skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The blogger explicitly quotes PG as saying

"In practice what happens is that the business guys choose people they think are good programmers (it says here on his resume that he’s a Microsoft Certified Developer) but who aren’t. Then they’re mystified to find that their startup lumbers along like a World War II bomber while their competitors scream past like jet fighters. This kind of startup is in the same position as a big company, but without the advantages.

So how do you pick good programmers if you’re not a programmer? I don’t think there’s an answer. I was about to say you’d have to find a good programmer to help you hire people. But if you can’t recognize good programmers, how would you even do that?”

And then goes on to say he disagrees with PG and then provides some "indicators" that business guys can use to guide their search .

The thing is, a "business guy" is in no shape to judge any of these "indicators" accurately even if we grant that these are valid (which I don't).

. How would this hypothetical business guy recognize "passion for programming" (one of the "indicators" for recognizing programming excellence the author mentions)?

Let us see what he says

"Good programmers will have a tendency to talk your ear off about some technical detail of what they’re working on (but while clearly believing, sincerely, that what they’re talking about is really worth talking about). Some people might see that as maladapted social skills (which it is), but if you want to recognise a good developer, this passion for what they’re doing at the expense of social smoothness is a very strong indicator. Can you get this guy to excitedly chat up a technology that he’s using, for a whole half hour, without losing steam? Then you might be onto a winner."

Yeah right!!! This reminds me of some managers I know who'd make these kinds of judgments and reward the most technically inept members of the team because they "excitedly talk your ears off". Most of the talk would be technically incoherent but how would they know? all they detect is the "passion".

The rest of the "indicators" are similarly flawed.

PS the comments are hilarious too. I particularly liked "The above list is excellent (and it describes me perfectly). " :-D
Sounds great! Just drop me a mail at eiso@twollars.com
Could you not send out an array of spiders to crawl around and cache pages, then send the cached pages back to some kind of processing mill, to purge out the data from the pages and output the basic designs of the pages, whereupon these "purged pages" could be sent to a second mill to categorize them and persist them in some way? Then you could mine your persisted store of purged pages for various things based on user request. So the user says, I want a button. So you mine your database for buttons and display them and the user picks the one she likes for some kind of minimal fee. Instead of getting the templates from human submissions, have spiders get them instead and purge them and persist them, similar to having a sweatshop of gold miners to pan the stream, sift out the gold, and drop them into storage bins. Then all you do is sell the gold directly to the customers. Something like that?
The obvious answer is to hold a bake off. Narrow down the programmers to a set you want to try out (for this you can use rough measures - SAT scores and experience listed on resume). Give them all a few days to implement a non-trivial part of the app you want built. Then hire the best.
How some of the economic development stimulus will be spent
3G Phones Expose Networks’ Last-Gen Technology
Microblogging Will Marginalize Corporate Email
MioGate Family Friendly Community
You don't.
You can't.
As PG wrote in "Great Hackers":

I've seen occasional articles about how to manage programmers. Really there should be two articles: one about what to do if you are yourself a programmer, and one about what to do if you're not. And the second could probably be condensed into two words: give up.
Really? I see it all the time. In Tech, you have sites like Techcrunch, Engadget, and Mashable. For science you have sites like Climate Audit and Real Climate. For world affairs, Michael Totten, Michael Yon, Exile, and numerous blogs. Economics, Brad Setser and Naked Capitalism.

In fact, it's hard to think of a single topic in which the best coverage comes from the old school media.
Sony Ericsson F305 Black Unlocked
So the closest we are likely to get to a PSP Phone this summer is the Sony F305. With two dedicated gaming buttons at the top of the phone which are utilized like a video-game controller when held sideways.
Assuming that works and you actually get a few decent candidates to submit solutions, how exactly do you propose that the business guy/gal selects the winner? He can't evaluate their code, he can't evaluate their design decisions... What criteria exactly do you think the business guy/gal would use to select the winner?
Yep, that's just what I was thinking. You could even have existing members of your team implement it, to make sure you weren't diluting them by hiring worse programmers.
Indeed. It was like a writer's creativity oracle:

* The masterful series: Tales of the Hive.
* The insightful whistleblower: How IBM Conned My Execs Out Of Millions.
* And even the (insane) writer's self-inflicting goatse-style: An Introduction to Anal Masturbation.

Hive series:
Birth of a Package http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/18/203511/484
Blood, Sweat, and Honey http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/9/13/212244/867
Lions at the Gate http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/7/16/222933/069
(More at http://www.voiceofthehive.com/)

IBM http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/9/27/95759/4240 (Can't find the link to the article about the writer's struggle to survive the legal attack from IBM.)

