skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I would argue that whitespace provides a visual cue to code organization that could prove critical to children learning to program. To provide an (adult) example of what a little whitespace and DRY can bring about, I'll describe my struggles to learn to program fluently. From 1998 until 2010, I did web design on and off, even working as a professional web designer for a few years. Although I was good at HTML, CSS, and design, I came from a non-CS background and struggled to learn Javascript beyond simple cutting and pasting of scripts and a little jquery. I eventually learned enough PHP to begin considering myself a programmer (yes, cue the laughter), but it wasn't until I started to learn Python a few years ago that I experienced a breakthrough.

Now I'm fluent in Python. After I was comfortable with Python, I went back to Javascript, via Coffeescript initially, and with the background Python provided, was able to grasp the fundamentals of Javascript to the point where I can now actually create full programs in JS. Since then, I've been able to pick up some C and am making excellent progress with Haskell. I attribute this programming epiphany to Python, and particularly to the visual cues that whitespace provides (along with "explicit is better than implicit"). Whitespace not only provides key visual cues to code structure, it also forces you to organize your code coherently before you can run it.

I've not learned Ruby, but I like what I've seen of it a lot. I'd love to have the opportunity to use it one day. However, I firmly believe that for some people at least -- including children learning to program -- semantic whitespace provides critical visual and organizational pedagogical support. For that reason, I think that Python, or even Coffeescript, would be a better first language for child (and adult) learners.
That's 'prepending' (just so you know).
I agree, that's interesting. I simply dispute that this is evidence that honor truly was important in the past. The word may have been, but the meaning was not what we mean by it today.
Personally, I really like the map -- the information is related to state representatives, and these people are going to listen to their constituents more than anyone else. Having a map helps me quickly answer:

- Are any of my representatives sponsoring SOPA?

- Are there representatives sponsoring SOPA in any other states I can make a difference in (have family, friends, business ties to)?

Suggestions:

- Add contact info for each sponsor to the placemarkers, not just listed below.

- Please list mailing addresses for each sponsor. While twitter and facebook are convenient, representatives take written and mailed feedback much more seriously.
Actually increasing the penalties to buyer OR seller just increases the risk premium associated with the black market good, making it more lucrative and increasing the violence and repression associated with the trade.

Honestly TheAmazingIdiot, what are the odds in your opinion that the prostitution or drug trades are EVER going to be stopped? I mean just look at prison, drugs get in there and people are literally IN A CAGE.

Why not just admit reality which is that such "vice" is GOING TO HAPPEN and normalize it along with some basic protections?
I recall Pascal and C when I was starting out and how tough it was to grasp them. But I also had trouble with Perl when I first encountered it. I got quite a bit done with some languages based on basic and with Delphi, when I could finally understand some of the errors I used to get with Pascal.

Based on my experience, I'd say that errors you get help you with learning about languages that make those errors evident. I learned about recursion before I learned about getting the compilers happy, for instance.

It's funny though that I can count Python as one of the languages that I've barely used and learned simply because I was never too fond of it.

Anyways. I think Ruby is a fine language as it resembles basic and doesn't demand ";" and parentheses, and it also has great OO support which helps with the documentation and even IDE support. With name completion, for example. Methods in Ruby are very straightforward and control-flow structures are plenty capable in Ruby. Not having to declare variables can also help, and Ruby does report some errors quite handily.

Cheers.
They build their own reputation on the site and authors can inquire to editors on the site about rates.

The site is not launched yet - I'm in private beta and will probably be there for a while.

I'd love to interview these editors and get their feedback on my site.

You can email me at railsnoob at yahoo dot com if you'd like to talk further. Thanks.
awesome. congrats! its not just about the money of course but the relationship you create with the investor. ;)
Some other suggestions:

1. Add your logo to your Twitter account and get some additional content up there. People aren't going to follow you if you haven't posted anything.

2. Create a G+ page as well.

3. If people are tweeting about your app, you might want to have a running list of those tweets on the front page of your site.

4. Fix the app. I'm getting a "sorry but something went wrong" when I try it.
> If I didn't file Schedule C ("Profit or Loss From Business") every year, I'd be in prison.

I wasn't aware of that; In that case, there is at least one legal definition of business with a lot of merit behind it (gun wielding people will put you in prison if you fall under it but do not file schedule C). And whatever the IRS regulations for Schedule C define as a business, is a business.

> An HFT with no "customers" is simply an agent of its owners.

Aren't all businesses? Isn't the defining property of business is doing transactions? (of whatever kind). Can you summarize what the requirement for Schedule C filing is?

> You've latched on to one of the bizarre artifacts of the modern American legal system, not a fundamental principle of business.

