skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think you've confused a fraction of art with the whole. Art comes in many forms both low and high, both utilitarian and purely expressive. Art can be made by artists, but it can also be made by artisans (craftsmen).

This used to be obvious, most of the great Renaissance artists would be perfectly familiar with this definition. Many of them served as both artist and artisan depending on the circumstances. Is the ceiling of the Sistine chapel art? Few would say otherwise, yet it is just a mural. Is St. Peter's Basilica art?

Where do you draw the line? Is architecture art? Is graphic design art? There is no chasm between practical art and expressive art, it is a continuum with extremes at either end. To refuse the label of "art" to the craftsmen is an extreme disservice to their talent and their souls and to us all.
How is this post voted to the top in HN?. Beats me.
Nifty; missed that. Again, I don't think that cadmium should be in toys, but I'd like to point out that according to the fact sheet, shellfish and leafy vegetables are your most likely sources of exposure. And smoking of course, which doubles your cadmium exposure. Somehow smoking never seems to cause quite as much of a panic as Chinese toys, despite all the other known carcinogens in cigarette smoke...
I am involved with two very high volume sites, one is written in Java using tomcat as the server and it needs 3 servers to handle between 650K and 1.5M uniques daily, server load is ok but fairly high, the other is a PHP based service that serves up 1.8 million pages on a good day to 50K uniques, the server load on that box is a relaxed 0.6.

When used properly PHP is performing quite well. Note that this is without any front-end caching, each page gets generated anew.
wrong; i have a mac mini in a data center that boots just fine w/o a monitor attached.
> Have you travelled in Europe ? Say from the Polish/Russian boarder (or the Romanian one) to the coast of the Atlantic?
> In spite of those 'requirements' the differences are vast, and yet, for the most part people still live where they lived before the borders opened up. Not as stark as in South Africa, for sure, but very real nonetheless.

All the poorer countries in the EU are stable democratic countries. They are poorer, but are set for enormous growth (that is why the richer countries wants them part of the EU – because they have much better growth potential than the most developed countries).

Also note that those crossing borders in the EU can’t vote in their newly adopted country (since they are still citizens of their home country). So there are restrictions on many government services also.

> Borders are arbitrary constructs created to foster areas of artificial scarcity and control of people, the world is a much better place without them.

Private property is also an “arbitrary construct” but it doesn’t mean that they are bad. Borders allow government investment of taxpayer money in a country (this being used to benefit the tax payers).

> It seems to me that you are scared of something, South Africa is a place that has a history of very strong inequality, likely the shockwaves of the change there will reverberate for a long time, especially because of the enormous differences between those that have and those that don't.

Illegal immigration could cause the government to collapse, sending South Africa into a downward spiral and de-industrialising the country.

You have not addressed any of my concerns, but try to justify it with the EU (which is only a union with very select and stable countries, with them not becoming citizens of their “adopted” country).
Crawling is a problem that is fundamentally different from serving up dynamic websites. I've written a php based crawler framework, it simply uses a database as a central synchronization area and a bunch of parallel scripts to do the crawling.

I could have done the same using curl but for technical reasons chose to do it this way. It's definitely a work around kind of solution though.

I hope to replace the whole thing with a clojure/jvm based solution.
Can we stop using the term "bashing"?
A Case for Orthogonality in Design
Hehehe. Naked.

(just demonstrating the average male response)
And how did 'he' become a 'she'.
Apologies, non-native English writer/speaker here, what term would you prefer?
Wow... I also don't understand why these traits (cognitive biases?) fit together, but somehow they feel like a coherent archetype. Surprisingly insightful.
If you're interested in a Lisp-based PHP-like web framework, I've been working on one called Dragonfly for newLISP (http://www.rundragonfly.com), which has some of the things you asked for like a standard doc format and thread-less message-passing concurrency, as well as "just write an HTML file" development.

One of my favorite things about PHP though is its documentation, which as you point out allows for user comments. That is something that I would like to see more widespread (and something that Dragonfly unfortunately lacks).

I agree with the sentiment of the OP: there are many languages out there, and they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. I also don't thing you'll ever find a language that will please everyone, so say 'no' to language monogamy and pick the one best suited to the task at hand.
and there is also Ming http://merciless.sourceforge.net/index.html
I honestly hope people don't stop language bashing or really anything-bashing. Strident advocacy can be insightful, amusing and food for thought. Done well, it's also more interesting to read than measured bloodless arguments carefully constructed to conform to the Interplanetary Disagreement Protocol version 7.A. I'm always perplexed that in the face of the avalanche of writing about 'passionate users', there are many who put tremendous value on technical communication that's as dull as robotically possible.
"What makes them think Apple will allow something like this through the App Store approval process?"

