skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree with most of what you are saying, but never, ever is a long time. If I can be optimistic for a moment, I think 100 years or more from now, successive languages and IDEs won't simply be patches to awkwardness, they will probably help with many real programming problems significantly. Ask yourself how many times have you re-invented something over and over again, or the fragmentation of documentation and usage overhead of frameworks. These are just some. Computer science and software engineering are young disciplines.

Comparing different IDEs is often a matter of style and personal choice right now, but if there is ever a big milestone, many will know it and many will adopt it, but until that point I don't think being complacent is the answer. Who knows what black swans lie in the future.
I think every "community" has the same problems, particularly when the popularity rises. You got people trying to do stuff the "those guy over there way" instead of the "community way". Linux, OS X, and OpenBSD all have had this. Criticizing the community tends to illicit a reaction even if the critique is valid and educational. People stop sorting decent critiques from the trolling, which is a true shame.

Technical communities also have one really bad catalyst for really bad reactions: crappy journalists and the trolls that follow them. Apple gets a lot more of this than most, because of the visibility in the mainstream press. Heck, there is even a podcast to point this out (AMB). Apple communities get hit by people trolling on rumors and not actual product releases. My favorite was trolling on the terms of the NDA for the original iPhone SDK and how that would be the policy going forward ("No one can write any books on iPhone Development"). Given this, people don't have infinite patience and don't do real well sorting out the trolls from the legitimate critiques. Fact checking articles about Apple or Linux results in some sad thoughts on the state of tech journalism. Combine that with the absolute lack of proof needed, poor math skills, and the "we have sources" line which seems to be the catch-all for badly sourced articles.
Trusted Computing is a technology that was promoted by the Trusted Computing Group (IBM, Intel, Microsoft, HP, big enough for you?).

Over 90% of PCs are Wintel. Apple's market is a niche.

Apple's shit I'm talking about is similar, but different: we aren't talking about over 1 billion people (more like 50 million).

> Normal people don't install things

You're the one that must be joking.
I guess there's a subset of legal behaviour that easy to describe and remember. It's just when you are pushing the limits that the edges get fuzzy.

Also each driver only has to know the vehicle code as it pertains to them. E.g. if you are not a lorry driver, you don't care about lorry rules.
Indeed. I don't understand the problem the postgres people had with merge. I'm sure they have their reasons, though.

When people talk about clean commit histories in git, they usually mean rebasing / merging topic branches atomically like we said, though, and Groxx's comment asked about the rationale.
Why I eat alone and probably you should too
1 is patently false. See here http://www.mykindofphone.com/bring-on-bing-for-windows-phone...

>For example, if someone sends you an address in an email, the phone will pick that up and turn it into a link. Click on that and you are in Bing maps

Also, Copy paste in coming at the beginning of next year.

2. JavaScript is fast enough. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgvphQx9MY8 There's no HTML5 though but I fail to see how it creates a 'MS locked-in web experience'.
Cleaner commits: agree. But the goal of fewer commits doesn't usually lead to fewer features per commit, rather more.
Regarding FSM's, remember that you often can split them into several FSM's if they get too big. That reduces complexity immensily if possible.
Is there a transcript for those who don't want to risk puking?
That's great, they're making it even more convenient for people to give the system a try. The majority of people still don't realize that Linux can power a very capable and easy to use system for the desktop.

I recall that someone else was doing this years back - who was it? I think the company that developed Nautilus originally, Eazel.
"We encourage students to create their jobs rather than find them" - i agree it was one of the better lines in the movie, but i am not sure i believe harvard actually possesses that mentality. stanford? probably. hardvard? probably not.

i've heard a number of times (and believe) that the most successful entrepreneurs are often the B-student rebels that manage to hire the A+ students for their startups.
If you do not get an awesome job within the next 24 hours, the world is in a sad sad state. Fingers crossed here.
Things I Learned from the jQuery Source
This is called "procrastination."
>>I recently switched to using a mac after a long time of pc+linux, the most jarring part of the change was dealing with the community.

I'm jaded from reading too many language war trolls... :-)

What gets my goat are the higher prices for everything -- today there is a repair bill for my Mac portable which would pay for an ok Linux laptop... :-(

(Apple sell some guarantee extension, but I thought naively that I didn't move the portable around enough for it to break. :-( But maybe it is me; my work Lenovo T60 isn't that steady, either...)

I'll buy the argument that Apple do design (GUI, hardware and O/S integration) better, but I really don't see that much of a win compared to Linux for using a browser, bash and Emacs.
Twitter Predicts DOW
More Startups are Getting Less Venture Capital
Trying it out now. This is a great concept for trying out a new OS. Props to Stéphane Graber for providing the hosting!

