skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>FB Connect actually does a pretty good job at being "easy to use". Just log into your FB account and you are set.

The only time I used OpenID, it was for StackOverflow. The workflow was exactly as you describe for Facebook Connect, except substituting Gmail for Facebook. I really don't see where there's room to be tripped up, unless you can't handle the idea that you can log in using accounts from multiple places.
This is Python. Subclass it and fix the problem, unless the guts are so opaque that your code would be littered with subclasses and you can't figure out an elegant, general way of fixing it (unlikely).
Functions should not be complex. Functions should be simple, and they should be composed by other simple functions to do more complex things.
Atheism is in response to theism. One can be a believer and be agnostic, likewise you can be atheist and agnostic as well.

The existence of god is as yet unverifiable in the same way the existence of Bilbo Baggins is unverifiable. So what?
I totally agree. npm will keep screaming if you run it as root and for a good reason. Don't run third party modules as root. This article describes the process in more detail

http://increaseyourgeek.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/install-nod...
Yes, but the question is, would your cards have been just as effective had you only relied on a simple, but professional looking, logotype. The purpose of a logo is brand recognition. As someone who did the local consultant thing and built it to a comfortable income, I can say with confidence that the logo had little or nothing to do with it. I outperformed and outlasted several friends who jumped in the game at the same time with fancy logos and websites.
Even in Java, most patterns can be implemented just fine in a small chunk of library code using the language's existing facilities for abstraction.

I think the relative popularity of design patterns in the Java community has less to do with the verbosity of the language than with historical accident (design patterns became popular at around the same time as Java).
Yes, you should definitely should be more explicit if that's what you intend to check: PEP8 makes that explicit.

I'm not sure why you'd defend against None anyway. Why defend against None, but not against 3.1459 or 4j or ''?
They mentioned that it would pair with your blackberry, and therefore share your data connection.

I'd be willing to bet that it won't pair with non-blackberry's (although maybe they'll surprise me), but if you have a BB (like a large number of people do) this should be a good companion device.

As to price, they didn't mention that or availability; which I suspect is bad news on both fronts. They're really pitching this to enterprises, so I'm guessing affordability isn't their primary bullet point.
I was at the talk in question. Some more context:

Bignums "contaminate" surrounding operations. Adding a long and a bignum yields a bignum. Seeding an equation with a single bignum (42N is a bignum representation of 42) will prevent overflow.

No one has come forward with a single real-world scenario where they're using bignums in Clojure. Choosing a default that is only theoretically useful rather than a 10x performance improvement seems a bit silly.

In any situation where the compiler cannot be sure you're using primitives everywhere, it will emit non-overflowing bytecode.

By my measure, there's nothing premature about this optimization. In Rich Hickey's words, Clojure is a replacement for Java, not Ruby. Giving up Java-like performance makes the language quantitatively less useful.
I don't know, nor care, who chromatic is. I was simply implying that there are developers like me who can write more code than speak or write English. It's pretty silly to filter candidates based on how they spell something, unless it's blatantly bad of course.
I wasn't talking about the nature of the technology, just the degree to which they include a "standard library". There are plenty of pluggable apps for Django and contrib modules for Drupal that are used on almost all sites, but they are not distributed with the project.
I just wanted to follow up my reply to someone else below with a comment for you -- and bear in mind that I just want to dissect, to point out things, not to attack or offend you. Please do not take my response personally. You can easily apply my arguments to my own posts, and I will agree with you. :)

Your argument is an interesting proof of the notion that your speech signals social status. You mention "the most intelligent people". You then tell us what you believe they think. The implication is that you number amongst them or would like to be a member of that group.

In addition, you have not cited any proof of this argument; it is mere speculation. Yet you "would argue" this random opinion, expecting that others on this forum would care about that opinion. Your speech translates to a simple statement: "I have an opinion, too." or more simply "I am here. Look at me."

Your comment is a nice example of signaling social standing (whatever it really is, whatever you want us to believe it is).
Facebook has been suing organizations with "book" in their name.
Tell this to Alan Turing or Alonzo Church.
When does the number of exploits reach "staggering"? Is there a single software project on the planet that doesn't "silently" fix bugs? Are you referring to active exploits, or total historic exploits?
Well-written and entertaining piece, but sounds almost too good to be true (a made-for-viral PR story?) Very convenient that it flew into the emergency lane and there were no cars behind.
Real-time thoughts about the partnership between MSFT and Wordpress
Ha indeed... Started clicking around on it expecting to edit text, or turn a page, or SOMETHING... Started looking for javascript errors thinking Safari had crapped the bed, as it is prone to do from time to time.

sigh

Post things like this once they get interesting. ;)
Becouse RIM stole the word book? ;-)

So far FB have only sued social networks with book in their name.
I think it's more cutting edge but in light of what we're learning about the developing brain. The frontal cortex is critical for "focus" and yet it doesn't reach full maturation until 20-24 years old. We only know that, definitively, from brain scans which are still relatively new in developmental studies. And the longitudinal work just hasn't been done.

