skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Thanks a lot, you really understood my problem :)
I don't want to learn PHP, now I have to decide if it's going to be Python or Ruby.

Can you please point me some of the information sources you used.

Thanks again.
Wow.. thanks everyone for the valuable advice..

After reading through all the comments, I do feel Bookmarklet is the way to go. However my only concern with Bookmarklets is there's no way on updating an user's bookmarklet automatically, so if you need to change something, you pretty much have to email all your users to remove their current bookmarklets and setup the new one. correct?
MacBook Pros updated today - Good time to buy
Oh, one more thing...

I would like to add that the first example of telling the circuitry "go" and "stop" implies some processing on behalf of the circuitry such that it has an understanding of the meanings behind these symbols. This conveyed to me in some way that the author of the article was indicating that the circuitry had an understanding of these words (hence my lengthy discussion of symbol vs signal).
We're a site geared towards people looking to travel overseas. I'm not sure how much airlines and so one would be willing to spend on advertising with us, but this thread is inspiring anyway :)
My advice is to pick a language and go from there. Start with either PHP, Ruby or Python. Once you are comfortable with the inner workings of the language, then move forward with an agile development framework. Depending on which language you finally chose you will find open source frameworks for each:

Ruby: Ruby on Rail, Merb
PHP: CakePHP
Python: Django

I truly think that understanding the language itself will help a lot before jumping into the framework.
You don't need to make downgrading easier than this ;)
How to Tamper in God's Domain (with screen printing)
I agree. Rails is currently the way to go. It's much more mature than Django and has more flexibility and more mature gems/plugins.

Lynda tutorials are great. I'd also recommend free ones:

http://railscasts.com/

http://www.akitaonrails.com/2008/2/1/rolling-with-rails-2-0-...

And for-pay ones at http://www.peepcode.com

Also, grab "The Rails Way" book by Obie Fernandez (it's THE BEST book on Rails.. when you learn the basics, it's better than 'Agile Web Development with Rails') and "The Ruby Way" by Hal Fulton.
If you do decide to go with Python, web.py (http://webpy.org/) is simple and you'll be up and running fast.

If you're interested in how it all works, dig into WSGI. And if you find that web.py is too low level, transition to Django after you have a feel for how web apps work.
I wouldn't spend too much time deciding between the two--they are more or less functionally equivalent, so just pick one and don't look back.

Python is a little more "corporate", with a little more regimented style (e.g. significant whitespace, PEP style guide - http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/). CherryPy is super-simple to get started.

Ruby is a little more "hacker", with a more idiosyncratic cast of characters such as DHH and _Why and a little more focus on coolness and tricks. Rails is the way to go, but you can get up and running with the basics with the Camping Framework in about 10 minutes.
Which Social Network Is Down the Most?
Google Adwords: the reality
You just gave me tired head.

Unless you really want to deal with all this blitting stuff, I recommend that you look at making flash games. You get to deal with the more interesting problem (to me) of making a fun, playable game vs. dealing with the nuts and bolts of graphics programming.

Also ask those guys at popcap how their financials look. I bet they aren't doing too poorly :)

For about 3 years, I've said that the minigame will rule the world and it it beginning to turn that way. Look at 90% of the Wii games and they are all minigames. Games like Peggle and the downloadable content for XB360 are all minigames that make bank.
eek. I've not have good experience with any of those sites...

Craigslist has been the worst.
I always like it when a billionaire says "To focus on what you don’t have is a terrible mistake. With the gifts all of us have, if you are unhappy, it’s your own fault."

Is it so much for a person to want to own their home, have a personal savings, have health care, and be able to retire at a reasonable age? I don't think it is a 'mistake' to want for any of these things, and sadly, there are a good number of people in the world that this is not accessible to.
Honestly, if you're going to make a serious study of the subject, I'd suggest an O'Reilly Safari subscription. For $15 a month, you get access to 10 books at a time. For $40 a month, you get access to their entire library. I'm not a shill for the service, I just really like the service. It's well worth the cash.

