skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
As someone who is 38, and has programmed in everything from 6510/68k/MIPS/ARM assembler to C/C++ to ActionScript/haxe/JavaScript to D to Python, et al, I also think Go is pretty great.

In addition to the cool things in the language, I really love what they are doing with the build system. The Go programming I've been doing has been on Windows but targeting an ARM CPU (the PXA168 in the Chumby 8 device) and cross-compiling Go code requires simply setting a couple of environmental variables. Sooo much nicer than having to set up a full-on GNU-style cross-compiling setup and using different toolchains for all your different targets.

eg:

set GOOS=windows

set GOARCH=386

go build

Just built my project for Windows x86.

---

set GOOS=windows

set GOARCH=amd64

go build

Just built my project for Windows x64

---

set GOOS=linux

set GOARCH=ARM

set GOARM=5

go build

Just built my project for the Chumby device.

---

I highly recommend checking Go out and looking past any of the superficial allergies you have to it (I'm historically a braces-on-their-own-line guy, so getting used to the strict enforcement of the other style was a pain for me) and giving it at least a few weeks to sink in. If it still isn't your cup of tea after that, then that's fine, but it is well worth a look, IMO.
You should look at the work on pypy; specifically the RPython subset of python. It uses type hinting for static type analysis for the JIT compiler. It's not as hardcore as a fully statically typed language like ML or C but it will catch mistakes in mixing types.

See http://doc.pypy.org/en/latest/rtyper.html
"middleware" violates English grammar rules
This is an honest question from someone with 0 experience with TMux. What benefit does it give me over using split windows within iTerm?
I completely disagree. My goal is to build better systems, and if an evolutionary change helps this, then that's where I'm going.

You seem to value "breaking the mold" for the sake of "breaking the mold" Or, you didn't give a good reason to value it.

"that stuff is already more than 40 years old.". Is this the fashion industry? Or do you believe that quality is a function of age?
I agree.

In the Star Trek economy (afaik), the inwention of the replicator was key to the end of money and the end of a scarcity based economy.

Well, we already have a replicator for much of the economy

$ cp

And it looks as though soon we'll have some very advanced robots that will be able to automate most mundane jobs.

So maybe this is good and we can all become Platos, relaxing, philosophizing, self-actualizing at the top of Maslow's pyramid. If so, it should be reasonable to convince everyone to go the Star Trek way and jettison money.

What will be dangerous, is dangerous, is the transition periods like now, where jobs that are lost, never come back, not just because they have been automated away, but also because the owners would rather pay more for automation and less human involvement because they find humans to be a big pain. At that point (which is sort of like now) it is hard to convince others that it is reasonable to distribute resources to the masses.

I would certainly like to see a single payer, universal health care system implemented that separates health care from monolithic employers. That, and I'd love to see actual real encouragement and incentivization of small business entrepreneurship.

Remove the barriers that big companies have on us. Make it easy and rewarding for people to create their own jobs, form their own companies, on a semi-permanent or even ad-hoc way.

Oh well, pie in the sky.
Is there a paper behind the design of Zen? I'm assuming it's some combination of heuristics and MCTS.
EverQuest turns 13, blows out the subscription candles (video)
You're right buying Netflix would be ridiculous.

They'd be much better off going after a studio like Disney or WB and buying content - they already have an audience and distributing digital content is a known entity. With that amount of cash, they would want content rights, not distribution rights.
False positive rates should be understood by the doctors that recommend treatments, though. A doctor should be able to accurately tell a patient what the chance is that they suffer from a disease based on a positive result from a test.

Unfortunately, doctors tend to be terribly bad at this - they are generally quite inept at incorporating prior probabilities into the estimates, and assume that (for instance) if a test has only a 1% false positive rate, then that means a positive result means it's 99% certain that you have whatever it's testing for.

