skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I hope I won't get killed here for saying this, but hiring Rails programmers is close to impossible. There are only two flavors and neither is desirable:

#1 Bad ones: know-nothings who have RoR on their resume "just in case", along with 20 other languages.

#2 Good ones: snobby assholes who read 37's "Fuck You" slide literally, usually very good ex-Java developers who don't really need a full time job because of a plethora of Rails contracting gigs on the market.

We even tried the outsourcing route but even that didn't work: offshore devs are all about PHP/Java/C#.
_why is one of the most amazing, creative hackers out there. I get the sense that his goal isn't to take over the planet with Shoes, but he'd rather get Ruby programming into as many hands as possible.
the point is, the likelihood of that happening is pretty close to zero. gruber has aligned himself with the tech elite, and the early adopters.

suppose some new version of firefox was released that sucked, and broke everybody's css layouts. gruber's crowd would almost certainly not adopt that particular version. they value technical superiority above almost everything else.
"It’s easier for me to ignore IE because the DF audience predominantly uses Safari, Firefox, and MobileSafari (roughly 53, 25, and 8 percent, respectively, with IE coming in around 4 percent). I have no idea whether the DF Paraphernalia store is even legible under IE, because I didn’t even bother to check."

Perhaps if the site weren't broken in IE, half of his visitors would be from that browser.
I just did this in Ruby and got a syntax error:

Time.now -1.day

Of course, what it should have been was:

Time.now - 1.day
I like GUI Emacs because keys like C-/ work, even if they have no ASCII code, and I don't have to wonder if I'm going to get random backslashes if I try to copy and paste into another window. There really isn't that much difference between switching between Emacs and, say, IRC, by using Alt-Tab or ^A ^A.
This is somewhat of a contrived example. I can't think of any subroutine in perl that I've written, or interfaced with, or seen in production code, that takes multiple types beyond the first argument. If any function is doing that, the function is too complex and should be refactored. What you do see a lot of is stuff of the forms:

sub foo {
my($someflag, @subjects) = @_

sub foo {
my($self, %options) = @_

sub foo {
my($positional, %named) = @_

etc. And in fact, when the way you call these is the 90% case for functions, at least in perl.

sub dosomething_with_data(@) { ... }
@data = (1, 2, 3);
@moredata = (4, 5, 6);
dosomething_with_data(@data, @moredata);

sub invoke(%) { ... }
%common_opts = (a=>1, b=>2);
invoke(%common_opts, c=>3);
invoke(%common_opts, c=>6, d=>5);
%overrides = (b=>3);
invoke(%common_opts, %overrides, c=>6);

(I included the subroutine prototypes for clarity). In this case, perl is exactly DYIM without the programmer having to think about list folding, array splicing, or hash merging. It just works. This would appear to be true dynamic typing, rather than dynamic typing where I still need to be strict about how I handle the values.
I'm surprised how nobody said that this was A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME!, yet...
jrockway mentioned doxory.com

Might be what you're looking for.
the poor unicode support in ruby
I can't believe there are still people (not necessarily you, arebop) who think pushing _proxy settings_ to clients is somehow good from a security standpoint. If you really want to control or log what people are doing through your network, you have to FORCE them to go through a proxy, and the only way to do that is with a firewall and with a transparent proxy, not by putting configuration on a piece of hardware that someone else, the user, has physical access to and uses day in and day out.
Paul Erdős was at least as deserving of the title "genius" and died quite a bit later (1996). He was a highly productive mathematician until late in his life.
If you sell half as much stuff as others, it means you're costing the store customers, because presumably you approached close to the same number of customers as the other sales agents approached, but more of your customers decided to take their business elsewhere. This not an issue in a programming job.

