skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The trick is to be comfortable working with a system that you don't know much about. I personally love figuring out new systems, and starting to work in new unknown environments. Yes it takes a lot of time to figure things out, but when you have done it enough times (figured out 3rd party software), you get a feel for it, and can draw the right conclusions on how a program works fast.

Inexperienced troubleshooters often enter the work with pre-concieved notions of how the system works and hold on to them for too long. Always doubt your knowledge.

I think it usually takes 1-2 days with a system until you start to get our bearings. Before that, you are just collecting data, random tidbits of how the system works.

I second the recommendation to use recommended libraries, and I love github for the code network analysis. Back when I did a lot of java development there was often a java library available which solved the problem available on the internet even for a specialized problem, but more often than not it turned out to be a completely shit implementation that needed to be replaced. Of course there are good java libraries, the trick is to know someone you can trust who can recommend libraries.

OTOH for some rails tasks that can be resolved by just adding a plugin the quality of the code doesn't matter much, since it's just a few lines of code configuration. Still a good library is much better than a bad. I wish there was some kind of leaderboard, or official plugin list for rails, it can be very hard to judge plugins for a newbie.
The money is not the draw. The chance to be mentored, and get money earlier are to me. I would pay more than 5% of the current venture to benefit from being mentored by these people for long to come.
How did Flash 9 get to have such high installation levels? One word -- YouTube.

How do you get people to nuke IE6 -- YouTube. More accurately: convince the big sites to take this seriously and force users to upgrade.

But committees and accountants won't allow this to happen -- so to all the designers out there, enjoy a few more years of dealing with this crap rocket of a browser!
I wonder if there is any research/reasoning in why one shade of blue would generate more revenue than another?

Malcolm Gladwell had an interesting podcast about people's ability/inability to express what they really mean and feel. He uses the Aeron chair as an example of a product that was despised/considered ugly but eventually embraced for it breakthrough functionality/aesthetic.

I can see how data-backed design decisions can produced locally optimized results, the "ideal" shade of blue, logo size, typography, etc.. But I wonder if on the whole, all those optimizations work together optimally, as a wholistic experience?

[edit] Gladwell's Podcast: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail230.html
A community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia
>However, the 1x coder ignores the problem, or declares it unsolvable.

Haven't we seen that before? It's usually solvable within 5 minutes. And so true, if you want to become a good programmer, never give up trying to solve a problem, and don't wait for your seniors to solve it for you, because you will never develop the skills needed to solve the problem yourself that way.
Only bad VCs are looking for startups founded by MBAs. The better ones are looking for people with technical backgrounds who are willing and able to figure out how business works.
Use 3rd party stuff cautiously. I think "never use 3rd party stuff" is a little extreme, but remember that when you pick up the tool, the tool picks you up too. (Sorry -- watched too much Yoda) That is, you may want the tool for 1 or 2 really cool things, but the tool may demand out of you a week of playing around, pain and suffering, and a dedication that your spouse doesn't get.

One rule I use is that when I pick something up, I make sure that I can google help whenever I need it. If Joe-Bob's awesome language or widget set has only 47 people using it, and you have to put up with abuse on an IRC channel or buy 15 books just to get respect from the community -- forget it.

Wise choice of tools also means your cognitive load decreases. You simply don't have to remember so much crap anymore. Problem remembering how to attach events to an element in Javascript? Ten seconds with Google and you've got your answer. There's a certain tipping point that products reach. Be careful using stuff before acceptance grows to that point.

That's _platform-ish_ stuff. Tools, widgets, languages and such. For whatever you're actually doing, consider rolling your own stuff. Most times you only need a small subset of functionality, and if you're a good coder it's as easy to write it as use somebody else's. Plus, you understand what's going on. Many times I've used stuff with open source code only to spend hours plugging through their code trying to figure out what the heck they were trying to do. That hurts. Don't do that if you can help it. Sure it's great to modify OSS, but it's probably just as easy to spend that time learning more about the technical problem domain.

For instance, I'm playing around with the idea of writing another web app. I took a look at YUI -- I really like it. But at the end of the day, so far at least, it does a whole lot of stuff that I don't need, and payload size is important to me. So I'm just going to roll my own stuff. You're always weighing future hassle against productivity. Sometimes, like with learning functional programming or picking up COM or something, the rewards may be much greater than the hassle. But for most stuff, like version control, project planning, configuration, deployment, setup, etc -- you don't have the luxury of taking 3 days to figure some of these tools out. So don't.
Don't forget to stir in another factor: Localized conflicts would soon break out over scarce food and other resources, It's an interesting question whether the people most likely to prevail in such conflicts (and thus most likely to avoid near-term starvation) would be those possessing the skills to recreate even rudimentary technologies.
Stop the dragon bashing!
Ugh, really? Perhaps the author hasn't checked the latest market share statistics for Internet Explorer? If FireFox couldn't kill IE when it was the technologically superior browser, then why would Chrome kill Firefox?

