Ask HN: What are the nice feature you need in a programming language?
I'm developing a programming language, the keywords and features mostly based on Swift 5 but some additional features like,
1. async function will be called from no async function but no async/await keyword. If you want to block main thread then block_main() function will be used. block_main() /* operations */ unblock_main()
2. protocol can inherit another protocol(s) & protocol can confirm a class like swift.
3. no `let`. only `var`. compiler can optimize further.
4. if (a == (10 || 20 || 30) || b == a) && c { }
5. `Asterisk` is replaced to `x` operator for mul operations.
What are the features you found or you need in a programming language?
Ask HN: Bluesky Accounts Worth Following for HN Enthusiasts
Hey fellow HN enthusiasts!
I'm looking to expand my Bluesky feed with accounts that share interesting, tech-related content, similar to what we discuss here on HN.
Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?
We are a remote company. Everything is going well. No plans to be in person, but I’d say we can do a better job at communicating. Any tips or articles to read?
Ask HN: Open-Source Alternatives to Google Location History?
I've been using Google Timeline (Location History) for years to remind me of what I have been doing on a specific day. However, Google will no longer store data in its cloud (https://www.techradar.com/phones/google-maps-will-soon-delete-your-location-history-unless-you-tell-it-not-to ). This brings me troubles because I really don't like to operate the cell phone when I have a much more powerful PC at hand.
I would like to ask for advises for open source self hosted alternatives that collect location data quietly in background. Here are what I've found:
https://github.com/traccar/traccar (server, client)
https://github.com/mendhak/gpslogger (client)
https://github.com/home-assistant (server, has location tracking integration)
https://github.com/owntracks (server, client)
https://github.com/Freika/dawarich (server)
https://github.com/aaronpk/Overland-iOS (iOS client)
https://github.com/OpenHumans/overland_android (Android client, inactive)
https://github.com/aaronpk/Compass (server)
https://github.com/julien-nc/phonetrack (web client, use Nextcloud as server)
Any recommendations or tips?Thanks!
How to Take Good Decisions?
Hey everyone! I'm trying to get better at decision-making, both at work and in everyday life. Do you have any favorite books, articles, or courses that really helped you make better choices? I'd love any recommendations—whether it's practical tips, interesting frameworks, or just great reads. Thanks in advance!
Ask HN: How to Emigrate from EU and Where?
EU is in a perpetual state of decline and it seems there are no solutions in sight that would change its path in the next decade.
Everything seems so stagnant and the costs of living are rising while the salaries do not increase whatsoever.
What's worse is that due to its economic decline politicians and leaders try to persuade the populace that a lot of things that we enjoy and contribute to our quality of life are now considered luxury or outright sinful. The same kind of rhetoric that is used to sin tax tobacco, alcohol, gambling is now used on things like:
- car ownership - Air Conditioning - Travel - meat and dairy
How to Reach Angel Investors in the San Francisco Area for Agentic AI Startup?
Hi All! We’ve recently launched a San Francisco-based Agentic AI startup. So far, we’ve organically built a waitlist of over 1000 users and converted some of them into paying subscribers without any marketing spend. With this early traction, we’re eager to scale our platform and attract enterprise clients. Given our progress, what strategies or channels would you recommend for connecting with angel investors in the San Francisco area? Any insights or advice on approaching potential investors effectively would be greatly appreciated!
Ask HN: How does a cash acquistion with SAFEs work?
I hope this doesn't come across as too stupid of a question. There is so much insight for more complex situations, but nothing I saw that clearly explained this simple situation. Want to make sure I'm not over/under thinking this.
Let's say a simple LLC business has two standard post-money SAFEs....
- Investor A contributed $40,000 at a post-money valuation cap of $400,000
- Investor B contributed $50,000 at a post-money valuation cap of $800,000
- There are no other investors
Questions: If the business is fully sold for $600,000 all cash, does Investor B still receive 6.25% of the acquisition cash even if the sale is under their valuation cap?
Ask HN: Facebook is bullying me, what can I do? Warning
I have a Facebook page for my business that was suspended because I was accused of "impersonating any business, celebrity, or public figure." The page shares the same name as a well-known TV show, but it predates the show, and I have a valid U.S. trademark. Unfortunately, I cannot reach Facebook by email, phone, or chat. I have filed two appeals with their intellectual property section, but both times I received the same response:
"Thanks for your message. Our team handles intellectual property issues (e.g., copyright, trademark), but it looks like you need help with something else."
