skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on that first one."
-- Mark Twain (according to wikiquote)

At the beginning, if the problem is vague, I open a text editor and start writing all of my thoughts about it. I try to keep the file as free-form as possible (I assume no one else will ever read it) and get down concerns about the problem, design decisions, observations, and anything else that comes to mind. I also write down exactly what the first step(s) will be. I think this technique works for a number of reasons, but especially because putting the project in front of my eyes on the computer screen -- even if it's just in the form of a quick brain-dump in a text editor -- gives me a massive motivation boost and a feeling of momentum.

Staying motivated after a concrete task list has precipitated is a different problem, which I also try to solve with record-keeping. I obsessively maintain a hierarchy of the tasks I plan to complete, and then check them off as I go. When I can become a machine that just walks the hierarchy and performs the tasks, I find that it sidesteps the emotional mechanism that otherwise makes me procrastinate. I used to store the hierarchy as a text file, but this year I've been writing a tool that provides a) native support for this type of data, and b) a keyboard-driven interface that doesn't make me switch away from the program where I'm actually working. In case anyone would like to try it out, it's at http://projecthedgehog.com (runs on mac and windows).
Cool. It would be interesting to hear more about this.
Me too, when I get bored of coding.
how many of you were personally interviewed or received follow up questions before acceptance or rejection?

Also, did anyone get accepted who didnt receive any follow up for the YC staff?
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Depends on why you're travelling. Ten hours of seeing the countries you're in might be more gratifying than two hours of being treated like a dangerous animal at an airport and one hour of biting your knees in a plane.
Maybe you can install a 1-900 number for one of your incoming lines.
$2 to $6. Wow I am taking that paycheck to the bank! Everytime I got one ofthose charges I would call and get it removed.
At your stage (you mentioned 10 years) a phone number would make a lot of sense, and the added service could be critical if you learn something. As soon as the calls get repetitive then you can delegate the calls. The only risks for you are that the customers really need the calls, and you can't scale to meet the demand.

Phone support is something people are willing to pay for, so it certainly can be worth the hassle.

So I think the delicate task is to manage expectations and roll it out for a few customers to see how it works and gage demand/value.
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It is great for building up the hardware side of nation, but not "software" side. The cultural advancement is lagging behind the infrastructure improvement planned by engineers.
I really like the way ShelfLuv looks visually. My issue is that the instant search adds nothing to your app.

It would be very cool if you expanded / changed to make it socially oriented - "Create your own ShelfLuv and Share it with friends."
In California, if a landlord tries to withhold the deposit illegally, they're liable for 3x the amount. I wish there was a similar penalty for monthly bills like this.
That's the click through ratio, but what about the click counts?
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I think FaceTime is VoIP; I was attempting to support the claim I made about VoIP.
This whole discussion is anecdotal.
Because it still isn't trivial to hook up a machine to a jack and send documents to other people with one button press. (Try setting up a copier that is supposed to email PDF's over the LAN and see what I mean. It's at least 10x more complicated to get working.)
There's still a matter of status. When everything mass produced is cheap, the wealthy will demand hand produced goods.

Why would I want something produced by a human when I can instead get something produced by a robot to within 0.001" tolerances?

Humans are very poor craftsmen; their only advantage is that so far everything else is even worse. 20 years from now we'll probably react to hand-made goods the same way as parents today react to what their 5 year old children produce -- admire, praise, and then place on an out-of-the-way shelf to collect dust.
It's not a trend. It's the very nature of computer science. COBOL was a way to program computers directly in something like English, without the need for a programmer to write all that machine code and manage the registers. SQL was a way to program computers directly by describing the data you wanted to retrieve, without the need for a programmer to write the COBOL to hit your VSAM tables.

There will always be programming work, because there will always be a need to formalize knowledge and processes - I believe it will eventually be automated, but that is an NLP-equivalent problem. It's not going to be solved with today's technology.

Perhaps a better take-away would be that such "non-programming programming" platforms should still be written by people who understand the processes we've developed to ensure more workable software, things like version control and unit testing. It's not like these couldn't be integrated with this sort of easy-to-access domain-specific tool that permits technically less savvy people to codify some of their own knowledge.
> (...) and then try the obvious algorithm. If that worked (...)

