skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yes, that's the idiomatic way of doing it, when people complain about lack of map, filter, and lambdas, they're usually missing an opportunity to do it more easily with list comprehensions. Note that doing this with list comprehensions is pretty competitive with Haskell on a keystroke-by-keystroke basis; insisting that your lambdas MUST have the word lambda and the filter MUST have the word filter and that maps MUST have the word map is getting caught up in the surface appearance and missing the deeper flows, which actually, IMHO, isn't a very "functional" attitude to have anyhow.

(Functional programming, IMHO, isn't about maps and folds and filters anyhow; what those are are the tools it uses to gain composability. Python uses other tools for that goal; when in Python, you should use those tools. Ultimately, Python is an imperative language and will have all the associated flaws, functional probably does a better job of composability overall. But if you're in Python, you're not going to build a cute monadic combinator library that you can use in Python no matter how hard you try to box it about the ears with map and reduce, so you might as well use what Python actually has, which is classes and generators and list/generator comprehensions and lots of very overloadable syntax and so on and so forth. maps and folds and filters are the surface of functional programming, not the essense.)

(And yes, you can build a combinator library, you just can't make it slick.)

Reduce is the only one that is not clean in Python ("fold"), and the official word is to use loops. Again, it's usually not that great a loss, but the loss vs Haskell is greatest here. On the other hand, compared against some actually-functional languages you're still not typing much more; Erlang's folds are hardly any better than a Python loop, character-per-character.

accum = 0
for i in l:
accum += i

vs

lists:foldl(fun (I, Accum) -> I + Accum end, 0, L)

First class-functions are absolutely idiomatic; what's not idiomatic is smashing things together with crazy "and" or "or" chains (or a variety of other hacky approachs) so you can have the magic-goodness-conferring word "lambda" show up in your source, instead of (horrors!) having to give your function a name.

Speak the native idioms of the language you are in. A lot of people are missing a lot of the good things about Python because they are too busy complaining that it isn't something that isn't Python. It isn't functional at its core, but it can be a very powerful, concise language, if you work with it instead of fighting it.
Has anyone used the WebSharper framework (http://www.intellifactory.com/products/wsp/Home.aspx) designed for F#? It looks like it addresses several issues I have with web development in general and F# web development in particular ...
Ironic, because this is the same pc attitude that prompted that marketer to write the pages of bullshit that reddit saw through.

Didn't your pg write an article on this? When a group wants its superstitions given preference over the truth, I'll gladly be the first to leave.
what about aeron chairs? They "suspend" me in a good position, whereas other chairs cause soreness if I sit for long periods of time.

What I've noticed from years of "sitting jobs", is that you need to keep the hips, lower back firing/moving. Exercise balls helps a lot. I love siting on exercise balls, as they keep the hips, lower back engage. While sitting on my ball and working, I can rotate my hips in any direction, keeping my muscles stretched/firing. Even those "sitting discs" work well: http://www.amazon.com/FitBALL-Seating-Disc-12-Green/dp/B0011...
"The Masai, most Brazilians, gymnasts (but only when they're actually doing exercises) and anyone who carries rocks on their heads for a living, have an upright posture."

Somebody would give a shot at explaining why (most) Brazilians were singled-out in this example?
Using JIRA at my place of work I have found the problem that JIRA does not allow multiple people to be assigned to a certain task.

If I want to communicate with a team member and they are not the original reporter or the assigned user they will NEVER see the question posted. There is no good way of notifying a user that they should answer a question on a task without first assigning it to them.

JIRA with greenhopper is absolutely horrible and has caused many hours of frustration in attempting to get the tool to work to our standards and what we need from it.
Good point. For everyone who actually wants to check the receipt at the POS there is an option to also receive a paper receipt (i.e. email and paper). If the receipt is ok, you can throw away the paper receipt and keep the email receipt for potential future changes/returns/expense claims etc. Now this defeats the environmentally benefit of email receipts but is a way around it. Some retailers let their customers look at customer-facing till screens while scanning the purchase items.
A little bit misleading since it captures the period of Apple's largest growth (the last 5 years). Better to show some additional time periods, for example the last 10 years.
Scaling and high availability at a startup -- The Way Things Don't Work
You need a tax professional if you want anything like solid facts.

I mean, really the US tax system is so complex that there really isn't any such thing as a "solid fact" - It's law. Complex law. there is precedent, sure, but it's never 100%.

