skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't agree with the suggestion as I fear that beginning with SICP could just demotivates a beginner and that early positive feedbacks (related to the goal to achieve) are important.

While Scheme is conceptually simpler than Clojure, Clojure remains relatively simple in its conception. Here is what makes it a little more complex:

- one needs to know a bit of Java to really use it fully. The integration with Java is so nice that it's not rare to see direct calls to Java APIs without using wrappers, for instance when there is no Clojure library to do the job.

- one needs to understand the different ways of dealing with concurrency and learn to choose the appropriate one for a given problem.

- one needs to understand how protocols work, when they are needed and when multimethods are prefered. This also implies understanding the differences between deftype, defstruct and defrecord.

That said, it remains relatively simple because you only have to deal with functions, macros and namespaces and all is rather uniform.

Here is what I would suggest to begin with Clojure:

- if you have some Lisp background just pick a book like Programming Clojure (short, nice to read and direct to the point) or Practical Clojure (also short and up to date regarding protocols)

- if you have some Java or OO background but don't find confident enough with a Lisp syntax read the first chapters of Practical Common Lisp and then one of the other books mentioned above. http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
This book explains really clearly the why of the Lisp syntax and also macros (better than Programming Clojure on this point but this is mostly due, I guess, to the fact that Programming Clojure is more concise).
Was it always $20 as the HN headline says? The website says $50 now...
Have you heard of http://www.pickydomains.com?
Was great. Thanks guys.
Steve Jobs Absent, Apple Shareholders Reject Succession Plan Proposal
... and he just changed the HN headline to $50!

I did the same double take, thinking the price changed. They changed the price! Sneaky!
Am I more likely to use the Xoom than the iPad? Yes. The hardware is faster but more importantly, the software is better suited for multitasking. I’m a bigger fan of Honeycomb’s multitasking UI & notification system compared to the double-tap-home and passive notifications you get with the iPad and iOS. I can be more productive with the Xoom than I can be with the iPad as a result. I don’t believe Honeycomb’s UI is perfect by any means, it’s just more multitasking oriented than iOS is at this point.

It's like watching all the lessons we learned about multitasking in the early 90s coming true all over again...and once again Apple is running a hair behind the competition due to various architecture decisions.

I have hope that we'll see a new iOS in a year or two though that does multitasking and notifications correctly (or at least in an appropriately Apply way).

There's still tons of room for Apple to leapfrog over Honeycomb without too much work since I'd argue that Honeycomb is the first version of the OS to out and out compete with iOS. iOS today is really a number of subtle tweaks to the original, some refinements here, a new gesture there, etc. Apple has got to have something big in the works that'll push their stuff into the next generation.
Split test this yourself. Every situation is different
Creating Flash Websites with Wix
There are some definite downsides to building websites with Flash (key being the lack of support for Flash on iOS), but there are still plenty of sites out there that are built on Flash, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon. And sometimes you’re going to have clients who are dead-set on having a Flash website.
PHP isn't to hard to do away with the abstraction though, or just go with some lightweight helper libraries.
I use Visio for drafting home renovation plans. It isn't the easiest tool to use for this purpose but the results are good enough to save me the expense of hiring an architect, and the city government hasn't complained. So a set of primitives for architecture would be appreciated and might get me to move off Visio. Related to the architecture primitives, a set of furniture and cabinetry primitives would also help, as they help to visualize how reasonable a building design may be.
Thanks, you're right, I've increased the price to $50 for new orders.
This thing is dying to be distributed via torrent.
You have to appreciate though, that $50 is still a modest price if the service is as good as it claims. Just look at domain squatter prices, you get pretty much nothing with $50.
It was $20 for the first 7 customers, I've bumped it up to a more realistic $50 now.
Questions to ask an hero
I wish I could delete the first two words from this article's title. Uptime's related to scalability, but it's not the same thing - scalability encompasses more than that.

