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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

#91

Post by cyberpunk »

valleyer wrote: post #90
cyberpunk wrote: post #89

Why do you put spaces between your function names and their arguments? I find it quite jarring, as someone who's spent a good 18 years reading C code :} return lookup_breakpoint (dbg->breakpoints, get_pc (dbg->pid)); vs return lookup_breakpoint(dbg->breakpoints, get_pc(dbg->pid)); Edit: I tend to lean towards the 'bsd' style, if you have an open or freebsd system, try 'man style' and try their rules on for size.

It's GNU style, which some people prefer. https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Syntactic-...

Damn, I really have been in my cave for too long! Forgot all about their weird if {}.

Thanks!

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

#92

Post by darkwater »

valleyer wrote: post #90
cyberpunk wrote: post #89

Why do you put spaces between your function names and their arguments? I find it quite jarring, as someone who's spent a good 18 years reading C code :} return lookup_breakpoint (dbg->breakpoints, get_pc (dbg->pid)); vs return lookup_breakpoint(dbg->breakpoints, get_pc(dbg->pid)); Edit: I tend to lean towards the 'bsd' style, if you have an open or freebsd system, try 'man style' and try their rules on for size.

It's GNU style, which some people prefer. https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Syntactic-...

Off-topic but I can not avoid a tear of joy reading this:

> In the Unix world, “portability” refers to porting to different Unix versions. For a GNU program, this kind of portability is desirable, but not paramount.

The primary purpose of GNU software is to run on top of the GNU kernel, compiled with the GNU C compiler, on various types of CPU. So the kinds of portability that are absolutely necessary are quite limited. But it is important to support Linux-based GNU systems, since they are the form of GNU that is popular.

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

#93

Post by 2C64 »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #79

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"?

Different strokes, but the context in which something is built can be just as interesting as what is built when it is unusual. See also the post recently about the open source contributor working from a prison in Maine - that's interesting for a ton of reasons.

In this case there are two interesting things: that they built a debugger and that they are 17. The latter information might also lead to more interesting helpful comments for the kid versus a "okay, and?" series of responses.

And at the end of the day, every Show HN has a bit of "hey, notice me!" in it - whether or not age or other identifying information is included. I don't think that's bad.

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

#94

Post by [deleted] »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #79

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"?

[deleted]

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

#95

Post by thibaut_barrere »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #86
codetrotter wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very common for teenagers to do so. I did the same when I was their age. No reason to question why they do it, it’s just a thing teenagers do.

> No reason to question why they do it, No, then they'll never learn that it is received by "adults" as "unnecessarily extra-attention seeking". Most people who like to share stuff are seeking validation one way or another (myself included). It might be worthwhile for OP to step back and ask "why am I seeking validation from strangers online to find what I post impressive"?

Maybe he didn't come here to receive a therapy :-)

Maybe it's just cool to connect with people similarly minded and share what everyone is doing, not necessarily for attention seeking, but because it improves everyone's situation by sharing extra knowledge?

Just sharing what I did at a younger age brought me extraordinary connections at the time, some who still are friends 30 years later.

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

#96

Post by [deleted] »

smithza wrote: post #10

I want to only comment that your level of knowledge and maturity at the age of 17 is very impressive. The topics being investigated and exploited are expected at an undergraduate level and even then, this project would be in the Graduate level course. My hat is off to you and wish you a successful career.

[deleted]

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

#97

Post by [deleted] »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #86
codetrotter wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very common for teenagers to do so. I did the same when I was their age. No reason to question why they do it, it’s just a thing teenagers do.

> No reason to question why they do it, No, then they'll never learn that it is received by "adults" as "unnecessarily extra-attention seeking". Most people who like to share stuff are seeking validation one way or another (myself included). It might be worthwhile for OP to step back and ask "why am I seeking validation from strangers online to find what I post impressive"?

[deleted]

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

#99

Post by pvg »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #79

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"?

If you squint, 'no weird meta nitpickery' is not hard to derive from most of https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

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

#100

Post by SillyUsername »

Well done.

Achieving this at 17 is a rare feat even most supposed senior developers don't achieve and it ranks up there with writing an emulator.

It was only in my late 20s I understood low level architecture enough to be able to do similar work, like you through passion, which I never had in my teens (I did start programming Pong like games at 8 years old and Tetris clones around 12/13 but that's hardly the same ;) ).

Keep up the great work, it restores my faith that their are less code monkeys out their like me!

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