skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Spartan design can be fantastic design and also does not necessarily indicate a lack of features.

Fantastic design is product first and marketing second. Marketing is about convincing you that you need something via a channel that is not the product itself.
Usually in college, thaving a contract does not matter as work between friends does not need this and costs are generally shared. However, in your case you guys are not doing this as friends, which is highlighted by his inital contract. If he is paying you then you are an employee/contractor paid to do a job and as is the case in most companies what you produce remains the property of the company (or person paying) unless otherwise agreed.

Hence sort this out now before a small problem becomes a big problem :)
Just add in a zero to your hourly rate and keep on working on it.
Programmer Productivity - The Tenfinity Factor
Mozilla shipped Firefox plugin with malware attached
Forgot to mention, if the idea is good and things are working dont let these issues stop you guys. Too many good/promising ventures fail as people get greedy/petty early. Better you both have 50% of some thing big than 0% of nothing (okay 0% of nothing is not possible but you get what I mean).
We started with MySQL and switched to PostgreSQL when some unit tests started to fail after doing a minor MySQL upgrade. Something like going from 5.0.1 to 5.0.2. We tracked this down to MySQL giving completely different result sets for the same (not very complex) query after the small upgrade.

We never looked back. PostgreSQL is really powerful and we use it in a clustered and soon sharded setup. Works well for us.
There is also enough commercial support for when you have to bring the marines in to fix stuff.
IMHO best are as follows...

1). People you have worked with. You both know what you can do and have already spent time together finding where your skillsets compliment/overlap/mismatch.

2). Friends ...but if you have never worked together, try first before jumping in as good friends don't always my good partners and a bad working realtionship can ruin the friendship.

3). People in your network who share the vision. You will have already met them at events/conferences/etc. Again, try something simple together first.

4). People on your internet circles. OK maybe unrealisitic if you live across the planet from each other but it can be done.
Make the time to get to know the person. As in any serious relationship or endeavour time well spent now will save you headaches later :)
Perhaps there is a good reason for this. Soemthings are just hard/impossible to do in PHP.
I think programming may be a bit harder because (at the end of the day) it becomes an engineering problem (one of efficient resource utilization). A program certainly has to be correct, but it also must run effectively on reasonably sized machines (less an issue these days for most problems), and implemented in a reasonable amount of time. The latter one is the killer that seems to never be accounted for in CS courses.
I don't think twiiter shoudl be used to encourage spamming :)
Be excellent to each other
Typo. Should be without a contract... ...
Imagination is more important than knowledge.

-Einstein
I don't use JS on my site, because others won't use the site with JS. The link page is the only page on the site that does this, so I'm going to go with it.

It's not obnoxious if you consider that some people really don't understand how the web works or what the difference is between sites. In that case it's a convenience.

This is an idea which should be left as a "best practice," but allow for reasonable differences.
IANAL, but it sounds like it's work-for-hire. If you pay someone to do work (particularly by the hour), it's my understanding that they own the intellectual property you generate.
So a week later, he doesn't seem to care that I didn't sign his dad's contract, and he pays me for the first couple of things he needed to meet in-class deadlines.

IANAL, but that's a bad sign.

It might be that by virtue of continuing working and continuing accepting payment, you are already contractually obligated, etc.

You should stop work and return whatever money you've accepted.
If the market you cater for does not need social elements than don't worry about it. Focus on adding value to the people you are creating for.
Postgresql here, for all the reasons states by over commenters, with an additional proviso: we were a Postgres shop when I arrived and nobody has ever seen a reason to change.

Sometimes we'll think wistfully of more OTS solutions for Oracle and MySQL, in a grass-is-greener sorta way, then we see stuff like this: http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=11472
MS Project just becuase everyone else is and it works nicely with sharepoint (surprise surprise).
Except this was for a class project, so it's possible the school owns the IP, and if a venture comes out of it, he company will have to ask the school for a license.
I have been rading HN for a while and finally decided to participate after several friends got in YC (07, 08).

I don't agree with invite only but do think there should be greater seperation of topics.
I'm going to be a little contrary to some of these other guys:

Good design is very important. However: Usually, if you're the first in that space, poor design is tolerated (arguably MySpace) If you're not the first in the space, you need a 'better mousetrap' which can be the same features, and a better design in some cases. Virb has excellent asthetics, and a great user-feel, but it didn't take off like myspace or Facebook, so obviously design is not the most important thing either.

It's all a matter of perspective, and what is important to your site. I would say, if you have the money, hire a good, professional web designer.
I think you're asking the wrong question. It isn't so much the age that matters. Ask what kind of relationship they have with your site.

