skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Blast from the past! I worked on this project, mainly on the associated Facebook app, "Friends on Fire". The original crew has scattered around the place - several work at Twitter now, one is running a dev shop in Uruguay, one is freelancing in SF, a couple are at various startups down the peninsula.

Easter egg: All the little pixel characters on the homepage are members of the dev team. I'm the one on the left in blue jeans and a dotted shirt :)
Netflix Continues To Disappoint Linux Users
Mathematical notation is not readable, no. It requires extensive training to be able to understand it, and even experts will take quite a while to comprehend a document they are not already mostly familiar with. It is not like you cross some threshold and immediately become able to understand all mathematical notation with equal ease. There's plenty of evidence for this; recently we had this quote about the ABC theorem: "It can require a huge investment of time to understand a long and sophisticated proof, so the willingness by others to do this rests not only on the importance of the announcement but also on the track record of the authors" (http://www.nature.com/news/proof-claimed-for-deep-connection...)

Other examples that highlight how understanding of mathematical research involves much more than just reading:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:5NM3XjxAWfUJ:...
http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/13460/how-to-read-a-...
It would be really neat to integrate the plumber into one's usual development environment, be it vim or emacs or whatever. I'd like to do this with vim, but I thought I'd ask first: Does anyone here already do this (with plan 9 from user space)? Any hang-ups I should be prepared for?
Mathematical notation is much harder to read than prose. It does a very good job of serving as a mnemonic for something you already understand, and a very poor job of explaining novel (to the reader) concepts.

It's also as bad as natural language for ambiguity and informality.

I don't think either English text or mathematical notation is a magic wand for readable programming language; It's more about reducing accidental ambiguity and the amount of mental context needed for parsing 'natural' constructs in the language.
Oh dude, just learned something new from this article.
options = {
a
b
c
}
generates
options = {
a:a,
b:b,
c:c,
}
I have a lot of maps in my app that look just like that. It'll save me a lot of repetition.
Perhaps it's time for Ryan to write that follow-up post ;)
From the comments -

Rob Pike (about 2 hours ago) : What Russ doesn't stress enough is the major thing Acme brought, beyond what it borrowed from Oberon etc.: the contextual right click. One button click gets what I want, be it the next appearance of a word, the line the compiler's complaining about, a man page, a PDF file, a UPS delivery notice, whatever. If the data's here, jump the mouse to the location (another thing Russ didn't point out) and highlight it. If it's not there, load it and jump to it.

One click, context-driven. It's hard to appreciate how powerful and effective that is without trying it.﻿
Russ, you probably remember that Aki did a linuxfb version of drawterm for Tiny Horrible Xen; I'd bet the changes could be adapted to Plan 9 Port without too much trouble, really the Linux framebuffer is pretty simple.
Now it does. ;)
Have you read the whole article? The author is not disagreeing with you. He is very specifically agreeing with your point. Apple is selling more than just "hardware", they're not just selling a piece of metal and silicon. That's what the author is saying is dead. Doing what Apple does, selling hardware + software + brand, is what's still alive.

So you and the author are not disagreeing. What he is saying is not that no one will ever build a tablet again. He's saying making money off the hardware alone is a bad idea. And that you need to sell more than that to make a good profit.

I used to work with jewelry, you could make the same argument that selling rocks is dead. But if you put the right branding, and tell the costumer a compelling story. We could literally sell a product for a 10x~20x profit margin. And yet, selling rocks is dead. Selling jewelry isn't.
It's very hard to aim and fire from a far distance, though.
It seems like it should emulate readline, doesn't it?
One could make a measure of velocity for hacker news posts about terminals/CLIs by measuring how fast it takes someone to gripe that it a)doesn't have vim bindings OR b) has vim bindings that feel unnatural ;)
Did you even read the post? The author is hardly freaking out, never worries about passing classes, and never once claims that his lectures are boring. He's simply asking his fellow students to respect each other and the classroom, which is perfectly reasonable.

Furthermore, I know that shitting on universities is en vogue, but give me a break. Perhaps you are the one who "did it wrong" and were bored because you chose the wrong university, or the wrong field of study? Or, just maybe, different people learn in different ways?
Ah, this makes a lot more sense to me now. Pretty cool!
As an OEM stepping away from Intel is a very risky thing to do. Intel executes really really well, AMD does not. Intel lives and breathes process technology, AMD does not. Intel has discipline to walk to the end of the road, AMD does not.

Using a software example, if you notice the guys who write the gaming engine put out technically better games than the people who license the engine? I attribute that to the ability to internalize all of the benefits and weaknesses of the engine. If you license the engine you 'kinda' know what it does but because you don't have to know your knowledge never gets deep enough to do what the originator can do.

