Skip to content
HomeVideosBooksBlogs
AllTop postsTopics
Podcasts
HistoryListsWatch laterLiked videosFollowing

The videos, books, blogs and podcasts Hacker News keeps recommending, all in one place.

VideosBooksBlogsPodcastsAboutPrivacySettings

Data from Hacker News, HackerTube, HackerBooks, HackerBlogs and Open Library. Credits · Not affiliated with Y Combinator.

HomeVideosBooksBlogsPodcasts
Ctrl K
    B

    Boxbase

    boxbase.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2015

    Boxbase is a personal blog on programming language theory, type systems, logic programming, and software design, with some graphics work.

    Visit blogHN submissions
    Languages & CompilersProgrammingMath
    What HN says

    HN links it for type theory explanations like Hindley-Milner and Chu spaces, and for its 2020 essay against OOP, which was popular on HN.

    Stats for nerds
    21HN people shared it
    22linked in comments
    683story points
    Jun 2024last shared
    2015people per year2024

    Top posts on HN

    1. 1
      Case against OOP is understated, not overstated (2020)
      4 people · 467 points · first shared 2020 · 528 comments on HN
    2. 2
      Dialogical logic programming
      1 person · 90 points · first shared 2019 · 19 comments on HN
    3. 3
      Syntax is the last thing you should design
      1 person · 75 points · first shared 2017 · 73 comments on HN
    4. 4
      Easy text rendering with Vulkan
      1 person · 18 points · first shared 2017 · Discussion on HN
    5. 5
      Unix Hater's Handbook Stinks
      1 person · 9 points · first shared 2025 · 6 comments on HN
    6. 6
      Plan 9 on E-Paper
      1 person · 4 points · first shared 2021 · Discussion on HN
    7. 7
      Return to Plan 9
      1 person · 4 points · first shared 2020 · Discussion on HN
    8. 8
      “Porting” of kapow to Plan 9
      1 person · 3 points · first shared 2020 · Discussion on HN
    9. 9
      Null references was a mistake, but what's the take-away?
      2 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · Discussion on HN
    10. 10
      Contradiction in Divide by Zero
      1 person · 2 points · first shared 2019 · Discussion on HN

    What HN people wrote when they linked it

    • e12eJun 2015

      From some searching, this apparently is easier said than done[1] (read: there doesn't appear to be a way to guarantee that the decorator wouldn't break due to various meta-programming etc).

      Relevant links:

      The RPython sub-set used to implement pypy (and other languages on the rpython run-time) has a decorator for @always_inline, and does automagic inlining:

      https://mail.python.org/pipermail/pypy-commit/2014-November/086702.html

      http://rpython.readthedocs.org/en/latest/translation.html#function-inlining

      I'm not entirely clear on what is being governed by the pypy interpreter inline_trehshold -- if it's for both python code, or just for the interpreter:

      http://pypy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/config/translation.backendopt.inline_threshold.html

      http://boxbase.org/entries/2015/apr/20/rpython-jit-optimizations/

      There's a project to do AST level optimizations at (bytecode) compile time:

      https://pypi.python.org/pypi/astoptimizer

      There's been talk of using a decorator to allow for function inlining:

      [1] http://bugs.python.org/issue10399

    • nathanrfJun 2024

      The quoted paragraph is correct as written. E.g. if

      f: ∀A, B. A -> B -> A

      Then we have poly type π = "∀A, B. A -> B -> A".

      The monotype μ = Str -> Int -> Str is a specialization of π, so we are also permitted to judge that f has type μ.

      The type specialization operator "looks backwards", where we write sorta "π ≤ μ" because there's a kind of "subtyping" relationship (though most HM type systems don't actually contain subtyping) - anywhere that a term of type μ is used, a term of type π can be used instead because it can be specialized to μ.

      I think this is a good complementary article: https://boxbase.org/entries/2018/mar/5/hindley-milner/ (it also links to three more academic sources for more context/detail)

    • marginalia_nuFeb 2022

      Would you expect someone selling a product to give an accurate review? They have a conflict of interest. Give me a review from someone who does not have a conflict of interest.

      I'll show you what I'm looking for:

      https://labs.tomasino.org/mechanical-keyboards/

      https://www.paritybit.ca/blog/vortex-vibe-keyboard

      https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Mechanical_keyboards

      https://www.vegard.net/the-ultimate-keyboard-part-2-switches/

      http://boxbase.org/entries/2015/nov/30/ergodox/

      Where are those types of search results?

    • DaiPlusPlusFeb 2024

      I'll just leave this link right here: https://boxbase.org/entries/2020/aug/3/case-against-oop and wait for the lively informed debate to ensue...

      (The article was a popular link when it was posted to HN back in 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30293622)

    • adamnemecekOct 2019

      https://boxbase.org/entries/2019/jul/15/chu-construction/

      Strings is the canonical example for Chu spaces.

    • codeismathSep 2021

      https://boxbase.org/entries/2018/mar/5/hindley-milner/

    Related

    Toolbox Blogsit.toolbox.com48 people

    Why PostgreSQL doesn't have query hints

    Toolbox Blogs
    Publication · last shared 2020
    codeburst.iocodeburst.io174 people

    Google’s Flutter = React and Java Swing

    codeburst.io
    Publication · last shared 2023
    Futhark Blogfuthark-lang.org87 people

    Designing a Programming Language for the Desert

    Futhark Blog
    Company · last shared 2026
    call-with-current-continuation.orgcall-with-current-continuation.org42 people

    Fleng 22 (concurrent logic programming)

    call-with-current-continuation.org
    Personal · last shared 2026
    Better Programmingbetterprogramming.pub319 people

    Three programmers got fired, including me, due to a single app crash

    Better Programming
    Publication · last shared 2025
    Useless Factoruseless-factor.blogspot.com16 people

    Why not mmap?

    Useless Factor
    Personal · last shared 2015
    GNOME Blogsblogs.gnome.org490 people

    AirPods fast connect security vulnerability

    GNOME Blogs
    Company · last shared 2026
    Atomic Spinspin.atomicobject.com240 people

    Do you really need Redis? How to get away with just PostgreSQL

    Atomic Spin
    Company · last shared 2026