Online tutorials are good for a quick, down and dirty overview of a topic. But, if you're going to learn something a bit more in depth, I'd think that you're better off looking at a book. It's pricey, but it's worth it for me. I figure I'd spend $40 a month on tech books anyway. I'd might as well pay them and get the whole library as well as the Lynda.com video all at the same time.

Also, if you're really serious about it, I might consider finding a web database development class or certificate program somewhere. It might be slower going than you want, but you'll have a more complete understanding of the subjects once you were done.
> Their claims don't sound that plausible: Apple is full of not-stupid engineers.

s/don't/do/

s/Apple/Japan/
The Merge Fairy (Open Source): automated merging of revisions between Subversion branches
I posted this because it's awesome, and I'm going to use it at RescueTime. But also because I want someone to change the config format to YAML. :)
Buried Seed Vault Opens in Arctic
I'd love to see someone try to dispute that! If there's one thing that makes or breaks a startup, it's the distribution.
I read the captcha on GMail is the safest around and it is impossible to break. One that does it would really put the captcha test to dust.
Only if you first answer it.
$50 is not enough to even begin to know what you're doing with Adwords. Read "Winning Results with Google AdWords" by Andrew Goodman and put it to work with a reasonable budget.
With a framework like Django, you don't really need to know SQL. It helps to understand the backend, but you basically design the tables based on Python classes. That's how I learned, it and it got me far enough to already launch tipjoy.com

I already knew a good amount of Python though.

djangoproject.com
FriendFeed looks like a potentially distributed version of Facebook, if used properly at an individual/friend/local level and evangelized properly as a company. I really like the relatively loose association between friends and services. Right now you have many of the photo/link sharing capabilities in Facebook tied down to Facebook-centric/based apps but FriendFeed allows you to transfer that level of interaction to highly specialized apps that have fairly focused goals.

The way I see the potential competition for Facebook from FriendFeed is by visualizing highly specialized apps connected together like nodes on a graph by the interaction between people who know each other in real life; the sum total of interaction between people brings equivalent value as Facebook does. I think Facebook creates this graph in exactly the opposite way: the individuals are represented as the nodes and the applications become the connectors. In both cases it is the interaction between the nodes that result in the edges of the node, but the impetus for placing a node on the graph are different - and this difference is ultimately to the detriment of Facebook at the moment as it puts Facebook at a disadvantage (the factual presence of all the highly specialized apps that are already popular at some level is what I'm referring to).

Facebook is one account and it enables you to do many things; these many activities are bound to Facebook. On the other hand it is more likely that you will have many different accounts at highly specialized apps/communities and the fact that you can connect the activity with other people gives FriendFeed an additional use over using Facebook.

The way these social graphs are created is a very significant distinction for the upside potential of FriendFeed and symmetrically the downside potential of Facebook. This can be further illustrated by picturing Facebook as a graph that grows from the inside out like how patches of mushrooms would grow, and FriendFeed is a graph that "condenses" from out of nowhere (I'm thinking of the bright yellow PbO2 condensation reaction from my chemistry days).

If I were a Facebook employee, I'd be terrified of FriendFeed as the interactions that arise from using FriendFeed are potentially more nebulous than what Facebook could hope to achieve. The value of the interaction between the nodes of the graph is the most overlooked principle in why social networks grow (this is reaffirmed for me each time I read about the next "Digg killer"!). I have a feeling that FriendFeeders know just how valuable this is...
that's what everyone else wants. get your own life.
Avoiding Overlaod Hell in C#
Yes, a library function might be similar, but you would have to write it. s#t_p is already there, so even if it's not as clear, it's all you need.

