skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I personally build workflow software. My current employer sells vertical systems to small government and nonprofits, and we built a dynamic workflow engine (along with a dynamic ORM layer and a dynamic presentation layer). This allows us to only hire programmers to build the underlying engine, and hire only moderately technical people as project managers and deployment specialists to actually customize the system for existing clients.

The programmers get to focus on building a pretty interesting code base, and the project teams get to focus squarely on the customer. This turns out to be a very effective division of labor. We're also in the process of rolling out our tools to VARs and clients.

Summary of lessons learned so far: a workflow engine can be a big win, but you really need to understand what you're going to use it for and how it's going to integrate with the rest of your tools to define requirements for one. For us, it slots right in at the business logic layer, and we just build UI on top of it as needed. A standalone workflow engine may or may not do what you want.
The power of a programming language is proportional to its capability for innate abstraction. If that's true, it follows list-oriented languages are inherently inferior to their hashtable-oriented brethren. (These orientations are often misguidedly referred to as "functional" and "object-oriented" paradigms, which I find to be useless, over-overloaded terms.) Basically, with list-oriented langs the primary abstraction is a tree, whereas with hashtable-orientation, it's a graph. I'm talking about the -primary abstraction- (i.e. what you "think in" when hacking); obviously you can implement any structure in any powerful enough language. If others don't see it this way please, illuminate me.

Lists confine one to rigid hierarchies, which have to be compensated for with dirty (but sexy) hacks like in-language macros. Meanwhile the index of hashtables is arbitrary, which allows you to do naturally the things you have to patch in Lisp.

Though hashtables are more powerful and easier to grok, for one reason or another nearly all (popular) hashtable-oriented languages are total crap (C++, Java, C#), but in some regard a step up from deformed languages like C (in all seriousness, how does anybody get by without first-class functions and hashtables?). My tentacles have only found two decent hashtable-oriented languages: JavaScript >~1.5 and Io.

Anyway, why is Lisp unpopular? Because it's harder for most programmers to think in lists than hashtables. Then, why does the lang have a cult following? Because it's well crafted and consistent, which seems to cause some people to overlook its shortcomings, even to the extent of seeing design flaws as features.

But as far as I'm concerned the Language War is over anyway. JavaScript won.
The Next Web: 2nd group of startups
The nightmare of installing Lisp:  a noob's perspective
Somehow, installing Clisp on these three systems took somewhat different amounts of time.

Mac OS: Five weeks. Installing macports was the worse part. Still can't get emacs and slime together.

Linux: two weeks, gave up when I got Clisp to run in the command line interface.

Windows: Five minutes.

I have no idea why this is, but for a noob, it takes five minutes to get Clisp on slime up and running on windows XP.

I am aware that it takes someone experienced very little time. But this is what it takes a noob who has to find out firsthand how to deal with glitches in macports and such.

I'm also aware there's probably a download site that is much more user-friendly than the others. But this does not take away the fact there are many user-unfriendly download sites, and it's hard to tell them apart if you're a noob. So, just putting this out there; for some odd reason, you can install clisp on windows xp if you go to

http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/lispbox/download.html

and you'll be done in five minutes.
"merely coincidence" wins again!
I was curious about that comment as well... I really like the cleanliness of Scheme, but I also find myself attracted to Lisp's ability to selectively optimize a program, for example by declaring the type of variables. To my knowledge this ability is not included in any Scheme implementation. Does such a Scheme actually exist?
Don't knock until you've tried it (i.e., been on the receiving end).

I worked on a trading floor of a major i-bank, and the head equity trader would do this.

The guys getting the bills (other traders) are making six figures in salaries, more in bonuses, yet they always loved those unexpected c-notes.
Thanks for the reply. Definitely something to keep in mind.
I don't understand. Is the claim that Lisp is less popular now because years ago large numbers of programmers working on government-sponsored projects had to use it, but now proportionately fewer programmers work on government-sponsored projects?
I think lisp's problems started when it wasn't designed for actual use. It is elegant, functional, and amazingly regular. Usability wasn't a design goal.

