skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Good points here. Which is why HN is oriented toward startups with Tier 1 engineers. PG and his cofounders invented the web app, using a combination of old tech (lisp) and new (the internet).

There are plenty of other forums and sites to read about conventional tech. HN is where I find the bleeding edge. 90% of it is just fascinating. But the other 10% offer tantalizing possibilities for making something novel, which is to say: solving an unsolved problem.

“How to Become a Hacker” puts it plainly: no problem should have to be solved twice. Drudgery is evil. And by those axioms, a ‘Hacker’ is just uninterested in old solutions to old problems. We need to live in the future so that we can build the future. Although HN’s content has suffered over the last 5 years with the influx that accompanied a wider awareness of startups, it still is the best place I know of to dip your toes into the various futures we may one day encounter.

Having said that, lately I’ve found that Google Scholar is often more thought-provoking. If only there was a HN for Google Scholar.
How would one go about implementing user scoped autoincrement fields efficiently in modern databases anyway? Triggers?
Shaving without shaving cream or gel feels like trying to rip my face off, and I end up cutting myself and getting nasty razor burn. I think it really depends on the composition of your facial hair.
> but Java has a lot of mistakes baked into the language and interfaces that can't be removed without potentially breaking a lot of stuff

Absolutely true, but so does C#. In the end it turned out that .NET's reified generics were a mistake (which makes language interop on .NET painful), and more recently async/await.
He should define 'proficient' and 'coding' because there is a lot to unpack in that sentence.

Anyway, this guy is making my job safer :)
True. BUT most people need some kind of structured teaching environment. They need to be nudged to move forward. Or else most people fall into the hole of never learning because they find the subject too hard or dull to move forward.
I wish anyone that preaches that you don't need a four-year degree would also make sure to point out that very few people have the self-control to follow through when they have to do it on their own.
The fire started on the ground.
Would be cool to have git for databases.

"oh no! our migration deleted columns without re-representing that data in the new manner, and our users have already done changes to the database so we can't simply restore from a backup!"

quick!

dbgit checkout -b fixed-migration before-original-migration
# *run fixed migration*
dbgit rebase --onto fixed-migration after-original-migration master

day saved!

If only it were so simple.
I'd be inclined to believe it was ignored because of this effort.
They really can't. It's very rare for a scrappy human rights NGO to even have an IT person. Access to IT skills are largely via auditors/consultants who rove around, doing it close to pro bono. Those consultants in turn try to maximize the good they do and spread it around, and that's how advice like this happens. It's basically IT field medicine. What you're suggesting is the equivalent of a top-grade operating room with attendant staff.

Disclaimer: I do volunteer work in a human rights NGO. We interview North Korean refugees about execution and burial sites and record the data in a GIS and incident database. I'm also a Linux desktop developer, and help them run their IT. But I've rarely seen this anywhere else.
For Java projects, the most common one tends to be Flyway, in my experience. There's also Liquibase that I've heard of, but never used.

Flyway is okay in my experience. Can't complain about it, but I can't praise it either, it just does what you'd expect.
Thank you for writing this up. The computing world needs more of these history articles.
I was interviewed a couple weeks back and given a FizzBuzz test. It started out normal, like the traditional FizzBuzz test, but then progressed past the "too easy" stage. They asked to design the program in a way that the rules were custom and the only rule that was always defined is that if all other rules don't match then the current number is printed. It wasn't difficult but it allowed for conversation as well as indicating deeper knowledge.
Cats are fecund in captivity but there are not a lot of places for large cats to live where they don't conflict with humans.

Cats, dogs, and many carnivores have large litters but high mortality of young animals so they are able to locally explode their population in response to the availability of food. Thus if you feed them you can get a lot of them quickly.
What’s he hold period? 45 days? Seems like the $79b investor got a 10% haircut.
And the "standard" is written entirely by Google, and soon to be released in Chrome. The W3C and IETF are so thoroughly captured as to be little more than two small technical documentation groups at Google. It's the old Microsoft playbook, disguised at the expense of two decreasingly-credible industry standards bodies.
>Honestly, I wonder how much of this goes back to GvR's handling of Python 3.

The on-going Python3 transition is why I decided to make the leap to either the Java or C# space. I chose C# since I'm as interested in applications (a core C# strength IMHO) as I am backend (Java dominated, but .Net is also here).

Given the technical limitations of CPython, breaking changes and general lack of wholistic support that you see from the vendors supporting Java and .Net, I am now a very happy .Net developer. Otherwise, I really loved Python. I just wouldn't use it to build anything, C# for me and Java is a fine alternative. I don't understand the hate for either, they seem industrial strength and work well for me. I can also find a job doing either of those anywhere in the country or world. Python is big, but not that big.