I'm unsure if I can afford to hire a lawyer. If I decide to sue, which state would I need to file in? I'm in New Jersey, but would I have to sue in California? I'm feeling completely lost.
WARNING: Facebook can and will disable your page without any warning or notice, and they may not reactivate it even with a U.S. trademark.
Ask HN: What is your expierence selling a domain name?
Why do we see no companies offering to deploy local LLMs?
It seems an obvious idea but we cannot find anyone offering b2b local LLMs setup to corporations that doesn't want to use external ones & keep their data in-house.. ie airlines, governments, attorneys, accountants..
Ask HN: What are some of the best take-home coding tasks you've gotten?
As an applicant, I've personally had a mixed experience with take-homes. We're designing the technical interviews right now, and I thought I'd ask for some stories on exciting take-home tasks. We're looking for something that resembles the actual job, so we'll allow any tool (including AI and debuggers).
Also curious to hear about any bad ones you've done.
Ask HN: What are your used Matrix homeservers?
I want to join the matrix ecosystem again. Any homeservers you can recommend? I wanted to go cybre.space but it is EOL since the beginning of this year.
Or is the default matrix.org good enough?
Which client do you use for mobile? What are some general tweaks I can do? With my old account I received many messages I couldn't read and users reported they can't see my messages. What did I wrong in setting it up? Thanks in advance.
Ask HN: FontAwesome makes it impossible to downgrade. Any alternatives?
I've been using and supporting FontAwesome for over 10 years, including paying for licenses to support the great work they do. However, their sales tactics have become quite frustrating. I encountered an issue where I couldn't downgrade from Pro Max to Pro, despite their plan page stating:
"If you just need icons for a web project, our online-only Pro Lite plan is a good choice. If you’re not sure, our Pro Plan is a good choice to start with, and don’t worry - it’s easy to change your plan."
Does anyone know of good alternatives to FontAwesome?
Ask HN: Recruiters, why do you repost jobs with 1000 applications a month later?
The majority of jobs on LinkedIn right now seem to be reposts of jobs from a month or two ago.
You can see from the application data that each role that's been reposted already has hundreds of applicants, which implies that it did last month as well.
Why would you repost a role vs just going through the 1000 applications you received last time?
What is the reasoning there?
Ask HN: How does one negotiate for a remote job?
Asking for a friend who is interviewing right now: for life reasons he would really appreciate a fully remote job. Do you think prospective employers/hiring managers have fixed remote policies or is there flexibility if they're willing to give up some compensation? Is there an approach that is better than just asking directly?
Asking about a full range of companies, not just FAANG.
Ask HN: Did the HN header become harsh bright orange color?
Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?
As a father of a 13-year-old kid, I tried to do my best to initiate him to different aspects of life. It could be watching a documentary about black holes, building coffee table or just enjoying a simple walk in nature.
I asked to some friends if they have great project idea that could be done by an 8th grade kid with or without support. I personally like to do it with him as it is a privileged time to build something together (for me) and learn new skills (for him).
The purpose of this thread is to assemble some ideas for Christmas presents.
I’m starting…
1. DIY LED Christmas tree kit for soldering (https://www.az-delivery.de/en/products/diy-weihnachtsbaum-kit-alles-inklusive-versandkostenfrei)
2. Software Defined Radios kit (https://www.rtl-sdr.com/about-rtl-sdr/ and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CD7558GT)
3. DIY Internet Radio Alarm clock with touch screen control (https://www.az-delivery.de/en/products/radiowecker-mit-dem-az-touch)
Any other ideas or suggestions?
Ask HN: What are your favorite tools for taming your email?
Like many people, my inbox seems to be at a place once again where it is just too overwhelming to keep track of. Automated sorting into more folders won’t give me more time to go through it all.
Curious what tools folks use to solve this problem.
Ask HN: How to check who the black bar is honoring?
I noticed the black bar is up today and I don't see any death posts. Is there an easy way to see who this is honoring? It would be nice to have a feature that on hover said who it was or something of the like.
Ask HN: Anybody used Retool for production, user-facing app?
Bootstrapped founder here.
I'm planning to build a SaaS product loosely in the B2B logistics space - it needs to be relatively low cost to build/maintain, look slick and be extensible.
