Erik McClure
erikmcclure.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2020
Erik McClure is a programmer who writes about game-based interviews, programming languages, blockchain and hardware.
What HN saysHN links it for "Factorio Is The Best Technical Interview We Have" and a harsh review of the Terra language, which commenters quote.
20HN people shared it
7linked it in comments
27stories submitted
1.7Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2020people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Technical interview methods pale in comparison to playing Factorio with someone5 people · 482 points · first shared 2021 · 344 comments on HN
- 2A Rant on Terra (2019)4 people · 1 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 3Stop making me memorize the borrow checker2 people · 189 points · first shared 2024 · 233 comments on HN
- 4People Can't Care About Everything2 people · 5 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 5Blockchain Is the New JavaScript2 people · 5 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 6Welcome to the Age of Bullshit2 people · 4 points · first shared 2023 · 2 comments on HN
- 7Pressure Base Anti-Spam for Discord Bots2 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 8We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity1 people · 312 points · first shared 2022 · 348 comments on HN
- 9We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't1 people · 292 points · first shared 2024 · 400 comments on HN
- 10The Windows malloc() implementation from MSVCRT is slow1 people · 211 points · first shared 2022 · 182 comments on HN
- 11Someone Is Stealing Tracker Songs and Selling Them1 people · 148 points · first shared 2020 · 34 comments on HN
- 12C++ Constructors, Memory, and Lifetimes1 people · 47 points · first shared 2021 · 38 comments on HN
- 13Do You Really Think We'll Have Genders in the Future?1 people · 13 points · first shared 2025 · 4 comments on HN
- 14RISC is fundamentally unscalable (2019)1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 15Debugging Through WebAssembly Is Impossible1 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · 1 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
aeldidi · 2021-05-30
I remember reading something particularly negative about terra in 2019[1]. Although I haven’t used terra at all since the time I first tried it (not long after I read the above mentioned article), I think it’s relevant to mention that at least at one point, terra has had major problems regarding design. If anyone has used terra in any non-trivial capacity I’d love to hear what your experience with it has been like.
[1] https://erikmcclure.com/blog/a-rant-on-terra/
iancmceachern · 2021-04-20
Posted on HN recently:
https://erikmcclure.com/blog/factorio-is-best-interview-we-have/
Factorio is the game
dejj · 2021-04-18
Surely you’re thinking of “Shenzhen I/O”[1] which is “Suspiciously close to having a job as a circuit designer in Shenzhen China.”[2]?
Or is it Factorio[3], which is “The Best Technical Interview We Have”[4]?
[1] https://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/
[2] https://www.gog.com/game/shenzhen_io
[3] https://www.factorio.com/
[4] https://erikmcclure.com/blog/factorio-is-best-interview-we-have/
miga · 2021-04-06
"Factorio Is The Best Technical Interview We Have"
https://erikmcclure.com/blog/factorio-is-best-interview-we-have/
brabel · 2024-12-27
"I am here to warn you, traveler, that Terra sits on a throne of lies. I was foolish. I was taken in by their audacious claims and fake jewels. It is only when I finally sat down to dine with them that I realized I was surrounded by nothing but cheap plastic and slightly burnt toast."
Source: https://erikmcclure.com/blog/a-rant-on-terra/
spookie · 2024-02-09
Also the reason why linear gradients aren't done properly in CSS, and W3C is aware of this.
https://erikmcclure.com/blog/everyone-does-srgb-wrong-because/
eggy · 2023-01-27
Do you agree with edubart's runtime vs. compile time distinctions between Nelua and Terra?
I was interested in Terra a while back, but it didn't seem to get a lot of traction. This three-year-old critique put the nail in the coffin for me:
https://erikmcclure.com/blog/a-rant-on-terra/