Keep in mind though that "deficit" is usually judged within ages. So a young child isn't expected to have the same focus as an adult, just within the range of other children their age. Context also matters.
Adjacency matrices are taught in undergraduate linear algebra classes. This article makes it sound like they invented them.
Awesome, I envy you
BlackBerry's typically have incredible battery life - far beyond that of any other smartphone I've used. Obviously this is a whole new kind of beast, with regards to both software and hardware. However, I'm confident (optimistic?) that RIM will have stuck to their legacy of excellent battery life with this latest offering.
Microsoft Dumps Windows Live Spaces For WordPress -- InformationWeek
Specifically, examine the singleton's usage pattern, and make sure it's not just a convenient excuse for a mud-ball of globals.

http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/singleton-considere...
Careful. The development of the brain in utero absolutely recapitulates phylogeny.
Most smaller operations are going to be pretty much writing software for a primary target platform.

It is nice that there are technologies like cross-platform application framework or CSS, that let you create code for your target platform that you might just be able to port to another platform at a later date. But that doesn't take away from the fact that you're likely going to be betting on a given platform at a given time.

Perhaps what you want to say is "don't develop for a platform that will stand in the way of you porting at a later date" - indeed, all the walled-garden stuff seems to have this lock-in quality and would make sense to avoid - if you have a choice.
Oh yes. Never write in absolutes on HN.

I don't know about Yelp but Pandora asks permission. http://www.flickr.com/photos/4braham/5030673157/
If you were recruiting new people into your development team, would you care about the potential employee's level of knowledge of design patterns?
I really don't communicate with the Perl community at all. I write code, I send bug reports or bug fixes if things are broken.
I really don't see how interacting with the Perl community would be relevant to an employer from an engineering point of view.

At that point it's not 'savvy' people who know that, but silly people who have too much time to complain or notice small things like that. Possibly managers or scripters, not engineers who go only by code, architecture, etc.
Funny, I was just thinking how much cleaner a supposedly-horrid monkey-patch would make his example in Ruby.

thing = some_dict[my_object.get_foobar_handler()].get_only_element()

self-documents the purpose of the operation and its assumption much more legibly than the typo-esque

(thing,) = ...

in my opinion.
Am I getting too old for this (Google instant rant)?
The Unreasonable Effectivness of Data (Peter Norvig)
A recent (and highly interesting) talk given by Peter Novig, Director of Research at Google.
vvvrrrrrt. Thanks. I have no idea how that happened. :\ +1 fail for me.
In order to be self-replicating, you'd have to have alumni with relatively large exits who then participate on more or less equal terms... is that something you foresee, or is it going to just be too messy to add people that way?
Yes, and if you come up with a new theory of computer science, then run off to the patent office.

But if (like most of us) you write A program, then its a program, not an equation or a theorem or anything else mathematical.
Here's the part that I think about: ok I get that phones could potentially cause a problem. If that is the case, than we shouldnt be relying on voluntary compliance. Either it's not a problem--then let people do that they want, or it's a problem, and you better be telling me that you have a better risk mitigation than "hope that everyone turns off their phones".
The email note and notice in the elevator says "THEORY COLLOQUIUM: Open to the Public".
This article seems a bit spammy, and doesn't appear to be written by someone who is a programmer.
I plan to go on a motorcycle, flying thru flaming hoops over Niagara Falls.
The problem with node.js, as well as a great thing about it, is that it's still immature and evolving quickly. For example, I notice you mentioned node-paperboy, a handy minimalistic library for serving static files. It's nice, but buggy. If you don't specify a 404 handler function, it'll default to just keeping those connections open indefinitely. If you aren't running it behind something like nginx, there's a trivial security hole where you can encode "../" as "%2E%2E/" in your URL and get access to whatever files node has read access to. Your app seems to be safe (thanks, nginx!), and your code is good stuff, but the node world is full of pitfalls like this.

(GitHub self-pimpage: since I use node-paperboy myself, I fixed the security hole and all the stability problems I could find. The patches haven't been merged into the main repo yet, but here's the fixed version: http://github.com/PeterScott/node-paperboy)
Any information you put on Facebook is susceptible to being used in ways you don't know of or have not authorize for. All information on the internet is like this for that matter. At least currently with Facebook Connect sites FB displays an authorize display laying out the information accessible.
Reasons:

- We wanted something simpler: apn_on_rails is more of a "complete" solution than what we needed, including models for keeping track of devices that are registered with the app, etc. We already had infrastructure for handling all that, but just needed a bit of code to connect to Apple and do the notifications and read feedback.