It would be customer facing, meaning each customer would need a login/account (or perhaps many, if a whole team is using our product).
I've looked at Retool and it looks quite epic but it looks like it's designed primarily for internal apps.
Has anybody used, or attempted to use Retool for a production, user-facing app?
Would really appreciate advice, war stories or recommendations.
Tell HN: Unable to archive HN posts using Wayback Machine
As of the last 24 hours I have observed the same behaviour while archiving HN posts using "Save Page Now" feature of Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. After I start the page archival proccess it downloads only the favicon.ico file and stops.
Is this a result of some HN policy? If not, how can Internet Archive team be notified, aside from sending a useless error report with no details?
Ask HN: What programming languages are you learning currently or in 2025
I’m currently learning Zig but the lack of a package manager and the ever changing language scares me off. Tutorials are broken from just a year ago.
Context: Go developer for 7 years and would love to stay in the systems space without Rust
Ask HN: What job search strategies work for you?
I’ve been laid off since June and have not been getting responses from most of my applications other than denials. I have 10+ years mostly Ruby/React/JS. New just working on a side project (job listing scraper) but curious what is working well for you? Specific apps or strategies that lead to your hiring?
Ask HN: Best practices using AI as an experienced web dev
As an Old, I came up learning the OG web dev languages - HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, etc. As a solo dev, I still largely work with these as natively as possible. But I am not a total dinosaur. I embraced jQuery in the early 2000's, Bootstrap scaffolding, and now often build reactive UI's using Vue 3.
Still, I continue to be picky about the many abstractions-of-abstractions that litter the dev landscape, mostly devised to drive their founders' business models.
AI-driven co-pilots are red hot now, and I want to evaluate their usefulness to my style of dev work. I've begun dabbling with services like Codeium and Claude, particularly within VSCode.
At first these AI tools seem exciting. A whole function conjured out of thin air from a short prompt! But the more I test drive, the more I find that I'm spending my time trying to craft prompts that are accurate enough to generate the code I want. Whereas I could be using that time to just conceive and write the code myself.
If you are not already well-versed in your coding languages, these AI tools must save a ton of time and effort. My question is - what about you devs who are already proficient in your languages of choice? How do you leverage AI co-pilots to maximize their usefulness without just falling into the "distracted by another abstraction" hole?
Ask HN: Is there an HN-like forum for woodworking?
I figured I’d ask the main source of woodworkers, former software engineers and tech worker burnouts. I’m looking for a place where I can expand my knowledge and horizons much like here, but for woodcraft and adjacent things.
Ask HN: What projects are you going to work on if no need to work?
I think we can all dream. I'll start:
- I will read geological surveys and find fossils.
- I will teach myself Physics and see what happens.
Ask HN: How to learn software development concepts crucial for senior roles?
Hi HN, I'm working at an early stage startup, and want to learn about concepts and patterns that are crucial for senior roles, like: - Batch Processing - Messaging Queues - Microservices - Design Patterns - Which techniques to apply while working on a task - Properly debugging
Is there any online resource or somewhere I can see this in practice? Or any newsletter, youtube channel that discusses this in detail?
My go to sources are open source repositories where I try to understand the code bases and some PRs. But I feel overwhelmed with the resources.
Ask HN: Why hasn't the JavaScript event loop model scaled horizontally?
Right now, JavaScript scales well with a single-threaded event loop. Certainly not as fast as something like Go for async tasks, but enough to power much of the web and be easy to write.
Why hasn't anyone abstracted the event loop model to scale across multiple machines or utilize modern processors? Perhaps with something more like an Actor model or Erlang's BEAM?
It seems like just getting the JavaScript concurrency model as an abstraction over multicore or multi-machine concurrency would be one of the easiest ways to achieve this. I realize that this is still technically difficult, but programming tends towards "just porting things to JavaScript." I would love to have something like Phoenix framework, just built with JavaScript/TypeScript, and I can scale a back end by bumping size of a machine or scaling horizontally.
Ask HN: Have you gotten anywhere cold messaging investors?
As an unknown/nobody with a startup and a pitch, have you personally gotten anywhere cold messaging investors? Emailing them, messaging on LinkedIn, filling out website applications, etc.
What were the results, and how many did you have to contact before you got anywhere?