skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Actually, the linked search shows 2.6.5 is the default Python package. The current version is "lucid".
Will you allow for uploads of data from Excel? As you probably know, Access is where non-technical people turn when their spreadsheets get too big. :)

I am interested in learning more.
Stuff that belongs to the OS (but runnable by all users) is in /usr/bin. That's FHS.

Stuff that's yours is wherever dir you specified when you ran:
export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs

Seriously. Use virtualenv (and virtualenvwrapper).

http://www.doughellmann.com/projects/virtualenvwrapper/
Ask kaggle founder questions.
I think they could improve the speed if they used webworker
Python, as per Guido Van Rossum's wishes, is pushing for suspension of all language syntax and built-in changes and work towards preserving semantics, precisely for giving time to alternative implementations time to catch up with CPython, as well as the various distributions to catch up with Python's recent progress.

In short: "...have killed Python" is a hyperbole for saying "I was tired to hear people nagging about dependency on Python". Still, it's a very good thing what Shaw did.
set pastetoggle=<F2>

That is what I use.
Modification of Java HotSpot VM allowing unlimited class redefinition at runtime
Tumblr would be even faster if their Javascript was a bit lighter. They use Prototype and various unneeded scripts.
The privacy angle looks like a non-issue to me.
Your public items get added to their news feed. They could view that information even if they didn't issue a friend request.
3rd world product development?
Is there anyone here working with 3rd world product development? Energy, water, simple mechanical devices, other basic needs?

I want to get into it but I'm not sure what to study, Elec. eng., mech. eng., etc.
CentOS is about as conservative an option as you can get, though. Unusably so, in my opinion. None of the other popular distros have packages that old.
Oh, most of them are, but the ones with textures seem to be awfully slow (the earth one for instance). Works nice in chromium though.

I guess that has to do with hardware acceleration. FF3.x does not have that yet, so it's falling back to software rendering SVG's, and software rendering is.. you know, awfully slow.

Try the FF4 beta if you want to see how things shape up, I think that has HW acceleration built in, though I'm not sure how far they are with WebGL.
It’s perfectly legal to profit from photos which happen to have people in them without any consent, written or otherwise. And I damn well hope that it stays that way.
My point is that /usr/bin/python probably shouldn't be a core OS component. /usr/bin/python should be whatever I want it to be. The core OS-component should be something like /sys/bin/centos-python which I will never directly use, touch or even necessarily know about.

The bottom line I guess is that mixing core OS components and user installed software in the same directory structure with no way of differentiating them is simply bad design.
I'm not a vim guru by any stretch of the imagination, but I still don't take what he says at face value. I don't trust ANYTHING I see on the internet just because it's there!

Your criticism seems to be due to the belief that, in a world where the only information on the internet could be treated as gospel, that would allow the experts opinion to come through easily. Unfortunately, that sets up the circumstance where the experts get granted much more exposure and trust than they necessarily deserve, and it inevitably gets subverted and abused.

I personally prefer the current system - treat all information as suspect until you can verify it. It leaves MUCH less room for exploitation than all of our other "trust by default" mediums.

--
Ayjay on Fedang
IIRC RHEL still depends on Python 2.4 for a ton of internal administrative scripts.
Nobody at Redhat wants to mess with the wiring in a working system.
We need an analogue of 'robots.txt' for the real world.
She posts with her real name and full details of the case. What if the guy does the same thing she did when he is out of prison?
Yes, I know someone who is working on an energy (renewables) idea. I think that may be one of the most interesting areas to look at.
Another brilliant idea from jgc. I hope you're as successful in this one as you were with the Turing apology.

I imagine the first step is to get someone with name recognition to donate a sizable enough chunk of change to get some news coverage. Any candidates?
What about stuff that belongs to me (the sysadmin) but runnable by all users? /usr/local/bin? /opt/bin? /my/homemade/solution/bin?

