skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I go to stanford, and intro CS is required or strongly recommended in most majors (all engineering, hard science, and even social sciences)... so a pretty large fraction of the student body goes through the class- most prospective cs majors have already placed into higher level classes.
You just made me delete my last RSS subscriptions. Now I rely on finding links in twitter messages. I am going to miss things. Looking forward to it.
Erm. So he never tells what his product is, what questions he asked or what responses he got. Then he claims success before the product has even launched. And all people over here immediately throw their arms up to praise the new, awesome, groundbreaking methodology.

What is it with us nerds that we fall so easily for every new XP, agile, scrum, CD brainfart of the week? Is it that our brains are, on average, so exhausted from the constant hacking, that we crave to outsource at least the higher level thinking?
When there are automated tests, you can predict how your program will be graded with much higher accuracy than you can predict the grade your paper will get, even if you are very good at evaluating papers.

Of course. This is the same as saying that a CS student can better understand the reasoning of a program than the reasoning of a human being. As a rule programs are, in general, more predictable.

I will disagree with the idea that it is impossible to achieve high accuracy in predicting grades on paper. It's anecdotal evidence only, but I've never been off by more than half a letter grade on any paper in the last three years of taking English classes (it's my minor). That's 6 classes with 5 different professors. So probably 20 to 30 papers? Usually I get the exact grade right.
I think the main problem is students copying each others' code, not students copying library code. I don't think I've ever had a CS assignment at Stanford where I could have gone out and find library code to solve the problem.
Also, it says "About 1,000 students will have taken the course by the end of the year, with more than 75 percent of students passing through a computer science introductory course before the end of their time at Stanford." which makes it much more normal for there being a high number of cheaters. A lot of people are taking the course, so there are a lot more cheaters although the proportion might be the same. (I don't know if this is actually the case.)
That's about 2 a month. Not impressive to a bibliophile, but more than most people.
Personally, I find it interesting to see this young person's mathematical mind manifest itself in such a way. She apparently adored her My Little Pony, and became consumed in pushing division into her braiding experience with it. Sure it was a prop, and she would have likely started doing the same thing elsewhere; but, it's engaging to see such an origin.
But can you pass classes around as objects after they're loaded? Do they have a value beyond their identifier?
You have to have a method to forward to that accepts the right number of arguments of the right type. It's a far cry from overriding methodNotFound. I tried to recreate the ActiveRecord find style in SimpleData (http://github.com/briancollins/SimpleData) and it is just so hackish.
I'm a terrible cook, but if I was baking a cake, and used laundry detergent instead of flour (I mean, they're both white and powdery...) I'd absolutely deserve any comments about my (lack-of) intelligence.

The "News results for facebook login" section on Google is very clearly marked, with, umm, well theres a picture, and a bit of indentation? In this case, I must lay some blame on Google for putting laundry detergent in paper sack with an off-blue stripe rather similar to one flour comes in.

Google could improve the situation by having the news results be in a more clearly marked section, perhaps with a different background color and a solid outline.
I chuckled because it felt fresh, but it does come off as another kind of programmer-snark like better-known cliches about Lisp(parens), Python(whitespace), Java(overengineering), etc.
I try to add an account and all I get is:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80040e14'

Incorrect syntax near ','.

/web/admin/onlinepasswordmanager/default.asp, line 1039
Like code from previous terms?

I didn't mean that using a library is bad— in fact, learning how to effectively combine and structure your code to work with preexisting libraries is a skill that should be enforced in every CS department.

To clarify, I was referring to finding an exact solution to the problem (SCRAM state machine for example) and just plugging it in as the solution.
Or just a method which takes a NSInvocation object...
Right yes of course that is vastly different. One way is to think of classes as immutable (which they are, in that sense). Of course adding a method to a class is possible - but being statically compiled makes that somewhat less useful ;)
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H.L. Mencken

I would agree that it's not the most wholeheartedly positive example, but I think it's one of the most honest examples in a sense if you really want to evaluate anonymity on the internet in context and show the bad with the good.
So, to them, the directions, or that pop up, is just more words on the screen.

It's one of the main problems with user interface for the really tech-inept. It's a fundamentally hard problem, because you don't know what they're expecting, and you can't predict it 100% of the time.

That said though, most programmery-types are problem-solvers at heart, and would be looking for information when their car broke down. Many people don't even look for the word "help" when stuck on a computer, they just make a fuss and wait / storm off because they fully think it's incomprehensible to them (usually because they haven't tried learning anything about it).