If it's not immediately obvious why that's an idiotically dangerous assessment, then you need to think a bit about a rare disease that only shows up in 1 out of a million people, and then consider the 10,000 people that will test positive for it at a false positive rate of 1%. Don't worry, most doctors don't get this right at first, either, and they will happily suggest to all 10,000 of those people that they seek aggressive, even life-threatening treatment...the difference, of course, is that they're goddamn doctors, entrusted with keeping people alive, and they really ought to know better, whereas you're just some person on the Internet.
Don't get me wrong on this, but a single 29 y.o. woman, loving her job, as she admits, feels lonely and bored at her job because of all-male and tech people around? It's not surprising. But it has nothing to do with tech or engineering. My advise is get married (perhaps to someone outside of tech field, but in the end it does not matter: to someone you like). It will solve all problems.
Like every other piece of technology, QR codes can also be overused and abused. This isn't worth ranting over though.

There are perfectly good reasons to use QR codes. URLs may be long, confusing or just awkward enough to be a pain to type. Sometimes there may not be enough space on the product to put in a full URL. There's no reason to stop the 'madness' as this author puts it - like other pieces of technology, folks will experiment quite a bit in the early days and then settle on good usage practices as time goes on.
what he should have said is that he can't comment because neither he nor his company is in making or deciding on politics. elon is a businessman after all - the government decided to retire space program but there still be a need to travel both cargo and life. he's seeing future opportunity and betting on it, which should be every wise businessman approach.
How to Speak: Lecture Tips from Patrick Winston
Yup, definitely, I should have made that more clear than it was (I did mention "after discounting for the cost of the test", but it wasn't as obvious as it should have been). Test costs have to be weighed against benefits, but that whole process involves a lot more statistical sophistication than is typically applied in practiced medicine. Researchers are slightly better, though it's fairly common even for them to make hideous statistical mistakes, which is a real problem in the field.

IMO, if pre-med requirements included a bit more statistics and a bit less biology, we'd all be better off...
Right, don't we have international treaties that say no one owns "space"?
By the same token, testing them individually doesn't account for constructive interference.

Clearly we need to test all possible permutations.
I love this novella. Also on Marshall Brain's site are a handful of essays/articles on this topic, e.g.:
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm

His suggestion is very simple: provide an annual stipend of about $25,000 to each citizen.
It's mostly a semantics thing, but no: most "systems programmers" would not categorize those applications as "systems tasks". They're just apps. By convention, "systems programming" means dealing with the bottom of the abstraction stack. Java code can't make syscalls. Calling conventions for Java methods aren't specified at the level of CPU registers or instructions.

So writing a JVM is systems programming. Writing a Java-based data store is not, even though other stuff then sits on top of the store.
I agree with your goal. But the parent is correct in that learning a really different language will help you become a better developer and thus build better systems.
Well he also seems to forget the amount of effort but in by the speaker. Of course a more famous one will be paid more, (s)he has spent thousands of hours doing appearances, books, etc all to gain some notoriety, all without the assurance it will pay off or come back to them some day. 30k an hour just isn't accurate if you see all the effort over the years to pull it off and the pre and post work needed to be done per speaking engagement.
Zubrin, Mars Direct. He estimated $10-15b to do it, and if you were SpaceX, you could probably do it for less. The key to making Mars cheap is to do multiple launches -- first launch is a fuel production facility (automated) which uses Mars resources to make fuel and oxygen, then housing, then a return vehicle. Launch the crew once everything is set up, in a vehicle which can't return on its own -- they use the stuff already on Mars to live and return.

I mostly just made up the moon number, based on it being a whole lot easier than Mars. I think you could probably do a recreation of Apollo pretty cheaply (a quick flight to the moon, simple landing, etc.). Certainly a trip to the moon without landing wouldn't be THAT hard once you had a rocket able to escape from earth gravity (maybe 2x as hard as launching to GEO?). You could maybe do it with a Falcon 9 in a single launch, so that's about $2b. It's less fun if you don't land, though.
Is 30 minutes main time really a slow game for Go?
Wasn't there some big conspiracy that bar-codes would be EVERYWHERE one day???

