skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The getter/setter stuff in java is a huge waste of space and time. However, at least in the enterprise space, all of the tooling and frameworks assume your code follows the java bean naming conventions. For this reason alone I always make sure all my classes follow the pattern and whenever I train new developers I make sure they get a large amount of experience building out bean definitions and understand how much time is saved with Spring and Hibernate as long as the conventions are followed.

But yeah, its a bunch of ridicules, generated spam.
There exist plenty of organizations where a manager would have reported in April 2012: "Hey Bob, the $PEON_1846 on the QR team in $LOCATION reported that $COMMIT breaks requirement 1,735: todos must allow embedding the following restricted subset of HTML. Refer to requirements documents /shares/documents/basecamp/specs/dashboard/subcomponents/todo/functional_spec.xls sheet Content Embeds page 3. Submitted as issue 124,436 in the tracker, assigned to the June milestone. Get it done by then, otherwise we can't fix it until September prior to the Q4 code freeze, but turn in your TPS reports first."

Basecamp would be a very different product if it was made that way, though.

There are non-zero costs associated with giving people the authority to do productive work. On the plus side, this enables them to do productive work.

P.S. Having worked at an organization which did development that way, I can tell you that having copious documentation does not mean requirement 1,735 will be implemented, but it guarantees requirement 1,735 will be written about somewhere, which is what that organization type ends up optimizing for.
This purchase says to me that IGT thinks the US will allow domestic online gambling operations in the near future. Why else would they spend so much money on what appears to be quite a diversion from their current business model?
I don't know if that's novel in the US, but this is pretty common here in Argentina.
Secondary school here takes 5 years. Where I did it (1997-2001), before starting the 3rd year (14 years old), we had to choose the speciality (software engeneering, chemistry, civil engeneering, media and communications, musical production, business administration, electronic engeneering, graphic design).

I choose software (while most of my friends of that time choose electrinics engeneering).
The next three years we had lots of subjects related to CS.
This is what I learned there:
- Computer architecture,
- Networking (osi model, ip stack, that sort of things), algorithms,
- Structural programming (1st year), then oop (2nd year) (with C and C++), then Events Driven Programming with VB6 (3rd year)
- systems analysis and design, database design (er model)
- internet programming (back then, that was ASP, CSS and Javascript)

And all along the final year, we had a subject called Final Project, where we had to develop (from the requeriments to the implementantion) a REAL system (mostly done for family companies or NGO's ).

When I finished high school I was really prepared to start working, so I did, while at the same time, started going to the university. I can tell that it was REALLY easy to do my grad career because of my background. Even when at University some topics where seen in much deeper detail, i did it much faster than other people, because I already had my mind used to that things, and I just needed to learn the details.

But then again, even when I keept studing CS, some of my high school classmates chose other things to study (e.g: medicine, law school, economics, etc). But I think anyway that I must have to be a good experience for them, at least to learn that CS was not for them, and dont lose their time later.

Hope it helps!
In this respect it would/could be like a Wikipedia for bills.
I lived in Brazil for many years, and I can tell you -- for most people, if you told them you were "passionate" about your job, they'd look like you like you had mental issues. It's almost like, in the US, if you said you were passionate about doing your taxes. When I said that passion seems like an American thing, I should have limited it to say with regard to your income-producing work.

On the other hand, in Brazil, being passionate about football, and passionate about women -- now that's a given.

But as for:

> without passion we might as well just be worker drones leading a meaningless existence

Do you really think so? Can't you enjoy a beautiful garden, without being passionate about it? Can't you love you kids without saying you're "passionate" about them? Can't you enjoy a fine meal with fine wine, without having a passion for food and wine? I think you can do all of these things, and find great meaning in your life.

Why do you have to have passion, for something to be meaningful? I don't see the connection at all.
Apple becomes first tech company to join Fair Labor Association (FLA)
Ik wil afvallen
Show me someone who doesn't have code smelly habits and I'll show you a book author or a pedantic blogger -- not a production coder.
On Sofware and Generalism
tl;dr (kinda skimmed, correct me if I'm wrong)

Mocality is a Kenyan business that gathers and aggregates information about the businesses in Kenya to improve the economic state of the country through information infrastructure.

Google (or, apparently, a group contracted by Google) was mining their data and in turn (effectively) selling it. They were undercutting Mocality while at the same time claiming that they had previous arrangements with Mocality to do so.
Oh hey, let's use this bad story about google to drive some traffic to google+.
I am not upset at all; I merely point out that, IMO, they should not have disclosed any of their client's data, no matter how small.

