Top all-time · #360
Eric Sink
Personal blog · ericsink.comprogrammingstartups
Eric Sink's personal blog at ericsink.com covers programming and startups. Since 2007, 149 different Hacker News readers have linked it 206 times, most often “Why your F# evangelism isn't working (2015)”. The last post was in 2023, but the archive is still widely read.
Sometimes recommended · 10 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
Linked for Version Control by Example and his DVCS and Mercurial writing, the Spyglass and Browser Wars history, and essays on micro-ISVs and developer careers.
- Recommended for · 10 comments
- Called a free book for novices, 'nothing beats' basic VCS intros, 'worth a read', and 'a favourite' classic article.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Why your F# evangelism isn't working (2015)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-11-26
- Career Calculus (2003)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2007-11-14
- Choose Your Competition (2003)5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2008-06-24
- Eric Sink reminisces the days of the browser wars4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2009-09-24
- SQLite and Android N (2016)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-06-15
- Source Control HOWTO by Eric Sink3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2009-01-12
- /Browser_Wars.html3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-04-14
- Version control by Example (PDF book)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-07-24
- Memoirs from the Browser Wars (2003)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-02-11
- Attracting More Developers to F#3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-04-08
What Hacker News says?
Not sure if it's better or not, but Mercurial has a concept called the RevLog[0]. A basic overview of it is here[1]. It sounds like the revlog format can become corrupted from time-to-time, but it's pretty rare now adays. [0] http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/RevlogNG [1] http://ericsink.com/vcbe/html/repository_structure.html EDIT: another blog explaining revlog format: http://gregoryszorc.com/blog/2014/02/05/the-m…
Comment linking /vcbe/html/repository_structure.html
on “Go is moving to GitHub”Submitted Free Printed Copies of "Version Control by Example" as a story · 144 points
HN discussionWhy not just download Eric Sink's "Version Control by Example" ? http://www.ericsink.com/vcbe/ The book is free or can be purchased and explains both git and Mercurial with similar examples. We use it at our office to get novices up to speed on source control.
Comment linking /vcbe/
on “A simple guide for getting started with git”Submitted The Multiple SQLite Problem as a story · 131 points
HN discussionI like this explanation http://www.ericsink.com/item_10174.html from 2004 from Eric Sink, and this recent application of his own advice http://www.ericsink.com/entries/mobile_database_sync.html
Comment linking /entries/mobile_database_sync.html
on “Startup lessons”Submitted Finance for Geeks as a story · 118 points
HN discussionOf all the basic version control intros/books, for me nothing beats Version Control by Example[1] book. It first explains the core concepts/commands behind version control such as create, commit, etc and them it goes on to illustrate how these commands actually implemented and used in practice using different version control systems. The explanation is given for both centralized version control systems, using SVN, a…
Comment linking /vcbe/
on “Got 15 minutes and want to learn Git?”Submitted Great Hacker != Great Hire (2004) as a story · 116 points
HN discussionEric Sink from Source Gear made a similar point in a 2005 (I'm so old) essay explaining competition and business topics to developers via sports/game metaphors: https://ericsink.com/articles/Game_Afoot.html "The thing I find most interesting about Ping Pong is that you can often win without doing anything fancy or aggressive. A lot of players think the way to win is to slam the ball really hard. The problem with thi…
Comment linking /articles/Game_Afoot.html
on “Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy”Submitted Memoirs from the Browser Wars (2003) as a story · 92 points
HN discussionTo be pedantic: even if there is code from MSHTML.dll in Spartan, there's no code from NCSA Mosaic in MSHTML.dll. Internet Explorer originally licensed Spyglass Mosaic , which licensed the name (and the code) from NCSA, but did not actually use any of the code. Though I suspect that there's not actually any Spyglass Mosaic code left in IE these days. (Edited, I said that there's no MSHTML.dll code in Spartan. That I…