AMD competes against Intel on architecture, and they do Ok at that, but they cannot compete on process. You will notice they gained server share on Intel when Opeteron released because Intel was caught sleeping (they had targeted Itanimum 64 bits, Pentium/Xeon 32 bits, 8051 Etc for SoC/embedded. They were resisting putting 64 bits into the Pentium because it would cut into their already weak Itanium story. As long as they stayed there, AMD gained ground. They capitulated on architecture and then retook ground using process improvements (TDP mostly), meanwhile AMD didn't cement their lead, rather their CTO left and they played dancing CEOs. Boat stalls, momentum is lost.

So no, I don't think AMD can beat Intel organizationally and that will keep them from beating them technically.

EDIT: Oh look there goes AMD's CFO : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/17/siefert_leaves_amd/
My point of view is based on personal experience. I explain it:

Git was initially a set of commands from terminal. A lot of programmers use terminal everyday. Even now I have terminal opened for doing different stuff. This terminal-nature of git itself and of github audience makes it obvious it would be used.

The other interesting question is how it would be implemented. With my repos on github (as opened as private) I think it would be great to have an opportunity to do some set of things from the site CLI.

P.S. I understand there are a lot of those who prefer GUI over CLI but I believe I am not the only one who wants to have CLI also available.
I think CoffeeScript seems nice in theory, but in the end, it's something made for people who want to code javascript, without actually using the language. It exchanges some of the terse, functional elegance javascript offers for a different kind of elegance, with its classes and inheritance and such like.

I won't say it's bad, as it is nice to work with when you're writing it, and I do quite like it. But I could never recommend it to someone who didn't have a good knowledge of javascript already.
How do they make the page animations transition across separate requests to the server?
> It seems more likely to me, and at least hypothetically possible, that they've been in space as long or longer than us.

Statistically, that's a near certainty. In the timeframes of galaxies and evolution, the chances that all the other intelligent species are also just a few hundred years into the industrial revolution is essentially zero.
This is me being subjective and not having much marketing education so someone may want to correct the idea:

From a literal perspective, not much, but in terms of perception and marketing I'd estimate a whole lot. Each product is still representing your brand and a potential option for buyers. You want to encourage someone to be excited about moving to your new product or platform without presenting the case that the old one is inferior or somehow deficient.

Consider if they iPhone was released with a strong focus on the improvements and bugfixes on the existing features without many new additions. Personally this is amazing, I'd be excited about that, but for many (average joe consumer) people I'd estimate it raises some key questions - why was there so much wrong? What will be wrong with the new one? Why do these products have so many issues?

Consider if iPhone was listing fixes and corrections and phone x was advertising all of their new features and updates with no mention of any rectification - personally, I'd be tempted just to pursue the one that was "best". Especially in a flooded market where it's hard to make a legitimate choice, it's much easier if one thing looks broken and one thing looks wonderful.

Most companies are really just going through the process of iterative refinement but I think you need the feature icing to sell them to people, or really: to take the focus off of the fact the product needed rework, and on to the fact there's super super shiny new things! You quickly forget to engage your critical thinking when being dazzled with this kind of thing.

To be hyperbolic with the example - consider cars. When a manufacturer releases a new model and advertises the safety and performance enhancements, it may be likely that they were addressing issues with the previous model, but presenting them as new functionality. This is much more appropriate for a brand than saying "we've addressed the issue with our brake and suspension package that was contributing to people losing control of the car" or "we've redesigned the porting of the heads on the engine so it's not running as inefficiency". If you have the choice between the perceived perfection of one brand versus the other admitting a few people wound up wrapped around trees and they needed to iterate their design (even if both companies are following exactly the same process), it becomes a pretty easy choice, right or wrong.
And windows 95 was a terrible desktop operating system. But it still sold. The people who are going to buy this won't care.
CoffeeScript readability > Javascript readability

and that's all that matters to me
It's not naive. It's a well understood and communicated design choice.

Remember that completely in memory databases are going to be how we all store our data in the decades to come and are already the standard for those who care about speed.
> If your function takes callbacks as the first parameters,
> and another value as the second (such as setTimeout),
> you end up with some really awkward syntax.

Hopefully no more awkward than the equivalent call in JavaScript.

setTimeout (-> alert "later"), 300

Versus:

setTimeout(function(){ alert("later"); }, 300);

Or, on multiple lines:

setTimeout(->
alert "later"
, 300)

setTimeout(function(){
alert("later");
}, 300);
Manufacturing in China webinar
Learn to crack the code for Manufacturing in China from 4 experienced entrepreneurs
>maybe it is a very male worldview. or a nerdy male one. i don't know.

