skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You're seeing sub-10 mSec response times on projected capacitive screens? Care to share what you're analyzing? Cypress PSoC needs a good 20-30 to get a lock.
I call BS. His number 1 point: "No real caching engine support in the core (APC, memcache, etc)" is a lie.

We even wrote plugins for APC, eAccelerator, and XCache to leverage the already exposed support for using these variable caches: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=12 ...back in 2007!
Paying 10 times the cost in the future may be easier than paying the cost today.
While i can agree that wordpress could use some redesign internally, a rewrite in django is definitely not the way to go. A new blog engine/cms in django? Sure, but there is too much invested in the current architecture of wordpress to just throw it to the curb.
Cool article. "Someone" should hire you :)
"The obvious answer is to rewrite WordPress with Django"

Wait, what?
I think the android bug linked in the article is much more informative than the article itself.

Basically:
1) Android phones can already animate the screen @ 60 fps in software in most cases.
2) When they can't, it's not because the CPU is too slow, it's because there is other stuff happening (GC, etc.). A GPU can't fix that.
How many highly successful startups have outsourced their development to contractors ? My guess is practically none.

I agree with you that ideas are needed throughout the process. In fact one of the points that certain people here seem unable to grasp is that software development is itself a creative activity that requires not only linear logical thinking but also continuous inspiration to find a good path through the solution space. It is not the equivalent of hammering nails to carry out someone else's grand design.
A more common policy in my experience is that any phone that has any company data on it must be company-managed. In other words, you pay for it but the company really owns it.
>"I'd never go back to Windows"

That's not much of a reason to use Cygwin in lieu of Powershell.
Building on this - everything you ever wanted to know about website speed and its impact on conversion rate:

http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2010/06/15/everything-you...
If you want to save yourself the headache just use nginx, it responds much better under load than apache. If you're using a dynamic backend such as PHP, RoR, django or something else you can really boost the number of page loads with reasonable caching strategies.
Detroit in ruins
Of course none of the old plug-ins would work. But is that really a problem?

Yikes.
Capability detection works well for some cases, not all. I was working on a web-app today and was trying to make a menu-bar using ul/li with small icon images and no matter what I did, every single browser (chrome/ff/ie/opera) rendered slightly differently. In one browser I had to add display:block and in another, position:relative. Putting position:relative for all browsers did not work. One browser needed line-height:14px while another needed 20px.

I didn't want to spend 3 hours finding the root cause or the most elegant solution to this annoying little problem. So I just did _line-height:20px and it lined up perfectly in IE. And I used jQuery.browser.opera and addClass(".fixopera") to make sure it worked in Opera. Detecting the box-model etc. could help if it was related to box-model issues. When text and images just don't line up, what should I use?
This feels like a much more mature article than the very ranty post he authored before. A great run down of trade offs and features of modern lisps, with references.
Quick summary of the author's recommendations:

1. Consolidate separate JS files

2. Use a single image sprite

3. Load elements from a separate domain

4. Set max-age header for files to at least an hour

Any idea of what kind of performance bump could I expect from implementing this (assuming a similar profile to The North Face example)? I'd be interested in retooling some projects, but I'd only put in the time if the differences are material.
I agree with a few of his points, especially the HTML injection parts, but the whole point of wordpress is how easy it is to run and install, switching to django would possibly destroy this. This seems like a classic case of irrelevant conclusion.

But heck, just write your own CMS and compete with wordpress. You wouldn't be the first.
And there are indeed apps that do that. (I don't know the name(s), but I've seen at least one running on a friend's iPad.)
>> Compared to Haskell, Lisp is a big hack.

We're being trolled, right?

No substantive material here, just the assertion that building a minimal Lisp is worthless. If you really want to…what? Provide value? Do something worthwhile?…then build an entire language, he says.

I'm sorry, but I'll write my "hello world!" program as an MVP and learn what I can from it. If I want to become a pro at PLs, then maybe I'll build an entire language.

It's not harmful. Hair won't grow on my palms. Let me experiment.
I didn't mean to call the OP's point into question, I think that solitude can be incredibly helpful for creative work. I just think that effort is incredibly important.
This looks fantastic. We need one of these in Santa Monica for the SoCal startup community.
> The obvious answer is to rewrite WordPress with Django.

WordPress is popular largely because its requirements are met by virtually every single fly-by-night three-million-sites-per-server web host. It's one of the few blogging engines that is virtually guaranteed to work anywhere.

Try finding a $3/month web host that supports a Django app.
I expected some light banter on the fact that there are sooooo many deprecated functions in the API that it is sometimes a little dizzying keeping the stuff straight. Instead, I came away with nothing. Besides, Wordpress is the most popular blogging software on the web, so I imagine that their easy-to-understand at a glance API and simple PHP/MySQL setup has done nothing but HELP them.
Let's not. Ideas really are worth nothing when compared to execution.