The goatse http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2007/7/23/204244/127
If others are bringing pie, bring 3.14159 lbs of ice cream.
If you know a good technical person you trust, ask them to help. If you don't, go make some technical friends.

I've been helping screen technical people for friend's companies for a while now. My friends trust me to determine if someone is the right fit for the role, technically. I'm too busy on my own projects to work for/with my friends full time, but I can spend an hour or two doing phone screens, interviews, reading resumes, etc... Some of them even pay me for it:)

There's no magic formula that lets you (a business guy) figure out who's great, who's really green, who's full of crap, etc... It can't be done. You have to rely on a web of trust, using your friends.
Why not just give them different parts. The last guy you interview you give the task of putting together the different pieces, and then you have your finished application. Of course you should also interview QA people so they can find the problems with what they other guys did...
The Setup on waferbaby
Always a shame seeing the people who talk about their bleeding ears and how Songsmith is killing music and all that jazz. It's a fun program. These videos are hilarious if you're fans of the original songs. They let people without music talent add musical backing to their voice, which those people appreciate. There's also some impressive math going into all that, and the results are incredible considering the job is to provide incredible music.

What do people expect? Songsmith to hear Crazy Train and decide, "Hey! Let me create an instantly memorable and unique opening?" No. It's going to essentially add a wall of sound: layered instrumentation and that's it. That's pretty neat. And people who complain about it are either missing the point or deliberately being a pain.
Well, you are unlikely to get a finished application in two man weeks. You have everyone implement the same thing so you can compare apples to apples. Then you hire the best for the long term.
I will in a couple of days. I would love to be able to mention it at their next meeting. I'll fill you in with all the details! BTW, I love this blog
Don't underestimate the power of sin taxes in relation to other states. California would be the only state with legalization and would pull interested tourists from across the country. Their market would effectively be the entire US with no legal means of competition for tax revenue.

The same thing happens with alcohol and cigarette taxation: a lot of people will cross state lines for the cheap smokes of NC or better alcohol of nearby states, if they are within proximity to the states border. This effect is particularly noticable in driving across the country and having the chance to see the businesses that exist next to state lines selling these items.

Another similar situation is that of casinos. The states that allow unfettered gambling in certain areas (table games, slots, etc.) have their casinos built in nexus points of travel near states with more conservative laws.
You would have to select a project that produces output the business user can judge. So if it's a UI, the business user can make sure all the parts are functional, the load times speedy, the edge cases handled, etc.
I'm using R for largish datasets. When compiled on a 64-bit linux, it can address plenty of memory. The windows version is limited to 1.5 Gb, even in 64-bit windows. This is bound to change as Revolution computing have a 64-bit windows R that works (and adds some Parallel libraries). But that is not free, and it's still in beta. We are getting one. I think 64-bit R + resolver one (no limits for spreadsheet size) can get a lot done in a very visual way. I just happen to catch bugs faster when I color-code cells, but this is impossible to do in straight R (fix() and edit() suck!) or in excel because of spreadsheet limits. The combo I propose (don't have it yet) will be expensive but worth it I think.
> You don't. You can't.

I call bullshit. There are many, many examples of successful technical teams organized by people without deep relevant technical expertise.

All this PHB stereotyping around here is just arrogant vanity.
We were quoted $600 for a 2-person cubicle, plus around $100 for connectivity and IT services, and a $100 one-time setup fee.
They offer more than just office space, though: Regularly, angels and VCs come in that you can pitch to, and (for additional fees) they offer recruiting services, lawyers, a datacenter etc.
It's possible that the punchline is at the end, but I don't follow Arrington enough to know how important this is:

"Back to transparency, one change I’m going to make at TechCrunch is to get rid of all of our investment conflicts. I’ve long been an angel investor and have continued to make a very few investments even after starting TechCrunch. These investments are always disclosed and in my opinion we do more than enough to maintain transparency there. But it’s also a weak point that competitors and disgruntled entrepreneurs use to attack our credibility. So over the next few months I’m going to divest myself of all of those investments in an orderly fashion, and I’ll update readers on the progress. I’ll also discontinue making any further investments."
Review: Clicky Web Analytics gets "Mega-Spy" feature
PG gives a lot of credit to the editors for keeping HN clean. But let's be honest, people behave here because they don't want to burn their bridge with PG. He's said himself that he created HN in part to get a taste of what YCombinator applicants are like before they apply. This whole site is one big, ongoing public job interview. That's a big part of what keeps people in line.
Facebook's not dead; MySpace is still the top music web site on the planet.

