skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I just bought it because:

a) it looks awesome
b) $14.99 is not that much money and I hate the app store mentality of more than 4.99 is too much for an app
c) I was looking for something like onenote for my mac
That's why you set the initial scale to 1.0 when you're designing a responsive website. This disables the default iOS behaviour to scale a website to fit within the screen.

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0">
Because the hello world program has so much boilerplate. It means from the get-go you're telling students, "Don't worry about this, and this, and that; ignore it and we'll explain it later." You could go months into learning programming before you need to understand what a static method is, but it's right there in your first program.
Frankly, this says more about the people you follow than the platforms themselves. If you aren't following ego-maniacs (and, admittedly, stay out of the "popular posts" type sections) then there should be no problem.

Don't blame the platform for enabling people to be who they really are.
Introducing The Daily Scrum For Non-Software Developers
What exactly are you comparing to an unrestrained, pre-breakup AT&T? I'm not aware of any modern equivalent.
What a wordy way to get across the point. Here's a tl;dr:

If your webpage doesn't display anything without javascript, or if it doesn't display anything except "please enable javascript" or "here's a link to tell you how to enable javascript", then please take the extra minute to add something like the following to your webpage:

<noscript><span style="color:red">This site about X requires scripting because Y.</span></noscript>

That's it, shortening/assuming context/lengthening as desired. Warning that your site will/will not be using your browser to mine bitcoins for the owner is optional. Recoding your site so it works with lynx is also optional and fine, if you really want to, but it's not what's being asked.
I wouldn't need much money, since the cost of things will be very low.
Uh, what? I don't even get to decide whether or not the photo is worth sharing after I take it? That's actually worse.
Pushing Your Meteor Project to Heroku
The College Board Advanced Placement exam for Computer Science has used Java for several years now.

See http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap-c...

I'm not saying that's a good idea, just that the practice is fairly common. I think they're nuts.
Where you draw the line isn't just about fractions of the market, though -- it's about market fraction ÷ effort to implement. If there's twice as many IE6 users as no-JS users, but it takes ten times as much work to get your site functioning on IE6 than on a modern browser with no JS, you're better off courting the no-JS segment.
I guess your point is that girls can't hack diff eq?

No, and it's remarkable that you would conclude that this is my point when all I have addressed, in any way, is the difference in mathematics requirements for college majors typical of "computer professionals" (CS and "related fields") and pre-med or life science programs.

most CS majors know jack about organic chemistry, biology, or other premed programs in undergrad, and know nothing about what is taught in med school.

Right, and most premeds or physicians know very little about differential equations, mathematical optimization or stochastic processes. I didn't claim that CS majors have a better background in life sciences than physicians, but you did make the claim that your average doctor has a better grasp on math than most computer professionals ever had.
> There aren't enough people without Flash for it to be a concern.

That's not really true anymore, given the 200 million iPhones kicking around.
#FabulousFriday is for Double Hits, eh
I think it matters more than you give it credit. Michigan State did an experiment where they replaced one of the Intro to CS classes (which were formally in C++) with Python. The result they found is that for people who went on to CSII (in C++), they did just as well; but for people who were non-CS majors, a) they did significantly better than non-CS majors starting with C++, and b) they were more likely to take more CS courses. So if you're someone already committed to programming or computer science, maybe it doesn't matter, but if you're trying to get your feet wet, it matters a great deal.
Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2857422
Where do I start?
Hi all. I love reading Hacker News. I love making tiny tiny one-day websites in Ruby on Rails. I love staying up all night completing the next Project Euler problem and the amazing satisfaction that comes when (if!) I crack it. I love failing miserably in my quest to make a chess engine in C++ (I've got pointers and SIMD intrinsics down - but there's a bug in my move generation). I love running Monte Carlo simulations in Haskell trying to find weaknesses in the odds offered by Chinese underground gambling rings. But here's the thing - I'm not a programmer. I'm a director of studies for an English school. And I'm thousands of miles from the nearest start-up, in an unheard of city in the North of China. I am young, I have a top degree from a top UK university (in physics though, not CS). And I'm going to start again. My wish is to move somewhere exciting (for tech) and move numbers around for a living - because that is what I really love. I have no professional experience programming. So with that in mind, I'd like to consult the great Hacker News Oracle and would love to hear your advice on the viability of the following "getting into coding" strategies: 1) Throw myself at an open source project and/or build stuff (I have a few Ruby gem ideas but aren't a 100% confident in my implementation skills) and build a Github profile that passes for a resume 2) Apply for junior Java positions (because they all seem to be Java) around the UK, in the hope that I'll get accepted to one - then move to something more interesting after getting experience there 3) Just go ahead and apply for positions working with dynamic/functional languages doing stuff that actually sounds cool, even if they ask for experience - but would anyone really give me a second look? 4) Get a foot in the door freelancing on places like rentacoder and try and build a portfolio from that to help me get a fulltime job. 5) Actually try and start a startup myself - I have ideas and savings, but I'm scared I'll waste six months building something nobody wants. 6) ...what's number six?
If so, that seems like just as unwise strategy now as it was for Microsoft. I think it's pretty unlikely.
I hate to lose rep but I must say that I can see the point where embedded content is concerned. Hear me out.