IMO, there is customer data on their servers that they should not disclose without the consent of their customer. If so, the moment you allow a service provider to expose some information without such consent, you are accepting the fact that there are is a border (no matter how vaguely defined) between 'OK to disclose' and 'not OK to disclose' data, and that it is up to the service provider to decide where that border lies.

Because of that, I think a provider should not disclose any information about their clients, no matter how tiny, even if the information cannot be traced to any particular user, unless their terms of service clearly state what they will disclose (or sell to third parties)

(And yes, I _do_ read terms of service)
What, is there some kind of run on parens in your neck of the woods? Running such a lean startup you can't afford a function invocation?

This isn't premature abstraction or architecture astronautics--this is just good practice.

If you are in a language like Java or C, your compiler should optimize away the call if it doesn't do something clever.

If you are in Ruby, this is so easy to do that it doesn't even need mentioning--you just call the variable directly and behind the scenes you have replaced the variable name to be a function doing your magic instead.

If your fingers protest at the additional "get" in your function names, go and buy yourself a real IDE.

EDIT: Parent thread added clarification worth noting here. I'm not saying you should add accessors for every protected member--that's just as bad. I mean to say you should only expose members that absolutely require it (the fewer the better, generally), and only do so through function interfaces you can hook. :)
Definitely would love to hear more about it as well as the viability of going through that route as a single founder. Thanks!!
I'm hearing the words in my head in a voice that might suit the specific character. If I don't I feel something is missing immersion wise.
There's a difference between, say, pay-per-view football and Farmville, which has more in relation to slot machines than video games, movies, or TV shows.
6 Game-Changing Ecommerce Startups
"I take this to mean that they were Google contractors, or other representative third party."

That's what he wants you to take it to mean but that's likely not accurate. If no Google employees were involved I'd expect a quote that said so and this doesn't.

I have confidence that Google employees were not involved with the fraud aspects of what occurred here but that's not the same thing as saying that this project was 100% contractors. Indications are actually the opposite, see mocality's post* and the project's website http://www.kbo.co.ke/ ("managed by Google").

* http://blog.mocality.co.ke/2012/01/13/google-what-were-you-t...
Very well put, Yuri. A small correction from a more recent alum: I was a freshman at Stuyvesant in the fall of 2003. In the Spring of 2004, the one semester intro CS class became a graduation requirement for sophomores (where the other semester would be a condensed version of the previous drafting courses). Your point still stands though --- this only happened after Z had already been teaching computer science --- and turning out a steady stream of great engineers --- since the early 90s.
On the other hand, consider voter fraud cases like this [1][2].

I'm not in favor of putting too many burdens on the right to vote, and I'm honestly not sure where the balance lies: it's not clear how much fraud does occur, and it's not clear to me how much people are burdened by laws requiring ID (I suspect both are edge cases, but how do they compare in magnitude; what about the risk presented by each?). I just think it's necessary to keep in mind that there really is another side to the story.

[1] http://troyrecord.com/articles/2009/09/27/news/doc4abec35414...

[2] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/286557/yes-virginia-the...
This is exactly how I feel every time I read someone say "screw money, do what you love". How fortunate we live in a time where "do what you love" isn't a nonsensical statement! Invariably that statement comes from those who just happen to be passionate about a field that is lucrative at the moment. When the art major who busses tables to make ends meet years after graduation can say that, then I'll give it some weight.

The idea that somehow making a living from anything less than your "passion" is doing it wrong is just ridiculous. Sometimes your passion for basketweaving isn't what's going to put food on your family's table. Maybe you don't have a passion for engineering, but if you're capable at it, maybe you should consider that rather than living a life of passion out of your car.
There is one thing that really annoy me with the autohide feature. When you want to close the window the launcher often gets in the way. My mother got a little annoyed at this since I upgraded her computer to 11.10.
In my experience adding new features quickly is a loaded term. My guess is that Notch would know exactly how to add new features to Minecraft very quickly. He has intimate knowledge of the codebase. However, asking someone else to do so is where this ability to iterate will be lost.

I admire well written code, but a lot of times I see gold plating where is isn't really necessary, because "maybe one day we could add X". You still have to maintain the knowledge of where that easy addition could be plugged in.