In my experience, you can get away with lower uptime but your users will crucify you for poor performance. Site down for a half hour here and there? Fine. Site responds slowly and your clients' data takes a while to update? Big, big problem.
I was so impressed, I bought one!
We did start a project like this to visualize within phpMyAdmin, but it never finished. You can see it at http://www.jgraph.com/demo/mxgraph/schema.html. It's kind of a semi-schema editor, but would need work on the parsing bit.
More thoughts on switching back to Java from Scala
Oh - I fully agree. For most situations, raw computation is irrelevant. But even in the cases where it matters, PHP isn't remarkably faster than its closest alternatives.
I don't think multitasking helps productivity…
Not normal, and can't be enforced.
Depends how thin the layer of JavaScript is over the CRUD part of the app. And if the app talks to a service hub for lots of offline processing, is it still a CRUD app?
Just a quick note - Symphony (the CMS) is different to Symfony (the Framework) - I presume you meant the latter? These two seem to get confused all the time.
Apple Launches $0.99 Mac FaceTime App on Mac App Store
Multiplying & Dividing whole numbers: harder than you think [video]
I have to agree. Bolting a full stack framework on top of PHP just doesn't appeal much to me. If you want that kind of organisation in your application, I would much prefer something other than PHP. PHP excels at keeping complexity down. If you don't work within that paradigm, then Python or Ruby are probably better alternatives.
startupgods.com? I dunno, you look like a plumber with a leaky faucet. I'd have a little more confidence if you had a name more like "PerfectNameFinder.com" or something like that.
Use our API:

http://www.repustate.com/docs/
Clever scheme to build a list of beta users used by Yobongo
What has surprised me is that it's a paid application.
Anyone have a TARDIS I can borrow
I own PerfectAlias.com as well, but I felt StartupGods.com was more brandable, and would capture the attention of my target audience.
I think you'll find that the problem with "late static binding" is being ignored in Ruby, because it's an non-existing problem.

PHP - as a language - is certainly not innovative. That's OK though - The strength of PHP is low complexity and stability. Innovation can be a threat to these goals.
I agree. And to make sure I don't forget that, I exited chrome, started a shell, started vi, added your statement to a file of quotes I keep, exited vi, exited the shell, started chrome again, logged back in to HN and posted this response.
At the very first day. Because is good to have all source history and look and explore, what they learned, and how they code evolved.
> And yes, I know PEAR but that's not very PHP5 at all.

Symfony uses pear to distribute itself. You can get Zend from pear. PHPUnit does as well. Numerous other highly respected PHP libs use pear. Granted, they use their own distribution channels, like Debian. Pear isn't intended to be a central hub, but rather a distribution method. Couple with this Pyrus (http://pear2.php.net/) and Pear2, it's widely used by experienced PHP developers. Then you have pecl on top of that.

The problem isn't pear or pecl or any of that. It's that people don't bother to learn what's out there. They just associate pear with PHP4 and leave it at that. This carries over.

The other problem is that your average PHP devs build environment isn't as server based as it is for perl or ruby. Most PHP people just upload a file directly to the server and refresh the web page.

I imagine most people would be surprised by the number of really cool and interesting things going on in the PHP world, but because it's PHP, they elect not to learn about it.

> Most of the good (and 'modern') PHP code is 'jailed' in frameworks right now or quite hard to find

