skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I had a tough time initially. I basically lost the ability to type qwerty without looking at the keys for about 6 months. Then I started gaining it back on an OS-by-OS basis: I was conditioned so that if I was looking at a Gnome desktop (school computer labs) I'd type Qwerty, yet on a WinXP desktop I'd type Dvorak. Then it went to app-by-app: I'd type Dvorak on Word and AIM, but Qwerty on Eclipse and a few other Linux apps. And then I became fluent in both keyboard layout and can can basically touch type on either.

Still need to switch into Qwerty for some games, though, because their keybindings don't make any sense. It's also really annoying on typing tests that have you type "hjkl" over and over again. vi was never a problem, because I learned the keybindings on Dvorak first, though I might have trouble if I sat down at a Qwerty terminal with it.
I worked on my startup part-time for 9 months before taking the plunge and quitting my day job 5 months ago, and "half-assed" is pretty accurate, even if it is a little unpleasant. In terms of the scope of what you can accomplish, you're severely handicapped by moonlighting, much moreso than the difference in available time would suggest. Being able to think nearly continuously about your project lets you try much more ambitious projects, which you wouldn't be able to hold in your head otherwise.

One thing that helped me was to think of my salary as "buying time". If you make $60K but live on $20K, then each hour you work buys you two hours of startup time. If you make $100K but live on $40K, each hour you work buys you an hour and a half. Shows you how important it is to get your living expenses down.

Another thing that helps is to live like your least-successful classmates while working like your most-successful classmates. I have English-major friends who graduated, couldn't get a job, took a string of temp jobs and secretarial positions, spent as much time on unemployment as off, rarely had money to spend, and went back home to live with their parents. So, I went back home to live with my parents, rarely spent any money, and worked at a financial software startup. I pocket the difference between a Starbucks salary and a financial software salary. That's given me about 4 years living expenses to work with, even assuming I were to move out of my parents.
Civil aviation projects are not much better.

I once worked for a sub-contractor on a contract to develop the software for a pair of cockpit display units (Honeywell's DU-875/DU-885 units). We had a large amount of documentation -- at least a half metre or so -- before we even left the design phase. And this was just for the application software. The operating system and hardware had a couple times that amount. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire system amounted to at least 4-5 metres of docs upon completion.

This was legitimate documentation; we didn't BS, we were just very very detailed. The standard (DO-178B) specifies how detailed you need to be, not how much you need to produce.

In fact, as I recall, I spent most my time maintaining documentation.
I come here every day, not so much for the confidence (I think I already have it), but for the "boost". Glad to see it's working for you too.
A real life story: Factoring Polynomials
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Steve Ballmer on MS Server, Linux, Yahoo & More
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On Naming Startups, and Ruby Hackery. (with scripts!)
I wrote a little script to help scan through DNS to find untaken domain names. The web services are great, but they don't seem to work fast enough, and I personally would rather have the name construction rules in code. Sticking a file on wordpress is kinda dumb though. We're still procrastinating on buying a server.
Ebay encounter slow growth in the up coming years
Hi.

I'm a Finn and I don't think introversion has much to do with why our educational system works as well as it does.

Us being introvert doesn't translate to all children sitting quietly in classrooms, absorbing information. There are .. problematic kids too.

I'd say it's more about the good foundation, as the article seems to imply. The curriculum is pretty solid too.

Finnish social customs are certainly way too uptight though.
As I said in another post, I've been using Dvorak for about five years. I actually haven't tried using QWERTY in about two years... so let's see how I do. (switches)

Well... this feels a bit awkward (especially "awkward", ironically, which is mostly on one hand), but I can type mostly fine. I find punctuation to be the biggest problem, followed the fact that my left hand feels overworked (is that normal?). I can type at about half my normal pace, but it's getting better. In fact, after typing this paragraph, I think I'm most the way back to full speed.

All in all, I'd say that switching isn't a big issue, especially if you just need to key in a few small things. This is completely anecdotal, mind you.
Well, I've started a stationery shop in my cube...

Seriously, though, I think one way would be to become more entrepenurial at work, and try and apply some of the kind of fairly ruthless behavior that I'd imagine you'd need to survive in a startup.

In no particular order:
Focus. Get Things Done. No Fluff. Delight Customers. Play Necessary Politics.

Another way to think of this, might be to look at all the employees that, in a start-up environment, would sink like lead bricks, and do exactly the opposite.
The majority of the re-designs are bad. The Compaq logo especially.
You are spot on. I've always found this frustrating - hackers beat their heads on walls looking for new consumer ideas, while deep in the industries there are relatively simple problems left and right. I think the frustration is on both sides - hackers would love to solve these hidden problems, and the business folks would love someone to make their lives easier.

