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robgibbons

Re:The AI cost of JavaScript frameworks on Monday November 02, 2026 @05:06PM (#50344557)
I would encourage you to re-evaluate that expectation. A framework comes with strict, mechanical constraints for both developers and agents, while the contents of AGENTS.md can be ignored by agents. Even skills don't always get invoked, and you sometimes have to browbeat your agent to follow a skill or doc. But a framework provides a hard, mechanical guardrail with loud failures and known solutions. Combined with linting, strict types, and a language server, your LLM isn't going to be tempted to invent baffling solutions when a framework provides patterns for long-solved domains.

I would go so far as to argue that all of the reasons that frameworks are useful for human-led projects are equally, if not more applicable to those executed by agents.

Re:The AI cost of JavaScript frameworks on Sunday November 01, 2026 @06:41PM (#50331115)
I'm dating myself a bit here, but I'm reminded of Douglas Crockford's book, JavaScript: The Good Parts. The idea being that under all of the cruft and foot-guns, JavaScript actually had all the elements of a good language. You just had to be disciplined about using only a subset of the language.

Isn't that essentially what we get with frameworks? I'm still unconvinced that frameworks are a problem with agents. If anything, pointing an agent at a single framework reduces its API surface, compared with the standard lib and every permutation of possible solutions that comes with it.

Re:The AI cost of JavaScript frameworks on Sunday November 01, 2026 @06:23PM (#50330963)
Doesn't the same argument and reasoning apply to agents? What exactly about agents makes the conventions and standardization of frameworks less useful?
Re:Using AI to reverse engineer hardware on Thursday October 15, 2026 @07:10PM (#50111635)
Forgive my ignorance, but isn't this what patents are for?
I tend to think the same way, but I've personally had far more issues with my local (largest in the region) credit union. Their (human) customer support reps frequently make mistakes processing my share certificates that automation would have otherwise avoided.
Re:Ntfy – open-source Push to Mobile on Friday August 14, 2026 @04:54PM (#49304462)
FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging), and Apple's own APN (Apple Push Notifications) work as a single OS level service, and they are multiplexed so that many different apps can route through them with a single connection, even waking your phone/watch from sleep. There are open/de-Googled alternatives like UnifiedPush, but they're not integrated at the OS layer (they run as a background worker thread), and can't match the battery efficiency or sleep-wake capabilities of those built into the OS/low-level networking layer.
You can personally avoid those websites, if you philosophically disagree with those terms. Good luck avoiding the operating system.
This is a very Western-centric way of thinking. The Japanese are culturally oriented toward "saving face" rather than directly confronting things like this. It's very likely that Nintendo approached their own government with private complaints, and the government is handling it diplomatically, rather than Nintendo causing more drama for their company (and country) by immediately suing the US government.
Re:Stateless MCP has recaptured my interest on Wednesday August 05, 2026 @04:43AM (#49180180)
During the initialize step, the client tells the server about its capabilities. Then the server remembers them for the session, so the client doesn't need to keep saying what it can do, and the server won't expose tools the client can't use. It's more overhead for the server, but more efficient over the wire for the rest of the session (that's just my understanding at least -- not saying this couldn't all be stateless).
Re:Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail on Friday July 17, 2026 @01:56AM (#48943776)
It's worth pointing out that Google's AI got its answer from this HN post and Tumblr posts referencing this post
This export ban follows Anthropic refusing to provide uninhibited use of AI to the US military, and the Pentagon subsequently listing them as a supply chain threat. That in turn led to Anthropic suing the government. This most recent development is obviously just a vindictive administration doing what it can to blackball Anthropic for not kowtowing to unrestricted military use like all of the other AI giants.
What about Mastodon or other federated platforms? If someone created a new Facebook, but it didn't have these corporate terms, it would still be social media.
Re:Various LLM Smells on Thursday May 28, 2026 @07:24PM (#48316942)
Cuts very close to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Artemis II: Christina Koch's PCD Failure

Early in the Artemis 2 Mission, Christina Koch's PCD (personal computing device, essentially a Surface tablet) completely failed to power on, and Houston had her attempt to perform a hard reset (hold down the power button, and the volume up button) several times, later having her remove the SD card and try again, at one point referring to last ditch efforts to get it running as a...