Did you even read his article? The whole point was "Symbol#to_proc is a litmus test for how you view programming languages. I like it. What do you think of it?"
One subtle but annoying change: Apple rearranged the function keys at the top of the keyboard to match the Macbook Air.
I definitely tell people I'm going to be working on a startup over the summer to force myself to do it. It's a surprisingly effective method actually.
Good Guys Don't Make Billions: Web companies discover the perils of putting privacy before profits.
Hi, I asked a similar question a month ago and got some great advice. Check it out: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=90782.
"and sadly, there are a good number of people in the world that this is not accessible to"

This was (and has always been) Buffet's point. Everyone in America has won the 'ovarian lottery' (as he calls it) because we were born here with the opportunity to achieve all those things and more. He's not implying it's only possible here, and he is not implying everyone should be happy where they are. He is just saying we should be thankful that we live in a country that generally makes it possible, and even probable.
I'll second the suggestion for "The Ruby Way" - it's under-rated and deserves more attention.

I've heard good things about "The Rails Way" but haven't yet had a chance to look at it.
I've tried and it's true.

I built a great social networking website, but there were problems with just about everything (including a programmer that had a nervous breakdown and quit, one that had a heart attack and quit, one that got pregnant and quit, a change in the law that made our business model obsolete, etc. etc) We launched just for the hell of it, but didn't follow through on it. I think there are around 50 users now...
The only thing I wish they had done was increase the size of the touchpad. I need some space to use my gestures.
Why so negative? He said a lot of wise things, billionaire or not.

"The difference between potential and output comes from human qualities." - brilliantly put.
I didn't write it, I just submitted it :)
In Praise of Non-Alphanumeric Identifiers
$2000 is a bit steep isn't it?
Web companies discover the perils of putting privacy before profits
How To Make Your Plants Twitter
I've heard about this problem repeatedly before. Why are people apparently seriously building and renting offices without windows outside of Western Europe? I mean, you're spending 10-12 hours a day on sophisticated things of (hopefully) very high value that is (hopefully) rewarded accordingly in the marketplace---and yet, such a simple and essentially free thing as daylight is outside your scope? Why is this? What's the point of windowless offices? This is just quite obviously a serious factor for potentially making your people suffer in subtle ways. In tech, you don't want them to suffer, no? What am I missing?
Yeah, I wish I'd seen the "top ten signs" (#9) a long time ago. It might have saved me from blowing my early 20s on a good idea that I just couldn't execute on. (It was basically Google Base, but with no commitment from the friends I asked to help me, with no successful sites under my belt, and using only the primitive tools of 1997. Oh, and the unworkable resource-cost-to-impression-revenue economics of that era as well.)

I wish I'd also been slapped in the face with the observation (linked to from somewhere on news.yc) that a great idea with no execution is worth about $10.
"http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=324"

Or---judging from the URL---just go for the technology these guys used, rather than the one they want to teach you.
Rails is much more mature than Django?
Please provide some sort of evidence surrounding that, instead of stating it as fact.

First, let's start with the languages they are based on, since performance and scalability depends on this. Do you feel Ruby is more mature than Python too?
There's multiple things you want to learn:

1. How to program (hack)
2. How to hack on the web
3. How to create application databases for your web stuff

I suggest tackling each of these separately in turn if possible, starting with #1. Python and Ruby both make great beginner's languages.

Be goal-oriented. Once you know your way around a little, worry less about having the right technology and more about getting things done. Create something that you can use every day, like a blog, a calendar program, or something like that. Ignore all the "X is better than Y" talk on the Internet and just work hard on getting stuff done: that's all that really matters.
sure. If google didn't manage to keep their results relevant then a competitor could provide a significant improvement and a good reason for folks to switch. Google however doesn't need to have the best product however, they just need to keep the gap between them and their competitors and their momentum will keep them ahead.
I think everyone else here has covered the specifics fairly well.

The best advice I can give is to remember that you're at the start of a long road. You need treat it as such. No matter how smart you are (or think you are), it will take you long time to learn everything you need. Persevere.