They made sure there were a couple of approved apps in the App Store before they announced the technology. Flash gets compiled to native code so they aren't shipping an interpreter.
The Fruits of Unspace Labour
Mark Suster: What Can You Learn from the 4-Hour Workweek?
SVG isn't bad at vector animation. Take a look at the http://raphaeljs.com/ demos.
Online Free Tax Filing
Online free tax filing offers tax return preparation, free tax preparation and state and federal tax preparation online through free efile. And also Free State tax filing and free federal tax filing absolutely free.
Peru Hotel and Travel Directory - Book Accommodation and Tours in Peru
Clozure Asssociates was founded in 2000.
fuck german. umlauts? REALLY?!
This is exactly why the population of homeless people is so high. It's always high near a university, and it's especially high in a city where the homeless are borderline actively encouraged - the city even fought the university on tearing down a park to build more student housing (note: university owns the land) because too many people were living in it.
Sorry. I first assumed you were joking, but then I re-read the context, and I gave your sense of humor the benefit of the doubt. :P It’s not wholly unprecedented for professors to keep teaching to quite an advanced age. Harvey Mansfield, for instance, whose class I took a couple years ago, is 78.
I used this ages ago, but it became less and less usable as MySQL advanced and mytop didn't.
Not a hacker house, but hacker-minded: We've got a spot opening up February 4th (8 months+) at 8th and Howard in SOMA. Two conscientious guys who're into startups, one CS, one business-minded. Details at http://www.jasonandkalvin.com
LiveZilla - Freeware Live Help / Live Chat / Live Support - Official Website
People who routinely bash languages likely do so to cover up their own inadequacies and insecurities about their own programming ability.

It's childish and boring.
Php is pretty fast in its way actually because a lot of the stuff is just plain wrappers for C functions. Use PHP right and do as much as possible with the built in functions and it's pretty fast -- build complex OO junkworks and it'll slow down a little.
Are these two sites doing equivalent work? Without knowing what kind of work these sites are doing, this isn't really a useful comparison.
Meet Roxxxy the robotic girlfriend
Project management training
The Project Management Training Program from Watermark Learning is designed to help ensure you elevate your career by offering you the preparation and training you need to pass the PMP® Certification Exam.
Yes, absolutely.

Otherwise I wouldn't have used them as examples. They are basically implementations of the same kind of site but on different platforms, the one more successful than the other.

In terms of raw performance I'd say the java environment is a little bit faster, but not by much.

In terms of programmer performance I'd say the PHP environment is a lot faster than the java environment.

The java I would qualify as more maintainable though, but it is less stable in production than PHP (we see the occasional freeze on java, the apache/PHP stuff seems to run itself for year after year without any issues).

Both use mysql db backends.
Of course free software can die even if some people still care. I just think this is a matter of threshold. Below a certain threshold of "number of people times dedication", any software can die. I just think this threshold is higher, or at least less predictable, in the case of proprietary software.

My examples makes no sense to you, but they make sense to me: I was thinking about a particular Windows95 game which I would have loved to see ported on the Pandora [1] : Earth siege 2. This is not possible because there is no source code to port, and emulation is out of question (the Pandora isn't powerful enough). The only reasonable solution I have is to clone it, almost from scratch.

About creating software, I agree that some (many?) software couldn't have existed as free software (only). However, this is not a proof that society needs them[2]. Even then, this does not prove Stallman wrong: he cares about freedom. Availability and quality are secondary to him.

[1]: www.openpandora.org

[2]: By the way, if society does need them, then I think the government should write it or finance it.
Yeah, but he recognized the rarity of his situation.
Can we stop the bashing of bashing please?

Bashing serves a useful function. Not all bashing is productive, but just focusing on positive aspects of every language without any critical thought doesn't work. I would agree if you wanted to change your call for more balance and less comments that contain just bashing.

Critical thought and critical analysis requires criticism, it isn't pretty, but that's how things work sometimes.

As a reference, this is some of the more well-written criticism I've seen on languages and its existence makes the Internet a better place: http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/ (And I say this being rather fond of C++ actually. I disagree with a few of the points made, but I can't deny this is a very nicely laid out critique that bashes C++ in such a comprehensive way it's nothing short of an excellent read.)
Threats made against the President are handled rather specially, by people who aren't inclined to view online message boards as trivial.
I spent quite a bit of time reading up on Donald Knuth, have his books on my shelves here (second copy, first one got misplaced during an emigration).

He's a very interesting man with lots of depth outside of our field as well, especially in music.

The retirement was sort of half way because I think he really is pushing himself very hard for someone that advanced in age, but I can see how he would like to complete his magnum opus in the foreseeable future.
I'm trying to think of one. A better alternative might be "criticism", but "Can we stop the language criticism please?" seems like an obviously wrong question - without criticism, how do we know what's bad?

