skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The author of this blog is someone I know of only through HN, and I respect him because he has created a viable business selling iPhone apps. Also, it appears he is mentoring others to follow his franchise strategy.

> I sell apps on the app store. A lot of small cheap apps. Revenue is hitting $1000 per day on the weekends (Here is the graph: http://imgur.com/T0z5p.png).

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060019

OT: Max, what are your thoughts on the Federal Bureau of Apps? I'm amused and perplexed. They have a Cell Phone Locator app that is consistently in the top App Store revenue lists and has thousands of reviews (around 2 star average rating). How much if this developer's success and what part is pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain strategy and marketing?
this seems like a common "if you can't beat em, join em". you would've been better off counting your objective-c learning as lost time and moved to a cross-compiler like everyone else (since they support publishing to multiple platforms and can do tween animations :D).

you're not entitled to anything being an iphone developer, and specifically ripping on cross-compilers because they found a more efficient way to do it means you aren't willing to adapt. your loss
Going Greek
I agree with you re: Google. They're not a service business and could have written their own OS or used a proprietary one and not affect revenue.

Not sure what licensing fees would have done to their overhead costs in the early days.
That's not what a cross-compiler is. You're using a cross compiler to code for iPhone unless you are compiling natively on the iPhone. (i.e, A cross-compiler is a compiler that generates code for a platform other than the one it's run on. So unless your "Flash cross-compiler" is written in Flash...)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cross-compiler
As a midwestern corn farmer, I'm glad the US has placed tariffs on Brazilian ethanol.
Plenty of which people? Middle aged guys in suits? As I recall, most of my 10th grade class could break 70 seconds--the guy who took 90 was overweight and a smoker.
If you try to genuinely fool someone after noon on 1st of April, you are the fool.

The 'April Fool' label prevents that heinous possibility from occurring.
That's the current situation, without the new clause and where Apple "reviews" every app.
It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur (Excite vs. JotSpot, 2005)
MonoTouch isn't really a cross platform toolkit. It is not providing a replacement API for Apple's APIs just allowing them to be called from C# and allowing you to use extra code you have in C# that Apple by definition doesn't have.

the Modern C# language provides many advantages over the Objective C used on the iPhone which does even have garbage collection.

If they intend to succeed in the Enterprise they should of encouraged MonoTouch not squashed it.
And I think that Flash and other cross-compilers
are worth the time in the long term. Using just one
programming language exclusively is like having a hammer.

And working withc cross-compilers ir like having only a broad brush. Yes, it will get the stuff painted, but it will never look polished.
"Developers are lethargic - they are not springing about learning new languages"

Damn, guess I'm not much of a developer. I mean, if I wanted to build something real in Obj-C, I would take a hit up front like anyone else to learn my way around, but the developers I've worked with who don't want to learn new things are NOT the ones I'd be worried about competing with.
It's on purpose. Apple willfully sacrifices innovation for control and UX. Users accept it for UX.
Watch Free Movies Online: Watch Free Movies Online - American PIE
Lego, DSLs And Naked Objects
I don't mean to disrespect him at all, regardless of whether he's being sartiric. But I sense that there might be a bit of satire/humor in some of his arguments and I'm wondering if we're missing it. Apologies if I'm wrong.
Learn the Major Requirements How to Write High School Research Paper
A writing process of high school research paper takes both a lot of free time and efforts. To create any kind of research paper, you should know all requirements beforehand. There is a guideline that will help you to write a paper and cover all issues you need
Right. Sometimes I get very annoyed at his posts for being one-sided, but it's only me to blame: it's his blog and I'm just visiting it.
http://StartupToDo.com - Provides community requested / rated guides on how to accomplish different startup processes, from making screencasts to getting press coverage.

There are a lot of pickup artist communities that offer improved info & forum access for a membership fee.

Most "deeply researched info about a niche topic" gets packaged and sold as an e-book. And most of it is about making money, relationships, or learning a skill. As they say, people will only pay for something that gets them paid, made, or laid.

Searching for "membership site examples" brought up many results (most of which you have to pay to join a membership site on how to make membership sites to see). I'm sure if you go far enough through search results you'll find some, though.

There are a lot of pickup artist communities that
How about non-relational data stores?
Proprietary Unix software

Proprietary APIs Browsers software

Proprietary Web Servers software

mobile platforms hardware

You seem to have forgotten Apple is a hardware company and it will use OSS whenever it is seen as an advantage. Right now Closed software helps prevent competitors so that is the road they travel.
> Languages just don't matter. They don't.

Explain recursion in Applesoft (or any other 8-bit) BASIC.

The tools I have used have, yes, deeply impacted my professional development.

Had I not seen Smalltalk in mid 80's, I would have liked C++. Had I not seen Python and Zope, I would find Java and servlets and all the stuff built on them cool.

