skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Pretty entertaining, if a bit melodramatic.

I really wish people didn't mystify such a basic programming skill. Compiler hacking is something reserved for the wizards only if you take the classic definition of compiler implementation: an expensive engineering project, targeting a new processor, architecture or OS.

In that sense, sure. You will be working in a lab with hundreds of developers, and tinkering with a piece of multimillion dollar prototype.

In reality, however, "compiler construction" boils down to foundational language theory, along with various tricks and techniques for translating a set of very straightforward algebriac rules, to another set. Anytime you write regexes or XPath to extract a set of fields from a documents and transform to something "readable", you're almost writing a simple one pass assembler, using some implicit "business rules" (i.e. all numbers should be floats, names capitalized, etc.) for productions.

Compiler skills will give you the theoretical backbone to discover, refine and assess those implicit rules. Not to mention techniques for transforming them from one form to another.

To the list of skills made mystical and magical by people I would add Lisp. It's not magic. I mention it because it just so happens to have compiler construction lore aplenty.

The first Lisp exercises you will read in your lisp book of choice (often requiring nothing more than basic English literacy and 6th grade arithmetic) are the expression simplification and evaluation exercises. Transforming your elementary school algebra rules (multiplication and division before addition and subtraction, etc.) to something the machine can execute. The hardest part is just understanding the words: if you have a hunch for what "expression", "term", "rule", "left/right hand-side" and "precedence" might mean, you're good to start.

Few chapters of a Lisp book will spare you volumes of traditional compiler construction techniques, taught by rote methods.

The first time I attempted to read SICP I had convulsions and physical pain. The whole time I had this inferiority complex nagging at me, telling me this was something for "smart kids" and I was unworthy. But this stopped after I went through the first few parts of chapter 1, and took in the playful tone the text. I felt stupid afterward; like being afraid of a St. Bernard. It looks big, but it's actually bubbly.

Don't listen to people when they say something is difficult or not for the faint of heart. Put a saddle on Falkor and go flying!
We often get great lists of books posted on Hacker News. I wonder if there is a good resource for canonical books in those subjects floating around somewhere. I don't trust Google to tell me what to spend such a potentially huge amount of my time on.
Yes, that is a photo from his trip to Iraq, it is also his photo on twitter:

http://twitter.com/ericschmidt
very nice idea and execution.

might want to make it clearer that the person you're trying to get the file from doesn't need a dropbox account, as that seems to be the big idea behind this.
I can think of a lot of reasons: Teachers are able to use tablet computers without having to be tethered to the wall, classes that permit students to bring laptops or similar devices are able to use the internet, "mobile labs" (carts filled with laptops that can be brought into classes) are able to use the internet, students that bring iPod touches or other handheld internet devices are able to quickly look things up during class.
Magic 13x13 Square
Marriage Sort
I appreciate your argument, but I feel like you missed an important motivation behind my question. You see, I'm worried about unknown unknowns. Once you know enough about a subject to choose an itch to scratch, you don't have to think about the difficult foundational subjects like compilers and AI. But before you get to that point, there are too many unknown unknowns. Like Yegge's perennially disappointing interview candidates, we can't say "grep" instead of "a 2,500-line state-machine in C++" if we don't know that grep exists. It's an unknown unknown, and while I know what grep is, I don't really know what happens under the hood when it comes to syntax trees and machine learning, and since they are foundational concepts of my field, I feel like I need to dive into them as soon as I can, to make everything else I do more informed and efficient.
I have found my spending has decreased as my salary has increased. Granted, I have not gotten any major pay bumps in the last few years, but having bought a lot of the things I wanted to buy and I don't need to keep spending money getting a better version of the same thing. But, it's more than just stuff, spending 60$ at a restaurant is fun the first few times, but after a while there is little novelty in it. You also build up equity, I went from an 18 year old car 100$ trade in value to buy a new one and now that my new car is almost paid off I don't see a reason to replace it anytime soon or get an upgrade with my car “equity”.

PS: IMO, unless you have children there is little stopping the average developer from retiring at 45.
Analysts like PayPal integration into Android Marketplace
I think the classification of local Chinese tongues is a grey area. They are all based on the same writing system, but the variation in pronunciation and informal vocabularies make them unintelligible from each other.

They are more like the difference between, say, American and Jamaican English, than between two languages like English and French.

If you are learning Chinese as a foreign language, it almost certainly means you are learning Standard Mandarin (Beijingese?), since it's the lingua franca of the Chinese world, unless it specifically mentions Cantonese or Min Nan, etc.

I speak Mandarin and some Cantonese, Shaanxi, and Sichuan dialect, btw.
Yeah, sometimes it's signed documents but I also get client materials that are particularly sensitive.