Code is great, we can just throw parts of it away and refactor it to add new features. Which is possible if you follow best practices. ;)
yeah, i was thinking the same thing... includes the one sentence headline, some social proof (1000 users :), press icons, though seems to lack the big call to action button that we all use today.
The title of this post is one of the primary reasons 20-something "chicks" don't start companies.
Joshua Bloch in Effective Java argues that the java bean is an anti-pattern and should be avoided.
Do Cities Need Universities to Survive?
Funny, I take this to mean that they aren't quite sure what happened yet. However, they are investigating and trying to figure out what happened, and trying to get out in front of this PR-wise.
He uses Java, there's only so much stink you can remove from Java code, mostly you just push it around and try to make it as small as possible. Java is still a decent production language for some tasks, but its lack of some basic features and syntactic niceties means you have to hold your nose while coding most of the time.
Mocality's post didn't have the hallmarks of linkbait and based on their description of their business model (patient, capitalized, appropriate to the local) and the sophistication of their honeypot strategy, there was an air of legitimacy.

It was hard to see an upside from them making a false claim - e.g. a flood of unique visitors from around the world would hardly add value to their business (probably more likely to just crash their servers).

In addition, it is hard to see much of a downside for Google, they are still partnering with the biggest bank, largest mobile provider, and the manager of Kenya's top level domain - anyway there's already one Microsoft for people to hate and how much of a hit on eyeballs is a story about screwing over a small company in Africa really going to cause?

This was a rational business decision of the sort that's made everyday by large multinational companies.
How much seed capital should you raise? by Bijan Sabet
DeBloat - scripts for reducing bufferbloat
No true. Bankruptcy law in the US is all about helping the company get back on its feet. There's some useful information here, but the page takes forever to load:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/employee-rights-company-bankr...
I have 10 days to bring an open source project to life
You say "No." so defiantly, but the reality for Java - which is what everybody else was talking about in this thread and the article - the answer is quite often "Yes."
Interesting, but one thing bothered me.

>Right now, most founders have computer science backgrounds. More men choose math and science focused college majors, like computer science. I don’t think it’s a result of little boys playing with science kits and being praised for their smarts versus little girls playing school with their dolls and receiving accolades for their looks. I think it’s more a matter of schooling.

Is the author suggesting that females don't receive math or science in their K-12 studies? Of course if you study fashion you're not going to be taking calculus, so I'm not quite sure what she's getting at.

>Math education sucks, it rewards mindless repetition more than strategic problem solving and successful application of concepts.

edit: Ok, I totally agree but for standardized testing. It all depends on the teacher. One more thing though, is the author implying men are better at math?
Seems to already be posted here:

http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3462129
What I am doing is trying to bring up the conversation with as many people as I can -- saying I think it's worth solving and asking for ideas. We need more software developers, and this is an untapped pool. If we increase it a little, we'll have a lot more programmers.

I have also noticed behaviors that work to systematically lower participation by women, and I have worked to reverse them. For example -- noting that invitations to speak at a tech conference included no women, even though there were many qualified choices (I gave the conference organizers a list). I think the issue was that we invite who we know -- we need to break out of that -- our networks are probably overwhelmingly male.

I suggest more discussion (not here -- everywhere) -- but focused on ideas to increase the number of women in programming -- not meta-discussions. Try to notice when the ratio is bad and comment on it -- insist on something being done. And --- if you notice behaviors that work against changing the ratio -- do something about it.

And, I don't think it's very constructive to keep meta-arguing about it. If you want to, go ahead, but it's starting to sound a little silly. Almost all of these arguments were used to stop women from becoming lawyers 100 years ago. When, instead, we started working to include women -- their numbers grew to half the profession. 100 years from now, many of these arguments will seem outdated, especially the ones arguing natural aptitude.
Why Google is ditching search
Not quite right. Kenyan businesses opt-in to listing on Mocality, for free.

The Google employees called up businesses on the list, claimed that Mocality was owned by Google, and tried to upsell some web pages.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3460033

"I’d like you to meet Douglas. On this call (first 2 minutes) you can clearly hear Douglas identify himself as Google Kenya employee, state, and then reaffirm, that GKBO is working in collaboration with Mocality, and that we are helping them with GKBO, before trying to offer the business owner a website (and upsell them a domain name). Over the 11 minutes of the whole call he repeatedly states that Mocality is with, or under (!) Google."
Passion is a fire that is in your heart and that will forever try to get you do something you must do. Passion makes you alive—otherwise you'll spend decades withering away. Passion is never an idea, it's always something that you actually do. Passion is orthogonal to happiness, happiness may or may not come with or without passion.