It's a very open source/free software/bazaar-not-cathedral/nerdy worldview.

I know female programmers willing to call me out on my shit when I'm doing something dumb.

Please stop unnecessarily attributing things to gender.
Rethinking "out Of Africa"
I prefer words to symbols any day. I think coffee's ternary is better. Also, I have no problem throwing singular @s around cuz they're short and get used so often, but typing out 'this' would be fine too.
It's too bad that so many of the colors are named a rather unimaginative "gray". That's the only negative thing that comes immediately to mind, however; this is really quite cool.
Usability for non-programmers is certainly not a strong point of Myna at the moment. Right now the best place to look is the demos: http://myna.github.com/myna-js/ The redirection demo is an example of how you can do something like Unbounce.

In terms of the MVT style stuff you discuss, we're in very early stages of looking at it. Not sure when it'll arrive -- depends on how much interest we get.
This is similar to a plugin I have been using in Alfred for quick access to Github (but not nearly as feature complete):

https://github.com/KevinSjoberg/github.alfredextension
Every Entrepreneur's Choice
Absolutely! Thanks a ton.
it was a point that even if you are merely switching a js framework where both are written in javascript, productivity can drop.

if you now switch to coffeescript, something not remotely close to javascript or any other languages fwiw, you'll experience un-productivity. it's akin to having your top developers walking in eggshells and doing nearly nothing close to what he is capable of.

i think coffeescript is great in the sense that we are trying to create a better language. but i also sense how much damage it can bring to budding startups who can't find talented coffeescript'ers to fill the void when their lead developer moves on to other things.

a one off go project, i'd say it's fine. but anything more complex, i think you'll see programmers wishing they had gone back to what they were familiar with.
Mupd8 – The WalmartLabs Real-time Platform
I am not a white male bigot who hires people like me. I
work with women, non-white, non-atheist, non-Christian,
non-liberal, non-leftist, non-English (I'm British),
people all day, every day and have done so for many years.

A lot of what candidates expect and interviewers ask comes from what other people do/report having done. Think of how often different companies ask the same brain teasers - and how common it is for companies to ask brain teasers!

I'm sure you don't discriminate - you just want to see my holiday snaps on facebook out of general interest. The problem is it makes looking at people's facebook profiles the norm; today you're doing it, tomorrow every employer is - and they're not all as open-minded as you.

The fact you assume a potential employer who is betting a
substantial amount of money on you is interested in your
personal life for any other reason than to understand you
better and to make sure you're going to be a great fit, is
cynical, naive and misguided.

According to "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination" by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan [1] when identical resumes are sent out with traditionally black or white names, resumes with white names get 50% more call backs, across all industries.

I don't think it's naive or misguided to worry about employers subconsciously discriminating.

[1] http://scholar.harvard.edu/mullainathan/files/emilygreg.pdf
Сексуальное удовольствие / Sexual Pleasure: Collection Edition (2010)ENG/RUS
I totally agree that CoffeeScript brings a lot to the table compared to old feature-less JavaScript. But the author is talking about readability of the language, and not about the features that it has.

The problem that he points out about "Implicit is better than explicit" and "There is more than one way to do it" are quite serious problems that modern languages shouldn't have.
I agree. It would be pretty interesting.
Garbage. Funny that a website originally 100% Windows Mobile would pick a Windows phone. The article is primarily a bunch of shallow, personal opinions. The case is sexy and Windows Phone UI is "better" than iOS.

Shallow as they come. Don't bother reading.
They do and I can find no mention of anything he talks about in his email being prohibited in their terms of service. I can't even find a TOS at all for that matter. However, as he has responded in this way, we might just try and reach out to other companies in the same industry and see if they would be more receptive. Our approach has been by email and postal mail thus far, but I think we'll start making some calls this week. Thank you for your advice.
>>my CEO is a nice person. but he is sharp like a razorblade. have a suggestion? be prepared to have it cut, but never just so, but with publicly stated reasoning - that no one can dispute. it impresses me. i respect it and him.

Are you impressed, or intimidated? In the type of work environment you describe, the former can be mistaken for the latter. You say nobody can dispute his reasoning when he criticizes them. Is that because his criticism is correct, or because people are too scared to speak up?

I don't manage people, but I'm a senior engineer and am in a position of influence in my department. The junior engineers often come to me for help. You know what though? Before that could happen, I had to learn to become approachable. This meant getting rid of my highly critical attitude, as well as my belief that "I am always right unless proven otherwise." The result is a happier work environment and more productive team members.
I like the ideas put forth in the article, thanks for the write-up. For me, it's really sometimes just finding what works best for the situation I'm in. I've found that sometimes the solitude of a library study desk can be the best place to get work done. At other times, sitting in a busy area (a cafe, a park, even public transit) can be invigorating and creates enough background as to allow me to focus more. The recliner in my living room has seen more than its fair share of use while sitting at my laptop typing away.

