simonw

8 ms·

1.
by simonw 3d ago
Because you want to use other existing libraries that are written in Rust.
2.
by simonw 3d ago
Yes, Pyodide is almost entirely used in web browsers. I want to be able to run existing code that uses libraries like Pyodide-core in a browser.
3.
by simonw 3d ago
I was a bit nervous about this trend when it started picking up because I care about Pyodide (Python running via WebAssembly) and libraries that use PyO3 might not work in Pyodide. Thankfully that's now been mostly solved - you can com
4.
by simonw 3d ago
TIL Homebrew has its own sandbox mechanism - looks like it's built around their own sandbox-exec wrapper, at least on macOS: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/d79ef822ab8136e393ed5f...
5.
by simonw 4d ago
> The business could clearly be made profitable – Bending Spoons proved that in a few months. The problem was that Evernote had raised over $200M at a unicorn valuation and investors needed a billion-dollar exit. No amount of expense-cut
6.
by simonw 4d ago
Here's a copy I pasted into a Gist: https://gist.github.com/simonw/3c5a53c012448456729bcfb19b661...
7.
by simonw 4d ago
Yeah, I'm with you on that one. It seems to be a recurring pattern though. The X.ai coding agent harness is 840,000+ lines of Rust - I dug into that here: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/15/grok-build&
8.
by simonw 4d ago
I'm using both extensively at the moment and I've not yet found that either is demonstrably better at specific tasks than the other. They're both beasts! (I've not had Fable do as much work in Blender as Astra yet though
9.
by simonw 4d ago
I'm seeing mixed signals on this one. On the one hand you get stories like Shopify and Cloudflare expanding their intern programs because interns can get so much more done now. On the other hand there seems to be a measurable slowdown
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by simonw 4d ago
Here's the one I saw most widely cited: https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/116324676116121930 I wasn't very impressed by that pile-on, personally. Has there ever been a rapidly evolving 1,000,000+ line codebase
11.
by simonw 4d ago
Timing is pretty good for OpenAI right now, given GPT-6 Astra is out and appears to match or even beat Claude Fable 5.1. They might not be as interested in slowing down if Anthropic currently had a significantly better model than them!
12.
by simonw 4d ago
I'm really excited about this library. Wrapture is a new project from Graham, who previously developed wrapt (a 20+ year old Python monkey patching library) and built the first version of the New Relic Python agent - the library that i
13.
by simonw 5d ago
Given this AND the wiki attack, the obvious question right now is how many more incidents like this are out there waiting to be discovered?
14.
by simonw 5d ago
> Our understanding from talking to people in the RubyGems community is that OpenAI never informed them that they were responsible for this attack. I really hope that's not the case, because if it is there are two options, both of t
15.
by simonw 5d ago
Authors Spencer Kitts, Thomas Larsen, Sydney Von Arx - those are the three of the same authors as the Wiki report from last week: https://collusion.wiki/
16.
by simonw 5d ago
> A lot of people survive and find the security they need by solving problems for others. Take that away and they have little need for or access to "the power [of] computers." If LLMs and related technology result in a gutting
17.
by simonw 5d ago
Thanks for clarifying, I genuinely didn't understand your point and I do now. I agree that ChatGPT was launched without having an idea as to what it was for. OpenAI themselves debated internally as to whether it was worth releasing and
18.
by simonw 5d ago
You think those billion people are all addicted to having a made-up friend? I think it's being built to solve problems they have. OpenAI shut down GPT-4o because it leaned too hard into getting people addicted to it.
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by simonw 5d ago
> What I meant is that it's not being built to solve any problem most people actually have. How confident are you in that? ChatGPT has over a billion monthly active users now ( https://www.reuters.com/technology/
20.
by simonw 5d ago
You need expertise to productively use that AI. Try getting Claude to write you a graduate essay about quantum mechanics. If you don't have at least some understanding of the topic area it's effectively worthless. Now imagine some
21.
by simonw 5d ago
Yeah, that's why I said "I'm not sure how useful it is to say this", because I know a lot of people will be a) offended by the message or b) offended that I was the one to say it. That particular reference isn't fai
22.
by simonw 5d ago
> given the multitude of horrible websites that use 100% CPU and look ugly AI does not work even for web development! Yes, that's my point. You need taste and engineering skill to build websites that are good even with AI assistance
23.
by simonw 5d ago
> Do you feel that you have stopped learning or could not create software now without the tool? The rate at which I'm learning has gone up . I'm becoming a much more proficient software engineer, I'm learning how to opera
24.
by simonw 5d ago
I'm not sure how useful it is to say this, but I think a lot of people (myself included, a few years ago now) have been through this moment of existential crisis and come out the other side. The initial reaction, when some coding agent
25.
by simonw 5d ago
Discussed here yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49643982
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by simonw 5d ago
Those are for the people who still respect links.
27.
by simonw 5d ago
It's sad because I think links are the best thing about the web, and it's increasingly clear to me that many internet users either misunderstand or actively avoid them. Why do people post screenshots of an article on social medi
28.
by simonw 5d ago
The success of tailwind would not have happened without the work. Just because others have worked nine years without success doesn't mean you shouldn't get credit when you put that work in and are successful.
29.
by simonw 6d ago
Sadly, in 2026, you should never assume anyone will click a link.
30.
by simonw 6d ago
The pricing on this is a bit confusing. Does each execution of an agent session create a new environment? And is that environment then billed for at least a full hour (despite prices being quoted per 20 minutes), after which it naturally ex

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