I saw them on some Churches main signs, I see them on pretty much everything... They are all techinically "linked" to the internet...

Maybe, that "day" the conspirators speak of is upon us?

:-\
I don't mean to undermine this powerful report but slavery is alive and growing across the planet. I think it's important to remember that there are higher percentages of slaves in the world now than there were back in the days the Western world considers the slave era. So, Mauritania is far from being the last stronghold. Al Jazeera and Rageh Omar produced an excellent series on modern day slavery.
Violent places governed by dictators and religious genocidal death cults aren't my favorite places to make large capital investments in physical plant, though. It's also rather far from consumers. I'd prefer Nevada...
Hmm,

The complaint I see here seem to be about c/c++ libraries.
TL;DR; c is too level and boost sucks (ie, is too complexified).

Go sounds like one fine answer to this. I would claim that c++ with QT is another answer to this. Write parsers for DSLs quickly and easily with QT - its container classes work without nightmarish overtemplating, its string class is like an ordinary class, etc.
> The first thing I immediately noticed is that they got rid of the parentheses in "if" and "for" statements. Coming from Python, I really like this.

Python doesn't enforce any parenthesis in those statements, so how were you using them in Python that changes how you'd do the same thing in Go?
Wow.
1. Have you written or debugged C sockets code? Because if you have, I doubt you would be dinging him on not wanting to do that.
2. He doesn't want to handle C/C++. I would say that most people who write application code are with him.
3. Yeah... I'm pretty sure Python, an interpreted language, is slower than Go, a compiled language. Even with the progress PyPy is making, I doubt it's going to beat Go.

The author needs no age defense. He makes a ton of valid points for why you should try out Go.
Good use case: on a For Sale sign in front of a house or apartment with a deep link to the listing. Much easier than going to the web site and searching.
A clever use of history.replaceState and some special characters (to make it less obvious that the state's been altered) - "view source" in Chrome operates on the currently active URL, which after the replaceState has executed is the "not that easily" page.

You can also reproduce the behavior by navigating back, then forwards again - you'll see the "not that easily" page that way, as well (as the "try and view the source" page has been replaced in your history list).
The novelty has worn off, so now they're worthless and companies should just stop using them. I'm not sure I agree.
I respectfully disagree.

Being human is something we have washed away with dedicated PR staff. I feel 'numb' to public figures now, especially political and that takes something intangible away.

Elon is leading us into space by setting incredible goals and asking for the best from the best. He is a leader in more than one sense. Showing emotion and character is important in leadership and I thought it was appropriate and touching.
Thus far you barely hear of anyone using Go in any context, though that is changing.

I think the primary reason for the lack of users has been language stability. The Go team are currently working on the first actual "release" of the language ("Go 1") to address this. But prior to the move towards Go 1, the language was very much in flux, more so than you'd want for a language (that you'll actively be maintaining code in) to be. (And gofix, while nice, isn't really a substitute for language and standard library stability).
I think this is just hysterical nonsense. Remember, it used to be not that long ago that 95% of the labor force worked on farms, and still famine was a regular occurrence. Now only 1 or 2 percent work on the farms.

I can't imagine people running out of productive things to do. After all, can making movies be automated? How about becoming a professional dancer or athlete? Writing books? Building a custom car? Making art of any sort? Elder care (a booming business as baby boomers age)? Research? Tutoring?

There have never been greater opportunities for productive work than now.
Parsing Horrible Things with Python [video]
For 1. See my comment later when pg asks me to lay out some points and I do so.

For 2. Yes, citations can make you look more authoritative. But here's the thing. I believe pg is falling into a trap that most of us smart people fall into: we believe in our own smartness, and we believe in our own logic, therefore we believe what we think about a subject… regardless of whether we've actually investigated or researched the topic whatsoever.

