{
  "id": 16385718,
  "title": "We should be more ambitious with the software we build",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/24/we-should-be-more-ambitious-with-the-software-we-build",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-24T21:47:31.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Hacker News",
    "slug": "hacker-news",
    "url": "https://danluu.com/ambitious/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In recent months, software developer Michael Malis, known as pgrust, has been demonstrating ambitious projects that aim to improve the Postgres database. Despite skepticism surrounding AI-generated projects, Malis' work has shown thorough testing and uncovered real bugs in Postgres, such as numerical bugs, format cache bugs, and memory safety issues. While Malis admits pgrust may not be bug-free, the project's testing efforts have already improved Postgres, potentially benefiting other databases like Clickhouse. Malis emphasizes the importance of building ambitious software, as advancements in capabilities allow developers to create more efficient projects, even if not all will succeed. He shares examples of personal projects, such as a regex engine, ripgrep fork, and Rust compiler optimizations, which have significantly improved performance. These projects, once thought to take years to develop, have been accomplished in just a few hours. Overall, the story highlights the increased potential for building efficient and high-quality software, despite the abundance of low-quality AI-generated projects.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}