skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree with SwellJoe, gruseom and gasull: this is a code maintenance issue, and the way to sell it to the customer (and to yourself, so you can get started) is bundling some cleanup with each feature.

I ran into some ancient and crufty code at my last job, and learned some things in the process of dealing with it.

1. Make sure you're using sane version control -- SVN or a DVCS. If you're on a Unix or have access to cygwin, getting started looks like:

cd ~/projects/bigco/thisone
git init
git add .
git commit

This will give you the courage and safety net to make big changes to your code.

2. Look at your build file (Makefile?) and see what it says about the project's organization. You probably have some idea of what's wrong already, but this might point out things like files that are never compiled, the same few files used to build everything else -- even though one or more files really should only do one specific thing.

3. Start cutting dependencies. Starting with the file where you're adding the newest feature, look into each of the files/modules included/imported and see if the dependency is really necessary. Maybe you only depend on one function or data definition in that other file, and it would make sense to merge that code with another existing dependency. Also take a hard look at your "utils" file/folder (every project has one) and see if some parts can be merged elsewhere, or even eliminated by using existing features of your platform.

4. Clean up the configuration file. Are some options irrelevant now? Are the defaults sane? Look at the code that touches it. Are there more defaults hidden in the code, when it should all be in the config file? Are there settings at the top of some files that could be moved to the config file? Don't go overboard, though: you usually don't need a configuration option to tell one piece of code about a choice you made in another piece of code in the same project. Clean that up, delete some if/else branches, and maybe find and clear some obsolete code in the process.

Also, we might be able to give more specific tips if you tell us more about the platform you're using. If the project is compiled, static analysis tools are worth a shot. If you're on Unix/Linux, it can be useful to break off pieces of code into standalone scripts, or better, use an existing (but perhaps obscure) command-line utility to replace old code or base a new feature on. Maybe use cron instead of your homespun scheduling system to launch these separate processes. But at least the customer is supporting this effort, right?
Does Too Much Self-Linking Make Users Go Blind?
The Future of the Desktop
Agreed.

Until your company is fairly large (maybe 20 people?) document for yourself. It's your business, so you can do whatever you want, but I'd suggest writing things down that will help _you_ in three months when you have to look over something you did before.

With that in mind you should decide what you value. The small company teams I've worked on have exchanged virtually all knowledge verbally, and we would only ever draw whiteboard diagrams of things for new hires, which was convenient because the stuff seems to change as fast as the ink dries.
Yes I think this hammers an important point. Write with what helps you think, For me It has to be an uber size blank sheet of paper and I just start planning. After the paper I can usually go to a laptop an either make a rough prototype or at least a structure in code. I don't know why I can't seem to code directly.

To repeat do what helps you think faster/clearer/better
Can be very interesting for fund raisers. As people send donation through premium SMS, anyone can see the amount raised live.

Now, using an area code database they can integrate SMS polls with a map. "Text Iphone or whatever to 41411..." and we can see live the number of people who have Iphones or a certain product and where they live.
He's not scraping live updates, sounds like he's crawling pages from reference sites and extracting the stats in that way.

I would like to talk to a lawyer who has experience in these matters (my email is in my profile)

How does draftmix obtain its stats? And if I may ask, how much does it cost?
"He says once he can afford it he will pay"

There's a few things that I never could believe:

A woman when she weeps

A merchant when he swears

A thief who says he'll pay -

A lawyer when he cares

A snake when he is sleeping

A drunkard when he prays

I don't believe you go to heaven when you're good

Everything goes to hell, anyway...

(Everything Goes to Hell, Tom Waits, )
Stephen Sinofsky: the Windows 7 team isn't too big
Yep, tried this already. Really liked it. Would love to hear more about how it works.
Elgg Launches Version 1.0 of Open Source Social Networking Platform
NSF produced video history of the Internet
RIAA - Ridding the Internet of its Awesome Abilities
There is a tiny bit more information on the Muxtape blog: http://muxtape.tumblr.com/post/46472068
We need down-voting of articles
New Theory on DEET: Mosquitos Just Dislike it
Researchers Discover a Form of Photosynthesis that Relies on Arsenic
I'd heard about them for a while before actually getting in there and using them.
The first time I setup the django admin site was definately a "HOLY SHIT" moment...

