skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Lisp is great but Python/Ruby are a great halfway point between C and Java and the purely functional Lisp type languages. It's tough to say whether you're better off learning Ruby or Lisp first. It would probably make a good PhD project for someone to compare the teaching of programming to first-time students with Pascal, Java, Ruby, and Lisp.

Anyways, www.hacketyhack.com is a great integrated IDE for learning the syntax of ruby.
Wikipedia provides a query api for accessing pages and links within pages: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Query Its very useful and I think people should use it if they want to scrape Wikipedia. At least it gives the Wikipedia guys a chance to throttle bandwidth if they need to.
Are you thinking of submitting your company to TechCrunch20 conference? Think again!
"purely functional Lisp type languages" I think Common Lisp actually has one of the most powerful Object Systems: CLOS
lisp, haskell, prolog, forth, erlang, smalltalk, python, ruby, c, java

I think lisp will be adequately enunciated, so I'll move on to the others

Haskell is a lazy, strongly-typed functional language. It's syntax is very close to mathematical notation, and it enables code reuse by not allowing side effects. It'll teach you to think in actual algorithms, where most languages teach you to think about how to implement those algorithms.

Prolog is a logic language. It'll teach you logic, and some of the fundamental ideas from that field. Backtracking search, unification, and other interesting ideas.

Forth is a reverse-polish-notation stack language that is very 'close to the metal' and yet a higher order language than C. Forth will teach you more about the workings of a computer than anything but assembler, and it won't break your soul like assembler might.

Erlang is strict strongly-typed functional language that is all about concurrency. Right now it's probably the best language to write highly concurrent applications in, and, as it turns out, most of the internet can be made highly concurrent.

Smalltalk is the mother of all object oriented languages, and shares with lisp the interesting concept of a running image. In smalltalk, everything you do is in a live instance of an image, and to deploy, you simply move the instance over and run it on the server. This also one of the first languages to have an effective refactoring browser.

Python is a dynamic object-oriented language that incorporates features from a lot of previous languages. It's got some interesting things and a fairly nice syntax. Take a look at TurboGears, Pylon, and Django

Ruby is a dynamic object-oriented language (lisp + perl) that is (like lisp) all about metaprogramming. Ruby has also got an interesting framework that is becoming notorious, Rails, which makes OR mapping and quite a few other things brain-dead easy. If you get into the internals of rails, you'll learn a lot about metaprogramming.

C is The Language. If it has to be fast, small, and close to the metal, C is the go to language (no pun intended) There are a lot of situations where you'll end up needing to rewrite in C if you hit performance problems, so knowing some C will let you squeeze about an order of magnitude of performance out of things. Plus, you can start to understand drivers for your hardware here.

Java is less about the language and more about the IDEs. With the possible exception of Smalltalk, Java has the best IDEs and refactoring software. This is the kind of thing that most languages should have, but don't.

Anyway, this is kind of just a menu, but if you learn three or four of these, you'll be well on your way to deciding which one suits your style.
+1 for python.
Why? excellent docs, excellent libraries, excellent books, flexible language thats easy to learn.
Sorry, I meant languages that actually allow for functional programming, not languages that are exclusively that way.
VentureBlog: The Widget Economy
News.YCers at RailsConf?
Are any news.YCers here at RailsConf? I met one yesterday and was hoping to catch up with others if they are here.
Thats actually going to be at www.hacketyhack.net.
Agreed.

But, shouldn't we be asking the poster "why"? If the "why" is because he wants to be good at programming, then I would suggest that he first does some light c, a tiny bit of assembly, and a get a basic understanding of FP languages and the insanity of advanced OO in java.

In the end though, be sure you are using Python. Heck, even if you get bored along the way, throw some python in.

A [Warning] though: python will spoil you. Good luck going back to a more verbose, rigid language, should you be forced to.
This kind of question is difficult for any of us to answer. First of all, this is a subject I have no experience in, so I can't comment on how "fair" your numbers are. I'll only offer general advice about negotiations.