Let's not "take this to the extreme", and instead be realistic. Your "ticking bomb" would be the first in history. Like I said, no drug is tested for 20 years before being released (and approved by FDA), so if there was such a risk, then with the sheer number of new drugs developed, you'd see these disasters left and right. Where are they?
I thought as much, thanks. I wonder what they have planned then..
Obviously the basics are important, but if string theory keeps them interested - and maybe even helps them decide to continue in physics through college, then including it is a very smart decision.
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John von Neumann was widely considered a genius, though he was probably more Einstein's contemporary outliving him by only two years.
"We even tried the outsourcing route but even that didn't work: offshore devs are all about PHP/Java/C#."

That isn't really true. I know a few ex Thoughtworker people who know RoR inside out and work as consultants from Bangalore. You just need to know where to look.

As for the larger issue of the various types of RoR programmers - no comment. (I upvoted you!)
Using Google App Engine as Your Own Content Delivery Network
The Joy of Concatenative Languages
No, that's not true. The "average" american has had very little change. Sure there have been many losses for some people, but the average? Didn't change much.

I agree with the rest of what you wrote. But people have been living paycheck to paycheck before, and still are. That has hardly changed at all.
Very addictive, very KISS. Small gripe though, after about 10 answers I got a repeat question ("a or b"). Might have been a good idea to seed the site with about 100-200 questions before even releasing to public.
Instapaper.com does this, more or less. Their basic service is free, but they (he actually, unless he's expanded lately) sell an iPhone app with additional usability features and offline reading.

It's a really useful thing, but probably a bit shady in the legal area with ToSes.
How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job?
Goodbye Perl
Cisco, Dell Sales at Risk as Slump Fuels Gray Market
A content delivery network limited to 1 MB files? That sounds like buying the new, simplified Hammer 2.0: it has no head, you just pound in nails with the handle.
True John Ousterhout (creator of Tcl) story.

I worked for John for many years, but our first meeting (when he was interviewing me for the job of VP of Engineering under him) was when he met me for lunch at Scott's Seafood.

Early on in the lunch interview he said "You've probably heard of me..." and talked a little about Tcl and his experience. Unfortunately, I had said "No" almost as soon as the first five words were out of his mouth.

So, then he was forced to tell me about Tcl (which I had never used) and went on to explain that Tcl was a really easy language for people to learn (which he illustrated with various interesting examples) and that it incorporated a complete regular expression engine from a lot of power was derived.

Right there, I blurted out "Don't you think those two things are contradictory? It can't be easy to learn and have regular expressions since regular expressions are one of the hardest things for a novice to pick up".

His eyes sort of bugged out of his head and he said, "Oh. Perhaps you are right. I hadn't thought of that".

Luckily for me it turned out that making John have a novel thought was the right way to impress him. Despite apparently having a big ego he turned out to be the best boss I ever had, I learned an enormous amount from him and later we co-founded Electric Cloud.
Regarding subscription pricing, if you are going to charge and you want to keep the price under $10/mo, charge at least $5.99/mo because a) you can get away with it, and b) $3.99/mo could make your product seem cheap. IMO $5.99 is close to the cost of a fast food meal, which most people don't hesitate when faced with.

I don't know how much thought you put into the $3.99/mo, but there is a lot of research out there that supports pricing higher for reasons none other than to create the perception of value. Interesting topic to look into, either way.
Wedding – Money Saving Ideas
The first thing that comes to our mind when we think of wedding is the expenses. All of us would love to have a lavish wedding and if only we had the needed resources, we would certainly go for it. However, when everyone is trying to look for new ways of cutting back on costs during this financially stressful time that is prevalent with layoffs and job cuts, we too should be careful about how we spend the resources we have so that we don’t get in to trouble later or start our married life with debt. Here are some interesting tips that you could use while you are planning your wedding.
Instapaper.com does only the 'read after' thing with the algorithm part we're offering.

Say you want to read an NYTimes article on your iPhone, sure you've got the nice Zoom-and-Pan. But wouldn't it be nice if you could read any webpage in your favorite news reader with only the content, no ads, no header, no footer, no navigation bar? Only the content.
6 Credit Card Processing Facts Nobody Tells You
Ahhhh!