Interestingly, From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

Passion \Pas"sion\, v. i.
To suffer pain or sorrow; to experience a passion; to be
extremely agitated. [Obs.] "Dumbly she passions, frantically
she doteth." --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
Poll: Do hackers mind paying for TV/Movies online because it's easier?
With all the SOPA talk going on, especially about piracy being behind it...

I was curious how many hackers who could learn to download and maintain massive libraries of video prefer paying a few reasonable dollars for access to the Netflix, etc., of the world.

For those who don't watch much tv, do you find it easier to pay for netflix/hulu, etc to get great, reliable access to content?
I easily pay a few dollars a month for multiple services. Instead of trying to download myself, it's way faster and a fair deal.
I easily pay a few dollars a month for *one* service.
I pay on demand, and buy individual shows and movies on itunes, etc, as I need
I don't pay much and don't mind hunting something down.
> The accused infringer is never given a chance to face their accuser or even know that they are under investigation.

So, how about if the legislation required a DMCA adherence clause--that before a site could be taken down an official notice would need to be sent to administrative contact of the domain. If no official response is received in X days then the DOJ could issue a black listing. However, if the administrator does respond either by complying or by issuing a counter claim then the DOJ could not issue a black listing. The issue would have to be worked out the way DMCA conflicts are worked out. Now, should the initial DMCA take down notice be found to be legitimate and the site operator still does not comply in X days, then the DOJ may issue a black listing.

Would that resolve your concern?
It would be nice if there were an app with it, that I could pull out when I was at the voting booth. The app would recognize my location, bring up the candidates I was voting on, and show me which ones I have liked and disliked.
There will be. Stay tuned.
> "So how many lives have garbagemen changed in the way OP talks about? How much impact do workers in a steel mill have?"

I'd argue these people have a greater impact on society than a lot of hackers. These people are contributing directly. Take away the garbagemen (as the city of Toronto did, for a little while) and observe their impact (or rather, smell).

Compare to the innumerable hackers being employed to build, well, a whole lot of nothing, much of which won't ever even see the light of day. Between running out of cash, big-company reorgs, and just plain bad ideas, there's a lot of software being written that simply won't benefit anybody in any significant way.

Humanity is reaching an unprecedented amount of specialization - we used to live in societies where the purpose and contribution of a particular person to the whole is easily understood by everyone. The cooper makes barrels, that the vintner uses, so that we can all enjoy wine. The blacksmith makes tools for everyone else, etc etc. As we abstract and specialize, we need to maintain perspective and never lose track of what role we play in the grand scheme of things.
Accessors are hardly a pre-generalization. I believe he was simply telling various use-cases that can be applied. Yes, software requirements change and some things don't (in practice), but you won't know precisely what will and won't need them until you ship. And even then, you may not know what will be required years from now. It seems like the rational option is to sink a second or two more time into the development in order to save potentially long and annoying refactors later. I've been using Visual Assist and I can actually get it to dump an accessor into the console faster than I can type out the full variable name (for variables name that aren't i,j,k).

On a more serious note, trivial accessors generally don't result in any more compiled code than direct field accesses, but do have the advantage of abstraction. If your development process is limited by the time it takes you type out the name of an accessor (or in my case, the first 3 letters), then you must be really productive or not do other things like documentation or testing.
http://www.viaweb.com/cgi-bin/master/EDITOR/cgi-bin/ownacct

And I'm sure having randomly nested cgi-bin's in some of the url's really had their competitors scratching their heads. Funny stuff.
Does anybody know if Notch is self taught? I thought he had a CS Degree from somewhere?

I can fluctuate between thinking I am a fairly competent developer to thinking that I am possibly the worst programmer there is. I'm not sure which is a better attitude to have, hopefully I am somewhere in the middle.

I think the issue with reading some of the discussion on HN is that you get people talking in detail about things like functional programming languages , systems with huge scalability , hardcore math problems and the finer points of memory management in the Linux kernel that you feel it is obvious that you should understand this stuff.

I have been trying to do some more book reading to improve, of course the issue is that whenever you read any book recommendation threads of HN there is always at least 30 or so recommendations of some pretty thick books and no chance I'd have time to read them all.

There is also a difference between having deep knowledge of the tools and libraries that you are using right now and having a deeper understanding of theory for example learning git vs learning graph theory etc.
Passion could be viewed as the most extreme form of interest, motivation, and enjoyment. If you aren't passionate about something, you're missing out on the full depth of human experience.
Yup, that's pretty much it. The important part is the last bit: they claimed that there was a partnership between Google and Mocality, and used that lie to extract payment from Mocality's clients.
TechCrunch coverage: http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/13/with-simplegeos-shutdown-im...