"Bashing" kind of suggests "criticism for the sake of being unpleasant". How about "non-constructive criticism"?

I can't quite explain what it is about the term "bashing" that I find annoying, but I think it's the assumption it seems to make that the criticism in question isn't well reasoned.
Link seems to be broken: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/www.kalvinandjason.com
What is wrong is that a quantum computer doesn't consider all possible answers at the same time. Although the qubits are in a 'combination' of two possible final states. it's not as if each state represents one of the answers to the question. During a computation on your current computer the bits involved in the computation don't evolve towards an answer either (although a subset of them will).
Your groups A and B do not overlap and your retired toolshed watcher was and still is paying taxes too.
Well, you know: that is exactly the point.
There is constructive criticism and there is 'bashing', which I mean to read as being one step shy of attacking those people that use something out of choice or need.

The parallel with religion is a strong one: If you criticize something that's great.

If you start to use your criticism to increase your own stature or if you use it to demean others ('real programmers don't use x') then you've gone from criticism to bashing and it serves no purpose.

Just like the catholics and the protestants in Ireland would go out of their way to try to force the others to 'live like they do'.

Just because it's different does not automatically make it wrong. Some people drive Yugos, others drive BMWs or Audis. Arguably they all have their shortcomings and advantages, the market place decides who is 'best' for a particular application and budget.

Constructive criticism is not telling someone the stuff they use sucks because yours is better, it is telling someone what good things you can do with your toolset. Then you can objectively compare the two and you'll most likely end up somewhere in the middle.

The typical basher has already made up his mind beforehand, and will not move a micron to middle ground.

As soon as you start to make arguments like everybody should use X because everybody knows Y sucks (with or without specifics) it is no longer constructive.

If your stuff is hot shit then do something awesome with it and tell me about it.

That's a thousand times more powerful and productive as an argument than any kind of explicit or implied criticism will ever be accompanied by a 'drop what you're using' advice, especially if it comes packaged in the typical internet rant.
I'd love to take up the offer, but sadly I've got a few more months in my current spot.
Not only is his take more interesting, it somehow carries more weight hearing from a Nazi general. Thanks for the link.
Because OS X tries to compress letter spacing before cutting the line off.

http://imgur.com/cyTjS.png

See what happens when I resize this window? The text gets squished before it gives up and shows the "..."
Don't want to hijack your thread, but maybe it could be like the job threads we have on here. (of course, bringing more exposure to your thread..I think the spot will fill up quickly anyway).

Any opportunities like this in Boston with vacancy come March/April?
Thanks-- fixed. I reversed our names :) (we flipped a coin)
Criticism is fine with me. But bashing goes one step further than criticism, it implies something more than a simple and well reasoned pointing out of a flaw.

If you can't explain it then I hope you'll forgive that I stick with the bashing for now, it seems to cover the bases.

It's the only word I've seen used in that context that fits the bill as far as I can see.
How Botox Works
Some might say Botox® injections are for the elite and exclusive. However, with more than 2.5 million treatments per year in the US, Botox injections are hardly exclusive. Despite recent economic slow down which has affected the sales of all luxury items including designer handbags and fine jewellery Botox® treatments continue to soar. So what is this treatment and how does it work?
No criticism is the wrong word; criticism is good and one of the necessary parts of improving a language.

"criticism for the sake of being unpleasant" is, I think, the point Jasqcues was making :)
No, not depressing because of that. Depressing because my estimation of my fellow males is so far off. I always thought more highly of us :)
I think it's fair to say if you have something, then you can't want it.
The point is, it doesn't really matter. Can you imagine a forum on poetry forever debating which is the better language french/german/english?
Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039390

But I voted it up since the original didn't get any attention.

I think Nokia is at an 'interesting' point. Here in Europe, they are way more important than either Apple or any of the various Android things, but they look wobbly. I will be curious to see how things work out for them, if they are indeed able to reinvent themselves.
Someone bashes php or Java, and, well I can understand that, but how dare you bash language bashing!

Joking aside, bravo for the denunciation, there's no best language, there's no worst language, they're tools in a box, the sooner we accept it the better.
They are not just 'tools in a box', though, that's a bad metaphor. Each language is a more or less complete toolbox, although each one has things it's better at. Still, most of us tend to grab the language(s) we know, first, rather than look around for the 'perfect' language for each job, unless it's going to be a very large project.
There are plenty of ways to show your disagreement and juvenile rants only serve to vent the spleen, nobody is going to come away from an exchange like that with a changed mind, in fact they might start to associate the tool of choice of the 'ranter' with the ranters behaviour.

Real Programmers (TM) can do their work in any environment, they will have their preferences but for the most part they'll be language agnostic because they have learned over the years that the tool is less important than he or she that wields it.