There is a bunch of stuff that doesn't (shouldn't) belong to the OS, but still be runnable by all users without all of them needing a copy in their $HOME directory.
I'd very much like to know why it wasn't easier for him to simply write a Python code that doesn't use anything not existing in 2.4.

This isn't an "oh, a brand-new version just now came out and it's not in the distros yet" problem. Python 2.4 is six years out of date at this point. Python 2.3, which Red Hat will support until 2012, is even older (and for the longest time Red Hat didn't even use a 2.x Python at all -- they sat on 1.5 forever).

That's simply unacceptable, and creates endless headaches for people who want to distribute software written in Python.
Well there are different theories of justice. Deterrence is certainly one, but rehabilitation is another theory that should be considered.

I'm not sure what the correct response is, but the article conveyed an attitude that this was a clear cut narrative on the triumph of good over evil, casting herself as the heroine.

Another perspective is that a common thief, desperate to make ends meet, becomes the victim of a vindictive blogger. Guess I'm alone on this one :).
Maybe he's got a whole shit load of code for this thing? I was able to do a 1,000 line project that was 2.4 compatible just by looking at the 2.7 docs and avoiding anything that said it was introduced in 2.5 or later.

Not fun, mind you, because I really would have rather been doing it in 2.7 or 3.1, but not impossible or even very hard.
Oh, I agree that not trusting information on the internet is the sensible default. However, there are plenty of people who will be copying his examples directly without any investigation.

Some will probably post the exact same stuff on their own blogs or link to this post. Before you know it this example will drown out any serious search results for "vim filetype", effectively stopping new people from learning how to do things properly.

Now obviously this post is a bit hyperbole in this instance. But these things do happen because people can't be arsed to treat the things they write/publish with the care it deserves.
I've never heard the distro argument used by any of the python maintainers and I would be surprised if they had.

The solution to distros which are bundling three year old software is not to halt your progress for three years, that should be obvious.
Can Catching A Cold Make You Fat?
Here's an illustrated guide to firing an incompetent teacher in New York City:

http://reason.com/assets/db/12639308918768.pdf
That doesn't solve his second issue, though, of user not wanting to touch something that depends on Python. Rewriting in C fixed both.
I'd go one further: distros in general haven't killed Python, Red Hat has. By tying their flagship OS to a six-year-old Python release, they've made it impossible for a lot of popular software to move on and take advantage of more recent advances in the language (since "screw everybody who uses Red Hat" simply isn't a viable option).
Your assumption that three meters is "reasonable" is just a personal opinion: Buses don't drive everywhere, and if your house happens to be on a bus route, you know that and you can react appropriately.

Also, their passengers are unlikely to make photos from some unspectacular houses somewhere, put them online, and link them with the relevant addresses.

Google may have a German address but who's got the copyright of these photos? Do you know if it's the German company or is it the American one? In general, why should anyone be forced to sue? You would need to have a case, and it's not always possible to prove damage. For example, proof that your reputation was damaged when street view caught you making love with your wife in your own garden, surrounded by a two meter fence.

Concerning the law: You and your face is also public when you happen to be in a public place. But there's also a law concerning your right to your own photo, ie. I can't simply take a photo of you walking down a public street and put it online without asking for permission.

But when you're arguing that it's a moral sufficient justification that someone somewhere can make money off of it, shouldn't we drop that law?

Then, everybody can add add motion detection to the cameras and put these cars in front of some 'interesting' houses! Say, the houses of Google employees, taking photos of them, their wifes and their children. Maybe, there's a business model for that, too.

And why stop there? What about people in law enforcement, the military, public administration and politicians? After all, it's all public and as long as someone pays for it, you obviously think it's OK that it be done.

I guess, you wouldn't want that. But if people have a right for their own photos, why not also their own houses?