Personally, I would not bother to implement an algorithm if I was not sure it works correctly -- if it turns out to be wrong, I had wasted my time.
Yeah, I don't know why we're blaming facebook. Seems like Industrialization has been "killing the economy" for a while.[1] But I think unskilled labor is still doing okay... as long as you'll work cheaper than machines (which is why the demand for illegal immigrants is still so high).

[1] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3Hdobado20
paying microsoft extra for the experience I'd have got from the beginning is shocking... microsoft should focus more on getting OEMs stop this crapware fair and instead provide a great experience for their end users.

anyway, this a response from someone at Microsoft from a twitter conversation that started from this same link:

@xpaulbettsx: @timheuer @shanselman @samiq we are working to do this via perf requirements - slow down the OS, get penalized

http://twitter.com/#!/xpaulbettsx/status/26334503491
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Interesting observation that Facebook is something that is consumed with equal vigor by people at the top and bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. Tough to think of other products like that.
Agreed. Investment is the machine that moves the economy. Consumption is the natural by-product of people investing in their power to produce more value. When you produce value in the world, the world pays you for it and you are able to by what you want (miracle of exchange and currency).

I think you may have been down-voted because you forgot to mention that the investment you refer to is not investing in a 401k or S&P 500 fund. You refer to business spending on capital goods, new technology, entrepreneurship, and productivity. Retail demand grows with wealth. The worry shouldn't be on a future where we don't demand, as demand will always find new products to make scarce. We should rather worry that wealth will be redefined as having things, which will reduce a person's focus from producing to consuming. If we are all worried about consuming more and focus our effort and energy there, we'll stop focusing on producing and will then turn to financing our consumer goods (spending tomorrow's capital today).
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And then what? Does the voting system prevent repeated links from getting noticed much? Right now it sounds like I should fire-and-forget links without bothering to check if they've been posted; I don't want to waste people's time if it's already been around.
Sorry, but I just don't think I understand how this post drew such a conclusion. What does decreasing marginal consumption have to do with this? If the argument here that all those fabulously rich people are content with wasting their time on Facebook, I'm just not buying it.

Technology, while a potent equalizing force, is also a moving target, and it's one that depends on creative input much more than an infinite supply of cheap labor. Even if we have a post-scarcity society by 2025, I don't see any reason why the "elite" will not have access to some expensive, difficult-to-produce, meticulously customized product or experience that is coveted by people without it.

EDIT: Seems like someone changed the submission to point to the linked article. My point seems less valid now, but I would still maintain that creative activity will not be cheapened as much as Mr. Bookstaber seems to think.
The point of playing starcraft is to actually do all that "boring" macromanagement staff. That is a big bulk of the game, and certainly what separates players of different skill levels.
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Wow, Microsoft is telling people who already have Windows to buy a full retail copy of Windows 7 just to get rid of crapware?

Maybe there's money to be made by rebranding CyanogenMod as "Android Signature" (now in vanilla froyo flavor)...
> SVG is based on VML. Microsoft proposed it to W3C (http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-VML), and W3C developed it further until it became SVG.

Not exactly.

When Adobe and Netscape submitted PGML[1] for standardisation, Macromedia and Microsoft responded by submitting VML[2]. SVG was born as a synthesis of both, but the dominance of IE (which supported VML instead of SVG) and Flash (thanks to being bundled with Windows) meant that there were no decent authoring tools or meaningful browser support for SVG. Far from being a serious contribution to open standards, VML was a counter-offensive in the Browser Wars.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-PGML-19980410