Comment linking /Browser_Wars.html
on “The birth of Microsoft's new web rendering engine”- io · 2010-07-14
Submitted Veracity: The next step in DVCS as a story · 84 points
HN discussion It started with Spyglass, who were Mosaic licensees, but apparently wrote their own code. The story of Spyglass is told here https://ericsink.com/Browser_Wars.html "Management made the decision to transition our business completely and pursue the market for web browsers. Tim Krauskopf, the founder and head of development, asked me to write a web browser. I started work on Spyglass Mosaic on April 5th, 1994. The demo…
Comment linking /Browser_Wars.html
on “Chrome was delivered without any sprints at all (2021)”Submitted SQLite and Android N (2016) as a story · 82 points
HN discussionThe argument ingnores a fact that if netscape did not take off and be popular, microsoft might not ever consider buying spyglass browser and expanded it into IE (Eric Sink led the spyglass team, with his memoir http://www.ericsink.com/Browser_Wars.html ) and waged browser war in late 90s. What all software architects forget is, most of time, the piece of code that we wrote is to solve problems in life. Those problem…
Comment linking /Browser_Wars.html
on “The Duct Tape Programmer”Submitted Twitter, Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal as a story · 72 points
HN discussionHere is Eric Sink's recollection: https://ericsink.com/Browser_Wars.html
Comment linking /Browser_Wars.html
on “OpenAI’s board, paraphrased: ‘All we need is unimaginable sums of money’”Submitted Do elite software developers exist? as a story · 69 points
HN discussionSuch a good idea. I mostly use Mercurial, which has a clean, logical and consistent CLI which I like a lot. And while I like the concept of Git, using it makes my head hurt. I'm reminded of the article that compares the two: Git is Wesley Snipes; Mercurial is Denzel Washington: http://www.ericsink.com/entries/hg_denzel.html .
Comment linking /entries/hg_denzel.html
on “GUM: A better CLI for Git”Submitted Mobile Apps: HTML5 vs Native as a story · 67 points
HN discussion16 years ago, a man named Eric Sink decided to document the process of creating, marketing and selling a small piece of software he had always wanted to build, "Winnable Solitaire" which is, as you describe, always solvable. His series of articles coined the term "Micro-ISV" which was a once-common term for a small software company with approximately one employee. A category that is now covered under "Indie" develop…
Comment linking /entries/Announcing_Winnable_Solit.html
on “Pure Skill Minesweeper”Submitted Running WebAssembly and WASI with .Net as a story · 65 points
HN discussionSee also: Micro-ISV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_ISV http://www.amazon.com/Micro-ISV-Vision-Reality-Bob-Walsh/dp/... http://ericsink.com/bos/Micro_ISV.html Make sure to read this to get a different take though. http://www.singlefounder.com/the-day-the-microisv-movement-d...
Comment linking /bos/Micro_ISV.html
on “Stop Looking for a Cofounder”Submitted Billions without Buzz as a story · 61 points
HN discussion> SHA-1 will still work fine for the purpose of git. So why are they changing it? That's pretty strong evidence it's not fine. I found this Stackoverflow question, "Why does Git use a cryptographic hash function?" [1], which points to [2]. Note: pretty much every DVCS uses a cryptographic hash function. That doesn't seem like an accident. Reading through some of these old posts and threads it seems like performance…
Comment linking /vcbe/html/cryptographic_hashes.html
on “SHA-1 'fully and practically broken' by new collision (2020)”Submitted Choose Your Manager as a story · 47 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of the 'Law of Line Extension'[0]. What I think they can successfully do, is rebrand as a new product (Accord is a name that might suit it, given the nature of office communications), disassociate any gamer connections, and link it to Discord by adding an account switcher. [0]: https://ericsink.com/laws/Law_12.html
Comment linking /laws/Law_12.html
on “Discord has won over gamers. Now it wants everybody else”Submitted Product Pricing Primer as a story · 43 points
HN discussionhttps://ericsink.com/entries/fsharp_chasm.html
Comment linking /entries/fsharp_chasm.html
on “F# is gaining independence from .NET”Submitted Veracity 0.9.1 as a story · 39 points
HN discussion
