skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Iterate Quickly

Also known as “kill ideas fast”, this advice is saying that your idea is probably not worth the pixels it’s displayed on. Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution matters. You’d be better off with a dumb idea in a large, expanding market!

Trust Your Guts

Also known as resilience or tenacity: when everyone else tells you to give up, when there is no hope in sight, what separates the successsful entrepreneur from the wanna-be: perseverance. Don’t give up.

Here’s my take on the contradiction: both your guts and everyone else are right — partially. It takes a very smart person (you) to figure out the gem that your guts detect and remove the junk that everyone else sees.

(source http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/12/18/startup-advice-contr...)
Most of my work these days is Java too, fwiw. But only because I need Lucene and Hadoop ;-)

The main bad habit is a gross overuse of patterns to compensate for language stupidity (see: http://norvig.com/design-patterns/).

A few particular examples include:

- Too much global state. You call it a Singleton. I call it a global variable with a fancy name and a lot more code.

- You lose the ability to think functionally and dynamically. You can see the core of the architecture much more clearly if your default thought is 'I want to pass a function' or 'I want to call a fn based on rutime types.' And then you should convert that to what's implementable in language X (strategy pattern and visitor pattern, respectively for Java). Thay way you don't lose sight of the forest for the trees (and can implement what you're trying to do without cruft in a good language).

- Verbosity. It's bad enough that passing a small fn (1 line of code in a decent language), requires a separate class and 20 lines of code in Java. On top of that the type system is too weak to actually stop most interesting errors but just strong enough to be annoying. And for some idiotic reason, they won't even implement compile time type inference which would save lots of verbosity and maintain code/bytecode compatibility.
Hmm, it seems coworkers might be able to infer who voted against them if only one person in their office has voted. What sort of protections do you have against this?
India was never known for outsourcing "startup-quality" products. Most of the times it is either an enterprise software or a website.
"For some reason our job listing that says 'engineers needed, 10-11 hour days for 8-hour pay' isn't getting the response we'd hoped for."
He misses the point. Do you want your database to scale in units of $20'000 Dell servers + $50'000 Oracle licenses that take a week to deliver and install, or $500/yr EC2 instances you can have up and running in under a minute? Do you want to pay some more money and time to get "Oracle Data Guard" for redundancy, or just boot up another Riak instance? In case of failure would you rather have writes always go through (e.g. purchases are never refused) or have customers wait while "the hot standby machine ... roll[s] forward from the transaction logs and, as soon as it is up to date with the last committed transaction, take the place of the dead server"? There are good reasons for NoSQL databases.
This was the first thing I thought of when I read the parent comment.
- It is just barely object oriented (and Alan Kay agrees with me on this). Checkout CLOS and the MOP or Smalltalk sometime for a good object system.

- No. Java has a complex syntax. Take a look at the grammar sometime. It's 10s of times longer than Scheme's (see: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/synta...). You just like it because it's almost, kind of, a little, like C and C++.

- It is, in large part pointless verbosity. Explain to me how: Map<String, Pair<Integer, Set<String>>> data = new HashMap<String, Pair<Integer, Set<String>>>(); is useful. Explain how 20 lines for a strategy pattern or a visitor pattern is better than just having built in first order functions and multiple dispatch.

- The type system is abysmal (and not sound). Runtime Erasure of generic types? Casts? Nulls?

- I do agree it is better than C++ for most purposes though ;-)
First off, even removing line breaks it is still verbose. I can't think of another language that's even close. Even C++ would give you a shorter version.

Far more important though is how much stuff is in that one line of code that needs to be understood in order for what you are typing to be more than just arcane magic words. Pedagogically speaking that is an awful way to get started, so I think the claim that that is not a great way to teach kids is pretty valid.

To be fair I fully agree that 'Hello world' is not a good way to assess the worth of a language in general, but the ease of getting started is a valid concern when using a language to introduce programming
I think, people are skeptic to vote / comment on technical issues than is the case when stuff is for 'real' people :)
I think a great way to learn programming is to start with the simplest languages.

Start with Scheme. It doesn't even have proper objects and classes, so you'll be forced (guided, actually, if you go the SICP route) to implement them yourselves. This teaches you in an elegant way about essential concepts in programming, but manages to keep your head clear and unbiased about the many different ways to do things, whereas a language with a strong fundamental paradigm (i.e. Java) may bias you forever.

Then learn C. It couldn't be more different from Scheme, but that's a good thing. It forces you to think about things you thought you didn't reaaly have to think about - such as memory allocation.

With a solid basis in these two languages, you've covered just about every paradigm or building block of programming languages you can imagine. Learning another language then becomes trivial, and for bonus points, you'll be a lot better programmer at those languages too.
> I'm impressed you guys encode that much. I don't think you're the common case.