Search results can look plain. Classified ads can look ugly. Someplace associated with their own identity needs to look great.

More on my experience here:

http://ourdoings.com/2008-02
I also not like the name but as most good domains are taken is it not a case of go with what you can get?
$0 as I don't know it. Where is Cobol still used?
Ask YC: Who is using django and what has your experience been so far?
Ask YC: Who is using django and what has your experience been so far?

What are the main problems you have faced? solutions? Alternate paths you could have taken?

Just wanting to know more about some other real-world uses while I hack away with it.
Excellent taxonomy. I think that many people who quote the various "10x" studies forget the fact that there is a certain percentage of developers who never successfully complete the task. It's not just that some coders are faster (and more efficient) than others; a surprising number simply can't do the job.
Pick a big company in this market (perhaps SAP) and start learning everything you can about them. Read their marketing pages and try to understand what they are selling and to whom. What problem do they think their customers have that they are solving?
Look for companies hiring people with those skills (i.e. that require SAP experience) and see what they are building (systems like SAP seem to produce value for the internals of a company and it's hard to see what this is from the outside).

Unfortunately the techno-babble on these enterprise systems sounds pseudo intelligent. To see through all the buzz words and fads you need to work with these systems for a while. But to do that you almost have to drink the Kool Aid. The trick is to stop drinking once you can see the better solution. For many people here, I suspect the hardest part is swallowing the Kool Aid (at least that's the hard part for me).

But then as you go to build your better system, you need to realize that you are going to try to sell this to people who have been consuming this stuff for a very long time. They need SCA, BPM, SOA, UML, and just about every other combination of three letter characters. They don't know any other way. It's unfathomable to them that there could be an easier, simpler solution to their woes. It's like trying to describe a 3D world to a denizen of 2D space.

Any how just my 2 cents.

UPDATE:

May I recommend for your first glass of KoolAid:
http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247234.html?Open

(not that this is good or authoritative, more so a random sample of what's ahead of you).
Don't be afraid of the lawyer dad. Keep in mind that lawyers want to make things complicated so that only they understand them. (That is not really true, but it saves time to think that way.)

They made you an offer. You rejected it, smartly. Now it is time for your counter-offer. You already mentioned several downsides to their offer (you can't understand it, no equity, too low pay, probably lots of personal liability for you). You already mentioned that you don't even need this deal (because you are young and you could be doing other things).

I don't understand why you don't see your own leverage here. He wants you to do work RIGHT NOW. If he needs the work done right now, then he will capitulate to your demands, if you have the guts to make any. The first thing you need to do is STOP WORKING RIGHT NOW.

Then, throw away the 17 page contract and write a 1 page contract of your own, where (a) you disclaim all liability, (b) you can walk away at any time, (c) you get significant equity (if you are doing all the work, you should be getting at least 50%), and (d) you get paid a real wage ($20 an hour is not a real wage for a programmer). Give him that one-page contract and tell him to sign it if he wants you to continue working on the project.

He will object. He will want to make changes to the contract. You have the leverage, so tell him no. Definitely do not let his dad insert anything into it--you must write every word yourself, in crisp, clear, English.

If you can convince him to agree to a contract where you have no significant risk and you have significant benefits, then the deal can continue. Otherwise, you have to walk away, because his lawyer is too big of a problem. (Notice that this turns the tables so that his dad is a liability for him, not an asset.)

You might think that it is not possible to convince somebody to sign a contract where you have no risk and you receive a lot of benefits. Not True. I've done it twice on contract programming gigs. Each time, the (small) company signed the contract because they needed something RIGHT NOW. Then came back later with changes suggested (demanded) by their lawyer. I rejected all changes (think "I am not willing to sign anything except the backs of my checks"), they got mad, and they either canceled the project (1 time), or got over it (1 time). You just have to stand firm.

Personally, I still wouldn't take the deal because it sounds like your "partner" is adversarial. The point I am trying to make is that you don't have to be scared of lawyers, and there is no need to be intimidated when you have all the leverage.
I know many high profile site e.g. Pownce are using it without major issues but want to know about the experiences of others here. Thanks.
My hard-earned advice: no matter who you partner with, no matter how aligned you and your partner are and how certain you are that you two are a good fit, make sure you have the proper legal protections in place. You never know when somebody will wake up one day and decide to screw you with your pants on.
'are smart enough to do better' puts subjective definitions on both 'smart' and 'better'. It's also to say that your definition of better is right.

