# hacker news Published articles for hacker news. This is one page of public article previews, not the complete archive. Follow Next page to continue. Summaries are not the original full articles. ## Seven years of bitwise: a weekend project, a Hackernews front page, and the long road into Debian DevFeed: [Seven years of bitwise: a weekend project, a Hackernews front page, and the long road into Debian]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Ramon Published: 2026-09-11T15:21:24Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Ramon Fried]() Topics: [Software](), [Command-line interface](), [Debian]() Tags: [c](), [command-line](), [debian](), [hacker-news](), [linux](), [ncurses](), [open-source](), [packaging](), [software](), [vim]() ### AI overview A developer reflects on seven years of maintaining bitwise, a terminal calculator, from its initial release through feature development, Hacker News attention, and packaging in Debian and other distributions. ### Source excerpt I started bitwise because I was tired of opening the KDE calculator. Seven years, one Hacker News front page and sixteen distributions later, here's what I learned -- mostly about how hard it is to get software to people. ## Reproducing Hacker News writing style fingerprinting DevFeed: [Reproducing Hacker News writing style fingerprinting]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2025-04-16T13:53:16Z Content type: article Language: en Sources: [Antirez]() Topics: [Redis](), [quantization](), [data](), [Python](), [datasets](), [GitHub](), [airflow]() Tags: [code](), [data](), [dataset](), [demo](), [github](), [hacker-news](), [python](), [quantization](), [redis](), [report]() ### AI overview The article reports on reproducing a Hacker News writing-style fingerprinting experiment using word-frequency vectors and Redis Vector Sets. It describes a demo, a reproducible GitHub implementation, the dataset's memory requirements, and benchmark results for VSIM with int8 quantization. ### Source excerpt About three years ago I saw a quite curious and interesting post on Hacker News. A student, Christopher Tarry, was able to use cosine similarity against a vector of top words frequencies in comments, in order to detect similar HN accounts -- and, sometimes, even accounts actually controlled by the same user, that is, fake accounts used to uncover the identity of the writer. This is the original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 I was not aware, back then, of Burrows-Delta method for style detection: it seemed kinda magical that you just needed to normalize a frequency vector of top words to reach such quite remarkable results. I read a few wikipedia pages and took mental note of it. Then, as I was working with Vectors for Redis I remembered about this post, searched the web only to discover that the original page was gone and that the author, in the original post and website, didn't really explained very well how the data was processed, the top words extracted (and, especially, how many were used) and so forth. I thought I could reproduce the work with Vector Sets, once I was done with the main work. Now the new data type is in the release candidate, and I found some time to work on the problem. This is a report of what I did, but before to continue, the mandatory demo site: you can play with it at the following link: https://antirez.com/hnstyle?username=pg&threshold=20&action=search NOTE: since the dataset takes 700MB of RAM, in my tiny server, in the next months I may take this down. However, later in this post you will find the link and the Github repository with the code to reproduce everything from scratch. NOTE2: I hope the web site will survive, it's a very crude Python script. I benchmarked the VSIM command in such a small server and yet it can deliver 80k VSIM per second! The wonders of int8 quantization, together with a few more optimizations. But the Python script is terrible, creates a new Redis connection each time and so forth. Fingers ## How we got 1500 GitHub stars in 1 week DevFeed: [How we got 1500 GitHub stars in 1 week]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Marcus Kohlberg Published: 2022-03-15T00:00:00Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Encore Updates]() Topics: [GitHub](), [Go Language](), [Back end]() Tags: [backend](), [community](), [developers](), [github](), [go](), [hacker-news]() ### AI overview A retrospective explains how Encore, a Go-based cloud development platform, launched publicly through a Hacker News post and gained 1,500 GitHub stars in one week. The authors attribute the response to community interest, meaningful feedback, and rapid replies to comments. ### Source excerpt An overnight success 4 years in the making. ## Branch predictor: How many "if"s are too many? Including x86 and M1 benchmarks! DevFeed: [Branch predictor: How many "if"s are too many? Including x86 and M1 benchmarks!]