You and your friend are about to form a business relationship. Therefor: really try to understand his opinion of fair. If both of you can not be happy, then forget it and move on. Does he really offer something worth 50% of your company? It seems to me that high-tech is a very competitive industry, if you have something good, typically, you will find investors.

Personally, I do not like rewarding people based on the number of VC dollars brought in. Reward him for actual work. Say that he will be paid X shares/hour, plus some start-up bonus. BTW - Rewarding people for sales, is a different story.
Read COncepts, Techniques, and models of computer programming.

You will get a taste of all these languages/paradigms, and in addition, others like concurrent programming etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Techniques-Models-Computer-Programming/dp/0262220695
Your title is broad but here you say you want to do web development. Many of the people here are interested in programming for programming's sake, so a lot of the advice will be computer sciency. That's great, but if you just want to make stuff you can safely skip theory for now and get your hands dirty producing real stuff and fill in the gaps over time.

The key is to learn best practices of whatever language you choose. Don't learn bad habits. Read the authoritative books and don't take short-cuts. Don't be the guy writing code people cry at having to maintain. Avoid "cargo cult" programming, where you just paste code you find into your programs without fully understanding it. I recommend never pasting at all in fact. At the very least re-type everything as you're learning and try to understand it as best you can.

You can safely skip haskell, lisp, prolog, and all those languages you will never get friends to help you with, many books to read, or libraries to leverage. At least until you've got enough experience to be mostly independent of assistance.

With the use of best practices it doesn't really matter if you choose: Ruby, Perl, Python, or PHP. I'd ignore Java because it has so many training wheels, and the others don't. These can all work extremely well for web development and anyone who says different is selling something. The Truth™ is that Perl5 is the best and Perl6 will make them all obsolete :-)
Perl Golf Apocalypse
Great to see Perl is coming back into vogue in these kinds of conversations. It's gotten a bad rap for a while, because it's so easy to write really messy and ugly code...but it's also extremely expressive, and contains more functional constructs than even Ruby or Python. Perl 5 didn't get objects right, but they aren't awful (not nearly as big and clunky as Java/PHP). Perl 6 really will be a killer. I watched Audrey Tang's recent video about it, and it was just astounding how far they plan to leap with Perl 6...I must have known it was coming, since I read the apocalypses years ago, but seeing the example code blew me away. It's still a pretty good learning language, and an unbeatable "get things done" language because of CPAN, but if pressed I would have to recommend Ruby or Python for first time programmers.
I was thinking it was Markus Frind from PlentyOfFish, but the writing doesn't seem to match his usual style. Anyone know who that is?

I think it's a pretty big risk giving those guys lots of details anyway. Jason Calacanis is on the team and as much as I really like that guy (unlike many others) he does like to talk about the secrets he knows. We can't be sure some bad guy won't get access to one of the reviewers email accounts either.
obvious.
Good bye Microsoft!  MS employee and author of 9 Visual Basic books has now left the building (for RoR).
All of them. Because we are compelled.
With the best comments I've ever seen in a blog post.

I found that article at an appropriate time, for many reasons...

So, has anybody tried using a MacBook Core 2 Duo with 1GB RAM connected to a 24 inch dell fpw monitor and wireless usb keyboard? Is that enough ram for development? How well can it handle standard-definition video editing, since the hard drive operates at 5400rpm? Anybody over 6' tall who finds the MacBook keyboard comfortable? Can you run Visual Studio (last Microsoft product I hopefully will ever use) in parallels?
I dont know about actual numbers but here is what I have in mind when I talk to potential cofounders:
1) trial period of min. 3 months

2) vest the other founder's equity. Dont just give him 10%. Make it 10% after one full year - or 0% for any less.
How do you know whether he is working on your stuff fulltime?

3) Dont listen to empty promises. If he wants more, make him buy the equity. Say, value your company now at $200K. Then let him give you $100K cash if he wants 50%.

4) Ascertian a value for the work you have already put in.

