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siddhant

Re:Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026) on Monday July 13, 2026 @04:17AM (#48889443)
I'm continuing to work on Personal Finances Python [1], a book that teaches software developers how to track their finances using the Python ecosystem, Double Entry Bookkeeping, and a bunch of plain-text files.

Apart from that, I recently started getting interested in the AT protocol ecosystem, so I built a directory [2] for discovering ATProto alternatives to mainstream/centralized products.

[1]: https://personalfinancespython.com

[2]: https://atprotoalternatives.com

Re:Ask HN: What are you building that's not AI related? on Friday April 10, 2026 @02:51AM (#47714458)
This should be fixed now!
Re:Ask HN: What are you building that's not AI related? on Thursday April 09, 2026 @05:23AM (#47701211)
Definitely something on my end. Thanks for the heads up! I’ll try to fix it tonight.
Re:Ask HN: What are you building that's not AI related? on Thursday April 09, 2026 @05:06AM (#47701059)
I’m building ATProto Alternatives (https://atprotoalternatives.com).

I started looking into AT Protocol recently and find it very interesting, so I started collecting a list of decentralized products built on top of AT that are alternatives to mainstream (popular) products.

Re:10 years of personal finances in plain text files on Friday January 02, 2026 @01:24PM (#46467720)
Thanks a lot for the shout out, Michael!
Re:Trying out Zed after more than a decade of Vim/Neovim on Saturday January 25, 2025 @07:47AM (#42821320)
I think I'm actively trying to not do anything dynamic/complicated. :)

If Zed breaks things too much in the future (to the point that its JSON config doesn't let me do something I need to get my work done) I'll probably go back to using Neovim. We'll see how it plays out over time. For now I'm enjoying having less configuration knobs.

Thanks for the feedback!

You can find the TOC here: https://personalfinancespython.com/files/toc.pdf (will try to link to it from the website later during the day).

This book mainly focuses on extracting data from CSV files. Generally speaking though, if the PDF statements your bank sends have a deterministic format, extracting data should be possible using some PDF parsing library.

Thanks for the feedback about the website! I've changed the button text so the price is displayed inline.

Just added another comment with a link to a sample chapter. Thanks!
And here’s a sample chapter: https://personalfinancespython.com/files/sample.pdf

(I couldn’t modify the original comment or add replies to it anymore, hence posting a new one.)

Thanks for the heads up!

I’m trying to change it but apparently it’s not possible to adjust URLs after submission?

Hoping one of the mods could help with this!

About 4 years ago I started looking for a privacy-friendly way to keep track of my money across different accounts.

While searching, I found Plain Text Accounting [1], which means keeping financial records inside plain-text files. This method really appealed to the developer in me and I started digging deeper.

4 years later, I now have a stable workflow using Beancount [2] that lets me import all my financial activity into a plain-text file that lives inside a git repository on my disk. Needless to say, I'm super happy with this workflow!

So this ebook is my attempt at helping more folks get into the world of PTA and Beancount! In my experience, the documentation can be a bit tricky to get into, so I hope this ebook lowers the barrier to entry!

Open to answering questions!

[1]: https://plaintextaccounting.org/

[2]: https://beancount.github.io/

Re:How you can track your personal finances using Python on Sunday September 05, 2021 @03:45AM (#28422319)
Looks cool! This will definitely be of interest to folks using Beancount.

I just added a link to it on https://awesome-beancount.com/#tools.

Re:How you can track your personal finances using Python on Sunday September 05, 2021 @03:32AM (#28422267)
Martin's blog post is awesome! It helped clear up a bunch of stuff for me too.

And on a somewhat unrelated note: his book on building data-intensive applications is another goldmine (on a different topic).

Re:How you can track your personal finances using Python on Sunday September 05, 2021 @03:30AM (#28422261)
That's actually a good point.

You only need to write Python code if you're using the Beancount importers framework and intend to use bean-identify and/or bean-extract.

Re:Ask HN: Advice for a new and inexperienced tech lead? on Thursday February 06, 2020 @10:10AM (#22256499)
There’s great advice in the other comments already.

One additional resource I would recommend is https://devtomanager.com , which is a list of interviews with other developers on how their transition was like.

Good luck on your career move!

I run Developer to Manager (https://devtomanager.com), where we interview tech leaders and ask them for advice they have for someone new to this field.

I'm of course biased, but I do feel it's turning out to be a good resource. Feedback is always welcome!

Re:Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet on Monday August 05, 2019 @06:32PM (#20619858)
My point of comparison is the internet prices/quality in India. Post Jio, fast internet seems to be practically free over there.
Re:Germans Grow Frustrated with Their Slow-Poke Internet on Monday August 05, 2019 @06:30PM (#20619840)
Interesting. Not sure if it's location dependent, but I've had a considerably better/faster/stabler experience with cable. With DSL the connection keeps breaking all the time. And yes, Vodafone definitely has support/quality issues.

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