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WalterBright
1,320 posts
user avatar
WalterBright
@WalterBright
Engineer Digital Mars, D Language Foundation C, C++, D programming language compilers, and Javascript compiler
walterbright.com
Joined December 2008
67
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8,364
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  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Oct 7, 2025
    Degree vs Self-Taught: In my experience, people who are self-taught or who learned by experience tend to have odd gaps in their knowledge. For example, the Shazam app. I knew right away it must be using Fourier analysis. But if one was self-taught, one might have never
    520K
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    May 26, 2021
    Someone asked on hackernews if a programmer's useful life is over at 35. I'm well into my 60's and am doing my best work yet. Code I wrote at 35 looks like complete crap to me today. I'm surprised it even worked.
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Aug 9, 2025
    Replying to @LundukeJournal
    I would be fine with a review like that as I would then improve as a programmer
    104K
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Sep 20, 2025
    Replying to @nettermike
    I don’t think the japanese had the logistics to mount such an invasion
    13K
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Oct 8, 2025
    Replying to @james_mtc
    Git is not an appropriate topic for a degree program. The underlying technology of it, however, would be.
    20K
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Apr 29, 2025
    The claim on Hacker News today is that C++ is faster than C. But how can that be true if C is low level and can be hand optimized as good as anything? Here's my answer: Having written a great deal of C code, I made a discovery about it. The first algorithm and data structure
    25K
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Jun 4, 2023
    Replying to @olafurw
    I wrote a C++ compiler and would rate mine optimistically as a 5
    14K
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Jul 7, 2021
    My personal goal is to write code that is so straightforward that anyone looking at it would think "Pshaw, anyone could have written that!"
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Aug 13, 2021
    There, I finally had the nerve to say it. Exception handling is a giant mistake. news.ycombinator.com/item?id=281642…
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Jun 18, 2025
    Why I write lexers and parsers by hand instead of using lex/yacc: lex and yacc gets your prototype up and running quickly, but there's a cost: 1. having to learn lex and yacc 2. running into limitations with lex and yacc 3. having a foreign program (i.e. lex and yacc)
    16K
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Apr 23, 2025
    Replying to @Jack_Frodo
    A bird strike would break the cage sending metal debris into the engine along with the bird
    209K
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Mar 27, 2022
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    Dec 27, 2020
    Bad programming ideas that only become apparent after years: 1. macros 2. implicit declaration of variables 3. operator overloading for non-arithmetic purposes 4. operator overloading for implicit casting
  • user avatar
    WalterBright
    @WalterBright
    May 30, 2023
    C is a simple language. How many ways can I align something? Let me count the ways: 1. _Alignas(N) 2. __pragma(pack(N)) 3. __declspec(align(N)) 4. __attribute__(aligned(N)) 5. #pragma(pack(N)) Did I miss any? #programming #programminglanguages #compilers
    28K

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