Others:
* Google Sketchup (This was only last week --> It's so simple!)
* VM Snapshots
* ITunes library/playlist structure (Don't laugh... The unified library showing every song was a revelation after mucking around with winamp playlists and folders.. Also - I remember winamp really sucking on the mac at the time)
* HTML - "You mean I can publish stuff on the Internet and people can read it from across the world?" (I was about 11 at the time ('95))
A real shame. I really liked muxtape, thought it was dead simple and very cool. Although, it says currently that they are sorting out issues with the RIAA, not permanently shut down...
Project Hovercraft (make your own RC hovercraft from junk)
They aren't shut down. They are negotiating with the RIAA. They will be back up soon.
FCC Approves The First Google Phone
You could suggest that they change their approach in getting the email address but the concept of reminding you to reply with your fix to that error is good.
What If the Kindle Succeeds?
What it's like to work at Disqus: interview
I <3 muxtape. :'(

I really hope they can sort this out..
A first look at the Google Android SDK
Offtopic/

Gotta love the community for this: thoughtfulness, mutual understanding and respect.
How Deep Brain Stimulation Works
"Who are you looking to hire and what skills will they have?

We’re looking for great developers who are passionate about contributing to and shaping the web."

Sounds perfect for the HN crowd.
Does anyone actually use Facebook chat? Leaving aside the details of the implementation, chatting via the FB web interface seems terribly awkward. And while I can use XMPP, most of the people you'd be chatting with won't be.
The End is Near, but is IPv6?
I couldn't agree more with this post... in fact I think it almost exactly describes Microspaces. http://www.nestedguis.com
the post is from July 5, 2002
Just because one could do something, doesn't mean one will do something. I'm not arguing you should use Lisp over Python, merely that the strength of libraries is not a language feature per se. Clearly, it's one of the most important things to consider when picking a language, but it's not a feature of that language any more than how helpful the people in that language's IRC chat room is, or how good the documentation.
Nobody thinks iPhone? I only used them at experience stores, but when I first did I felt stricken by lightning. I think, holy shit, this will be the first un-Japanese interface phone to become a hit in Japan.
Didn't Muxtape just get some angel funding? I swear I read that somewhere. I hope they come back. :\
Where Are We In The Hype Cycle?
Basecamp isn't free, so they can likely devote a few more resources to a slightly more stringent password reset system than, say, icanhascheezburger.com.

What I was trying to put forward for discussion is the idea that if a site can't do password resets "properly" (by phone? or something more secure than the example given in the article) then maybe it shouldn't do it at all, and that this might not be as catastrophic for the user as it seems, since the site is less likely to be essential.

Looking at what I use online:

- all my server stuff: Extremely important, but it's my own problem.

- online banking, bills, etc: Important stuff, not free. I'd be really upset if I got permanently locked out, but all can be reset by phone.

- Digg, Reddit, News.YC, even Facebook: Not important stuff, free. I wouldn't really care if I have to make another account.

- Gmail: This is the only one which doesn't fit. However, I use it daily, so I'm not going to forget my password. On the flip side, if I used it only once a year, it obviously wouldn't be that important to me.

Yeah, I know it's not very realistic, and it's probably not something I'm willing to practice myself. Consider it a thought experiment.
Is Yahoo a better search engine than Google?
I'm surprised (and pleased) that the author doesn't try to rail at the DRM in the kindle, but does praise the benefits the kindle brings to the market as a whole.

