skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
These seem really superficial and not worth building an entirely new language over (or learning a new language, for that matter). That's not to say Dart isn't a great language, but this post quibbles over really small issues (and the following is more a response to the post than the Dart language itself, which I know little about).

Javascript can be a little weird, I admit it, but there are extremely well-known workarounds or techniques for dealing with the limited amount of oddities.

Once you get used to the few bad things in it, it's an extremely powerful (yet minimal) programming language that does what it's supposed to very well. Closures and lexical scoping take a while to get used to, but this is not javascript's fault...these are advanced concepts. Yes, forgetting a "var" can screw you, but I can think of 100 cases in other languages where leaving out a word can screw you. With great power comes great responsibility. Get used to it.

Honestly, can we quit dissing javascript? If people want to make new languages that replace it (or compile down to it), I'm all for it...but they better at least do something better than JS. Small fixes in syntax don't count (or even a new sytax entirely). Adding "foreach" doesn't count. How about s-expressions and macros? There's plenty of code-duplication in JS that would benefit. Javascript is already built for concurrency. It has powerful scoping if you know how to use it. It has first-class functions and an object system (albeit a bit strange).

Javascript is a very good language, and I challenge people to come up with more powerful alternatives. Until I see one that's actually useful, I'll stick to JS.
I quote my consulting prices by the hour, and that generally works pretty well for me. However, I'm starting to think that I should indeed switch to a daily rate. When I only work half a day, then I can just charge them half of that.

Case in point: About a year ago, I started to charge on a daily basis for courses that I teach. (Previously, I had just given them my hourly billing rate, and multiplied it out by the number of hours/days in the course, plus for preparation.)

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this simultaneously decreased pushback and haggling, while increasing the amount that I could charge for a course.
Thanks for the feedback. Sticking with MySQL would be best for me too as I know it, but it would be nice to learn a NoSQL database too.
Great post, j45. My experience too.

You sound like someone who others may want to follow up with off-line. Please put some contact info in your profile. (Hint: the "email" field in your Hacker News profile is invisible. You also have to put it (in some form) in the "about".)
Will IE7 be the new IE6, or have most of IE7-users already upgraded to IE8 or higher?
Of course, there are do exist hard laws in computer science; this is not in dispute. However, web programming is inherently not a ivory-tower mathematic art, as the objectives of the web programmer are different than those of computer science researcher. The researcher will prioritize scientific rigor, and the web programmer will prioritize practical use of resources during their implementation.
In the enterprise space, IE6 usage has fallen significantly from Dec 2010 to Dec 2011 according to my own observations, but it's still not near enough zero for my own comfort:

Dec 2009: IE 6.0 share is 37.3%
Dec 2010: IE 6.0 share is 15.5%
Dec 2011: IE 6.0 share is 6.8%

Still, this is a great trend.
I charge $300/hour for marketing consulting or a different structure on commitment to budgets.

One thing I've learned is never do a flat rate, no matter what. Projects will always be different than what you estimate so do time and materials only.
It's not a paywall. It's free.

Here's how it works: you use PopVox to communicate with Congress, sending support or oppose messages which are publicly tallied so all can see which way any given Congresscritter's distric was leaning. This tool then shows you, bill by bill, whether your two senators and congressperson voted the way you told them to through PopVox.

If you contact them some other way, PopVox can't possibly know that (nor can anyone but your congresscritter, so there's no accountability), so it's useless without an account.
This is bizarre. My post listed four factors. Your tl;dr lists one of them, and then claims that my post is simplistic.
I use Dvorak everywhere. For programming, I frequently use editor macros to enter paired braces; but that's to save on effort on alignment and indenting. For other punctuation, there's little to choose between Dvorak and Qwerty. The square brackets are slightly further away, but equals is closer. That's about it.
Parse.ly Will Launch Its Pageview-Generating Machine Called “Dash” This Month
Another one:

Meditate Regularly
Short of it:

I don't have just one because I was all over the place until the last few years.