I may be wrong, but this is my opinion.
I was about to chime in Perl but I read down to this. I'm currently using Ruby now but my first step into hacking was Perl. So I have a soft spot for it. If Perl 6 can live up to it I will not have any qualms hacking in Perl again.
Anyone up for a game?
that's a good idea. I hate the thought of all my old comments at YC disappearing into some black hole.
Why are unions weak in the USA, but so powerful in France, India etc. even though they are bad for the economy?
Reforms often fail in India and France because unions can shut the country down through paralysing strikes. Why aren't they able to do so in America?

(e.g. Calcutta is a dying city because of this - a Bengali once told me).
Now, you're going to hear a lot about how wonderful LISP (etc, etc) is, but remember that almost every _real_ application is in C (Unix), C++ (games, other desktop apps), or Java (50 million goddawful enterprise backends).
Web 2.0, Microsoft, and the Costs at Scale
Microsoft's new brain
what I didn't realise at the time posting this is that the Heather mentioned here is from flickr ~ http://laughingsquid.com/jpg-magazine-founders-leave-8020-publishing/
You only know Lisp? That's like only knowing gourmet cooking. Here, have some gruel like the rest of us lived on for years.
Yeah, let me know if you find that source.
...and Python and Perl.

By the time kids born today are in college, they probably won't need to know any special programming languages. AIs will intuit what you mean.
Twitter as coral reef
Coral reefs, the saga continues
Thanks for all the feedback! One more favor to ask
Thanks for all the wonderful feedback for http://www.mygrub.net , YC community! The response I got has really encouraged me to get back to work on the site. I've listened to a lot of the suggestions, and fixed a lot of the bugs that were pointed out by you guys.

I would really appreciate it if you could take the time to sign up and post at least one restaurant blog on http://www.mygrub.net . It would really help for me to build traffic and content on the site. Think back to the last restaurant you ate at and write about it! Also, if you find any other bugs or annoyances, I would also appreciate you letting me know. Sorry I know I've stooped pretty low by asking you guys this, but I figure what the heck!

p.s. I know that I'm still having problems with Safari, but I'll get around to fixing that as soon as I can find a mac to test on.
Wingmap flies new approach to flight search
What is the collective term for a mashup of startups
You can't keep everything secret and still hope for investment/acquisition/partnerships.

That said, it seems like they'll have too much info for too long.
Future of Web Ads Is in Britain
Mine's at http://www.tonywright.com (one of three founders for http://www.rescuetime.com). My co-founders don't blog, the bastards. ;-)
Internet Giants Vie to Snap Up Web Ad Firms
Don't Finance Anyone Over 27
Is the GNU Documentation License that Wikipedia is published under viral in the the same manner as the GPL?
Internet Meets Large Screen
'what programming languages should I learn?'

I'd rephrase the question slightly and ask, 'what problems should I work on?' and 'how can the language(s) I use solve them'. This is one reason why lisp is a compelling choice. You can create your own sub-languages to solve any particular problem.

But for lots of reasons lisp may not be suitable. There are lots of other languages to choose so pick the ones that suit solving different problems. There is not one "universal programming hammer" (though lisp is pretty close) but an array to choose from that may suit different types of problems.

esr in his faqto (faq + howto) recommends python, c/cpp, java, perl and lisp. Each language chosen for their abilities to solve different types of problems ~ http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#skills1

Tall order? Take too long? Then read on with Norvig and 'Teach yourself programming in 10 years' ~ http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html
Pros and Cons of Web-Based Mail
oktomatic
This seems a bit overblown. Do you really think that you've come up with an idea that one of the thousands of minds at Google hasn't already thought of and dismissed (or back burnered)?

This is a great opportunity. The likeliest responses by Google when evaluating applicants are (in order):

1) That's a really stupid idea.
2) That's not a terrible idea.
3) That's a pretty interesting idea. We should keep an eye on these guys.
4) That's a really interesting idea. We should talk to these guys and maybe hire/buy them.
5) That's a REALLY interesting idea, but a lousy implementation. We should clobber these guys.
6) That's a fabulous idea, and they seem to be doing it right. Let's buy 'em.

Check out the app here: http://techcrunch20.com/wp-content/Submission_Form_TC20.doc

(Word doc?!)