Where are the fundamental principles detailed? I agree the vast majority of businesses have customers, but I don't think it's a defining property -- there are a lot of people with customers who do not consider themselves having a "business" (Although the IRS might think otherwise)
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say.

SOPA is extremely relevant to most of us here in our roles as 'hackers' and startup people.

Drug laws are not directly related in the same way. If people try and argue that they are, they're playing "7 degrees of hacker news". For instance, "traffic laws are related to hackers because many hackers drive to work".

Funny cat pictures should not be here either - and aren't. Let's try and keep politics out of this site, even if individually, most of us are quite interested in the subject.
I can't speak to the Samsung situation specifically but I was a huge original Motorola Droid fan but haven't bought a Motorola device since because of their practices post-Droid.

I'm personally more concerned with locked bootloaders and the like because as long as the latest version of Cyanogenmod can easily be installed on my phone, I'm good, but for non-hackers being able to officially upgrade to at least the next major version (assuming it releases within 1.5 years of the phone) seems fair.

Motorola has since reversed course on the bootloaders and is being bought by Google, so I'll probably give them a second chance someday, but your basic point is solid -- these decisions do impact whether or not the consumer will stick with your brand in the future. I've seen it from friends as well as from my own situation.

Screw me once, shame on you, screw me twice, shame on me.
Namecheap holiday offer - free .org domain when registering another TLD
I'd say the transition will happen away from spinning disks by then. Pretty soon, Physics is going to start getting in the way...
Couldn't find an applicable link for the offer but when you add a domain to your cart, you'll see the offer.
1000 [Indigenous] Languages on the Web
Care to elaborate? I still use ICQ and various xmpp accounts, plus skype. Had an MSN account a while back, but only for two friends who ended up switching away from it.

Yes, Microsoft bought skype, but that's not really "breaking into", that's "buying". You wouldn't say that Microsoft "broke into the FPS market by making Halo".
It's simply interesting that their use of the service was such that they were asked to pay, yet when they couldn't afford it, they complained about the way in which they were asked.

Suppose your government provides electricity for free below a certain threshold. Suppose you exceed that threshold. Suppose a rude person calls you up and asks you to pay. Suppose you can't afford it.

Should you then complain that they were rude and how it was their rudeness that caused you to switch providers? Or do you simply explain that you found a cheaper provider that aligned with your long-term goals? Was the point of the post to try to give Google customer service a black eye? Because, to me, all it did was betray pettiness.
Never going to happen. The "war on drugs" has not been about drugs for a long time.

Large parts of law enforcement funding are due to this "war", and whole prison industry sprung up around this.

Everybody knows that the "war on drugs" is ineffective and will never reach its stated goal!

Conversely by creating artificial scarcity, the price for drugs are driven up (because demand is more or less constant) and this guarantees huge profits for illegal activities providing these drugs.
Just did an install. A 260MB download is just silly. And it's not even the application, it's an installer. Once it's done dropping copies of qt, Ruby and git somewhere on my system I can finally get started. Please, please make a better package than that.

First launch gets better. Friendly "Start Here" button that explains the interface. And then it links to Hackety Hack, which is awesome, because _why's lessons are awesome. Could the code examples be formatted any worse though? All white text on a black background, with white borders and an incorrect line height? Yuck. (It's much better in the non-_why lessons, where code is formatted pre-tag style, but still not colored.).

Including RubyWarrior and Gosu is a fantastic idea. Great packages!

But then there's inconsistencies. The glossary defines 3 terms, and then fails to define 7 more. The app seems confused, telling me all of the following:
"This is KidsRuby"
"This is Hackety Hack"
"This is Ruby4Kids"

The tabs differentiating between "Output" and "Turtle" are an interesting concept. I'm of a mixed opinion there, but I see what you're getting at. I'd probably have argued against that as one tab or the other is potentially useless at all times.

Really, I have the same criticism to level at this as Hackety Hack (and I imagine that is no small coincidence): it's a good idea wrapped in a terrible experience. It's not that it needs to be dumbed down for children, but it does need stronger guidance. It fails by giving too many opportunities for alienation and/or working just badly enough that users will get frustrated and give up. The fact that it doesn't behave like a native app makes it that much harder to apply existing knowledge.
"I tried to reverse out of the driveway without hitting your cat. I failed. I hope the incidence of cars reversing over cats can be lowered in future."

Its not an apology or a direction, its mostly useless. Cut out the failure and self-flagellation stuff, cut out the need to apologise, cut out the hand waving, keep the aclnowledgement of problems, add some direction.