I've been thinking through the signed documents problem, but I'm not sure the market is ready yet. We've had legislation in the U.S. that legitimizing electronic signature for about a decade, but there's a comfort to a signed physical copy that is hard for people to give up for big contracts. I'm wondering what user affordance will finally break through that mental barrier, but I haven't come up with anything yet.
It seems like you will put a lot of bike messengers out of work!
Lump of coal for Ryan Air's purchase ticketing online:

http://gyazo.com/5355d61b3c732af6424d6c2da6f951f3.png
...and Google Analytics bug. Ha.
good point, we'll try to make that more obvious. Thanks!
How long did you try it for. In my experience it can take a little while to adapt. Just like you got homesick that first time at sleepaway camp as a kid.

I did a decent amount of backpacking back in the day, and I remember the initial adjustment to be pretty tough and very lonely if you're not already a very outgoing type. Initially I hated it, then eventually I loved it, but some may not.
Subversion Live 2011
The middle ground is something like iSocket or Federated Media.
And lovely, by the way.
Do you have a university near you? If you can get into their library (or even their bookstore), you can take a look at the recommended books yourself and see if they suit you. You can also get the book lists from university courses that interest you.
I can't parse this
The single biggest barrier for me is questions that I could google for, but I don't think of it, because in my mind it's just a thought or need, not an explicit question.

For example, issues about cooking, while cooking. Something like a (waterproof) iPad might be one factor in the solution, perhaps with (excellent) voice recognition.

But another problem is that, when I have searched on question like this, the answers are often not there, or buried amongst a lot of inaccurate/unhelpful answers to the question - and it ends up taking an hour, and not actually answering the question. eg. how to stop a rice cooker burning the rice (ans didn't come from google: leave it 15mins after it's cooked + cook a larger amount).
I would like to see these questions answered as well before I use the service.

However, apart from the privacy/security concerns I can see this service having a lot of potential.
> I don't really get where you're coming up with ".NET is seen as a rather dead-end ecosystem."

Say if I was writing a compiler for a new language I'm designing. Would I consider targetting .NET? No I wouldn't because it locks me in to Microsoft, and will only continue to be available at the whim of Microsoft (consider they canned VB6 when it was one of their most popular languages to replace ith with VB .NET). Now if I was to target my compiler on a platform that runs on lots of OSes, is open-source, etc, then it's more likely to be future-proof. Or say I was writing a web app framework like Rails or Django. I might want it to run on Windows, but I would certainly also want it to run on Unix-like systems such as Linux and MacOS.

The impression I get is that that is the main reason why there is less innovation in the Microsoft platform than outside it (e.g. Python, Ruby, Rails, Django, Clojure, Groovy, etc), despite Windows running on most computers. Many good programmers think Windows is simply irrelevant. E.g. PG says:

"I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops. It was the same in the audience at startup school. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now." -- http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

All programs are written by programmers, and if enough programmers think a platform is irrelevant, it becomes so.

Now if Oracle is going to get nasty with what's now their Java platform, that's an opportunity for Microsoft if they want to take it. I've never coded in C# but from what I've read of it, it's a better language than Java and I suspect many Linux programmers would consider using it.

Microsoft is still trying to fight their old war against Linux. They've won that war on the client (but not on the server), but in the mean time, they are losing to Apple.
You can help kill Whooping Cough again. Get a DTAP booster.

Your GP can give it to you, or if you happen to be in San Francisco there's a clinic at 101 Grove Street that will give you the shot for just $10.
Like gdgt for apps. I'll throw in $5K + existing code base as investment.
In Support of Oracle and Java
Start with "The Elements of Computing Systems" by Nisan and Schocken. It's a book built around the goal of designing and constructing a computer from the ground up, starting with hardware design and ultimately writing the compiler and virtual machine for a simple Java-like language that runs on the computer you designed. You can download all the software necessary; all the software and support material work very well, and it's ideal for self-study. I think it's a great book; you can read my full review on Amazon--it's the only book I've ever been moved to review there.
> The trouble is that I don't remember anything.

I read somewhere that our long-term memory has unlimited capacity, and there are basically three ways of measuring your memory:

- Recall: see whether you can recall the pertinent facts.

- Relearn: measure the time it takes for you to relearn the topic.

- Recognize: see if you can recognize key points in a previously learned topic when it's presented again to you.

Most people when they claim that they "don't remember anything" only refer to the recall-metric. But I bet that if you try to learn these ideas again, it'd take you much lesser time that it'd for a complete newbie => you haven't really lost everything you learned. It's just dormant.
If you don't make any money, you won't have to pay taxes. If you don't have any bills, you won't need to make any money.

Taxes are not what creates the issue you refer to, bills are.

The individual really controls those expenses. That is why any comparison to slavery is asine, out of touch, and offensive. Rolling in TAXES == SLAVERY is the icing on the cake.