He happily accepts that DRM will inevitably fail in books, as it has in music. I absolutely agree that DRM is bad, but I also admire his ability to let the issue slide at this early stage in the market.
Why We Compete with Google
Ask YC: What are some unique job posts that you've seen?
Hello,

I've seen some YC companies that have some very unique job posts and career pages.

I was wondering if you can point me to any?

I have seen Scribd's which i think is excellent.

Any unique job posts from anywhere is nice.

Thanks
Anonymous "Twitter Friend" uses SarahLacy.com to profile Y Combinator
"Early stage"?

e-books are far older than mp3s and avis. Baen Books has been selling speculative fiction in non-DRMed e-book formats for years and (disregarding the fact that almost all of their stuff is shit) it's done very well for them. Cory Doctorow gives away all his books for free, and it's increasingly a tactic adopted by others in the speculative fiction business; four of the five nominees for the Hugo Award this year were released in DRM-free format (for FREE, even) so Hugo voters could have a better chance of reading them.

So, if this is the early stage of e-books, I wonder what it'll look like when the market is mature.
Social networks make all of us become like celebrities or politicians. We become more self-conscious about our image. Don't let anybody take you a picture or a video that you don't want your children to see, because they will.
It's not clear whether Paisano is less equipped to be a journalist or an Angel investor. Some serious factual inaccuracies in the article: I submitted it because this view may seep into the popular perspective.
Posterous.com (YC Summer 2008) launches custom domain name
Awesome, been waiting for this feature. Thanks!
It seems like these guys add a new feature every few days. That's how you stay ahead of the competition. Keep it going posterous team!
Real-Life Applications of Nanotechnology (including killer bionic hornet)
The genetic algorithm.

It programs itself?! Holy Shit!
It has happen to me too recently, but most of the time I get almost exactly the same results.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_dimension
Don't gobble it down. Savor every bite. You'll enjoy it more, and you'll feel fuller on less food. So yes, slow down while eating it.
They will try to rid the internet of its awesome abilities, but it is obvious that they will, in the end, fail.

The internet is an unstoppable force
Last I checked you didn't need to incorporate to invoice or buy insurance. Its good business from a personal liability standpoint, but its not required.
As someone who has been screwed before:
Make a buyout date and clause. Value the IP based on time, calculate your share and set an end date on your agreementpast which you can demand cash from him for your stake. This way he may have final say on all issues, but if you disagree with the general direction after a couple months you can deal him a punishment by demanding a cash out. It is vital to set said date and amount in writing at the outset.
Google (finally) Launches AdSense for RSS Feeds
The ease of readability is what will ultimately make or break ebook readers. If the display is large enough and easy on the eyes and the interface simple and intuitive I can imagine a device capturing a certain following. Other things like price of the unit, prices and restrictions on books, and portability will be addressed if the market is there.

I remember reading ebooks on my Palm several years ago and finding it a less-than-enjoyable experience. Though I've never actually used a Kindle it seems to be a large step in the right direction.
Your prospective partner's positions on both legality and equity seem reasonable to me. A startup is going to be full of risk regardless. I say take the leap of faith and go for it. Even if it all goes to hell, you'll learn a lot.
The jobs recession is here, and a recession is the best time to start a new business
Android FTW
Jakob's money will bail them out, dude has millions.
The Cornerstone of American Law
With all the hype, when I finally tried it I was disappointed it didn't iron my shirts for me.
Depends on your expected rate of growth, and how much time you expect each developer to waste in bootstrapping and mentoring. When you consider getting your third developer, then is the time to start thinking about documentation processes (as in managed and computer-accessible, not Z or UML).

Having been the second in a few startups, I can tell you that not having any sort of documentation is annoying. Do not expect anyone to read your code and understand how your mind works: if you don't document, you will have to sacrifice a significant amount of time training the new employee. You'll have to hire during a lull, and in a startup there's never a lull. As usual, Fred Brooks said it first.

