skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's been a while since I used either C++ or lisp, but for a function that's only used in the same class, isn't it just the function name, argument names and types, and type of return value? You only need to mess around with header files if it will be used elsewhere.

For lisp, you still need the function name and argument names (don't you? or is it common to access them as a list, with cddr etc?) - so it seems the saving is only in the type of return value and types of parameters. That is extra typing, but it doesn't seem much more - I guess it may make a difference at the margin. But if so, this is just dynamic typing. You still choose argument names and a function name.

Or is it more a cultural, idiomatic thing, of what's customary in a language? Which is the author's point, of Sapir-Whorf. I think of course you'll tend to do what's accepted in a language, what's easiest, what its strengths are. But it's also possible to cross-use idioms. It may be a little awkward, but if it really is right idiom for that specific task, it should help.

Or it might be another kind of cultural factor: that the author's C++ is work code, seen by other people (or more likely to be), and so function and argument names need to be fretted over, for others to understand (and also not criticize) them. I'm just guessing here. Why fret over C++ names, but not lisp names?
I've never seen that in the US. I should add that to our hiring agreements!

But I do agree with the other poster. Most high quality devs I know, worth their weight, won't sign on for that. Their view is that its a slap in the face from day one, and disrespect like that from management never gets better over time.
Plus I would never be able to afford $99 for 50GB for a year.

huh?
In 2009, Sprint supplied phone location data to the FBI 8 million times: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/gps-data/

"The spokesman also said that law enforcement agents have to obtain a court order for the data, except in special emergency circumstances."

But:

"The US Department of Justice has petitioned the 3rd District Court of Appeals for the right to request cellphone location data without a warrant."

http://thenextweb.com/us/2010/02/11/dept-justice-pushes-warr...
There was a research project at ERTOS to port XNU to L4 microkernel. Interestingly, this guy now works at Apple on the kernel team.

http://ertos.nicta.com.au/software/darbat/
Wow, someone went for alliteration!
Fun fact: Etrade won't let you use a period ( . ) in a password. No error or anything, account creation just silently fails.
I think there are only three people left of the founding team who are employees, @biz, @crystal (support), and @jeremy (ops). The oldest dev is @bs, but very early on, but wasn't around when twitter was created.

Twitter's not the company it was 5 years ago. People move on. It's ok.
Actually I think it's usually the case where a company is founded by 2 or 3 really passionate people. Typically, there's one who's passion stays with the company for the test of times. With Microsoft, it was Bill Gates with Paul Allen leaving. With Apple, it was Steve Jobs with Wozniak no longer there. With Twitter, it Dorsey staying (after having been pushed out) with Evan leaving.
For those interested, http://veriplace.com/ allows you to do this kind of serverside phone location tracking yourself.

They say they give people good privacy controls, but it is very unclear if it works on an opt-in or opt-out basis (they claim to track 180 million phones in the US)
are there any freeways around st louis that would go along with these numbers? If he is street smart, and the family said that in 1999....maybe is was homeless, but creative at getting what he needs.
From my POV, I felt that the phone interviewers for my internship were chosen arbitrarily (mine were from New York, when I was trying to get a spot in the Mountain view campus).

The reasoning appears to be that you're either good enough or you're not, and that it doesn't matter who interviews you for that to be true. However, the difficulty was really variable: interviewer 1 asked lots and lots of algorithms questions which I wasn't doing well on, caused him to become obviously annoyed with me. 2 seemed fairly ambivalent throughout. 3 really worked with me to try and get answers out of me (even though I was incredibly nervous).

I don't see why phone screens are not with prospective teams; they're the ones that will have to deal with you and have the best idea of what skills they need. Maybe they're trying to avoid people building up little fiefdoms? I generally came out feeling the way you do (and the way the OP does). It seems random, and for a company that (rightly) prides itself on the quality of its data and making data-led decisions, it makes it sting doubly.
Why would the competent developers migrate to the company that is more hostile, in a purely objective sense, than the alternatives?
Design is Simpler Now: Embrace the Extract
Thank you. You're not alone.
That's because copy/paste in web forms is implemented. It was fixed after beta 5, but before release candidate 1: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=611741
Because ~99% of internet companies seem to either fail or be acquired, it's the nature of the beast. Only a handful of companies (like you mentioned Oracle, Google, Apple, Amazon) live long enough for a founder to even stay there.
Elaborate 3D printed dice
Whenever I see a resume with open source code, I always visit and try to read some of their code. I rarely ask them about it (there's little time), but it does inform which questions I want to ask in the interview and my overall impression of their skills.
I interviewed with them recently (got through phone interviews and am waiting for a visa for my onsite interview), and I never got any trick/puzzle questions that need no programming to solve. I did get questions about simple CS concepts and had to write code for programming problems on a shared google doc. Nothing any ordinary CS graduate wouldn't know. I made mistakes, which my interviewers always guided me to correct. They don't expect you to write a flawless binary search - they know you'll make mistakes. What they want to see is how you think and how you code, and how you recover from mistakes. Also, that you know what binary search is in the first place.