Guido can be thanked for forcing me to review what was truly in my best interest as I moved my career forward.
I have seen some Excel files from end users which grows into a whole application. The users wanted more functionalty and didn't get through all the management levels to reach someone from corporate IT and just start doing it by themselve with the tools they know and develop from Excel to Macros to VBA to VBA with SQL Database (because they have a standard process in the company to request a new SQL Database and the data was to big to be just in the Excel file directly). And then the company have this whole mess of "application" which is already business cricitcal because a lot of other users just use it as the fastet way to get their job done and the person who develop it is the only one which someone knows to handle it and maintain the application.

At some point in time the original person isn't available anymore and whole setup will have troubles because of upgrades of the basis (e.g. Excel) or just performance problems. They are even consulting companies specialize in optimizing or migrate to new Excel version for such kind of applications.

The corporate IT have to pick up the users early to help them to solve their current problem or help them to be more efficient with IT. If nobody helps they will develop their own solution which the knowledge/tools the have.
> Working in big tech, I see a lot of volunteer opportunities to promote STEM among the youth because it's obvious that those CS jobs provide good salary and great living conditions, and people wanna share their passion.

Will these be the same people complaining about age discrimination in 10-15 years when their employer replaces them with an 18 year old with no college degree, at one quarter of their salary?

A pessimist might say that’s a case of digging one’s own grave.
First rule is: invest in something you understand.
Does fakespot work reliably for you?
Local taxis are perhaps only more expensive due to Uber burning VC cash to compete?

Public transport is barely used in the USA perhaps but that's not the only market Uber needs to compete in to succeed.

And this isn't taking into account Uber's many run-ins with local authorities, which are dragging on , costing money and have the possibility to shut them out of some markets.

From what I understand Uber's main answer to this is "autonomous taxis" but to me that's a long way from being a viable business model.
> On the contrary, he has always display a "privacy is dead" mentality.

Except for when it came to his own privacy, which he spent tens of millions of dollars protecting.
But is necessary to get a hiring manager to care about you (I know there are many exceptions but generally this holds).
Being a fellow Indian I am also facing the similar issue, I have been actively searching for remote work, facing the similar problems and haven't been able to pin point the cause.

I don't spam and don't use generic scripts, I invest time in applying so it's more painful. I also have hard time showing my work with majority of my work being propriety in nature.

After going through thread, going forward when applying I will also explicitly mention that I absolutely don't have a problem with the timings and maybe attach a voice clip also.
> suggestion that calling a macro "select" with the obvious complete breakage under unix would be fine.

There are lots of API's in the world; you can't ponder about all of them when naming a macro. How do you know the next system vendor doesn't have a choose function? Or if not the next system vendor, then some third party library or module you'd like to use or whatever.

POSIX doesn't reserve the select identifier for use as a macro, unless the header file is included which defines it. It is not "complete breakage", and there are workarounds in that situation, one possibility being:

#undef select
#define whatever mill_choose_init___

The breakage only happens for code that uses either the select macro or the select function, if the headers are included in the proper order: the system headers first, then libmill.h. I.e. this by itself doesn't cause a problem (except in the improble case that <sys/select.h> defines a select macro):

#include <sys/select.h>
// #undef select at worst!
#include "libmill.h" // with #define select macro

This does cause a problem, 100%:

#include "libmill.h" // with #define select macro
#include <sys/select.h>

But you should never do that: do not include local headers before system or third-party headers, unless you're sure they don't define any macros.

There is also no problem if the rest of the file uses the select macro. The only issue arises if the rest of the file wants to use the select function, and then we put in a workaround. You're not going to call the select function in hundreds of places, where you also need the libmill header.

TL;DR: it's not anywhere near a "nightmare".

Moreover, libmill defines a few macro with short names. Conceivably #define end could be a problem, as well as #define in(..) and #define out(...).

For instance if we have a "range.h" which has this:

struct range {
int beg;
int end;
};

and we do this:

#include "libmill.h"
#include "range.h"

then libmill's end macro will screw up the struct range declaration, not to mention any place where we use end as an identifier. It's not an uncommon local variable name, like for pointers pointing to the end of a memory range.
> a way to convert most of my state machine into sequential code

Isn't that the norm for state machines in C?

while (cont) {
switch (v) {
case S_STOP:
cont = 0;
break;
...
}
}

Or are you talking about inlining sequences of transitions into eachother? I've been avoiding core.async so I don't really know what it does that has to do with this.
How does implementing a binary search show any of the qualitative attributes that were mentioned?
It's indisputable that 1.) more people looking for programming work will lower salaries and 2.) we are seeing an increase in people seeking these jobs, and 3.) big tech companies are investing in code camps and young adult CS education. Regardless of whether people volunteering to share their passion (a motive I don't doubt for a minute), there's no way this shakes out as anything but a boon for, say, Google, and a net loss for programmers in general. And I don't mean protectionist oldheads who are already pulling down 6 figures, I mean everyone. A kid learning to code will not get salary he was promised in a decade.
Markup languages for a GUI where isn't needed is a pain because you have a source of indirection when you could just pass the data that the UI library wants directly. Why have a separate text representation and if it must be there, why HTML and CSS? Json would allow you to give the information directly instead of using the convoluted rules of a system that has evolved over decades?

