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xtracto commented on I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed   jamesdrandall.com/posts/t... · Posted by u/jamesrandall
alexgarden · 4 hours ago
Wow... I really relate to this. I'm 50 as well, and I started coding in 1985 when I was 10... I remember literally every evolutionary leap forward and my experience with this change has been a bit different.

Steve Yegge recently did an interview on vibe coding (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuJyJP517Uw) where he says, "arch mage engineers who fell out-of-love with the modern complexity of shipping meaningful code are rediscovering the magic that got them involved as engineers in the first place" <-- paraphrased for brevity.

I vividly remember, staying up all night to hand-code assembler primitive rendering libraries, the first time I built a voxel rendering engine and thinking it was like magic what you could do on a 486... I remember the early days at Relic, working on Homeworld and thinking we were casting spells, not writing software. Honestly, that magic faded and died for me. I don't personally think there is magic in building a Docker container. Call me old-fashioned.

These days, I've never been more excited about engineering. The tedium of the background wiring is gone. I'm back to creating new, magical things - I'm up at 2 AM again, sitting at my desk in the dark, surrounded by the soft glow of monitors and casting spells again.

xtracto · 3 hours ago
Yes yes yes!!!

I'm 45 yo. And also started programming quite early around 1988. In my case it was GWBAsic games and then C ModeX and A Later Allegro based games.

Things got so boring in the last 15 years, I got some joy in doing AI research (ML, agents, Genetic Algorithms, etc).

But now, it's so cool how I can again think about something and build it so easily. I'm really excited of what I can do now. And im ot talking about the next billion dollar startup and whatnot. But the small hacky projects that LLMs made capable.yo build in no time.

xtracto commented on Coding agents have replaced every framework I used   blog.alaindichiappari.dev... · Posted by u/alainrk
skybrian · 3 days ago
Sure, if all you ask it to do is fix bugs. You can also ask it to work on code health things like better organization, better testing, finding interesting invariants and enforcing them, and so on.

It's up to you what you want to prioritize.

xtracto · 3 days ago
I agree but want to interject that "code organization " won't matter for long.

Programming Languages were made for people. I'm old enough to have programmed in z80 and 8086 assembler. I've been through plenty of prog.langs. through my career.

But once building systems become prompting an agent to build a flow that reads these two types of excels, cleans them,filters them, merges them and outputs the result for the web (oh and make it interactive and highly available ) .

Code won't matter. You'll have other agents that check that the system is built right, you'll have agents that test the functionality and agents that ask and propose functionality and ideas.

Most likely the Programming language will become similar to the old Telegraph texts (telegrams) which were heavily optimized for word/token count. They will be optimized to be LLM grokable instead of human grokable.

Its going to be amazing.

xtracto commented on The Waymo World Model   waymo.com/blog/2026/02/th... · Posted by u/xnx
mullingitover · 4 days ago
Their unreleased LaMDA[1] famously caused one of their own engineers to have a public crashout in 2022, before ChatGPT dropped. Pre-ChatGPT they also showed it off in their research blog[2] and showed it doing very ChatGPT-like things and they alluded to 'risks,' but those were primarily around it using naughty language or spreading misinformation.

I think they were worried that releasing a product like ChatGPT only had downside risks for them, because it might mess up their money printing operation over in advertising by doing slurs and swears. Those sweet summer children: little did they know they could run an operation with a seig-heiling CEO who uses LLMs to manufacture and distribute CSAM worldwide, and it wouldn't make above-the-fold news.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaMDA#Sentience_claims

[2] https://research.google/blog/lamda-towards-safe-grounded-and...

xtracto · 4 days ago
Attention is all you need was written by Googlers IIRC.
xtracto commented on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2026)    · Posted by u/whoishiring
xtracto · 8 days ago
Location: UTC-6 (Americas) Remote: Yes, strongly preferred.

Willing to relocate: Only for the absolutely right opportunity.

Technologies: Python, TypeScript (Nest.js for API, React for mobile or web front), Ruby, AWS (Architect, DevOps, AI/ML), Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, PostgreSQL, Cassandra, LLMs, Scikit-learn(all MPL, SNS, pd, Data Science stack), Solidity, FinTech/Blockchain. (I've worked professionally with too many to write here and not give the feeling of "wall of text".)

Résumé/CV: baqueiro.com/static/baqueiro2025.pdf

Email: (in my resume)

Compensation Expectation: $140k and $170k USD gross yearly

Hello Hacker News! I'm a CompSci PhD (AI Multi-Agent systems... doing Agents' research back in 2004, before they were cool haha) and a passionate technologist with a warm spot for building high-impact products and teams.

For over 20 years, I've loved being a hands-on leader in FinTech, building everything from scalable crypto trading desks and AI/ML systems for fraud detection, to migrating entire platforms from monoliths to robust, cloud-native microservices. I thrive on aligning engineering with business goals and tackling complex distributed systems challenges.