That was my first interview, and they said at first it was going to be a coding interview. My next interview was a design interview. We talked at length about designing a simple web application, which got increasingly sophisticated as we progressed. But my interviewer did ask me to write code to demonstrate what I had in mind from time to time and I had to code up some small methods and classes to show him. No puzzles. No CS theory or abstract problems. Just what I would do if I were building a real world application.

Oh, and they asked about what projects I had worked on both interviews.

I have been an interviewer in the place where I work currently, and I always asked candidates to write code. Some guys here ask puzzles, but I don't like that. Puzzles
(like how to find you who's lying in an island on people or something) don't really show anything in an interview situation. But a short programming problem, demonstrating the ability to identify and use a well known data structure or algorithm, or to use good sense and understanding to design a solution to a problem does go a long way to show that a candidate can actually code and get stuff done. I've seen lots of bad candidates impress us with their knowledge of tech buzzwords, past projects in their CV and even talking about design patterns, but fail miserably when asked specific questions or writing even the simplest amount of code.

But if someone asks me about trains and birds, I would seriously reconsider working there
Virtually all employment in the US is at will, meaning you are continually on "probation". The difference between a contractor and an FT is that the contractor is 1099'd, pays both halves of FICA taxes, and isn't provided health insurance; more importantly, when the employer is as overt about the issue as "not hiring you full time", there's no implied social contract or norm ensuring you'll even end up getting the job.

Contractors make significantly more money than full time devs partly for this reason. They're compensated for shouldering the risk of keeping a full book of work. Getting a good developer to work as a contractor for what will eventually be their FT wage is almost kind of a scam.

This is a simple, practical issue. You're Sam, a developer with 5 years experience. You have a choice between two roughly equal jobs. One prospective employer offers you a full time job tomorrow; the other offers you a 3 month auditioning contract. Which offer do you pick?
staminus.net for hosting and it's coded in php and mysql
I just bought the book as per your review (I'm not a programmer). Let's see what happens!
Kelly,
Did you consider that the answer is slightly more nefarious than this, and that Facebook might view Zapd as competition for something it currently has in the works?
I feel like I should be surprised, but it seems everything eats something and is eaten by something else.
Ye I agree. Big part of the reason it rocks is because of the data that is entered every day, which is still happening. I just checked the feed and it is averaging 20+ items per day, which is what has kept it as the main source of startup info.

The OP gripe is about it being down, slow etc. and the stagnation in dev - all of that shouldn't be hard to fix (and it may well be on the way to getting fixed) and it certainly isn't at the point of neglect where they should consider giving it to somebody else.
1. Yes
2. Yes

People submit data and it's displayed, 20 activities a time and if all of those activities are videos it is taking about 17 seconds to load
Do you want to be doing this? If so, don't sell. If you're happy somebody else doing what ever they want with it and don't want do deal with it? Don't sell.
Out here in SV it is almost unheard of; if someone is not working out after 90 or 180 or 365 days you drop them and move on. It is definitely a sellers market for talent here and anyone who is worthwhile enough to make an offer to is not going to put with an explicit probationary period (since everyone is a at-will employee and general non-competes are worthless the concept is pretty much a moot point anyway...)
Ask HN: How is Amazon Cloud Drive any better?
Apart from including a media player (big deal?) - how is Amazon cloud drive better ?
Ask HN: Fraction of Y-Comb companies raise funding during cycle?
Anon, for obvious reasons.

Ok, so we have an investor who wants to invest. For reasons [1] we do not want to take the money. We have no other investors lined up. And we are running out of money.

We applied to Y Comb and like to think that we have a good shot.

What I am thinking of is turning down the investor and taking my chances with raising money after (if) we get into Y combinator.

Since we are running out of money so this is playing it close. Anyways, question time:

_What fraction of Y Combinator companies raise funding before the end of the cycle?_

--

1. I know this is risky.

2. Investor is not bad or terrible. He has a geographic focus and insists on us moving to suburban places. We are hipsters.

