skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm not Sean Lindsay so I can't speak for him, but I remember the first bubble and his phrase resonated with me, and not because 'english majors aren't good developers'. I don't think that is what he meant by it.

The first bubble was about 'boots on the ground' and an extremly limited pool of talent. I was getting calls to move to New York, California, Chicago... because I KNEW JAVASCRIPT. There was no stack-exchange, no learning blogs and most information was still gathered through purchasing the O'Reilly on X or submitting a question to X's newsgroup.

So the phrase "how many English majors on your dev team?" really just meant (IMHO) "How many people do you have that really don't know what they are doing"... I don't think reading that phrase in today's bubble scenario makes as much sense as it did twelve years ago.
It's only an option if you can turn it off.
> You can combine all other sports and it still won't equal NFL's popularity and how it drives user interest.

Cough soccer cough.
Apple has acquired several mapping companies since 2009, so we can reasonably believe that they've been working on Apple Maps at least that long, and probably much longer. Perhaps even before the original iPhone release, given what we do know about Apple release schedules (they are generally long and drawn-out for new builds).

Waiting to release the original iPhone until 2015 when Apple Maps was absolutely perfect would have been a choice, but not a reasonable one. Bootstrapping with Google's service was quite logical, and proved to be very successful.

And Apple Maps really isn't that bad. Perhaps not Google Maps good, but better than what the iPhone had prior. It is still a major upgrade for iOS users, even for all its faults.
Don't subclass struct classes please
You've nailed it!

I should have been clearer in my post and maybe titled the post "Not having co-founders sucks".
You've got a lot of other responses explaining lots of reasons why sports can be interesting, but I'll add my own.
IMO, if you think it's about watching strangers "kick a ball around," you're missing the point. It's about the stories told through sports at least as much as the physical activity itself, and those stories generally transcend a single game.

Take baseball: a baseball season is a narrative as rich as movies and books, but watching one game between teams you don't know is like reading a page or two from the middle of a novel. You might get lucky and catch some enthralling action, but the real excitement comes from understanding that game in its context. The players on both teams each have their own stories, and the teams themselves have their own stories.

Take the drama between Marco Scutaro and Matt Holliday after the Holliday took out Scutaro in a dirty slide. On the surface, it's just a nasty play: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=25415817
But it happened in a major playoff series, which is exciting not just because "it's the playoffs", but because a grueling, 6-month 162-game series is on the line. (Picture what that means, don't just skim the numbers.) For the Giants, the slide looked eerily like the catastrophic injury last year that ended the season of a highly admired young rising star. (The significance of that injury comes from his role as a rookie the previous year in bringing the first World Series Championship to San Francisco, and the resulting high expectations for 2011 that were instantly crushed by that injury.) Scutaro himself was brought on mid-season to fill an important hole in the Giants offense, one which was supposed to be filled by Melky Cabrera, whom the fans grew to love dearly, but who betrayed fans by breaking league rules around performance enhancing drugs and getting suspended. There's lots more to this, but I'll leave it there.

As another example, take the last season game of 2011:
Day of: http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/leading-off-what-a-...
Day after: http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/leading-off-three-m...

So yeah, on the surface, it's just a bunch of guys hitting the ball around. But if you can put aside easy dismissal ("my local sports team is superior to your local sports team") for a minute and accept the conceit of the game, you may find the experience quite unique, in that the team element, the community of fellow fans, the rightness of both sides, and the fact that it's not scripted make it very different than most modern forms of storytelling, and it comes with its own insights on the human condition (see Pete Rose, the Black Sox scandal, or Jackie Robinson).

You might check out some of the Ken Burns documentary "Baseball" or Leonard Koppett's "The Thinking Fan's Guide to Baseball".
How do you get javascript to work? I tried `process.stdout.write`, `console.log`, but the score is always zero.

Other issues:

- The "Solve FizzBuzz" button doesn't go anywhere if you are logged in, neither does "The Scenario" up top.

- Forum doesn't work (please fill in all the required fields - they already are)

- Signout link doesn't work
Authy now supports Google Authenticator based systems.
Problematic but absolutely necessary. I'm reminded of a quote from John Carmack from an article where he was advocating FP in C++.

In almost all cases, directly mutating blocks of memory is the speed-of-light optimal case, and avoiding this is spending some performance. Most of the time this is of only theoretical interest; we trade performance for productivity all the time.

Programming with pure functions will involve more copying of data, and in some cases this clearly makes it the incorrect implementation strategy due to performance considerations. As an extreme example, you can write a pure DrawTriangle() function that takes a framebuffer as a parameter and returns a completely new framebuffer with the triangle drawn into it as a result. Don’t do that.

http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2012/04/26/functional-programm...
Furries. Furries everywhere.
I'm right handed and I approve this message.
I've been pretty pleased with Tcl for this as well. Its syntax is convenient for interactive use and fine for actual coding in, without being faintly insane like many shells.