Your last argument can also be turned around: Laws against street view would not only protect everybody else, but you, your wife, your children, too. In general, just because you can do X, doesn't mean you have the right to do X.
I'll send you an email with my thoughts.
Do you really believe that it is possible to create arbitrarily simple interfaces for programs with arbitrarily many features? That seems unlikely to me. It seems much more reasonable to me that there is a correlation between the number of features and the complexity of a program.
I give the CEO of EventBrite enough credit to really try out the products of his portfolio companies before he invests.
I guess it was just about time for me to try mongrel on a fresh new project. I feel I am blessed for that only. Seeing that 0MQ batteries are included is a great bonus.

If all would be fine, perhaps my network appliance would be shipped with mongrel2 which would be fantastic.
Yes, easy and intelligent import from Excel is strategically one of the most important things do right in this kind of application. I will release an alpha version in a couple of months, and I will submit an 'ASK HN: Please review' post on HN.
Question to manager: WTF are we using CentOS ?

Reply: because it's Enterprise.
I was mentioning it as a side-effect, the main reason was to give time to alternative Python implementations to reach Python 3.1.
Removing Pharma Malware from WordPress 3 / 3.1
> /usr/bin/python should be whatever I want it to be.

Why /usr/bin/python? /usr/bin/ has been for ages the "system" area - why would you want to suddenly usurp it for yourself?

/usr/local/bin/python will on most Linux systems be executed ahead of /usr/bin/python, because /usr/local/bin/ usually precedes /usr/bin/ on the $PATH. Thus you can have your cake and eat it too.

> The bottom line I guess is that mixing core OS components and user installed software in the same directory structure with no way of differentiating them is simply bad design.

Linux distro makers agree with you - if you do not customize environment variables, user-installed software goes into /usr/local/ and the OS package-management (which can be considered "system" I guess) puts executables into /usr/{bin,sbin}.

This tends to work well as long as you keep in mind that everything outside of /usr/local/ (or your customized installation path) may at any update change subject to the will of the "system". I think this is a reasonable setup - it gives the OS vendor the ability to update the system, while giving you free reign in your /usr/local/ playground.
>>Pretty sure that's actually Denmark.

It might be Denmark this year. It is/was a hard battle for the "top" position between them.

>>As opposed to the US

Hrm...

I did also write: "That said -- the US health care system seems worse than anywhere else in the western world."

Finding health problems is afaik internationally acknowledged as the problem with Swedish health care.

Edit: I might add that from what I've heard -- when they've finally find a serious problem, the system is thorough. Just hope it isn't too late if/when you get a diagnosis...

>>Is this new?

You seemed to say different in what I commented?

No. It isn't new. I studied there twice (in different decades).

Generally, students take loans to cover living expenses during studies. You get subsidies, but today most students have to work extra because the loans/subsidies don't cover living expenses.

Edit: If you're young and going to study, it might be worth the trouble to do it in Europe. There is some minor cost to study at Swedish universities for non-EU students (new this year), but imho -- avoid Scandinavia, it is probably too similar to Canada from your viewpoint. Go for Germany or something.

Edit: Removed failed attempt at humor.
It's sad and ironic (for Python) that Zed actually had to switch from Python to C to make Mongrel more portable.

Disclaimer: I love Python, but I hate that anything but the most trivial code won't run across all versions.
Nope: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recht_am_eigenen_Bild
Upgrading Ruby to 1.9.2 won't break your OS. Upgrading Python on some distros can even break package management. That's the difference.

And if you have a well tested, rock stable environment you generally don't want to mess with it if you don't have to, or may not easily be able to.

You want to not support older than Lenny. Well, we have machines that are still on Sarge, though slowly being upgraded. Some of the machines haven't been rebooted since around the time Etch came out and that's the main reason they haven't been upgraded yet.
VS2010 is a step in that direction.
"If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel—as far and as widely as possible."

This is the best advice. People that never traveled, settled with their first girlfriend and took the first job, can be happy and fulfilled. But they miss out on so many good things..
There are an awful lot of people who swear by Resharper. If that's all you've replaced it with, it's likely you've not sampled all of the power it gives you.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
:b has smart tab completion. You can type any part of the filename and you can tab through the results. This is generally what I find myself doing when I have a lot of buffers open. Otherwise I just use minibufexpl with buffer next/prev keybinds.
Why is it "simply unacceptable" to produce the code to the least common denominator?