Err on the side of learning more than you need. You'll find later that knowledge will be useful. Be curious.
I'd also recommend my book, RailsSpace (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321480791), a tutorial introduction to Rails and part of the same Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series as the Ruby & Rails Way books. It's a bit dated in places (damn, Rails moves fast), but is much more pedagogically oriented than the Way books, and hence probably a better place for beginners to start.
Jonathan Schwartz's Blog: MySQL is Officially a Part of Sun
Here's a comparable machine:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-det...

$1050

The "fashion" tax is pretty high on Apple. The only advantage it has on the HP is a superior video card.
This is excellent stuff.
Sun Completes Acquisition of MySQL
http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/
You can try ruby with one of the great online interactive tutorials of all time here:

http://tryruby.hobix.com/

And from there you can start playing with Rails, which is a joy to use. I recommend starting with "Agile Web Development with Rails". I've only read excerpts from "The Rails Way" but it seems good, too.

Bottom line for me -- programming Ruby and building Rails apps is fun.
I was just thinking in terms of the original poster. There are lots of books and articles on writing "normal" games (game loop, sprites etc.). I think Javascript games would be a bit different, so I don't think they would be a good starting point. Unless you think that in the future there will only be Javascript games. For the time being, it would be much harder work to make a Javascript game look reasonably smooth, compared to other technologies.
You could also check out arc.
Hero: Judge makes lawyers pay for patent suit frivolity - The Denver Post
Businessperson With a Web Startup Idea Looking to Find a Tech Partner? Read This First.
The "only advantage" it has is insanely good video card...

That HP machine is in no way comparable to Macbook Pro...

The base Macbook is the same price as that HP machine, and is roughly the same price.
There are so many answers! Here are a few:

The article does not claim that (1..100).inject(&:+) is great. It claims that it is a totemic example of Ruby code.

There is nothing that technique X can do that technique Y cannot do given that X and Y are both Turing Equivalent. Of course you can write a library function to sum numbers. Do you also need a library function for the product of numbers?

If so, you now know of a salient difference between the two approaches. One needs a function for each thing you want to do, the other gives you some pieces you combine in different ways to do what you want. Is one better than the other? That's up to you to decide, you are the programmer. Ruby lets you write your program either way.

Now, Symbol#to_proc doesn't, in my opinion, add what I would call power. That's because you can always use a block or a lambda wherever you would use a symbol. But I may not have written the article well: the powerful and dangerous feature in Ruby is not Symbol#to_proc, it's Open Classes. Symbol#to_proc is an example of something you can do with an Open Class. Something else you can do with an Open Class is Hash#to_proc. Something else is Object#andand, a low-rent version of the Maybe Monad in Haskell.

I consider Open Classes to be powerful and dangerous. Am I advocating them? Of course not, it is up to you to decide whether they are a good idea or not. What I find interesting about them is that Rubyists are pushing the language in new directions with them, like Symbol#to_proc. The idea of a language growing from the fringe is also powerful and dangerous. The fringe is an uneducated, seething mass.
I didn't even know that anyone besides sweatshop workers and miners worked in offices without windows.

Sounds totally unthinkable to me, I would never get anything done.

Guess I'm lucky working from my boat with 22 windows and a view of the sea wherever I look :-)
But most people either are stupid and/or can't change because the system is setup to maintain the status quo. If you had any clue how money is introduced into the system, you'd be outraged that banks had the nerve to try to pull such a scam at the expense of the general population. Yet it's been going on since the Medicis and nothing much has changed, even to this modern day.

Meanwhile we've created unprecedented wealth over the last 50 years, and yet while being obsessed with money, every person and company, big or small owes the banking establishment tons of money which we either must pay off by assuming more debt - or by handing over the stuff of our production - as is happening now with the housing industry and foreclosures.
Rails Core Wants to Transition to Git; A Core Team Member has a Repository Up to Help
Bad time to buy. This is just the update to 45nm CPUs. The next generation chipset will be out in 6 months. That will be a good time to buy.