"I acknowledge Compiz isn't stable enough. I can/can't make it better and this month I (step down/commit to doing X/ask for guidance)".
2011: Tales of tablet triumph and tragedy
GoDaddy Responds To Namecheap Accusations, Removes “Normal” Rate Limiting Block
This happened to me, as well. It took me forever to disable the Domains by Proxy stuff. I must have had 35 different DBP accounts that held all my domains. There's no simple way to get the login information for the DBP accounts, either. It was a 4-step process for each of those 35 accounts.

And, here I was thinking I was the one doing the punishing. GoDaddy put me in my place.
SOPA is apparently already here in the form of GoDaddy's "abuse department": http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2011/12/godaddy-a-glimpse-of-...
Fantastic article. This is why I don't mind reposts - every once in a while, there's a real gem that I've missed.
* every day
Steve Jobs Documentary - One Last Thing by Genius of Modern Age
I think these will power the next generation home entertainment centers in our living rooms.

Considering all the cool hacks (streaming Pandora, looking at albums from a computer etc) the TV is going to be the giant screen hooked up to all sorts of content. Having a tiny, silent box running right behind my TV would be good.
December 29th is Dump GoDaddy Day
Feedback received via email:

A few questions you could use to help you decide:
- What exactly are the features that are essential to your project's success?
- Do those social network frameworks have any features that are not essential for your idea's success?
- What language are you (or your potential team) most used to working with. I'd recommend sticking to a language you are used to and have experience with
- Do those frameworks have an active open source community?
- Are those frameworks headed down a path that coincides with where you want to do?
- Do you think there's any possibility that in 1-2 years your code and the open source one have diverged in a way where it does not make sense for you to keep your project up to date with the one proposed?
Maybe the most important thing for you and your project is simply the ability for users to be able to add each other as friends - and the rest of the features are custom ones, not provided by the framework. In which case it is a feature that is trivial to implement and you gain nothing from a framework.

I think the first step for you in any case is to sit down and do mockups and prototypes on paper or something and draw up the most minimal implementation of your idea that you would be willing to lunch.

Then you can decide what is the fastest way for you to get there.
Of note is that Kevin has put the data on GitHub (https://github.com/kscanne/orthotree) so that others can make their own visualizations. He offers some suggestions near the end of the post.
bash-3.2$ python
Python 2.7.1 (r271:86832, Jun 16 2011, 16:59:05)
>>> 1.2 - 1.1
0.09999999999999987
Physics is already getting in the way.
I've definitely gone back and forth with that, and felt the exact same way when I learned Python. And I agree - semantic whitespace is a really great feature that makes Python simpler in a lot of ways.

Where I start to like it less is when I think about how much structure it imposes on the code before you can even write a line - it has the potential to remove some degree of experimentation. And how easy, for a new user, it could be to get it just wrong enough to be problematic.

Don't count me as a hater though. I would love to write Ruby with semantic whitespace - HAML already gets me halfway there!
Mirror (since their server is exploding): http://i.imgur.com/T2PnM.png

"In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first ‘SUPER’ computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5 MB of data."
Physics always gets in the way of everything.
I'm not the downvoter, but since I hate silent downvotes, this is probably more or less the reason:

This kind of app might be fine on the platforms where it's tested, but tends to have severe performance problems for others. Many of us have had our computers bogged down by very resource-intensive web apps, and this "Do everything on the client" philosophy is a common culprit. Exchanging ~50 ms on the server for ~250 ms on the client can become really user-hostile as you get further from the best-case scenario.
I agree with you about how society should work - more shaming, harsher public response towards repeat offenders. I disagree about your rose tinted view of the past. We could both pick a few historical events that would support our conflicting view of the past.

But I find it hard to take you seriously. Quotes from political speeches, from the likes of George Bush and the conservapedia? Are those supposed to be reliable?

If these are the sources you base your view on then we really do live in different planets.
You Irish? Did you watch Michael Collins. You should, it's a good movie.
Really nice, guys. I like the fact that you guys prepared so much for that event, that success was the only result possible.
I meant that I needed 3k requests to finish the job, deleting 1k entities in each request :).
I signed up with them something like 12 years ago when they were a refreshing alternative to Network Solutions. Long before the Super Bowl ads and other nonsense.
> This year, my New Year’s Resolution is this: I am going (finally) to learn how to code

This has been my new year's resolution every year since I was 9.
As I recall, they also had a history of tricking people into updating their contact information shortly before the name in question was due to expire, forcing the owner to stay with GoDaddy.
The Bible ("Old Testament") ... in which King David does the most dishonorable thing possible, sends a man to die in war so he can have that man's wife -- and gets endless praise regardless?

No wonder. Regardless of the inspiration, reality with its liberal bias favors the successful rather than the honorable. These concepts are not inherently incompatible, but way more often than not are, and always were.
number of writes also depends on the number of indexes you have on the data
"We'll fit a lot of more data onto them, sure. But the physical size of a hard disk is unlikely to change much."