As complex as computers are, take a look at OLPC and similar projects, where a supremely back-water pocket of a society is introduced to computers for the first time. The kids look, poke, and are up and running within minutes because they're learning how to use it. Adults who try achieve the same in roughly the same amount of time. Many non-tech people though won't even approach it as something new, they expect it to be a "magic box" that does what they want, not what they tell it to do (like employees?). Nothing in the world works that way, why expect this to be any different?
There's an interesting distinction to be made between true anonymity and "pseudonymity", though. In particular, a pseudonym identity can eventually acquire as much baggage as a real identity--the more social connections and reputation that become associated with an identity, the harder it is for someone to discard it.

Total anonymity, with no expectation of moment-to-moment continuity, is in many ways a very different beast.
I wonder what they would do if they didn't have /b/'s outlet.
Depends on where you are. Sunshine is a little harder to box up and ship to where it's needed.
Second that. For instance what's the difference between "Top News" and "Most Recent"? They seem to display the same stuff in a slightly different order. I'm a computer programmer and have masters degree so I don't think I'm dumb...
It's a gentrified four-hour work-week.
Did Hulu beat Veoh to all the copyrighted content?
You should see my cellphone wallpaper.
Fair point, but even if you can predict paper grades within half a letter grade, there's something much different psychologically about the following: "This program passes all the automated tests, and the automated tests are 90% of the grade" and "I feel very strongly that this is an A paper, and I'm almost always right about what grades my papers will get." The former is a much more confident statement. Perhaps the quote in the article is meant to say that the grading of CS assignments is almost entirely deterministic; there's always the possibility that your prediction of your paper grade will be way off, but if you pass all the automated tests, you're getting an A or A-.
It is interesting though that many of these lost users were able to find the comment box and leave a comment. Perhaps that's something they've learned from Facebook?
the point I am making is there will be so much wealth more people will be able to afford yoga and the demand for yoga instructors will be much higher. This will make their work more valuable.
Enduring Critical Devalidation
Seeing as this phenomenon -- even to the point of people literally typing URLs into Google and then clicking the first result -- is old, well-known and well-documented, I'm gonna guess you need to broaden your usability reading.

Here, for example, is an article from 2007 pointing out that the top search term on Google was... "Yahoo":

http://www.dailydomainer.com/200742-yahoo-top-search-term-on...

Here's Jeremy Zawodny in 2008 musing on the fact that people neither know about nor understand the address bar:

http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/010453.html

I could go on like this for a while, but the takeaway is that if you know what your browser's address bar is for and actually type URLs into it, then you're probably in a small minority of web users.
In this case isn't someClassObject just a literal that's resolved at compile-time and erased into a simple identifier symbol?

You can't pass someClassObject as an argument to anything but an operator like new or instanceof, and you can't assign to or from it, it doesn't itself belong to a class. It isn't an object.
Why the iPad might not be a rip-off
He had an extremely productive conversation with a cold prospect. From it, he got a compelling argument not to build a product he was otherwise ready to build. He didn't declare his business a success. He declared Steve Blank's recommendation a tactical success. And he's right.

Customer development isn't a software development methodology. Steve Blank is just talking about basic fundamental marketing, and giving it straightforward steps.
This isn't Google's fault. In Firefox, if you type a non-address directly into the address bar, it automagically directs you to the top Google hit for that query.

The real failure here is Mozilla, for releasing a "feature" that, as usual, appeals to computer power users, and royally fucks over computer novices.
Someone recently pointed me out to http://stfumarrieds.tumblr.com/ , which is mostly Facebook. Still hilarious.
See also this somewhat-infamous post from 2002 which, because it discussed Maury Povich's show and ranked somewhat highly for a relevant search term, was assumed by many people to be the official site for the show:

http://www.laze.net/fait/archive/2002/07/28/maurys_blooper.p...

Another example is mentioned here:

http://www.beatnikpad.com/archives/2004/04/14/the_march_of_t...
If you want to take that route, one of the most promising approaches is via "algaculture"--basically cultivating oily pond scum in shallow pools, then skimming off the algae and drying/pressing it to extract useful oil.
I have trouble finding a use for Lua, even though I like it better as a language than most.

The problem is that it isn't a good "starting place" for an app. Instead you write something in C/C++ and say "oh, I wish I had a dynamic language for this part" and then you add Lua on top. And this is part of why Lua is such a compelling language now - by being extension-focused it's been able to iterate the entire language many times over and make basic semantic changes without worrying about backwards-compatibility.