Edit: Had I not learned APL (and, to a lesser degree, Perl), I would not write program as well documented as I do now.
I don't know the exact nature of Max's 'many small apps', but given that Apple comes down on Flash, I wouldn't put it past them to come down on cookie-cutter apps, too.
We live in a world with finite resources

150 years ago, i.e., back when I was born, we were worried about that finite resource called whale oil. It was indispensable for lighting lamps. But somehow we managed to find an alternate.

So yes, if you think in terms of say petroleum then we're facing some unpleasant limits. But there are many alternatives including renewable resources that aren't so finite.

Silver, rhodium and a number of rare earths are more problematic.
the JVM doesn't release free memory to the operating system.

Not true. The Sun/Oracle JVM at least most definitely releases free memory. It's just rather reluctant to do so - but that, too, can be tweaked via the -XX:MinHeapFreeRatio and -XX:MaxHeapFreeRatio parameters
It is still not funny.
First, because HTML is very wrong choice there: Apple is the juggernaut behind it (with Google's help).
Second, this is really really old, I don'e even remember when I first heard the joke about Apple cars.
Regarding IDEs, after using eclipse for years, I recently tried Netbeans and found its UI sluggish, its ideas about project management on you irritating, and its configurability sorely lacking...
Your Startup: Mapping it Out Some More 
A good number of readers either emailed me or commented positively about a recent post in which I encouraged entrepreneurs (especially first-timers) to be orchestral and actually map-out their startup early on. I further recommended that once created this map ought to be printed out and prominently displayed over their workspace so they could refer to it every once in a while during the work day so as to stay focused.
"If a new popular cross-platform framework suddenly arrived, I would have to go back and relearn it."

That is the way of things when you're a developer.
As a person whose is in a position similar to his, I agree with the spirit of his comments.

Basically, what are things of value in this world? Scarcity is probably the biggest driving force, especially when coupled with demand. It's what drives the prices of precious metals and stones, truffles, caviar, etc.

The same logic applies to any business. A high barrier to entry is one way that a business keeps competition at bay. Specialization of skills is another. Of course, having a specialized skill loses its value when there is no demand for that skill.

As a programmer, part of my job is learning new things before everyone else so I can stay ahead of the curve. Once the world catches up and the technology becomes commodity, the money dries up. For almost all things related to technology, from hardware to software, it's a race to the bottom so you had better jump to the next train which is still moving.
Everyplace has laws, subpoenas and courts. The US legal system has certain well-known defects, but so do many other countries' systems.
Aren't April Fools always written in the first few weeks of April?
Perhaps Java is a symptom rather than the root cause. Knowing Java is considered a "safe route" for the aspiring programmer.

Lots of programmers that shouldn't have compiler permits enter the market every year to participate in huge projects that happen to be written in Java because the C[ITEO]O decided it's "enterprisey" enough and the consultancy opted for it in the proposal because they could hire inexperienced Java folks cheaper than they could hire inexperienced Smalltalkers or Lispers and all the Perl, Ruby and Python folks refused to wear neck ties.
well i cannot agree with you on the apple/mircosoft issue.
Microsoft has an near monopoly or defacto monopoly if we call it that.

What MS decides on does effect the whole market. What Apple decides affect the Apple users only. But me as an Apple user Is affected of all dumb anti standard decisions MS have done. My web experience is crippled and I have to deal with name extensions and even more so now in OSX 10.6.

Under MacOS9 i only had to know if a file was going to be used on a windows machine and then add the proper extension in the name. But it's uggly and wrong.
Upon reading the title, I thought to myself, "not a chance, this person is nuts."

That said, I would say it will certainly cause problems for apple down the road, when window mobile 7 is everywhere - and android has a better UX.
Oh boy... Did anyone read TFA? Is the TFA available somewhere else?
In the video, they said explicitly that there are background facilities for things like keeping Voip connections live.

I have to imagine (cough) that there are similar facilities for any kind of IP connection.
I don't think I've ever heard a joke about Apple cars.
I never even heard of this company, but seems okay. If their product works, then what's wrong with it?
Hacking Venture Capital:  A Taxonomy
20 years ago I used to rave about how Objective C was 10 years ahead of anything else out there. Unfortunately it's now 10 years behind C#....
There was a sentece from Apple, Apple aproved tools could be used. Don't excpect Flas to be one of them and I totally hate Flash.

When they produce less buggy Flas that doesn't have memoryleaks enough to kill a new computer with 4GB ram Core2Duo only running outlook and Google maps in IE7. Then maybe I'm also intressted to run Flash in my phone. ATM flash is blocked in my Nokia.
Celebrating curators: "As seen on" comes to the video page
'Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.'
My point is that people might be subject to a rude shock when they realize their data produced by and for their business processes is subject to the laws of a foreign country.
Are The New Apple App Store Terms Illegal?
Umbraco CMS lead dev takes axe to iPhone upon learning of dev license change
Can you probably, or have you actually build in shorter time (or did you really mean apps that run faster) apps that are more stable than that created by a 10-man strong Obj-C team for the iPhone?