Finally, Twitter is a good example of what acting first then designing second can achieve: unfixable scaling issues. Don't do that.
Slurping a file in Common Lisp
Climate Change Meets Web 2.0
Richard MacManus - NZ's most influential man online
IPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline
Lots of successful and respected startups have begun with questionable reuse of easy-to-collect data from others. Whether it really crosses a dangerous liability line, or is indicative of other ethical stretches, would require more details not in evidence here.

You should do the research to assess the risk -- and that means sharing more specifics with people with relevant legal or business expertise. But it's also possible that if these are the kinds of things that especially worry you, this isn't the right startup for you.
Someone has to have final say -- practically, even if not formally. A perfect 50/50 partnership can deadlock or dally when any decision is better than more discussion. So it's not unreasonable for the person who created the idea and first working version to resist giving up the control they've had so far.
Defining the boundaries we are all within
Right now he owns 100%, even if it's not incorporated.

If you ask for 50%, at some level you're implying that [your value going forward] is equal to [his value going forward] plus [the value he's already created]. That might be insulting to him.
How does a "startup junkie" not at least know of Paul Buchheit?
Love RWW but "most influential man online" is a bit of a stretch, no?
I recommend See's. They are cheaper than Godiva, but just as good. Consumer Reports did taste tests that corroborate this a few years back. In regards to the freshness of certain ingredients, like nuts, they rated them superior. Godiva charges a premium and puts some of that into fancy boxes and marketing.

I used to be quite happy programming in C. Now, I find I am quite spoiled by the absolute dynamic power, full closures, magical seeming debugger, and everything is an Object environment I have in Smalltalk. I get paid more, but I also "pay" a premium in terms of fewer choices in places of employment.

Maybe there is some wisdom in choosing just not to know. But there is something in me that just wants to know no matter what. Even if I would've been happier otherwise.
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!

-Barry Goldwater
The Suck Less Philosophy
I very rarely get a "Holy Shit" feeling. I get "Oh, that's clever" or "that's neat" quite a lot though. I think perhaps the fact I'm young so take things for granted and the fact nowadays I see everything as it appears on the internet makes everything seem more like a progression rather than shocking.

I do remember visiting Google Suggest and later Google Maps and being very impressed and knowing it would change the web - until that point JavaScript has largely been seen as a toy. Gmail also really changed the landscape when it came out too.

The first time I used Opera's tabs in 2000 wasn't "holy shit" as much as a "well, that makes perfect sense" moment which are even rarer.
Yes, this argument can be made, but when someone tries to vouch for Microsoft's choice of language by describing the fact that you can "_start_ to _shut down_" your computer.

But, if you argue for semantics, semantics are still semantics. You don't _start_ to _shut down_ your computer, and it really shouldn't be a process. You just shut it down.
This argument undervalues just how much carriers can undermine the experience.

Part of the success of the iPhone is that his Steve-i-ness managed to wrangle concessions out of AT&T that make the iPhone work well. I'd be surprised if something as simple as "Visual Voicemail" will exist anytime soon on Android 'in the wild'.

Apple's strength is in an excellent end-to-end experience. Until Android can come close to matching this, I think the iPhone will continue to rule.

Unfortunately (for Android), this isn't about technology. It is about having leverage over carriers. And I think that's where the iPhone will continue to win.
iPhone 3G likely represents a mistake. Apple has been making tons of money by building Ok hardware with superior design packaged with a seamless user experience, for which they can charge a hefty premium. iPhone 3G was an attempt to go mass market too quickly. They need to go back to their strengths.
GRACE is free (acceptance is required)
If the company hosting these stats is charging $25K per licensee, then either they're really good at bluffing or their lawyers have made sure that their data is protected in spite of Feist.

For example, if they use some kind of clickwrap "you must consent to this license before you can see our statistics" page, then the company doing the scraping could be sued for contract violation, even if there's no copyright issue. So the site owner can't hit you for statutory copyright damages and has to settle for actual damages, i.e., the $25K of license fees that you're not paying, plus attorney's fees, plus whatever else their attorney can think to lather on.