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-VML-19980513
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Is it unreasonable to want to "change the world" (sick of that phrase) yourself instead of someone else doing it?
As a knitter, this sounds truly awesome. Seems to not work though. But I'd love to collaborate with you on this, since it's something I need as well at times and never thought to make (I tend to draw charts directly for my own designs, but far too many published patterns have instructions only). Interested in the reverse transform? Webcam integration for pattern reading?
I suspect he is referring to gay entrepreneurs. It was a bit of an over-the-top way of saying it, since it seemed to imply something specifically about entrepreneurs.
I think this is a very good point. You may find that there is more to be made selling songs/albums/playlists via affiliate channels, or like stated, offering pro features. DJ's may even be using it to trial new vinyls before they buy. If nothing else understanding the use should allow you to better tailor the site to drive up traffic if you do decide to roll out ads.
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Assuming he's not trying to become the target of a lawsuit, "US citizens only" is a euphemism for "we're doing government work and you'll need to have a security clearance".
That depends on your definition of 'easy to parse'. For C and C++, you have the #include problem, macros whose definition isn't known until one calls the compiler. perl cannot be parses at all; there are cases where you must run a program to find out whether x is an identifier or a fiction name.

For Java, you can take a function in isolation, search its source file for import statements, and tell me what the variables, statements and expressions are. C# was in the same boat, but with LinQ, I think it gave up that idea. Now,
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Well, the stereotype I was shooting for was someone who overarchitects things and who is really shackled to some particular set of concepts, methodologies, and tools; the sort of person who will go on implementing "factories" and "strategies" in languages and situations where they don't apply.

Personally, if I were tasked to explain that distinction, I would shorten (1) to "a good programmer" and shorten (2) to "a bad programmer."
Move to Australia and work for the Government... I know plenty of developers earning AUD$80+/hr on 2000hr/yr contracts (i.e. earning approx. AUD$160k/yr).
"If you live near a store, you can bring in any Windows 7 compatible PC and the Store techs will do a clean install of Windows 7 (you’ll need to buy a full retail copy, of course), migrate all of your data,"

This reads to me like you can either upgrade to Windows 7 or they will reinstall a clean image with your current license key...
I went to business school where some of my classmates were from "fabulously rich" families (multiple $billions). Many of them spent a lot of time on Facebook (I would never call the way someone chooses to spend their time a "waste.")
Wow. In this dark, dark future, everyone has sufficient food and cheap transportation, along presumably with medical care and other material needs, but the "economy is broken".

How is that broken? Because everybody isn't sitting in cubicles all day? Sounds to me like a description of the ideal end state of technological development - we all get to go back to being neolithic social butterflies, only without starving or dying at the age of 22.

Besides, I'm pretty sure this same sort of scare story has been told about every technology since the printing press - maybe since fire. We're still H. sapiens, and still haven't solved the economy and brought that damnable universal prosperity - we've just raised the ante. I think there's no need to worry just yet because Facebook is Changing Everything.
Perhaps a support chat service like Olark[1] would be easier than a phone number.

[1] http://www.olark.com/
I know they have no code in common. I'm talking about the fact that both were multitasking from the beginning. You're talking about specific early shell behavior. Nothing to do with capabilities of kernel which provided multitasking for two terminals at once.

Processes (independently executing entities) existed very early in PDP-7 Unix. There were in fact precisely two of them, one for each of the two terminals attached to the machine.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.156...
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I think so too. It always confuses me when I see companies look for UX and UI as 2 separate things. The more layers of designers you introduce to the process, the more likely it is for the main concept to be lost in translation. I like Twitter's model where designers work together as an extension of a Creative Director with skills in UX/UI/Front-end.
Because anybody can get something produced by a robot to within 0.001" tolerances. Therefore it looks cheap and gauche, and darling, you surely can't want that on your shelf, can you? My God, it looks like you'd bought it at K-Mart, dear.
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Knitting. Reading physics books. Building robots. Korean script practice. Dr. Who. Spending time with people. Cooking. Rediscovering ancient science fiction. Getting old semi-industrial machines running.
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Just curious what the state of affairs is.
I sort of read this article as "this guy's book makes no sense if you assume The Singularity", which I don't think we have a reason to assume. Yes, all of what he says makes sense if super-robots and iMovie9000 are really 15 years off, but there's no reason to believe that that will be the case.
Silverlight video, huh? I think this calls for a poll - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1754755
Lots of ways to interpret it, but stripping back the story, it's showing a technique to sharpen your skills and looking at a problem in different ways.

As you say there are definitely better ways to test the actual wrapper class in a real life situation, but showing the test suites one by one gives the reader a chance to see how the narrator approaches the problem and various situations are word-wrap class would face.

