Joined October 2011
- Tweets 1,555
- Following 236
- Followers 11,453
- Likes 2,503
210 Photos and videos
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Feb 4
I wrote a UI library in C that can lay out 95000 items at 60fps.
The library is 566 lines of C, and the application-specific ui code is 998 lines. Works on mac, windows, and linux.
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May 10
May 10
@nikitabier on ios, x[dot]com zooms the page when you tap the search field and you have to pinch to unzoom. Please fix!
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May 9
I’m trying to dunk on bad software less, because it’s just too easy these days
*but*
I do just want to point out that this creates even less pressure to write good software — it’s only a matter of time before software bloats to the point that not even this trick can save it
May 8
Microsoft's hidden Windows 11 trick makes apps launch 70% faster. I tested it on a low-end PC, and early results are promising.
Right now, when you click Start, open File Explorer, launch Edge, or right-click for a context menu, and there’s often that tiny micro-stutter before anything happens.
Microsoft is now testing a feature called Low Latency Profile.
Once turned on, and you do a high-priority action, Windows 11 briefly pushes the CPU to max frequency for 1–3 seconds, finishes the task faster, then drops back down.
In my testing on a constrained VM with just 2 cores and 4GB RAM, the difference was obvious. Edge, Outlook, Copilot, and the Start menu opened much faster. CPU usage spiked to around 96–97%, but only for a few seconds.
For high-end PCs, the difference may be small. But for budget laptops and low-end Windows 11 machines, this could be a real game-changer.
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Apr 26
This quote was a gift to all bad programming languages
Apr 26
Bjarne Stroustrup, padre del lenguaje C : "Solo hay dos tipos de lenguajes de programación: aquellos de los que la gente se queja y los que nadie usa" computerhoy.20minutos.es/tec…
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Apr 8
This is why my build profiler uses linear allocators for everything: all the memory is allocated up front, and allows things that are allocated near-in-time to be located near-in-space. It makes a difference when you have 100,000 things, like processes in the capture of llvm's build. More info: danielchasehooper.com/posts/…
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Mar 26
A reliable way to impress people who haven’t grasped the implications of Turing Completeness is to follow the "____ in ____" formula:
- Computer in Minecraft
- Conway's Life in Life
- Doom running in a vape
- Tetris in Excel
- Connect 4 in CSS
Once you recognize this pattern, you'll see it all the time.
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Mar 24
Ditched the skeuomorphic design because it wasn't clear how to visualize the timeline as a physical thing. Seemed like it would have to look like either an old-timey LCD/CRT display to fit the vibe, or timeline elements would have to be "physical things", like an alien material that could reconfigure itself, which felt weird and didn't capture the retro style I wanted. Both approaches reduced information density because I had to spend pixels on "style". Hence...this simpler, playful style.
Feb 4
I'm starting work on the look of the UI - tempted to go full Dieter Rams skeuomorphic or something more playful like Harry Beck's London Underground.
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Mar 23
I redesigned my build profiler's timeline. It now uses more features of my custom C UI library, still renders the llvm build (95,000 processes) at 120hz , and better visualizes the relationship between a process and its child processes.
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Mar 23
Still haven't spent any time optimizing! Has loads of overdraw, suboptimal CPU->GPU practices, etc. String layout is not yet cached. Still feels smooth on 6 year old laptop!
The only "optimization" is it doesn't do anything when there are no new input events and nothing is animating.
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Feb 10
"No one on our team has opened an IDE in Months"
The team's homepage:
Feb 10
With 3 engineers, Kaizen went from 10K LOC committed per week in September, to 100k LOC in December, to 1M LOC this past week all with a background agent.
No one on our team has opened an IDE in months.
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Feb 5
I plan to keep writing software even after they take over.
Feb 5
Awesome work! Perhaps the last bit of software humans will write before AI takes over.
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Feb 4
I'm starting work on the look of the UI - tempted to go full Dieter Rams skeuomorphic or something more playful like Harry Beck's London Underground.
Feb 4
I wrote a UI library in C that can lay out 95000 items at 60fps.
The library is 566 lines of C, and the application-specific ui code is 998 lines. Works on mac, windows, and linux.
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Feb 4
I wrote a UI library in C that can lay out 95000 items at 60fps.
The library is 566 lines of C, and the application-specific ui code is 998 lines. Works on mac, windows, and linux.
134
246
5,108
498,389
Feb 4
I wrote the layout library for my build profiler, more info and early access here: danielchasehooper.com/posts/…
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Feb 4
It's funny that all these AI labs supposedly on the verge of super intelligence can't seem to make software that isn't built on bloated web tech.
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Jan 28
True of all health trackers. Just creates anxiety. I recently switched to a mechanical watch and now I get a little burst of joy whenever I look at my wrist
Jan 28
I bought an Oura Ring to track my sleep. The way it works is I sleep poorly and then wake up in the morning and it tells me I slept bad and offers no insight on how to fix it.
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Jan 9
New post: Testing Opus 4.5 For C Programming.
TLDR: it's good, even for curmudgeons like me, but you need to play to its strengths. You don't have to use it like a dumb yolo vibecoder.
danielchasehooper.com/posts/…
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Jan 8
FYI All the games that inspired Jonathan Blow's new game can be played right now for free. (linked in comments)
Jan 2
I was on the Thomas Brush podcast ... we talk about the new game, the engine behind it, and more.
youtube.com/watch?v=yNdRv5LF…
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Jan 8
Heroes of Sokoban
puzzlescript.net/play.html?p…
Mirror Isles
alan.draknek.org/games/puzzl…
Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes
alan.draknek.org/games/puzzl…
Promesst
silverspaceship.com/promesst…
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Jan 6
My C programmer thoughts on Claude Opus 4.5:
1. Bad at writing code: wrote O(n²) algorithm when O(n) possible. I wouldn't commit its code without review.
2. Responds well to feedback "make this algorithm linear". You have to already be a good programmer to know how the code could be improved.
3. Useful for analysis: "How could this system get into <some state>?"
4. Helps get over procrastination on grindy tasks, like creating a linux sysroot for cross compilation.
5. Makes it cheaper to try different approaches: "change the memory layout to X and use data structure Y, run performance test and compare"
6. Running 1 or more agents in the background while I do other work feels like a superpower.
7. Best when treated like a lawyer's paralegal: you do big brain planning, it does tedium in background, you review, tweak, commit.
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