skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If we all just keep chipping in without competing, everyone benefits.

Maybe. Throughout most of human history, there have been winners and losers, rulers and serfs, leaders and followers. I have trouble believing that any invention, the Internet included, will magically change that state of affairs.

My reasoning for giving Google the benefit of the doubt is much simpler -- if they fuck this up, and lose the trust of developers, they will hand over control of the next strategic platform to someone else. And I think that would be a much greater blow to the company than paying market value for a startup that succeeds on their platform.

I could be wrong, but I hope I'm not. When I worked there, Google people still believed in "Don't be evil" and articulated decisions around their interpretation of said, just because it seemed to offer long-term benefits. I hope that has not changed, and I sincerely hope this woman is off-base.

That said, without alternative perspectives, folks in this here echo chamber would likely march right into the 'trap'.

Somewhere between your sunny futurism and her apocalyptic vision of Google Apps as an Ouroboros likely lies the truth.
Python‘s way of accomplishing this is as easy, although the use of `locals` should indicate that this isn’t generally something you should be doing:

post = {'name': 'ijoshua', 'email': 'spam@example.com', 'extra': 'data'}

filter = ['name', 'email']

for k in filter: locals()[k] = post[k]

print name, email
I just started using git at the end of last week and after the initial bit of "Well it doesn't work like svn it's a pain" cursing I'm finally starting to get the hang of it. More tips like this are greatly appreciated as I am still very much a 4 commands git user.
Fliiby : file library
yeah this is bollocks. Did 37 signals rip off IRC?
> Where can you point me to "better documentation than PHP"? This is a major difficulty for new people getting into Python-- the documentation is really quite poor and out-dated.

I disagree that the Python documentation is poor or out-dated. However, it is fragmented in what could be considered a confusing manner. I’ve often been searching for a particular piece of documentation, wondering if I should be looking in the tutorial, the library reference, or the language reference.
One reason Y Clone-ators may fail is lack of imagination. YC was not handed their recipe from the heavens. If these clones had any creativity, they'd be modifying the recipe to see if their ideas could make it better.

For example, why not a 4 month boot camp preceded by a 1 month crash course in business, presentation skills, etc. I'm not saying this is a better implementation, only that if the clones thought for themselves, they'd be doing more interesting things, which would tell me they were smarter and actually people I'd want to learn from. I'm afraid to take creative advice from someone whose big innovation is copying YC. I think YC's model is better, and it may be a good thing for it to spread, but none of the clones I peeked at have impressed me much so far.
Standards to the People!
A street protest about document standards??? Welcome to Norway.

For those of you following the saga of Microsoft pushing for (fast track) ISO approval of their OOXML format and subsequent battle, ODF, etc., this should be of interest.
My guess as to Microsoft's involvement with a similar offering would be ASP.Net via the DLR. I could see their marketing leaning towards not just the C# crowd, but also the IronPython and IronRuby crowds.

It would be a "we'll host your DLR applications for x dollars a month", not a free offering. They would likely offer deep discounts to students and have lots of other programs to drive the cost of the application down.

Microsoft already has an online offering for data, namely SQL Server Data Services (http://www.microsoft.com/sql/dataservices/default.mspx). Given their past trends, they will continue to push this offering.

Remember that MSFT has a different strategy than Google or Amazon; they target corporations while Amazon and Google tend to like to target smaller groups, single developers or start-ups. This may change in the future as MSFT becomes more acquisition oriented, but only time will tell.
Can it possibly be true that it's more substantive to comment on the tone of an argument than the authority of the the arguer? Most arguments have coded appeals to authority in them.
It might - but I'm curious about what people have actually used successfully and any limitations things they've liked about a particular system. Maybe it's worth it's own post...
Unfortunately, the average Digg poster will see this and apply the 'Food Pyramid' rules - 'Today's posts will contain at least 15 DH0s, 8 DH1s,...' and so on. DH6 will be used sparingly, since it is at the top of the pyramid.
Isn't this just a rephrasing of the startup acquisition cycle? Only now, Google provides tools to help... Seems fairly win-win to me.
Lots of good comments. Why not add to the list "is a MSFT MVP" or "is Java certified," or some other certificate?