Long of it:

I've worked in tech sales, hardware, networking, repair, warranty, manufacturing, and software development, spending at least a few very focused years in each since the mid 90's. Some things, like web apps, I've been doing since the mid/late 90's.

My niche/expertise is learning why someone does something a certain way and make sure the software amplifies that competitive advantage. Otherwise I go about learning the business/need to find "how it should be."

Being able to understand and connect the dots from top to bottom is my drug.

The only title/position I've found some lasting comfort with is System Architect/Integrator.

I'm now in custom software development and transitioning into my own products.

I'm converting my consulting practice into into an automated business that lets my team be well paid for self-managing, and only uses me where I add value (customers hire our attention to detail, rarely our talents beyond that).

I want to be free to find the next great startup adventure I'll be a part of, but don't want to dishonor the customers that have supported me to learn what I have about myself and where I want to go in my life.
Wow, I can't believe they wrung that much text out of such a small issue - tempest in a teapot indeed.

Maybe the top 1/4 of the post is actually useful. Google apparently caught "sponsoring" blog posts to promote Chrome. Google denies knowledge, marketing firm admits to doing it without Google approval.

The website then spent the next 3/4 of the article trying to invent a conspiracy theory around it, with the author throwing in some choice weasel words to make it seem like outsourced marketing is suspicious behavior.

Then more words are spent trying to spin this very common, very simple mistake into a conspiracy theory. Couldn't we have found a better link for this?
> $9/mo for just baseball is a better deal for both me and the MLB than $50/mo for 200 channels I'd never watch through a reseller.

It's obviously not a better deal for the MLB or they wouldn't be blacking out the games. If you're going to make the claim that a company is not acting in its own financial self-interest please show your math. I think people here are drastically underestimating the cost to a sports league breaking cable contracts to better serve high-maintenance customers.
I'm pretty dense, but who is creating what for whom here? I create a Django app on Arnor then sell it to someone who wants to maintain it? A client logs on to Arnor and requests an app and some developer builds it for them?
That's right. I knew that long ago, but I was unable to maintain that pose while running 10km -- old habits die hard. After about one month of walking and running with the Vibrams, my step changed from heel-first to front-to-back, as it should -- and it stays that way even when I don't use the vibrams (I hardly use them at all during the winter -- they're not good for running in city puddles)

front-to-back toe-to-heel is the key. The vibram is a way to get there.
Gorgeous design, nice work. Your call to action, the big red "Start learning!", is well done and placed effectively. I like it.
If you bill daily, you don't have to charge half when that happens.

A daily bill rate aligns your incentives with your clients. Instead of scrounging for hours to bill, you estimate how long things are going to take, and get a premium for getting things done quickly. Everybody wins.
The next internet: A quest for speed
As edification, "busking" is playing music in public, typically while soliciting tips, but not always[1].

[1]: http://definefor.me/busk/
languages: I'm going to give F# under mono another try, in the spirit of other langauges suggested (haskell, ocaml, racket)
"if you're using PHP, you probably can't eliminate your dependencies" - since when is a dependency a bad thing? you are REUSING the code in a library because, presumably, you need to. Removing that reusable code means you probably have to write it yourself.

"super clean and not need a bunch of other libraries" - "clean" doesn't mean you don't use other people's code. It just means you made a decision to not reuse their code, which means THEY DON'T FIT YOUR PURPOSE, so you HAVE TO WRITE YOUR OWN thing.

"a really good time to be using something other than PHP" - this is just dumb. why switch languages? what does that have to do with the fact that you chose not to reuse other people's code? you sir have no clue what you're talking about.

"I'm honestly not bagging on PHP here" - bullshit, you're trolling.

