Dennis Forbes

dennisforbes.ca · Personal blog · on HN since 2013

Dennis Forbes, a Toronto software developer, writes on Go, floating-point numbers, web performance, databases, and consulting.

What HN saysA commenter calls his floating-point article the best explanation of floats; others cite his posts on SQL Server query plans and image formats.
28HN people shared it
15linked it in comments
58stories submitted
492story points
3 months agolast shared
2013people per year2026

Most-shared posts

  1. 1
    The Most Powerful Feature of Go Is The Least Sexy
    3 people · 14 points · first shared 2013 · 1 comments on HN
  2. 2
    Guy whose suicide note was posted on HN appears to be OK
    3 people · 13 points · first shared 2017 · 2 comments on HN
  3. 3
    Understanding Floating Point Numbers
    3 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
  4. 4
  5. 5
    Why You Should Use Reverse Proxies
    3 people · 2 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
  6. 6
    Help: Suicide note on blog
    2 people · 94 points · first shared 2017 · 94 comments on HN
  7. 7
    Mindful Software Development
    2 people · 5 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
  8. 8
    Selling Solutions: The Ugly Side of Consulting
    2 people · 5 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
  9. 9
    Database Performance, LVM Snapshots, golang and sqlite3
    2 people · 3 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
  10. 10
    My Data-Backed Battle and Defeat of Hypertension
    2 people · 3 points · first shared 2023 · 1 comments on HN
  11. 11
    Adieu
    2 people · first shared 2017
  12. 12
    Rust Faster Than C? Not So Fast…
    1 people · 94 points · first shared 2017 · 37 comments on HN
  13. 13
    Go and Android
    1 people · 82 points · first shared 2014 · 55 comments on HN
  14. 14
    Windows Is Already Dead, It Just Doesn’t Know It Yet
    1 people · 34 points · first shared 2017 · 10 comments on HN
  15. 15
    Time to Dump Windows?
    1 people · 27 points · first shared 2026 · 19 comments on HN

What HN people wrote when they linked it

endorphone · 2020-04-01
Location: Toronto (well, Burlington) Remote: Only Technologies: Full stack, C#, C++, Swift, most web techs. CV: https://dennisforbes.ca/articles/about.html Email: [email protected] I have my own products (iOS apps and a SAAS play) and only work on other people's stuff part-time time to maintain diversity and sharpness in my universe of technology, and importantly to keep engaged with other people when otherwise I could go months without talking to anyone professionally. If it's planning, consulting, advising, implementation, laying groundwork, analysis, integration, data-focused, I'd love to help.
iffycan · 2017-01-26
I hope someone found him while they could help. His last two posts could have been clues :( - https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/01/24/adieu/ - https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/01/24/love/
corresation · 2014-01-24
It's worth noting that SQL Server, presuming you've configured uniques and relationships correctly, actually runs exactly the same query plan for their first query and their last query. I detailed this at http://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2014/01/24/your-query-planner-and-you…
e-topy · 2025-08-05
Instead of using a new PNG standard, I'd still rather use JPEG XL just because it has progressive decoding. And you know, whilst looking like png, being as small as webp, supporting HDR and animations, and having even faster decoding speed. https://dennisforbes.ca/articles/jpegxl_just_won_the_image_wars.html
codemiscreant · 2023-07-20
See also- https://dennisforbes.ca/articles/jpegxl_just_won_the_image_wars.html It loads JXL if your client supports it. Recent builds of Chrome and Edge now support and display JXL on iOS 17. They have to use the Safari engine underneath, but previously they suppressed JXL, or maybe the shared engine did.
defaultname · 2021-11-28
Several years ago I made a basic, interactive explanation of the same- https://dennisforbes.ca/articles/understanding-floating-point-numbers.… At the time it was to educate a group I was working with about why their concern that "every number in JavaScript is a double" doesn't mean that 1 is actually 1.000000001 (e.g. everyone knows that floating point numbers are potentially approximations, so there is a widespread belief that every integer so represented is the same).
royce · 2017-02-03
Twitter OP here. I know the thread's been flagged, but for anyone who finds the thread: he's OK. https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/02/02/update/
duncans · 2017-02-03
For the record: he's OK > I’m okay. > Months of incredible levels of stress, coupled with weeks of little sleep, yielded some deeply irrational, illogical thinking that I of course regret, but can’t erase from my timeline. And for any sort of intellectual exercise, like software development, no sleep+stress = a recursive loop of ineffectiveness that generates more stress and even less sleep. > I apologize to those I distressed, from family to remote individuals who I’ve never met but who cared. This is my first opportunity to post anything on this, and the lack of communications wasn’t an intentional act of dramatic exercise. https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/02/02/update/
glandium · 2017-01-26
There is also https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2017/01/24/adieu/ which is datetime="2017-01-24T19:21:50+00:00", 13 hours earlier.
grobbles · 2016-12-19
It's years old, but I listened to the advice of- https://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2013/08/07/ten-reasons-you-should-st… -and in re-analysis it all holds completely true. Nginx gives my deploy flexibility, at essentially negligible cost. And no Go development should include a bunch of boilerplate code to do banal stuff like serving static content.
mgkimsal · 2017-01-26
I had your view - I just read a number of his posts. You can define 'mental illness' to be almost anything, and it would encompass a lot of folks, but most of his writings were pretty balanced. What I did see (and others did too) was a post about need $600k - needing a lump sum, then working on something and paying it all back from the 'riches' of the project. Now.. the 'riches' part may have been somewhat tongue in cheek, perhaps, but he was really going for some "go big go home" sort of project, and that didn't work out. Now's probably not quite the time to criticize (and I'm not criticizing him), but when is there a good time? Dennis seemed to get caught up in the belief in "big payout tech projects". This isn't to say they don't happen, but Dennis' isn't the first story I've read of people "shooting big", then ending up in deep debt, deep despair, considering suicide. We don't read about these much - we generally read about the continuing waves of billion-dollar unicorns fronted by people continually younger than ourselves. It's gotta wear some people down. I just bumped in to some folks a few days ago who are (independently) "buckling down" on their big "game changing" projects. While I only know these folks socially, if the projects fail, and one ends up taking his life (or even considering it), I will not be overly surprised (saddened, yes). But there's little I can do. People chasing web/tech/app riches then falling in to debt/despair has got to be the…

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