[UPDATE] - Couldn't get it to load. It started connecting and then timed out. Maybe I'm just unlucky number 11!
There's a link to his personal site which includes resumes at the bottom. I guess he's hoping that the uninterested employers will self-select.
I'd recommend the Great Three : Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein
Numbers every computer engineer should know
Why, to this day, am I still mesmerized by Legos? Is it the fact that it was my first "engineering" like activity which allowed unconstrained creativity that ultimately lead to my career in software engineering? Or was it more mundane, Robinhood never looked so good until I made him battle a space alien...
This is definitely true of Postgres, where backporting is relatively common (currently to 5 versions).

Another cultural difference is that the narrative in our commit log has a pretty strong voice. That consistency is valued above individual details about exactly who did what to produce the patch. If you want the details, we have extensive discussions of what lead to a patch on the pgsql-hackers mailing list.

Our archives and threads are pretty well organized. We commonly refer back to threads 3-4 years old when discussing design decisions.

I agree with many of the commenters that it would be nice to have all of the details that lead up to the final patch. Maybe something like a sub-commit history that is generally hidden, but possible to mine when desired. Here my ignorance of git is showing, as I don't know exactly what is possible.
There's a lot of JavaScript games out there. The fact this is a game - written in JavaScript - is no-longer newsworthy.
Cofounder of Triggit on Winning the Venture Game PtII
The form validation error messages are interesting, too :-)

In case Andrew Horner reads this: yes, I'm one of the people (assuming there are more such curious folks) that filled in junk info to take a peek at those error messages. Sorry!
So.. its meta lego? (Made 'a lego... get it?)

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all night.
Namespacing seems fine, but to torture the declaration syntax as shown on the site in order to get the Java-like com.domain.package.class.method() syntax is wrong. Just use underscores in the name rather than periods and use the syntax properly.
article is definitely entertaining.

i would personally recommend a hybrid approach to the traditional job board postings and the 'reverse job application.'

i believe the best opportunities come from the ones you seek out. don't wait for job postings. many of the best communities recruit from within. get in their network! tell them you want to work for them!

they may not have a spot open at that precise moment, but when you leave an impression like that (how often are they approached on a whim?), they'll be pretty inclined to think of you when a position opens up...or they might just open one up specifically for you :)

-adam
So then will a self-signed certificate work or do I have to use one from a vendor such as godaddy?
I did a reverse job application once. I put a "hire me" link in my webpage, leading to 3 sentences about what I wanted. It worked--the webpage presented a small piece of software, and I was hired to write a bigger version of it. It led to my current job today.
I went to high school where there was an Edubuntu lab. Each PC had a local OS, but it also booted off of a server in the corner via LTSP, giving everyone a portable Gnome environment.

With this, a class could have access to that environment on any machine without having to boot to NIC. This has potential.
Susan (from Seth Godins six month MBA program) did something similar: http://main.susanhiresaboss.com/
This looks cool, but:

> You can now try Edubuntu online without needing to download or install anything. All you need is a computer with Java

So, I need do need to download something.
wait, it's the employer's job to dig for your resume? this "reverse job app" gives me no substantive data on what this guy's skills are, so why would I even bother? if you want a job, it's your responsibility to make the case for why you're worth hiring.
I don't think I really agree with any of that. The binary aspect of software workingness doesn't really matter... Code is just bits of information that gets massaged around, there's no reason why the tools to do so can't improve.

Sure the specific example of visualizing an arbitrary algorithm over all inputs might be a little unrealistic, but the point of the post wasn't that we need that specific thing.

I'm not denying it's a complex problem (grokking what the code does is hard already, nevermind grokking what it should do), but complex problems aren't fundamentally impossible, they're just... complex!
This is one of those things that will work once because of the novelty, but not again. Who really is willing to hire someone based off of nothing but speak? Maybe if he attached this to his work (cool things he has built?) maybe it would work, but all I know about this guy after reading his site is:

- He went to college
- He can't find a job
- He is a programmer

beyond that I know nothing, why would I hire him? Sure this might work this once because it's a ballsy "viral" idea (it's here, if that's proof enough) but it isn't sustainable which is what some people seem to see it as.
His resume: http://www.andrewhorner.com/documents/AndrewHorner.Resume.pd...

* For your level of experience, Everything should fit on a page.

* Take out the operating system part. They can infer them by the languages you use.

* Take out high school

* Create a section for awards and list them there

* Take out familiar with MatLab and Latex

* For each project give a link to a screen-shot or working project and ensure those links work

* Take out techniques, they should be able to infer them from the projects you did.