This list is a checklist of the mediocrity that the programmer has been reduced to. Everybody is a great programmer now, and everybody uses java or C#, and knows about all the latest skinnable components or whatever.

Lower the bar, attract more people to become programmers because they're tired of working in QA and seeing the programmers make more money, provide the clueless bosses with business degrees with simple checklist metrics (like that list), and voila!, a whole industry of books, seminars, cert programs, and finally, Sun and MSFT maintain their mindshare takeaways.

This is all part of the shadow industry that props up the hardly legitimate software development industry. That's my conspiracy theory and I'm sticking to it.
Eric Schmidt had his breakfast today (Google!)
Could we please go easy on the Google submissions?
I like the math but don't love the analogy. In the subprime mortgage market, you're managing failure (how few of our lenders will default) whereas in YC/VC, they're managing for a few big successes. The downside is uncapped for subprime, the upside is uncapped for YC/VC.
One of my officemates has the following pinned up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradoxical_Commandments

For those of a more mathematical bent, the following summarizes practical ramifications of extremal risk:

http://www.fractalpress.com/blog/2008/03/17/the-black-swan-f...

The more I think about it, the more I think everyone with an entrepreneurial bent should read the above. Unless your goals in life are solely material, there is much value to be extracted from living without regrets as nearly as possible.
Django on Google App Engine in 13 simple steps
By not supporting the django models, you're not supporting the ORM as well. Middleware support is included, but sessions are not.

Lots of work left here....
AP CompSci was my favorite class in high school. It wasn't particularly challenging, but it made me hate high school a whole lot less.
The reasoning: In order to use Firefox, you need to be confident enough to download and use a browser that wasn't the default when you first turned on your computer.

Firefox is standard on Ubuntu. If I download and install a new OS, does that make me a super power user? Don't some Dells come with Ubuntu pre-installed?
nice article though there is a very thin line between revealing the demand and creating demand ... just like inventing a PC (as author said) - before PC was invented the work was still going on w/o any problem, it was just taking little bit longer to finish .... so anything that saves time or money or energy (or all) will create demand automatically. Most of the time it is said that create/produce/develop something that people want it but sometime people dont even know that they need something (say computer). So when you create something that even people don't know that they need it then you're surely hitting a jackpot or you will fail terribly.

But sometime there are companies which just creates demand even though there is no need - for example soft drinks, alcohol, cigarette, most of the cosmetic products etc. There are solid arguments available that human being doesn't require these things but still multinational companies has created it to fill their pockets... but it doesn't do any good to human civilization. then is it even worth to create that kind of demands ??????
Needless to say, Git is not for people who are bothered by lack of heavy structure. Sorta like dynamic languages.
Although they want to be a YC clone, it seems they haven't read their PG to understand the point of YC.

"We provide RescueTime (www.rescuetime.com) and 8aweek (www.8aweek.com) on your systems to keep an eye on what you are doing."

"We provide each one of you (individually) with a stipend of Rs 8k p.m."

"Microsoft would be the Technology and Mentorship Partners for the iAccelerator Program."
To quote the article: "He says the psychologists wrongly assumed that the monkey began by valuing all three colors equally."

So, basically psychologists are dumb; why assume that monkeys have no color preference? Even if you don't think they've got any intelligence, you could probably assume that they have some knowledge of colors associated with looking for food.
> We don't want you to go to your accommodation before 12 midnight - so we provide you mattresses near your workspace for resting. There's anyways a security guard outside your work-area - so you don't get to leave the office before 12 midnight and you don't get to sleep in the office. Attendance happens at 9:30 am every morning. Sundays are off if you have met your weekly goals!

