HN )
Re:Proton announces release of a new VPN protocol, "Stealth" on Thursday August 08, 2024 @10:18AM (#41191811)
I'd argue physical channels and access are even less secure. People are broken easily (you can't trust anyone) and surveillance is everywhere and more sophisticated than you imagine. My first job was at a US-based video surveillance company owned by Israelis and used by casinos, stadiums, and entire cities. I have an idea of what it's capable of :)

What we need is a truly secure and private method of communication and payment. We're close on both.

Re:Ask HN: Front-End Bait and Switch? on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @04:45PM (#41185303)
I do-- I own my own company and the office is my house :)
Re:Ask HN: Front-End Bait and Switch? on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @04:44PM (#41185291)
There's a difference between becoming incredibly good at frontend and knowing enough to get things done and be a productive member of a team (ie, not get fired like the OP).
Re:Ask HN: Front-End Bait and Switch? on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @04:26PM (#41185092)
Maybe you should learn some front end and avoid the problem altogether?
Re:Ask HN: Front-End Bait and Switch? on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @04:24PM (#41185053)
"I don't do X type of work" is pretty unrealistic and comes across as more stubborn than anything else. This is especially true in a small/scrappy company up to medium size companies where you're expected to wear multiple hats.

Maybe at Google you can get away with being the "person that does X-only" but that doesn't work in most companies.

Your job is to do _the thing_ if that thing includes front end work, then you do the front end work.

Re:Proton announces release of a new VPN protocol, "Stealth" on Tuesday August 06, 2024 @03:14PM (#41174217)
It depends on your threat model. If your threat includes three letter agencies and nation states then you're right-- don't use Proton. However, 99.9% of people don't have that threat model. In that case, Proton is better than most other providers out there (for email, vpn, etc).
Re:Praise My GitHub Profile on Sunday August 04, 2024 @04:56PM (#41156282)
It's not dead. It just gosub without return.
Re:GTA 3 is being ported to the Sega Dreamcast on Sunday August 04, 2024 @01:27PM (#41155041)
It would seem the best way to put an end to the ES fiasco is to simply release what you have (and post the update to Kickstarter)?

If the engine and tools are 90% complete, it's better to release 90% of something than nothing at all. The backers would no longer be able to call it a scam. It's probably the only way to put it all to rest.

Re:GTA 3 is being ported to the Sega Dreamcast on Sunday August 04, 2024 @12:44AM (#41151199)
As soon as I seen the headline I thought, "Falco?"

Nice to see, but people still want you to complete Elysian Shadows or give them their money back.

For the uninitiated:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/nvf55t/video_ga...

Re:GitHub Profile Roast on Saturday August 03, 2024 @03:55PM (#41148824)
> It seems like you’re more of a ghost on GitHub than a developer. Keep it up, and you might just vanish into the digital ether altogether!

Mission accomplished!

Re:"We ran out of columns" – The best, worst codebase on Saturday August 03, 2024 @03:31PM (#41148680)
Code review? There was no code review. We did get our own offices though!
Re:"We ran out of columns" – The best, worst codebase on Saturday August 03, 2024 @02:39PM (#41148355)
"Senior" holds no weight with me. I've had plenty dumb founding conversations with "seniors".

My favorite was at the company that was self hosting their code. The senior team lead wanted me to help him find a memory leak that plagued the product for months. Customers were told to restart the application every few weeks (this was a C++ application).

I sat down with the senior and looked at the code. I spotted the error.

I was like, "You know when you do new[] you need to use delete[]?" as all of his deletions were without [].

The look on his face was the best.

Re:"We ran out of columns" – The best, worst codebase on Saturday August 03, 2024 @02:05PM (#41148156)
I've been that person a few times.

1. The only developer on the team with Github and put forward the idea of the company not hosting their own source code with TFS.

2. The only developer using branches with git when the co-founder asked (demanded) everyone to only use master.

The list goes on!

Re: on Friday August 02, 2024 @11:58PM (#41144593)
The part where Hitler makes fun of them for using a vm to run a docker container to run a 10mb Go binary is spot on.