A text language that isn't just values being passed creates new rules and an opaque layer when it is completely unnecessary.

I don't know why Qt takes 50MBs or more for hello world or why anyone would use electron at all. At least Qt will run fast and not have lag and latency. Electron is just the worst of all worlds unless all someone knows is JavaScript.
It's based on the fact that print articles are typically a set size based on a semi-standardised page layout which only allows a certain number of words per page.

Editors plan print magazines on something called a flat plan, which is a mockup of the project with page numbers, ad content, and content spaces of x pages each, which translate to specific word counts.

Writers - often freelancers, but not always - are assigned one or more of the content pieces to write.

Content spaces are typically made of a small number of predefined article/feature templates. Each template has specific requirements for headings, main content, boxes, pull quotes, diagrams, photos, and/or screen grabs for certain kinds of work, captions, and so on. Each item type has its own separate word count.

Being able to write to a template is a very useful talent. It means someone on the editorial team doesn't have to add extra words to fill in a gap, or make significant cuts to force a piece to fit on the page.

It's less relevant in content marketing, where you get points for hitting keywords over and over, something something SEO etc.
No it isn't. It leads to fragmentation of the platform, and pretty soon you'll start seeing "Works best in Chrome!" tags on websites, because developers are too lazy to implement fallback solutions where <portal> (or whatever other proprietary extension) isn't supported.
> A safety razor shouldn't be any more likely to cut your face than a cartridge one.

That is inaccurate. Safety razors will absolutely cut the heck out of you if you get the angle wrong (and everyone's face is different). I have this one spot that my DE cut half a dozen times before I figured out the correct direction and angle, a cartridge blade never cut it. It takes years to master a DE.

You also need much better lather due to the sharpness of DE blades, otherwise the razor burn will be significantly worse. If you just grab some cheap generic shaving foam from a retailer you're going to have a bad time.

I ultimately gave up my DE after using it for a year. Super close shave. Cheap. But it turned a 10 minute mindless chore into a 20+ minute careful one. Each to their own but pass.
But if the existing investors thought that Uber will win if they only just piss away a bit more money, they would have dumped the money in rather than let the stock go to the public.
There are no mountains or rivers. There are only valleys. Some are bigger.
I don't find any reason to believe this is inherently problematic. The federal funds rate is ~2.5%, and inflation is ~2.0%, so the real interest rate is approximately 0.5%.

America's current debt-to-GDP ratio is not unprecedentedly high by any means. What is slightly concerning is that our debt-to-GDP ratio is increasing even though the economy is relatively strong.
People said the same about JavaScript. Probably C too.

Easier development = more developers.
Fenix sounds neat, I hadn't heard of it. Thanks.

I have no issues whatsoever with the speed of Firefox on mobile. I also prefer to support a non-chromium browser.
The problem with crack isn't the cocaine it's the format. Crack is the chemical equivalent of a freemium game, no buy-in and once a user's involved they only pay a few bucks for each subsequent hit. A few dollars quickly adds up to much more than that same person would have spent on an entire 8ball if they were capable of delaying gratification, but they aren't. Console-type games that you pay more for and only pay for once are the digital 8ball to freemium's digital crack rock, addictive but not nearly as destructive.

Perfect Information is what the government needs to guarantee and regulate, not morality. Apps need to be transparent and honest and substances need accurate labeling and purity from contaminants. Heroin is a one-way ticket to pain and degeneracy and everyone in the Western world knows this; it's a terrible value that generally only appeals to someone who's already hooked on opiates.
There's fundamental reasons why programmer compensation is high. It's hard to replace the work of one good programmer with many mediocre ones, and measuring the amount of programmer output is difficult.

These factors lead to tournament-style compensation. Instead of paying workers in proportion to their output, rank-order them and have a compensation bump on promotion that is large enough to incentivize efforts to compete for it. If workers are risk-neutral, this is as efficient of a way to compensate as piece work is, and has the additional benefit of only requiring employers to rank-order their employees, rather than generate an objective measure of their productivity.

