ryanmadden
Re:GPT-5.6 Sol can beat Factorio on peaceful mode
on Saturday October 31, 2026 @04:28PM (#50319825)
(Author) I did this on the 'Plus' plan over a series of 5h quota segments so $20 for me, but at API pricing the tokens would have been $52
'Cattle, not pets' for code
Re:Writing a good design document
on Sunday August 03, 2025 @06:58PM (#44780557)
In my experience, organization/clarity is the biggest hurdle for SWEs trying to improve their doc writing. I like the author's spaghetti code analogy for the importance of idea organization within a doc -- I've struggled to convey the same concept before and I will use this in the future. In the past I've talked about 'ferrying' the reader through your thought process but this post explains the concept in a more familiar way.
I wrote a similar post last year[0] and it was interesting to see the similarities (concision, importance of practice) and differences with someone from a different company. I'm not sure I agree about 'short paragraphs' -- that may be a natural consequence of high information density writing but line breaks themselves aren't much help if the ideas aren't distilled. The 'Editing' section gets at that underlying idea more directly imo.
[0]https://ryanmadden.net/things-i-learned-at-google-design-doc...
Re:Show HN: A Product Idea Prompt Generator
on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @05:22PM (#24770476)
Reminds me of a parody startup generator I made years ago :) [0].
The ideas that reference a specific other company or niche are good but for more abstract prompts (e.g. "Consider the human desire for power. How could you use technology to take out steps?") I've found it's harder to get a meaningful brainstorm started.