The main drawback to it I've found is its insistence on being able to convert everything from an object to a string and then back again. It's all too easy, when using certain functions (I think `lappend' is the one that caused me a lot of bother), to have your objects silently converted into strings. This is one piece of shell insanity that Tcl has kept. It's not a good one.

If your objects aren't really representable as strings - in my case, I'm storing a pointer to some C/C++ object in a TclObj, and relying on Tcl's refcounting to manage the lifetimes - this is what you'd do in something like Lua - then this can leave you a bit stuck. And even if you did support this, this could well leave you with two equivalent objects where you'd rather have one individual one. Tcl should take a leaf out of Lua's book, or Python's, on this matter.

A shame. It's not the only thing I didn't really love, but it was the only thing that really bothered me. I considered changing language, but the Tcl syntax is very convenient. So in the end I just worked around it by reimplementing a bunch of list primitives that didn't turn things into strings so damn often, and used those instead.
First off, full disclosure (in case it's not obvious) - I work at FullContact.

Sorry to hear that. Out of curiosity, do you remember which response code you were getting? If it was a 202, it indicates that we've accepted your query, but are processing (i.e., going out and looking for the data). If you try again in 5 minutes, you'll normally see a lot more 200's.

(Only reason I ask is we see a lot of confusion over 202's - people often think of them as errors, instead of meaning 'ACCEPTED - PROCESSING'.)

Regardless, if you have a few thousand queries and would like to send us a sample, we're always happy to run a match test and show you what you'd get back (obviously, a larger sample size gives you a better idea of results at scale).
Stupidity is defined by wasting time responding to questions with insults and derision.
Localization is a requirement, here’s a guide
http://336699.org/localization-is-a-requirement-heres-a-guide
Corona Labs Corrals a Cloud
Senate Report finds harsh CIA interrogations ineffective
HN has this sort of innate skepticism that is just adorable. I assure you Matt Yglesias knows what he is talking about.

Right back atcha. "I assure you Matt Yglesias knows what he is talking about." Simply adorable!
I believe it was in the book "Inverting the Pyramid" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inverting-Pyramid-History-Football-T...) that I read the phrase "Financially, you can think of football as a transfer of wealth from the fans to players".

Players are the only ones who make any real money from football (maybe Sky Sports does too, but they have to bid billions for secure the rights and then spend years recouping the cost). The author goes on to state that the highest earning football club (think it was either Real Madrid or Manchester United) made only a tiny fraction of revenue of the lowest ranked, anonymous company on the Fortune 500 index. Football is not played for financial reasons.
Can't reach the site, but I completely agree with the title. I'll even retype my own code when refactoring things a lot of the time, just to make sure I understand what I'm slinging around.
This is how I learned/am learning Erlang.
Real World Counterparts Replaced by Cheap Souvenirs
Spot on: in fact you bring up another great point... local knowledge is a wonderful thing to share and when someone feels you know something about their special place, they're always impressed!

The film Lincoln did a good job of showing old Abe doing that quite a bit in order to gain favor :)
...and nobody cares
Ask HN: font types per page?
How many different font types are acceptable on a single page? Without making a page or site look like a circus, is say 3 different types (nav, header, copy) acceptable? What are your opinions?
Any number of reasons. It could be a platform specific issue, a feature they don't use, something they don't consider a real problem.
Loved this. Interesting how it was an accidental discovery based on a different pursuit at the time. That is almost a trope of life itself...
This isn't restricted to open source project leaders, or even open source developers. You'll find the same childish elitism in pretty much every field of human endeavor.

Programmers certainly do it. Laughing at noobs and being mean to them is pretty much the sole purpose of IRC, unless I'm mistaken. Surfers do it. Climbers do it. I've even seen rocket scientists do it.

The interesting thing is watching which members of a given group behave this way.

It's not everybody. There's a certain skill range where you find this behavior. Generally it ranges between "reasonably good" and "better than most people I know", and it grows exponentially in that range (though, again, only in people who are given to such behavior).

But there it stops. Once you hit a threshold of "better than pretty much everybody in the world, even those who have dedicated their life to this stuff", you don't really see this sort of elitism anymore.

I live in the climbing mecca of Fontainebleau, and can watch first hand as 7a boulderers from around the world descend and act like jackasses trying to scootch their butts off the ground on problems that are hard (but not world class) while scowling with superiority at the lowly rabble that might dare touch the holds of their project. It's best to simply wait until they give up before going over and doing the problem.

But occasionally you see a guy working an 8a. That's pretty stout by anybody's definition (even at font), but he's not shouting or swearing at it. He's just calmly doing his thing, uninterested in being the center of attention, and more than happy to talk to anybody who walks up without the least hint of snoot.

