Top all-time · #1467
The Reinvigorated Programmer
Personal blog · reprog.wordpress.comprogrammingwriting
The Reinvigorated Programmer is a personal blog at reprog.wordpress.com about programming and writing. Since 2010, 48 different Hacker News readers have linked it 143 times, most often “Are you one of the 10% of programmers who can write a binary search?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-16, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 4 of 34 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for posts on programming correctness and tooling, such as binary search, closures, git usability and invariants. Commenters cite its posts as support in threads on those topics.
- Recommended for · 4 comments
- called it "a great one"; "very good articles"; an "interesting article"; a "great walkthrough of invariants".
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 34 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Everything except sauropod vertebrae
Most-linked posts?
- Are you one of the 10% of programmers who can write a binary search?6 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2015-07-09
- Still hatin' on git: now with added Actual Reasons3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2010-05-12
- Steve Jobs "never had any designs. He has not designed a single project"3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2010-09-06
- Are you one of the 10% of programmers who can write a binary search?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2010-04-19
- We can't afford to write safe software2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2010-06-05
- Whatever Happened to Programming? (2010)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-10-03
- Whatever happened to programming, redux: it may not be as bad as all that2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2010-03-04
- Semantic mapping is hard2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-04-19
- Git is a Harrier Jump Jet. And not in a good way2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-05-10
- Proposal: A controlled vocabulary for attitudes to PRs, forks and bug-reports2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-12-02
What Hacker News says?
No, it isn't. Da Vinci used a paintbrush to paint. Steve Jobs did not use C to program, because he never wrote any code or even designed anything according to at least one verifiable source[1]. It's more like saying the paintbrush is more important than anything some really successful art dealer ever did. http://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/steve-jobs-never-had-... (the book mentioned in the blog post, not the po…
Comment linking /2010/09/06/steve-jobs-never-had-any-designs-he-has-not-designed-a-single-project/
on “Rob Pike: Dennis Ritchie has died”Submitted British hackers: stop voting for lizards; start voting for people today as a story · 199 points
HN discussionSomeone did a blog about that book, and challenged people to do their own bug-free implementations. https://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/are-you-one-of-the-1...
Comment linking /2010/04/19/are-you-one-of-the-10-percent/
on “Ask HN: What's your favorite elegant/beautiful algorithm?”Submitted Steve Jobs "never had any designs. He has not designed a single project" as a story · 173 points
HN discussionIt's true there's nothing about what she really got up to, but there are hints that she's hardly benign, e.g. in the speech discussed here https://reprog.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/i-wish-jackson-hadnt... (that was just the first result I found on Google).
Comment linking /2012/12/29/i-wish-jackson-hadnt-ruined-galadriels-speech/
on “IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power”Submitted Whatever happened to programming? as a story · 157 points
HN discussionJust dropping in to say that The Elements of Programming Style is worth reading three times — and I have read it many more times than that, and benefitted from it. Here's my review (from 2010) if you're interested: https://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/programming-books-pa...
Comment linking /2010/03/06/programming-books-part-2-the-elements-of-programming-style/
on “SICP: The only computer science book worth reading twice? (2010)”Submitted 32 years on, K&R's "The C Programming Language" still stands alone as a story · 142 points
HN discussionhttps://reprog.wordpress.com/ is a great one i discovered recently.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What programming blogs do you follow?”Submitted Jon Bentley's Programming Pearls: 25 years old, still brilliant as a story · 136 points
HN discussionI agree it's very easy to make an off-by-one mistake in binary search. (Related article: [1]) But an interview candidate showing something that is almost right and then has enough self-awareness to say "but I'm sure there's an off by one error in there somewhere" has given a really good overall answer in my books. I think there's still value in asking the question because that sort of answer constrasts against candi…
Comment linking /2010/04/19/are-you-one-of-the-10-percent/
on “It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate”Submitted Snowden-haters are on the wrong side of history as a story · 133 points
HN discussionThere are edge cases that are easy to forget about even if you have the general idea. This article is about binary search, not bubble sort, but it has a lot of the same problems. https://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/binary-search-redux-...