If so, would you say it was a function of the quality of the other programmers, or could it be distilled to purely tools?

Genuine interest (since I love languages for their own sake and the expressiveness they allow): what tools + languages did you use?
Apple is really trying hard to enclose and seal a closed garden environment, that much more lucrative for them. HOWEVER, 98% of video seen is currently viewed via flash. If Adobe have a cross compiler that works and apps can be translated WELL onto the apple platform, why should apple care? if they dont work, the user will decide!! Is this Microsoft all over again? And is it non-competitive? A legal suit looms over apple's head. One I suspect they will lose.
Does Apple's iPhone OS 'Game Center' Threaten Nintendo?
>> What if Ben writes a Flash app, shows it to Amy, who codes it up in Objective-C, compiles it and submits it to Apple? Should it be rejected since it was not “originally written” in Objective-C?

Apple doesn't want 3rd party "compilers". That's what those lines in section 3.3.1 means...
you don't achieve quality with anti-competitive terms of use, either.
The new work demonstrates that it's possible to build a NAND gate using a combination of three memristors, but only if you use a frequently overlooked logical operation called "material implication." As the authors describe it, for Boolean states p and q, a material implication is "p implies q"—if p is true, then q must also be.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/04/complete-logic-s...
It is currently my full time job and sole source of income. When I first started, for about the first 4 months or so, I had a full time job and worked iPhone projects on the side. Since then I have been dedicated full time, once I realized I could do it.

Of course there are ups and downs, so sometimes I'm working a couple of projects at once and working 60-70 hours, and sometimes I'm fighting to stay busy, but in general staying busy has not been the problem.

Like this post though, given the amount of west coast work, I find myself working late most of the time. But that adjustment was not a big deal and many customers like that I have been working on stuff for them while they were still having breakfast.
What's up with all of these outsourcing dev shops popping up on HN recently? Flag this shit when you see it.
Same way I read everything, in emacs.
Ah, yes, that's certainly a potential sticking point. It will be interesting to see how legal systems evolve and adapt to how easy it is to "globalize" via the internet.
And I've seen it argued [1] that the newer Sun multi-core Sparc CPUs actually made sense for database and webserver loads.

We may still get to watch Oracle making hay on that.

[1] for example here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=1701 (There may be better pieces out there, my interest in this is limited.)
Java 7 is adding dynamics
thanks, I added my email to my profile. It should be available.
Amazon's customer service is top-notch, but I'm not so sure that a local computer games / electronics store would act in the same way.
> What the media industry needs to realize is that people don't pay for crap. If you want to make money
> out of movies then stop producing crap like Jennifer's Body and stop promoting crap like Britney Spears.

Somehow I doubt that the mainstream agrees with you on what it constitutes crap. I don't think people are pirating pop because they don't like it. They do it simply because they can get away with it.
Real estate Lebanon | Homes Lebanon
If you want to search for Real Estate in Lebanon : Di3aya is right place to search for Lands in Lebanon,Shop in Lebanon,Office in Lebanon, Real estate Lebanon, Villa in Lebanon and Apartments in Lebanon etc.
How Important Are Apple's Updates to the iPhone and iPad? Very.
From the article- "programs aren’t originally written in any definite language, or in any definite location. Programs are encoded information that is contiguous and continuous with the information in our heads, and in the world."

I certainly can't speak for how anyone else codes, but there is a significant difference between the representation in my head before I sit down to code and the structures and algorithms of the compilable implementation.
The act of coming up with a solidified idea and typing with syntax are not discrete passes, so I don't think it's inaccurate to say that I've "originally" implemented the program on a computer.
Although the analysis in the Economist is excellent, they can still get it wrong. Perhaps not in this case, but often, there are valid counter-arguments which are worth listening to.
Ways To Increase Page Impressions to Your Site
Apple is clearly in the wrong here. I hate to say it but they seem to be turning into the new "Empire".

It is as if AT&T said you could only use a certain phone to make phone calls. Or ConEd said you could only use certain appliances with their electricity. Or Intel said you could only use their compiler to write programs that run on their processors. The list is endless.

This is an exercise in futility. Apple really needs to give this a rest and relax. Let the market place determine which application experiences are better than others.
I'm sure it's possible to figure out if a programme was generated by some other programme. When programmes generate other source code, they will have a certain style, a certain naming convention for functions, a certain main class, etc.
I think he's looking at it from the wrong starting point, and getting confused about who is benefiting.