If you look at languages in wide use, they're all procedural - everything from ASM and basic to ruby and python. Similarly, all the pseudocode I've seen has been procedural. If you ask a lay person to come up with a way of making 20 pb&j sandwiches, you're going to get a list of steps for each sandwich.

I'd argue that functional thinking is not natural, it's learned. Prefix notation is not as natural as infix notation. It's not just Algol, it's likely a reflection of natural language, and the forces that shaped natural language.

My prediction is that lisp is going to become more popular in one of two scenarios. The first is that parallel processing becomes more necessary, and because functional programming is easier to parallelize, people will learn it.

The second is that lisp is redesigned with usability in mind. The fact that it's not bad as long as you use emacs+SLIME is not a ringing endorsement. One of the advantages of, say, ruby is that you don't need an advanced editor to be productive. The design goal was to make a language that's nice to use, so it is nice to use.

If lisp were redesigned with usability in mind, I could see it being more popular. However, the people who like and use lisp enough to try to redesign it likely aren't bothered too much by the syntax, so it's not something they try to fix.
Bug was found a couple of months ago, a patch is available

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python-crypto/+bug...
Moral of the story: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
I really don't find that lisp, at least common lisp, is particularly concise. Consider lambda functions, one of those things that lisp is particularly praised for;

common lisp: (lambda (x) (+ x 1))
C#3 : x=> x + 1
ruby : { |x| x + 1 }
python : lambda x: x + 1
Haskell : \x -> x + 1

Just in terms of character count, CL is the longest of the lot.

No, the problem with trying to get a lisp under your belt has alredy been mentioned. Compared to the alternatives;

- choosing an implementation is a research project (clisp? sbcl? allegro?)
- documentation is weaker
- libraries are harder to find and install (ASDF vs Rubygems, Python eggs, etc.)
- emacs/slime is an investment to learn
- examples are few and far between
- the language itself (the words, not the punctuation) is inelegant (mapcar, setq, cdadr)

I've tried really hard to learn lisp, and it turns out that actually, while there may be some platonic lisp that IS great, actually programming common lisp, now, is a massive effort in struggling in the dark.
pg or any of the YC founders want to comment?
Well if you ignore the human visual processing system, that's a valid argument. One ascii character is just the same as the next.

Unfortunately for lisp, that's not the case. Whitespace is different than lines. There's a reason most people can't look past the parens - they're hard to look past.
Was it WebInno?
Thank goodness they didn't try to use GRASS. I cannot believe how long I wasted with that system when I started doing web GIS.
Category theory shares a lot with set theory, but they are different - they make different assumptions and each is better suited at describing certain types of systems. Graph theory is also its own topic in math, though sets can be used to talk about them

As for the Catsters' videos, I'm unsure about the best order. The recommendation to start with the natural transformations playlist came from someone in #haskell (Cale, maybe?). I'd suggest diving in to whatever sounds interesting and backing up to review other videos that contain any new terms.
Are they sheep? These "hackers" are free to work wherever they want, you know. No one is forcing them to make this choice.
Apologies for the site being down at the moment. I'd reset the server but I'm in Chicago. I know that PLT Scheme recently had a system for optional types implemented and there was a paper posted on Lambda-the-ultimate.org. I think it's in SVN. http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2622

Apparently, Bigloo has supported this for a while:
http://www-sop.inria.fr/mimosa/fp/Bigloo/doc/bigloo-22.html

One should also consider that there are implementations like Gambit-C and Chicken that compile to type-annotated languages, not that it's necessarily what you had in mind. Just food for thought.
The issue here is human decisions, not a taxonomy of programming tools. Or do you suggest that Lisp dialects diverge further? If you called them separate languages, would there be a better chance of them growing popular?
Opinion : Silverthorne fails but PowerVR impresses
Thank you very much every one and Nostrademons in particular. I really appreciate your insights. Very helpful. What web-host (cheap and reliable:-)you guys use to deploy python-based apps?
Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't want to mean that Perl is a bad language at all. I was trying to explain my experience with my fellow coworkers, who happened to love perl.