I scp my binary and let systemd run it :)

This blog post is akin to Phillip Morris telling us smoking isn't bad. Go on, try it.
Re:Intel Reports Second Quarter 2024 Financial Results on Thursday August 01, 2024 @11:58PM (#41135983)
I live near Intel HQ and I know many Intel employees. Everyone I know has been interviewing at other companies for the last 8-12 months. I haven't met a single person that had a positive thing to say about Intel and its future.
Re:Ask HN: I can't grok front end development on Thursday August 01, 2024 @03:21PM (#41132600)
You need to start by copying. Find a page and try to reproduce it on your own. Keep doing it and you'll get to the point where you're comfortable doing your own designs.

I am currently maintaining three SaaS products I built with Go. It's a great tool for the job.

One was with Go with vanilla HTML/CSS/JS (with Turbolinks classic for snappy page loads/transitions). The other two products were built with Go and HTMX+AlpineJS+Tailwind CSS.

In retrospect, I'd like to remove Tailwind as it bloated the HTML a lot and rebuilds are slow (~300ms to ~500ms per-build). Alpine has its uses, but I don't think I used it enough to really need it.

Re:How to save $13.27 on your SaaS bill on Tuesday July 30, 2024 @11:20AM (#41110002)
pngcrush !
My favorite quote on perfectionism and one I often think about,

"You know, the whole thing about perfectionism — The perfectionism is very dangerous, because of course if your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything. Because doing anything results in … It’s actually kind of tragic because it means you sacrifice how gorgeous and perfect it is in your head for what it really is." - David Foster Wallace

Anyone that has built and shipped something has likely struggled with it. You have a great idea. You build it and it's never as great as it was in your head. You need to ship it anyway, but doing so means getting over that perfectionism. Some can. Most can't.

Re:Reverse Engineering for Everyone on Friday July 26, 2024 @01:30PM (#41080483)
Structured learning is great, but I think you're over estimating the power of books. Especially in a domain like reverse engineering. The moment a book is published it's out of date. What worked yesterday doesn't work tomorrow.

I never suggested people learn entirely on their own. I learned in a loosely structured way by reading thousands of forum posts, asking questions on forums, sitting in IRC channels talking to people, etc.

Re:Reverse Engineering for Everyone on Thursday July 25, 2024 @09:35PM (#41075138)
My first job was working at a video surveillance company... My specific job was reversing multiple proprietary video streams, transcoding them and stitching them into a single output stream and sending it to a browser. For example, taking nine 1080p video streams and stitching them into a single 3x3 video stream that totaled 1080p.

It was a chaotic mess of C++.

I did it for a year before joining a startup, and on and on.

Re:Reverse Engineering for Everyone on Thursday July 25, 2024 @02:03PM (#41071502)
I never thought of reversing as something you pick up a book for. Everything I learned was through application from a young age.

1. Learning how to use Cheat Engine to scan video game process memory and modify games.

2. Learned how to read/replay packets in an MMO to try an cheat.

3. Learned how to craft DLLs, hooks and inject them in processes.

4. Learned how create patches for executables to solve some crackme challenges.

5. Mess with real world software that requires a license key, to suddenly not require a license key (or accept any key).

6. Mess with binary formats to try an reverse how game saves worked to.. you guessed it, cheat.

7. Get a real job and make money with the skills and knowledge I acquired.

Re:Ask HN: Am I crazy or is Android development awful? on Wednesday July 24, 2024 @11:02PM (#41064370)
> You get weird bugs where A needs to be 1.71.0 but B needs A at 1.69.0 or 2+. Upgrading A to 2.0.1 will fix A and B but break CDEFG.

Sounds like "modern" web development.

Ask HN: What's Your C++ Prediction?

With much software moving to the cloud and browser it's natural C++ usage will decline.Do you imagine C++ becoming a highly valuable and sought after skill for systems that were written in C++ (ie, something like COBOL today)?

( Read More... | 2 comments | 3 points | on HN )
Re:Wiz walks away from $23B deal with Google on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @05:48PM (#41051310)
How much value do companies get out of these "enterprise security" companies? I've always thought they were the modern equivalent to commercial virus scanners that come with Windows.
Re:A new path for Privacy Sandbox on the web on Tuesday July 23, 2024 @04:41PM (#41050581)
So let me get this right...

Google introduces a lot of "privacy protecting" ideas like removing third party cookies, moving extensions to manifest v3, etc. Then they backtrack on removing third party cookies and keep the manifest v3 roadmap.

Essentially, they are getting their cookies and eating it too.

Some of the content is alright, but that landing page is terribly designed.

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