There's 32gb of storage on my phone, held in an area roughly the size of a dime. It's not a hard disk, but it shows where hard disks are going.
Just an FYI: the transpose button in the large list doesn't function correctly.
Hacking Victims Targeted Again After Comments
4 hours average over the past year, ime.

There is no reason it should take longer. Some of the delay is in the email cross checks with the domain owner. It does not takes a day, let alone days, to move a domain, even when retaining DNS info. Above 4 hours need an explanation.
Can you recommend any books related to the different modes you mentioned?
That definition is indeed C++-only.
Breaking the Perl Debugger for Fun and Profit
I was hoping to see more responses :). Looks like hacker community already has ditched Java Web frameworks.

I personally like how Play has evolved, but adoption is severely thin. They just got typesafe backing but Spring with the muscle behind it might be able to shove the rest away.
Hey I guess I'll be the first to say make sure your doing enough for the traffic that you already have. Make sure your nailing your conversion rates, and try and get a reasonable level of virality happening i.e. Users inviting other users. Give them a bounty (maybe?).
not sure what's happening but we're looking into it. We definitely haven't got extraordinarily high traffic atm.
I think NameCheap might lose out on this PR exchange. GoDaddy's excuse checks out and NameCheap lowered themselves to their level with the accusation they posted.

This is very reminiscent of the slapfight that the Bing team had with Google over Microsoft possibly stealing Google's search results. In the end both companies came off as childish and petulant.
Now that your kids have a new computer, teach them how to program in Ruby
Gives a glimmer of why GoDaddy would want to support SOPA. It would instantly create a market for premium DNS services where you are protected from this sort of thing.
No, it is plagiarism. It is a blatant copy of Arthur Schopenhauer, "All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Hacker pledge
Are you running preforked/threaded Apache? That's usually the culprit on WP-powered sites. I'd check the Server header but recv() is failing now. ;)
Android handset makers: "Yeah, we're not putting in the expense of paying our developers to release updated versions of Android for each handset we make, mainly because of all the crap we develop and overlay on top of the OS."

This article: "Oh, yeah guys, that makes total sense! And if you do want a new version of android running, you can put in the time yourself! See, everything works for everybody."

Yeah, I get that you can get what you want on your phone, but that doesn't mean that these companies aren't doing their customers a disservice, or that we should just give them a pass.

If this were a desktop OS, there's no way manufacturers could get away with something like not even attempting to bring the most recent version to their customers. (Although that's a weak comparison, I still believe Google could take some lessons from Microsoft in how to relate to manufacturers).
Yeah, GoDaddy made its name as one of the first registrars to offer domains around the $10 price point right after NS's monopoly was removed. They've basically just ridden that wave since then and have tried to capitalize on the brand recognition when the only thing a small business owner knows is that you have to use GoDaddy to get a website.
Concepts in Programming Languages
The most important thing to understand about these models is that it's very easy to get big fast but very much harder (especially with software) to get good fast.

Good almost always takes several iterations. If your market is filled with high quality offerings by competitors then getting big fast could be a recipe for burning a lot of capital before your product becomes good enough to compete, or simply burning enough capital to go out of business before it has matured.
Site appears down from here. Is there a mirror of the site anywhere?
My Christmas present from my wife was a presentation of screenshots of her programming tutorial. She's been learning python in secret, to show me that she wants exactly what the article advises: to understand what it is that I do for a living. I feel privileged to have married her.
What are some lesser known but useful Unix commands?
I ran into the same issue. If you want to purge all data from an app, it's much cheaper (and sometimes even faster) to start over and create a complete new app with an empty data store than to use the data store admin and delete the data from there.
how do these talented smart people ever expect
to transfer humanity if the next generation is
not being produced? Or not being produced in
sufficient numbers?

I don't know what you're talking about.

Last I've checked the pressing issue is too many people, not too few - we never had as many humans on earth as we do right now & the global population is still increasing.

I wouldn't mind halving world population if it was possible in non-destructive way (and I wasn't part of the unfortunate half).
The "Your idea sucks" comment is very unnecessary and provides no constructive feedback. You have no idea what it actually entails, except for the very general market space it's in.

A better response would be, "I think the e-commerce space is really crowded, so be sure your idea can differentiate and provide more value than other existing options."
http://www.slideshare.net/dttg/everwrite-pitch-deck
Even if that happens, a page of uncompressed plain-text data will still be small -- that's another "human size" that won't go away any time soon, so this makes me question how much storage we'll really need in the future. Sure, we'll come up with all kinds of interesting ways to use more of it, but with devices becoming more and more "cloud-centric"...will a phone ever needs /terrabytes/ of storage?
Facebook Chat's New Gimmick: Inline images