ut
Dev tools
command line utilities
SHOW HN2025
How HN took it
10 positive, 14 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 16 critical, out of 41 comments about the project. Thread score -0.23.
Idea: 6 for, 9 againstExecution: 0 for, 4 againstDesign: 3 for, 1 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Convenient single binary of handy tools, busybox-like
From 3 comments
The single binary thing reminds me of BusyBox - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BusyBox Sometimes it can be quite convenient to grab a single binary that does a whole bunch of…
simonw on HNI think for packaging it's okay to "have" lots of things that individually "do" one thing. The important part is that the user controls the entry points. It's more Unixy to allow…
01HNNWZ0MV43FF on HNI agree. This feels like a level two busybox/toybox. Nice job.
mrbluecoat on HN
Objections
Goes against Unix do one thing well philosophy; too much functionality
From 3 comments
I can understand why people would find `ut` convenient. That said, I would caution against trying to include too much functionality. What is too much? I don't have a clear idea…
xpe on HNI agree. this tool feels like an all-in-one swiss knife. granted, it is useful. But it goes directly against one of the UNIX core values which is "do one thing and do it well".…
Jotalea on HNThis is literally anti-unix.
Aperocky on HN
Hashing reads stdin to EOF and requires valid UTF-8
From 1 comment
The first thing I checked was how hashing is implemented and two things stand out to me: 1. Input must be valid UTF-8. 2. stdin is read to EOF instead of being read incrementally…
heavensteeth on HN
No tests validating the tools
From 1 comment
Thanks for disclosing your use of GenAI, that kind of transparency is nice to see up front. On that note though, I took a random example (`calc.rs`) and noticed there was no unit…
klardotsh on HN
Dependency supply chain risk
From 1 comment
When importing a library, it becomes part of your project, therefore it becomes your responsibility to ensure that the imported code is safe and sound. I am seeing the list of…
BrouteMinou on HN
Requests
Add UUID v7
From 2 comments
How about uuidv7? That’s catching on, as it’s got improved sortability / clustering behavior in DBs
lukevp on HN> Data Generation: uuid (v1, v3, v4, v5) The new versions 7 and 8 are really a must these days, especially v7.
BerislavLopac on HN
Publish as Python and npm packages or via cargo-binstall
From 2 comments
Slightly odd suggestion: package it up as both a Python and an NPM module - both just thin wrappers around the combined binary - and then people within those ecosystems will be…
simonw on HNI will personally never want to install uvx or npx. Another suggestion is to enable cargo-binstall, it allows just to install cargo binaries conveniently, and cargo-binstall is…
pepa65 on HN
Add retry subcommand with exponential backoff
From 1 comment
Would be cool if this also had a `retry` sub-command, for running any commands with an exponential backoff retry logic. Similar to these Rust tools:…
Narushia on HN
Add compression with password
From 1 comment
As it is a utility toolkit, I'd like to have: - the Web & Network section expanded: the copyparty features (github.com/9001/copyparty) and curlie (github.com/rs/curlie). -…
dxxvi on HN
Questions
Why everything in one binary instead of separate binaries
From 1 comment
Why is everything in the same binary? Why not multiple binaries, one for each function? That way people can install only the ones they need, a-la Unix tools: do only one thing…
guessmyname on HN
What is the definition of done and scope limit
From 1 comment
On what basis are new features included? Has the creator thought about the definition of "done"? Will it grow indefinitely like a katamari ball? [1]:…
xpe on HN
Alternatives named
xh and miniserve for HTTP
From 1 comment
I can understand why people would find `ut` convenient. That said, I would caution against trying to include too much functionality. What is too much? I don't have a clear idea…
xpe on HN
coreutils base64
From 1 comment
You don't even have to go that far, `base64` is a coreutil (https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/ebfd80083b4fe4ae37f50bbc2fcf3cfaee50a248/src/basenc.c#L467). The point of…
ksdme9 on HN
DevToys CLI
From 1 comment
DevToys (https://github.com/DevToys-app/DevToys) has a CLI version like this.
gdotdesign on HN
openssl subcommands
From 1 comment
Many of this utilities are bundled with the "openssl" tool: ``` $ echo -n foobar | openssl base64 -e Zm9vYmFy ```
dolmen on HN
uutils coreutils
From 1 comment
uutils/coreutils has a `base64` in Rust which just gained better performance due to the base64-simd crate for SIMD: https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/pull/8578
westurner on HN