Actually, for the last 3 years I've been using it at work, including first-class functions (and Catalyst ;)), and I've it enjoyed quite a lot. I've some minor issues with it's syntax (for my taste too much sigils, but I understand why they are there).

What I meant to be masochistic is trying to use eval with strings to emulate macros, and even trying to defend it.

On the other side, the CPAN is amazing and I find difficult to live without it!

BTW, I hope you'll publish here the Lisp to Perl compiler! Lisp + CPAN sound really awesome and productive!
Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby are all interesting failures. They are important for their effect on languages that will last longer (Lisp, ECMAScript) though.

Edit: I don't mean these are "failures" now, just that they're doomed in the long run. Does anyone think they'll be able to stand any of these languages in 2018? I don't they'll have evolved much by that point either. The older a language gets, the harder it is for it to evolve. And if it tries to make too big a leap, people simply don't go for it (PHP5, Perl 6).
Ah OK - I thought it was a device for shredding old tires... So I guess it is meant to keep the employees from driving away.
I'm working on a project to help schools do this, although its a bit more specific. If you want me to set up a prototype board at your school or want some more information shoot me an email (aero4x@gmail.com). I'd be happy to set it up for you, especially because I'm looking to expand my idea.

But... if you want to do this as a project for your self then I would suggest trying to set up a phpBB forum (http://www.phpbb.com/). It's open source, but sometimes a bit tricky to set up if you don't have any prior experience.
Ubuntu Linux to Be Certified by Sun
What linux were you using? On my Debian system, apt-get install clisp installs clisp, and apt-get install slime installs slime (and cl-swank).

I haven't tried slime with clisp, however, only SBCL. Any reason why you're using clisp and not SBCL?
How To Build Damn Good Software
Metaprogramming capabilities. Most people seem to prefer keyboard macros or cut-n-paste to actually writing language-level macros.

Anyway, Lisp (and many other languages) gives you a lot of tools to make programming more thinking-intensive and less typing-intensive. Since typing is easy and thinking is hard, it follows that many people will prefer the language that makes you type.

JMHO.
March progress report and April's goals
Yes, I believe the claim is that when huge government projects like this were completed, all the Lisp programmers left, and had to retrain to find non-Lisp jobs. This sounds similar to the "AI collapsed and took Lisp with it" argument.
So far so good.
Nice Concept and implementation.
Check out RadioFreeTexas.org for a direct competitor with other interesting point based ideas.
Like it or not, I don't think you can call any of those languages failures. Certainly not PHP, Python, or Ruby. I would venture to guess that all three are more commonly used than Lisp.
You will be tracked using your government-mandated RFID cards
Implications Of How A VC Is Funded: Government
In my post, How A VC Is Funded, I listed four way in which VCs obtain capital to invest in startups. Each of these four sources of capital has slightly different implications for entrepreneurs. In this post, I will discuss the implications of a government funded VC.

Both the federal and local governments have created venture funds that seek to harness the free markets to achieve a social objective. The federal government has one fund that seeks to identify and incorporate new technologies into the military. Many state and city governments use these entities to stimulate local economies.

Capital Constraints
Similar to both the family office and public funded funds these funds recycle capital from one investment to the next. As a result, capital constraints can be an issue if they don’t have robust capital reserves are timely exits from other portfolio companies.

Furthermore, these funds are subject to the whims of legislators. It’s possible that your capital reserves could be re-appropriated to another state agency with a change of administration or policy.

