Why “number” is being discussed
The most recent Hacker News stories and comments contributing to this topic's mentions.
I have a lot of fondness for the language. When I was in college, there were a series of three 1-hour language intro courses. (C++, Lisp, and Fortran). I took all three. Lisp is…
by mschaef · Oct 16, 2026
So this is a really neat technical demo, using spacecraft cold-gas thrusters and guidance hardware/software to do crazy stunt stuff in a car, but what's the relevance to an…
by CommieBobDole · Oct 16, 2026
All text, but none of these were a one-shot task. There were a few serious gotchas that you need to pay close attention to. It understands problems VERY well when it actually co…
by TrueDuality · Oct 16, 2026
I just mentioned it to Claude and it minus-one shotted (that's when you didn't even want to make anything, just talk about it) a Python script it called Folderol that compiles .…
by customguy · Oct 16, 2026
> An average person who makes regular game purchases likes long games. They want value for their money, and the number of hours is a big factor. Is that the case? Or do they wan…
by mcphage · Oct 16, 2026
I don't think it's whether one is harder than the other, it's about constraints or in software, lack of. Hardware is constrained by the physical world while software has much fe…
by matwood · Oct 16, 2026
Interest
Proportion of Hacker News items mentioning "number" over time.
Mentions
Total number of Hacker News items mentioning "number" over time.
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, order and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so forth. Individual numbers can be represented in spoken or written language with number words, or with dedicated symbols called numerals; for example, "eleven" is a number word and "11" is the corresponding numeral. As only a limited list of symbols can be memorized, a numeral system is used to represent any number in an organized way. The most common representation is the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, a decimal system which can display any non-negative integer using a combination of ten Arabic numeral symbols called digits. Numerals can be used for counting, for labelling, for ordering, and for codes. In common usage, however, a numeral is not clearly distinguished from the number that it represents. Read more on Wikipedia