I think you find the computer programming equivalent of that guy from time to time too. He's the "bourne shell" guy that another comment mentions downthread, and he's above the elite.

The cool thing is that you don't have to be as good as him to act like him. All you need do is not be a dick.
Build podcast is a show about technology tools for design and development.
sorry dude, server wasn't ready for it :( http://tommy.authpad.com/don-t-copy-and-paste-other-people-s...
This fits with a life lesson I've been internalizing for the last couple years:

For many problems there are many right answers.

More specifically for opinion/work situation articles like this, the argument applies to a particular personality type and/or particular personal situation.

If you're extroverted, then working alone may leave you bored and unfulfilled.

If you in the middle between introverted and extroverted, working alone may work if other parts of your life have personal interaction.

If you are introverted, working alone may be the best possible situation.

I find working from home works well for me, though at times I feel disconnected, out of the loop, and generally not charged up. But most of the time I find it ideal. I'm middle of the road on the introvert/extrovert scale, am easily distractible when bored (ADHD), and get a charge from working with people - but only when I have part of the day to unwind alone.

I also know working entirely alone on a solo project get me nowhere.

But most of this is about my personality, not about software development, working in a large company, or founding a startup.

There are many right answers. My right answer and yours may be the same if we are similar and in the same situation. Otherwise, my advice probably won't help you - and visa versa.
I'm a high school computer science teacher, and this is a WONDERFUL idea. I'm totally going to steal it and create a few assignments based on the concept.
One thing that has really sped up my my learning over the past few months on Code Academy -- complete a lesson, then in another tab open their scratch pad feature and try to retype the code not only from memory, but also while thinking through the logic.

Has really been effective for me as I feel like I now have a pretty good (beginner) grasp on JS and Python
for i in range(1,101): print "FizzBuzz" if i %3 == 0 and i % 5 == 0 else "Fizz" if i % 3 == 0 else "Buzz" if i % 5 == 0 else str(i)

Scores 69 in python but the login/signup is broken :)
Piggybacking common web beacons to track users maliciously
Can you explain why Matt Yglesias would know what he's talking about, rather than just assuring us? You may be right, but some quick searching doesn't turn up any particular indication of expertise. Would be nice to know what causes you to say this.
I've been working from home for five years now. It has its perks but I do miss some things about working in an office.

Mainly the clear demarcation between "work" and "home." Working from home I just make myself some coffee, walk upstairs, and I'm working. Or not, I may go down and work on my car or clean the kitchen. Working from an office I had the drive to clear my head and go into work mode. And then the drive home to get back into "home" mode. I couldn't let "home" bleed into "work" and vice-versa.

I also miss being able to go knock on someone's door and bounce an idea off of them. Now I have to type it out or fire up a skype session to discuss things. Typing in the chat room isn't easy and nuance is lost. And the effort of bringing up a skype session and the human niceties that tend to go with it (the "hey how are you?") and technical problems ("you need to upgrade!", "internet is slow!") make it hard and I tend to just not do it.

That said, working from home on my own projects is nice and I don't know if I could ever work in an office for someone else ever again.
Consider Not Setting Goals in 2013
The Hobbit Filming Locations mapped
The Devs I know are predominantly on Windows, but they still use terminals. Some use CMD terminals on Windows, some use Putty on some remote Linux box. Some use Cygwin. And then there are a few Linux/OSX people who mostly use the graphical terminals native to their platform.
Nevertheless, I stand by my comment ;) If you're repeatedly getting the same questions asked, in addition to the FAQ (which people, being people, are quite likely not to read), create a text file with common answers. Each time somebody asks a common question, copy and paste the answer.

This was something somebody suggested doing on the Joel on Software board, I think. They used it for fielding frequently-asked questions from trial users. Apparently people responded to it very well. Trial users have the potential of turning into paying customers, of course; open source contributors... not so much. Nevertheless, if you really want to provide the personal touch (and if you're spending time insulting people on the internet, clearly you do!), then this is a reasonable way of providing some simulacrum without too much effort.

You could just fill the text file with creative insults, if you prefer.
Ask HN: Will code for Xmas?
Hello all!

A long term consulting gig has left me high & dry, owing me a small fortune and left me bereft for the Christmas period. Now, the details are pretty irrelevant but the situation ain't pretty.

To hopefully remedy this, I'm wondering if anyone out there needs any web stuff doing? I can do HTML, JS, CSS, PHP, Codeigniter, Wordpress and I'm pretty handy at front end stuff too.

Obviously I'm on a bit of a deadline so I'm ready to start right away. I can show examples of previous work. If you have anything that might fit, email me (it's in my profile) and we can get going!
I'm wondering the same thing...
The title captured the pertinent part, at least. Still agree after reading the whole thing. Thanks for the working link.
Yeah, for 5 bucks and fits in a pocket Monopoly Deal is great. It also has the nice property of having the strategy change noticeably as you vary the number of people which helps extend it's shelf life.
Electrocute Slime Mold Long Enough and It'll Make Music
Maybe I did. Sorry about that. I meant terminal emulators available in most modern GUIs.
117 is my best Python solution yet, but I'm struggling to get higher than that!
The best predictor of university physics scores is high school English scores.