Don't take my word for it: look at successful companies. What're the ideas behind the top 10 Fortune 500 companies?

1. WalMart - a bigger and cheaper convenience store
2. Exxon - gasoline
3. Chevron - gasoline
4. GE - conglomerate: appliances, aviation, electronics, energy, weapons, etc.
5. Bank of America - banking, investment banking
6. ConocoPhillips - gasoline
7. AT&T - telecommunications
8. Ford - cars
9. Chase - banking, investment banking
10. HP - computers, consulting services

(Source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/)

The very repetitiveness of that list kinda shows you that novelty isn't really that exciting, eh?

Want another data point? How about... oh I dunno... companies acquired by Google in the last few months:

* Widevine - DRM for television
* Phonetic Arts - speech recognition
* BlindType - touch interface typing technology
* Plannr - scheduling/calendaring
* Quiksee - video
* SocialDeck - gaming

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google)

Lots of good ideas there? Perhaps... but to my eyes each of these companies falls into the "$IDEA done right" style of startup. As do most, really -- nearly every startup pitch I've heard falls into the "X done right" rubric.

And that's by no means a slight: taking something that generally sucks and doing it right is really hard. But that's the point, isn't it? Nearly every idea's been done before... it's about delivering better than the competition.

So let's not start giving raw ideas much merit. This focus on results is good, and it's healthy, and it's what makes technology startups interesting. After all, technology is usually evolutionary, and rarely revolutionary.

[Edit: sources, formatting.]
You make a really good point. But as I mentioned in the article during my research process I found that for tax purposes if you keep the gross receipts of a non-profit below $5,000/year you automatically get 501(c)(3) status and the process of filing taxes is very straightforward. Before the Pension Protection Act of 2006 non-profits that made less than $25,000 weren't even required to file annual tax returns. Regardless, I wasn't expecting to make more than $5,000/year anyway.

Basically, since it was my first major project and I wasn't expecting to make more than $5,000/year non-profit seemed to be the way to go.
A complete rewrite of a mega-popular project is a big ask. If you're going to make a big ask like that, it behooves you to make your request as persuasive as possible. This request could be made more persuasive by answering the following questions:

* No real caching engine support in the core (APC, memcache, etc)

Why is the popular WP Super-Cache plugin inadequate for caching? Perhaps it should be shipped and enabled with the default install, which would be one hundred million times easier than rewriting the core.

* There is no built-in support for an ORM or other databases like Postgres.

WordPress is deliberately built around the most ubiquitous language/database environment: PHP and MySQL. What would it gain by giving up this simplicity and supporting a different database? Would the tradeoff be worth it, given how many other CMS's exist?

* The obvious answer is to rewrite WordPress with Django

In what way would the result still be WordPress? WordPress is distinguished not by a unique feature set, but by ubiquity and ease of deployment, which would be lost if it were rewritten in Django.
QIP = PSPACE
Your attitude is symptomatic of most people who, in lieu of being actually creative and making cool stuff, don't, but believe that if they just keep trying they'll get there. Sometimes this is true, but genius works in mysterious ways.

Also using designers as an example is a bit disingenuous as well. I know this is a massive value judgement, but I don't generally consider designers artists. they're too bound by their medium generally to be considered properly creative and artistic. they're more technicians - solving interesting problems, but never with the surprising abstraction that makes great art great.
StackOverflow is the right place for such questions and it has been asked already. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/132798/what-should-every-...
... and then what happens?
Parsing with applicative functors in F#
I don't necessarily want to report a garbage website as spam - it's just garbage for me. Anyway, the 'Report Spam' link doesn't always appear for me.
I guess it's OK if you put a lot of cream and sugar in it. Does Intelligentsia even have cream or sugar? I've never looked.
Don't forget to crank them down when the traffic is over. There's no refunds for accidentally leaving 1000 dynos running for a few hours longer than necessary.

If/when I actually deploy something worthy of traffic I plan on incorporating something that automatically scales my app, both dynos [1] and workers [2] (up to pre-defined limits, of course)

[1]: https://github.com/ddollar/heroku-autoscale
[2]: http://blog.darkhax.com/2010/07/30/auto-scale-your-resque-wo...
* There is no built-in support for an ORM or other databases like Postgres.

Not to mention that ORM's add weight to any application, why is why he might have made the caching is first issue.
While the last post from his blog certainly had the air of elitism to it that made it a huge turn off, I actually really enjoyed this one and disagree that it's not substantive. I don't think he claims that it's harmful on the absolute, he's simply noting the scope of evolution in the Lisp family of languages and the trade offs designers made. Implementing a simple 200 line lisp interpreter is a fine evening or weekend project, but macro expansion time and bindings are something that actual Lisp developers actually think about. (Or at least I have, as I've been learning CL).

