Hacker News

Ask HN: Do programmers generally enjoy some amount of complexity?

Hacker News - Mon, 03/24/2025 - 5:15am

Occured to me that sometimes, simple enough is not good enough for us programmers. It seems that sometimes we might actually enjoy grappling with complex, even byzantine systems. Can anyone relate? I'm not saying this is a thing, not even for myself...but I suspect it might be, possible.

Some examples where I've encountered this possibility of things being perhaps more complicated than they need to be: ReactJS, Azure templates (and infra as code/config in general).

Could it be there's something satisfying that we need about working with complex systems? Do we "like the complexity" so much that we actually, sometimes, make more complexity than we need to, because that's more enjoyable?

Or is this shower-type thought safe to chuck in the receptacle of non-sensical but good sounding ideas (and other trendy intellectualism)?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43458833

Points: 6

# Comments: 2

Categories: Hacker News

Ask HN: Geopolitically can Taiwan call the shots now because of AI chips?

Hacker News - Mon, 03/24/2025 - 5:11am

Not overtly as that would upset the Overton window of Taiwan's "accepted place" in world affairs - but behind the scenes could this be happening?

How? Because it would seem that the island nation of Taiwan could hold the world and its handful of super powers by the cojones if it wanted to, by having a monopoly right now on the manufacture of the silicon needed to run the current and medium term revolution and global competition in AI.

I don't know, but it occurred to be it might be so, so I'm asking here for what you all think?

On the face of it "Taiwan is too small" to call the shots seems to send the idea packing...but the US, China and everyone else rely 100% on Taiwan supplying them with chips right now, so maybe it's not so simple. What do you think?

For anyone who accepts this thesis, what would Taiwan be asking for in return for this power? How would it be taking advantage of its moment? Or would other nations be too wary of Taiwan's monopoly to engage in backroom trading, not wanting to embolden or "give it ideas" ?

Seems an interesting and current dynamic, but I haven't heard the implications and second order effects discussed beyond the tired "relationship to possible war" narrative. So I think it's good to ask here to stimulate discussion and see if there's a consensus.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43458811

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

Categories: Hacker News

The Prospero Challenge

Hacker News - Mon, 03/24/2025 - 5:04am
Categories: Hacker News

New ChatGPT GPT-4o Model

Hacker News - Mon, 03/24/2025 - 4:36am

there seems to be a "new" GPT-4o in ChatGPT -- Eg. the model feels completely different in how it reasons and responds -- sometimes it feels worse, other times it just feels different. Any thoughts?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43458627

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Categories: Hacker News

Show HN: I made a dev portfolio builder to help developers have a nice portfolio

Hacker News - Mon, 03/24/2025 - 4:34am

Every time I've asked dev friends to send me their portfolio, they've sent me a GitHub repo.

Sometimes it's a website that I don't really want to read because it's either incomprehensible if you don’t use their stack or just a big paragraph as if it were a biography.

So, I built a developer portfolio builder that matches what non-techies like recruiters, managers and HR people could want to see when they open a portfolio.

That means: short sentences, nice images, bullet points.

The application is built in Flutter.

I'd like to have your opinion on the concept.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43458617

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Categories: Hacker News

A collection of OSS TUI apps I use daily

Hacker News - Mon, 03/24/2025 - 4:25am

Article URL: https://terminal-apps.dev/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43458584

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Categories: Hacker News

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