Ok, that can be fair although I'd probably consider that a technical requirement. Really, you'll find the same problem with Merb and Django. There are a bunch of people who have done small things (say, a todo list) in them that don't really know the framework. While the Django community doesn't tend to have the same attitude that some of the Rails community has, it's a really small community. Finding good Django programmers is hard. While some in the Django community would argue that it's just Python (vs. Rails' more DSL take on Ruby), it's more than simply Python.

It's hard to hire programmers in general. Django and Merb are much smaller than Rails in terms of exposure and number of programmers. While you might not get as many pretenders or as many bad attitude people, there are simply less people.

I wish I had something more helpful to say here. If you're looking to hire Django people, djangogigs.com and djangopeople.net are good places to post/look. I really think Merb would be the better choice as a lot of the code can be reused - you could completely reuse the models and templates which would probably save you a huge amount of development not to mention require no alteration to your database.
Objective-C: @property requires duplication of the ivar type, and doesn't imply @synthesize. (To do either of these would stop it being a simple macro, but that elegance comes at the expense of a frustrating amount of unnecessary typing.)

Common Lisp: built-in functions aren't generic. Tedious verbosity of defclass. No literal syntax for hash tables. Debuggers so much worse than they should be.

Smalltalk: having to manually implement getters/setters. Awkwardness of code generation.

Ruby: gems not having a single canonical name (what you require != what you install).
At least in Germany printing your own money is in fact illegal. (Even if it does not claim to be legal tender.) Gift certificates are OK, though.
My favorite language is JavaScript too, and the most annoying wart for me is function scope instead of lexical scope. For example,

var closures = [];
for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
var j = i;
closures[i] = function() { alert(j); }
}
closures[0](); // outputs 9, WTF?

How to fix it:

var closures = [];
for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++) (function()
{
var j = i*i;
closures[i] = function() { alert(j); }
})(i)
closures[0](); // outputs 0 as it should
Anyone know what the 'star' functionality is meant to be for? Clicking the question mark next to it simply selected the star. Mouseover didn't giove any helpful tooltips either.
Dropbox does not claim any ownership rights in Your Files

Do you need to claim ownership of something in order to "share" it with a third party? (strictly legally speaking, of course)

The rest of the paragraph is just covering of your back. This is fine, of course, just not relevant to the point.
2007 Web start-up funding: Web VC ranking
Presumably this doesn't include mathematicians, since there would doubtless be any number of counterexamples if it did (Grigori Perelman springs to mind). Clearly maths and science are group enterprises, and always have been. Regardless of scientists' institutional affiliations, human knowledge must be transmitted once discovered. The point the article makes is that the process of scientific discovery itself is generally no longer one pursued by lone individuals. This may in fact be accurate; however, this is more a shift in degree than in kind. Einstein, after all, worked with plenty of people: Planck, Schrödinger, Grossmann, and of course Podolsky and Rosen. His most important theoretical breakthroughs may have been made alone, but they were the result not merely of prior discoveries and theories (both physical and mathematical) but of collaborations with his contemporaries. Experimental verifications of his predictions were, and continue to be, carried out by the scientific corpus.
But that is my point exactly. Why is making inroads into the non-geek circles such a high priority? Most of the cash comes from voluntary donations and some very rare instances of funding. Most of the work performed on Linux kernel and associated software is not done for profit. What if the devs working on kde right now instead started to contribute to integrating reiser4 into the kernel or building up btrfs or suspend support or any of the dozens of possible improvements to the linux kernel directly beneficial to the devs themselves? It could have some interesting effects.
VC investors short on Cash
Isn't this exactly what dapper.net does? I've used it myself to create feeds for websites that are stuck in 1996 and haven't moved on to RSS yet.
This is quite an interesting piece of software, however I keep wondering why it remains so restricted when it comes to licensing.

Also, do you still plan on working on a Ruby version of OpenPoker? I am quite interested in how you would go about designing such software with Ruby, since there isn't really an OTP-equivalent.