Shrug. That post contributed to me better understanding the idea of Lisp and for that I think it deserves my upvote.
The most effective habit of highly creative people is persistence, the ability to work and work and work while resisting burn-out.

Solitude has a lot to do with persistence. When working hard, one is alone. By definition, nobody can be you and fulfill your vision.
I just let Varnish do the hard work. I make sure my web app sets caching headers correctly, and then I just point Varnish at it. Instant 12,000 requests per second. I am sure if I spent time tuning the machine and setup, I could do even more. But my users make about 12,000 requests per decade :)
That whole schtick seems tautological to me. It's like saying

"What's the use of having an idea if you have no idea how to implement it?"
The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Gah! What? No! Gah! What? Gah!

You have olive oil, lemon juice, and dijon. All you need is an egg yolk and you have Caesar salad, not "sort of ceaser salad [made with mayo]".

1 egg yolk, 2 tbs lemon juice (or, just half a lemon's juice), spoon of dijon, dash worcestershire (if you have it handy), crushed garlic clove (if you have it handy). Salt, pepper. Mix mix mix mix. 1/3 cup olive oil, poured slowly while mix mix mix mix mix. CAESAR SALAD.

Every time you put mayo in a Caesar, God staple-guns a kitten to a sheet of rotted plywood by the ears. I have this on very good authority.
27 JS files including jQuery and Prototype!? Someone at North Face needs to do some refactoring, minify their code and figure out how to use one library instead of two.
There already are versions of KeePass available on Android and iPhone (and windows phones too it seems). So I guess the only thing missing at this point is a webapp version.
Not only do they, but they use ganache for the mocha. They're a class act.
Dude, need is a pretty strong word. Excellent caching plugins exist, and I'd venture that most WP blogs don't need them (or stand to gain much from Postgres).

"Of course none of the old plugins would work. But is that really a problem?"

WP has an incredible plugin & theme ecosystem. Whether or not you'd like to leave it behind, you can't just dismiss it like that.

Sounds like what you want is quite different from WP. Why use it?
please. zero focus? Where is UX an issue? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maps, Gmail, Search & Hotpot are all class leaders in my opinion. Android is quickly making strides as well. The sky is not falling @ Google.
ZOMG Why is this code so slow?
Sure it is, it's how you make the transition to Linux easier.
First Project A jump from READING to DOING
http://www.whatthehappy.com

Whatsup HN!

Hope a good portion of you is reading this. My friend and I just recently had an urge in our stomach to actually MAKE something. We've been reading for the last several months and just got tired of coming up with ideas for fun. Besides, it's all in the execution right?!

This is a pretty functional version of our website. It's far from anything spectacular and is certainly not even what we envisioned in our minds, but hey it basically works. It's our first attempt at making something. YUP!

We are very interested in programming, hacking, and making applications and websites. The problem is we have essentially zero experience or background with any of this material. Lacking someone technical we want to work with, it's become clear to us that we have to learn how to make things ourselves. Even if we do happen to work with a technical whiz in the future, we figure understanding some programming can only help.

We figured one of the best ways to learn was to have a project and dive right in. Over the past week, we've learned an incredible amount in making this website. Every problem we hit was frustrating, but they've served as great teaching tools. A week and a half ago, simply navigating the database was a challenge. But along the way we've learned some basic HTML, CSS, Javascript, AJAX, and MYSQL. Obviously, there's still millions for us to learn. We really love this stuff, and actually working on something helps both solidify the abstract coding and make things even more exciting. To us, the next step is clear - doing another project. We'd love to hear your guys' take on this approach and our website in general. Any tips or pointers on making websites, order of languages to learn, good coding practices, blogs to follow, or just straight up advice on anything would be greatly appreciated. Also, we welcome any criticisms to our code since we have only had a week or two of knowledge under our belt.

Thanks
Break things and move fast!!

http://www.whatthehappy.com
But what if Adobe actually had (and maybe still are) tried to make Flash performant on non-Windows platforms, but can't because the codebase is such a mess? In that case, yes – Flash did fail because of a bad codebase. Then again, Flash is probably an extreme example, but it just goes to show that there is a point at which a bad codebase will interfere with your product.
Wall Street Journal: Date My Ride – did your dream date pass you on the highway?
There's a copious buttload of "understand foo" in this post. Is the author really recommending that a fledgling language developer should wait until they understand all of those things before they initiate a lisp language development exercise? It feels like putting the pedagogical cart before the horse to me.