They ask for no information you shouldn't be happy to discuss with just about anyone IMHO. And they have a disclosure limitation section.
Douglas Crockford of Y! about Software Quality (video)
mine's http://www.sergiutruta.com
Excellent list, and pretty much precisely what I would have posted with a few very minor tweaks: Ruby and Python are nearly interchangeable. Time is limited, so have a look at both and pick which one you like. Tcl is also a neat language in some ways - it's even better for DSL's than Ruby is, and has the lisp like property that you can create your own control structures.

Anyway, jaggederest's list is pretty much the list to learn if you want a broad overview.
Learn ruby and/or python and C for low levels and/or create extensions for those two.
Oh these Levys and other jews :)
Looking for co-founder/co-worker to create site with people's resumes as an additon to jobitems.com
YC competitor: how TechStars was born
A good startup idea would be to scale this up so instead of flamewars, you could paintball each other over the Internet.
Oh. He'll be paying for the equity.
So assuming i value my company at 100k now, he'll pay 40k for 40% equity now.
Jobs' days are numbered. The only way to really motivate people is the chance to strike it rich.
Young entrepreneurs' advantage: ignorance
List of participants

# digitalsoap - St. Louis

# Eventvue - Greenville, S.C.

# Intense Debate - St. Louis; Jacksonville, Fla.; Sweden

# No Sleep Media - Denver

# LingoLinko - Philadelphia;

# Berkeley, Calif.

# Tru.Vu - Boulder

# Villij.com - Homer, Alaska;

# Bellingham, Wash.

# Zemble.com - Los Angeles
Worker's unions are so powerful in France partly because the five biggest ones were given a special status after the occupation in WWII (because they fought in the resistance).

But they aren't so representative of the workers (and aren't so popular either).
1 GB is more than enough RAM for development, no Mac would even ship with too little.

I'm 6'3" and the MacBook keyboard is too small for me, so I bought the iMac and have not looked back. The iMac has a 7200rpm drive as well, together with the gorgeous screen would be better for video editing.
A lot of money is the only thing that motivates? That's just sad.

I think you're wrong, though. If you're only going for the money, you're not motivated by what you are doing, you're just a mercenary. To me real motivation is someone who is passionate and loves what he is doing, and would be doing it with the same passion even if it never would make him a dime.
WordPress Text Ads plugin - Sell Text Link Ads Directly To Advertisers
I think it's cool they funded people in so many different places, although in terms of getting people together to share ideas and have intense mentoring, Y Combinator's strategy is probably better.

That doesn't mean this doesn't have a shot, though - maybe they'll get some good people who simply can't pick up and move to SV or Boston.

It's not a zero sum game in any case, I hope they both do well!
Will YC fund non-American startups?
EarlyStageVC: Flattery Will Get You Nowhere
Interesting. In Japan, Starbucks does include "short" size in its menu, along usual tall/grande/venti. Did they think they couldn't fool Japanese, or simply tall is too large for Japanese?
Yeah, there quite a few now. Hey San, Auctomatic and a lot in the summer round.
There is such an enormous demand for this type of funding that I hope to see many, many more YC style seed stage funding companies. I wish there was a way to make the model work for biotech but I haven't figured it out yet.
Yahoo to purchase Bebo for $1Bn?
Yeah, when i remind myself why something might not work because it doesn't exist or work in that way right now i'm always being brought back to some advice from an experienced entrepreneur i met at dinner who said "your customers don;t always know what they want, but if you imagine what they could want - that becomes the standard for them".

I think this is true particularly when it seems that the technology is there to do something which looks glaringly obvious to you but not to them. This is sort of where we are with our product right now.
Brainchild?
Does he have startup experience? if he has so much confidence to pay cash now, you are lucky!

It sounds like you probably have a killer app. Can you tell us what it is?
Thanks for the response sharpshoot.
Would anyone know if there were any folks from India?
For newbies - 94 video tutorials which sequentially go through learning Ruby on Rails
The (Bayesian) Advantage of Youth: Why our lack of experience is a good thing
Buxfer are from India. I think they were on student visas initially but then switched to work visas.