Why? Physics is about relationships. Sure, there's math. But it's about understanding the big picture, and the relationships between the pieces. It's about how to convince the math to solve the physics problem.

I suspect the same thing is true for programming. People who randomly type until it compiles can get programming jobs. They can even do well at large corporations.

People who understand the relationships do less coding. But the coding they do is more likely to be correct.
Things like this scare me. Sure, these are SSNs and a lot of harm can be done by abusing them. But what if the California's Medicaid health-assistance program, Medi-Cal had electronic medical records? It is so often proposed what kind of great budget savings such an instrument would bring, but the severe consequences for data leaks in this area are for individuals with extreme consequences.
Yes, Amazon will grow but as an ex-amazonian I can promise you that any profits the growth generates will just get turned into lower prices to drive more growth. Jeff has said in public he wants to have a company with $100 billion revenue, and I have no doubt he will get there the question is will the company make any money doing that.
In my opinion, writing good software is less like writing (the analogy of copy-and-paste holds to coding as well as writing) and more like weaving. Writing, at least, in the chapter format, isn't tightly coupled in terms of chapters as program modules. Yes, most books have an overarching plot - but how many programs are stories? They are more like buildings. The infrastructure (HVAC, electrical) must be in place before building floors. Floors can vary and be isolated. The building as a whole serves a business purpose. Oh and make sure your critical infrastructure cannot be flooded (Sandy). Tiny Towers - FTW!

With weaving, you have to be attuned as the whole structure of the cloth before you start writing. You need to see the big picture and concentrate on the details.

Yes, there is no equivalent refactoring tool like an IDE for weaving but I belabor my point..
> The start button menu has a built in search function that makes the search typing function in the start screen pointless - if I want to use the search approach. It responds in real time just like the start screen search does as well. And importantly: no need to switch visual interfaces to get to the program search. Windows key > type, all inside the desktop visual mode.

Cool, I didn't realize you could do windows key > type with the start menu (it's been a while since I've used Windows beyond just trying out the new stuff).
Ten Things Developers should know about the Mozilla Developer Network (MDN)
Around the same time there was CNET's tool which became a commercial CMS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vignette_StoryServer

StoryServer was interesting, its one of those things that in at least one way was ahead of its time. It actually generated static HTML files instead of doing straight pulls from a db. It's "dynamic" nature was actually basically a 404 handler where if you hit the URL for a story and there wasn't a cached html doc it would then generate one from the db, write it to the filesystem and then output the page.
The argument probably boils down to: the net economic loss in productivity from having every micro-power-user spend time worrying about whether it's a good or bad time to flip the switch, out-weighs the added market efficiency from what you describe.

Large users on the other hand, can devote a team to ensure optimal usage around complex / time-dependent tariffs.

Great point about smart appliances tho: that will have to wait for full integration of the smart grid and there will have to be a clear incentive to buy expensive appliances... since the overall savings could be fairly minimal (e.g. one less peaker plant) it's harder to provide benefits for millions of users. Again "demand response" e.g. turn-down-on-demand for large power users (perhaps even large building airconditioner loads) makes sense to target first.

There is no doubt a lot of interesting tech potential in this area... but utilities move so so slow.
I agree with this especially when you are doing tutorials for this reason: when you type out code, you inevitably make typos that cause bugs. This forces you to learn what some of the common possible error conditions are and forces you to learn to find and resolve them. Learning these things when you have the safety net of a tutorial is ideal, because if you can't figure it out you can always compare with the tutorial's code and learn what your mistake was, and you still get the benefit of learning about the particular error you experienced.
Making profits and realizing profits are not the same thing. Amazon is acting as its own venture capital company. They make that much known in their shareholder statements. And the reason why people pay 3600x earnings for a share of the company is that they know where the company is headed.

Let me put this in perspective: Amazon grows consistently between 30-40% a year. Not a big deal...right? I mean lots of companies grow quickly. But how many companies do you know that grow 30-40% per year, when starting from the ~$50B range? They are literally adding a new Fortune 500 company's revenue every year. Nobody does that. And that is what makes them distinct.

You may argue that you still don't think they are worth it. But the story of the 3600x P/E anomaly is actually a story of an anomaly in revenue growth...not of charity, generosity, or ignorance.
Yes, I work at CloudFlare.
The interview suggests that they are after both markets, and this is obviously a prototype vehicle - there's no reason why they couldn't produce both a car replacement and a more stable motorbike as separate vehicle.
Another alternative to "Facebook's Year in Review"