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Marek Published: 2021-05-05T22:00:00Z Content type: article Language: en Sources: [Marek Majkowski]() Topics: [x86](), [Cloudflare]() Tags: [architecture](), [article](), [benchmarks](), [blog](), [cloudflare](), [discussion](), [hacker-news](), [travis](), [x86]() ### AI overview The article examines how many conditional branches affect branch prediction, with benchmarks covering x86 and M1 systems. It also points to discussions about BTB behavior, M1 branch-predictor interactions with the iCache prefetcher, and related commentary. ### Source excerpt Branch predictor: How many "if"s are too many? Including x86 and M1 benchmarks! I published an article on Cloudflare blog: Notable discussions mentioning this work: - Looking at BTB behavior and size: a comment on my work from Travis Downs, followed by response from Linus Torvalds. - Discussion on M1 architecture, with fascinating take on branch predictor interactions with iCache prefetcher. - Hacker News commentary ## Going Write-Only, Halfway Report DevFeed: [Going Write-Only, Halfway Report]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2015-05-06T00:00:00Z Content type: article Language: en Sources: [Joe Nelson]() Topics: [coding](), [experiments](), [Code](), [Software]() Tags: [article](), [coding](), [developer](), [experiment](), [experiments](), [hacker-news](), [software]() ### AI overview A halfway report on a "write-only" experiment, reflecting on feedback, software longevity, coding, small hacks, and the role of a broader mission in directing technical work. The author also discusses temporarily avoiding email, Twitter, news, and other media while focusing on coding. ### Source excerpt 2015-05-06 When I wrote the original essay about going "write-only" I was kind of putting myself out there sharing thoughts I would ordinarily keep to myself for fear of being a preachy hipster. However the thoughts rang true for me so I took the leap and assumed that someone else might at least partially agree. I submitted the article to Hacker News, closed my email client, closed Twitter and began the long solitary experiment. ## Pgloader Post Gains Attention on Hacker News and Postgres Weekly DevFeed: [Pgloader Post Gains Attention on Hacker News and Postgres Weekly]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Dimitri Fontaine PostgreSQL Major Contributor; Author Published: 2015-01-22T00:48:00Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Dimitri Fontaine]() Topics: [PostgreSQL](), [Common Lisp](), [backups](), [FOSDEM]() Tags: [backups](), [hacker-news](), [lisp](), [postgresql]() ### AI overview The author says a Pgloader post received attention in Postgres Weekly issue #89 and on the Hacker News front page, creating a surge in traffic described as a first Slashdot effect. The post also mentions upcoming pgloader talks at FOSDEM and PGDAY, including PostgreSQL migration and tested backups. ### Source excerpt Thanks to the Postgres Weekly issue #89 and a post to Hacker News front page (see Pgloader: A High-speed PostgreSQL Swiss Army Knife, Written in Lisp it well seems that I just had my first Slashdot effect... ## Where to start with developer content DevFeed: [Where to start with developer content]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Map Published: 2014-01-21T20:55:56Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Craig Kerstiens]() Topics: [Publishing](), [Reddit](), [X (Twitter)]() Tags: [developer](), [developers](), [engagement](), [hacker-news](), [indexing](), [marketing](), [publishing](), [reddit](), [traffic](), [twitter]() ### AI overview The article discusses how developers and companies can distribute content beyond Hacker News. It compares Hacker News, other news sites, Twitter, and Google Plus, arguing that these channels differ in reach, shelf life, traffic quality, engagement, and indexing speed. ### Source excerpt Getting the word out Hacker News When it comes to marketing, specifically to developers, the most common question is how do I get on Hacker News? The second most commong is, well in addition to there what matters. This fully depends on your audience, and if you really only care about the former versus the broader issue of creating a sustainable model for circulating your content then just read these links then move on. If you want a full model for getting your content out there then keep reading. The best time to post to hacker news How to get on the front page of hacker news More than just Hacker News First off don't get me wrong, HN can provide a great surge of short term traffic. There's a few problems I have with this though. To begin with it gives you one shot to get your message perfect, if you have the wrong message, miss your call to action, or forget an affiliate link then you get your 15k viewers well you get no second shot at it. Though more interestingly and a bit of gut feel, I've noticed that traffic contains more bounes and lower engagement. And then theres the issue that its definitely not a science to getting on there.... Other news sites Of course theres other news sites, ones of relevance include reddit, dzone, monacle. I've found each of these can be similar in some ways to hacker news. Yet, they have a bit longer of a shelf life, giving me a slightly higher propensity to give them some attention. At the same time they also have a smaller reach. Twitter Twitter is yet another method that can work quite well. Observations of it include lower traffic than something like a hacker news, and equal to better engagement overall. Perhaps the most interesting piece I find is that you'll often get more intelligent and also positive discussion on twitter vs. HN. There is one huge fail I find with twitter that nearly every company commits. The author of the post or company twitter handle posts it, then 10 people proceed to retweet it within 10 minutes. The pro