And your would-be partner hasn't even set up a corporate veil to protect his personal assets from this kind of exposure? That's...insane. And not in a good way.
Y Combinator Demo Day pitches (vid)
RIAA Takes Down Muxtape, Will Future Solutions Please Hurry Up & Arrive?
Yahoo Buzz Opens To Everyone
being a cofounder isn't that exciting in and of itself..

i'm working on something i really love, but the small parts of it that are boring are painful to slog through. i wouldn't recommend being in a startup that was nothing but that.

the work is too hard to stay motivated if you aren't super pumped about what you're building each day.

as for the stock, rather than comparing your % to his %, figure out what you would need to get an exit you're happy with after 3 years and 60% dilution from investors, and use that as your lower bound.
Planning to E-vote?
How can we be sure Google or other wireless carriers won't restrict apps in a similar manner as Apple?
Well put Matt. I agree 100%. It will be interesting to see if Steve Jobs learned his lesson.
I completely agree, its a good feature if its optional.
I was thinking maybe Digg crowd. Cause, you know, they've long suffered bad comment systems and would know a thing a two about it.
Sounds like empty bullshit to me.

Me, were I hiring, I'd say something more like this:

I want madmen. I want people who have seen where the web could be going and who are dedicated to guiding it there. I want the woman who knows when less is more, and when more is more. I want the man who understands how the future of discussion on the web is being shaped, and who is obsessed with getting it right. I want the people who are maybe a little bit crazy about this, because so am I.
It's pretty obvious that he's new to mobile development. The first thing to understand is that the carriers completely control the playing field. It's incredibly frustrating trying to write an app across multiple devices let alone multiple carriers. Hardware on one device may be very easy to work with on one carrier, yet a complete pain in the rear on another carrier. They just have to get their hands on things and make adjustments.

Certification is also way more painful than it needs to be on some carriers. Access to some portions of the APIs are blocked by the carriers unless certified by the carrier. The certification process can be very painful if you do not have elevated status inside the carrier.

We have had problems getting GPS to work reliably on a specific popular line of smart phones with a specific carrier. The GPS on the same devices works perfectly on other carriers. This kind of stuff happens at all levels of the API.

Welcome to mobile development.
Anyone exited by this? Anyone on HN developing something for Android? Just wondering what the platform looks like, I'm writing two apps for the iPhone and was maybe considering doing something on my on time for android if the platform is decent.
even if it is, very few people will ever cross search between them. i.e. for me if I can't find something with Google for a specific keyword, I don't go to yahoo to search for that same keyword, I just modify my existing keyword string until I find what I'm looking for
The evidence presented is hardly strong enough to support the claim hinted at by the title. Still, a valid question.
He hasn't. He's the quintessential authoritarian. Openness is as alien to him as swimming is to a cat.
Black Web 2.0 » Blog Archive » Real Black?
Ha, it's definitely not an excellent experience end-to-end according to the friends who've bought iPhones, especially 3g. The first end involved lines at the Apple store, bricked phones, arcane activation procedures.
We want Internet Telephony in India
This is pretty old, but is an important piece of the "What/Why REST" discussion we seem to be having here on HN.
The Art of Tagging: conventions and strategies
Finding Paths through the World's Photos
I don't pretend to know much about mobile development, and I've heard much the same about carrier certification. That's exactly why I think Android will do well.

"Google Developer Advocate Jason Chen told the Android breakout session that developers won't need to get Android applications certified by anyone nor will there be any hidden APIs accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators."

from: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/android_is_out_for_ipho...

Has that since been proven incorrect and I just didn't hear about it? That's possible, and if so I think it will be significantly less appealing to developers.
Apple's like a case study in multiple competencies.
What exactly is open about it? It's not open source.
Virtualization comes to mobile phones. Iphone supports Android. End of it.
Covers of science fiction and fantasy magazines from the 1920s to 1970s