If you were set your own 'katas' and reproduce similar code from scratch or a framework, I can see it helping some people look at various problems in different ways and look objectively at how they solve them. Every person has their own methods all the same.
I don't need anybody to install me Internet Explorer 8 and Adobe Acrobat, especially when i'm gonna install Chrome and Sumatra instead. But other people posting here are right: You shouldn't be paying for that kind of stuff. It should be basic service.
I don't think it's a parody, because I can see what he's getting at. If the programmer had written the "simpler" test first, he might have stumbled upon the algorithm as illustrated without the false starts at the beginning, and then it would seem like more of a successful approach.

Then again, I'm not sure how you're supposed to know which tests are the magic ones which will guide you to a solution, and the author conveniently trails off without telling us.

(I'm also not sure what happened to first sitting down with a pen and paper and figuring out the algorithm, instead of praying to the TDD gods that you might magically stub your toe on it.)
takes longer to scan. Also the inconsistency, notice on the right margin he uses numbers to represent data, then later uses it as a control link to filter / edit data. It should only be the latter.
Your current license key is usually for an OEM version and not a "full retail copy." I understand this as meaning you will have to purchase Windows 7 again if it came pre-installed on your PC.
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Does anyone know the application process for this initiative? I've been looking around and can't find a damn link anywhere to apply for this.
"If you live near a store, you can bring in any Windows 7 compatible PC and the Store techs will do a clean install of Windows 7 (you’ll need to buy a full retail copy, of course), migrate all of your data, and then apply the Signature configuration to it (i.e., set it up almost exactly like a Microsoft Store-bought PC). It’s a great way to make your PC experience even better."

Of course! It makes perfect sense that I'd need to pay for Windows twice, once for each time it's been installed. How reasonable of you, Microsoft. Obviously, the crap that got pre-installed on my first copy of Windows was stuff I actually asked for, and not an inevitable result of your business model.
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I don't think this is intended to be a serious way of playing the game.
I think I made it clear I was talking about investing in productive capacity. Why they down vote I leave for them to say.

I think people know how much consumption is right for them and how much they wish to invest in their own capabilities. They balance these things all the time. So I don't worry about them.

The problems start with government subsidizing consumption like owning bigger houses. Many people actually got deceived into thinking buying such houses was the way to make money. And everything not subsidized must get more expensive
Did I understand this correctly? When you buy any PC with crapware on it at $discounter, you can go to that Microsoft store, buy another, possibly non-upgrade, license of Windows and they install that?

So in turn, MS gets to sell two licenses (the oem and the end-user one), the crapware vendor gets paid for installing the crapware and the consumer gets a clean windows installation for more than twice the price. Awesome deal. Yes.

I know why I stopped using Windows machines

Edit: also, it's debatable whether Acrobat Reader doesn't also qualify as crapware, when you consider it's recent security history and the fact that there are alternatives around (which, unfortunately, isn't true for flash player)
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sounds interesting. care to share more?
GazeHawk launched with a phone number: we get very few calls, but I feel like it builds confidence, especially if it's a B2B product.
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Well now that they've fixed it, I guess I can say where I saw the error.

The error was on the Financial Ombudsman website in Australia in their online dispute form. The reason why this concerned me was that some of the information they need to collect included things like bank account numbers - so having this information sent insecurely to the Ombudsman was (imho) a big no-no.

I guess I finally managed to get through to someone who can fix it after I sent emails directly to the chief Financial Ombudsmen explaining exactly why it was an issue, with screenshots showing exactly where the problems were (I highlighted the appropriate parts) and an example explaining exactly how someone could use this information to engineer someone's account passwords out of them easily.

Thankfully its all fixed now.
It's definitely an MVP and I am thinking of some features that would make it really compelling.
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Thanks this is helpful. I definitely need to do more testing on other browsers. I'm not much of a Chrome fan.
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If your company is in B2B market then yes, I would say that phone number would definitely help.

Solid endorsement about putting phone number from a real business:

http://www.userscape.com/blog/index.php/site/comments/how_to...

I think Joel also advocates putting phone# on the product homepage.