3. I know about DST etc. I am talking about other sources.
Always Aim to Alliterate, Says Stan.
I wish Jon Stokes had written this article.
I think part of the problem is we are loading embedded videos instead of thumbnails as it's taking about 17 seconds to load the page with 20 videos now. We have a semi basic machine through staminus.net, but I really want to get my own server that can handle 100,000+ users ay a time. I haven't considered having the load on another unburdened machine but that's a really good idea.
Depends on the contract. Over here (Finland) it's very common to have a three months "trial period", during which both the employer and employee are free to terminate the contract at (practically) any point and for any reason. However, after that three months, you need to give a one month advance notice to quit and firing someone becomes more complicated too.
Talk to your lawyer. It may not necessarily be a win to add that clause. You have the ambient right to fire someone (in almost every locale in the US) with no reason whatsoever. Why qualify it?
They don't need a kickstart from uranium. You stick thorium into the fluoride salt, the thourium absorbs particles (neutrons I think), it turns into uranium, and then goes through fission. The uranium left over is minimal.
I once decided to skip the standard programming problem during the interview process, and I ended up regretting it extremely. The person we hired was nice, and a good "culture" fit, but couldn't code for beans. We had to let them go and I felt pretty bad about it.

Programming questions certainly aren't the be all and end all, but as a filter they are useful.
> and obviously pharma companies have no interest in
> advancing macrophage treatments.

At the risk of seeming thick, why is that exactly?
Conversely, (3) might attract some programmers who want to work at a place that is very careful about who they bring on FT.

There are three risks compared to a FT offer - (1) the business goes south and they can't afford to bring you on FT (in which case you might be screwed even if you had gotten a FT offer), (2) you're not a cultural fit (in which case, it's the better outcome for everybody) and (3) you don't meet their standards.
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Thanks for the advice! Checking my SQL is a really good idea, I really do need to reorganize the database.
Woah woah woah. Don't forget take into account the overheads in consulting.

Just off the top of my head you'd need to think about winning each contract, paying taxes, holidays, health cover, professional indemnity, sick leave, misc business expendables (like office, phone, ISP), the list goes on.

Don't get me wrong. It is still good money I'm sure.
We don't use thorium today because you can't make bombs from it. Uranium was chosen back in the 40s because you can bombs from the waste produced by a nuclear reactor.
Actually I was joking about adding. I have no plans to add such a thing. Our interview process has fortunately been solid enough that no one we've hired has been less than solid. And I think such a clause would backfire, since many of our best devs wouldn't have accepted on such conditions.
Followed. You really do have a lot of great stuff - I'll be up tonight checking it out. Thank you!
Definitely agree with this post. I've been interviewing for the last couple months and one of the better/more fair interviews I've had involved a nice back and forth (mostly the types of questions posed in the article, including a lot of stuff about my outside projects).

Then they brought me in for a tech interview where they plunked me down in front of a computer to architect a small application for a type of problem I might encounter on the job. I thought it was fair and it probably gave them reasonable insight into how I code/think/present my solutions.

I've had a lot of "write a linked list" style and they're draining. The quality of the applicant being pulled in to do CS trivia is going to be all over the place since that type of an interview can be gamed fairly easy if someone has a desire to do so.
Ask HN: Need salary negotiation advice
(Throwaway account - coworkers read HN and know my main account)

After spending a couple of years at my first job out of grad school, I applied to Google at my friend's suggestion (he currently works there). The interviews went well, and the recruiter called today to say that things are moving to the "compensation committee" stage. I accepted my first (and to date, only) job offer several years back without any negotiations, so I have no experience negotiating whatsoever.

What struck me as weird was that the recruiter wanted me to fill out a data sheet listing my salary, previous salary increase, previous bonuses, expected future bonuses, all stock/options grant info, etc. Is this the norm? My friends who were hired straight out of school naturally didn't have to fill this out, though some of my friends say the salary inquiries are normal when applying to new jobs.

Will filling this out impact the negotiations at all? I didn't really have a plan other than asking for my current salary + 20%, and seeing where they would meet me in the middle.

Thanks!
In summer 2010 about 40% did.

It's no problem to raise money before YC if you do it on a convertible note that YC's investment doesn't trigger.
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>or we just make healthy food taste better.

The very easy way to do that is cut processed sugars and carbs out of your diet for a few months, healthy foods will start tasting better, and you'll never be able to go back without getting sick.

I did that and the result is that Egg McMuffins - my old favorite - make me feel bloated, Girl Scout Cookies make me sick, and Wendy's burgers smell like cow manure.
Try looking at it a different way - assume, you will have a full time job at either of these prospective employers. Do you want the one that makes FT offers immediately, or the one that makes them only after testing new people out for 3 months?
I believe you can build a powerplant that produces less than 5 megawatts without special permission in California, and I don't think thorium is a controlled substance.
Google: Your social connections and content
No, you've missed a key risk: (4) that the prospective employer continues to get resumes from people even after "filling" the position and decides on T+89 that you're great, but they can do even better.