Advice from HN won't cover your ass when the IRS comes knocking. Now, a tax professional doesn't absolutely cover your ass, either, but aside from the fact that they are probably right more often than random people on the Internet, it does go towards the "I was trying to follow the law" bit, and will probably result in lighter penalties even if you are still at fault.
Ask HN:best examples of pre-sold customers?
What are the best examples of B2C startups that have pre-sold customers before building their product. Please include the number of pre-sold customers and what level of commitment the customer made (paid, promised, etc). I'm not interested in enterprise software because thats usually all vaporware.

Thanks!
> you post investment ideas which are then rated by the community. Because the community consists mostly of hedge fund analysts

With the premise that I know pretty much zero about that industry, posting good ideas to people with the talent and connections to execute them seems like a good way to get ripped off. What's the "yeah, however ..." or "well, in reality ..." ?
it takes around 10 seconds to load all the data, which isn't really reducible by much time

Is it possible to cache the data? Even for something like news, stocks, or Twitter streams, the data probably doesn't need to be absolutely real-time. Static caching at 5 or 10 minute intervals shouldn't affect the freshness of the data (especially for non logged-in users), and your page will load a lot faster (likely 1-2 seconds at most).

Look into a caching proxy like Varnish to achieve this. Here's a setup I use in most apps:

Database: read from slaves, write to replication cluster
Memcached on database queries (tune timeout based on query type)
Static caching in application layer (e.g. Smarty or Symfony caching)
Varnish caching in front of app server
CDN for images, javascript, etc
Can you send me an email? rob@3e-lab.com
Im trying to build an instant search for a big online retailer.
Mate, just send out a naked response containing all the static elements, then refresh the content via ajax.

The users will see the full page instantly, but all the data-heavy tables will have spinner.gif laid over them until they're loaded.
Take a look at travel sites and see how they do it. Personally, I prefer Kayak's approach: show whatever you do have as soon as it comes in.
I hope Southwest definitely upsets the dominance that the shitty airlines have on the east coast.
I don't think it is, in the same way. There are some languages and environments, though, that would seem very much like this. For example, if you were to reimplement the a linux kernel driver in the Whitespace programming language, it would almost perfectly analogous to this, except that it couldn't be removed by the failure of the implementor of the Whitespace interpreter.

I have no actual criticism of doing this -- I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do. Instead, I'm saying that aside from benefits like aiding learning (separated out by the initial comment regarding good:/bad:), it's just a method of creating the sensation of having built something without anything having really been built, and thus it's very much pure entertainment, like watching TV.
From what you've described, it'll more likely change the public's perception of Zuckerburg and Facebook instead of startups.
I can't say for other entries, I see you have still some open claims, and that you edited the first version of your post where "SSLv2" was presented as a MSFT invention!

Still, SSL as the technology really doesn't deserve to be at the list where MSFT is to be credited. It was fully designed by Netscape and the "less bits" (weaker) crypto was enforced by U.S. Do you know any more details about when and how MS was able to use 128-bits before Netscape? Or was it at the time when Netscape was already "mostly dead"? Can't that be the case with some other entries you give? I happened to know about SSL, that's why I mentioned that -- "wrong" was about your SSL claim, not about others.
This. We routinely have to decide which old repositories we can delete when we want to make a new one, and it's getting old. We don't want to pay $25 more a month just for a few more repositories.
Great idea. We allow retailers to include one advert per receipt. This advert can be transaction based, meaning when someone purchases a pair of jeans, the retailer can create a rule to show the current offer for a matching belt. Does that go in the direction you mean?
> It ran faster than our "good" Matlab tool by a factor of 10.

Could you give a bit more details there? I don't have any experience with matlab, but I tend to think of awk as fast to write code in (and start up), though not particularly fast in execution. (Roughly on par with Python, i.e., usually good enough.)
Do you have an example mail or two from that to see if it's at all something that is relevant to me?
I'm launching a site in a few hours

Performance engineering shouldn't be an after thought left for the eleventh hour.
I'm not saying sensational titles aren't great for marketing.

I think something like "My Thoughts on Facebook's Apps platform API"
I think your conclusions in the article are fair. I think the title on HN is misleading because it's a quantitive issue.

V8 GC is a well known concern in the Node community, but it's still performing well enough that Node is considerably faster than traditional servers (like Apache). The fact that Ringo is also faster doesn't make V8 "not ready" it just means it could be improved.

If I wanted to be contentious I could suggest that "Hacker News comments confirms that RingoJS may not be ready for developers" because the author likes taking pot shots at other frameworks. But that would be petty, wouldn't it?
They key is that "something" is happening. Mario Kart online does this really well - the wait time between races is extremely long, but they switch between 4 screens and several throbbers while loading the race, so it feels snappier.

Bing and Chrome do this well too - they paint as much of the UI as they can quickly, and load the heavier elements progressively.

