from Hacker News

The Night Watch (2013) [pdf]

by mifydev on 3/12/25, 9:12 PM with 33 comments

by fergie on 3/13/25, 8:08 AM
"if you find yourself drinking a martini and writing programs in garbage-collected, object-oriented Esperanto, be aware that the only reason that the Esperanto runtime works is because there are systems people who have exchanged any hope of losing their virginity for the exciting opportunity to think about hex numbers and their relationships with the operating system, the hardware, and ancient blood rituals that Bjarne Stroustrup performed at Stonehenge"
So true, so funny.
Also, this article subtly conveys the experience of being a working class immigrant at a top academic institution (something that I relate hard to)
by wffurr on 3/12/25, 11:38 PM
His latest project is a heavy metal tribute album to himself by himself, made on sabbatical: https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-mickens
by halifaxbeard on 3/12/25, 9:49 PM
At the beginning of my career, I merely found it funny.
Now I find it relatable.
(don't install a signal handler in Python for SIGSEGV, especially if it's being triggered by C you're calling)
by mifydev on 3/12/25, 9:12 PM
Years go by, but I always find myself getting back to this article, it's just the true essence of systems programming.
by twp on 3/12/25, 11:00 PM
This is, without doubt, the greatest sequence of words on programming ever committed to magnetic storage.
by dang on 3/12/25, 9:43 PM
Related. Others?
The Night Watch [pdf] (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42440496 - Dec 2024 (28 comments)
The Night Watch (2013) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41219779 - Aug 2024 (1 comment)
The Night Watch (2013) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34522845 - Jan 2023 (35 comments)
The Night Watch (2013) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19289353 - March 2019 (10 comments)
The Night Watch (2013) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16188538 - Jan 2018 (1 comment)
The Night Watch (2013) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13954077 - March 2017 (33 comments)
The Night Watch [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12490689 - Sept 2016 (2 comments)
The Night Watch (2013) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9671020 - June 2015 (21 comments)
The Night Watch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6741804 - Nov 2013 (3 comments)
The Night Watch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6735980 - Nov 2013 (3 comments)
by NotYourLawyer on 3/12/25, 11:13 PM
Mickens always cracks me up. His writing style is a little overdone though.
by listenfaster on 3/12/25, 9:42 PM
This made me so happy. Too many good quotes.
by xena on 3/12/25, 10:58 PM
Honestly I hope to be able to write something like this at some point in my career. This is the kind of satire that comes from deep expertise, passion, and desire for the future generations to not repeat the mistakes you have made. This is one of the best articles of all time.
by reportgunner on 3/13/25, 1:33 PM
From the headline I thought this was going to be about night watch the book[0] (I have only seen the movies)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_(Lukyanenko_novel)
by bitbasher on 3/12/25, 9:19 PM
His talk at Monitorama was great-- one of the most entertaining talks around!
by RustyRussell on 3/13/25, 11:38 AM
I actually laughed out loud. But my wife would not understand...

by jdougan on 3/13/25, 12:44 AM

My hobby: asking LLMs to write essays "in the style of James Mickens"

example:

    > Write a paragraph on spaghetti carbonara the style of James Mickens.

    > Ah, carbonara. A dish of such deceptive simplicity, it's practically a quantum singularity of culinary hubris. You think, "Eggs, cheese, guanciale, pasta? Child's play!" But

    > only reward is a fleeting moment of eggy, peppery, salty bliss before the next inevitable thermodynamic collapse.