MySpace may be dying slowly: I don't follow it enough to tell. Facebook is growing incredibly fast.
If we're mentioning holidays that we made up, here's mine. March 5 (YYYY-3-5, when you write the date big-endian) is the Square Root of Christmas (35 * 35 = 1225). This allows 10 days between Sqrt(Xmas) and Pi Day. This period of time is called Nerdigras.

http://twopoint718.blogspot.com/2009/03/march-5-is-square-ro...

There's already been a carol written:

http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200903/square_root_of_christma...
These criteria can maybe distinguish the good coders from the bad but not necessarily the great from the good though !
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=504597
Who's downvoting you everywhere? Sheesh, you've got some enemies.

Some people like fixing puzzles; other people like making things. They go well together. My cofounder loves coding things and making them work. I can do that stuff, but I prefer designing things and making really pretty stuff rather than working in the background.
That would be the present of "capitalism."
This is interesting. However, having been intimately acquainted with the mobile world, I'm a little skeptical.

1 - month-to-month with no contracts or credit checks.
This is the very same thing that caused the death of many of the MVNO's. Unfortunately, a lot of the people who really care about 'credit checks' are the very same people who dont tend to pay their bills. Collections costs money.

2 - There is no mention of SMS. Personally, I use SMS more than voice. SMS routing is a little trickier, and there are carrier interconnect agreements that they might be using, but I'm curious as to the cost structure. Also, its unlikely that, if they do have SMS, that it will be able to work on commercial SMS services anytime soon.

3 - I use VOIP for my business telephone lines. Even when you turn the call quality down to cell-phone-quality, things can still get choppy or jittery. This is over business grade DSL. I can only imagine the call quality and drops using any of the wireless carriers data networks.

4 - Lock-In / Trust. People are hesitant to switch to new carriers becuase of contract lock in, but also trust. I might switch from Verizon to AT&T or back (but never sprint, they are horrible). But will I switch to a noname provider? No. AT&T rollover is, for all intensive purposes, just like having unlimited.

I do really think the mobile VPN bypass is neat, but I'm not entirely sold their business can work in the long run. Good luck to them.
People tend to overestimate the value of newspaper journalism. Paul Graham does a great job of exploding the myth of business journalism in his "submarine" essay. Financial journalism has obviously been just as bad.

The worst, though, is political journalism. Most "journalism" is simply writers being a conduit for leaks and bureaucratic turf wars. Woodward and Bernstein did not uncover Watergate. They were tools of one branch of power ( the FBI ) that wanted to strike against another branch ( the Nixon White House). The crime was not discovered by journalists, but by illegal FBI surveillance. ( http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20081222_death_deep_throat_an... ) It would actually be an enormous improvement if these agencies just said what they wanted to say through blogs, rather than filtering it through "journalists".
on a side note. where is the best price for domain renew? I have about 50 domains need to renew. Gogaddy is about 9$ per renew.
Some Reasons For A Bankruptcy Auction Sale
The proof will be in the pudding. Latency and packet loss are murderous for most VoIP stuff I've used.
Site Compatibility and IE8
It's a shame people keep saying how terrible Techcrunch is. It's a good blog! Some of Michael Arrington's posts can be hilarious if you know the true story behind the posts. He also enables people who know nothing about the tech industry can join in on the fun whenever there's a sensationalist post, which I think people appreciate. There's also some impressive spin going into some posts, and the results are truly incredible, considering it's just a blog.

What do people expect? Arrington to hear a rumor and decide "Hey! Let me do some research and create an entry that is fair and unbiased?" No. It's essentially a race to be the first to talk about something in the blogosphere: first post wins. And considering how fast he is, that's pretty neat. And people that complain are missing the point or deliberately trying to discredit this fine blogger.
Look at the Yammer feature list; microblogging isn't marginalizing email, it is pretending to be email.

Behind the firewall installation: Yes.
Public notes: Mailing list.
@replies: Reply.
DMs: Standard email.
Groups: Mailing list.
Private groups: Mailing list.
File attachments: Duh.
Favorites (a form of bookmarking): Flag.
Tagging: Filters.
Conversation threading: Standard.
Unlimited character length: Email started this fad!
Search: Duh.

This begs the question, What the hell is the point?! Email already does email pretty well and is much more familiar to people (especially the old crusty decision makers) so why choose anything else?
i've always wished for a live/work space in walkable cities/neighborhoods (maybe san francisco, london, new york, amsterdam). i just needed a small closet type single bedroom like i stayed in in europe, an additional, separate work area with maybe a monitor to hook up my laptop and, of course, good internet access. it would be great if they were all connected so that i could pay a consistent fee with a contract to one company and move between them as i need/desire.

it would also be good if it was cheap for startups or maybe allowed to get discounts for startup stock.
I'm skeptical about the audio quality, because even small amounts of packet loss and latency can wreck havoc on VoIP calls.