Certainly I understand the technical argument being made against the MPAA here. But, when I provide the descriptor (embedded video) at the cost of surrounding said video with ads then I am certainly attempting to profit from the inclusion of the video. If said content is copyrighted I can understand the copyright holder being displeased with others trying to profit from my work.

To be fair the average user (not average HN user) never says "I saw this awesome video via myVidster (site mentioned in article) though the content was hosted by and embedded from ...". The content is almost always associated to where it is found.

That said I wholeheartedly think the MPAA and RIAA need to be drug into the 21st century, even if it is kicking and screaming like a three old in cereal aisle of Wal-Mart.
Hey! Can you share the name of the books?
I'll gladly concede the point. It was actually more people running noscript than I thought, and for some markets (I'd also wager tech-savy ones) it might very well be a sizable chunk of users.
Prior to that it was C++. I think they're actually moving in the right direction.
Artificial Intelligence Could Be on Brink of Passing Turing Test
I know this is off-topic, but I've never heard of Pentadactyl before, and it looks awesome! Cheers.

- a vimmer
I am taking an alternative approach to make sense of HN stories for Chinese readers. As a regular HN reader, I manually summarize the topic of top stories and translate them into Chinese. The motivation is to lower the startup/tech news sharing barriers. Link - http://geektell.com/
How much money should I raise from an early-stage Investor?
Don't you just love progress? Time to redo stuff that already works!
I, like a lot of people, do a fair amount of browsing on my iPad and iPhone, I don't see how you can lump this in with no-JavaScript users, it's a completely different set of people.

Also, the amount of no-Flash users is increasing and will most likely do for years.
Microsoft's Largest Cloud Deployment Ever For 7.5 Million Indian Students
With respect, I feel you are wrong. I browse the web with my iPad more than I browse it with my laptop. There is no way that I can run Flash on this device. There are now a significant numbers of folks who are doing the same as me.

If you have to use Flash, then that's fine. But the author of the article is right IMO. You need to provide a compelling reason for me to hop off my iPad and boot up my workstation/laptop to look at your website.

I have long considered that Unobtrusive Javascript to be one of the best paradigms for websites. It shouldn't be that hard to do. In fact, even in web applications there should be a clear seperation of content and behaviour, just as there is to seperate content and style. I was looking at a VMware product the other day that does ITSM, and it was the most god-awful mix of bad Javascript and HTML that I was most surprised. Not only did it not use Javascript in a sensible way (ala jquery, YUI, etc.), but it used stupid tricks like document.all - and in fact the webpages that it loaded entirely relied on Javascript working.

Therefore, I submit to you that by not designing your websites with Unobtrusive Javascript, that you are a. causing accessibility issues (and NOT just for disabled users), and b. you probably haven't developed your website very well anyway.

Please, I urge you to convince your users WHY they need to turn on Javascript to use your site. If you can't provide a compelling case, then I'd suggest that you probably don't have a good reason to require it!
I think BASIC, Python, and other simple languages are much better than C, C++, Java. Those latter languages are like teaching someone to swim by pushing them off the deep end.
1. google Azores and some other islands (or Açores in portuguese)
2. steam engines? I would think so, but not sure about that.
3. that's pretty well known, the coast of the southern-west part of Africa is too "calm" for sailing and ships go "around" and try to avoid it. Some say that was the reason south-america was discovered (Brazil) by the Portuguese and they kept a secret from the world (and specially the spaniards), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Zaragoza_%281529%29
The app store is clearly nothing to do with any kind of monopoly, however much people would like the government to force Apple to make it what they want.