Anything that is successful must have more versions in the installed base. You can target a single version of something only if it's not used at all. It seems too much developers live in "Everybody must have that what I have" world.

I haven't tried myself, but I can't believe Python changed that much that you can't write the plain Python code to the least common denominator of versions >= 2.4. If you have the specific examples why you can't I'd like to know them.

Edit: I've rechecked, he actually mentions 2.2 as the lowest version he saw, still I believe it doesn't change too much.
It's funny how, for Zed, anything that doesn't work the way he thinks it's supposed to work is "broken" and the result of some boneheaded decision and that it "sucks".

I too am frustrated by ancient versions of server OSs that use equally ancient versions of Python, but that's why virtualenv was invented. And source distributions. I am happy using it when required.

Being "stable" in OS terms is not changing APIs very often. One of the good things is that I know that code I wrote for RHEL 4 the day it was launched will run flawlessly on RHEL 4 today. The primary goal of such a Linux distro is that "it has to work". I won't touch the system parts.
You answered your own question - /usr/local/bin. I don't know about MacOSX but on Linux, this is the solution to your problem - "stuff that belongs to me (the sysadmin) but runnable by all users".
ISO 27001 vs. ISO 27002
Then he goes back to prison, this time for 25 to life?
I'm a big fan of ZURB's CSS3 buttons: http://www.zurb.com/blog_uploads/0000/0617/buttons-03.html
TED. Intelligence is attractive.
How to pitch your company at Techcrunch or get investors to write checks
And the stalkers rejoiced.
Well exactly. People who never learnt the old-skool ways always reinvent the wheel in an over-complex way. /usr/local/bin is stuff for the users, but which the sysadmin installs. So /usr/bin/python for the OS and /usr/local/bin/python for your users.
While I think it would be interesting, I don't think it's worth the cash outlay.

Build a virtual model of it and have educational/informational bits that explain it, instead. That will allow virtual disassembly of the machine for a better look at how it works.

It'll be both cheaper and better to make a virtual version.
I'm currently in Germany. When I left the US everybody was talking about Google's net neutrality issues. In Germany those things were barely even mentioned.

I think this alleged "street view scandal" covered up the whole net neutrality scandal (which IMHO is much more important).
If he's caught. He could even do it while in prison.
This thread is a classic example of something that happens over and over.

Someone says something is hard to use.

1/3 of the responses agree.

1/3 of the responses disagree, say it's simple.

1/3 of the responses say it's simple, all you have to do is use additional software package Y to manage X and it works great.

This is usually a sign that there is some merit to the original assertion.
> I hate that anything but the most trivial code won't run across all versions.

Please, define "all versions" and "most trivial code".

I have very little problems with Pythons ranging from the ancient 2.4 to modern 2.7. Of course, I am careful with what I do. I know if I use a dictionary comprehension I will be limited to 2.7+, so I try not to. I am quite sure a lot of the code I write could run under any 2.x Python with little modification. As for 1.x, I will agree that things get more complicated.
*parents _don't_ have access
Shouldn't python just be a library dependency like any other? I was hoping the problem of libraries with different versions was solved somehow. Apparently not :-(
I took this into account in my calculation. While, Social Security payments are capped at $102k (~$6k tax liability), Medicare is uncapped.
> What about stuff that belongs to me (the sysadmin) but runnable by all users?

If you're writing quick ad-hoc scripts and don't have time to package, /usr/local/bin.

Per above, Python is used by your OS. It's installed by default, and not uninstallable, because the OS needs it. We can't and probably don't want to change that, so we'll need to live with it.