- We needed to keep connections open. We send constant streams of hundreds-of-thousands of notifications per day. With this in mind it makes sense to keep persistent connections open to the service and stream data in.

- Both apn_on_rails and the original APNs gem have broken support for reading from the feedback service. We had to support this fully.
>8000 words, but very much worth the read. Thanks for putting in the effort!
It appears you are being intentionally obtuse, so I repeat: Neither the current C and C++ language standards provide any support whatsoever for concurrent programming. Therefore you cannot do concurrent programming in either of those languages without resorting to using operating system specific or 3rd party libraries.

DragonflyBSD, a project that was only started in 2003, has obviously not been around for "decades" so hardly serves to advance your claim.
Both of those still fail for other non-list iterables, like generators.
Explain "doesn't work".

Also, does FQL work? I'm just starting to look at it for an app.
I would probably want them to at least know what they are, and why they are relevant to a task (or not relevant).

If they'd mostly programmed in modern dynamic languages (Perl/Python/Ruby) I wouldn't expect them to know most of the individual patterns, since they're not terribly relevant for those languages.
Also... really only works for the US only. Canada is not half bad but Google returns an invalid postal code (due to licensing restrictions or some such). Outside of US/Canada accuracy falls way off to the point of being almost useless.
Amidst 200,000 pre-orders, China Unicom struggling to meet iPhone 4 demand
I think you miss the point. The fundamental insights that both Alan Turing and Alonzo Church independently had was that a program is an algorithm (or, more precisely, a numerical representation of an algorithm), which is mathematical by definition.
Or (inc clojure) perhaps? Isn't (++) an abomination in functional programming with immutable state?
BlackBerry Tablet announced - video and links
Ah, that's true. It's a bit odd to use a dedicated icon to log in to something that is exactly the same as the more general option you offer, but the average user won't know that, so it makes sense.

Do you know the endpoint for Google? I didn't know they supported it natively.
What does the iPad v2.0 need to succeed?
I think most people is missing are missing the point. The issue isn't whether PHP, Python, Ruby or Perl are better as of today, but if we are missing something that is even more aligned to web development. For the past few years PHP has been the language of choice for many many programmers because as its name imply, it "pre processes hypertext" (and words actually matter). Do we need some new kind of language (not framework) that understands caching, REST, CRUD, templating, asynchronous calls the way we need it on the web of today (and the near future)?

I guess nobody here is calling for a new language to rule them all, or for a champion framework. I guess as hackers the least we can do is DO NOT assume that what we have today is what we'll need tomorrow.

I don't know if there's an easy answer to the dilemma (or if your arguments are solid enough) but it makes me think. Thanks for bringing this up.
Hey! I'll be at IWP9 5e this year if things go well. Fun to see another Plan 9 user on here. I'm an intern with Sandia Labs, working on my master's degree at the moment, so I've got this work I've been cooking up all ready for a Work In Progress report at IWP9.

To expand a bit, I think Plan 9 has potential in the world of scientific computing. There are a few things scientists expect on their supercomputers, and Plan 9 either has them or can have them without unreasonable effort. They include: MPI, Python (already available), Linux compatibility layer (exists), and FORTRAN 77 (this can happen if we reaallllly need it). Check out the HARE project, where Plan 9 was ported to the Blue Gene systems as part of the ongoing Fast-OS project, which aims to find a better OS for supercomputing. (Basically, Linux is too huge, whereas custom kernels are just too stripped down and customized. Plan 9 is small but general)
And even if you do have one hell of a business co-founder, writing still helps.
Since it seems like we're going to be swamped with NodeJS posts this week, could someone tell me why should I look at it if I'm already happy with (diesel | monocle | twisted | eventmachine | poe | ...). Is it simply another way to do the same things, or is there something new about it?

Edit: Just realised this looks trollish. Sorry about this - I'm genuinely interested, since I write some evented code, but couldn't find any notable differences here... I'm not sure if I should take time to explore node.js, or is it same old stuff in a new package.
You were texting while driving?
Two words: ballistic coefficient.
...does anyone really believe that writing a letter will get something done?

Perhaps not, but a large enough flood of letters from actual software developers may slightly nudge USPTO policy for the better until someone lobbies Congress to force the USPTO to change.
Something that bugs me about these articles is how the data is gathered:

"In the recruiting work I have done I've asked thousands of programmers to explain the concept behind design patterns"

I'd have to find some data to back up what I suspect, which is that the bottom X% of programmers (or at least would-be programmers) cycle through all those job interviews where this lack of knowledge becomes apparent (unless you're recruiting for a really high-level position where the top programmers might be interested in applying, and even then many are already content where they are).

So, if you're any good, you're not as likely to be interviewed, and so the population is flawed.

