skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This only applies if you leave your profile public to anyone. Otherwise, they'd have to friend request you first!

It's the same as publishing anything publicly, people can run background checks on you and find it. That's life.

As an employer, I'd be suspicious if somebody's online profile presented a completely different (beer swilling, rock partying) image than their resume. You can't be two people after all.
thanks for the code sample. didn't know JS had a date object. then again there are lot of things I don't know ...
agree with most parts except for the use of perforce. most good programmers i know hate it, because it slows you down (as does subversion). git is the scm/vcs to use for doing feature experiments.
"Maybe I'm wrong about the semantics (people are free to vote the post up or down), but it's not fair to imply that rms, staunch, or I feel there's anything wrong with people who live in other countries."

I didn't intend to imply that any of the other comments were xenophobic in nature.

It's just a more sensitive area than anyone here would like to admit, and there are political motivations at work in the use of these terms, and by following the lead of xenophobic folks, we might be working for their political ends despite not having those desires ourselves. I'm actually assuming that the vast majority of people here are educated and lacking in bigotry or xenophobia, and based on the number of startups started by non-US natives in the current web 2.0 economy, more likely to be literally "off-shore" than most English-speaking community website contributors.

In short, I was merely wanting to point out that by using the word off-shoring, people might be indicating political positions they don't endorse (which is just what anti-immigration and protectionist supporters want). I don't really care what terms folks use, and I'm wholly non-PC. I just know enough to know that there has been a subtle shift on border issues in the US in a direction I don't like at all, and I know that language is a tool that the reactionary new Right uses extremely well. I'm not saying the word "off-shoring" is the reason immigration or import/export issues are about to become a shitstorm in America, but I can't help but think Fox News would rather I use "off-shoring" than "out-sourcing", because "off-shoring", in some Americans minds equates to "non-white, non-American, workers stealing my job". So I'll use "out-sourcing", thanks.

Apologies to rms, staunch, or vlad, for any hurt feelings. Just remember that I'm an insensitive clod, and I'm sure you'll feel better. ;-)
That is FANTASTIC. I've officially just wasted 20 minutes of my life. I'm definitely going to twitter that site... :)
The advantages/disadvantages for each language have been discussed here and elsewhere ad naseum. To tell you the truth, I didn't research the language decision too much; my rationale for choosing RoR is based on the fact that we have a R(oR) meetup here in State College, PA; that's why I decided to learn that.

In fact, the decision is not (totally) settled yet. My brother is a web developer with five years experience. He is pushing me towards php on Zend (PoZ?), a php web framework authored by the authors of php. For now, however, I am trying to learn RoR just in case he is not able to help me with PoZ.

That being said, I heard that RoR and Python (maybe on Django) is the best for newbies to start with as far as web dev languages go.
Phone manufacturers and wireless providers still do not get it. Real coders will do anything in their collective power to provide users with what they are being robbed off everyday. Instead of investing in locking software, they should be open from the start.
Whee, let's resubmit the entire PG archive. Free points!
It's mostly all been submitted, anything that hasn't been submitted yet is fair game.
Ah, but then you have to have a JVM, so "having Rhino" is a challenge. But I guess if you're not on a UNIX system where Perl, Python and Ruby are pervasive and always available (or a couple of clicks or commands away), then having Java around is just the same amount of effort. It also lacks "beginner" tutorials that are focused on the kind of interaction that you need to understand to build applications. JavaScript is a weird interactive model, because you are talking to the DOM to do anything interesting, which is a mess--it's really way more complex than beginners usually grasp (I have a hard time with it, and I've been developing in several languages since I was a kid).

That said, I think in the end JavaScript is going to be the world's most popular language for almost everything, including web applications. I happen to agree with Yegge in that regard. But it's still somewhat less friendly to learners than the other languages I mentioned.

Anyway, if Rhino (or some other standalone JavaScript engine) becomes popular I'd reckon that in a year there will be some good tutorials for interactive JavaScript, and it'll become a great choice for learning programming. I happen to think JavaScript is a very pretty language. A few confusing quirks (Function vs. function vs. = {}(); modules, for example), but overall it offers some great functionality in a pretty simple syntax and low keyword manner.
Lazy people have the best ideas. Lazy people always try to cut the process short and find the easiest way to do things. Now this is a gift and a curse as they never act. This is how we all get to hear stories of someone saying "Oh I had this idea n months ago. They stole my idea"
I see your point, but I think people just don't put those things in their resumes.
Have you ever seen a resume with:
I like to spend my weekends drinking beer in a rock party
or in the other case:
I spend all my weekends in church.

Of course that no one would go drunk to a job interview, but that doesn't mean that he/she doesn't drink at all.