That's another misconception. I think it's hard for 'new' people to PHP to get a handle on everything, and I think their would be great value in pulling it all together. The problem is, the people that know about all this stuff aren't new, and we haven't really stepped back to look. However, most modern frameworks are easy to mix and match, and use only the parts you want from it. Their is obviously cases where it could be improved, and their is always a push to do this better.
Like many things, I guess it depends on the app you're building.
ET2 Trailer
10 most useful cvs commands in linux/unix
lol... you do know people pay branding companies $10,000 per name to do this right?
Scoop does not support viewing HTTPS traffic though as it just listens on the network interface rather than acting as a proxy.
One more tip: You are networking with the people in the room, not with the ones on your mobile phone.
PHP code as a whole seems to lend itself to tighter coupling, as you say with some framework stuff to get the advantage of some things you need to adopt the lot. It is probably rooted in the pre-PHP5 culture where there was a lack of language constructs to make things as reusable as you would like.
Not so much use after the verdict's been all over the news for an hour or two... but thanks.
Confessions of a Prep School College Counselor
Stupid Interview Questions Everyone Still Asks: Reverse the Words in a String
So what happens if I pay, say I don't like the name you come up with, and then buy the domain and launch with it anyway?
If standard libraries are always suited, and there are many "variants" with different language bindings.
A new suggestion for formatting JavaScript code
Practical Tips for Writing a Good Thesis
Writing a good thesis is all about proper planning and time management. Nothing will be done well if students do not plant their time and the writing of the thesis well. Once they have made a specific plan on their writing process, producing an good thesis is not a problem.
PayPal Cuts Service to Alleged WikiLeaks Whistle-blower Support Effort
My experience of Objective-J is that is really makes writing large applications in (essentially) Javascript manageable. It's a fantastic asset.
Rate my project: twothings.me
Hello everyone,

Here's my first project (http://www.twothings.me). I've been lurking in the dark corner for a while and decided to start working on something which I think will be interesting/fun for Facebook users.

TwoThings.me allows you to post 2 things you like (or dislike) about anything. It could be something you bought, your GF (if you have one), your car, a celebrity, anything!

The fields use autosuggest but you can submit your own.

The next goal is to show some analytics and/or trending over time.

Give it a try and let me know how it could be improved. Any comments (positive / negative) will be appreciated!

Thanks!
Relatedly, one piece of advice that 37Signals had in their Getting Real book that really helped me is that you can delay building many systems past launch.

For example, BCC has a substantial amount of functionality in the back-end interface so that I can handle common support tasks. AR has virtually nothing -- a single page which lists customer email addresses, trial statuses, and upcoming subscription renewal dates. I could have spent 2 weeks on building out a decent amount of functionality for CS and more advanced statistical navel gazing, but a) I might not pick the right stuff and b) it would mean that the release of the next feature that actually sells software would be on 3/15 instead of 3/1.

BCC has organically grown its backend over the years, as I get so frustrated with fixing the same issue manually that I make a one-button way to do it.
The Dilution Concern for Founders
I noticed this about a year ago. Fortunately I was/am employed so I ignored it. Still a cool idea. A lot like those sites that used to add job offers to HTML comments.
Honeycomb's UI looks amazing!
> I guess with the implication being that it's not really important.

You'd guess wrong then. The implication isn't that it's not important. Rather, that it's not important to the resulting web page. That the web page is written in Ruby or Python or Perl. This isn't to say that what inside doesn't matter to those working with it.

To provide a comparison: I don't care if a game uses C, C++, Objective-C, Java, etc. I care about the end result.

At least, that was my understanding of what was written.
> The author seems to think that Clojure has some conceptional complexity to it that is easier to overcome by doing a intermediate step with Racket.

The sense I got is that the author believes SICP is such an excellent teaching manual that it's easier to learn Clojure-via-Scheme using SICP than it is to learn Clojure via itself using any other resource.
Strongly agreed, I'm not sure why the post conflated these two very different issues. Scaling has almost nothing to do with five 9s uptime, with the exception that if you can't scale, once you reach a certain number of users your uptime will be closer to 0% than 100%.
http://www.twothings.me

Courtesy clickable link...
Ask HN: Infrastructure outsourcing for Startups
We have been running a startup for the last couple of years and by trial error we have learned & documented a lot regarding software management related to a startup. We want to monetize our expertise and trying to see if there is a market for that.