I'll tell you why: Google has lot's o' cash and just might start paying OEMs to install Chrome in place of IE. That's something that Mozilla can't do (at least, not on the same scale as Google), and most people use the browser that's installed for them anyway. So what should Mozilla do?

Well, here's a thought: once Google starts paying OEMs to install Chrome, Microsoft is going to have to take a long, hard look at what they're doing in the browser space. Once they do that, they'll find there's no compelling reason to keep draining resources into the black hole that is Trident. That leaves them two choices: WebKit or Gecko. WebKit might be the obvious choice, since it would bring them close to feature parity with Chrome, and isn't controlled by an ex-arch-nemesis.

On the other hand, the Mozilla foundation could write a couple of nice, soothing, "I'm sorry for that whole anti-trust litigation deal" letters to Ballmer. That way they could swap one sugar-daddy (Google) for another (Microsoft), give Microsoft the rendering engine they so desperately need, and continue to develop XUL and Firefox off on their own.
To the original poster on this topic...

I know you made a deal with this developer but the fact that your original deal was to build your app within 2 months and it has been almost a year now - you REALLY need to walk away. It hurts both emotionally and financially, but based on all the feedback you've received - you should really consider what the community is telling you and move on.

I write software for a living and I have been in positions where other contractors have written software for my groups so If I ever made a deal with someone that included having software done in two months - waiting almost a year later for the project to be completed is just plain ridiculous and totally unacceptable. Especially when you take into consideration all of the things that you have mentioned.

It hurts us to hear about your story, we wish you the best but help yourself and start over. Take what you have learned from this experience and apply it to the next iteration. The fact that you've worked through a lot of questions, issues and the conops of how your application would work - take this experience and knowledge and find someone that comes recommended and is trusted and give it another shot.

Best wishes.
We have a few trees left. We can always burn those puppies up. (Actually, if you've ever been to the Azore islands of Portugal, this is exactly what happened. You'll be hard pressed to find many trees on several islands.)
That's never been the case.
I've tried chrome and it is ok, the new safari rocks my socks, but I still use firefox dunno why.

I'd call it loyalty for all they've done to the community and the web in general, and I am grateful for that.

Rock on, foxy, rock on.
Improper use of Deep Packet Inspection could be Internet game-changer
Have you actually read the CRA? I guess I'll spell it out for you.

From the NCRC pdf linked above, "Since the passage of CRA in 1977, lenders and community organizations have signed over 428 CRA agreements totaling more than $4.2 trillion in reinvestment dollars flowing to minority and lower income neighborhoods."

From the CRA (http://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-2515.html)

802.a.1 - `"regulated financial institutions are required by law to demonstrate that their deposit facilities serve the convenience and needs of the communities in which they are chartered to do business;"`

803.3 - `the term "application for a deposit facility" means an application to the appropriate Federal financial supervisory agency otherwise required under Federal law or regulations thereunder for--`

803.3.E `the merger or consolidation with, or the acquisition of the assets, or the assumption of the liabilities of a regulated financial institution requiring approval`

804.a `SEC. 804. (a) IN GENERAL.--In connection with its examination of a financial institution, the appropriate Federal financial supervisory agency shall--
(1) assess the institution's record of meeting the credit needs of its entire community, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with the safe and sound operation of such institution; and
(2) take such record into account in its evaluation of an application for a deposit facility by such institution.`

See also this WSJ article (entered into the Senate record)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r106:FLD001:S05028

"Last week the Senate passed a bill over-hauling the regulation of banks, including a provision sponsored by Sen. Phil Gramm (R., Texas), chairman of the Banking Committee, to reform the Community Reinvestment Act. Mr. Gramm's provision has stirred controversy, to say the least. Last month hundreds of ``community activists'' descended on his house, where they pounded on the windows, trampled the landscaping and left the yard covered with garbage."