There are times when my mind races and I can't focus. I turn the lights off, close the shades and the only light and thereby focus becomes the monitor.

I look at this article and others that offer advice on finding that working place for yourself, or that motivation to ignore distractions and I see them more as tools than as rules. A man with a well supplied toolbox is more likely to find the one he needs when the time comes.
Conceptually I love Acme, but the three-button mouse thing has turned out to be a real problem for me. I don't think I can work without a scroll mouse, and I've never found a mouse that has both three real buttons and a scroll wheel. Can anybody recommend one?
But @OriginalSyn has a pont. If you are reading code because something is misbehaving on a given configuration and you read

if (some condition that doesn't hold on that configuration) ...

You can avoid everything inside that if statement if you know that's not important for the case you're considering.
I'm totally stealing this from a friend, but the single biggest cause of terrible user experience at large companies is the term "workaround." Late in the release cycle, a pretty grody bug comes up, causing the application to hang. Or maybe the installer just plain breaks at some stage. However, the dev team has found a "workaround" for the issue. Run the installer twice, and it works. Back out of the hung screen and try again, because the bug only repros 1/10.

The bug gets punted because it's on a non-critical path, there's no data lost, it doesn't crash the entire application, and there's a workaround, even though the workaround sucks. Next time around, the bug is weighed against new feature work, and judged based on how it aligns with the product's core pillars. Not important enough this cycle, maybe next cycle.

Next cycle comes around, and the team no longer knows how to fix the bug, because it's no longer fresh in anyone's mind, or the person who wrote it doesn't work there anymore. The broken module is now essentially a black box, and the cost of fixing the bug has increased drastically. The bug gets punted again until the next release, because hey, we've got a workaround.

The project will be cancelled before the bug is fixed.

Not all big companies work this way, but enough of them do, or have subgroups within them that do, that it creates usability problems like the ones in the article. It's not that the problems don't get found by QA, it's just that nobody can be bothered to address them.
Better Effects: 3 Simple iOS 5 Particle Systems by Example
Small diamonds barely material for jewels and difficult to extract.

Not a surprise they're not keeping it a secret, otherwise they would only be hurting themselves by driving prices down.
What about this data exchange format?
Question your subconcious
Dasher: Information-efficient text entry - 2007 Google Tech Talk
Definitely agree. I'm not sure if the OP is the author, but if he is and if he's trying to draw attention, then the motive shifts from sharing insightful lessons to personal "winning" (getting the most karma points, getting the most page views, etc). This seems to be the recent trend, and I'd like to see less emotionally charged titles for better reader engagement, even if it comes at a cost of less overall views.
"Android can be beautiful" eh? Saying it doesn't make it so. As an aspiration it is so far from current reality as to be simply delusional.
Thats truly fascinating, makes one wonder if other networks will jump into the act once ABC has their first home run.

What worries me though is its only a matter of time until someone figures out they can do this with a startup reality show. If you think the prospect of a silicon valley reality show is bad now (glorifying the supposed "startup lifestyle", launch parties, founder drama, etc.) just wait until the network has a significant stake in the startups that they are promoting...
Swiftype launches improved search analytics
Thanks a lot, that's very helpful.

"I suspect that there's a real fundamental values gap (or a vastly different collection of weights and terms in utility functions, if you swing that way) which make my opinion less useful to you than it might otherwise be."

I'm very curious as to what exactly you mean here. I have an inkling what you mean, but it sounds a bit like:

"So which did you prefer, Paris or India?"

"Well, they're both great, in very different ways. You like adventure and I like relaxation so my preference will be different to yours".

"But you've been to both and I haven't been to either, so I just want to hear what they're really like, and what the guidebooks don't tell you..."

I'll send you an email, would love to hear more of your thoughts if you have time.
1000 years is the blink of an eye compared to the lifetime of our galaxy or the amount of time it took life to evolve intelligence on Earth. There's no good reason to expect that humanity's age will be within 1000 years of an alien race's. Consider how little chance an army behind 1000 years technologically would stand against a modern army.

Computer strategy games (I'm specifically thinking of Master of Orion and Galactic Civilizations) often make the assumption that all the races that are going to come into contact with each other have the same technological starting point. This is for the good and simple reason of game balance: Nobody would want to play the game if one race started with a game-winningly huge technological advantage due to random luck.

Many other games and science fiction settings make a similar assumption: That alien and Terran technology are on roughly equal footing, because a situation where everyone has a fighting chance simply makes a better narrative.
It'd also be nice if it had focus on page load.