I realize this goes against the grain here, PG is very strongly of the opinion that the tools matter a great deal, but I've seen mediocre people with great tools fail miserably and I've seen people with nothing but edlin and an assembler written in BASIC (of all things) make a small fortune by building some very elegant stuff.

The more interesting fact about this bashing is that the closer the languages are to each other the more fanatical the bashing.

A python programmer will not get nearly as excited about some perceived shortcoming in COBOL as they'll get about one in perl or php because those languages are being used in the same 'domain' that python is used in (for the record, Python advocates are amongst the ones doing the best job for their language of all the ones named here).
It sounds like a derivative form of a word fag (very offensive, foul language).
Or someone who read/saw the book/film and became obsessed with it.
Clive Thompson on How Group Think Rules What We Like
Yeah sure. Every human being in a company can be reduced to 2 qualities.

At least he could have read about the Big 5 or the MBTI, made by people who gave a bit more thought about how to categorize human beings.

Although there are people who are genuinely lazy, most of the time the problem is lack of motivation.
Sensible. The reason why you want smart / "lazy" people at the top is that they will delegate, and because they're smart, they will tend to delegate well.
Exactly, it is all about economy. If the price of change is too large we'll stick with what we know already.

If the price of change starts to look like it might be made up for over the course of a project then that's an excellent incentive to switch to something more suitable.
I do not see anything inappropriate about use of term "bashing" - which I take as meaning, "to criticize in an UNcontructive manner," perhaps with a hostile, degrading tone.

Hopefully the comment he made was intended to be a parody of your title or otherwise humorous.
Check out this video from CES: http://www.wired.com/video/open-source-3d-printer-turns-desi...
It's frustrating how so many sites have many different URLs for the same article, confounding the dupe filter. :-(
I don't like PHP as a language and so it's not surprising that he admits to a shoddy, poor effort.

But I, too, dislike programming; languages are kludgey. (Ok, LISP and its derivatives aren't, but that's not solving the problem as much as reducing the problem set to one that can be solved.)

I like building things, and if to do that, I have to program, so be it. But I constantly feel like I'm building a house with Scotch tape.
Let's accept your argument, that each language is a complete toolbox. You'd likely grab a different toolbox to fix different classes of problems.

For large problems it's common to bring several different toolboxes (think of a primarily php site with a their public api scratched out in java).

The points among each language which contrast and define the 'things it's better at' differentiate the tools and or toolboxes (however you prefer to think of each).

Again, +1 for tearing down tearing down programming languages.
Ask HN: Kindle or Nook?
Hi HN!

I would like to buy an ebook reader to use it in a non-US country. Please suggest whether I should go for a Kindle or a Nook or some other device, perhaps.

Features I am not interested in:
1. Wireless connectivity (whispernet/wifi). I do not need constant access to the web. I can use my PC to sync my reading content.
2. Physical keyboard. I can work with a virtual one.
3. Wide selection of titles in the bookstore. My reading is mostly going to be custom PDF files.

Features I would want:
1. Instant boot-up, long battery life
2. Easy to use dictionary, ability to annotate
3. Support for a variety of ebook formats, especially good rendering of PDFs.
4. As much storage space as possible.

Based on the reviews, I am leaning towards Kindle. What do you guys think?
I wonder whether it's not so much Java, but the excessive "architecture" around the language. My software uses the Jetty web server, a minimal framework, and JRuby for application code. It's very very fast, stable, not particular heavy on memory consumption, and I get good programmer productivity with the Ruby language. Importantly, I get to use all the shiny Java libraries instead of battling with Ruby gems.

I have come to the conclusion that the JVM combined with the vast number of libraries is great, but the Java ecosystem is not terribly optimal and over complicated.
What's ironic is that HN is just like that. A very meta link.
Delivery tunnels were useful in other cities, like in London:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Post_Office_Railway
One day someone will come up with a 'runnable war file' that contains the whole web application+container and does not require unpacking or other manipulation, entirely stand-alone.
> Let's accept your argument, that each language is a complete toolbox.

You can write a web server with Tcl, Ruby, Python, Java, Erlang, C, or whatever.

You can also create GUI's with all those languages.

Any major language is most likely capable (and has some libraries) for doing common things.

> You'd likely grab a different toolbox to fix different classes of problems.

Like jacquesm says below, you would only do so once the cost of learning a new language is less than the perceived gains from using that new language. Since programmers are expensive, and jumping to something new and potentially unknown has some potential pitfalls, this is often not the case. I.e. it's better for the Ruby guy to write a little web server in Ruby rather than Erlang if that's what he needs, even though the Erlang one will kick the stuffing out of it in performance tests, unless of course he knows that performance is absolutely critical (it isn't in many cases), and more important than solving the "business logic" of the problem.
You can't prove that list.pop in Python is always O(1) (imagine there is a bug in a reference implementation). But you can test that assumption for any given implementation.