Compared to the effort it takes to produce the content, encoding is negligible. We have a complete studio and a dedicated team producing a couple hours of original material every week. Originals are kept as uncompressed as possible storage-wise and are captured at the highest quality the equipment allows. Encoding happens in a server that's nowhere near capacity.

I proposed a presentation on it at the last FISL but it didn't make the cut (for which I am glad - two others did and it was quite enough work preparing them).
Android syncs your addressbook with gmail. Is it the only one to do that?
LEGO kit of the Shinkai 6500 submarine
Might be worth checking out Kenya (a subset of Java for beginners, comes with a nice IDE)

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/kenya/
The patent system ensures that your description is defensible so that when the time comes to defend it you don't suddenly find out you're screwed.
Usually they only cancel it that way if the person asks people to click on his ads.

But the way they detect that is if a sites suddenly sees a lot of bad conversions.
While I agree with the authors summation, Java will be here forever and a day, the real question one has to ask one's self is will Java continue to receive the developer mind-share in the future? this generally translates to all the cool problems are being worked in the mind-share language.

The second question is will Oracle further drive away developer mind-share?

I think the answer to both of those are self-evident and when analyzed in that light learning Java looks a lot like learning COBOL around the time Java hit 1.2. The cool stuff was happening over in Java which was now stable enough to take off.

I would say the big difference at this juncture is there is no clearly evident replacement at this point. As their was with Java and COBOL, but I do believe the mind-share shift has happened and we are all looking for the next king amount the court.
News Corp says looking at spinout or sale of MySpace
"If you want to make different demands of users of your software than those of the GPL, BSD license, etc., you should not use one of those licenses."

Licenses are legal instruments and the terms of free licenses give defined freedoms. The nag message for Apple users does not contradict the license under which Remind is published (GPL). The message, reflective of the author's "petulance" as you put it, is, legally speaking a feature of the software and it is subject to the same licensing terms.

I think you are mixing up the license with a vague notion of the "spirit" of the license. These are two different things. You may still argue that the nag message goes against the "spirit" of a free license (while not against the terms), but the counter-argument made by the author is that this measure is justified in the face of Apple's restrictive behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis
Google is trying to take a share of Microsoft's corporate software pie aggressively, which will make them try to acquire Dropbox in near future as they'll be able to provide "complete business solutions" easier.
isn't arrows http://www.cs.umd.edu/projects/PL/arrowlets/example-drag-and... supposed to solve this problem.
Comparing the languages that use S-expressions to the languages that actually have syntax is a bit unfair, I think.
- True; I was just considering the mainstream languages. Yes, if you include Smalltalk, LISP, I'm sure there are better alternatives to learn specific concepts. But Java is used a lot in practice, and looks a lot like other languages used in practice (C++, ObjC, C#, and friends), which in my experience makes students more enthusiastic.

- I agree the "generics" are complex and overly verbose. They almost look like the C++ templated types, which I would go around with a 10 foot pole if I wanted to learn someone programming... IMO, pre-1.5 Java was best for learning.

- Yes, a lot of the verbosity is pointless, I think it helps for learning to specifically mention everything and be a bit repetitive. Other languages luckily allow leaving the obvious stuff out.
That's a fine argument, but it's just not the one in the article.
The article glosses over monospace fonts, and leads with Assange, quite possibly for Google News juice, before admitting on page two that it's just a convention preferred by lots of typographers for proportional fonts.

In proportional fonts, a single space is better, although monospace uses two after a full stop and after a colon. This is is to prevent "rivers" and make it clearer where one sentence ends and another begins.

I type using two spaces, because a lot of what I type ends up rendered monospace (emails, comments in code, etc.). The nice thing about HTML, though, is that when I view the source, it's usually monospace, but the document will be rendered with a single space, and usually in a proportional font. (I know GMail and Google Groups hate monospace, so a lot of source code and diagrams look unbearable. There were ways to fix this, but I abandoned GMail last year; the Buzz debackle was the last straw in a long line of straws like its lack of threads. That's a different story, though.)
VIM from novice to professional by: Derek Wyatt #Part 2
Learning Java the language is not a big problem. Preventing a young Java programmer from becoming an architecture astronaut is. Most Java frameworks I have played with seem made by and for them (it's like they have been playing design-pattern bingo) and exposing young programmers to architecture astronautics may damage them irreversibly. By the time they start talking about real-life stuff like they are method invocations, they are lost.
Jantha talam also involved in Spectrum
Eastern bloc is awful communication wise - I don't know about India but I know about eastern Europe.

When people are told for a couple of generations that they should shut their mouths and look down if they don't want their families hurt. They tend to obey.
Not quite correct -- the linked blog does not accurately recount the facts of the case.

The guy chose NOT to take on a job as a public defender. He took a job as a part-time public defender, paid hourly wages, instead of pursuing available full time positions in the public defender's office.