During the 90 day contract, both you and the employer must technically still be "looking" (the company still has an FT headcount to fill, and the dev still doesn't have a job). But the company is inherently better positioned to deal with the uncertainty: companies hire many people simultaneously, and keeping a req open costs them nothing. Individuals, on the other hand, have a very hard time conducting a serious job search and doing their 100% on a full-time job simultaneously.

That is not actually a risk in the FT dev model, where the incentives are structured differently; it is instead very much more like the "up or out!" model of the Big 4 accounting firms or investment banks: you got the shot at the gig, now work your ass off to make sure you can keep it!

If you are a friend of mine and you are staring down the barrel of one of these "contract-to-hire" offers, take my advice: turn it down. We've been hiring nonstop for the past couple years, including for dev, and it is ludicrously, insanely good to hire good people. You hold all the cards, except (tragically) the one labeled "knowing what you're worth".
spacepeoples.com, for Australia based ios development
The OS X uploader requires installation of Adobe AIR. Adobe bloatware? Another piece of software checking for updates? Another piece of software that needs to be updated? No thank you. I'm all for getting a product out the door, but is a native OS X app that much trouble for an organization like Amazon? Does this bother anyone else, or is it just me?
I sometimes just completely fail to function at a whiteboard. I've choked to comedic proportions on problems I'd solved easily only a few days before. There's not a doubt in my mind that my resume's been thrown in the "Non-programming programmer" pile due to my stage fright at least once. I can certainly sympathize with the need for a low false-positive rate, but as a candidate I can't help but wish that overcoming stage fright wasn't also such a prerequisite for working with good programmers.
I want the one that makes FT offers, because I don't believe that the best programmers, who can write their own ticket in this business climate, would put up with this contracting bullshit. This approach to hiring is a cop-out. It says, "we don't know how to hire properly, so we're going to push the risk onto the candidates".
The CEO thinks it's true.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/08/nokia-ceo-stephen-elop-ra...

Taking a status quo position and building their business around a commodity that was hot 10 years ago doesn't seem like the right way to guarantee Nokia's future.
Not really. Just stringing together buzzwords that irritate engineers. Variants of this kind of stuff have been around forever.
It's opt-in--definitely no way to get a locate without a device owner providing permission to do so. It's kind of like a Facebook app, if you're using a service that uses Veriplace to get location information, any end user can log in and modify (or deny) what information that service can access. Location data is only stored as specified by your Veriplace settings and otherwise isn't kept around.

Veriplace is a location aggregator (for details, see http://developer.sprint.com/site/global/go_to_market/aggrega...). Essentially, every carrier has a disparate location infrastructure that would require significant development and customization to integrate with. Simply too much work for most developers. Veriplace and other aggregators provide a much simpler, singular API for accessing location data across multiple carriers.

To be clear--these companies are tightly regulated and strictly watched over by both the government and the carriers. It's not these services that should be the concern, it's more so data retention policies and what not of carriers where the data originates.
When they launched this product, it didn't even cross my mind that it would run afoul of anything. People are doing what they want with the data that they own.
This calls for allowing the entirely user-defined $-operator in python 4.
I feel as if someone could talk to his family, this would be so much easier....I did notice how it sounds like his family was never intrigued by this kids home-made language, that he had since he was a kid....i dont think they would disregard this language unless they knew it had any discernable patterns, but once again we dont know his folks.
(4) isn't really a risk if the employer is following a consistent hiring procedure, since they will not have had the time necessary to evaluate your potential replacement. What sane employer is going to willingly pass up someone who's been vetted over 3 months (and determined to meet the standards) for an unknown?
"To do it on a place like Hacker News is quite shortsighted since you never know who you're talking to or who is reading your posts."

Erm, shouldn't this go both ways? Like, isn't this equally applicable to posting snarky, uninformed comments in the first place? :)
When Twittering Gets in the Way of Real Life
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Now if Google only added more localized payment options. Did you ever try to convince Germans that a credit card is worth the €30 (per year) that banks typically charge?

Even just adding PayPal would improve the situation tremendously.
Why I Like Mercurial More Than Git
Really you'd call it the opposite of eating, if anything, right? Viruses inject DNA into their victim, and the victim explodes with clones.
The fallout, or lack there-of, from this will be interesting to watch. Any legal battles fought over this will certainly further shape precedent as more and more of our digital media moves to personal online storage and streaming.

(Not to mention that I'd love to see Amazon and the Record Corps duke it out over this!)
Perhaps Google only wanted the people who specifically want to work at Google... Once they have no other choice, Google has its pick of the remaining fish, right?

I wish it didn't play games in recruitment. I had already accepted an internship at Facebook by the time Google called. In the end I'm glad I did, because I really enjoyed Facebook and am going back full time.
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