However, I agree that antitrust oversight would be harmful for the Apple, and indirectly for the industry as a whole.
No, you can in fact discard the picture you took. What OP is saying is that it's one button to share to as many different social networks (plus email) as you want. It sounds minor, but it really is much more convenient.
My guess (I don't use it either - I can't stand the stupid filters), is that if you fire up Instagram, instead of the regular camera app, you'd know that it's going to automatically share everything you take.
Designer Philippe Starck Says Working on 'Revolutionary' Product with Apple
Don't kill setAutoResize, it works...
This ties back to the point of the submission -- if you can't make your site work without JS, at least tell the users with JS disabled why you need them to let yours through.
Yeah, it's awesome, particularly if you like VIM and have a small screen (since it lets you hide the top bars without losing functionality).

Try using CTRL+I on a textarea: it lets you edit it in (G)Vim itself ;)
This.

I take pictures of my kids, things we're doing, or interesting things that I see in my daily life. When OP says "narcissism", he's either following much different people than I do, or he doesn't know what narcissism means.
Could you elaborate more on the making of these animations?
Sencha has used GPL/Commercial License business model successfully.
I mean "a least give the no-JS crowd a reason to let your scripts run". As the submission suggested.
Technically, you are instructing your runtime to load and execute source code hosted elsewhere. I don't think this is the kind of linking GPL refers to.
As a developer I'm just the opposite - I want to give as much attribution as possible from both personal (acknowledge the people who actually did the work, feel-good-about-being-part-of-a-community) and practical standpoints (demonstrating the components come from external projects known to other people rather than part of a personal codebase that only I'm intimately familiar with that the client always has to rely on me to maintain).

But then practically all my own current work is open-sourced which probably skews my opinions.
MIT. I forgot about that, added it now.
The difference I see is that this author isn't asking for anything more than a little bit of useful static text. No meaningful code changes, just a tiny snippet of plain old HTML will do the trick.

That's dramatically easier than trying to make a complex app work in IE6.
This implies that Amazon had a monopoly position. This is further illustrated by the fact that they did delist MacMillan's paper books in retribution.

Without Apple providing an alternative, Amazon controlled prices within the ebook market.
You got it reverse. Most permissive licenses need attribution (in form of leaving the original header comment etc) which lets the whole world know that you are using the component. A commercial license gives you complete anonymity (most let you completely change the source code) except for the charge on your credit card bill.

And I don't think its greed. Not many applications on any platform gets written completely from scratch without using other libraries.
AsI understand it, there are several CS departments in the college. Several tomato plants.
I actually logged on to make the point that the author is behind on the phone number front. In the context of his example, (asking a girl on the bus for her phone number), phone numbers were dead when I was in high school. (10 years ago) Back then, for me, it was AOL screen names. That's what you asked for. that's how you communicated. today, I think it's morphed back to phone numbers, so you can TEXT. And kids LOOOOVE their texting.

but I guess the author does have a point, that we dont need to remember numbers anymore. I dial by user-name (or, simply, name), if you will...
Ultimate Fighting vs. math: no holds barred
The code that deals with Spine model interface is encapsulated in the AppContext class: https://github.com/vojto/atmos2/blob/master/src/app_context....

There are methods such as create, update, and theoretically, all you need to do is to replace that class with your own.

Practically, I haven't tried it, and some of the code might be dependent on the Spine framework.
You cannot solve a cultural or political problem with a technical solution.
Sure, but $9.99 and even lower are still options which do in fact get used. Apple didn't set prices, they provided publishers with a range of options that included the old price point.
I think BASIC is probably a better language to learn first then Java. In a perfect world I think kids would be taught Lua, Python or Ruby. Now that I think about it even Javascript would be much better to teach then Java
There is perhaps a lesson here. Hopkins said it this way[1]:

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells

...and he then calls for humanity to rise above this standard case. It is functional, if sub-optimal[2], for how we can organize society: every single person complains about what bugs them, and we connect the social graph dynamically to make people happier -- the people who want a NoScript user's business will design with them in mind, the people who don't care enough, won't.

I would add that this applies not just to JavaScript but also to cookies. We use NoScript and Cookie Monster because they're condoms for the Internet -- they protect us from tracking cookies and some XSS attacks.

The web site for Priv.ly unfortunately breaks when you use NoScript. The reason for the break is to make four links appear when you mouse over an image which is hiding them, and then those links load videos into that element. Basically, the element is an iframe for videos, except they didn't use an iframe. It would have been faster to develop if they had just used an iframe to load their videos, and then their videos could probably be covered by a NoScript exception for Vimeo.

If the site didn't break, it would say, "You do not have scripts enabled, which means you are either running old technology, or are our kind of person. If you are the latter, we hope you will consider helping out." This is almost very nice and polite -- but please, skip the crap about "running old technology" when you follow-up on this example, and instead just condense the content which you were going to show me into a short summary with a nice little end point, "to see my app, please enable JavaScript." If your app is its own summary, like a blog article, then you absolutely should not require JS to display it.