Zero-to-One Success: Built foundational tech/AI/ML at a Fintech, enabling the company's Series A. Executive & Scaling Experience: CTO of a crypto trading desk; Head of Engineering, Product or AI/ML at high-growth FinTechs.

I'm actively looking for a remote role. I am most comfortable as first/founding engineer, also have been head-of/cto whatever the name building startup's technology teams. Right now I am most interested in doing AI/LLM work, like really pushing the status quo of both the Engineering and AI/ML. (I would love to get into something like SSI).

xtracto commented on Painless Software Schedules (2000)   joelonsoftware.com/2000/0... · Posted by u/MonkeyClub
cratermoon · 11 days ago
4) Only the programmer who is going to write the code can schedule it.

This item makes Joel's scheduling idea a no-go at most companies. Schedules are set by management or sales and programmers are expected to meet the date or get PIP'd.

xtracto · 11 days ago
This was written at a time were Software Engineering (not Developers) was valued more.

I had my first programming job around this time, and there wasn't scrum and all that crap. I was a Jr engineer, still in the last semesters of univ. And yet, we were treated like you read in the post: We were handed a feature and asked to do it. First estimate it , then ask the Design guys for UI and finally start coding it.

Now Software dev feels like sweatshops, business people think we are sewing jeans. And Software Developers became code monkeys.

Its quite sad.

xtracto commented on GOG: Linux "the next major frontier" for gaming as it works on a native client   xda-developers.com/gog-ca... · Posted by u/franczesko
anthonj · 11 days ago
That's very nice to hear. But diffuclt to beat valve here, they are actively contributing to drivers and wine. When you buy even just windows software from steam you are helping funding that.
xtracto · 11 days ago
I don't think they are trying to beat valve. GoG has been like those airlines that fly where no major airlines want to fly. Filling a underserved but large market.
xtracto commented on GOG: Linux "the next major frontier" for gaming as it works on a native client   xda-developers.com/gog-ca... · Posted by u/franczesko
delaminator · 11 days ago
I always make sure to not use the GoG downloader just download the game.

I don't need a client with your branding all over it, that has socials and my library and all engagement bait like that.

I figure it's one step away from putting the DRM back on so you have to use the launcher to get a game from GOG.

Just let me buy games and then shut up.

xtracto · 11 days ago
Steam is pretty popular on that though. I'm sure GoG did it following on their steps. Back when GOG started it was pretty much download from web and run.
xtracto commented on Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux   himthe.dev/blog/microsoft... · Posted by u/bobsterlobster
giancarlostoro · 13 days ago
This was me in 2022 or 2023. I have posted on HN about my shift a few times. I gave up with Windows 10 because you needed Windows Pro in order to make an "offline" account, I spent $2000+ for a gaming rig, and I couldn't add new users, one program told me to use the other program which brought me back to the original program... I had to go out of my way, buy a license just to make it work. I just went and installed Linux finally. I was on POP_OS! for a good year, but been on Arch Linux for one year plus now.

I know its a "meme" to talk about how great Arch is, but when you want the latest of something, Arch has it. I use EndeavourOS since it had a nicer simpler installer (idk why Arch doesn't invest in whats standard in every other major distro) and if you just use "yay" you don't run into Pacman woes.

Alternatively, I'm only buying Macs as well, but for my gaming rigs, straight to Arch. Steam and Proton work perfectly, if you don't sell your games on Steam or in a way I can run them on Linux I am not buying or playing them.

xtracto · 13 days ago
Mu gaming needs are more than fulfilled with Steam/Proton and Xbox Live. Both of them work in Linux (Mint is my flavour of choice) and Mac.
xtracto commented on Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux   himthe.dev/blog/microsoft... · Posted by u/bobsterlobster
neuralRiot · 13 days ago
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop > MenuShowDelay set to 100 (ms) close regedit, reboot.
xtracto · 13 days ago
Lol . You made my day. I was doing that kind of Registry mangling 25 years ago. Brought me good memories, its been a while.

I'm so happy I haven't had to use a Windows machine in more than 10 years.

For me, MacBookPro for coding, Linux Mint for home desktop and Steam + Xbox Live online for gaming. We live in excellent times

xtracto commented on Pandas 3.0   pandas.pydata.org/communi... · Posted by u/jonbaer
vegabook · 13 days ago
"revolutionary"? It just copied and pasted the decades-old R (previous "S") dataframe into Python, including all the paradigms (with worse ergonomics since it's not baked into the language).
xtracto · 13 days ago
Exactly. I was programming in R in 2004 and Pandas didnt exist. I remember trying Pandas once and it felt unergonomic for fata analysis and it lacked the vast library of statistical analysis library.

u/xtracto

KarmaCake day6808June 22, 2011
About
Building something cool.

PhD in Computer Science (Market Based Control of Complex Systems using Financial Derivatives).

http://baqueiro.com

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