Sure, you can't be two people, but many people have separate lives between work and home.
World's Second Unlocked iPhone (eBay Auction)
Escher's “Relativity” in Lego (2003)
Most of my other ideas (other than my current Virtualmin, Inc. business) were targeted to women. One a sort of niche-focused social network, one a video/photo dating site, and one a porn site (oh, wait...that one would have mainly attracted men, I guess...but everybody in the valley has a backup pr0n plan...it's what you talk about after a couple of beers..almost nobody is really serious about it, me included).
Unlike many of Escher's other "impossible" pictures (like "Ascending and Descending") , there is actually no optical illusion involved here. Gravity seems to be working in three different directions simultaneously, but the picture shows a perfectly self-consistent physical scene.
Damn you NY Times for your non unique urls!
NJ Teen Unlocks IPhone From AT&T Network
oh... I'm sure they got it long time ago. But your "real coders" make up less than 0.1% of their customer base, while 99.9% of market will look for something that's cheap, cool, and EASY...
As PG has stated in his essays, it's much easier for a smart hacker to learn customer support, accounting systems, marketing/blogging, than it is for a non-technical person to pick up hacking in a few days.

Non-technical founders tend to overvalue:

- their lovely snowflake of an idea

- their business plan (that it will magically cause investors to beat a path to their door)

Things imho that can be hard for a hacker:

- sales

- finding and/or dealing with investors (getting into Y Combinator definitely seems to help here, but what if you don't make the cut?)

If I could find a non-tech guy who can successfully raise angel and/or venture capital money, I would totally partner with as a co-founder in a second. (given a good fit, etc)

These people tend to be hard to find though (the Steve Jobs' of the world) -- if they can raise money, why don't they just raise a round and hire a talented hacker at 1% equity instead of 30%? =)
I'm pretty sure what you described is what he meant by brevity. It's not about writing less code per say. It's about adding layers of abstraction, which classes are, to shrink the problem space.

Comparing python to assembly, python has basically added in another level of abstraction. It's easier to translate a concept into python because of this. A good hacker can build up these abstractions himself no matter the language, but it's just easier and nicer to use a language that has the type of abstractions you'll be using already built in.

Once you fully trust your classes then they become like DSLs and you build your program out of them rather than the raw bits of whatever language you're using.
Point #3 ('Use succinct languages') deserves special mention. I've noticed time and again that writing small helper functions (especially new predicates) at my Scheme REPL leads to being able to express the problem at hand with ever more clarity. Also, a REPL with the ability to dynamically reload code is an invaluable weapon...
Directly from IM in response to an interruption from my boss about an error message:

"I suspect there is an issue with the actual input from the database. (Note: we're working with a test database that's sketchy in spots)

What do you want me to work on? Do you want me to spend the time tracking down that error or do you want me to work on "X" (that should have been done three weeks previous)?

Because I was thinking about "X" and my entire train of thought is derailed and now I'm trying to work on "X" and wondering what is wrong with that particular chunk of data."

I suppose for the non-programmer it sounds like I'm just being nasty over nothing, but that little panic attack over a minor error message cost me HOURS in trying to get back to the original program in my head so I could finish it. In fact, I actually had to go and FIX the error to get it the hell out so I could fully focus on what I needed to be doing.

Once I got there, around 1am, the code flowed like water and it's done save for minor debugging. I was in the zone enough that if my eyes hadn't been closing by themselves, I'dve finished that, too.

Management, I think, has a double edged sword to deal with. My immediate boss wants to let me do what I do because I am lucky enough to have the ability to put someone else's code in my head in the same way described in this blog entry. It means that I can go in and fix it and if there's a bug I know why it's doing it and I know just where to push on it and where it needs shoring up--in short, after a while, it's like I wrote it myself.

But he's also dealing with HIS boss, who is dealing with the bottom line, and his boss would probably have apoplexy if he saw me playing spider solitaire as I let the problem I'm addressing work itself into my brain, and would have NO idea what I was talking about if I said I needed to get the application "into my head".

Wonderful blog entry.
Google Transit Maps Shows the Dark Side of Platform Developement
This may be an advantage of design patterns: that they allow for a sort of brevity of class structure. You can think "ok, that's just the Composite Pattern there", and store it as one token in your short-term memory. Or at least fewer tokens. If your language let you, for example, use the Composite Pattern as a first class feature without having to code it every time, I'd bet your program would be easier to load into your head than one where you've got your own, new and possibly buggy, implementation of the pattern.
There's a few counter examples.

digg.com would be the most obvious. Kevin Rose studied CS at college, but it had been a while and he didn't really have the skills to execute his vision quickly and simply. So he paid a developer he'd met through elance 200 buchs to write the first beta of digg. digg is now the most popular social news website.

Outside the world of startups, there's a bunch of established companies that weren't led by programmers.