PG said it best, "build something people want": it's the hardest thing for a start up to do. So the idea of all these hidden opportunities just kills me. If someone wants to start a website that publishes these type of ideas, you'll have me as a user.
If you're too old at 33, then I'm too old at 34. :) I'm an ER nurse by trade, but I'm one or two semesters shy of finishing my degree in CS. I'm going back and getting in touch with my inner geek after years of having a "safe" job. I was talked out of getting into CS in 1992, because "there's not that much need for computer programmers". Sigh... I'd only recently moved to the states from overseas, so I believed them. Argh!

Anyway, what I'm focused on now is web development. There's nothing to stop us from learning this stuff. All of the important training materials for these technologies are on line or on Safari. There is a pretty steep learning curve, and expect it to take a while to become really proficient at it, but go for it.

And, I've spent the last 3 years paying off debt, moving to Silicon Valley, and getting ready to be a founder as soon as I'm done with school. So, don't let the kids scare you off. Dive on in, the water's great. :)
A web app to split your bills between friends was selected by YCombinator...
That's where I saw it. I posted i thought more people should see it, but the credit should go to mixmax.
Is News.YC censored? 
what happened to this:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126421

it was a stupid post but i found it hilarious
A social network for babies - seriously
All of a sudden, Lemmings looks really easy.
35 Ways to Stream Your Life
I am pretty sure that Indian outsourcing is going to be on the decline, but that's just because India is getting to be at parity with the US in certain respects. Salaries in Bangalore are almost at parity with salaries in Silicon Valley, say a couple of my Indian friends who are from Bangalore and are working in the Valley.

But, now that there is an upper-middle class in India, when the ball drops, and people lose their jobs I think they'll find it relatively easy to start a business and code a web app. Why? Because they can now afford a home computer and bandwidth. And, a $20 a month Slicehost account won't break their monthly budget.

I think what people who are born and raised in the States don't really understand, is how much of a luxury item having a computer is in most of the world. It's hard to buy a $400 computer when you're living on $200 a month.
You Used Ruby to Write WHAT? Pros/Cons of Ruby in the Enterprise by Zed Shaw
I know I shouldn't be bothered, but it really worries me that this is on top of news.yc :-(
I had a friend who did admin stuff for a research group at what was once known as ford aerospace. He told me once that his boss always hated anything SECRET because they then had to install more locked cabinets in order to keep it secure for several years.
Presumably they are not homogeneous.
This topic appear on hacker news a couple months ago.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=87471

As the other guy says, there's no uneven distribution of material, but it self-rights due to the properties of its surface.
No, censored is when it's reviewed before publication.
Hacker News is edited however, and in some rare cases spam/troll posts are deleted, like on this occasion.
+1 for mentioning one of the most visually stimulating apartment buildings in the world. I saw it on a trip to Barcelona and it makes you realize how boring all buildings are designed to be.

Have you read "How Buildings Learn" by S. Brand? I think you would like it - premise is the manner in how buildings are constructed influences their growth and ability to change.
Comment of the Day: Lifestreaming Irony
@TED: Best of Day 2 - O'Reilly Radar
Mobile and Wireless Trends for 2008
We already have reddit for hilarity. As one reddit commenter put it, "don't go over to yc. it's no fun there cuz they're all serious and shit."
I admire your courage. It's so easy to stay in the comfort zone of a daily/weekly/yearly/ad to boredom routine (for example, do you know anyone who drives the same route and parks in the same parking spot in a big lot.. Everyday?) Moving your career is bold and the nay-Sayers probably envy your courage and determination. As someone famous wrote - most people die at 30 and are buried later. Negativity criticism etc. is the easy path to take - anyone can point out a problem but how many will fix it.

I firmly believe that we as humans all are creative. And that expressing our creativity, our imagination, our mind allows us to be less unhappy. I like programming because it is a creative form of writing - taking half-baked requirements and turning it into something people might find of value/help their daily job/life. I read once that the IDE or your editor is like a word processor for abstraction - the building and invariancing of data structures.

My point here is it sounds like you enjoy programming at an emotional, mental, and maybe even spiritual level. I think you'll do fine - the young bright things probably are still learning that there is more to life than technology. My second point here is you won't regret taking on this suite of opportunities.

And when you talk about your job, please don't tell them you are a programmer. Ask the person asking "what do you do for a living" what they do when they use a computer - and tell them you make that stuff work (and ask them if they have any ideas of stuff that could be useful for them)
Well said. And thank god for editors.
Firefox 3 passes the Acid2.
44 years old when I built digg. Is that competing in the web2.0/social networking sphere?

The stuff that happened after we were funded (I've left the company) probably had a lot to do with my age, and the type of conventional wisdom (i.e. bullshit) that is out there and espoused by some of these commenters.