You control your own expenses. I've lived very cheap. Give up your car, your house, your savings, your retirement account, you restaurent budget, your going out budget. The only thing left is rent and food. I lived for a whole winter as a ski bum with a couple guys, you split up rent in a cheap cabin and shop at the grocery store and it becomes almost free.

There is a reason people can ski all day and get by just by waiting tables or cleaning toilets - it is because they have found out that the thing holding most people into day to day salaried jobs are self imposed. If you give all of that up to do something you want, you are completely free.

So don't say it can't be done, because I have lived through it and enjoyed every minute of it.
I second this, and it's a surprisingly inexpensive book, to boot.
Bloggers should stop writing dipshit blogs so they can sell to Engadget, Huffington Post and what not.
Well as a physicst I say you can't understand a computer unless you understand the wavefunction of an electron crossing a potential barrier.
So ner-ner-ni-ner-ner.....
I read somewhere a professor was saying that when you retweet, or vote up articles, or any other of a dozen activities in which you're simply reacting mechanically that you are no longer an individual but part of a hive mind. Sounded a little extreme, but I get his gist.

Years ago I worked on a warehousing system. Used to be that folks would get a list of stuff to pick, then go get that stuff, then get a new list. This became more and more automated. Soon the computer was talking to workers over wireless headsets, giving them step by step directions of where to go and what to do.

I imagine the next step, after "where do I go and what do I do?" will be people writing articles about how much more happy they are now that they have a clear purpose in life. How the system actually knows better at what makes them happy than they do themselves.

I liked the super-brain, immortal demigods sci-fi future much more than I do the borg one we're actually getting.

Hey kid! Get off my lawn! :)
Do you eat anything that smells strongly? Garlic and Curry are well known smelly spices that when eaten have a tendency to be excreted when you sweat, so if you eat a lot of those spices you will tend to smell when you sweat.
So are the hiragana and katakana components of Japanese writing.
Sigh. Whooping cough back because everyone's afraid of the non-threat of vaccines. Bed bugs back because everyone's afraid of DDT.

Uninformed wusses are killing us all.
"What product or service do you wish existed?"
What exactly did I say that warranted a reprimanding like that?
I think this is an incredibly frumpy and sad way of viewing childhood, and the mistakes we (are entitled) to make and learn during it. Everyone does stupid stuff when they're kids and lots of people (their friends/family) know about it, and lots of people end up working with childhood friends.

I led a reasonably interesting childhood (including some not-so-misdemeanor crimes) and was around in the "everything you do is documented online" era, and it hasn't impeded me as an "adult".

Something like this seems to invalidate all the experiences we have as children. It reads like someone who just wishes they could act like they never did the same stupid things that everyone else did at 16.
Optical Illusions in the Paintings of Salvador Dali
Here we’ve got the paintings of Salvador Dali with amazing optical illusions hidden inside.
Happened in the UK, the same parents also overturned a ban on kids having cell phones.

Apparently it's vital for their safety that they keep a 1W 1.8Ghz transmitter glued to their head at all times, but it's lethal to have a 100mW 2.4Ghz transmitter in another room.
If you have a Mac OS X Server laying around, its built in wiki is one of the best I've seen.

If you want a WYSIWYG editor, Google Sites is a great choice. It's also very fast to switch between editing and view modes, etc.

Other than that, I'd recommend Gollum, GitHub's open source wiki library. It has a very clean frontend, supports many different markup languages (like Markdown, Textile, Creole, etc), and pages and revision history are backed by a Git repository.

It's as easy to setup as this:

$ git init
$ echo "Hello" > Home.markdown
$ git add Home.markdown
$ git commit -m "adding home page"
$ gollum

And open http://localhost:4567/ in your browser.
You need a co-founder. If you can't find one,
it just shows that
1) you are not resourceful enough
2) your idea is not good enough
Pay it forward: how to get a free ticket for Business of Software 2010
I avidly read this as another antivax story, but it doesn't seem to be one; rather, the issue here is that adults need to get DTAP boosters. Who knew? Not me.
Perhaps you can comment on what he actually said, not who he is?

Certainly: that particular comment is irrelevant nonsense.

There should also be a CPAN module called Python. Fix as much of perl 5 as possible in one new language!

I expect better discussion from Hacker News.
In that case, read, but don't try to understand in full and complete depth, a few books. I would suggest:

* SICP

* The Dragon Book

* Programming Pearls

* The Elements of Computing Systems

There's a shed-load of good stuff, and no doubt others will suggest more.
There's an old rule of thumb I read somewhere (can't remember where) that says the maximum amount of money you could charge for "consumerish" software sold in the enterprise was the per-purchase limit on the average manager's corporate credit card. As soon as you went over that it meant getting approval up the org chart chain, and getting approval up the chain meant having a dedicated sales staff to work that chain. As soon as you need that sales staff, the price of your software need to go up to pay for the additional staff. In other words, it's just as hard/expensive to sell a $2,000 product as it is a $20,000 product, so charge $20,000.
"Wage slave" is always, in my experience, used in one of two derogatory ways:

1) In the original usage, as a condemnation of the whole capitalist system, or

2) In the sense that's more common in this crowd, to describe anyone who doesn't want to be a startup founder.