Thanks.
Ok ok...but for me, as a website owner, the whole point of placing Adsense is, that I do not worry about conversion rates - You and Google does.

I think the original advice is good - free software developer can monetize his traffic a little with one-time additional work. It's not his concern that those ads don't convert that well.
Perhaps this would be an extremely inefficient use of chip real estate, but what if extra cores were used to execute the same set of instructions in parallel with both outcomes of conditional branches (i.e. completely replace branch prediction) and take whichever one ends up being correct?

On second thought, it's probably not worth it. It seems modern branch predictors are at least 90% accurate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_predictor), and only a few percent of instructions are conditional branches anyway (http://bloggablea.wordpress.com/2007/04/27/so-does-anyone-ev...).
Interesting. Will definitely try an A/B test on the pricing to see whether that matters.

One question: between $5.99/mo and $30/yr, which one will you recommend? (There is intense computing power required here, so I'll definitely work out the equations. )
Sorry, didn't see this until you tweeted it. You can email your CV to me.
Well, our first customer, the one who licenses our core algorithm, had their processing efficiency boosted by 300% + just to use our engine as a pre-processor.

I'm aware of existing "Wrapper induction" papers. But they still keep lots of internal navigation links, most of which are navigation bars, etc. Probably for helping the indexer to use recursive PageRank algorithm to determine the weight for current page.

I am in the process of building a quick demo page for you guys to see the effect.

Thanks for commenting.
Well, the basic premise of the article is common sense. The memory needs to feed the processor instructions and data.

If the clock speed and number of cores increases at a faster rate than memory speed increases (assuming all the cores share memory) then at some point the memory can't keep up.

Whether or not 16 cores is the magic number, I don't know.
The hardest sell to make is a monthly subscription service. It's easier to sell yearly or one-time.
> What causes these issues? Much respect for the folks who code them, I understand you do not owe anybody anything, but any honest assessment points to platform chauvanism.

An awful lot of developers are just writing a library or application to solve a problem they have, and they write it to function on the platforms which they deploy to. They don't own Windows licenses, and don't have the time or the desire to test their work on Windows. I imagine that usually it simply doesn't occur to them! And why should it? They're not writing code that doesn't work on Windows; they're writing code that does work on the platforms they develop on and deploy to. That it doesn't work on Windows is merely an unfortunate (and probably accidental) side-effect.

Clearly you have a big problem with the attitude of many members of the community towards Windows developers and the Windows environment. This may not be unjustified. But to claim that "any honest assessment points to platform chauvanism [sic]" seems short-sighted and unfair.
If you can't decide or look for alternatives, you might also want to try my solution to that problem: http://dezidr.com
I think it's safe to say not to put anything on DropBox that you wouldn't lug around on a flash drive. You probably shouldn't be transporting sensitive information on your flash drive OR DropBox, and if you DO, you better be damn sure its encrypted.
I think the mainstream attitude towards steroids is very hypocritical. If you're meant to play with what God gave you then surely athletes shouldn't even wear glasses! Tiger Woods had his vision surgically "corrected" to 20/15 (better than "normal") and no-one bats an eyelid (haha). Athletes regularly use the steroid cortisone to recover from injury, is that not cheating too? All anabolic steroids do is enable an athlete to train harder and recover quicker, they are not magic, you still need to put the work in, you can just choose to burn twice as bright for half as long.
Actually, that's weird. I thought I attached that url to the post...
I find the Perl and especially the Ruby versions are a bit easier to read than any of those Python examples.

If u like left to right chains then Perl can also be written like so...

use autobox::Core;

say [ 0..255 ]->map( sub { chr } )->grep( sub { m/\w/ } )->sort->join('');

/I3az/
"Also, do you still plan on working on a Ruby version of OpenPoker? I am quite interested in how you would go about designing such software with Ruby, since there isn't really an OTP-equivalent."