Double Bottom Line
As aforementioned, these funds typically invest both to increase the size of their capital pool and achieve a social objective (e.g., supporting new technologies, creating tax revenue or decreasing unemployment). As a result, you should be thoughtful about the motivations of these VCs. A pre-requisite for their investment may require moving the company to a new location or taking the time to license the product to the government.
There are too many disparities between a problem domain (microwave engineering) and a programming technique (Lisp) to compare the two this way.

I think it more reasonable to compare the popularity of problem domains (e.g microwave engineering vs robotics) or techniques (e.g. S-Parameter Simulation and Lisp).
Craigslist Launches Official Blog
I thought Joost's strongest point was it's interface. I loved the interface. Not being browser-based was a plus for me. Having control of the video's size (beyond YouTube-esque postage stamp or full-screen), video that looked decent full-screen, good (and simple) controls... they got a lot right.

The reason I quit using Joost was that they had absolutely nothing I wanted to watch. The only TV shows they were able to get were the ones no one wanted to put on TV or DVD or anything else.

I try to hop on their website every few months in hopes of them getting a deal similar to the Hulu guys, because I really want them to succeed, but so far nothing.
http://www.slowforeveryoneorjustme.com/
I mean failure like the tyrannosaurus rex. That is, from an an evolutionary perspective. Not at the arbitrary present. And I'd wager that Perl is still actually more used than Python or Ruby, it just doesn't get the love on social news sites and elite blogs.
That seems like a good list of reasons. I would add perhaps the sheer volume of code on the net in other more popular languages, compared to Lisp.

I disagree with your conclusion that Lisp is somehow going to take off though. After being around for what seems like forever, its still a (and I will say it) categorically unpopular language. If I were a betting man, I'd bet on JavaScript.
Scalr: The Auto-Scaling Open-Source Amazon EC2 Effort
Actually, that little yellow thing looks to me like a large boom lift. Note the cage at the front, away from us. For cleaning bird droppings off the array elements?
Another $3 Billion Down the Toilet - Census Scraps Handhelds
What this fails to take into account is that most programmers learn a language with C like syntax first. Either C, C++, or Java (you could even argue JavaScript). Like it or not, people have a tendency to avoid change when possible.
Google's CIO Departs For EMI Music
But Lisp is not a functional language. You can do procedural programming with it, moreover I think that nowadays the usual Lisp program is either procedural, OOP or a mix.

You really don't need to rely on Emacs+Slime, an editor with a good support for indentation will suffice. IIRC, pg codes in Vi (or Vim). The idea is that, like in C/C++, good indentation is enough to determine the nesting so you don't need to count parentheses or curly brackets.

The last difference, infix vs prefix, I can see that we are more used to infix notation. But we can't forget that the Algol derived languages use a mix of them (operators and functions are different!) while Lisp always use prefix notation, and incidentally put the parentheses surrounding all the expression (and being the first element the function name).
Same issue here. Designing web app, solo, nights/weekends only, in DFW. t0pj [at] that Y search company [dot] com.

I definitely feel torn between sharing by idea with the world (shouting from the mountain tops) versus keeping my mouth shut, thinking my silence can provide strategic value.
The title is a little misleading since some lisp systems are easer to install than others. I had mzscheme on my osx 10.5 powerbook working in 10 minutes when pg released Arc.
Surely, there is the possibility that I tried Django before the magic was removed...
One problem I had was getting it installed. If that was easy, I would have gotten started sooner.
Ask YC: How many people don't have/disable java script on their browsers?
Anyone out there developing a java script heavy app? How you cater to users without js? Or do you even bother?
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/?url=news.ycombinator.com&t...
Bug with MSNBot/1.1
Wayfinder Launches Power Search For iPhone and iPod Touch
Crypto is a special case problem. I have a pretty good level of education (formal and personal) but I would still avoid rolling my own solution for anything non-trivial.

This is not so much because I expect to make a mistake, but more because of the impossibility of getting testing (and therefore maturity) that matches an established open source library.

