Sophie Alpert
sophiebits.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2017
Sophie Alpert is a software engineer who writes about databases, code review, engineering practice, and AI tools.
What HN saysHN links it for her essays on databases and writing; commenters mention her posts, though the given comments offer little opinion on them.
15HN people shared it
2linked it in comments
16stories submitted
960story points
3 months agolast shared
2017people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Materialized views are obviously useful2 people · 181 points · first shared 2025 · 78 comments on HN
- 2Fast and maintainable patterns for fetching from a database2 people · 12 points · first shared 2020 · 4 comments on HN
- 3Why review code?2 people · 6 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 4There are no lossless transformations of natural-language text2 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 5TODOs aren't for doing1 people · 413 points · first shared 2025 · 249 comments on HN
- 6Everyone is wrong about that Slack flowchart1 people · 164 points · first shared 2024 · 84 comments on HN
- 7Yak shaving and fixing1 people · 98 points · first shared 2018 · 27 comments on HN
- 8I don't want AI agents controlling my laptop1 people · 75 points · first shared 2025 · 40 comments on HN
- 9Why we do conference talk dry runs1 people · 3 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 10Deconstructing "Services"1 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 11Why Review Code? (2018)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 12Metrics by proxy1 people · 2 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 13Type errors with inference need stacks1 people · 1 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 14Hi im trans1 people · first shared 2017
What HN people wrote when they linked it
romellem · 2026-07-25
Counterpoint: https://sophiebits.com/2026/06/25/there-are-no-lossless-transformation…
grondilu · 2017-09-23
Today on HN I've learnt about KaTeX, a math typesetting system for the web[1]. As I looked into it, I was intrigued by the names of the two authors, which suggested they are females. That looked odd to me, as I thought typically this kind of project is made by men.
The last time I had this kind of surprise was with Audrey Tang, the developer of Pugs, an early Perl 6 implementation. Turned out she was not born female.
So, just by curiosity, I looked into the authors of this KaTeX thing. To my amusement, I guessed well : at least one of them is a trans[2].
There are certain kinds of IT projects in which women are formidably rare. I can't quite put my finger on what kind of projects I'm talking about, but let's just say it's a case of "I know it when I see it".
At some point we should consider admitting that there is something, I don't know what, that draws men towards this kind of projects much more than for women. And that this thing, whatever it is, may be a reason for the observed gender disparities in the tech industry.
1. https://github.com/Khan/KaTeX
2. https://sophiebits.com/2017/08/26/hi-im-trans.html