"The 20-year-old CRA requires banks to serve their entire community. Regulators take banks' CRA compliance into account when deciding whether to approve applications for mergers or expanded services. In the recent wave of bank consolidation, banks have made billions of dollars of loan commitments and signed agreements with numerous community organizations in order to be seen as complying with CRA."
funny thing was just the other day I was showing my children how to make fire with two sticks. Didn't work. Father failure, though they did understand the idea of friction and the result: heat. Now, my second attempt is using a boot lace with bow (from curved stick) to turn a wood axle with a top brace. Makes smoke, but no fire yet. Somehow, this was much easier when I was younger. However, my point is the basic skills are just as important as the knowledge.
Subversion... the version control system of choice for people that don't understand version control.
I don't think the difference between the Chrome he's talking about (2.0 alpha linux?) and its Firefox counterpart (minefield builds) are as big as he makes them out to be.
I like cdgcommerce, they have reasonable rates and very good reputation. They also give good support. You can find a whole bunch of reviews on webhostingtalk
The title should probably say: Firefox may already be dead... for Linux users who care strictly about rendering speed.

He may be right in the end (once Chrome gets extensions, it might see wider distribution), but not just because it's faster in Linux. I'm pretty sure that's a narrow market for now.
As we all know, there are two states in the world: "Fresh", and "dead".

Sheesh. Maybe you could at least wait to bury Firefox until after you try 3.1, currently in beta3 (beta3 for goodness sake!) and benchmarking competitively with other current browers? (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html)

I haven't tried Chrome and I haven't tried Firefox 3.1, but I bet the difference isn't so big as Firefox 3.0 (or 2.x) and Chrome. Mozilla in fact has realized they need to speed up Firefox and have been yanking out useless abstraction layers and other speed problems for the next version, along with a lot of Javascript work.

But no, gotta generate those page views with overblown claims.

You know, I'm flagging this. This link is terrible, just internet grandstanding disconnected from the facts.
Is there a new site that I'm unaware of? I've been getting that feeling you're referring to, worried that our core is lost.
Wait, what? Plato is definitely heavy reading, and worth your full conscious attention!
Don't waste Plato by reading him when you're about to fall asleep!
Why is this on top of HN? The dude compares apples to oranges and glosses over one of the most important aspects of FF, which is the extensions.

By the time Chrome makes the extension architecture available to the general public and developers start writing useful ones, Mozilla will release a version of Firefox that greatly improves performance of both Javascript and the browser in general.

This is FUD at its best.
Your question is nonsense.

I'll assume for a moment that you are presently a "good software developer contractor" and you currently gross "$10k" a month.

Given that, $10k a month is your opportunity cost for doing something else, for instance, doing a startup.

That fact has little to do with your question "is ycombinator worth 5% of my biz for ~$15k"?

If you want to do a startup, then you'll be giving up your $10k a month to build something that scales beyond your time. I recommend doing this, if you have the risk-tolerance for doing a startup.

IFF you decide to do a startup, THEN you have to decide how to fund it. YCombinator offers your team ~$20k for 5% of the company to kick off your startup efforts. Plus, they offer you the "prestige and access" you'll get due to YCombinator. The alternative is bootstrapping, or "normal" funding channels.

From what I know about YCombinator, it's definitely an outstanding opportunity if you can get your idea accepted. If you're young and inexperienced and mobile, do it.

Alan
I'd tend to agree with you.

The point values were based on the commonality of the letters in common use, the idea being that it's harder to come up with appropriate words with letters like Z, X, Q in them. The letters' commonalities may be different for the word set of serious play-- the Scrabble dictionary-- in which case the scores become strategic features only loosely connected to historic frequencies.

I'm surprised that J is so uncommon, though. I guess it seems much more common than X and Z because there are a lot of words beginning in it, and it's also at the front of a very large number of common first names.
I'd tend to agree. Firefox served its purpose well, and forced Microsoft to release IE7.

But it never really improved on its first effort, and now, 5 years later it's arguably a little bit better than IE7, but it just can't hang with the latest releases from any of its competition.

So now we have Firefox sitting in 4th place behind Chrome, IE, and Safari. I fire it up a couple times a day for testing purposes, but if it were to go away completely, I certainly wouldn't miss it.
The author isn't risking much on this article, and the title is straight up linkbait. No real data given to back these claims either, of course.
Lowest common denominator? Publishers want users to click. Google wants users to click. Advertisers want (good) users to click.

Who loses here, besides the person who thinks yellow is "bad design?" Your customers have the final say, not the designer.
You agree with me then. My EE is useless to me. My experience, as it's not in sales/marketing/ is also useless. This drives me insane, as I sit in meetings with these guys, and trust me, they're not 'all that'. But you play the hand you're dealt.

I need to go find my "Jobs". Don't you find "finding a Jobs" a bit terrifying? That's really the last thing I want. Find somebody who talks a good talk, takes all the credit, and leaves you guest speaking at star trek conventions!