Remember that on the internet, noone knows you're a dog (or an old dog).
I come to Hacker News to read and interact with people about start-ups and hacking related news, not to read jokes. It's not that I don't like to laugh, but there are a lot more popular sites on the web where you can be distracted and read funny stuff than there are where you can have quality discussions on a specific topic with interesting people like Hacker News.

This is rare. While community-oriented sites where you can read jokes/hilarious stuff/trolls are common and all over the place.

So when I want to be distracted, all I have to do is to open a new tab and go to reddit or whatever. HN is a special environment that must be preserved from this kind of stuff in order to keep the focused and quality discussions going on.
I once wrote a report for a client for managers only with a special password, "aardvark". Every time I was there, I heard at least once, "Did anyone run the aardvark report yet?" I wonder if anyone ever caught on.
As a 41-yr old hacker (and late-comer to the game; I didn't start until I was well into my 20s) I'd just like to thank you for sticking up for us "old-timers." It really bothers me that people think you're past it when you get past 35 or so. 'Scuse me if I'm not dead yet and have no intention of acting as though I am.

My project is at http://surftrackr.net/ It won't ever make me rich, but (a) that's not the point, and (b) it's my way of making a contribution. While there are programmers out there who can do a better or worse job than I have, I can guarantee the differentiating factor is not their age.
Stories get killed every day, sometimes even automatically. In fact, that's the reason for the showdead option in your profile-- so if you want to see all the spam, trolls, and offtopic submissions, you can.

http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html
Bill Gates Unplugged: On Software, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Giving Back
Do you think Finnish social customs are the explanation of this phenomenon? I.e. that it's not cool to be stupid the way it is in large swaths of the US?
Programmers At Work
Eh, matters arn't as simple as portrayed - a good bit of U.S. application support/development has went overseas to India... ...within a short 15 minute drive of my home in Arizona, I can tally thousands of programming jobs (mostly old school COBOL + CICS type work, but not limited to, as tons of Java and web developer slots too were affected) that went overseas. Departments comprised of 200+ employees (plus additional U.S. contracted programmers) now are skeleton crews that manage a blend of offshore and non-immigrant Visa workers that work at company facilities on-site or in special facilities here in U.S..

But in 5+ years time, the Indian programmers become the system subject matter experts as the few remaining U.S. workers mark the days until retirement. There are few young U.S. workers waiting in the wings, and any American who has opted for a career in programming has chosen something more "sexier", like working with Rails or as a web developer, even if the pay is a fraction of what a developer could make 15-20 years ago working with such "old school" mainframe technology...

But those systems are still running, every time you use a credit card, book a flight, use electricity, etc..., the "main nerve center" system that accommodates such transactions is still going to be a COBOL system with a DB2 (or even worse, an ancient hierarchical IBM IMS database)...
Macworld | Leopard power tips
Let's just say I've used Vista for a grand total of about an hour since it was released. There's just no incentive for hackers to do any of their Windows work on Vista compared to XP.

Apple provided incentive to move to Leopard in the form of Ruby and Python bindings and some slick new dev tools. Vista? Eh... why bother? What can you do on Vista that you can't do on XP? Flip 3D? No thanks.

(Honestly, though, if there are any good reasons to develop on Vista I'd be open to hearing about them)
I think a lot of us came from reddit and stayed here BECAUSE we don't want those posts. Very rarely do I ever check the reddit front page anymore. I mostly stick to proggramming.reddit. Hacker news IMO should be edited to keep it going down the reddit road. Not to bash on reddit, if I want to see stupid pictures or read or post politic news thats where I go, but HN filters out a lot of noise. I'm thankful for that.
The Finnish school system sounds very much like the ideal learning environment that Alfie Kohn describes in Punished by Rewards.
This is exactly my opinion too. There are so many communities that are internet link dumps that offer a ton of crap content. That was great when I had a ton of time to sit and browse through it all. But I'm growing up and trying be become a better programmer, trying to start some projects that take off, and in general no matter if I'm working at my day job or on my startup at home, trying to keep a good solid work ethic. When I need a break or I'm bored I browse HN and not only find things that interest me, but find things that help me work towards my goals.
Rumor: Microsoft about to unveil web-apps strategy
Evolution of Programming Languages
I too, started late in the game. With a brief introduction to Basic in school, and some programming classes in undergrad, I graduated with a Bachelors in Production Engineering, and it was after that I realized that computers (and programming) is where I felt just right. I worked on my first major (Java) project in grad school when I was 21. Haven't looked back since and over the years have learned several languages.

I will admit though, that a)starting late b)not having a formal education in computer sciences is a little frustrating at times. I spend my evenings trying to play catch up with those who had a head start (reading up on compilers, language design, even SICP). Don't get me wrong, I am still as fascinated with computers as I was 8 years ago (I turn 30 today, the 1st actually), but every time I read a brilliant comment on a language or a framework on YC News, I know I have a long way to go before I will have that level of competence and understanding.

