skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I wholeheartedly agree with you that the comment "No one actually writes code like this" was inaccurate and not useful for the discussion.

I see people doing this exact same style of code in EventMachine in ruby, and have done for years. I am continually having to advise newcomers to the evented space that they need to write state machines inside objects to maintain state and process flow, and advising them to wrap callbacks into message sends to these process containers.

There is nothing lacking in javascript to do this (create state and function containers), just as there is no lack of OO in ruby. Despite this, newcomers to evented programming always do the same thing. They revert back to a primitive style of programming, writing very long, very tab-deep functions. This is bad practice, you don't do it in an imperative synchronous environment (after some experience), and you shouldn't do it in an async environment.

You do not need to use closures for state passing. You shouldn't use closures as general state containers. They're even worse than using stack frames, as they're even less easy to debug (at least walking stack frames is easy with a decent debugger). They're really useful for the minor things, but to encode a complex process, they're completely inappropriate for reasons already discussed (error handling is an ever so common one in the network space).

I think this may be what the person was trying to get at with their comment, but they completely lacked substance, which was no use to the OP.

Everyone seems to end up discussing some new async-useful algorithms or datastructure that will "save the day", but in reality, until you start encoding application logic processes into decoupled, testable containers, you're always going to fight some complexity. This really has nothing to do with async, the principles of encapsulation and coupling are absolutely well discussed and documented, and merely apply even more vehemently to the async space. The unfortunate fact is that many of the users of these libraries do not factor code in this manner, and as such this discussion comes up again and again.

I honestly don't know of any good open source examples of complex async applications in either language (ruby or javascript) that are well structured. I can point you time and time and time again at libraries that are poorly constructed based on the "trivia" examples that "don't require" any structure and so just use a single object/scope and some closures to achieve a minimal use case.

There are many possible reasons for this lack of good examples. The reason I haven't written one is because it still takes some care, mostly in architecture, and no one will pay me to write such open source. There probably are some good examples in C, based on libev, libevent, glibs loop, etc, etc. I'm not intimately familiar enough with any example code bases to be able to call them out off the top of my head.
Your reply should always be: "You know what else is natural? Ergot. Arsenic. Anthrax. Malaria. Batrachotoxins (poison dart frogs). Vitamin A (you can O.D.)"
I've come to the conclusion that Groupon is going to win.

The coupon business is an initial (albeit profitable) component of their long(er) term strategy. They will use a massive part of their recents rounds of financing + the organic revenue they get from their day-day business to create an increasingly larger direct sales force, that lets them step in and become the Online version of the Yellow Pages.

For whatever reason, Google never really became the "Trusted Local Directory" of businesses - Don't get me wrong, I use them 10-15 times a week to look up businesses - but lots of local companies have figured out how to game Google's local Business lookup - and, when I'm looking for a reliable Locksmith, Plumber, Flower Delivery, Etc... Google doesn't deliver like the yellow pages always did.

Part of that is inherent to the mechanism - Google does algorithmic analysis, which isn't completely effective when trying to determine whether you are dealing with a up-and-up storefront.

But most of that is feet on the ground.

The yellow pages had a Massive Direct Salesforce + a filter - Typically only "real" companies would bother to invest in a Yellow Pages Ad, because they were the only ones who could justify the cost. A company in the Yellow pages was a real organization, that had been visited by a local salesperson. You couldn't SEO a placement into the Yellow Pages.

Groupon is going to become the new Yellow Pages. For a while, I thought it was going to be Yelp, but (A) their business model, publishing criticisms of businesses, was always at odds with their customers interests (and they took a lot of heat when people got sensitive to that conflict of interest) and (B) they didn't raise enough money, or hire enough people, quickly enough.

Groupon is aligned with the businesses (their customers), and is growing quickly enough to win the market. They will have a direct sales force that will reach into every major metropolitan area - and, within six months, there will be a Groupon index of local businesses.