Microsoft's success is largely based on business acumen - their OS monopoly came from Bill Gates' ability to purchase QDOS and sell it to IBM.

Steve Job's is also a non-programmer - the success of Apple is his vision and the ability to direct people to achieve that goal.
Great article. I seem to have no problem getting a program into my head, its getting it out that's the tough part. Its amazing how many times I've had to go somewhere else after work but end up driving the regular route home and get out of the car wondering how it was I got there. Scary.
pg, have you found that those accepted into the SFP are increasingly able to get past the bad idea stage?
you cannot find time. What you can do is send them my way. my number is 404-gogmail
"... get posters from Demotivators and see if the PHB noticed. ..."

Maybe if you plaster them all over the window views or mirrors in the bathroom they might notice them. The only coy. I worked at that had demotivators hanging off the walls, the boss was a hacker. Most of the others probably would have laughed it off. My demotivators would go something like ...

Startups
It doesn't matter if you "make things that users want". You are all going to fail anyway.

Venture Capitalists
It's a spelling mistake. It should read, 'Vulture', 'Vampire' or 'Vegan'.

Programming languages
Why use just one? Try as many as possible.

Ideas
Old ideas never die, they are just re-implemented with a new website.

Web 2.0
It's the one after Web 1.0
The cost to apply is much lower to YC. I suspect they get a lot of bozos.
Linus on git, central repositories, and commit access lists
Linus responds to various questions about Git, development methodologies and tools.
You guys. We all know you are all super intelligent and well educated, but this is exactly the problem that comes with being too smart. You make things a bit more complicated. Outsourcing = letting a third party handle a piece of your production. Offshore = outside defined geographical limits. The expression is offshore outsourcing.
It's the Facebook Platform's 3 Month Anniversary
15 startups that want your lunch
Holy shit. I had no idea that was still around. Pretty spiffy for 1995. That was before tables.

I notice our pitch to galleries

http://web.archive.org/web/19961227091110/www.artix.com/how....

has a lot in common with Viaweb's

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/bugbear/how.html
I'm surprised that the NASDAQ even allows this.
You ought to let them have this one. I had no idea this existed myself.
They're usually pretty flexible, but that's because we try really hard to screen out inflexible people in the interview.
Ack, another slideshow. Can't they just list them on a single page?
Removing Backgrounds Quickly in the Gimp
After publishing an article about removing backgrounds quickly in Photoshop, many have asked me how to do the same thing with the Gimp. While there is no equivalent to the Extract filter in the Gimp, you can still remove backgrounds fairly quickly. Here, I will show you how to do it with the Create and edit paths tool.
> Google sure seems to have a lot of success developing apps in-house

Bad choice of examples. Google is by far the biggest buyer of small startups. They just don't publicize it.
I am not so technical, but I think ajax could help here. i hate it when the page reloads 25 times just to see them all.
"... this is exactly the problem that comes with being too smart. You make things a bit more complicated. Outsourcing = letting a third party handle a piece of your production. ..."

Your mistake is equating development to production. Making software is difficult because designing upfront and then expecting the result to reflect "what users want" is an oxymoron. Instead think "just-in-time" design and creation of a software product in very close communication with users.

'... total outsourcing leads to delayed and inferior products due to human factors and mis-communication ...'

The real "value add" here is being able to "optomise employee face-time" with your "unit profit generators" (users) through "space-time" savings of costs per "CSM" (cubicle square meterage), delivering superior "user expectations".

Outsourcing in this context is just another business fad. Feel free to insert your own business "Buzz words" in place of place of the ones inserted.
I agree with your view as well. I am an employer and if i had an option about learning more about the candidate, I think I would take an option to learn more. Since you're constrained by law about what you can and cannot ask during an interview, learning more about the candidate would be a great way to see how she/he'd fit into the organization. If you're proud of your MySpace and Facebook and you want everyone to be able to see it, I don't see why you shouldn't look for the person on FB/MS.
I'm a geek, but I actually like wearing suits when it's cool outside. However, I don't have the money for nice ones.
Who wouldn't want a high school like this?
A future CS Phd (Harvard), Physics PhD (Princeton) and chess grandmaster, and a guy who wrote the Mach kernal. None of whom were the valedictorian! Wish I could have gone to a school like that.
Haha, same with me, I was in a hurry posting my reply while... at my job. It's ok though, I was compiling.
Check This Guy Out
FM Raises Another $4.5M; Are They Having Difficulty Filling Inventory?
Everyone wants to get acquired by Google, and yet it doesn't stop them doing their own stuff in-house. Unless AdSense, GMail, Calendar, News, Froogle, Video, Finance, etc. were bought instead of built.

