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Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

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Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#71

Post by flashgordon »

bluetomcat wrote: post #32

Looks especially clean, consistent and well-modularised, tackling a problem that requires non-trivial knowledge about binary formats and kernel APIs. Many "senior" programmers would struggle to build something like this even at a conceptual level. The antithesis of "kids these days" :-) Out of curiosity, how does a 17-year-old attain that level of knowledge? Books, peers, programming clubs, parents who are programmer…

Wow this is amazing. My question on top of yours is beyond just knowledge (which yes yes I know I am underrating) how does a 17 year old get this kind of passion. (Not to brag) I was very fortunate to have this kind of passion in my early teens (also I did not have many friends) but I am really struggling to get my kids and their friends this kind of passion!

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#72

Post by dang »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #61
D4ckard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't think so. It's x86_64 only, and C only too. Some points from your list make sense now, but most of it is simply not part of Spray's scope, and never has been ...

The point the parent commenter is trying to make is that building a general purpose C debugger is not some kind of trivial exercise that can be shipped in 6 months, and claiming to have done so is disingenuous and pompous.

Please don't cross into name-calling and certainly not personal attack.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#73

Post by dang »

roadbuster wrote: post #69
lopkeny12ko wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point the parent commenter is trying to make is that building a general purpose C debugger is not some kind of trivial exercise that can be shipped in 6 months, and claiming to have done so is disingenuous and pompous.

The parent commenter doesn't need to piss on a 17 year old for sharing their work and progress. You could also take a moment to step back and reflect on this.

Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#74

Post by owenpalmer »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #61
D4ckard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't think so. It's x86_64 only, and C only too. Some points from your list make sense now, but most of it is simply not part of Spray's scope, and never has been ...

The point the parent commenter is trying to make is that building a general purpose C debugger is not some kind of trivial exercise that can be shipped in 6 months, and claiming to have done so is disingenuous and pompous.

> building a general purpose C debugger is not some kind of trivial exercise

Yes

> claiming to have done so is disingenuous and pompous

Nobody has claimed to do so in this situation. You are inventing conflict. Also I don't think bregma intended to be this targeting or accusatory, why are you speaking for them?

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#75

Post by anonymous »

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #68
marcus0x62 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the first paragraph after you wrote it? If you did, and then posted it anyway, I don’t really know what to say. But, in any case, “Computing literacy” != “wrote a debugger.” Your post comes off more delusional (or just ignorant) than the OP ever came off as self-promotional.

[flagged]

No post body was provided.

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#76

Post by dang »

marcus0x62 wrote: post #65
lopkeny12ko wrote: post #59

What others need to understand is that, unlike the older generation, kids today have grown up in the era of easily accessible computing. Someone who is 17 today was born in the year the original iPhone was introduced. Computing literacy is not only required, it is expected from a very young age. What might have been impressive to us 20-30 years ago is not really the same as it is now. Cool project, but as other comme…

Did you read the first paragraph after you wrote it? If you did, and then posted it anyway, I don’t really know what to say. But, in any case, “Computing literacy” != “wrote a debugger.” Your post comes off more delusional (or just ignorant) than the OP ever came off as self-promotional.

Please don't cross into name-calling or personal attack, regardless of how wrong another comment is or you feel it is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#77

Post by [deleted] »

bregma wrote: post #56

So, only self-hosted debugging on x86_64 Linux. A good start. Now make it work for other common CPUs (aarch64, RISC-V). Make it work for other OSes (FreeBSD has ptrace, for example). Make sure it handles signal and thread trampolines, calls through the VDSO, and handwritten assembler that does not have function prologues. Handle C++ constructors and destructors of objects in static storage running before/after main()…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#79

Post by MuffinFlavored »

I always found this a bit weird. Why do you want everybody to know how old you are? It's kind of like... hey, I did this impressive thing, please give me credit, but also, just to give it some flare and kick it up a notch, I'm also super young making it that much more impressive!

Why couldn't the title be

> Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger

Why is your age relevant other than "wow factor"?

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