Here's an example you'll see often on HN: "People still use/pay for x?" or "Hackers don't buy things." For example: porn. Several times I've seen the idea expressed on HN "people can't possibly be making money from porn" or "does anyone still pay for porn?" (Not a genuine question, but implication that of course, nobody does.)

The fact is, the porn industry makes $13 billion a year. Yes, even with the internet and piracy. All it takes to see this is to go to Wikipedia but people don't bother. Because they "know."

There is so much written on the value of public speaking, from greater thinkers than pg and myself. Aristotle wrote a lot of silly things but he was also inarguably a great thinker and the father of rhetoric. He wrote a treatise in 400 bc about the uses of public speaking, which intellectuals throughout the ages have used as one of the cornerstones of a true liberal education.

I'm not saying Aristotle is correct. I'm saying it seems ridiculous for an intellectual with the reach and influence of pg to write bald statements like "So are talks useless? They're certainly inferior to the written word as a source of ideas" without even a perfunctory investigation of the history of the thing.

Nobody questions it, so I question it.

Actually, the way pg opened the essay -- Having good ideas is most of writing well. -- is actually a technique called "begging the question". Which was dubbed a material fallacy. By Aristotle.

Just sayin'.
Elon is a testament to dreaming big and achieving. Truly inspiring stuff.
Fuck proper grammar rules...

Middleware for the WIN.
Goroutines are multiplexed onto a set of threads defined by the Go program. They're not each a full thread; it's more like Stackless Python's version of threads.
http://www.stackless.com/
Until the towns and cities that grown up around new industries bloom and generate wealth? I was listening to a radio interview where an the idea was discussed where GDP should be decommissioned for GDE: gross domestic environment, where wealth is determined on the general health of your people and natural resources. Then I would have no problem with day-traders making money hand over fist because a new forest preserve or public transport system was allocated.
I assume he likes it because it doesn't change anything. He's used to the Python way.
On the contrary. I asked you to give me an example of something I wrote that you believe to be false. You gave me that sentence. The burden of proof is on you.

Just so we're clear, do you believe it's false that having good ideas is most of writing well? Or not?
On KGS 25 minutes is actually considered a medium length game. Obviously real games between pros can go on for days, but for whatever reason most games with bots seem to be played at or near blitz speeds, so this is slow by comparison.
Eight Tips To Get Media’s Attention
Grass (or water, etc.) under (non-slip) glass?
What's it like to use a compiled language for a web server?
According to the recent weekly release, they are 1-2 weeks before Go 1 release: http://weekly.golang.org/doc/devel/weekly.html#2012-03-13
Context is everything. For example, QR codes are huge in Japan. Witness this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myzLAXtqoa8&feature=playe...!

People literally lining up to take snapshots of QR codes.
The problem with your proposal is that employee time does not scale down linearly. There is a certain fixed amount of time needed for each employee to do training and administration, whether that employee works part time or full time. Let's say that takes 2 hours per week. If you drop from 40 hours per week to 16 then your actual productive time is only 37% as much. Plus there is additional fixed overhead for HR, computing resources, software licenses, personal equipment, etc.

Also consider that adding more people to a team increases communication overhead, regardless of whether they are part time or full time: n*(n-1)/2. So there's a further loss of efficiency with replacing a small number of full time workers with a larger number of part time workers.
In the United States, restricted airspace is (broadly, the rules are not simple) between 1,200 and 60,000 feet. Above and below that is unrestricted airspace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspace_class_%28United_State...

Pedantic niggle regarding TFA: Putting a server in a balloon is nothing at all like achieving orbit. An object in orbit is both high and fast. Really high (160km) and really fast. (7.8km/s) 7.8 kilometres per second is 17,000 miles per hour.

A server in a balloon is not in orbit in much the same way that a toddler in a tricycle is not a F1 car.
Maybe I'm missing something, but "they got rid of the parentheses" sounds like either Go used to require parentheses for this or he thought Python did. If it was the former, then I misread (I don't know very much about Go).
I've made a point to ask people who work in retail stores/shops that have QR codes if they've ever had people scan the QR codes. The most "positive" answer I heard was that they weren't sure. Some people stopped in front of the signs, but they weren't sure if they were scanning the code or following the link or sending an email/sms to subscribe.