However, even if Zer01's service doesn't live up to its claims, it's a step in the right direction. North America needs more companies striving towards this type of service.
Agreed. The fact remains that it is possible to be a business person AND a hacker. And you dont have to be that great at either to hire experts on either side.

For example, you could be primarily business with a little hacking, and that would make you qualified enough to hire good hackers.

On the other side, I'd love to see an article about hackers hiring salespeople. I somehow doubt most hackers would see themselves as absolute idiots at finding a good salesperson, they would just be new to it the first couple times.

Its not how you categorize yourself, its how you approach the problem, and your ability to research/network/analyze. This should be true REGARDLESS of what you are hiring for.
"So don't combine your product launch with a marketing launch. Instead, do your product launch first. Don't chicken out and do a closed beta; get real customers in through real renewable channels. Start with a five-dollar-a-day SEM campaign. Iterate as fast and for as long as you can. Don't scale. Don't marketing launch."
This is fascinating! I know you wrote me about your site a few days ago, but I only saw the front page: the more detailed expansion is an excellent idea. I'd love to see if you can get to the point where you're hiring journalists. If that goes well, you might have just started the first online local newspaper.

Add more writers to your blogs, which are essentially open source journalism projects.

That's a great mindset. Make blogs into projects and see what works and what doesn't.
It's centralized? That's all I can think of. To be honest, I can't imagine somebody wanting to use Yammer.

Unlimited character length: Email started this fad!

Ah, the joy of aggressive feature promotion.
This isn't rocket science, and programmers aren't special. Programming is a deep technical skill, just like many others, and the way you hire for those types of positions if you don't understand them is to rely on the judgment of others who do. These people helping you evaluate technical candidates don't have to be employees, by the way. They could be, but they could also be your friends, family members, advisors, colleagues from a former job, etc., etc. Just calling a programmers past employers and managers is a good start.

You can also intuit something about someone's technical skills by looking at the types of places they've worked for. Some guy who has hacked together fifty is likely not as technically skilled as someone who worked at Google and Facebook. That's not a full-proof test, obviously, but there isn't a full-proof test here, even if you are a programmer.
I think this is the third time this article of mine gets up to the top of HN. The first time was when it was slashdotted and that's when I found out about HN. Second time was this past summer.

Maybe I should write an updated version of it...

On the other hand, I'd like to add a disclaimer for those reading this article for the first time:

I wrote this a year and a half ago. My ideas on the topic are clearer and can probably be better explained now. So it's worth considering that when you say "this blogger believes blah blah blah", "this blogger" does not exist anymore. I've moved on and if I write this article again (which I may well do), I'll be sure to make it far more convincing than I was able to 18 months ago.

Btw: My new blog, which you've probably seen recently, is http://danieltenner.com . If I post an updated version of this article, it will appear on my new blog, not on inter-sections.
They're better than XP, yes. On par with Macs? No. There's still a lot of ground to cover.

I'm glad to see they're making an effort, though.
Apple's flaws are what let it make great software. If they were releasing OS X as an open-source code implementation, it would not be as good as it is.

How would its "proprietary tendencies" catch up to it? There will always be people willing to pay for good things.
The dock's not meant to be a jumper. Expose's useful, but if you're a power user (e.g. 20 windows), learn to use cmd-tab and cmd-`. That lets you quickly find your app and cycle between windows for each.
The heading I added to this submission was differ from what I see now. Who changed it? Maybe mine was bad & some one has fixed that :) . But I still like the original heading. >> "OK, Let's face it. Linus Torvalds loves an M$ software"
I love HN and the crowd here. It's by far the absolute best online community I've ever been a part of.

That being said, the arrogance displayed in many of the comments on this thread and others like it is one of the things I dislike most here. There's this pervasive attitude that hackers > businesspeople, and while it's ridiculous for a business guy to think he can hire a programmer (or be of much value to one), you never see articles about how hackers are helpless without business people or how a hacker would have no idea how to hire a marketing or sales guy (and shouldn't even try).

Maybe I'm overreacting because I'm one of those who straddle the line, but this kind of arrogance serves no one.
I think the reason it gets a low amount of visitors is because it redirects to another website so if someone bookmarks the website, they aren't bookmarking the greetings.com domain. So those 8,100 US visitors a month are probably all new visitors. It sure doesn't hurt Hallmark to get new visitors that way.
I think many of these articles come down to one thing: microblogging services need to monetize, fast.