That's why Groupon is worth $15B.
Humans love things that are attractive and shiny

Offline, some people do, online - it's hard to say.
I used to perfect the look and feel of everything, paying designers and wasting hours adjusting color schemes.
What I learned hard way is people do not care about the design much. I don't have statistics and numbers, but
I am sure the majority of people online do not care much about many fancy things designers like to implement.
The ideal solution is the one that looks and feels STANDARD to anyone who knows how to use ms office or excel.
That's not good news for someone (like me) who likes to put in crazy hours changing fonts, sizes and colors. However, it
looks like that's what it is. Attractive and shiny goes to the intranet. Of course, there is a niche for them
(hardcore/online games), but not in mainstream products.
Lincoln and King were inspirational in their speeches, and they made sense. This article was so convoluted and schizophrenic my head was spinning by the end of it. If that was the effect the author was going for, then more power to him. Otherwise, I would say this guy is far from the likes of Lincoln and King.
Business model alert:

> I'd like to be able to photograph a law-enforcement badge with my camera, send it to some police website, and get back a real-time verification -- with picture -- that the officer is legit.
Are 10-11 hour programming days feasible?
I have one word for you, but it's a doozy: pneumoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
Warning: Software Startups are Not as Easy as Everyone Says (2007)
Good devs are expensive everywhere (especially when GazProm used to pay 300 euros an hour for SAP support person) and some jobs are outsourced to neighbours.
I've heard that too, but recently saw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#C...
... a disease where you breathe sub-microscopic silicon volcanoes?
I'm sorry, but designer sucks.
This is the redirect for sites that South Korea bans. Also applies to gambling websites, certain porn, North Korea related things, etc.
Math behind Dope Wars drug trading for profit
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.”

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

and just for completenesses sake:

Alan Perlis — 48. The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
So the point is to make your own brand, sell it on your own site and then when the big A comes calling ----- continue selling to them and on your own site ??? and make a killing? I have been approached by Amazon before about selling my products. They are a distribution channel like anyone else. And they WILL take your product and do it themselves if they think they can profit at it. I personally know a guy that had one of his best niche sellers (but still kind of a commodity) on Amazon get picked up by Amazon themselves. Poof. There went 60% of his sales. So be aware if you have a commodity. If you have a brand name - like these guys - then embrace the Amazon ecosystem and hold on to your hats. You will get lots of orders. Some manufacturers I know say that the big A can be 8-10% of their sales.
The Bad Business Decision Quote That Never Was (True Story of Bell Patent)
Then take PCB's, or mercury and other hvy metal poisoning. Or radium (maybe a different radioactive) they use to paint on clock/watches to make them glow in the dark.
I didn't find it difficult to read. Perhaps a bit involved for the attention span of the average reader on the average news aggregator, but not a difficult read. I may just be odd though.
I'm kind of curious... It seems like the MPEG-LA is doing great work by creating all these video and audio compression codecs. MP3 is used by everybody, MPEG2 was good for the day, and now H.264 is even better. Plus, nobody else seems to be coming up with something compelling. Sure, there's WebM and VP8, but if I recall correctly, they are, at best, at parity with H.264. It seems like here's a good case of patents being useful: the MPEG people do research and create great codecs and we all pay them a $1 (or something) in licensing fees so we get small video. I'm all for open standards and free and Free software, but it seems like H.264 is a net will, compared to what we'd have without it. (Remember the days of huge .wav files and electronic .mod files before MP3 came out?)
Is the answer that Lincoln and King were getting paid by the word?

Because that's what it is here.
Yeah I didn't like a lot of his more out there stuff but I just ignore it. He still has some excellent insights on productivity and has some new ways of thinking about common, tired problems that have helped me.
I've been using AnyEvent for several months now and really like it. It took some work to mentally sync up with it initially, but once it clicked I was happy I took the time.
Surprised that MIT TAs haven't setup online sites where you can do the assignments for a fee.

There's a business model for you!
Stuff in the sinbin (or the 'IO monad') are definitely second-class citizens in the language and community. And not all of those examples are mutable - the whole point of ST is that it's safe for it to be implemented using mutation while still being treated as having immutable semantics, this doesn't mean the compiler or library actually use mutation in ST code.
Looks like it just got combinatorized.
> doesn't necessarily mean the entire browser has to be closed.

Right. I did say that #1 can be worked around. If you you you approach, you still get the Chromium/Chrome model, where you can't release the actual source to the binaries you ship, and worse yet others can't easily fork your "open-source" app while keeping the functionality or redistribute your binaries.

> The page you linked clearly says that non-commercial content is free.

"commercial use" in that context includes putting it up on a website that has ads. So yes, not everyone has to pay to create content. If you find someone who will give you a free encoder for which they paid the licensing fees, and you make sure that either you don't put your content on the web or if you do that there are no ads on the page and you don't charge for the videos, then you can get away with paying nothing.