*The main point is show what you have done
Your calmness index is pretty low right now. I wonder how this will affect the market.
Submitter here: This is not my site! I am not the person doing the reverse job application. I stumbled upon the site and thought the mindset was something HN would like and possibly get inspiration from.
I don't think its worse, it is equally bad and root cause might be 'just world syndrome'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_phenomenon

For instance if Wintel is the arbiter to define culturally what a PC is, Apple disrupts this 'just' world therefore the hate.
Thanks a lot. I've tried to keep everything minimal.
An algorithm for self-enforcing post importance levels
"Programming on the other hand... code is either 0% correct or 100% correct. Anything less than 100% correct is broken."

I don't think that's true.
Anything less than 100% correct is incorrect, it isn't necessarily broken.
How do I know my program is not broken? I run it. If it produces the answers I want, I can generally assume it is not broken (with a dose of skepticism).

If it is actually incorrect, it could still compile, run and/or produce useful answers (it would depend on the input). Almost all of my code has subtle bugs that I have had to iron out at one point or another.

I know, I know;
What about space shuttle control systems or critical airplane frobnobdicators? Fine. Those aren't lossy and forgiving, but systems like that are few and far between. There is a large subset of programs that are also lossy and forgiving. (Which I assume the majority of us work on).

Were it really a binary reality, we would have much less software.
"this application turns this flat thing on the lap into the most efficient tool for writing that I know of."

Writing using your index finger on a touchscreen seems like a huge step back in terms of productivity and ergonomy to me.
I completely agree with what you are saying. But:

Without the Google Tools, the experience you would get on that device is subpar compared to what a device with the Google Tools would provide.

It's not the the (excellent) Gmail app we are talking about.

First and foremost, it's the Andorid Market.

I know that it's possible to install any .apk on a device, but you'd need to get them. As it stands now, most of the better-known Android applications are only available on the Android Marketplace.

So without the Google tools you don't just lose the few Google Apps (Google Talk, Gmail, Google Voice), but also most of the Android Apps currently available.

And it doesn't stop there. In Froyo, Google added the Cloud-to-Device API (that's the c2d I was referring to) which provides about the same functionality as Apples background notifications.

That, too, requires the Android Market, so a non-google-device loses that functionality as well.

This is just one feature, but it shows a trend of Google being willing to couple core API and system components to the availability of the Google tools, so you just plain don't know whether pure free Android will continue to be something you can put on a device you want to be competitive with (if any device without the Android Market can be called that nowadays even)
I'm dealing with some dirty code now, so this really resonates with me. But I disagree on two points:

1) Dirty code has "concepts that don't map to the domain". This is true at one level of abstraction. An Orbitz-like application is going to have objects representing flights and rental cars and hotel rooms. But a couple of levels down, there are highly non-intuitive search algorithms with all sorts of concepts that have no obvious connection to the domain. I think the real point is not to expose low-level abstractions higher up.

2) "Dirty code inhibits the formation of an ownership culture". A huge problem with dirty code is that it is permanently owned by the author. No one else can possibly fix or extend it. What you really want is code so transparent that anyone can get into it quickly and easily.
Thanks but I should have been more clear--this is not me. I submitted this because it seemed like an idea HM would like and be inspired by.
Because they 'loaded' the brand with characters like Mario.
Marketing and Video Games & Animation I assume!
If I remember correctly, in one of the SICP video lecture, Hal Abelson says that s-exprs are equivalent to the the syntax tree of the program and, given a graphical interface, we would be manipulating this tree directly. AppInventor for Android is the most similar thing we have today, and not surprisingly it's based on Kawa scheme. It would be a very powerful mode of code editing, if it wasn't centered around click and drag operations (and limited to android). I think that a modal editor ala VIM, paired with a graphical code-block environment and fuzzy text autocompletion, would be a nearly perfect IDE.
Alastair Reynolds "Revelation Space" series is fantastic. He also writes some great stand alone pieces (House of Suns for example). He is also quite strict about being hard sci-fi (no faster than light travel for example).

Also The Culture series by Iain M. Banks is pretty amazing but tends to be multiple independent stories within the same universe. He is also much softer on the science (quite a lot How does it work? Quite well thank you descriptions).
In defense of...

Long time Apple users frequently encounter questions like:

"How do I make the close button appear on the right?"

"How do I make the application close when I close the window?"

"How do I make the window fill the screen when I click the plus."

These questions are like buckshot on Mac forums. They're posted every day, despite the fact that there are readily available (by searching) answers, or good philosophical reasons why "it doesn't work that way" on a Mac.

I'm not saying that you asked one of those questions, but there are many similar, but more complex, questions that evoke the same reaction. Many Mac users like they way OS X works, and wouldn't want it to work more like Windows/GNOME/KDE/etc. This results in a hostile reaction when users come along suggesting the like.