That doesn't mean that design patterns have or have not flopped. At least, every one of my coworkers have been taught the patterns. Whether we apply them or not might merit a study, one with a methodology that doesn't mislead the observer and where a more valid conclusion might be reached (it could even be the same conclusion, that is, that they have flopped).
WordPress Becomes Windows Live Blogging Platform
Asculta Live Radio SuperHits FM
It is certainly okay for some functions to be complex. Some may rely on simpler functions, but the one you'd use can still do a complex task in general.

A function that squares a number is simple, one that computes the standard deviation is definitely more complex.
I see quite a few reasons - Anroid 3.0 (optimized for tablets), Chrome OS, HP tablets, maybe new Windows tablets.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/09/10/apple-may-be-planning-a...
"11 out of 10 Stammys... despite the DRM speed bumps."
Sorry ahead of time for being pedantic, but a score of a perfect 10 should mean that there are no issues. That it is the definition of unobtainable perfection. The perfect e-reader would be one that never runs out of battery, weighs nothing but feels good in the hand, never breaks down, always has wifi signal wherever you are in the world, and who's display is indiscernible from a color lithograph print. This is by no means that. Is it an amazing device? Absolutely. But saying it's a perfect 10 (let alone an 11) is like saying that there's no way that it can be improved. Things can always be improved, saying otherwise is giving up on human creativity.
We have two separate clients that spend big $$$ on AdSense driving new customer acquisition that used single fb connect for login.

After the API issue last week both saw their 8+ LP scores dive down to 1! Lost commerce for both over the past few days equals multiple tens of thousands, still not seeing the scores recover.
Because normal users' innate pathological copy-reading avoidance make the login page (http://skitch.com/dasil003/d2ac8/change-openid-stack-overflo...) a usability clusterfuck.
One more thing: Get the 3G version. It's free-for-life for $50, and you can buy books, and even surf (even though the browsing experience is horrible) whereever you are and have them on the Kindle in seconds, even abroad.

When travelling, I always end up packing too many books because I'm afraid I'll run out or get bored if a book is bad. I was afraid the pattern could repeat on the Kindle, that I'd be scramming to buy a bunch of books before leaving "friendly" wifi coverage. Last week I bought a book on the bus going to the airport on the 3G connection.
My experience with design patterns has been that their usage can prevent people from considering the deeper issue of what it means for a design to be good. I would far rather work with programmers that have a good grasp of the five SOLID principles, for instance.

This is not to say that specific patterns are not of merit in the right circumstances, of course. Just that the notion of design patterns as some kind of shrink-wrapped, off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all solution is something I find mildly alarming.
"At the end of Demo Day what the startups usually have is a bunch of potential leads. Our default advice is to do a breadth first search, weighted by expected value. ... There are a few investors for whom it should be zero, and we can tell startups about those too."

Interesting. If you know beforehand that those investors' expected value is 0, why invite them?
The UI looks very impressive from the video. Very slick and fluid, the multitasking animation in particular is lovely.

Will be interesting if this is the real UI or not - it might just be a mockup like that infamous Nokia N97 promotional video vs the terrible reality: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1231464
Did you write this or just find it someplace?
Sounds good, but what happens when you reinstall your OS, or change your OS or browser?

Not saying it's not possible - not trying to shoot this down at all - just I think it's a major issue.
On a followup interview to the GoF, they were in favor of dropping Singleton:

http://www.informit.com/articles/printerfriendly.aspx?p=1404...

"When discussing which patterns to drop, we found that we still love them all. (Not really- I'm in favor of dropping Singleton. Its use is almost always a design smell.)"
It's interesting to see how everyone tries to copy Apple's success without getting the point.

What made the Ipad (and the Iphone and the Ipod) a success was the fact that Apple created a new category that didn't exist before and marketed the hell out of it. All the me-too products make the fatal mistake of trying to make a product that's better than Apple's in the category that Apple invented and owns.

No matter how hard you try to make a product that's an Ipad-killer you'll never succeed because it's not an Ipad. It's like the cheap knock-offs of brand names - the chinese Konferse shoes might look like Converse, they might be cheaper and they might even be better but nobody will buy them because they aren't the original Converse.

If you want to own a niche you have to innovate your way there. You can't out-ipad and ipad. One of the commenters in the article even called it a palmpad.

I remember an interview with Jonathan Ive (Apple's chief designer) where he was asked what he would make if he was given the task of creating a phone for another company. His answer was "I don't know, but I do know that it would be nothing like the Iphone"
Going Freemium: One Year Later
one of the tagline descriptors from the video: "Flash-loving"

Interesting they highlight that in their first marketing video. I suppose with these things it can be difficult to differentiate device capabilities that consumers can actually comprehend (as opposed to just tech spec stats). I still wonder to what extent people actually know whether or not they care about having flash capabilities on their mobile devices.