Applied to technology workers (typically privileged & upper middle class), the term is offensive on multiple levels.
What exactly is a doctorate
Point well made!

I love the Sarah Palin quote mentioned. She says that letting this mosque open would be "intolerable" and yet, telling the Muslims in question that no, they can't have their own place of worship, wouldn't be intolerable?

Douglas Adams put it best [paraphrase] "Ford realized that if Humans stopped running their mouths they'd engage their brains."
There are some great courses available on the web, in the form of video lectures. MIT's OCW courses most notably, but many other CS departments have similar offerings. They might provide a bit more structure than self-study via texts, while giving you more flexibility than night classes.
Apparently that's new: in the US at least, Tdap was only approved in 2005, and replaced Td (the previous standard bundled tetanus/diptheria every-10-years booster) in most recommendations/clinics around 2006-2007. So adults who haven't had a tetanus booster in the past 3-4 years didn't get the one that includes whooping cough, and probably don't even know about the change (I got my last booster in 2003, and didn't know that it was different now).
New Supercomputer Connection Speeds Genetic Research
Yeah, when you create a playlist on Rdio, you can choose collaboration options: anyone can edit; only followers can edit; nobody can edit. And, as far as I know, there's no limit to the number of concurrent listeners.
Aren't people allowed to change their names in the US? In the UK one can change one's name as often as one wishes (by deed poll), as far as I am aware.
exploited

to make use of meanly or unfairly for one's own advantage <exploiting migrant farm workers>

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exploited

Some people are exploited in ways that are horrific compared to how other people are exploited. But until we have words specifically to describe white-collar workers, I'm going to use the available words that I think are most apt.
When did Halliburton become Richard Stallman?
This line irritated me too.

Every now and then, I read another article about how we're slaves to money. Has anyone else noticed that these articles almost always use some variant of a television (plasma, 48 inch, etc...) as an example of an unnecessary material comfort that distorts a person's view of what is truly important.

I'm definitely a wage slave, and I assure you, I don't do it for a big tv. I don't have a big tv. I don't want a big tv.

What I do have is a family that depends on my continued employment for such trivialities as a place to live (my two small children share a room with a bunkbed in our small 2br house), trips to the pediatrician, and preschool (education isn't "free" in the US until kindergarten, though one of my children now in public elementary school).

The "stuff" like tv's isn't even a rounding error in the brutally high cost of living in SF. I could have the "big tv", nor not, makes no difference in my life. A bigger difference would be leaving San Francisco and moving to a cheaper place, but by living in SF, I get to live where I grew up, and my kids and I get to visit my parents and siblings almost daily. That's worth it.

But no, it's not the tv. I don't think anyone puts up with this for a tv. These writers need to stop about the tv.
Yes, I really agree with that - though I suppose many (if not most) countries also suffer the second problem.
Is Modern Perl basically TMTOWTDI falling out of favor?

Instead its morphed into TIMTOWTDIBSCINABTE, which fortunately is lovingly referred to as "Tim Toady Bicarbonate" :)

In full... There's more than one way to do it, but sometimes consistency is not a bad thing either

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theres_more_than_one_way_to_do_...
Even if tech workers are upper middle class, that doesn't mean that they're not bound to their job. The conditions may be better, it's true, but if they lost their job, they'd end up just as destitute.

I only say this because it's something I've though a lot about recently, mostly while investigating the arguments of usage #1 up there. My parents are solidly middle class; but for most of my childhood, they basically lived paycheck to paycheck. When times get tough... things start to get ugly. Granted, not as ugly as 'real' slavery... but I think that the analogy is a good one.
So...are the children suppose to live in the school and never leave? Because the second they step out the door they are bound to run into a few rogue hotspots.

Even out in the rural areas of the US, you can usually find a wi-fi signal.
Thx for that tip -- I may just bike over there.
This is a bit tangential to the main point of the story, but I was a student at the school that was torn down the author mentioned. It's sort of an interesting story, you can read more about it at [1]. I think it was mostly politics, it took over 5 years from the initial temporary closing of the school for the new middle school to be built. In the winter of 2001 we got an extra 2 weeks during winter vacation because they discovered the chemicals in the ground and the new school wasn't built until 2006. Apparently the safety of the teachers and students wasn't as important as spending 3 years squabbling about where to build the new one.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/14/nyregion/new-term-nears-to...