Not to mention all the work that happened after they bought Keyhole et al.
I really don't get your point, your telling me that you would look for something in MS/FB that you can't legally ask in a job interview?
There's another factor there, it is that FB/MS profiles can be configured to suit in a determined job, so you may be hiring someone that tricked you.
"... Why not just learn to hack? ..."

"Learning how to hack", Is like trying to get someone with a "junk food diet" to become a "gourmand" by learning how to cook.

Hacking is a mindset and while you can learn to be a hacker ~ http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html I just can't help but think some are born with the hacking gene(s) (if there is any) and some are not.

It goes to the core motivation. Is it just the money? Or it it, hey I can also make money doing this? If you are not into technology, software, building there is always real-estate.
Cool meet for lunch networking site
Absolutely. Twitter is asynchronous IM.
love the concept, wanted it to give me names of restaurants within the circle.
It's quite nice finally being off work to really sit down and hammer out the rough edges. Check back tomorrow guys, many new features coming.
Naming stories: Trenchmice
Blog on 'names' & brand names. This ones about suitability of blog (startup) names ... "... even though we were trying very hard to come up with a deliberately on-target name. It's as though the actions of trying to be on-target kept us locked in uncreative names. ..."
Why Can't We Compute in the Cloud? Part 2
I wonder if Apple will sue. A new exception was added to the DMCA last year specifically to address things like this:

"Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network."

So it looks like this new law specifically allows you to hack your phone if all you want to do is unlock it. I'm actually kind of hoping that Apple sues the guys who did the unlocking, just to set a precedent when Apple loses.
He seems a little confused about whether the benefit of capitalism is that the fittest survive so that the failure of the unfit benefits the entire system or whether employing people to pursue ideas which fail is good in itself since it stimulates the economy. The latter would be an example of Bastiat's "broken window fallacy" (http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html).
As long as we're digging up forgotten Grahamobilia:

http://www.bugbear.com/

I came across that a couple years ago when it showed up in one of the headers of an email posted somewhere on paulgraham.com, which I can no longer find.
Firefox 3 - XUL Application Runtime
You're assuming IBM programmers don't make stupid mistakes like storing plain text passwords or leaving gaping XSS holes. That's not a safe assumption at all.

I don't think what Reddit did was that bad either. The odds were that they'd fail and no one would have cared that they had plain text passwords. I think startups generally have much better programmers, but their work is so geared towards speed that security comes second. That probably just means the level of security vs IBM is a draw.

BTW. MySpace seems to still store plain text passwords. Try the "forgot my password" feature.
Using Firefox 3 as a XUL runtime environment
Anecdotally, Scoble once linked to a blog post of mine in his twitter linkblog and I think I got only two or three clickthroughs from it. So even though he may have 4000 users, measuring the value of a twitter follower is very different from measuring the value of a pageview. What exactly does it mean for one person to have more digital presence than another? What exactly is that worth? It seems like it will take a few years for these questions to get fully worked out.
That will be an Apple product, MacBook mini. It's already rumored -- Flash memory, no hard drive, least possible size and weight. :)

or maybe the Radio Shack Model 100 will come back:
http://flickr.com/photos/jowo/11052651/
That was a rare time when he hinted at some knowledge gained using his ultra secret temporal telescope.
Reddit stored passwords in plaintext not because they were stupid, but because they thought they were being user-friendly. Spez knew all about hashing passwords, but the price of hashing passwords is that you cant't email a user their old password, you can only give them a link to reset it. In a comment after the plaintext password scandal broke, spez indicated that he considered this to be enough of an annoyance to be worth avoiding. Besides, nobody will actually use an important password for a social news site, right? ;-)

IMNSHO they made the wrong choice, and I think they'd agree now. But it wasn't because they were stupid or ignorant. They made a judgment call, and it turned out their users disagreed. It's not easy servicing a consumer website with hundreds of thousands of users: no matter what you do, somebody will be pissed off.

Besides, at least they weren't like GreatestJournal.com, which not only stored their passwords in cleartext and used an open-source (LiveJournal) codebase, but left their database server exposed to the Internet. My friend did a simple "SELECT username, password FROM user" and ended up with 65K passwords.
I'm right there with ya! ;-D
god i'm fucking sick of people who claim they have a crystal ball, especially when they don't write code.

no file extensions, no privacy/crypto, no room to actually develop an idea, doesn't plug and play with other services (web apps like highrise, scripts that process mbox files, cellphones, ...). yeah, it's an email killer alright. especially when you go to send a message and you're greeted by a LOLcat that says you can't do what you want to do because they're dumbasses who don't know how to make a rapidly growing service scale.
He's talking about the 2005 article, but it seems you're talking about the artix site. Wrong thread. :)
"... My problem is that from a tech standpoint, it's hard to gauge what a viable need for them is ..."

something like "all consuming" perhaps? ~ http://www.allconsuming.net