To answer your question, I don't think its never too late to pursue your passion. In the long run, when you look back, you would rather see having spent time doing things you loved to do, rather than spending a majority of your life as a zombie, in pursuit of a paycheck than anything else.

From another late starter, I can only wish you the very best.
This article kicks tremendous ass; here's another awesome man to the list. Articles like these are actually useful to most people, compared to, say, the tales of Feynman, which, while also amazing and kickass, read more like fantasy than inspiration.
Does YC really get much spam? As of 3/1/08 10am PDT, scrolling through the 180 visible "new" articles with showdead set to yes revealed 3 [dead] stories: the sex one mentioned in this thread, something about sharks and an acne medication one.

Come to think of it, a profile option to increase (or decrease) the effective gravity for articles posted by users who post articles marked [dead] in the last few days could be useful to monitor this.

Or even something as simple as a /dead view.
good anime has subtitles
No prob. I have deep admiration for India. Not so much for big outsourcing, which has a top-down bureaucratic approach to making software that has been producing poor results everywhere for decades and that thrives on the (software) ignorance of exeuctives and managers (the kind who fund and run those infamous multimillion-dollar, hundreds-of-programmer projects, and then hide them under the rug when they fail). But this has nothing to do with India; it has to do with software projects. Where I think the Indian outsourcing industry was brilliant was in its marketing to these executives, persuading them that what failed here would succeed in India, mainly because the labour force would be cheap (and abundant, and obedient). This was effective because it was based on a familiar model ("it's like moving a factory to Mexico"), and it had wishful thinking on its side ("this time will be different"). But bureaucracies don't do a good job of building software anywhere, including in India. So this whole story had a time limit on its effectiveness; say about 10 years to figure out that it really wasn't different this time. Meanwhile, smart programmers are the same everywhere, including in India. They know perfectly well that they're the ones holding up these boring projects for little pay and little status. It's just a matter of time, same as here, before many figure out that they can do a lot better. This is going to drive up the cost of retaining good programmers in India, as it should; and one would expect it eventually to lead to the emergence of an entrepreneurial hacker class, which would be a great thing.
I can see it, because my settings are set to see dead items.

And it isn't censorship when the code for the forum is publicly available. This is private property, not the pissing ground of trolls. You have no right to post here. You must respect the owners and curators of the site.

I would say the most important reason to kill the thread is that it isn't something you would say to someones face. That rubric works really well to judge whether it is appropriate for a forum like this, trying to host interesting content.
While ruby and python are definitely more sexy (and by extension rails and django), I think its a mistake to dismiss PHP and MySQL has not being worthy of study. Take a look at the job boards and see what people are looking for. I think you'll see far more employers looking for MySQL and PHP skills then Postgres and Ruby/Python. For example, It seems like Drupal developers can write their own tickets right now (drupal is a CMS written in PHP/MySQL). You might be better off looking into CMS/frameworks like Drupal or Django.

As a 42 year old developer, I say go for it. You have other skills you bring with you. Frankly, these days I look for people who demonstrate maturity and life-long learning skills more then I do a specific skill-set.
Not a huge amount. Occasionally a spammer will fill up half the new page, but most only submit a link or two at a time.
I turned 50 last September. Ten years earlier I started playing with Linux and learned very quickly I knew nothing about Unix. In 5 months I was rolling my own kernels, mainly out of need; apmd wasn't in the default Red Hat kernel, and I needed it for my laptop. A few months after that I was one of Those People who helped bring Linux into the corporate world when people could get fired for having done so.

Five years ago I proposed - and was awarded - a research project at work (internal r&d money). I chose at that time to use Python to develop a tool to design airspace for air traffic control purposes. I didn't know Python other than having played with it in console mode. In my experience it was the language to use, and it worked like a champ for us.

I'll "retire" in 15 years. When I do so, I fully intend to be employable at that time (re: current).

Start now. Get into it. 33 isn't too old to start, but it is too young to stop.

Btw, I have a BS in applied math from a small state college - Keene State College in NH. Degrees from good schools might help, but passion for what you do can go a very long way. (^_^) Go for it and good luck!!!!
I think it makes sense to build something that you want to use personally (solves one of your problems), or at least solve a problem that you understand well. It's certainly possible to do neither but I think you're more likely to fail then.

It has nothing to do with age.

The advice about not trying to compete in the "web2.0/social" market I think is a good one regardless of age. It's far too crowded with "me too" startups and most business models rely only on advertising or hopes of getting bought before loosing too much money.
I'm not discounting the Finnish school system or anything but I would take any results based on standardized tests with a grain of salt. Many tests of this nature have been shown to be biased or skewed to the benefit or detriment of certain people. The IQ test is a prime example...
Richard St. John's Secrets to Success in 8 Words