The distinction is meaningful because the federal government repays all student loans for lawyers who work in the public/non-profit sectors for 10 years in full-time positions. This is known as loan forbearance. However, it does not apply to lawyers who take on part-time jobs.
Not just programmers. I've done some work for a lawyer, and a lot of filings and briefs use monospace fonts (wide margins and double-spacing, too). Most drafts and manuscripts are the same, to make things easier to mark up. I think it's also true of screenplays, but I've only had incidental contact with those. I'm sure plenty of other fields use monospace.
Many globalCompositeOperation modes are also broken in WebKit based browsers: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39177
But sadly nobody seems to care too much about that.
Sure. You obviously don't want them to learn anything else after that.
Quoted in the article from another source:

I also know that whatever leverage Google uses, they still haven’t created any positive reason to distribute video in WebM format. They haven’t created any new revenue opportunities, opened any new markets or increased the size of the pie. They’ve just made it more expensive to get your share, all in the highly ethereal pursuit of “open codec technologies.” So, if you do check your wallet, sometime soon, you’ll start to see less money in it, courtesy of Google.

How very wrong. If you make it cheaper for people to consume your video, that increases the share you can charge for yourself. Cheaper not only meaning royalty free, but also easier, more flexible, available in more places, etc., all things that are helped by an open, royalty free standard.

In theory that is. The thing is that licensing H.264 seems to be not much of a hurdle for non-open source appliances. At least I heard no one clamoring about outrageous license fees for that. If that leads to more or less universal spreading of H.264, then there is nothing to win from an open codec for producers or consumers, and only to loose for open source projects. Which in itself might be a good reason to try and hurdle H.264 adaptation.
20+ Free PSD Web Layouts
As all know that Photoshop is a famous design tool in entire design community for its capability. In today’s post we have collected Free psd web templates/layouts free for download these templates are great time saver a bit change of color, style and images following can give complete unique look, we have compiled these templates at one place for designers from different websites. Feel free to download and junior can get alot of benefit from learning new thing s from PSD files.
I doubt that 6 years (1977 - 1983) is long enough for inflation to have altered the ratio much.
Not quite accurate. The problem was that the dude wasn't trying to seek full-time employment as a public defender.

Lawyers working for the public/non-profit sectors are granted loan forbearance of all student debt (including student debt not related to law school) after working full-time for 10 years for government agencies/non-profits/military. However, part-time work does not apply to this 10-year period. So, he would not have needed to change jobs, only his commitment to his current job.
RationalPlan Project Management Software Translated To Italian Language
You forgot the

class foo { ... }

And that it has to be in a name called foo.java. And that you have to compile it and run it with

java foo

instead of simply

./foo

And that startup time of JVM is orders of magnitude worse than pretty much anything else.
For which architechture?
Also, the fact that the bossman can obviously NOT think of any (better) way of getting new customers but asking his people to implement features and then hope to lure someone in sounds pretty bad.

Depending on country and social insurance and on your readiness for a "unique" company death-march experience, it might be something you want to do... but if you have any responsibilities in life then make sure you have some money on the side and get out as soon as you can.

If you can afford it, just for the hell of it, then keep your eyes and mind open as much as you can and observe what is going on around you.

What does your boss say, what things does he avoid or not say etc. All this might give you some interesting thoughts and views on "management" and people but most likely will leave you rather disillusioned and maybe even bitter.

Getting screwed over and/or taken advantage of is like losing your virginity: it will be hard or downright impossible to go back to "before it happened".
You seem confident. Are you taking a short position on Open Table? I doubt it. Put your money where your mouth is.
That sounds very much like my experience with outsourcing to Romania. The core library and algorithms where very solid, the actual UI and whole application experience was somewhat less so.
Essential Java resources
Come on guys, keep this stuff on Reddit.
Marketing! Marketing, Marketing, Marketing, Marketing, Marketing. I even love saying the word 'Marketing'. You probably think this is a picture of my family? No! It's a picture of The Marketing-Team. Bodie, Doyle, Tiger, the Jewellery Man.

[answers phone] Hello? What? Well if you can't work as a Marketing you're all fired. That's it, you heard me, fired! Get your things and go.

[redials phone]
Hello, security? Everyone on floor 4 is fired. Escort them from the premises. And do it as a Marketing team. Remember, you're a Marketing team and if you can't act as a Marketing team, you're fired too.
Please don't forget that certain type of leaves will give you raccoon-like tail and ears and, somehow, the ability to fly.
Awesome on the scrolling metrics. How do you go about doing that? I'm assuming its some sort of JavaScript, but any particular metrics products you use to track that?
Either this is more complicated than it should be, or I am totally missing something... Is there anyway to actually "Like" what you submit (besides waiting for it to show up in the random stream)?
Of those I know gevent, which is indeed very nice, as it is 'implicitly' async. It has the performance benefits of being async, but doesn't require you to write callback-based macaroni network code.
It's really sad, but all I can think of is how it will be adorned with ads and become spamcontent. Hopefully it doesn't make 'BigResource' "even bigger."
A "cheat sheet" to The Four Steps to the Epiphany
IMHO, most of the Porter-Duff compositing operations are fairly useless. There is a nice mathematical purity to the model from which these operations are derived, but that's also their weakness: they are based on an ultra-simplistic abstraction instead of real world use cases. Punching out alpha mattes in various ways just isn't very interesting in practice.