I'm certainly not one that prefering football or even pokemon is any kind of a poor choice. I happen to prefer programing. I prefer to stretch my mind instead of my physical or social limits. That is not to say that preferring to know what it takes to be a good corner back, and executing on that is immoral.
It sounds like you're not that far into the project, so if that's correct, I wouldn't even worry about what happens to the modest amounts of IP you've already written. If they can't do this project without you, all you have to do to regain control of the situation is stop working on it until everyone has agreed to terms you're comfortable with.

I agree that you don't want to be adversarial -- just explain that you're not comfortable with those terms, that you hope you can work something out with them that makes sense for everyone, and if you can't, wish them luck with their project.

Two things to remember: first, if something can't get sorted out amicably, these aren't the right people to be working with anyway, so you're better off finding that out up front. Second, if you're the only one who can deliver a product, you're always the one holding the cards.

Good luck.
Mamma Mia! Papa John's raking in the dough online
Cheap startups = more pizza!
I rather like Enterprise Architect as an ER tool.
That is his money, not theirs. He doesn't need to pay it back to demand changes to the agreement (equity or otherwise). And he gets nothing if he gives it back.

Since he did the work for hire the IP rights belong to the partner, not to him. At least, he doesn't have the ability to win a court case there due to the mismatch in legal representation.

Again, do not let the dad write even one word of the contract. Signing the dad's contract will be way worse than walking away from the project.
If you've been paid, then they own what you gave them in exchange for the money. Assuming you've met your contractual obligations, you don't have to type one more line of code from here.

You should tell them the truth: you've reconsidered the potential of the project and you want to re-negotiate for continued involvement. They have the option of hiring someone else to pick up where you left off. If they exercise that option, then move on to another project. You probably learned something and made some cash.

If you ask me, the dad probably wasn't thinking "I'm gonna screw this programmer as hard as I can! muahaha!". It was probably more like "I want to make sure that my son doesn't pay some guy to make a website, then have him copy it and put up a competitor".

Just tell the truth and state your point of view and it'll probably work out fine.
Common Lisp Programming Job at SRI
It was striking to me to see how many of those 13 cited a prominent man in their lives, here is mine:

When I was about twelve, I was supposed to plant grass over what used to be our garden one day over summer vacation. My summer breaks were usually sprinkled with chores like this, and taking care of the house and my younger sister. This particular day, I didn't feel like doing any of it, so I hit the dirt with the rake a couple of times tossed the seed around, and went back to whatever it was I was doing.

My dad came home, and when he took a look at the garden he asked if I did it, I said yes, and he was obviously disappointed.

"You can't go through life doing half a job, because you'll just have to do it again"

Then he made me do it again the next day. Certainly the next day was much better (tilled by hand, seeded and covered with straw) but that really stuck with me.
Piwik: Open Source Google Analytics Alternative
This article should have been titled "If we assume a 25X sale or Flickr selling every ad unit At $5 CPM then this post isn't linkbait"
I missed this. Next year I hope.
CLPython - an implementation of Python in Common Lisp
Welcome, Lisa. You helped me realize what I overlooked.

I automatically thought of a mentor for best advice when the real answer was many years before.

I too have many fond memories of waiting for my father to come home. His best advice was never said explicitly, but implied every single day of my childhood, "You can do anything you want, if you apply yourself and work hard enough." I still lean on that advice every day.

Thanks for reminding me that Mark Twain was right:

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."
nice blog post
exactly. i just finished creating an application for a doctor, but since it was done as part of my master's program, the school owns the code. this means that though the doctor may have aspirations of turning it into a million-dollar product, he can't without working out a deal with my university. i'd be very surprised if this guy's school doesn't have a similar policy regarding code written for its classes. i think it's likely that the contract the other person's lawyer dad drew up is moot--the school probably already owns all (or most) rights to the stuff.
Anyone can be cool if they limit themselves solely to 2000 users among the digerati. True test will be if they can scale.
Do Lisp Programmers really exist?
> Someplace associated with their own identity needs to look great.

I would have agreed with you on that until MySpace came along and showed there was less "need" even in that situation.
I've been using PostgreSQL since 2004 on http://ourdoings.com/

I've been watching free-software databases since 1997, when people at MIT were using msql and I thought mysql would be a better choice. PostgreSQL looked like it had the potential to be better than mysql, but it wasn't fast or stable yet.

A few years later I tried PostgreSQL 7 and it was great.
"MySQL has simply bitten the tail off my data and happily stored the rest without any errors or warnings. OK, I should have RTFM but still, the idea of a database corrupting my data without any warning makes me very uncomfortable..."

That is just insane. I heard about it a couple months ago and wondered what were those folks smoking when they wrote it like that.

The hot backups thing never crossed my mind, but is very interesting. Of course, it relies on transaction consistency and MySQL has the option (shivers) of not having it, thus the locking demands.