Professional sports is the best example of this phenomenon - no matter how many applicants a team gets, they can only have five players on the court at one time. NBA player salaries are not materially threatened by additional entrants. Instead, the additional competition largely gets channeled into making it harder to remain an NBA player.
what cobol horror stories?
Show HN: Web Extension to manage all tech abbreviations
I feel like Terraform would be a fantastic tool for this but never found the time to look into what it would take. Less so for complex data changes maybe (or maybe not) but for things like basic schema changes certainly.
A quote from the last survivor off the plane says that the aisle in front of them was completely clear as they left. In other words, any delays that might have happened weren't actually enough to harm or kill anyone in and of themselves.
Also, the act of asking for those shares back could raise the value, creating a negative feedback look. Disastrous for the short seller.

Why might we see lots of shorts being asked to return the shares back? Due to the large amount of shorting and the bank wanting those shares for other purposes.

That's very interesting, are there mechanisms that prevent large shareholders like hedgefunds or banks from loaning out shares and then purposely pulling them back to create the negative feedback loop you mentioned? It sounds like a situation open to abuse.
> I keep seeing the “push for coding in early education” like it’s a new thing.

After your generation public schools started dropping all of the useful labor-skills courses. No woodworking shop, no auto repair, nothing was taught anymore that could result in a splinter or a finger-chopping.

The extent of my public-school coding education started and ended with cheating my way through math by programming a TI-82.
Understand a Framework of Complexity Growth
What happens when a raindrop hits a puddle
Grizzlies – In BC, humans try to live in harmony with the giant bears
This is such an epic, annual celebration of learning and creativity. Losing it would be a tragedy.

How do the economics not work out here? 100-150K visitors/year, each dropping (on average? $20 for entrance ticket)?

Don't they require commercial presenters to pay for their space?

How much does it cost to rent the San Mateo Fairgrounds?
Brand recognition is huge. It's easy on HN to abstract this away as a simple scheme, but your customers are entrusting their lives. Lyft and uber initially had to pay out of pocket hourly wages to get drivers on board. Yes you can pretty much have insurance a car and a simple app and recreate the service but there's much more in it for anyone but big players. And why would they try jumping in at this point?
I recently had to update 3 db machines with the updated schemas from one, and the data from a third. Then copy the finished version over to the first and finally the third.

Turns out Visual Studio has a 'diff' generator for both schema and data. Holy hell that worked the treat.
I missed that, thanks. I did say it was a cursory check. I somehow overlooked it there at the top and bottom of the main libtask page.
Once you write code, it is legacy.
I consent with you that many pros and cons are rather subjective and pros/cons depend on the specific use case. On the other hand, I like having a list of all these libraries with their supported platforms, license and a screenshot. This alone gives a pretty good overview of what's there. Not all pros/cons are subjective (e.g. having a GUI wysiwyg editor is definitely a pro for some use cases). Anyway, thanks for sharing your view and thanks for sharing this comprehensive overview.
Not sure if its state or federal, but I just did one in federal court as Plaintiff.

Mediation is usually off the record, therefore nothing said or done can be used against the other party. Mediation only goal is for both parties to try and or settle the day of the mediation.

You should have a lawyer present and be able to ask them all the questions if you dont understand something.
Sometimes it can be mind-blowing the lengths front-end devs will go to avoid writing a little html file with self-contained script tags for a one-off throwaway page.
JDBC is not JEE - it is core Java. Servlets are the original web-container Java spec, independent of JEE. Both are great specs supported by several stable and performant implementations - rock solid tech compared to a lot of the flaky stuff you find advertised today.
but when you buy a share, you are part of only the 8B thats being raised with the other 180 million shares, or do you have a small part of the whole 80~b valuation?
It's a very interesting topic and one that is widely debated these days as beekeepers face mounting threats from disease.

This is a good overview with some references that also worth digging into: https://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org/darwinian-beekeeping
To add to @aphextim's comment, California is also a "two-party consent" state. See: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law

That means (ignoring any other rules surrounding meditations) that to be legally able to record the conversation, you need everyone who is being recorded to consent. If even one person says no, you can not, legally, record the meeting.
Great example of data analysis helping drive improvements well outside the normal tech space, but calling this AI-Generated is a pretty big stretch. From what I read here, they mostly crunched some sales/rating numbers vs. recipes, brewing strategies, and blending ratios, then got back some guidance on what aspects were successful. I don't think you actually need machine learning to do any of that.
>a programming language that treats symbols as a first-class concept is indeed a rare beast

JavaScript

> Only computer algebra systems really attempt this

There are a bunch of programming systems (incl. computer algebra systems) on top of Lisp, which use various types symbol expressions.
explanations for success are post-hoc and wrong. otherwise we would build it into machines and scale.
For what use case?
They're not listing all ownership of the company on the exchange, only a piece of it. There's still other, non-publicly-traded ownership valued at the rest of the 72 billion.
Anecdotal but I've definitely found alternative transit when the prices were too much. I'm not going to pay $20 more for a ride if I can just take the bus for 20 extra minutes transit time. There's a tradeoff.