skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Since I don't see this specifically addressed in the text: I suspect this is a classic case of survivorship bias. The same way the stock market looks better and better the further back you go, because you aren't tracking the stocks of companies that are no longer in business, developers probably look better and better the further they are into their careers, since all the ones who've fallen by the wayside probably were the weaker developers who found something better to do with their time.

As a somewhat older developer, I find this a surprisingly difficult question to answer honestly. Comparing myself to myself from 10 years ago, I sincerely think I'm more effective, but self-delusion may play a part in that. I've probably lost some of my "step", in terms of raw capacity to memorize and compute mentally, and I have more commitments outside of the world of software, which dilutes my efforts further. Then again, the strategic ideas I have are more dependably correct, and I spend less time chasing down dead ends, either because I've been down them before or had the good luck of witnessing them second- or third-hand.

I've gotten a chance to see a world-class developer very closely between the ages of 36 and 45. He started this period as, very easily, the greatest engineer I'd ever even heard stories of, and I'm pretty sure he got better over that decade. It can be done.
I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that a weak IPO would result in additional regulations. I thought you were saying that it is in the tech segments best interest for solid IPO launches, so as to not taint other future IPO companies. And I was saying that the opposite was true, overinflated, unsubstantiated, and unsecured IPO will expose the industry to greater enforced accountability.

As for the worst case scenario, for the sake of all the small business 'investors' in Groupon (though I'm not sure that they actually realize their participation), I certainly hope that something like this doesn't happen.

However, considering the ugly and apparently underhanded 2010 funding play, some investigations may be in order.

Besides which, the chairman of Groupon is already Mr. Class Action Lawsuit. So, based upon previous performance, one can likely predict future results in this case.
Look ma, a JAVA developer!
I'm old enough to feel like employers may sometimes find younger and cheaper people to do dumb stuff faster.

What you say about the HR liability potential agrees with what I've heard from HR people, but never seen it be a factor in reality. In practice I can't imagine suing over a development gig. I can think of a million bad reasons people might not hire/let go a good developer (e.g. questions about manhole covers) but the "he's a curmudgeon who's reluctant to slap stuff together quickly" argument seems halfway legitimate.

So I say, bring it on, let's have an open discussion about who's smart, who's fast, who's wise, and when it even matters.
OK, I guess I qualify for being useful. However, if I succeed I will put millions of drivers out of their jobs and put high pressure on the educational system to produce highly educated workers instead of drivers, and on the political system to create laws for the modern world. However, neither of those institutions can keep up with the current pace of innovation. Fortunately, Facebook's popularity has fueled a surge in applications for computer science education and ignited political revolutions world-wide from Barack Obama to the Egyptian revolution. If it wasn't for their useless work, innovation might come to a halt.
Using Your API to Find New Developer Talent
As primarily a Python programmer with some C++ in my background, Whiley is a fascinating mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar. The indentation-based blocks are from Python, the function type syntax is like C++, among other ways I would feel at home. But then it throws in ~= as an instanceof operator, and has weird (for me) mutability and object models. Altogether, just having read a lot of the language guide, I could see myself programming something in it tomorrow, given some more research.
The people that I usually see getting wowed are web designers and devs, that know the pains of dealing with all those issues that this project is trying to solve. I don't know your background, but if you don't do CSS you probably don't know or care about all the troubles that one has to go through to get your site working correctly across all browsers, laying out your page (most apparent in fluid designs, or with dynamic content from a database), etc.

And again, we would love to hear about how we can market ourselves better, we are all ears!
Interesting hypothesis, but the faulty data renders the results presented useless. Namely, only 53% of SO users enter their age. Therefore the data may be wildly biased towards people who are willing to enter their age in an online profile.

In addition this only represents SO programmers, which while a great bunch, is hardly representative of all programmers.
Problem with not testing your "micro-commits" is that when someone is looking at old revisions to figure out where something went wrong, there is a chance that it won't compile, or will crash because you didn't test that exact commit.
Y Combinator Brings On Alumni To Be “Part Time Partners”
Could the same thing be done for iPhone apps or would Apple not allow such things?
Functions that return multiple types. Relying on private variables declared many level up with no intention of checking their existance or value, or sitting on perticular record numbers in tables from some other process blindly. 5 different versions of code doing the same relative process in slightly different ways depending on whichever developer's habit all live in a system. I've worked with a lot of old code from self taught engineers. You all may not like it or non-PC statement but it exists and its not pretty.
Is this part of the application process?! There is no easy to find contact information on how to submit the answer key. Obviously solving this is the easy part, but who would we contact?
You reminded me of Stephen Colbert's on AT&T
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsCp-1hgfxI
I think this would have a much greater impact if the braches were shown from smallest to largest. As it stands, you see the biggest one first, and then everything else seems small after that.
Most people who make $100 a day aren't going to come out and tell you exactly what to do. But the simplest method is to come up with, or sell a product with at least $100 profit and then try to make one sale a day, like I said, pretty simple.