Quick; name me the places on the web where there are free videos and no ads. I'd love to know where this is!
The problem is Silicon Valley venture capitalism might be in a bubble right now, but the broader stock market is not (yet). I'd be surprised if the open market doesn't see straight through these valuations.
Live a little. This is a classic.
thanks
i think the main motivation to explore the "product alike" theme is due to the frustration of costly customer support.

i am happy to drop 90% of the price for the theme as long as it can be a passive business :)
It's cool to see a KC event here. I don't live in KC anymore but grew up there (in Olathe) and hope to go back one day. :)
Everyday it becomes clearer and clearer how completely broken the US patent system is and how deeply it needs reform.

How much worse is it going to get before it actually gets better?
Another way would be to do what newegg has done and build a deeper system of filtering than amazon. There is no way I can filter certain components on amazon that are common place on newegg.
Marketing marketing marketing, is what I say. Marketing.
You're absolutely right. People don't care how something looks. They care how it works... but a designer's job isn't to make something pretty; it's to make something useful and easy. Being pretty should be derived by osmosis -- a designer or team of designers working hard to improve accessibility, usability and the experience will usually (but not always) result in something that is pretty. Or at least appreciably elegant.

Too often designers are relegated to gussying up an already finished product. That's unfortunate and can be jarring to the user: The designer should help design the product, and then define how people use it.
I enjoyed this article. Not the best description of recursion, but clear none the less.
When I want to live a little, I'll go read reddit. HN is not the place for this.
"metric ton of salespeople"

So about 12 salespeople? ;)
Well, since Infinitely Beta is _not_ an outsourcing shop, I don't think how a little bit of linking will affect its bottom-line :)
If you scroll to the bottom, it was amended so that claims 1-20 were cancelled.

There were only 20 claims.
Actually the runkeeper idea without any inputs sounds like a pretty interesting problem.
This is very true. In India IT is seen as a good career - it's something parents encourage their kids to go in to. There are very very few people who do it because they love technology. It's not common for grade school/high school kids to go about hacking. If it were, you would see more viruses originating from India - but they never do.
You mean pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis right?
I've been playing with creating a CardDAV server, which is pretty mush shuffling vCard files around. You could probably something similar with Dropbox.
If I was looking for a reliable locksmith/plumber/flower delivery the first resource I would consult would be local friends/acquaintances I trust. Picking a random company from 50 yellow pages listings is crazy, and so -- currently -- is depending on Google to pick out the right one. Social seems to intuitively be the obvious direction to go.

(I don't know how social Groupon is. I stayed away so far because I have no interest in deals of the day.)
I used to play that game on my Handspring all the time. Geex I feel old suddenly.
> I open up my folders to back up all of my personal data to the drive: documents, music, pictures and videos

It's not "backing up" if the data is only stored in one place.
In some ways, going to a bookstore for me is like going to a museum. I'll wander through the sections, stop to look at things that look interesting on my way around. Mostly I'll walk back out when I'm bored, but knowing a little bit more about what kind of books I might like to buy. Occasionally I'll buy something from the gift shop on the way out.

I wonder if you could operate a bookstore more along the lines of a museum? Or maybe that would be called a library.
Plus with coke, the buzz is fairly short compared to the other listed drugs so your users will be wanting more sooner.
But the catch 22 is that he can't work as a lawyer until he passes the bar...
Old hard drive->New hard drive->Laptop

I was only on the new hard drive part.
Here's my recipe:
1) own the product or the rights to the product - stay away from commodities
2) sell something with low inventory costs and low shipping costs. Digital goods are the best.
3) sell something in the price point above $50 but below $500.
4) get good at seo and adwords
5) try and get featured in blogs and magazines
6) ???
7) profit!
Ask HN: who do you tell your ideas to?
I have a friend who's been harbouring a reasonably good startup idea for the last 2 years. He's a solo-founder and is cautious in telling people his idea: perhaps he's told about five people all up. Personally, I believe he should take the opposite approach and pitch to anyone who will listen.

But it got me thinking: what is your philosophy for telling other people your startup idea(s)? Do you wait until a prototype is built? Or do you start pitching to everyone you meet from day one? Of course it differs from startup-to-startup, but it would be interesting to hear peoples experiences.

My personal belief is that people need to be force-fed anything that will require them to change a part of their life. And also: taking risks is an unavoidable part of being an entrepreneur. Thusly, I pitch every one of my ideas to anyone who will listen, prototype or no prototype.
Another viral app I built. Just made it in one hour -- already ranked #5 for "Zodiac Change" on google.
The concept is great. Love the low friction of the free form input as well as the public/private dichotomy.