From what I know (I am a PostgreSQL guy too), when you use a transaction-aware data store in MySQL, these behaviours are gone (along with any performance edge it may have over PostgreSQL, but that's another story), so, you may want to give it a try.
MySQL. Simple to setup for non-complex websites. And I wonder if MySQL's rise to billion-dollar acquisition was fueled by the growth of PHP (read: non-CGI) websites.
To expand on that a bit, you need to have 90 day and one year milestones at a minimum. You also need a strong Buy/Sell that includes what happens to your/partner's stock when you/he die/divorce/quit-working-for-the-company/etc. Lawyers are needed here for sure.

If you can't afford a lawyer, try to convince one to work for equity. There are plenty of lawyers who will do your work for a percentage point.

If you can't afford a lawyer and you can't convince one to work for equity, give it up for the time begin because otherwise it will cause you more grief in the long term. Come back to the idea when you can afford to hire an atty.
Your Catcher in the Rye reference reminds me of "A Separate Peace" Anyone else not only read this classic but had it as a "favorite" book once, in the introvert genre?
I think its really cool. Question is can they make it as good as google analytics.
Publications to Read

1) WSJ

2) Economist

Websites to Peruse

1) Wikipedia: What GOOG, AAPL, MSFT, CSCO, and ORCL have bought in the past 10 years

2) sequoiacap.com (and other VC firms):What they're investing in. It's often pretty boring

3) bloomberg.com

Go beyond techcrunch and gizmodo and look for the non-sexy side of things.
station!
If you can figure out how to do this consistently for difficult, unpredictable projects, you're on to a winner. I don't know anyone who's managed that yet.

Big corporations make good use of outsourcing, but it tends to only work for projects that aren't essential/bleeding edge.

Also, a competent lead developer will only want to work with other competent developers, so that won't solve your problem. As a competent lead developer myself, I wouldn't bother working with "bad" developers because I can be more productive by myself than with them on board.
"Also, Doerr recalled that many of Amazon’s first orders tended to bundle programming books with how-to sex guides, which should tell you something about the company’s early customer base."

Ouch!

Or perhaps we're all part of the "continuous improvement" crowd.
lawyers charge $150-thousands of dollars per hour. For you to get legal council on this would require an expense of more than $400. If they want you to sign a 17 page legal document, ask for 17 * $650 an hour for your lawyer to read it and give you advice. I think they will get the point!

And then you can all go, get a beer, and discuss some reasonable terms like everyone else suggested.
i certainly didn't define morality by contributions to humanity. as you can see in the other comments, i specifically denied that one owes anything to humanity. rather, i said morality is about having and using knowledge of how to live well, and having good values, and that the primary result is to benefit yourself.

i certainly think people have a right to waste their lives. i will not stop them, forcibly. but i will verbally criticize that decision.
Headache relief for programmers: Regular expression generator
You already agreed to this via verbal contract to the $400 maximum. I'm not sure where some of the other guys can say you should do anything.

Unless you stated you would keep on working for free after the $400 (which I think probably would be the softest point in the verbal agreement later even if you did), the best you can do is work until that contract expires and negotiate a better written one with equity.

Let me repeat: you verbally agreed to work when he offered to "pay [you] to work on his project". You need to do the best you can to meet that agreement because you agreed to the deal.

You need to return the contract to them and firmly state you did not agree to this during the verbal agreement. If he wants you to sign something more than you already verbally agreed, he has to negotiate. Be sure he understands you want equity opportunity during any renegotiation because you are interested in the site and want to continue to work to help it grow after the contract is over.
"When given two choices, always choose the harder one."

Stated slightly more poetically by Robert Frost:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

:)
The Cost of Smarts
Heroku is running on EC2. So put your PHP application on EC2.
Lifestyle or Genes? The Health Secrets of a 114-Year Old Man
An important aspect of negotiations is improving your BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement). So what you most need to know is, if you walk away from this partnership, what encumbrances are there on the IP that you produced without a contract?

I think that since you never did sign a written contract with your roommate that either explicitly transferred IP or contained the magic words "work-for-hire", you and/or your school still own the IP and the roommate just has a license to use it for his class project. But I'm not a lawyer and this is really the sort of thing you need a legal consultation for. Since there's a chance your school owns the IP, maybe someone in your school's technology licensing office would be willing to tell you where you stand for free. If not, your state bar association may have a referral service where you can get a brief consultation for a low (as lawyers go) fixed rate. (At least, that's what they have in Massachusetts.)

If you own the IP, then you can counteroffer from a much stronger bargaining position. That is, if you decide to pursue this arrangement at all; I tend to agree with the people who say this guy is not worth doing business with.