Let's take languages, and therefore religion, out of the picture. Suppose someone was interested in text compression. Would it not be a good first exercise to write a Huffman compressor, even though the state of the art has moved on since? I just went through this exercise and found it to be very rewarding, despite the fact that I've understood the technique for decades. So what if some blowhard arithmetic compression fanatic on the Internet thinks I'm stupid for wasting fractional bits. Screw him. It's my exercise.
I think allowing all inmates to have cell phones and having a system to monitor all of their calls to stay in contact with those who can help them re-integrate with society is a terrific idea.

However it will never work because the smartest criminals will use it to escape, terrorize with gangs out the outside, coordinate drug inflow and all sorts of other problems. The prison barely has enough staff to keep the place under control.
PG Uses an Image Map, Gif Bullets, and Tables for Everything
view-source:http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

The menu is a single image mapped to urls.

He generates bullets by stretching out a gif and uses a plethora of tds for absurd purposes.

This makes me smile. And then shudder. And then smile.
Printing 1 to 1000 without loop or conditionals
Spam blacklisting should be done at server side
Spam blacklisting of search results should done at server side. It can be an optional feature like "instant".
Actually, I wrote about battery life at the very end of the article. I already discussed battery life in a previous post. I certainly feel that battery life is one of the most important issues in mobile, hence, "efficiency"

As for touch responsiveness, I don't have enough current knowledge of Android's situation and touch hardware in general to write on that topic.
The definitive treatment of every item on that list, and more, is Steve Souders' book (http://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Web-Sites-Essential/d...) Get it immediately and do what he says. In my experience, the differences are very material.

The one thing I would add is: wherever possible, give resources immutable URLs (that is, when a resource changes, change its URL) and tell the browser to cache them not for an hour but forever. This saves endless wailing and gnashing of teeth on both sides of the browser-cache abyss (i.e. things not being cached when you want them to and -- much worse -- things being cached when you don't want them to). Seriously, this rule changes misery to joy.

p.s. While copying the above link I noticed that Souders published a sequel (Even Faster Web Sites). Who here has read it? Can you report how good it is?
I'm pretty young and uneducated (which means don't listen to anything I say), but it seems to me that wars are profitable. Arms and heavy vehicle manufacturers create jobs which stimulate our economy, and the foreign nations and international banks that control our debt get to dig a little deeper in our pockets. It sort of helps everyone but the enemy. After the war we get more money by "winning" contracts to rebuild what we've blown up - but slower and more inefficiently than is necessary, with lots of extra cash mysteriously disappearing once it reaches foreign soil (the equivalent of a CEO bonus, but instead for CIA and whoever else need a payday for ensuring the war goes off without a hitch).

But I could be wrong.

(Also, what's the alternative to the Dollar and Euro? Micro-economies? Maybe an economy built out of dealing with a massive number of differing currencies and economies?)
So then I take it that you feel watchpaintdry.com would be a hit if it were executed very well? Make no mistake about it, ideas are important. After all, look at some of the biggest names: Twitter, Facebook, AirBNB, Groupon...

Do you honestly mean to tell me that the idea behind these sites had absolutely zero influence on their success?
Yeah I'm sure they'll get right on that.
This is a very important point and really takes into account a lot of WordPress's growth.
Code is now on Github: https://github.com/jhchen/Search-Engine-Blacklist. I'll be working on implementing the changes you all have suggested but feel free to message me if you want to join in!
That's because he hosts his site on Yahoo Store, and if I recall correctly all the old-school RTML templates generated image maps for the left-hand navigation. Shudder, RTML has brought my life a lot of pain over the years.
A link to the actual paper for those interested: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~odonnell/hits09/jain-ji-upadhay-watro....
A big "ask"?

FYI, "ask" isn't a noun.
People wondering how IP = PSPACE can delve further into the free draft of this great book on the subject: http://www.cs.princeton.edu/theory/index.php/Compbook/Draft
Again I say, what if it happens to be fun? Do whatever the fuck you want! Even building tiny incomplete Lisps.
I don't get it either. And I was alive then.
The GPU can offload most of the graphics intensive tasks from the CPU, utilizing the GPU instead of letting it sit idle. freeing the CPU to focus on GC tasks. In addition, most of the animation work done with Dalvik code can be moved into a dedicated thread / task with highly optimized code backing it.
What are the products that failed, not because they weren't popular or solved problems, but because they had a poor architecture or codebase?

Friendster. With better architecture they are sitting on billions and Mark Z is writing code in a cubicle at Google...
I think that this article is talking almost entirely about shipping. If you consider the start of Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr, a lot of what they had going for them was first-mover advantage and building out a product that people actually used. If Twitter started out trying to build the architecture they have now (http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/01/how-twitter-uses-n...), they probably would have never launched.

Re: refactoring and other comments. Of course optimizing and re-working your code for new use cases and scale issues is critical to support your product, but unless people are using it, you're not going to know what those use cases are and what parts of your product you need to scale.