Things we are thinking of start from the mundane: setting up mail, setting up domain, building right landing page, buying a logo, web analytics setup, dedicated linux server setup to social network management and monitoring, PR management, SEO tools, CRM tools, project management, etc.

We want to offer these in a no BS way and in a way a startup could afford and maintain with ease.

Would welcome your responses.
Have you considered file storage in the cloud? I note that some services like chart.ly are becoming very popular for sharing compelling visuals.
On a similar note, are you sure you want to use the Drawing1.xml as the default bookmark text? I don't know if that will help me remember the site a year from now. But diagram.ly/myusername/mydrawingname would be cool.
I disagree.

Obviously, building product is the sine qua non of a startup. But, there's a huge difference for companies that can build a great product, and then access the YC brand and network, and those that don't have access to that brand and network.

There's a number of companies that build a great product, but then they need access to a network for advice and funding. If you're going to get funded via Angel List, for instance, you have to have some form of social proof.
Your post could be shortened to: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=clojure
A related but somewhat off-topic question: when do you start using version control on brand-new projects? I find myself hg initing and making my first commit once I've written something significant -- say around 150-200 lines of code.
That's another "burning platform" in a week from YC (the other one was that fax-in-a-browser thing). The correct solution to this kind of problem is government backed centralized system. Like in Estonia: http://eng.e-tervis.ee/overview.html . Sooner or later all countries will have this kind of solutions in place and sadly, DrChrono will die..
Show HN: LifeEnsured, privately manage your on-line life after you pass.
> So why all the "they're just can't be bothered to change" comments?

Because (and I'm being serious here), it's PHP, and people can't accept that PHP is anything but a useless horrid beast.
USA Inc. A report looking at the US Government as a business, by Mary Meeker
> Rather, that it's not important to the resulting web page. That the web page is written in Ruby or Python or Perl.

Without going into a pointless flamewar about the definition of important, and what the author possibly meant as opposed to what was actually written, I believe the choice of technology stack does indeed influence the outcome of the project in many ways. But that's not really the point here at all. The author's assertion that PHP is "just" a glue component simply doesn't reflect the amount of heavy lifting done by it.
New MacBook Pro series
New MacBook Pro lineup with ThunderBolt, quad-core CPUs released
I will argue that for mid to large applications, scripting languages are just the entry point to your entire application, as the author says, the glue. I would run a "real" application server underneath for the middle tier (i.e. to handle the business logic), and have the scripts handle the presentation layer only.
Report: Sales Team's Perception of Marketing's Leads
I'll go out on a limb here and say that most apps handle some kind of data structure on the server, and in many cases they facilitate some kind of interaction between the user and this data. While you can theoretically do the entire functionality in client-side JavaScript, I assert the idea is so abysmally bad it's not really worth considering as a valid counter example. Please note that I wouldn't include pure single user applications like http://www.diagram.ly/ in this category because they don't manipulate objects on the server that are in need of protection and validation.
Can someone please explain to me why this was modded down?

I'm curious, as I am unaware of the Apple multitasking history. (Had an 8086, and an Apple II at school; never encountered apple again until after I got an iPod and then an iPhone)
Facebook is so not a CRUD app
The pattern is good. It's the extras on top of what the pattern proscribes, though, that makes Rails' implementation great, eg. composition via behaviors, easy validation and relations, and scoping for bundling sets of common query criteria.

PHP implementations run the gamut from basic low-hanging-fruit-grabbing attempts (like CodeIgniter's frankly, well, weird implementation) to fully-featured ones like Yii. I do agree that they goes as far as doing most of RoR's implementation and then just... stop.

> ... what other RoR influenced PHP framework features have you heard of?

RoR-like routing shows up frequently as well, and in Yii's case, Views templates have the same access to both directly-assigned template variables, and variables belonging to the controller instance itself.
Could someone explain me, why a 4.5% increase in conversion rates increases sales from 1,000$ to 4,500$? For me, 1,000$ * 1.045 = 1,045$
As seen in their info page here:
https://optimizely.appspot.com/whatisabtesting
Hacker News Invite Code: YCHN

LifeEnsured is a service which lets you control the distribution and care of your on-line assets after you pass away.