I used to do it with facebook pages. I would check out local businesses (any city) that could go for a custom facebook page. I had some templates that I could customize really quickly and would throw up a mock page. If I could get through to the decision maker and show them the example, I was about 20% successful in a sale. Considering the costs were just my time, I was easily profiting $100+ a day by making 10-20 calls and emails a day.
Hi Peter,
this question came about in my second round of user interviews..
I asked users about the applications they used on a day-day basis. 9 of the 12 users mentioned Foursquare in this list.

I asked them a follow-up question to judge what made them use foursquare on a daily basis. To my surprise, all users mentioned acquiring more badges as one of their main motives. Some also mentioned the Leaderboard.

This prompted me to further ask the users whether badges and leaderboards would motivate them to use an online radio.
Although most of the responses I got were quantitative, I did get a lot of qualitative feedback as well. One of the users also added that he would love to be rated by fellow users (instead of the computer). This encouraged me to ask them about the upvotes, etc..

How would you recommend me asking the users about new features?
Hi everyone, blog post author here - if you have any questions or suggestions, I'm all ears :)
I've looked at it and it seems to share goals with AXR, but how good is it for semantics, accessibility and backwards-compatibility? Those are quite essential requirements.
Why not? Could you give more concrete examples?
Your first thought is wrong, because "costs" is very different from "takes a loss of".
Yes, I take your point. But, at the time SBC purchased the remains of AT&T and rebranded itself, what remained under "AT&T" was largely a husk. (As I understand it, much of the more technical remains had gone to the Lucent divestiture. Not that they fared particularly well, either.)

I don't have a detailed knowledge, but as I understand it, senior management stayed pretty much the same; that is, SBC management ruled through and after the transition. (I believe that tended to apply at lower levels, too. AT&T employees who stayed had to face "adjustments" both political and financial.)

I'm going from memory, here, on a topic I mostly just observed through the news and an acquaintance or two. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
I would like to see 37signals put this in their next Exit Interview roundup:

"GS: When id was bought by ZeniMax in 2009, you basically said that it felt like id was becoming its own publisher. Now that you're about to ship Rage, do you guys still feel that way?

JC: It's been better than I could have expected. On a personal level, I don't have to pretend to be an executive anymore. I don't have to go to board of directors meetings or talk about board strategy things. So, I've actually gotten to program more in the last year and a half than I did the year and a half before that.

So, it's been personally good there. And one of the things that was really unexpectedly pleasant is being part of a larger family. In December, we have this big get-together where everybody shows the games in the theaters and talks about everything. And there was this sort of unexpectedly pleasant sense that this is really nice to be part of a larger family and to be able to cheer for somebody else's effort. It's awesome being a sister to [The Elder Scrolls V] Skyrim on there. So, I don't have a negative thing at all to say about how it's gone. I couldn't be happier."
The terms to use and redistribute all source code for the AXR project WILL CHANGE in the future, since it will include clauses not included in any of the available free software licenses, mostly in aspects that will ensure the integrity of AXR as a web publishing platform.

This is worrying. What exactly are you expecting to put in such clauses? Anything more restrictive than Apache v2 (like the current license, GPL) is 100% sure to rule out inclusion in some browsers.
The One Thing A Marketer Should Be Doing Today
"GS: [D]id you get a chance to look at the PlayStation Vita at all?

JC: No, but I think that Sony learned a lot from the PS3, and they've gone out of their way to make sure that the development is as easy as possible on there. However, I wouldn't want to be the executive making the decision to launch a new portable gaming machine in the post-smartphone world. I think that they've picked as eminently a suitable hardware spec as they could for that. They're going to have you program for it like a console, so it's going to seem twice as powerful as a smartphone with the exact same chips in there.

But of course, by the time they actually ship, there may be smartphones or these tablets with twice as much power as what they're shipping with on there. And a year or two after that, it's going to look pretty pokey."
You may be interested in my comment above about my experience: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2648279
Not only Firefox seems to resize headings for sectioned content, but Chrome (12.0.742.91 beta-m) seems to also.
"On the graph we can see a textbook example of a bell distribution curve."