Uh... nice try but no cigar, guys.
"We're flattered Google thinks Campfire is a great product, we're just disappointed that they stooped so low to basically copy it feature for feature, layout for layout," said 37Signals founder Jason Fried by email. "We thought that would be beneath Google, but maybe its time to reevaluate what they stand for."

How cute. 37Signals thinks they invented the basic chat interface.
What actual evidence, I wonder, is this paranoia based upon?

If this was MS we were talking about, I think there's probably an ample history of malfeasance to justify a lack of trust.

But Google? I don't understand people who go all knee-jerk paranoid about Google. Success automatically breeds deep corruption? They're a big internet success story, so they must be out to get us?
TechCrunch Labs: Our Experience Building And Launching App On Google App Engine
i spent $1,300/mo for a 350 square foot studio in a rich person's garage in potrero hill, summer 2007.

that's a lot of money to spend on rent for a startup. as a human being, you get a big bang for your buck, namely the whole city of san francisco. but i'm not sure startup-related amenities are incorporated into the high price of rent as good life-related amenities are.
In Response to Donna Bogatin / Defending Google App Engine
Sigh. I cannot in good conscience support a language in which an indent has semantic value. It's just not right.

:-)
Also: if they're willing to backchannel this to reporters, they should have the stones to say it on their (hugely popular) blog.
But that seems to be for prepared snacks, whereas the one in the article is a full restaurant?
Maybe 37 Signals should have gotten RMS and the FSF to patent their software.
Attached is my resume and DNA
Actually, the USDA revised the Food Pyramid so that all the food groups are vertical slices, and there are steps up the side for jogging:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyPyramid

I suppose you could do the same for the Disagreement Hierarchy, but it would be harder to draw in ASCII. On the other hand, you could have a diving board sticking out of DH0 for jumping to conclusions.
No, it's just a standard chat layout.
I don't know, a ninja is a lot cooler than an engineer, and while I may or may not get away with calling myself a software engineer (Computer Engineering degree), I certainly don't have any stealth or assassination skills... "Ninja" seems like more posturing to me!
If someone is worried about Google stealing all his data, he can add a mechanism to his application that will journal all transactions to S3 via Amazon's queuing scheme. Then, two big brothers would have to collude to destroy his website!

Overkill of course, but my point is that these risks are mitigatable.
Misleading. If higher rents discourage marginal or less determined teams, then it could increase overall success rates or leave more room for the biggest winners. Low rent hasn't helped Alabama or North Dakota much. It's just one factor in a complex equation that can only be answered in hindsight.
Yes or no, it was both a stupid move and in poor taste. Google App Engine requires developers to put a fundamental trust in Google (in a away AWS does not).

It was incredibly stupid of them not so much because they did/did not steal the idea/layout so much as it is about the appearance of stealing it. "Caesar's wife must be above reproach." Intended or not (and I'm sure it wasn't), it sends an implicit signal that Google thinks this platform is best used to make knock-offs of existing products.

With a company full of bright engineers (so many, it seems they hardly know what to do with themselves sometimes), they ought to have been able to come up with a slightly more original idea to showcase app engine.

Of course, in all likelihood, this product came from the ground up, not from the top down, and for some reason, no manager at Google thought it was going to be a problem.
HP's data storage service: HP Upline
U.S. researchers make gasoline from plant matter
I've touched a nerve, it seems.

I was, of course, joking. Having a laugh at some of the obvious weaknesses in PHP, and pointing out that the other three popular dynamic languages go about things differently.

But, all but one of our world-facing websites are PHP applications (we run Wordpress, Joomla, FlySpray, and DokuWiki, our other wiki is the Perl-based TWiki). I'm actually a grudging fan of the language. It does a few things extraordinarily well, and I've been known to recommend that everyone building installable web applications ought to be writing them in PHP because of its pervasive availability.