1. Apple are increasing the barrier of entry for him in to OTHER mobile development worlds - he's no longer able to develop a solution that is easily portable to Android, WinMo, BB, for example. He's betting his ability to write popular mobile apps on the fact that Apple will always provide him the platform he needs, and (more worryingly) that they will continue to keep his App in the App Store. If Apple chose to duplicate the functionality of his app themselves, he can't easily move to providing it for Android - so he's screwed. I contest that his job is less secure than ever.

2. His last point suggests he's made himself more valuable and unique by learning ObjC. That's nice for him, but it isn't a reason to be happy with the new ruling from Apple: if anything, the new T&Cs likely to result in MORE ObjC developers, so reducing how remarkable he is as a programmer.
Debt relief companies
Looking for the best debt relief solutions and debt free credit counseling, Visit our website to explore more about unsecured debt consolidation loan and credit card debt settlement companies which would helps you to avoid bankruptcy.
Umm, that's the same market that decided that windows and IE6 should have 95% market share? Is that where we want this to go?
This is off-topic, but I am not clear on what is meant by the phrase "technology vegans". Does this mean Adobe does not consume 'meat' (for some value of the symbol 'meat')?
Firstly, what do you mean, they can't find the good apps? There are already tens (hundreds?) of thousands of apps, and people seem to do OK with the store rankings, ratings, and with word of mouth.

Secondly, I'm curious where you found a magic oracle to tell you how to eliminate all the bad apps from the store, but keep all the good ones. I don't think that "(eq language objective-c)" is that oracle.
And yet what, a typography blog disagrees with Apple's type choices? How slipshod of Apple.
Apple promotes good apps, right? And then there's various ways of advertising and word of mouth. Has anyone actually said "I can't find the apps I want?" Is this a reported problem, or are you guessing? It sounds to me like you're rationalizing something that benefits you as a single developer also benefits the consumers.
I tthought the gmail (heck, Google) way was to search, not sort? Of course, now you can do both -- but the danger is the more labels can be used like folders the less likely new users (coming from an Outlook world) will embrace the gmail way.
Could this be something simpler like, code from non-XCode tools is more likely to hang-up their automated testing?
The C pre-processor is part of the C language definition.
a mistaken belief that consistent developer tooling means a consistent user experience

Not necessarily, but inconsistent developer tools rarely lead to better UXs than consistent ones. I don't know about you, but I haven't tried a single Flash-written app on the iPhone which didn't suck. And Apple's recent deletion of below-standards apps shows that they take app quality very seriously and want to set a high standard for the platform.

As for the author's stance, it's simply ridiculous!
It makes sense if they want to hide the minimum number of watch features and have nearly-symmetric watch hands.
Reflectius clock (Art Lebedev's laser beam clock)
The NY Times article was more informative: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/technology/01hp-Web.html Looks like it's 10x slower than DRAM. It might make it to market in 3 years but if it's speed is as slow, who will buy? Regardless, I'm still encouraged science marches onward.
Could happen, but if flash devs were let in, it would happen even quicker.
You actually make very good points, and I think you are correct. The way I advocate functions in the short term, but in the longer term, your way is better.
Why should I care?

(I'm not saying that I shouldn't care. It just isn't immediately apparent what the reason is for me to care.)

There are lots of non mainstream languages out there. I love to learn about them, but I must be told why it should interest me.
Steve Jobs just ruined the iPhone for Clojure
This was one of the most nonsense posts I've read so far regarding the whole apple/adobe... nonsense.
Cisco myPlanNet
When the only market available for you to distribute your app gets saturated by zillions of other apps with similar characteristics and similar ratings, the expected RoI on the development of an app is reduced. This, in turn, leads to a decreased investment by the developers and, thus, to a high number of lower quality apps fueled by the new entrants in the market.
Grumper - Complain about anything - Register for Grumper
I don't really get why a hacker would take a contract position before going on full time. When I look for jobs I have my choice of several options. A contract position is pretty much the worst thing you could offer me. In fact I don't think it's ever happened to me.
The simplest route around this problem is to cross-compile to ObjC source. Is that too hard a problem?
"Developers are lethargic - they are not springing about learning new languages"

I am learning Erlang and playing with Clojure.

It's not any new language. It's just that ObjC is not very attractive.
Finally VoIP gets all the love from Apple
At a conceptual level, a tree-structure of tags is just meta-tagging. You apply the "Family" tag to the "Kids" tag and the "Home" tag to the "Family" tag, and you now get that much more information out of applying the "Kids" tag and can filter more efficiently. (E.g. filter all "Home" tags out of a view, rather than itemizing each and every tag that you imagine falls under the idea of "Home stuff") The tree is then just a visualization of relationships and not a strict hierarchy.

I don't know if Google has implemented them this way (I'd like to hope so). But if they have not, it's not a failing of the idea.
Holy Body Parts 7 Saintly Relics Around the World