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hicurl: a modern HTTP CLI built with hica

I spend a lot of time testing HTTP endpoints, inspecting JSON responses, and composing API calls, whether writing automated BDD specs in choreo or probing APIs interactively in the terminal.

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Exploratory Learning: Discovering hica via the REPL

The best way to learn a new programming language is to play with it. Reading documentation or scanning source files is fine, but you don’t really get a feel for the syntax and semantics until you start typing code and seeing what happens.

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tbdflow-ui: a desktop dashboard built with hica

hica recently got initial package management, and I wanted to build something meaningful to put it to practise. I’ve added examples and working programs to the repo, but I wanted a real showcase using the imgui library. tbdflow was the obvious candidate.

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Spec-Driven Development and the Return of Big Batch Thinking

Some are calling it “Spec-Driven Development.” Write a detailed specification for a large chunk of system functionality, hand it to an AI agent, and let it generate a working codebase. The argument is that shipping small, vertical slices (define a tiny piece, build it, get feedback, repeat) is too slow for the AI era.

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Don't trust, instruct and verify

Generic LLMs are bad at niche programming languages. Ask one to write hica code and it invents syntax, uses functions that aren’t in the prelude, or produces Koka with the wrong variable names. It’s never seen hica, so it guesses from whatever looks closest.

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Building a Lisp in hica

Version 0.29.3 of hica is out and the core is getting pretty stable. I wanted to explore whether hica could be used to write a small Lisp, as a way to stress-test the hica compiler: closures, recursive data structures, lexical scoping, higher-order functions.

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Test-Driven Development with hica

hica has inline test blocks. They sit right next to your functions: no extra test files, no additional imports and no framework. Run hica test and you’re done, that’s it!

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Introducing hica: a language that transpiles to Koka

In my post about cloning ls in Koka I mentioned wanting to build a small language that transpiles to Koka. That idea has become hica!

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Rebuilding GNU ls in Koka

In a previous post, I introduced Koka and why I started porting ls to it. But I never wrote about the actual backstory.

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A Time Machine for Your Working Directory

In a previous post, I introduced the Intent Log, a way to capture the why alongside the what during development. The Intent Log targets and solves a piece of the comprehension problem. But there’s a related problem it didn’t address: the safety problem.

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