"I really do think it has its place [...] But just as there's a place and a time for PHP, there is a place and a time for other languages, too" - So what, PHP is too old for you, son? And what "other languages" might you mean? Keep thinking your <insert favorite language here> is automatically better than PHP. Get off my lawn. And take your arguments with you. Oh wait, you didn't bring any arguments.

"When you have no dependencies on legacy PHP libraries" - legacy? Are you implying that all PHP code is legacy now, because, somehow, PHP is too old for you, son? Or are you implying that the only way to have library dependencies in PHP is to rely on legacy libraries, because, somehow, new libraries aren't being released? Your statement makes no sense.

"the opportunity to go lean and clean" - try some x86 ASM with no dependencies. By your logic, that'll be lean and clean.

"and do what you want -- that's the project to not use PHP" - you must be high, or mentally retarded, or just a bad coder. Who said you can't write code in PHP that does not rely on other libraries? Why would you switch languages? Who said people don't rely on other libraries in whatever your favorite language is?

To sum up, go die in a fire.
If you and ten other people shared a BugMeNot account, that'd mean your opinions and those ten others would all be grouped as one user, meaning it wouldn't ACTUALLY represent your views. Also, Congress requires your REAL name and your REAL address to contact them, otherwise the Congresscritters' online forms reject the email as being not from their constituent.
I'm curious, what should someone do if they are just starting out?

I'm moving into freelance/contractor/whatever soon, but have zero "official" experience. It's a complete career shift. I code in my freetime and have started to build demonstration projects to throw up on github, but I look new right now.

Should I just charge a "can't beat this price" so I can get some experience and then up my prices to what everyone suggests? Or just pretend I know what the hell I'm doing and charge those rates from the beginning?

I'm already prepared to factor in unbilled, learning time but am not sure what to do on the actual billing side.
Help us help the world, MobileWorks is hiring (Berkeley, CA)
MobileWorks is a crowdsourcing platform which aspires to change the way world works by integrating human intelligence into software all the while providing fair wages to our workers. If you are an exceptional, idealist software engineer/engineering student (either by training or experience) looking to meaningfully impact the world by using your awesome technical skills, we are looking for you.

We are looking for both full-time engineers and interns. We run primarily on Django but will prefer a generalist who will be responsible for all aspects of the technology ranging from developing and deploying highly scalable web applications to managing servers to delivering best user experience to our worker pool, customers and our developer community.

More details at http://www.mobileworks.com/jobs.html
Did this result in your employer letting people go?
This is the headline that so many of us fantasized about just a few years ago. The demise has been so slow that this barely feels like news. But with so many man-hours wasted on MSIE6 support, the headline's a legitimate cause for celebration.
Right I work in both roles, I work as a consultant for the big wall street firms, where I do technical strategy consulting. This is where I look at a potential merger or acquisition and tell the decision makes that the technology strategy of the deal looks good or it does not. It is a paperwork job and I consider it to be true consulting. On the other hand I am hired by companies to build apps, many times they only have a rough idea of what they want. I call that freelancing, I am brought it to help them get to an app in all manners that they need, advise, code, data, server setup, etc. I see freelancing as the closest to generalist. Finally sometimes I get a call in which they will say we have all the specs, the system is designed and we just need someone that knows X to turn the design into a system. To me that is contracting and it is my least favorite out of the rolls I do.
U.S. Defiant As Iran Threatens Its Aircraft Carrier
Candidates at Google: Ron Paul's 2008 Talk
I'm not a racist, thanks very much. I don't put Arabs into one category, and I don't have a problem with them. In fact, I have two half-brothers who are Lebanese, and I grew up with plenty of Arabic culture (and food). I've been to Lebanon, and also to Israel.

Having said that, I wouldn't go to Saudi Arabia for a million dollars. It's not racist to point out the shortcomings of a national culture. Name one piece of technology used in this attack that was invented or even built in Saudi Arabia. Name one program that was written there. If you can't, it's not my fault. And clearly they're not so oppressed by Israel and the West that they can't afford to buy nice things, or build their own industries if they choose to. I know Lebanese guys who've moved back to Beirut to do startups. Look at Qatar and Dubai. They're too busy branching out and moving beyond an oil economy to be envious of middle-class Israelis.