Comment linking /2010/04/21/binary-search-redux-part-1/
on “Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process”Submitted Still hatin' on git: now with added Actual Reasons as a story · 112 points
HN discussionSee also: The Collapse of Complex Computer Programs , at http://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/the-collapse-of-compl...
Comment linking /2010/04/01/the-collapse-of-complex-computer-programs/
on “The Collapse of Complex Business Models”Submitted Dublin Core's dirty little secret (2010) as a story · 98 points
HN discussionOr there is this -- http://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/closures-finally-expl... -- which takes a much more informal approach. (Disclaimer: I wrote it myself, so it reflects my own rather practical moment of enlightenment rather than rigorous computer science.)
Comment linking /2010/02/27/closures-finally-explained/
on “What's a Closure?”Submitted Are you one of the 10% of programmers who can write a binary search? as a story · 86 points
HN discussionI was at university with Steve, the author of this program. A couple of years ago, when I wrote "The hacker, the architect and the superhero: three completely different ways to be an excellent programmer" [1] he was the one I wrote about as The Hacker. So it seems more than appropriate that his work is now on Hacker News. [1] http://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/the-hacker-the-archit...
Comment linking /2010/03/21/the-hacker-the-architect-and-the-superhero-three-completely-different-ways-to-be-an-excellent-programmer/
on “Obfuscated C Code Contest 2006. Please explain sykes2.c”Submitted The music industry finds another way to shoot itself in the foot as a story · 85 points
HN discussionI really don't want to derail the thread, but one of the people participating in that G+-thread (Mike Taylor) has written some very good articles at http://reprog.wordpress.com/ (and I really can't remember if I picked up the subscription here or elsewhere)
Comment linking /
on “ML researcher replies to request to review paper for closed journal”Submitted Hackers, architects, and superheroes: 3 ways to be an excellent programmer as a story · 73 points
HN discussionThis man begs to differ: http://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/steve-jobs-never-had-...
Comment linking /2010/09/06/steve-jobs-never-had-any-designs-he-has-not-designed-a-single-project/
on “Steve Jobs didn’t”Submitted Getting website registration completely wrong as a story · 65 points
HN discussion> If you exclude the programmers who are incapable of writing FizzBuzz FizzBuzz really is trivial. Binary search on the other hand is deceptively tricky[1]. It was well over a decade from its discovery to the first correct published implementation! No doubt if asked to write it, you'd look it up and say that's trivial, all the while double checking Internet sources to avoid the many subtle pitfalls. You might even b…
Comment linking /2010/04/19/are-you-one-of-the-10-percent/
on “On the cruelty of really teaching computing science (1988)”Submitted Writing correct code, part 1: whatever happened to invariants? as a story · 49 points
HN discussionAre you serious? Git is by far the least user-friendly version control system I've used (Mercurial being the best). Here are some longer articles explaining why git sucks so much (from a convenience / user friendliness point of view): http://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/git-is-a-harrier-jump... http://merrigrove.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/why-heck-is-git-so-... http://stevebennett.me/2012/02/24/10-things-i-hate-about…
Comment linking /2010/05/10/git-is-a-harrier-jump-jet-and-not-in-a-good-way/
on “Simple Revision Control”Submitted Refactoring wars and how to avoid them: what is "simplicity" in programming? as a story · 46 points
HN discussionjdietrich, you have EXACTLY nailed what I was trying to say (but in about 1/10th as many words as I needed). Thank you. I have linked to, and quoted, this comment in my followup article, http://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/whatever-happened-to-... -- hope that's OK.
Comment linking /2010/03/04/whatever-happened-to-programming-redux-it-may-not-be-as-bad-as-all-that/
on “Whatever happened to programming?”Submitted Whatever happened to programming? (Old post - has anything changed?) as a story · 34 points
HN discussion
