Top all-time · #620
A messenger, and part of a system of messengers.
Personal blog · exple.tive.org/blargprogrammingculture
A messenger, and part of a system of messengers. is a personal blog at exple.tive.org about programming and culture. Since 2011, 99 different Hacker News readers have linked it 132 times, most often “The origin of zero-based array indexing”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Sometimes recommended · 6 of 32 sampled comments recommend it, 4 are critical?
Why HN links it
Linked for its history of zero-based array indexing (the 'citation-needed' post) and its posts on IRC and synchronous messaging at Mozilla.
- Recommended for · 6 comments
- 'A really good read', 'very interesting', 'fun to read'; one commenter enjoys its 0- vs 1-based indexing history.
- Criticised for · 4 comments
- Dismisses Dijkstra; doubtful malloc() analogy; IRC auth claim; ignores crypto's decentralization ideology.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 32 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The origin of zero-based array indexing23 people · 27 mentions · first linked 2013-10-22
- Synchronous Text9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2019-04-26
- The Shape of the Machine4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-05-05
- Where do null-terminated strings come from3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-11-27
- Control Keys3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-12-18
- Falsehoods programmers believe about economics (2016)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-09-22
- Durable Design (2017)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-01-26
- Navigational Instruments: Hidden Features in Firefox [2020]2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-09-10
- The Bourne Aesthetic2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-12-07
- Candidates for Mozilla's IRC Successor2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-09-08
What Hacker News says?
With Signed HTTP Exchanges, for Google to modify the content that is served, Google would need access to a private key for a certificate for nytimes.com, no? Either nytimes.com has handed over that key or Google would have to create a key/certificate for nytimes.com. Believing Google would maliciously issue certificates seems a stretch to me. I don't like AMP nor much of how Google has behaved with it ( http://exple…
Comment linking /blarg/2020/05/05/the-shape-of-the-machine/
on “Where Am I? NYTimes or Google?”Submitted Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server as a story · 355 points
HN discussion> the technical reason we started counting arrays at zero is that in the mid-1960’s, you could shave a few cycles off of a program’s compilation time on an IBM 7094. The social reason is that we had to save every cycle we could, because if the job didn’t finish fast it might not finish at all and you never know when you’re getting bumped off the hardware because the President of IBM just called and fuck your thesis,…
Comment linking /blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/
on “Julia 1.0”Submitted The Jason Bourne Aesthetic as a story · 205 points
HN discussionhttp://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/04/26/synchronous-text/
Comment linking /blarg/2019/04/26/synchronous-text/
on “Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision”Submitted 80x25 as a story · 204 points
HN discussionFor background, see http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/04/26/synchronous-text/
Comment linking /blarg/2019/04/26/synchronous-text/
on “Synchronous Messaging at Mozilla: The Decision”Submitted Candidates for Mozilla's IRC Successor as a story · 182 points
HN discussionhttps://matrix.org/docs/guides/moderation http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2020/02/20/synchronous-messaging...
Comment linking /blarg/2020/02/20/synchronous-messaging-were-live/
on “Discord is not an acceptable choice for free software projects”Submitted Magic Numbers as a story · 177 points
HN discussion«While we still use it heavily, IRC is an ongoing source of abuse and harassment for many of our colleagues and getting connected to this now-obscure forum is an unnecessary technical barrier for anyone finding their way to Mozilla via the web. Available interfaces really haven’t kept up with modern expectations, spambots and harassment are endemic to the platform, and in light of that it’s no coincidence that peopl…
Comment linking /blarg/2019/04/26/synchronous-text/
on “We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible”Submitted Durable Design (2017) as a story · 151 points
HN discussion> And when we’re talking about blind spots and invisible social access controls, of course, what we’re really talking about is privilege. “Working in the open”, in a world where computation was scarce and expensive, meant working in front of an audience that was lucky enough to go to university or college, whose parents could afford a computer at home, who lived somewhere with broadband or had one of the few jobs wh…
Comment linking /blarg/2018/11/09/the-evolution-of-open/
on “Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server”Submitted Fifty Years of Diff as a story · 108 points
HN discussionIt's mostly about habit. Apart from that, I really enjoy this venture into the history of 0-based vs. 1-based indexing: http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/ > the technical reason we started counting arrays at zero is that in the mid-1960’s, you could shave a few cycles off of a program’s compilation time on an IBM 7094. The social reason is that we had to save every cycle we could, because if the…
Comment linking /blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/
on “The Accelerating Adoption of Julia”Submitted Thrashing as a story · 103 points
HN discussionThis is an argument which has been going on for years; " crazy paragraphs because the code is ugly " is a thoughtless low effort criticism and it doesn't deserve a steelman fleshed out rebuttal if the person hasn't put any effort in. You say "a symbol soup with multiple paragraphs explaining what the soup does and why it is good" - honestly, do you think people write multiple paragraphs explaining the code to beginn…
Comment linking /blarg/2019/04/17/why-dont-you-just/
on “Thinking in an array language”Submitted The origin of zero-based array indexing as a story · 103 points
HN discussionThere's the very real possibility that zero based indexing is in fact a Yacht Racing artifact. http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/
Comment linking /blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/
on “Some Insights from a Julia Developer”Submitted Long Term Support as a story · 76 points
HN discussionIf I remember the documentation around the decision to switch correctly, having enforced sign-in for moderation was on the requirements list. EDIT found it: > While we’re investigating options for semi-anonymous or pseudonymous connections, we will require authentication, because: > The Mozilla Community Participation Guidelines will apply, and they’ll be enforced. http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/04/26/synchronous-…
Comment linking /blarg/2019/04/26/synchronous-text/
on “Moznet IRC is dead; long live Mozilla Matrix”Submitted The Future of Planet Mozilla as a story · 74 points
HN discussionHere's an example from Mozilla: > While we still use it heavily, IRC is an ongoing source of abuse and harassment for many of our colleagues http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/04/26/synchronous-text/?s https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19763276
Comment linking /blarg/2019/04/26/synchronous-text/?s
on “Ask HN: Does anyone still use IRC?”Submitted Falsehoods programmers believe about economics (2016) as a story · 56 points
HN discussionfrom the same author, why arrays are zero-based http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/
Comment linking /blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/
on “80x25”Submitted Historical Reasons as a story · 46 points
HN discussionThe article linked from this plus page ( http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/ ) poses the question "why do programmers start counting at zero?" and then shows contempt towards anyone who thinks they know the answer (while dismissing Dijkstra as "incoherent", without argument). To the author, the correct way to answer this question is by investigating the history of how things happened to end up th…
Comment linking /blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/
on “Why Python uses 0-based indexing. It's because of slices ”Submitted Citation Needed as a story · 43 points
HN discussionThe post he mentions is a really good read. http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/ It was submitted here yesterday but got no love. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6595521 edit: fixed link
Comment linking /blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/
on “Why Python uses 0-based indexing. It's because of slices ”Submitted Free as in Health Care as a story · 42 points
HN discussion