Unless you don't already have a Mac, then anytime is a good time to buy.
Marc Andreessen on Start-Up Success
Okay, THAT is an awesome hack. Taking a simple, straightforward system and, with a little bit of hardware geekery, conscripting it into service as a botanical monitering/reminder service. I am much impressed.

If I had plants, I'd be all over this.
Somewhat related:

Has anyone ever experimented with RGB LED's and some sort of controller hooked up to a PC? That way you would be able to change the colortemperature of your lightning source, and get a really cool way of lighting up your office or home. You could even attach some light sensors so that the ambient light level stays the same. When the sun goes down the lights slowly turn on to compensate. Would be cheap in electricity too.
I just wished they gave an option whether to have the macbook style keyboard or not. I really like the new keyboards compared to what the mac book pros have
I don't think there's a "hard and fast" rule you could apply here, it would have to depend on the service. I'd probably do something along these lines:

* Warn the user with as much notice as possible that they're over or close to the limit of their downgraded plan. It should be painfully obvious to the user that they're about to lose their extra privileges and data. (a red bar with warning always displayed along top of site, for example)

* On the day of the downgrade, send them another email saying the changeover is imminent.

* Actually don't downgrade them for a couple of days, but keep the message up.

* After those couple days, do switch over, and don't allow any write accesses other than deletes until the user has cleared the excess. Make sure your app handles this gracefully. If your app is mostly write once, read many, then put random data over the limit (their most-used files?) into "holding" where they can't get to it until they delete files to get under the quota. (and give a hint that they wouldn't have this problem with the more expensive account type)

* If they don't clear out their stuff after 2-4 weeks, just automatically delete enough data to enforce the quota. Email them a final warning a few days before the deletion.

But maybe that's just me and my naturally customer-friendly point of view. :)
GREAT post! Absolutely awesome (and inspiring, given that we are in the 100-300 signups per day camp at RescueTime).

I would throw in my omnipresent "think viral, if you can". Viral stuff doesn't easily translate to all businesses, but I literally know 3 or 4 guys who have gone the "build it and they will come" route with blog widgets and facebook apps. If you build a blog widget that people want, you can pretty much just sit back and watch customers accumulate (not that you SHOULD).

Of course, monetizing businesses like that is another story. And because it's so easy, it's crowded as hell. But if you can add a sprinkle of virality (like the "Proudly powered by Weebly. Create a free website." on the footer of weebly sites) that's a big deal.
the regular macbook (starting at $1099) is a better comparison to the Tiger machine in terms of price, features, and performance

some would say the main advantage is the OS (without hacking to make it work with a normal PC)

"It just works" - you just can't really say that for a PC
Good list, but I disagree about the 'piping cats' point. It always seemed like premature optimization to me. Also, the cat at the beginning of the pipe can help readability.

Something like

cat file.txt | grep some_regex | sed ...

Versus

grep some_regex < file.txt | sed ...

I like the first version more, it kind of reads like "take file.txt, then grep, etc". You read it and immediately know you will be working with file.txt. The second one, it's not as obvious.

Just a nitpick, sorry for the long post.
[Snark]Ah, but is there a way to avoid typos in News.YC headlines?[/Snark]

Sorry, the pedant in me couldn't resist.

Interesting article, though. Just recently I took over a project with a .cs file called "ToStrings.cs". It was the file in which all the ToString() overloads were stored. It contained probably 100 or more. The author's closing comments, though, are unfortunately spot on:

"In a production environment, this might be too strange looking for some teams." If I replaced all the ToString() overloads with some kind of "nicer", but bizarre-looking solution, my coworkers, I imagine, would be less-than-appreciative. Sure, the overloads suck, but at least everyone knows the ways in which they suck . . .
Interesting stuff.

Perhaps "startup generators" are an example of free market solutions overcoming market restrictions (e.g. government regulations).

Or maybe startup generators are toll booths constructed by the "ownership class". ;)