Is this an actual bell curve? It's not symmetrical. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution)
Looking for retail management tutorials.
I am just trying to survive as an IT guy and rather than just knowing how a computer works I need to know how a business work. So I went looking on the Internets for howtos and wikis on retail management - the actual running of a store and I am not having much luck. Does anyone know where a guy can learn business processes - like inventory check in and pricing ordering and that sort of stuff - things I need to know to support POS systems at stores and restaurants. Thanks.
Short Haircuts for Women
Short haircuts among teenagers and young women is the layered haircut.More and more of the younger women and teenagers alike are choosing the layered hairstyles over any other because it is most easy to maintain.
Read something REALLY fun, enlightening and TRUE: Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a curious character) and What do you care what other people think (Further adventures of a curious character)

ObAmazon: http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/039332...

ObAmazon: http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Char...
Totally agree with you, Justin. Garry and Sam were hugely influential for us at really important junctures during YC, and have continued to be helpful afterwards.

This is a huge win for YC.
The FCC delayed cell phone technology by at least 2 decades. AT&T delayed computer networks (pre-internet) by insisting on owning every device that connects to it, so modems had to use slow acoustic couplers.
It's almost absurd how closely Groupon is following the classic 'tech bubble' road to disaster.

1. Hype (check)

2. IPO talk (check)

3. Turn down acquisition at incredibly high P/E (check)

4. Superbowl Advert (check)

5. IPO just in time to avoid running out of money (on the way)

6. Market goes rational (inevitable, forces pushing it irrational can't do so forever), valuation plumets

7. Unable to raise money by selling stock, and a business model of 'sell stock to pay bills while making no profit', bankruptcy is announced

8. The talking heads repeat the mantra "nobody saw it coming" for the next 6 months.
I agree with you. Experienced developers with skills are key for higher level functions such as architecture and system planning due simply to the "been-there" factor. My statement above was geared toward the "curmudgen".
The bell-shaped curve gives me more confidence in the result, not less. It shows that Stack Overflow has enough developers that the graph isn't choppy.
Well I was all set to sympathize, but I don't think it's necessarily unfair that the coupon couldn't be applied to any bottle of wine on the menu.

I do think that if the point of the coupon is to attract new customers, then it is extremely counterproductive and foolish to hide the conditions of the coupon so that people are disappointed, and to treat customers badly for using it. That's just bad management.
Wow, the chart only goes up to 49 years old?

For me, that is about 4 programming languages ago :-)
The "charity" is http://jumpstartinternational.org/

Just after mapping Gaza, JumpStart went to map the country of Georgia. For anyone interested in as a programmer (lead or otherwise) in Georgia (Tblisi, cool city) on interesting followup projects, get in touch, I'm on the JumpSatrrt board and we're currently looking for IT talent...email in my profile. When I say "volunteer", we can pay expenses and a small salary...its just not Silicon Valley pay ;).
-1 for the assumption that government services are less efficient than private. Were you even modestly observant you would know that isn't true, and there are examples floating everywhere (eg Medicare's provisioning of medical services, community broadband in many localities)

-1 for surveillance worries -- is this a glibertarian talking point or something? This network is explicitly for providing internet access to the various University of Wisconsin campuses and WI libraries. The latter, btw, are completely anonymous: you can come in, sit down at a computer, and start typing. There apparently was discussion of extending the network to communities which, you may or may not know, have shit internet service now.
There's a huge difference between this and Enron/Worldcom, which inspired Sarbanes Oxley.

The latter two committed actual fraud. As in, this article would be saying "Wow, Groupon is hugely profitable" rather than the press we're seeing now.
Link to the CNBC story instead of blogspam then please?

Edit: I believe this is the source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43378490/. Their source is "people familiar with the matter."
is it fair to call it a bias in this case? it doesn't alter the conclusion that older developers are both better and scarcer, on average.

[disclaimer: 44 yo ;o]
[ps. google has mitigated memory loss, i suspect.]
Why are you so sure that it isn't happening already? How would you be able to tell if it was?
Better hurry, though, before she starts feeding the neighbor's dog chips.
Art of Copywriting Part II
"Another theory is that we're going to see a hollowing out of the middle tier of the film and TV businesses. You'll have giant studios making giant movies, and you'll have tiny indies making tiny movies. But there will be no middle ground, because it will no longer be profitable."

It seems to be the with many things these days. Many markets have moved to a more bifurcated structure. You see it in things from airline classes(how many have coach, business, and first), economic classes, video games(as mentioned in other comments here, the list goes on.
inception.
My experience as a several-time Groupon user: I've found that restaurant Groupons tend to get you lousy service from cranky staff. Other businesses tend to be better.
Its an interesting claim. You could contribute positively to the discussion by providing some sort of experiement to test it.