[1]: http://www.bartleby.com/122/34.html "As Kingfishers Catch Fire"
[2]: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/david_logan_on_tribal_leade... "Different Stages of Tribes"
With respect, the "it's 2012..." argument should really go like this: "it's 2012, and you should be able to develop a website without any real need for Javascript."

The only times I can see the need for Javascript is to enable something totally compelling that requires the use of it - like an amazing animation that needs JS, or something like this.
LLVM Europe 2012: A Portable C++/CLI Compiler
Sort out your IOUs sharpish with Pingit - Make your own IOU video.
I'm not sure I follow your argument. JS is bad b/c it's client side? Doesnt that paint all fat clients and every piece of software before the "web" in the same light?
First Raspberry Pi computers to be delivered
> someone who wants JS to be off or blocked. Someone who is thus actually pretty tech-savvy

I disagree. Anyone who has JS disabled in 2012 is not tech savvy. They are a paranoid weirdo. They're the guy who refuses to buy a TV even though the Wire, Breaking Bad and Justified are on.

Nobody should have to waste their time trying to convince you to be sane.
I have to agree with this somewhat. I can run through and disable various features in my browser, that's my prerogative. But I can't then expect other people to cater to my specific set up. If I am deny myself what is undeniably quite a key feature on the modern web, I must live with the outcome and accept that I will miss content.

There definitely is a good argument for catering to those who cannot use some features, like Flash, but to those imposing these restrictions upon themselves, you know how to solve it.

I consider myself fairly "tech-savvy" as well and have not seen more reasoning behind turning JS off than for leaving it on.
Yeah, well, too bad the RIAA is the best way to kill innovation.
This just boils down to a question of understanding your audience and communicating with them appropriately. The simple takeaway is that disabling JavaScript tends to correlate with tech savvy, and so addressing these users as non-technical comes off as condescending and results in blog posts like these.

If I'm building something JS-only, I try to speak the NoScript user's language when writing the error copy, even attempting to build a bit of rapport, like here: http://presteign.com

[EDIT] Something has apparently gone wrong in the last couple of days with the dynamic content loading on the site linked above, so I've put a maintenance page in its place. The <noscript> message was: This site needs JavaScript enabled to work. At least it's not Flash, right?
Awesome CSS Image Slider that you can use for free
Actually now - employee stock/options are taxed as personal income as soon as it is allotted to the employee.

Pretty insane
I disagree. The ability to have a myriad of information as an individual soldier on the field could prove to be invaluable. Think about squad mates that get separated from groups. With technology like this you could see a top down map over your location what his/her position is and where you are relatively ala a Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3 esque mini map. Also consider the ability to reduce friendly fire by being able to see exactly where an artillery strike is being painted and your relative position to that strike. These are just a few applications off the top of my head, but I think that augmented reality has the potential to dramatically aide the armed forces.
The small photo size was a key optimisation. Like you say, it means super quick uploads. Which means that users share more photos than they otherwise would have done.
I guess it's a matter of intent: if I already know I'll want to share the pic I'm about to take I just fire up Instagram, otherwise I use the standard camera app.

On a related note: the Google+ Instant Upload feature does even 'better'. From the G+ website: "All photos and videos taken with your mobile device are uploaded to the From your phone album. These photos and videos are only visible to you unless you share them." That's even more frictionless sharing, but not in a way I like: it freaked me out when I inadvertently turned this on.
Having tried to tutor beginning programmers in Java, there are a lot of things that bug me. There is a lot of boilerplate and cruft that must exist in order to get anything done, and the type system and visibility just gets in the way until you want to teach people how to architect large programs.

Each class must be in its own file, and the execution starts from "public static void main(String[] args)" inside it. Then you have to deal with complex data types very early: python's set of primitives is much richer, which is great when teaching. Also, doing IO in Java is a pain unless you distribute a library.

To those who think Python's significant whitespace is a problem, I think you need to watch an otherwise intelligent beginner struggle with an error on line 80 because they mismatched their braces on line 20. If you aren't properly indenting your code, it becomes an unreadable mess anyways, so why not enforce it at a language level? And if you think an IDE can do this for you, think again. People just complain that it does things wrong when it indents half their methods by 2 extra tabstops because they missed a brace. They don't really get it, they just get into a feedback loop where they say, "Oh, it won't compile. Let me scan the entire program counting braces" which is a waste of everyone's time. I've seen people go entire semesters without ever learning to write readable indented code.