Are there parts of your page that you be rendered progressively as the data loads? Can you render the page first, and then load the data via AJAX?
Assuming you're using the Bash shell.
Each firmware update they block the ability to run custom code (jailbreaking) -- of course they'll block this as well.
Apparently we carry rocks on our heads for a living?
TIL Why There Are No Non-Stop Flights from SFO to National Airport
Have you checked out http://opensource.apple.com/? A significant portion of iOS is open-source, pretty much everything is open below the UI layer.
How I almost created a national security incident in an attempt to get a job
Of course not. It was clearly not intended to be informational.

Neither was my comment.
Maybe put the data feeds into frames on the page so the main page loads quickly and the frame data can load as it comes in. Then use a simple progress bar for each frame.

Progress bars are not an optimal solution to this. Many websites shoot for 3 seconds or less load time because a lot of people will not want to wait.

Another tactic might be to prefetch the data somehow as soon as the first page loads into a visitors browser and feed the data to the user before he asks for it. If he does not ask for it you will burn unneeded bandwidth preloading it, but something needs to be done to get load times down from 10 seconds to avoid losing users.
After several years, my chair has gotten tired of me sitting in this position, and it's no longer usable when I want to sit up and get a closer view of the screen. One of many reasons I'm planning on throwing it away when I move out.
All that capoeira and streetfighting too. Must be hard to do with a pile of rocks on your head.
Atlassian Acquires Bitbucket.org: We've gone into the code hosting business
I find this merger interesting, having flown very little on Southwest but quite a lot on AirTran due to Atlanta being a major destination for me. I'm curious to see what changes they bring, however this comes as I find myself more and more frequently paying extra for JetBlue and other carriers that provide a bit more than baseline services.
Minor nit: this is not the world's first flapless plane. The Wright Flyer used a technique called "wing warping," where instead of movable control surfaces, they flexed the wing to change its shape and lift properties.

NASA has a neat simulator to show how this works here: http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/warp.html

Also, the article seems to refer all control surfaces - aileron, elevator, rudder, etc. - as "flaps." I have several hundred hours logged in Citabria 7ECA and 7GCAA aircraft, neither of which have flaps.

"Flaps" in aviation refers to movable panels that increase the wing surface area and angle of attack in order to produce additional lift at low speeds for takeoff and landing. Again, NASA has a pretty good explanation: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/flap.html
You should look into caching the results from the XML feeds in a database, as well as caching the output of your app. For example, if your app needs to pull weather data from one XML feed by city, and stock quotes from another by ticker symbol, consider using a cron to pull these at 5,10,15 minute intervals and store them in a database. Then, have your app always look at the database for the data. You can even cache these queries using memcached, etc. Then, cache the output of your app in a static file and serve that with a 5,10,15 minute timeout. Most of the time your users will get the static cached file, and if not, they will get a page generated from a memcached query result, or pulled from the local database.

You never want to serve up that many XML feeds live because when one of them is slow or down, so is your site.
Technology developed to detect anti-authoritarian phone/email communication
My normal work - programming. Linux / BSD have a 9p servers so one can mount them in Plan 9. The environment is so much nicer both in looks and operation.
> These are the likely prerequisites to a slick experience for their users on any distro

You'd think, but apparently that's not the case, as Debian is the only distributor who breaks rubygems when packaging it.
Yeah, but you have to curve your neck forward, which seems to cause it to bear the weight of your head on a curved portion of the spine rather than a stacked one.
The technical challenges of a successful marketplace
Actually, my memory of Desktop Toys is what was basing it on :)

I didn't realize it was that popular.
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The trouble with advice like this:

Stick your butt out [...] Stick out your chest
and fill up your lungs. Now tuck in your chin [...]

is that people interpret it to mean they should apply force to correct their habitual posture, which is like trying to bend something rigid back into place: it compounds the problem. Of course it's hard and often painful to do this, so we almost never keep it up (barring some sort of military regimen), which is probably a good thing.

What's really needed are ways to undo the rigidity. No doubt there are a variety of these. The most effective I've found is the Alexander Technique, an early 20th century form of bodywork that remains modestly widespread, i.e. it's not that popular but you can find teachers in most major cities. It's a curious, very gentle and non-invasive practice that is somewhat counterintuitive but in the hands of a good teacher (I tried three, only one of whom was good) delivers lasting results. I recommend it to anyone who likes to explore this kind of thing.
The author seems to think that financial reform has done anything to harm the ability of big banks to extract dollars from productive humans. It has not. Among other things, it has granted FOIA-immunity to the SEC, so that in addition to failing to regulate the industry, it can now ensure that nobody knows for certain that it fails to regulate the industry.
I aprove of this technique.
Managing like Dick is a easy trap to fall into for middle managers. They are given responsibility for delivering something, yet have limited authority. For example they need higher level authorization for their budget.