Use virtualenv. if you need to to, install a quick Python 2.6 package that slots alongside your OS package rather than removing it - using RHEL 5 as an example, you'd install 'python26' alongside your existing 'python' package.
One plugin that would be really useful would be a source verifier that alerts you when your code won't run on, say, a given version of .NET or Mono.
Agreed. I suspect people have their newsfeeds set to "friends only", in which case the "de-facto follow feature" shouldn't work unless the friend request is accepted.
Moti asks: Objects Never? Well, Hardly Ever
I would suggest the next big JVM Language should be a blend of JavaScript and Java where one would provide optimization hints to a javascript program using element of java syntax.

Strong typing should be viewed as an optimization, either to optimize code's correctness or to optimize code's speed.

If you add CoffeeScript on top of that... whoa!
politicians and media are hyping it.
This is a complete non-issue. ActiveState for example installs Python, Tcl, etc in /opt.
In the Git project we target Perl 5.6 for critical code (like git add --interactive) and Perl 5.8 for some other code (like git-svn). Those are 10 and 8 years out of date, respectively. Or the equivalent of targeting Python 1.6 and 2.0.

It can be mildly annoying sometimes to have to use 5.6 features when I usually develop on 5.12 or newer, but Perl's policy of backwards compatibility makes this a lot easier than it would be in Python.

Git also has some Python code that targets 2.4, making it compatible with such an old version was relatively easy (see http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=commit;h=23b093ee087e... for an example). A lot easier anyway than rewriting and maintaining that code in C.
Ask Better Questions
BASH key bindings
why not link directly to the BBC?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-113763...
Twitter Success Story - Hurricane Bill
Time to start pretending I'm a 14-year-old girl so I can start the "if 21,000 people RSVP to my party, the party will have 21,00 RSVPs" group.
Just for my own curiousity: was that your idea or hers?
Ask HN: Mailinglist provider for your MVP/Startup
What do you guys use to collect user/customer interest for your MVP?

Some sites I saw use Mailchimp.com, other ones just collecting the addresses in google docs.
I'm hacking scala for android and in my experience scala is really awful with allocations. When using idiomatic scala in a game loop the gc kicks in 10 times a seconds, making the app unusable. There are a lot of "invisible" allocations, i.e. allocations that happen even when you don't use "new".

But even without scala-idioms scala is so much nicer than java that I never want to go back.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/09/16/money-is-not-what-scho...
You watch too much TV.

Where's he going to get the money? That GPS he stole didn't resell for much...
I don't want to live in a society where everything needs explicit approval (whitelisting). Some things should explicitly be disallowed (blacklisting).
Common Malpractices - Eleven risks to system stability and reliability [pdf]
Well, yes, OK, there's no law that says you have to. But it is polite.
Which distro you think is the best to run LAMP stack with an up to date package manager?
The config file written in the subset of Python, the only thing users would have to touch, hasn't changed! (edit: see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1712269) He just changed how the file is processed, by implementing in C what would be certainly easier to implement in Python 2.4, (edit: 2.2) the lowest version he mentions.

If he insisted that users install Python 3.1 only to run his config script and they complained, I don't blame them. If he had users that haven't had Python at all, then I fully understand what he did. But then he can't blame distros and users for not having the latest and greatest Python version, it's just about the existence of Python on the target platform.
When a society socializes the costs of those who behave badly, its certainly true that those who fail to instruct their children impose costs upon us all.

But when society holds people accountable for their own actions, enforces property rights and maintains order at the expense of the disorderly, we can have a civil society and people are more likely to do what is right and do right by their children.

Why everyone must suffer this mediocrity and pay a fortune for it so that we can continue with an even higher crime rate than before its creation is beyond me.
Tracking down someone like this is great fun for a normal hacker I think.
I'm not totally knowledgable about insurance, but I'm pretty sure if you leave the car door unlocked (or apartment door for that matter), insurance doesn't cover the theft. There needs to be some sort of forced entry, as far as I remember.
Cool app!

Consider adding in settings support for the app. That way you could change account@server. This would be useful for people reading other deployments of the HN source.

Perhaps I'll just do it myself ;)