For Java Script one possibility is http://code.google.com/p/clipperz/wiki/CryptoLibrary (AGPL), I'd be interested to hear of others.
I wonder if fakesteve readers in general tend to be happy people, or unhappy people...
MySpace Announces  Online Music Business
I haven't been around for a long time but why is this on the front page? I'm sure they know when it's slow... Anyways, I feel like those Ask YC are over used. I appreciate when they are about technical or startup related questions but just asking if the site is slow is stupid... Anyways, my 2 cents.

You may karma me down.
So you want to work here?
Decent suggestions on how to stand out when applying for a position at a startup or smaller co.
Global warming will be defeated by incremental increases in efficiency across the board.... think of it as the death of a thousand cuts.

Everything from better internal combustion engines, electric motors, improved solar energy technology, carbon capture to my affliction, aerodynamic drag, will make “small” but significant progress.

Combined, those incremental advances will add up to a serious threat to the threat of climate change.
Email Isn't a Natural Fit For Tech-Savvy Chinese
Trabb Pardo-Knuth algorithm
There are two fallacies at play here:

1. "Changing code is difficult. Our organization has all these 'change management' processes in place. If we can just make the change in the workflow engine, we can deploy it straight to production."

Perhaps a workflow engine keeps you from shooting yourself in the foot by constraining kinds of things you can modify in your system. However, change control processes also protect your organization from all sorts of things: fraud, business rule errors, etc. I once worked for an organization where project managers wanted to put business logic in the database because they were allowed to change it at will! Just because changes don't fall within the scope of your change control processes doesn't mean that those changes are safe to do at will. This is the same fallacy that led people to believe that SOAP was great because it could get through firewalls. The only reason admins would punch large HTTP holes in their firewalls was because they believed the risk of serving up web pages was relatively low, monitored, and contained.

2. "Coding is done by expensive software developers. Business uses can make these changes if we implement a workflow engine."

It's not syntax that keeps non-coders from becoming decent developers. It's the ability to think in a structured, logical way. And, for anything but the most trivial uses of a workflow engine, one must be able to think through business processes in a way that only software development trains you for. What are the holes in this process? What happens if an employee quits who has active workflow items? How are they re-assigned? For years, business rule vendors (iLog, Blaze, etc.) have been making similar claims. In practice, I have seen that business rule system users are only allowed to make configuration changes (15% discount on Tuesdays instead of 20%) rather than more dynamic changes to rules (which are just declarative code).

With all this said, I still like the concept of jBPM and other workflow engines. State machines are a powerful way of ensuring correctness, and I would hate to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Efficient markets will weed out ideas that fail this analysis in time.

Incentives like the Automotive X-Prize will accelerate this process, leading to solutions that are smart for the planet and smart investments, too.
The Next Live Stream Back Stage
"release early, release often" --- that used to be just common sense. now, everybody's immediately trying to woo investors, press, etc. so they want to make sure everything's nice and pretty.
It was 6% Jan. 2007
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Because entrepreneurs thrive amid a flexible, non-bureaucratic environment.
We've been doing startup meetups in Boston off and on since the first Startup School in 2005. After a hiatus of a few months, we're having another meeting at 6:30pm on Tues, April 22 at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square.

Email list: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/boston-startup-meetup/

April 22 RSVP: http://www.mypunchbowl.com/parties/240386-boston-startup-mee...

Well worth participating -- lots of good people come to startup school and just hanging out with them will make you want to work hard making great things.
To avoid potential catastrophes, I use different browers and settings based on the situation. This way it's unlikely that a scripting exploit or corruption I encounter can access, modify or propagate much data.

I use Firefox for all my work-related internet stuff, Safari for serious personal things, Opera for almost everything else. Opera lets me easily turn on and off javascript/plugins/etc on a per-site basis (right click -> Edit Site Preferences).
Google Docs has pivot tables!