Also, they are dependent of their workers to make them look good. Usually they rose to a manager by doing a good job as an individual contributor, where their work was completely under their control. As a manager they need their team to get the work done. They can't do it alone anymore. It is not a simple thing to learn to give up that control, and convince others to work as hard as you had. Someone who has poor leadership skills and abilities is likely to compensate by micromanaging.
A trick my mom taught me to find a neutral posture: Stand normally. Stick your arms straight out at your sides, palms facing straight up. Bring your arms down slowly, letting them rotate naturally.
I'll provide some context. We're pulling in results from Expedia, filtering by Price / Stars, and we need to pull the query in multiple times based in min stars, and the price. Then exclude certain results.

Basically, we can cache, but it has to be reset often, as we can't cache price data for too long. I'm sure we can do something about the stars though.
I'm not sure if its worth reading too much into the acquisition, from a "this is going to change Southwest's business model" standpoint. Personally, I suspect that just getting access to ATL is worth the price for Southwest.
I went into this expecting the latest "show a message to the user urging them to update" technique, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I wonder if it goes into the territory of browser support a la cart ordering though.
The Chronology of Boeing Aircraft
I can't wait till this instant search fad is over...
Do you display someting like 10 entries per XML feed ? If you only display one, just get the first one, then in the background, get the remaining !
Cry more about IE6 please! Thank you!

As a web developer, I get a kick out of these articles. It's my job to support different browsers. If you don't like it, might be time to find a different job, eh?
I am allergic to IE
I personally think if someone has taken the time to write something more than a few sentences long, its a matter of courtesy that you explain at least in one sentence why you don't concur with them while you downvote them
Maybe you could turn this idea into a new monetization technique for content websites. Free for most, but IE 6 users have to pay to view your content.
See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1669409 (Pet peeve of mine.)
Pit is a command-line project manager that integrates with Git http://github.com/michaeldv/pit
Or you could just give them a 101 on web standards, while giving the main points why you wont support IE6. It almost depends on your clients. ie: Since most MLS programs are still in the dinosaur age, most Realtors use Windows, and good % of them still use IE6(I've seen the analytics), crazy eh?

I just wont support it. Update your OS/Browser!
Ubuntu 10.10: Review Shows Progress and What Still Needs Done
Doh. Fixed.
First test broadcast of SuperHD (7680x4320) between BBC and Japan at 24Gb/s
What Java is Missing
I would have preferred a serious how-to guide.
Do you mean the question if it was worth your while? If it was I would say yes because its a modern list that fixes old lisp problems, learn from the new languages and is pretty fast.
but the underlying problem is that IE6s are still sticking in big enterprise/workplace where they do not have a choice of uninstalling it.
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I do this as well, and have had the same experience. IE 6 support is suddenly no longer as important. I explain that I'll put a message up that directs the user to either upgrade their browser, install Chrome Frame or browse at their own peril.
Not talking about "Everyone". Talking about, for example, your best friend. Then you turn out to be a Russian spy named Anna. Suddenly your friend, who didn't care to download your photos before, now does want to download them.

More to the point, talking about changing privacy settings, and having the change work, where work is not defined as "defeat tptacek" but "defeat casual users".

The logical conclusion to "It is a bad idea for Facebook to give people the mistaken idea that any settings change on Facebook could ever take back anything" is for Facebook to remove any ability to set privacy more restrictive, ever. I doubt that would be popular.

While "you can't take it back" may be technically correct, most photos aren't being downloaded to repost, merely viewed inline online. There's no reason a user changing privacy to be more restrictive shouldn't expect that change to apply going forward.
Totally agreed. Just want to get an MVP out, and then iterate. We've been doing our best to take the time down, and we think we've got it down to as low as it can get, we just want to make the wait more bearable.
Governments and other big organizations REFUSE to update their browsers because they need IE 6 to support legacy software (I used to work in provincial government in Canada: I know). Spouting off about "web standards" (whatever that means to a client) is worthless -- they'll tell you it still looks wrong.

Tell them IE6 costs extra and at least your trouble will be worth your while (or you can skip IE6 dev time). It's not unlike paying more to the mechanic who works on vintage Mini Coopers versus new BMW ones; the vintage skill is more specialized and harder work in lessening demand.
And big enterprises are places with deep pockets. They'd happily pay the IE6 tax.

I'm not really serious about the idea, but the idea of taxing users of outdated software could lead to some pretty interesting applications.
Hah! I remember that, from back when I still _had_ a floppy.

Had a whole desktop GUI, TCP stack and web browser in 1.4 MB.