Porter and Duff can be forgiven because the "real world" didn't exist when they designed this model in the early '80s. At the time, a frame buffer add-on to a computer could cost as much as a car...!

When designing a modern graphics API, I think it would be more useful to look at the operations that people are actually familiar with, e.g. Photoshop blending modes, and design the interface to match those expectations.
Ask HN: Startups hiring interns for summer 2011?
Please mention if you're willing to sponsor a J-1 or similar visa for foreigners. Personally I'm in the EU and I'm looking for internships either in US or here, but I don't see any reason not to make this a more general thread.
I'm an end-user, not a content provider. I don't give a rat's ass how my video is served, so long as it's pretty and fast. I want my video served in ≥720p with no buffering, as YouTube does currently. To this end, H.264 and WebM both work fine. In fact, so does flash. The only problem I have with flash is my laptop gets really hot and my battery drains rapidly every time I use it for extended periods.

Now, as the average end-user, I don't care about which browser supports which format. I either use IE or Safari because that's what came with my system, or Chrome/Firefox because that's what my friend who's good with computers recommended. I'm not likely to switch browsers because of video issues unless one just plain doesn't work.

So what does Google's dropping H.264 mean for the consumer and, by extension, adoption? Not much. The consumer will have to suffer through hot laptops and short battery life, and most won't know why. As Gruber points out, this will not encourage providers to support WebM, rather they'll simply keep serving up flash.

I don't see a winning path, here. From a consumer standpoint, I'm perfectly happy with H.264. From a web standpoint, I wish we had been having this discussion 3 years ago. H.264 seems to have won.
Your example illustrates one of the main problems with verbose languages. Imagine showing this line of code to a child! I think anyone new to programming would be completely baffled. Before they could understand even the "simplest" Java program they have to know what is meant by public, static, void, main, String, arrays and more...
Hi, you should be redirected to the page that you created after you click the button. However, you have to manually click Like once you're at that page.
PL | YCom | Existenzgründung Hamm
Professionelle Beratung: Existenzgründung in Hamm und Umgebung – Beratungszuschüsse bis zu 90% möglich. Rufnummer: 02381 – 30 40 486
You Can Make Real Money From Nuskin
When you look all over on the internet, there has been a ton discussed about the nuskin business in the MLM industry. The ultimate strength of nuskin is in its people. To know more about us visit our website
Fun project. But highly concerning if it gains real traction -- As a general rule, people are only on my LinkedIn profile if I already think they are good to work with. This site makes me turn half of them into losers. That is not a fair assessment.

Also, when I deactivated my account, it said that coworkers would no longer be able to see me. So... people who have never ever seen this site are visible, but ex-users are not? Something feels sketchy there.
I made a site similar to this right after the like button was released. Grew to over 2 million visitors a day in 4 days.. then facebook started blocking sites that used the like button without any real content.. So if this grows don't expect it to last very long.
Trend Micro Chairman Says Open Source Software Is Insecure
Thanks for the heads-up. There's a similar website called Hey I Like, it's a Facebook app. They still seem to be around after months. What was your concept?
Spray-on glass isn't going to make this situation much worse than it already is.
Because, as Joel Spolsky said once, some people are born without the part of the brain that understands pointers.
OO roles theory - what does DOES do? (Role::Basic)
The Razor template language (introduction)
You are left here on benevolence of MPEG-LA consortium. If they ever change their mind, you'll have to shell out.
Hi. It's too late for that now, but next time you buy a drive, i suggest you look at the partitions table. Most hw companies now tend to include a tiny additional partition where the bloatware sits and waits (happens also on USB keys), so before doing any backup on your new drive, crush that table and create a shiny new unique partition. This can avoid later problems :)
Absolutely feasible, you'll just produce the same as of working 6 hours per day after the first couple of days of working so long. So absolutely useless too, if done for long time. Only useful for sprints, two or three days every month at max.
The problem Zynga has right now is that they're building a reputation as a 'not fun place to work' for engineers. This probably won't kill them, since their power comes from psychology more than technology, but it might hurt them.
how many have you sold?
Ah, that explains how the cap has managed to go from $5 to $6.5 million (a 30% rise) since the last time I looked at it, which certainly wasn't 15 years ago.