One minor bug I encountered: If I enter "I like #foo" and save it, it is filed under the tag #foo. If I then edit that item to be "I like #food" it stays filed under it's original tag, #foo, rather than being moved to #food.

Edit: edited to clarify bug description.
For me it's a grey area. For a small specialist shop where I receive useful advice? I'd almost definitely pay the higher price in return for the service offered by the shop. For a bookstore where all I did was wander around on my own occasionally looking at product? I don't know. I'd like for book stores to continue existing, but I don't know if they're worth the premium.
"written to advertise his infinite beta shop?"

Don't you think the point of this article was to be say out loud that they are now a "shop" ?!

Besides these days, it would be a fool who would not use such marketing techniques to keep the buzz up, it helps in many ways, one - attracting good developers and everyone does it these days.
My best guess is where you breathe "ultra" fucken tiny silica bits from a volcano.
Yep. Definitely betting on the bacteria, myself.
> Stuff in the sinbin (or the 'IO monad') are definitely second-class citizens in the language and community.

[citation needed]

I've never noticed any particular dislike for IO in the language or community, excepting cases where it was obviously not appropriate. A general feeling that IO is best minimized is common throughout all languages and experienced communities.

> the whole point of ST is that it's safe for it to be implemented using mutation while still being treated as having immutable semantics, this doesn't mean the compiler or library actually use mutation in ST code.

I disagree; ST would be practically useless if it could not be relied upon to use mutation. Its purpose is to signal "this code uses safe mutation", not "this code is immutable * wink* * wink* "
Thank you. :)

Unrelated to the OP:

This has surely come up before, but I haven't seen it while I'm here: why does HN not auto-link URLs in the submission (with rel="nofollow" if there are SEO concerns), instead of relying on people making "clickable" posts?
funny you mention CB radio. im currently working on a project regarding CB. ill be showing my MVP here soon. as soon as this DNS propagates. >_>
There are some places you'd prefer not to have bacteria, though.

In dealing with the sick and in preparing food come to mind.

I wouldn't mind it for electronics either.
Somehow 'marketing' instead of 'greed' takes away all the Michael Douglas punch.
"his infinite beta shop"

give the guy a break. He is drawing on his experience in building products at Infinitely Beta. Blogs from other product company founders often mention the work they do and sometimes (horror) their company names.

They don't do outsourcing/services. They aren't a "shop" any more than any other product company (funded by YC say) is.

If he were trying to use the blog for marketing he should have linked to his product (paisa.com) a few times.

(I have no affiliation with IB, fwiw)
ordinarily, I wouldnt reply to this - but this potentially affects my business, so here goes:

You dont need to be a good programmer to build a great software business. There are innumerable instances of non-programmers building great business. And especially while churning out your MVP, you could do much worse than outsourcing your product and instead, driving sales.
There is a bloated sense of elitism in writing your own code - while I certainly subscribe to "once a geek, always a geek" personality, the insistence that the CEO/CFO/CXO should be a coder is not entirely healthy.

I run an outsourcing business and our first few (and currently one) customer are Silicon Valley startups, some of which got acquired in the course of time. And we are not expensive - the lowest we have gone is 1/3rd the silicon valley salary rate for a 10 year experienced engineer (this was when the project was large enough).

As far as India is concerned, I have had an interesting discussion with @plinkplonk over here - India has orders of magnitude more people and engineers than most other countries. So yes, there is a high signal-to-noise ratio to finding people... not unusual in any large economy.
When comparing skill levels to countries like Eastern Europe, I will admit you have a better chance of finding good engineers there, just because you need to be very good to be able to make money like that. [[ Read what I just wrote AGAIN - I didnt say europeans are better than indians in general. I said YOU would have a better chance at finding them in a smaller place.]]

I wouldnt presume to go and tell you how to go and find your employees/outsourcing partners, but remember this: At the end of the day, India has a huge talent pool - in this day of an overheated Silicon Valley/NY job market, how do you go about leveraging this talent pool ? Use the fact that a good Indian salary is a fraction of American salary - these are the same people who migrate to silicon valley and pull a Vinod Khosla or Ram Shriram. There is no real truth to the fact that cheap==poor when exchange rates play to your advantage.
Sure they are. I do it every day. I work at my actual job for 8 hours, and then come home and work on my own stuff for another 8 hours. I've been doing this for quite awhile. =/
No one is forcing you to use other people's best practices, poor choices can be made in any language.