Back to the web start-up. Perhaps it will fund the rest someday.
In fact, everyone easily forgets that Google made revenues very early by selling their search engine as appliance for enterprises. They became profitable already in their third year in business (even before starting adwords).
I also had the distinct feeling of him ragging on the software in its 1.0 version, while comparing it to a mature framework like Rails.

I do agree that this is MS trying to play catch-up and is trying to prevent developers from jumping the ship, but it's still only 1.0.

Docs will get better, but lack of contributions is sad.
Do you have an interview at Google or Microsoft?
This post seems to basically be "I love rails and ASP.NET is not Rails so it's inferior." Now I'm not saying the author is wrong for loving Rails, just that there was no way ASP.NET MVC could win in a rigged game so the comparison doesn't hold much weight.

To be a tad more specific...

1. A few of his issues are just wrong. The MVC team has been very open about including the community and taking contributions for example.

2. A lot of the author's comparisons are unfair because he's comparing a product that essesntially had it's first official release a few days ago to Rails. So complaints like "the community is too small" or "Microsoft might kill the project as a cost cutting measure" are not fair

3. A lot of his arguments are really the age old static vs dynamic language debate. I won't open that can of worms now but needless to say both sides have valid opinions. So it isn't fair to ding C# for that.

4. On another point Rails is what most call "opinionated software" while ASP.NET strives to give a lot of choices. So dinging ASP.NET for allowing the programmer to choose an ORM package that fits their needs doesn't seem really fair (Microsoft does provide one in the form of the Entity Framework)
Simple and correct, sure but not helpful.

Answering the question is one thing, fostering good discussion is another. To foster discussion, both parties should understand each other. To help understanding, a question should not only be answered, but explained. An explanation is more helpful than a straight answer.

Make sense?
I think he has a point. I switched from Firefox to Chrome about a month ago; I think Chrome's interface is much nicer, and it is faster than Firefox. The two major drawbacks of Chrome for me were:

- no extensions for Chrome (I miss Adblock and Flashblock)

- Linux edition not available (I'm waiting for the beta to come out)

If it weren't for Google's promises to come out with extensions and a Linux version, I wouldn't have switched.

The main advantage Firefox previously had was that it's so much better than IE. Now it has to be better than IE and Chrome; this is a pretty high barrier to dominance.
So what does anyone good get then? (salary-wise)
From the article:

The only way the situation can be altered is for Mozilla
to slam on the brakes, lean out of the window of the
truck, apologize for going the wrong way, and turn
around. But that's unimaginable.

That's funny, because the Mozilla project has done exactly that in the past. The result was Firefox!
They didn't even elaborate on how they were using it.
ok cool. What about some sort of dense/hard wax then?
Google is evil, Firefox is dead, Windows 7 is going to revolutionise the operating system world. None of them are true, yet they keep on getting sensationalist coverage in online media. When will the madness stop? Can't we have choice without trying kill off the incumbents all the time?
Paul Krugman: In Despair Over Obama's Financial Rescue Plan
FWIW I don't think that our current problems were caused entirely by the CRA. The rocket scientists on Wall Street who leveraged themselves 30x on the assumption that housing prices would never go down are just as culpable. Another issue is that in the 70's the big three ratings agencies started charging bond-issuers for ratings, rather than bond-buyers, setting up a huge conflict of interest.
So the question is whether the humanity will be able to stabilize before current generation (with the knowledge of technology) will die (including because of age)
Perhaps speed is (subconsciously) a more influential factor than we think. I think it is on that basis that Google is rather obsessed with page load times - see eg. https://adwords.google.co.uk/support/bin/answer.py?answer=87... - and presumably they have empirical data backing their obsession.

One thing I don't understand: given that Chromium is under a BSD license, can't Mozilla just incorporate its Javascript engine into Firefox? I'm sure they can pull that off long before losing their huge market share...
I use Plimus (http://www.plimus.com) for ViEmu and Codekana sales (http://www.viemu.com and http://www.codekana.com). It's very good, and the price is good, too. I used to use share-it (http://www.shareit.com/) for a few years, but they were more expensive and less informative.

I'm using them from the EU. ShareIt is based in Germany and Plimus in California, and still Plimus is cheaper.

These are one-time payments only, so no idea how they work with subscriptions. I'd expect them to work fine if they provide the service, they are very professional.
Hell yes. I thought of this sort of thing when I read Bruce Schneier's infamous piece about how it's a great idea to keep your wi-fi network open. http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securityma... Tor exit nodes and open-wifi let other people use your IP address, and for purposes of a search warrant you might as well let them use your name and face.
I use paypal subscription thing atm, it seems to do the job ok.