We will modify, transfer or erase your on-line accounts, send final email messages and pass on important files after you are gone. Additionally, we have a growing list of services which we will execute when we have received notification of your passing (i.e. making a web services call, physically printing and mailing a document)

We spoke with quite a few folks about what they want to have happen to their on-line life after they are gone and asked what they thought of a service that would assist with this. Most importantly we asked what would make them use it. We did our best to write our results up in an "OKTrends" style data based report here: http://www.blog.lifeensured.com/?p=16

The best reasons for using our service we heard were:

1. I want to reduce the emotional or administrative burden on my family

2. I want to preserve wealth for my descendants

3. I want to communicate information

4. I want to be remembered

The biggest hurdles and causes of skepticism we heard were:

1. I don’t trust you, how do I know you are a credible company

2. I don’t see a need

3. I have a legal objection

4. I have a philosophical objection

To address these we

1. Partnered with a leading life-insurance distribution company and established an Irrevocable Trust Fund to execute wishes. The fund outlives the company in case something bad happens.

2. Put together a list of 50 uses for the product and worked with estate planners to determine the features that address the biggest existing headaches.

3. Hired a great trust Lawyer to review everything and help us establish a legal structure that provides value to clients when they sign up, a real Digital Asset Trust.

4. Became comfortable with the fact that on-line end-of-life planning isn't for everyone, but for some, it is very important.

We are in beta but believe we are at a point where some broader feedback would help!

Thanks
I much prefer Startupgods.com, it's interesting and memorable.
> The Channel API does not currently support broadcasting a single update to many connected clients

implementing this kind of thing is really tiresome and i wish google would provide a generic broadcast solution.

in general, fan out / fan in solutions seem like a missing part of the app engine sdk.
Ask HN: Our site just got onto Mashable - HELP
Hey Everyone,
For the past few weeks my friends and I have been hacking together small projects from our dorm rooms trying to find something that would stick.

Two days ago we released WhereMyFriends.Be, and last night we were fortunate enough to have been posted on Mashable! We immediately were forced to migrate to Rackspace to make sure our site stayed up: http://wheremyfriends.be

We have been up all night maintaining the site, catching any bugs from users, and just making sure things go smoothly.<p>We have noticed the site slowing down over the course of the night and have been on phone with Rackspace. They think the problem may be a piling queue of requests to our MySQL data tables (which are currently using MyISAM).

We really want to get the site back up to speed as soon as possible but we are honestly at a loss for what to do. We've never experienced a traffic surge like this before. We are on the verge of putting up a landing page and stopping the flow of Mashable traffic.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what we can do to get ourselves back up and running?

Thanks for any suggestions!

(Note: we are using PHP, MySQL, Javascript)
How about an India price? I'll do it for 20$. As a starter, here is a free name for anyone to register:

nameonic.com: rhymes with mnemonic and is a great name for a names company.

Let's see how long the name lasts.

UPDATE: The name was just registered. Thanks Guys. wow that was fast. 32 minutes standing.
I think startupgods.com is a cool name for this business. Nice layout also. If I had a new business in mind I wouldn't hesitate to try your service. The money back guarantee makes me feel comfortable, but I am just curious on the amount of refunds you will be processing - I guess it depends on how creative you are at naming. Please report back with results.
Hence his comment about making a luxury a commodity. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2257574
Maybe I'm cynical, but because you emphasis the "money back" part, it feels more like a scam. I was sort-of half expecting an auto-name-generator: "$randomstring.com is still available!" If only 10% don't ask their money back, you make a profit.
I once heard about a "baby gender predictor", with money back guarantee, which just always emailed you "Congrats, it will be a boy!". About 50% right :).
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