Don't take it personally, folks. You're not going to convince me that create_function gives PHP first class functions (maybe if you squint a little), but you also don't need to convince me that it serves a niche very well. I don't have to like it, but I certainly have to use it, because it is currently the best tool for a large class of problems.
Very few, and you'd still have to be a bit of a ballsy user to buy an Ubuntu dell instead of a Windows (unless it's significantly cheaper).
Fresh thoughts on the Microsoft/Yahoo Merger
Serious question:

Doesn't the fact that Twitter has been running a highly trafficked Ruby website for a while now nullify all arguments that "Ruby's not ready"?

Sure, we all know that Ruby could be better. But isn't it ready now?
I would sincerely expect someone who focuses her blog on business development to understand why corporate identity is so important, which is just what Google is trying to protect.

http://fiemster.name/2008/in-response-to-donna-bogatin/

This lady should really spend more time trying to understand how software works, and how people interact with software.
Need/require is so misleading. People just want to feel good more and feel bad less. So:

-soft drinks taste good and the sugar/caffeine boost is nice (the low comes later so it's not as obviously associated)

-alcohol is relaxing and loosens inhibitions, so it gives you something that normally takes a lot of willpower. If you're addicted (cigs too), it also relieves the withdrawal symptoms

-cosmetics make you prettier, which makes people pay more and better attention to you, which makes you feel happy.

In short, these products match up to psychological characteristics of people in general. The fact that these are multi-bajillion dollar industries shows that these psychological characteristics are in a whole lot of people.
Xiotech Unveils Disruptive Storage Technology
While I won't disagree that this article may take the matter too far, there are real issues that need to be considered before choosing to run your BUSINESS on someone else's infrastructure.

If you're just building a toy app to have fun with then this is great but if you're trying to make money, or create the next big thing, you really need to consider if placing all of your IP and uptime requirements on a possible competitor's infrastructure is a good idea.

With Amazon at least you have the option to pick and choose what you want, you can keep your code on your own hardware and offload your data, or vice-versa. Google's offering is all-in-one and, since you aren't given a VM to work with, there is no telling what kind of access they have to your code.

Google isn't SkyNet, but they are looking more and more like Microsoft of the 90s. Would you have wanted to house all your code and data at Redmond?
I am slowly coming to realize that the root of all human misery is jealousy and resentment of those who are more successful than you.

I wish this article even had a motivation as pure as envy, but given the author I'd guess it's simply linkbait.
Thanks for all of the comments. doubleplus' link was particularly helpful. I should clarify that I already have a prototype in PHP and was thinking about switching to Python for the beta/release version if it seems worth it.
The most essential things on that list are #2 (Gets things done) and #8 (writes maintainable code). If the developer is working on the right problem, those two can be rephrased as "creates value" and "preserves value".

A good developer will do all the other things to the degree they matter for #2 and #8 in their environment. Some places need ubertesters and others need polyglots.
Sorry I can't up-vote any article that mentions Mark Zuckerberg as one of the world's "SuperClass". Does anyone really think Facebook has, even within an order of magnitude, the same world-wide pull as the Fed? I'm pretty sure Bear Stearns didn't call in their VPs through Facebook Chat.
partnerup asks for money before you can do anything useful
Nokia N810 Running Android
But also from the article: "After identifying three colors preferred about equally by a monkey -"

They didn't assume there were no preferences. Their mistake was to assume they could measure them precisely enough.
This article misses the most important bit in the Terms of Service:

"By submitting, posting or displaying the Content on or through the Service you give Google a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such Content for the sole purpose of enabling Google to provide you with the Service in accordance with its privacy policy."
Even though App Engine could be seen as competing with at least 2 YC-funded startups (Heroku and Appjet), this article about it is such pure, unadulterated bogusness that I'm inclined to kill it as off-topic. Would anyone mind if I did that? I don't want to be accused of censorship.
I think the most important couple of things a YC Clone needs is strong mentorship from someone who's been there, done that and a strong hacker community. Both of which seem to be missing at a cursory glance, and from the way they have worded it, seems like a prison of sorts :-)
I find this to be a useful assessment of PHP:

http://www.tnx.nl/php
The pyramid representation is possibly misleading - at first glance I took it to mean that DH6 arguments stand on a foundation of ad hominem and name calling :)
The actual paper is linked at http://www.som.yale.edu/faculty/keith.chen/papers.htm