But... why?
Visualizing a silicon quantum computer
Haskell: people start talking behind my back when I mention implementing something on it
I have to disagree with the general feeling and the details of this.

1. The web sites for credit card processors & merchant account services are completely useless

That depends on the site. Protx has awesome documentation at http://techsupport.protx.com/ (see the "Advice" bit on the left). I'd even use it when building for other providers, because much of it is very generic.

3. Address verification (AVS) is voodoo

All the verification systems are voodoo (except the security number). Hell, even the credit card number is voodoo. Why? Because the customer could have made a mistake while typing them in. The bank lets you decide how to handle it. That is a little unclear to most cc processing beginners, but it can be resolved easily: use 3D-secure. This shifts the liability back onto the bank and you don't have to worry about that crap anymore.

4. Test charges are pretty much unavoidable

Both of the times I've had to build a cc processing system, I haven't needed "test charges". If you really need to verify a card ahead of time, don't use test charges, charge a proper setup fee. Why do you think so many sites charge setup fees?

6. Errors are incomprehensible and your credit card processor is useless at helping you solve validation issues.

Dunno what kind of merchant they're using... I get descriptive errors from my accounts.

7. When you ask why stuff doesn’t work, even due to Stuff Nobody Told You, they think you’re kinda dumb.

Again, it goes back to the first point... get a better provider that has decent documentation.

Credit card processing is a pain, but it's not that terribly hard.
I think his style alienates as many people as it attracts. Ruby also need a more "normal" advocate.
"Steps to keep the benefits from making socio-economic inequalities worse."

Not impressed - they would rather everyone be equally "stupid" rather than some people be smarter than others? These drugs do not take away from anyone, they only add.
To the people who downmodded this, is it just that you hate IE a lot, or do you have an actual reason why I'm wrong?

I wasn't being sarcastic -- don't you think he's turning away his IE visitors by presenting a site that doesn't look right, and then turning around and claiming that IE is 4%?

Even for sites with a highly technical audience, that number is hard to believe.
>>
I do not worry about conversion rates
>>

You are not correct. Advertisers don't pay for traffic that doesn't convert for long -- if they were made to, they'd get POed at Google. Accordingly, if your traffic does not convert, you will be given "smart pricing" -- essentially, ads placed on your site will be automatically discounted. Heavily. This will result in CPMs (cost per thousand pageviews) so low they will be measured in cents.

http://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/10/facts-about-smart-pricin...

The submission article suggests that $10 to $150 is reasonable for a site with 100 pageviews a day (i.e. 3k per month, implying a CPM of $3.33 to $50). If a 3k per month site gets smart priced, its monthly earnings will drop to between about a buck and two bucks (or less). Since Google does not issue checks for less than $100, you will be lucky if you see a check in the next five years.
Modafinil (Provigil) is indicated for use treating narcolepsy, which was it's initial indication. Recently, the FDA has approved it for treatment of symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea (which I take it for), and shift work sleep disorder.

http://www.docguide.com/news/content.nsf/news/8525697700573E...
Genetic Programming: Evolution of Mona Lisa
The stuff listed in the article is true for one of the most popular / well-supported processing gateways, Auth.net. If there are better alternatives, we sure weren't able to find them. Their biggest competitor is TrustCommerce and they seem to have the same web site, information, support problems.
I'd like to see an incident where caffeine has caused such severe cutaneous and dermatologic reactions as modafinil has. If such drugs were deregulated, we would certainly see the number of victims of these horrible reactions go up.
As for free will, Einstein was particularly offended by some of the consequences of quantum mechanics which seemed to remove determinism from the most elementary of particle interactions.

If fundamental interactions are in fact deterministic at this point, we haven't learned how to predict their consequences, which has led to the many interpretations of quantum mechanics. Einstein was fond of "hidden variables" since it held out some hope of quantum mechanics at some point being deterministic once again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory

His interpretation is, however, not widely accepted. In other words, "free will" may be an emergent property of quantum interactions.