YC's philosophy (from talking to everyone involved) seems to be if you good enough regardless of where you are apply. Visa complications are obviously a pain but if your get in you get in.
Geni: Earning That $100 million Valuation
I think this question really shows what a great community this site has developed into. Thanks for all the help!!!
Will The Gaming Of Open Ad Systems Slow The Growth Of Online Advertising?
as many as you possibly can.

so that you'll be able to pick the right tool for the job (nobody ever asks, "which should I learn,the hammer or the screwdriver?")
MacBook owners file class action suit over displays
Quantifying Microsoft's biggest purchase ever
Internet Increasingly Censored
Narrowing Online Market Focus / Keywords are key: Small businesses find pay-per-click ads can be economical tool
If this theory is true, that the advantage of young entrepreneurs is their lack of experience and hence lack of knowledge about what could possibly go wrong, then age is actually not the issue, it's experience in the field. So for older entrepreneurs (30+) that are entering the tech startup world for the first time, they would share the ignorance benefit (assuming this is a benefit)
I think it's fair to imagine that Google or Yahoo might put more effort into an area if they see some promising startup working on it. If for no other reason than to hedge their bet. I wouldn't be especially paranoid about it, but it's worth taking into account.

"They ask for no information you shouldn't be happy to discuss with just about anyone IMHO."

The big one is funding. That's not something I'd share with anyone just for the sake of it. Why do they even want to know? It seems likely to skew their perspective.
Elance Case Study -- Startup Review
I suppose you could also say that reading news.YC makes you a worse entrepreneur! You're learning the rules that others before you have held true instead of just making up your own from scratch.
What is Twitter's source of income??
Yes, which is why we need to follow Japans example and switch to mobile email. Free + it enables scale-free networks.
This is answered in our faq: http://ycombinator.com/faq.html
dupe from yesterday. Very cool though. I bet every investor in the world has seen this video on YouTube.
1GB might be enough RAM if you don't use Parallels, but with Parallels, forget it. Running Windows XP with less than 1GB RAM while trying to do anything intensive is torture, and running Visual Studio certain qualifies. So you'd probably need 2GB, with 1GB allocated to your virtual machine.

Heck, even that might not be enough for you. I have a MacBook Pro (2.33ghz C2D) with 2GB, and Parallels slows my machine down enough that I don't leave it running unless I'm actively using it. (To be fair, I tend to leave a lot of OS X apps open at a time.) I'm probably going to upgrade to 3GB one of these days and see if that helps -- I've read in a couple of blog posts that's really Parallels' RAM sweet spot.

In any event, if you're not sure, you can always just buy the MacBook and upgrade the RAM later. In fact, I've read that you can even stick 3GB in the MacBook, even though Apple advertises 2GB as being the limit.

As far as Dell monitors go -- I got one recently (3007WFP -- I do IT work for my father and get paid in merchandise :)). It works great as a monitor, but I've been having issues with the built-in USB hub, to the point that I can't really use it (when it's plugged in and the computer goes to sleep, it either immediately wakes it or causes a kernel panic a large percentage of the time).
Kid is a good deal more credible than most of the Web 2.0 guys I've listened to. He has a MUCH better idea as well.
This is a great article; why was it killed?
It was to a story on boingboing that linked to this. Someone else later submitted the original.
VibeAgent is Hiring!
birdseed?
Create applications that work like Video games
Damn, you're right. I'm outta here! :)
This works when you want to revolutionize a field, but a lot of the web is much more incremental. Experience should be an asset. Look at Jobs.
The world is not a bag of marbles and it didn't change over night.

Making something people want involves two main constraints: the making and the people.

Human nature has remained constant for thousands of years (read some of the Latin or Greek or Chinese classics and you'll likely agree).

The art of 'making' is shifting faster but perhaps not as fast as some people try to make it seem. Lisp is a 50 year old technology and it's still viable today. The Internet is 45 year old technology and we're still only beginning to realize its potential.

If you are a smart, flexible person doing something you love "experience" will only make you more effective.
"Haskell enables code reuse by not allowing side effects"

As an onlooker, I wonder: is reuse in Haskell fundamentally better than reuse in another language where the programmer avoids (or clusters) side-effects?