( Read More... | 2 comments | on HN )
Re:The “small web” is bigger than you might think on Monday March 16, 2026 @07:03PM (#47406244)
`indy 500`
Re:Eat Real Food on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @09:56PM (#46536621)
This site is flagged for some reason by BitDefender.
When I helped a friend set up his LG C2, we plugged it into Ethernet just long enough to update its firmware, then promptly disconnected it, never to even set up WiFi.
U.S. — United States (of America)
Re:Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work on Thursday December 18, 2025 @10:18AM (#46313614)
For what it's worth, writing good PRs applies in more cases than just AI generated contributions. In my PR descriptions, I usually start by describing how things currently work, then a summary of what needs to change, and why. Then I go on to describe what exactly is changing with the PR. This high level summary serves to educate the reviewer, and acts as a historical record in the git log for the benefit of those who come after you.

From there, I include explicit steps for how to test, including manual testing, and unit test/E2E test commands. If it's something visual, I try to include at least a screenshot, or sometimes even a brief screen capture demonstrating the feature.

Really go out of your way to make the reviewer's life easier. One benefit of doing all of this is that in most cases, the reviewer won't need to reach out to ask simple questions. This also helps to enable more asynchronous workflows, or distributed teams in different time zones.

Your best bet might be one of the Pixel "a" series, which are Google's budget-oriented models. Stock vanilla Android with as little bloat as you can hope for.
Re:NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission on Tuesday October 21, 2025 @04:33PM (#45661328)
What else are they going to use? A trampoline?
I've greatly enjoyed my Pixel 9 Pro Fold and would recommend it, with the following advice: I am very careful with mine. It's rated fairly well for water resistance, but not well for dust ingress. It's imperative that you keep it clean (I use alcohol wipes and microfiber cloth daily) and well contained in sandy or dirty environments. That said, I've taken mine to the beach and on camping/canoeing trips, albeit in a soft waterproof enclosure which still lets me use the external screen.
When the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold; And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

— Rudyard Kipling, The Conundrum of the Workshops

I'm assuming the same until informed otherwise.
Re:Show HN: Seek Anywhere – A Chrome/Brave Extension on Wednesday April 02, 2025 @02:15PM (#43559617)
Thanks for this. I've thought about building this exact thing ever since this vicious trend began.
Re:Mt32-pi developer quits due to community harassment on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:40PM (#43084742)
Every amendment should be taken literally. How else should your rights be interpreted? Figuratively?

I agree with you that people are much better off using constructive dialogue, and communities like HN are much better off because of moderation, but the idea of some government agency tracking down and fining trolls is to me a laughable suggestion.

Re:Mt32-pi developer quits due to community harassment on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:15PM (#43084555)
As an American who appreciates a strictly literal interpretation of the first amendment, it's very funny to me that a German not only takes pride in their government hunting down and suppressing inconvenient speech, but wants the rest of the world to fall in line.
Re:TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users on Sunday January 19, 2025 @02:57PM (#42761103)
This is the platform that led to the proliferation of newspeak terms like "unalive" to circumvent content restrictions. Such speech restrictions were never a thing on FB, IG, X, or YT, yet this form of self-censorship has spread to those platforms anyway, because TikTok users have become so used to it.
Re:Rewriting my website in plain HTML and CSS on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @12:16AM (#42707584)
SSI's were my first foray into "backend," if you can even call it that, sometime around the year 2000. Some benevolent commenter on Slashdot gave me the tipoff, and my growing frustration with copy-pasting HTML snippets between pages was henceforth a thing of the past. Then came PHP, Python, et cetera, and the rest is history.

Amazing how such a simple mechanism can remain useful even decades later.

Re:3D-printed neighborhood nears completion in Texas on Wednesday January 01, 2025 @10:26PM (#42571339)
Most 3D printed parts have a telltale texture resulting from the layer-by-layer deposit of material. The same goes for many milled/CNCed parts bearing evidence of tool marks. Once you've seen and held enough, it's relatively easy to identify whether a given part was printed, cast, milled, lathed, etc.

I say most because there are finishing methods which can largely obscure these details and make it less obvious as to which method produced a given part.

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