Most of the time, it's a flat out no. I suspect it might be different in other places where there is greater awareness or density of QR codes though.

BTW, asking for a use case? Entering secure keys. Initializing OTP code generators. (aka Google Auth, which you SHOULDN'T have to ask about because it should ALREADY be active. Go do it, right now, mid-sentence, if you haven't) Potentially initializing 3 keys for use in a two-factor auth tool for phones and NFC tags. cough.
They are free to set up, advertisers and marketers understand them (or at least they think they do), they feel very "modern".

QR codes aren't going anywhere is because they are a perfectly attractive novelty for the non-tech world. There is a far better conversion, and ease from using short URLs or even a 4 digit number that will next you the URL, but the QR code will still prevail.

I wouldn't expect QR codes to go away until the offline advertising and marketing world becomes more data driven. Given recent trends, that's unlikely to happen any time soon.
I used to do the same, recently I switched to MacVim. I found using Vim in Terminal/iTerm2 slowed down drastically after I worked with it for 10-15 minutes. Opening a file would take 1-1.5s, compared to MacVim which was instantaneous. I thought it was tied to a plugin, tried going barebones and still the same problem. (Although removing vim-rails sped it up a tiny bit.) Unable to diagnose it any further, I had to switch to MacVim.

Anyone else had similar problems and managed to resolve? Here is my dotfiles if you're curious https://github.com/jeyb/dotfiles.
You make a good point about the transition period.

I'm a fan of Kurzweil and am convinced that many of his predictions will come true. However, he paints a rosy picture of the future and glosses over any potential conflict in the transition between between now and when he predicts that humans will merge with machines, which he pegs at 2099.

There is definitely going to be conflict as we move to a post-scarcity world.
I don't know of a paper; it's sold commercially by the author and is closed-source. It's definitely fair to say that it is a combination of MCTS and heuristics. The best I can find at a glance is this post on the computer-go list, where the author remarks:

Zen is similar to partly MoGo, partly Crazy Stone. It has shape patterns that are generated by minorization-maximization algorithm like Crazy Stone. But they are directly combined with UCT - I don't use progressive widening. Probably the most original part of Zen is in the playout. I don't think MC simulations must be always fast, so it has a lot of hard-coded Go knowledge.

http://www.mail-archive.com/computer-go@computer-go.org/msg1...
I simply summarized your article. There is nothing wrong with not being up to handling C++'s error messages. I don't feel up to that task myself most of the time.

But your arguments for Go rang hollow. I'd urge you to go through the "pro-Go" arguments point by point and describe why, say, they apply to Go but not to Python 3.0. And I'm not a Python zealot by any means; I mention it as a comparison point mostly because it's very commonly used.

There are undoubtedly lots of great reasons to use Go, but your article did not enunciate them in a way that would win people over.
people who program actually have a lot to learn from the fashion industry. trends are fine as long as trends are iterated on quickly. in comparison, it's taken programmers 15 years to make the half-assed-jump from java to go. and even then, the conceptual differences between java and go are minimal, superficial at best.

the fact is that go touts itself as a C++/java alternative but i see no significant/non-superficial reason to actually change languages. thinking in go is 99% the same thing as thinking in C++. consequently, 99% of the time doing stuff in go takes me roughly the same amount of time as doing the same thing in C++. programmers remain stunted.

we all know how efficient we can be writing code like in the von neumann style (not to mention 90% of programmers haven't yet even mastered that). to advance what people can do with computers it's time to start thinking beyond sequences of instructions and memory accesses, we need a language that encourages higher-order thinking. otherwise it's like building the empire state building with legos.
How about IDE's? Does Go have good Emacs/Eclipse support yet?
I'd also recommend this book! Worth the read.