But if I start writing an app and want something Lua-like....it ends up being easier to start in Python. There are some good projects out there to address this but it's a question of maturity - as of right now Lua still doesn't really satisfy as a "batteries-included" platform.
For gamers who are interested in the burning wheel aesthetic but are intimidated by the crunch of the system, I would suggest starting off with the Mouse Guard RPG ( http://archaia.com/blog/titles/mouse-guard-rpg ). It's not a 'lite' system, but it is a boiled down variation on the BWRPG
Yep, code from previous terms (friends who have taken the class before) or even from the same term (friends who are in the same class who have already finished the assignment). My impression is that the vast majority of honor code violations in the CS department are of one of those two types.
Well, that's what it costs to set the stage for an important DMCA ruling: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/08/required-reading-user-g...
RealNetworks Acting CEO Talks Strategy for Rebuilding Company
>"So basically we will have a society where current industrialists will own the overwhelming majority of robotic labor (property), whereas the rest of use will be "employed" as small scale artisans?"

Well kind of. If you have an IQ over 110 you will probably still have a job in the tech industry. With your well paying job you can buy manufactured goods for cheap and still have a bunch left over to spend on artisan goods.
Most Recent displays EVERYTHING (like News Feed used to). Top News filters things by ann algorithm that weights by the amount of comments/likes, among other things.
Educated people... can avoid these problems.

I have a user population with 50% masters degrees which disagrees with you. Violently.
Trees, Sharks & Change
It seems like this effect is now going on at websites that are referencing the original RWW article. See:
http://www.khabrein.info/news/New_Facebook_homepage__new_Fac...

With great comments like: "Joyce
2010-02-11 07:26:55
How in the hell do I get into my home page?"
That is something that directors will have to learn to work with when filming 3D. It's especially when video games use focal blur and motion blur. Trying to focus on a distant (or really close) object causes a headache because it never comes into focus, and the interactive nature of games increases the expectation that I should be able to look where I want to look, unlike movies.
Well it's not exactly "Create something remarkable and people with money will find you." then. More like 'create something remarkable and have enough reputation or schmoozing ability, and be in the right geograhic area'.

Even the 'remarkable' thing is not entirely true. I don't think facebook or microsoft were remarkable, for example, they just hit the right combination of luck and skill at execution. Google on the other hand, was an example of something remarkable when it first appeared.
Its already happening. The rich and the wives of the rich already spend a bunch of money on spa treatments, yoga, art, small boutique clothes etc... This trend will continue to grow as we become a wealthier world.

.

When a car factory is so cheap any joe can buy it, cars and other goods will be dirt cheap. (well this wont happen because of the availability of land and natural resources but it will go towards this direction with only the cost of land and natural resources (possibly energy) pulling it the other direction.)
Yeah. I get where you're coming from, but my attitude's changed a bit over the last couple of years because of my business. I now think that most of those people aren't really uninquisitive, they're just busy. They have more pressing concerns than some new tech toy or gadget.

I've even noticed myself getting to be that way, which I don't like. For example, when Windows 7 was coming out, I didn't think, "Oh neat, something new to try!" I thought, "Oh goody, a whole new batch of problems coming my way."
ugh, why are you posting a .doc on HN?
I am dying to get a Surface at home as a coffee table that handles the obvious stuff (photos, music, videos queued to the TV), plus other things like large-format TV guides, weather, bit of home automation, etc. Then add on stuff like home logging (entries whenever lights were switched on/off, front door opened, mail dropped in letterbox, garage door opened, etc) and security (manage security cameras and check videos of your frontdoor while you were out) and so much more.

And to keep this remotely topical, I think Scrabble and then 1-6 player Risk would be great also since I'm seriously addicted to playing Lux on my iPhone...

Any guesses as to how far we are off for these sorts of things? I'd love to see a line of Surface machines on the market and an app store for them.
That just seems like a stupid way to grade anything.

/happy he's got a degree in philosophy and didn't do CS at Stanford.
Iceland aims to become an offshore haven for journalists and leakers
is a $12 million dollar run rate something to be proud of? Or am I just misreading the letter?
I actually prefer Strip or Sirloin to Filet. Filet is tender all the time, but I think the others have more flavor :)
I was a PHP programmer between 1999 and 2008 (and have dabbled in it since then), and I never quite figured out what OO PHP was good for, other than writing your own half-baked database wrapper.

If you're using OO PHP for basic web apps it will probably be in the form of someone else's more-fully-baked database wrapper (CodeIgniter, CakePHP, etc.) but you don't actually need to know much OOP to use them.
They logged in using "Facebook Connect" (i.e. the Facebook OpenID-type thing). So they scanned the page looking for their login, and found a Facebook logo so they clicked on it and logged in. Then they were just presented a comment form so (apparently) they assumed it was the only action they could take.
Clojure: Functional Concurrency for the JVM [Video]
Same here, I totally can't find my way around facebook.
Surface is still active? I've heard squat since it first appeared on the screen, some two years after identical techs were being made all over by the DIY crowd. Last I saw of it, it was still frickin' huge and projected to be really expensive, while the DIY options are simple, small, extensible, and cheap.