It's also not racist to point out the lack of character involved in attacking civilians in another country, allegedly in protest of a foreign government, while you yourself live in a phony, sham-theocratic dictatorship.

If anything, I think it's people like yourself with your "good intentions" of pointing out who-must-be-a-racist, without deigning to criticize the giant racist elephant in the room, who are mostly responsible for the continuation of problems in the ME. To quote a famous Christian, first take the plank out of your own eye.
wdwdadwacc
The underused academic
So get your preferred groups to make use of the handy widgets PopVox makes available for easily contacting Congress on whatever their important-bill-of-the-moment is. https://www.popvox.com/services/widgets

(You can embed them in your personal homepage too. It's free. I've got an anti-SOPA one on my homepage.)
I agree that time spent does not equal good design. But years of experience is always required before doing good design in a short time.

Always a good read :)
"...you were asking me to design a logotype which would have taken me a few hours and fifteen years experience..."
from http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p.html
Foreign Libraries Will Be Infringing Sites Under SOPA
Back pain used to be difficult to medicate. Then they found out that many cases of back pain showed operable anomalies in their lower spine. Surgery usually lifted the back pain. They thought they found the reason and cure for back pain.

Then however, they found that actually, those anomalies were just as likely in people experiencing back pain as in people with no symptoms at all. Now they were back to square one and did not know where back pain actually came from.

Funny enough, back pain can most reliably be lifted by seeing a doctor. It does not matter whether the dictor prescribes some medication, arranges for surgery or does nothing at all.

In many cases (not just back pain) simply seeing a doctor increases your chances of getting better way more than any particular therapy. Humans are weird animals.
Hitting the wall with Storyboards
WWDC Alerts - SMS notification of WWDC ticket availability
Or, "Remember when the EFF didn't matter?"

The EFF of 2012 doesn't "declare independence" from society, or talk about "weary giants of flesh and steel". It puts its money where its mouth is, working within the system to fund research, legal aid, and advocacy.
It really depends on the type of customer you're targeting, but for most web apps and sites these days, I doubt someone still using IE6 is also a target customer for your service.
Greenspun is assuming that a "perfect" dating solution would result in zero people who want to be married who are not married.

This is a pretty odd assumption. Let's imagine that my mythical friend Tom desperately wants to marry, but is kind of picky: he wants a supermodel who is also an expert Python coder and who can beat him at Tekken 2. Since Tom is poor, has rather poor personal hygiene, and weighs about 200kg, we can safely say that he will be involuntarily single his entire life. Does his existence mean that all dating methods and tools are doomed to failure? I'd say no. Much like there will always be some structural unemployment, there will always be some "structural" single people. At best we can just reduce the number slightly.

And this isn't the only flaw in Greenspun's argument. As others have pointed out, he is assuming that the only purpose of online dating sites is to get married - and yet a cursory examination of online dating sites and the people on them would indicate that this is not the case.

Meanwhile, Greenspun's reference to marriage statistics is deeply problematic:

1) First, and most obviously, correlation is not causation.

2) He phrases the argument in the context of "low marriage rates prove online dating is a failure", but he then turns to statistics that show falling marriage rates. He seems not to realize it, but what he's actually arguing is not that online dating is a "failure" that has failed to improve marriage rates, but that it is actually lowering marriage rates. This probably needs an explanation. How exactly is eHarmony destroying the institution of marriage?

3) When pressed in the comments, he talks about "involuntarily single people", but again, the statistics he references are relating to marriage rates. It's a bit like trying to show that fewer people are starving to death by pointing to rising obesity levels. An obese person is almost certainly not starving, but not all non-obese people are starving. And a married person is probably not involuntarily single, but not all unmarried people are involuntarily single.