This doesn't justify a hostile attitude, but it does explain where it comes from.
That's the thing. Deadheading pilots are not off duty. A duty segment for a pilot can include, flying (as pilot) from LA to Dallas, deadheading to Chicago, flying to NY, then deadheading to Miami and finally flying back to LA. Not a very efficient use of the pilot's time, but still possible and they're paid by the airline for the whole thing and are on duty.
Are You Making a $7.6 Million Website Mistake?
There's a lot of dismissive comments out there. The fact this a comment - written to dismiss - is no-longer newsworthy.
Hey, I see a job ad, I have to look for their website and try to figure out what they do, and where they fit in the industry. Why should a reverse job ad be any different?
I think CivicAssociation.net would have actually been a really viable start up during the housing boom for neighborhood and civic associations if it had been marketed as a dead simple CMS/billing system.
Pandora's Platform Play
NASA Ames’ Worden reveals DARPA-funded ‘Hundred Year Starship’ program
Still, two levels of namespaces are more than enough.
The Myth of Charter Schools
Nice post, but openings for awesome jobs are the scarce resource, not people to fill them.
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> I haven't used much CLOS, since ITA avoids it.

Interesting. Is it for performance reasons?
Writing in Red, and death threats?
A Korean social networking site,which started in 1999 ?
So,technically,would this be the first successful social networking site?
Nice information and links!
From this discussion,I am inclined to the proposition,UI have little to do with popularity in a specific country -It narrows down to features like game dynamics on login, and profile visits, which local sites seem to have done a great job catering to their audience- and that's something Facebook might have a tricky incorporating (Profile visits enabled only for China?? )
Interesting!
How did you stumble across it?
Coke is now wanting to reacquire the bottling business to keep the costs low. Last year Pepsi re-acquired its entire bottling business and runs it by itself.
I dunno. I was out of work for a year once and then settled for a few years of staggering underemployment. I even came to believe that I would never again be hired as a developer, that no company would look at me, that my resume was too weak and I'd never get past human resources. It got really depressing.

Then I met a guy who knew a guy, and they got me back on track. Now I have a very nice job with a very nice company where I do amazing work (if I may say so). So anyhow, there are eight million stories in the naked city. This guy's story sounds like my story. I wish him luck.
I'm a little late on this, but hopefully you're still lurking :)

You guys use a lot of different technologies to power Github. What are the technologies that have you the most excited these days? Are there any you think are over-hyped?
$this->$something
Danish.
I think some of the stress over this predication can be broke down in the "Apple lost to Windows therefore Apple will lose to Android" argument combined with "there can be only one / highlanderism" and a lack of historical context. With all this going on, articles in the class seem to be thrown into the link-bait category.

In 1985, the PC had around a 48% market share. Commodore had a higher market share than Apple. This was the year after the Macintosh introduction and the Apple II and Macintosh combined didn't amount to Commodore 64 sales or the larger PC sales. So all this Macintosh had the market and lost it to PCs is basically and untrue premise. It's not fanboyism to say a critique is not fact based, it is just good thought process. If you were really looking at this, ask how the Commodore 64 gave up all its market share to IBM or why (unlike most of the consumer electronics industry) a company was able to take 90% of the market.

This of course ignores the example of the iPod (which was done by the current management team) and the fact that the current management team was not at Apple from 1985 - 1996 to make decisions about the Macintosh.
I stand corrected on testing and XSS, even if it feels like you have to do extra steps for the configuration of all these things though.
It's one thing to not want to list buzzwords. It's something else entirely to make no mention at all of what kind of a job you're looking for, or even what kind of a job you'd be good at. I assumed he wasn't a developer of any kind until I got to his list of "I won't."

(I followed his link at the bottom to his real page and confirmed there that he is a software developer.)
Made entirely in Flash, so probably not targeted at serious developers.
I guess it is something for kids, because the tag line "Technology is awesome. Learning about it isn't." suggests it tries to teach people about technology. Maybe it will be similar to that App Inventor for Android they released a while ago.
I don't think Apple is interested in Disney. But a company that fits Apple and their revenue streams is Spotify. Many similarities between the companies as well, with focus on design and user experience rather than features.
You are right. You don't have to. You're (or is it your) probably don't have the time for it, cause u have a pile of resumes that u need to go through and filter out the keywords... If I came across this link and I was hiring, I would be interested to know more.. Why? Cause I am intrigued.. Cause the person stood out for me... The approach is creative, unique and definitely ballsy... Should all of that suggest that the candidate is worth the position.. of course not.. but he proved that he can be unique and exercise creativity, I would want to know more, while leaving the task of filtering out the keywords from the resumes to recruiters who don't know sh... (shtuff is a word) :)
Wanderfly has officially launched
The author overestimates the quality of designer tools.
> Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all night.

Thanks for the warning ;)