Would it be fair to say you believe that your high level of interaction with various social media sites and technologies has 'trained' your mind's agility? If so, several useful questions arise which I'd love to know answers too;

1) Can you produce more lines of production code over unit time?

If you use a source repository you might be able to analyze this by check-ins. I suspect a large open source project like KDE or Hadoop etc where you could correlate 'agility' of committer with the commits could shed some light here.

2) Do the designs and implementations produced have similar, better, or worse levels of qualities than designs and implementations done by 'less agile' developers?

I'd probably track bug reports and rewrites against lines of code committed.

3) Does the scale of problem change the effectiveness ratio? Which is to say if you're coding/designing/implementing at the top level of a big project vs at the fringe, does the difference between people trained with social media exposure continue?

Bascially correlating the above two data points across all levels of the code and design.
I have been thinking of an idea very similar to this. I would be interested in seeing how this will work since I don't believe Dropbox will like being a CDN nor do I think S3 is user-friendly enough for the common person.

Love the idea of free and open photo sharing though! Best of luck!
how can banks invest their pension funds clients money in Groupon shares anyway - without responsibility for the losses

shouldnt it be illegal by law to invest pension funds in startups - especially in startups having some of the ugliest balance sheets on earth
While this is true, you also don't see many 45-year-olds doing 60 and 70 hour work weeks.
I think that the App Store has a feature that lets you give away apps to friends, reviewers, etc. (unlike the Android Market).
CivicSponsor is a new, funded startup that aims to change the way governments raise revenue and engage with their citizens. We’re building a brand-new concept--an online marketplace for local governments to crowdfund public projects--that’s at the center of massive global trends. If you believe in open government, engaged communities, green spaces and children’s education, then we want to talk to you.

We’re a small, agile team working out of SoMa, two blocks from CalTrain and across from the ball park. Our office environment is pure startup: laid-back but super productive, moving forward at breakneck speed to change the way government works.

We are looking for an enthusiastic designer who:

- Has a passion for web design and can present a portfolio of past projects.
- Can turn a wireframe into a web masterpiece -- loves designing with pixels, developing icons and creating clean interfaces.
- Understands UI/UX principles and can translate that knowledge into solid user-centered design.
- Has a strong understanding of web development and HTML / CSS (Javascript is a nice to have as well).
- Can work independently and takes pride and ownership in work product.

Responsibilities include:

- Define user flows and best practice UI/UX.
- Convert wireframes/prototypes into compelling visual user experiences.
- Create design mockups to demonstrate how dynamic content will function.
- Develop buttons, user interface elements, icons, etc.
- Develop web/application style guide.
- Front-end development -- convert designs to HTML/CSS.
- Have fun, be friendly, work well in a small team.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skills

- Understanding of CSS3, HTML5 and how they can be used to improve the user experience.
- Solid understanding of design, typography and UI/UX.
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To apply, send your resume, a link to your portfolio, and a cover letter sharing the (short!) story of why you became a designer to:
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I would be interested in a followup from the guy who invested his entire savings into Bitcoin: http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-saving...
>iOS App Store: Could be break even I suppose. Obviously lose money on free apps, plus the review process can't be cheap.

Free apps still need a $99/yr developer fee, though one could submit a whole lot of free apps.
Sr. Consultant - IT 
IT Software Development & Testing Career Opportunities in Ottawa & Gatineau, CANADA. Please contact me: wendyk@harringtonhr.com OR send me your contact OR visit: www.harringtonhr.com
Anyone else getting tired of these? Why are these companies not being held responsible for their own negligence? If you do not do the math and cannot afford to lose the money then how dare you agree to the terms.

This is not on Groupon or any other Daily Deal service. It solely relies on the Small Business owner that does not do his due diligence.

This model is no different than bulk purchasing from a supplier. However, the supplier still makes money because they have figured out how much they can give to still turn a profit.

Small business owners need to either look at how much they stand to lose or take this as a advertising expense that they can afford.

The whole get money now and cry about it when people actually expect to collect what they were promised is ridiculous, where do they think the money comes from?

If you want to say that this model is only sustainable as long as small business owners are incompetent then yes, lets say that. However, to say that this business model is bad based on Groupons lies is just ridiculous. No one is holding a gun to your head and saying, give us coupons for all your stuff.
Not because of the percentage, but because of the exclusivity. 30% on in-app purchases/subscriptions was only a big deal because Apple required that you use it and match the lowest price anywhere else. (They since backed down on this, but they can change their minds again.)
So why the downvote? If you disagree with what I wrote then offer a rebuttal. Simply downvoting is churlish.
-1 for the rude and condescending tone.