The article doesn't give what seems to be a pretty important detail. Children and monkeys chose the new item 63 and 60% of the time, respectively. That suggests buyer's remorse rather than choice rationalisation, but only small amounts. Possibly not even significant, depending on the sample size.
If there is not room for a far bigger number of YC clones or angels similarly then this entire method of growing companies is doomed.
Major bug on SBCL. Line 4423 currently reads:

))

for portability purposes, it should read:

#+(and :cltl2 (not (or :cmu :clisp :sbcl)))
))
Their webpage is TERRIBLE. I'll have to check it out when it works. I can't get to anything other than the front page and the "About us" page.
From my initial perusal of the AppEngine stuff, it seems that using Google's authen/author is optional. It's not like Google could figure out if the forms your app is processing are login forms or not, so I don't see how it could be otherwise.
Wow, the first YC clone to actually admit they're one. An encouraging sign of honesty; I voted them up.
Is it just me, or do other people have a nearly uncontrollable urge to respond to DH postings with an argument that uses all 7 categories?

I think I could succeed on this one, except for DH2. Still awaiting my perfect opportunity.
I would just leave it intact because of the value of this thread. Even when we all agree (or disagree), it's nice to see everyone else's take on it.
I didn't know you killed stuff...

how often do you do that?

(I'm new here, I've been on reddit since 2006 or so. As I'm sure you know, they seem to be very reluctant to ever remove links).
I thought the same thing at first but those hover over deals are not meant to be links. If you read the subtext they say things like "download the source from news" etc. So it is meant to be a one page sort of affair. I dig simplicity! download and hack!
This whole thing must be some kind of joke.
I certainly wouldn't. What surprises me more is why the article is being up-voted.
I have to agree. There are interesting things to say about App Engine, and this isn't one of them.
F1 student visa OPT extended from 12 months to 29 months
Microsoft Surface will surface few AT&T stores this month
Previous article linked on News.YC from same author:

http://startupalpha.com/chatter/2008/03/22/y-combinator-goog...

Are two articles enough to make a trend?
Great programmers I've known seem to have a narrow rather than a wide sort of ability. They tend to be unbelievably great at some things but maybe know nothing about others. What they all have in common is the ability to have good new ideas, and to write code that works.

All the things on your list seem reasonable, except for numbers 1 and 5. In my experience, great programmers know that the world is so surprising that they tend to avoid even trying to estimate things. They may try to predict at a coarse granularity, but beyond that they just try to set things up so they can easily change their minds later when their predictions turn out to be wrong.
OK, cool, but what does the penultimate sentence mean? "The scalability of App Engine is exciting but elusive; most apps won't need it and those that do won't use Google." It seems to me that apps which do need scalability will benefit most from the App Engine because they won't have to spend months hacking their own scalability infrastructure.
The site has about 30 editors who can kill stories, and there's some software that does it too. If you want to see the dead stuff, try setting showdead to yes in your profile.
Let's just say their culture is not your culture or my culture.
This is great! This was the one big thing I knew how to do in darcs but not in Git.
Paul's famous words: VCs are mistaken to look for the next Microsoft, because no startup can be the next Microsoft unless some other company is prepared to bend over at just the right moment and be the next IBM...

So, Microsoft is not ready to be the next IBM :D
Where's the 15-minute video?!
Innovation, Disruption and the Economics of Free
Check out this essay in the form of a graphic: http://blog.createdebate.com/2008/04/07/how-to-write-strong-...
ASK N.YC: What is the best way to document code?
I remember reading Google's standards and being very impressed. But I can't seem to find it again.

What standards do you use and expect partners or employees or contractors to follow?
ok I should probably clarify that. thanks
Semantic Web podcast with Dave Beckett of Yahoo