4) Don't falling marriage rates actually show that what people really want is, incrasingly, not marriage? Revealed preferences, and all that? But if people don't want marriage, then we can hardly use low marriage rates to show that online dating is a failure. His statistics would seem to not just be irrelevant, but to actually undermine his own argument.

(Yes, I know, I'm overthinking this.)
I like how ie6countdown.com renders perfectly fine on both IE6 and modern browsers.

I don't like how inaccessible HTML5 and CSS3 techniques are to older browsers. It reminds me of having to upgrade flash.

I like how we try to make sites accessible for the blind, regardless of their usage stats.

I don't like how we seem to throw away 1% of our best possible conversion rates, by fully ignoring 1% of our audiance.

I like how the web is maturing and growing.

I don't like how plain and simple information-providing websites are turning into HTML5 applications, with 100k's of javascript, hashtags and other dynamics.

I believe that in 20 years, sites that were build to render on IE6, will continue to render just fine. Sites that were build using experimental browser vendor-specific code, with AJAX and hashtags might need a special server to render. Is that progress?

EDIT: seems to be some confusion about "Sites build for IE6". I ment "Sites that render on IE6/were build with IE6 in mind". To me that doesn't auto-translate to active-x, MS-filters, conditional rules, IE7.js and CSS hacks, but I can see how others can view that. Anyway, I am clearly playing with fire, by taking these views on IE6. I'll just let this be and not delete it. It wasn't a troll or a flame, but this topic is always a heated one, so best to just let it be.
Ah, I'd read that as "does not equal", rather than "implies". Thanks pilgrim689.
What personal mod attacks are you talking about? You come across as schizophrenic. Users with enough karma can downvote posts. I downvoted your sub-replies because they lack a point or relevancy, you're attacking users and overall being belligerent.

Not only that, but you demand coherent replies, yet failed to respond to the top comment reply that was courteous enough to reply to you.
That is the one reason to learn Dvorak; it naturally causes you to touch type, because there's no sane reason to have your hands wander around the keyboard; all the keys you use are on the home row. QWERTY affords hand wandering and hunt & peck. If you want to "learn to touch type" it's probably more effective to "learn Dvorak" and let the touch typing take care of itself.

I'm not sure about the virtues of paying the stiff startup fee of learning Dvorak if all you know is QWERTY, but if you have already paid I certainly wouldn't suggest losing it. And I'm very, very tempted to ensure that my kids, who are all too young to be typing at all, simply start on Dvorak. If you're starting from scratch entirely the choice is pretty clear to me.

The thing about shortcut scrambling is oversold; I think it sources from people theorizing about what the problems might be if they switched, not people talking about their experiences. In my actual experience, relearning the keyboard shortcuts was a negligible part of the experience.
I'd go with Javascript / Node....
1 JS is universally deployed (1 language to learn)
2 JS works pretty well as a functional language, which is becoming much more important of late
3 Node(still a work in progress) covers the server side too, and the result is a scalable, single language solution.
I got Paypal for The Mafia. ಠ_ಠ
Whereas Gondor is for hosting your own code; Arnor is for hosting instances of other people's code. So it's a marketplace for Django developers to sell (or offer for free) out-of-the-box Django projects that people can deploy with a single click, customizing to the extent allowed by the original project creator.
3 ?
6 is dead 7&8 are still around and 9 is pretty decent. That leaves two more to go.
I wonder if ten years from now IE 9 will take the place of IE 6 takes today...
If the most valuable web design tip I learn this year is that this site exists: http://subtlepatterns.com/

...Then it will have been a decent year
What Google should do in 2012
Cheaper than free: paying for music after searching for a free download
Dion Almaer: The rise and fall of webOS is an epic tale; webOS != Web OS
Antivirus Software and the Total Security Myth
5 Awesome Learning Resources For Programmers