That said, interesting interface for the game. Seems like it'd be well suited to Warhammer too, given the firing maps & rather complex rules at times. A graphical overview could really enhance strategy.
Drifting slightly off-topic--the self-similar structure of cauliflower is neat, but is put to shame by a closely related plant. Behold, the king of recursive food, the ultimate fractal vegetable: Romanesco Broccoli. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Fractal_B...
Wouldn't "All Posts" and "Popular Posts" be more descriptive?
There's a big psychological difference: you have faith in the determinism grading computer but not in your English professors. The funny thing is that an English professor is more qualified to say whether your paper is a good paper than a grading computer is to say whether your program is a good program. Automated tests are not a production environment for a program. A living, breathing reader is a production environment for a paper.

Might I be too bold in suggesting that CS students prefer the determinism of a grading script because they are worried how their code will hold up in the real world? Given the quality of code most CS students produce, that's actually not that bold of an assumption. Seems to me that CS students that do not favor how grading is done in English have that opinion because they aren't used to thorough assessment in CS [1].

[1] The notable exception being theory classes. Go theory! But in those classes you've got a living, breathing grader as well. :-p

EDIT: I realize I didn't really address your point. Yes, that is a fair characterization of the quote in the Times. The problem lies in assuming the grading script is doing as good of a job as your English professor in determining correctness. I bet if you increased the accuracy of the grading method for programs you would sacrifice on precision and students wouldn't be as confident about their programs. If you graded on coding style and design decisions, for example. So yes, CS students can be more confident. But confident of what? The fact that your program conforms to a script? That's not the same as being confidant that your program actually works.
~40% according to wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_Lightroom
You have to assume your users actually have the ability to get to your website before you can worry about what they do when they get there.

Yes, but for most businesses you'll want them to be able to get back too, and that is non-trivial and worth optimizing for.

Get their email address and send them opt-in lifecycle emails. This is, far and away, the best alternative.

Have them bookmark your site. Many of them will not understand bookmarks. Teach them to understand.

SEO for whatever users thing your business name is. If you think your app is called Foobar and users think your app is called Fubar then you had better be at the top of the results for [fubar], too.

Get desktop/dock/launch bar real estate. (Desktop apps: not dead yet! They can still open websites. :))
I sense a split test coming with ads at intervals rather than the beginning.
About Hair Extensions 
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there is a port of haskell parsec library to clojure at http://github.com/mmikulicic/clarsec/
Interesting revelation, thanks!
"We were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp." - Guy Steele, co-author of the Java spec
Stanford Finds Computer Science Students Cheat More Than Others
I am a novice programmer, but have used Lua for some basic (second- or third-year college programming level) projects, and I found the transition from the very mainstream languages (Java/PHP/Python) extremely easy. That said, I was doing fairly straight-forward imperative programming, so perhaps I never delved deep enough to see the "foreign" parts of Lua. To me, Lua seemed as easy a language to learn as one could hope for.
I think that the point is that there is not a single product at work here, but multiple products from different vendors. Facebook can't improve their interface to make users not type "facebook login" into Google as a way of accessing their site.
Which is certainly valid. But one would think that this magic box that holds all your financial data, (for many) all your work, and is used to get an enormous amount of your amusement would be worth understanding in even a rudimentary way. Especially since being completely ignorant of safe practices is catastrophically dangerous. People learn how to use their cars for just such a reason, and they spend less time in them than most do on their computer.

It's laziness. There's no other excuse. When that sets in for too long, it becomes denial of being capable of learning. Learning the newest stuff, being an early adopter etc? Hell no, you can't know everything. Other things in life are important too, and should be more important than computer-stuff for most.

But knowing something isn't just good for you, it's essential. Getting from zero to 0.1 should be at the top of their priority lists.

(I should point out that I really love working with UI/UX stuff, and I in no way believe that things can't be easier, even by far. I even enjoy fighting that perpetually-hard problem. But there's no helping the intentionally-ignorant, and I don't believe in making excuses for them.)
Holy cow. can someone better educated than me comment on this? This sounds like it's a tremendous supply solution for hydrogen fuel cells. Is that accurate?
Unless you don't want them to.
Good Things: the Lenovo ThinkPad X301