lager VS hn-search

observer: I changed how observer<> works, this is basically a template-class which observes a value and then calls a registered callback on modification. It can now create a sub-observer<> from a member variable of the value it observers. This makes it possible for widgets to be composable. This is based loosely on lager's lenses and cursors.

By using arximboldi/lager

My preferred approach is to abstract things so the boundary between the objects is not a function call, but a value being passed. This was shown to me the first time via Boundaries (from Gary Bernhadt). In C++ world, the talks from Juan Pedro Bolívar Puente are great, as he also is the author of a framework to structure applications that way, the framework is open source, and it's been used in production applications, probably using Qt as well. I would start by watching The Most Valuable Values and Squaring the Circle. If you prefer text, go read Lager's excellent documentation.

I like working in C++, after a decade of working in Java, Python, Javascript and Clojure, I find working in C++ (which I learned before these other languages) to be quite fun and pleasant, at least with relatively modern C++.

I've been, on and off, working on a little toy game engine, for a few years. Its a mix of keeping up with C++ advancements, learning various concepts like physically based rendering, and just the fun of crafting a big project, with no constraints other than my time and ability, no deadlines, no expectation of releasing anything. Its cathartic and enjoyable. I really do enjoy it.

Last September, I got frustrated with something I was working on in a more serious capacity. It was some server software, it responded to HTTP requests, it accessed third party services over HTTP and Websockets, it talked to a Postgres database. Overall it was an event driven system that transformed data and generated actions that would be applied by talking to third party services. The "real" version was written in Clojure and it worked pretty well. I really like Clojure, so all good.

But because I was frustrated with some things about how it ran and the resources it took up, I wondered what it would be like if I developed a little lean-and-mean version in C++. So I gave it a try as a side project for a few weeks. I used doctest[1] for testing, immer[2] for Clojure-like immutable data structures, [3] lager for Elm-like application state and logic management, Crow[4] for my HTTP server, ASIO[5] and websocketpp[6] for Websockets, cpp-httplib[7] as a HTTP client and PGFE[8] for Postgres, amongst some other little utility libraries. I also wrote it in a Literate Programming style using Entangled[9], which helped me keep everything well documented and explained.

For the most part, it worked pretty well. Using immer and lager helped keep the logic safe and to the point. The application started and ran very quickly and used very little cpu or memory. However, as the complexity grew, especially when using template heavy libraries like lager, or dealing with complex things like ASIO, it became very frustrating to deal with errors. Template errors even on clang became incomprehensible and segmentation faults when something wasn't quite right became pretty hard to diagnose. I had neither of these problems working on my game engine, but both became issues on this experiment. After a few weeks, I gave up on it. I do think I could have made it work and definitely could go back and simplify some of the decisions I made to make it more manageable, but ultimately, it was more work than I had free time to dedicate to it.

So my experience was that, yes, you can write high level application logic for HTTP web backends in C++. You can even use tools like immer or lager to make it feel very functional-programming in style and make the application logic really clean. Its not hard to make it run efficiently both in terms of running time and memory usage, certainly when comparing to Clojure or Python. However, I found that over all, it just wasn't as easy or productive as either of those languages and I spent more time fighting the language deficiencies, even with modern C++, than I do when using Clojure or Python.

I think I would think very long and hard before seriously considering writing a web backend in C++. If I had the time, I'd love to retry the experiment but using Rust, to see how it compares.

[1] https://github.com/doctest/doctest

[2] https://github.com/arximboldi/immer

[3] https://github.com/arximboldi/lager

[4] https://github.com/CrowCpp/crow

[5] https://think-async.com/Asio/

[6] https://www.zaphoyd.com/projects/websocketpp/

[7] https://github.com/yhirose/cpp-httplib

[8] https://github.com/dmitigr/pgfe

[9] https://entangled.github.io/

The submitted title was "Gary Killdall, creator of CP/M, wrote Pixar's original 3D renderer".

Submitters: If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

(From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.")

Vision therapy for myopia helps some people, but not everyone, likely due to genetic and neuroplasticity differences, https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... Nevertheless, many of the principles are useful for children whose eyes and brains are still developing.

I'm a huge Tesla skeptic, but Tesla and Musk are lightning rods for tabloid-style garbage that doesn't belong on HN, so it doesn't surprise me that we often see negative Tesla content flagged to death. Meanwhile we also see plenty of content that hits the front page and stays there [0].

Do you have examples of professional, interesting Tesla content that got flagged?

[0] More than half of the past year's most popular Tesla articles were negative: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...

It's April 23rd, 2024, and I am still looking for a good, reliable, honest and simple search engine.

All I want to do is search.

No AI.

No ads.

No shopping.

Please don't "Answer my question." I enjoy doing my own original research, thanks.

I'm entirely willing - wanting even - to pay for it.

Currently Kagi has my $, but I'm saddened and frustrated that they're not even focused on Search, they're focused on AI[1] and t-shirts.

Amazingly, in 2024, there is still a market opportunity for a good search engine.

It can't really just be me, can it?

[1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22kagi%22+%22ai%22

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

For historical purposes

Most likely because there have been oodles of low-quality stories on these topics. We turned the flags off on this one since it maybe rises above the noise (see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... for past explanations on how we approach that).

Hey HN,

I'm sure you've seen the monthly "Ask HN: What Are You Working On?" headlines on [Hacker News](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).

Honestly, it's my favorite topic because it's packed with insights about what other hackers are up to.

I wondered what it would be like if instead of just a headline, there was a whole website where hackers could post daily updates, and where we could follow the hackers we're interested in for their latest updates. And so, this web site was born.

I hope it gets used frequently so we can all benefit from it together. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Let me know what you think!

I don't know what one thing you're referring to, but it's a core principle of HN to try to avoid repetition, and especially the repetition+indignation combo, which is the commonest and most tedious thing on the internet.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Happy 10,000 day to you

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nand2tetris.org

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

not sure. I searched comments: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...

Most recent are more culture wars stuff but some earlier ones appear to suggesting a degree of alignment with the USA government.