skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Firebug firebug firebug: http://www.getfirebug.com/

This brilliant Firefox extension is how I learned CSS. Click the "inspect" button, then click any page element, and it'll show you all the CSS rules being applied to that element. It'll also highlight the margin+padding so you can wrap your head around the box model.

Best of all, you can change CSS properties on the fly. Naturally, the best way to learn is to hack up someone else's CSS, so go to a site you like the looks of, and play with the styling.

Soon, you'll be thinking to yourself "man, this isn't complicated at all!"

And then you will open your page in IE 6.

And then you will punch a hole in the wall.
"..if I want to post arbitrary content to the web, it's as easy as going to MySpace, Facebook, or any other social network or forum on the web."

It's not for you if you know enough to get hosting, or you don't care if your website is locked into some walled garden.
One consequence of the long tail is that not everybody will make a product you (or I) can use. Just move along to check out the next service.
I tend to agree with you. It's obvious to me that the following code evaluates to 6:

r = 2
foo = lambda {|x| x * r}
foo.call(3)

And it's obvious to me that the following code raises an ArgumentError:

foo = lambda {|x,r| x * r}
foo.call(3)

But what does this do?

r = 2
bar = 'x*r'.to_proc
bar(3)

Do I get the 6, or do I get the ArgumentError?

UPDATE: I presume the answer is "ArgumentError" (because the alternative appears to be positively evil), and that what I really need to do is this:

r = 2
bar = 'x -> x*r'.to_proc
bar(3)

Why is this such an improvement over lambda? Couldn't these folks just fix lambda (e.g. to remove the need for that annoying .call method every time I use the result) rather than deciding that every Ruby programmer needs to learn yet another argument syntax?
No, I didn't mean bad scholarship during the middle ages. The notion that there was a dark ages is the result of bad scholarship. There actually wasn't such a thing. Also, Galileo wasn't persecuted for his ideas on cosmology, but for the manner in which he promoted his ideas.

Yes, I agree there is an anti intellectual trend with some creationists, as there is with hardcore atheists such as Dawkins. But the theocratic element of American Christianity is actually very small and overblown by a paranoid media. Again, you have the same sort of thing on the atheist side, which is also a very vocalized minority.
Here's a great NerdTV interview of Max Levchin: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/guests/#l

He did the interview on no sleep, so he's kind of loopy.

But that makes it even better. Nothing inspires entrepreneurial solidarity like a cracked-out hacker slurring his speech after an all-nighter.
I highly recommend NOT reading the W3C spec to start out if you actually want to get anywhere.

Just dive in and start coding, CSS isn't really all that hard.

I found it really useful/fun to just copy another site (e.g. Facebook or Digg) to get a hang of how things work. If you get stuck you can always take a look at their CSS using Firebug or by opening up their stylesheet in the browser.
Goofing around with CSS Zen Garden doesn't hurt.

You'll also want access to all the major browsers out there -- which means virtual machines or multiple boxes for OS-specific browsers. Heck, you should even try out non-OS specific browsers on different OSes. I once had this bug in which my page rendered differently between Firefox / Windows and Firefox / OS X. They both had the same version number, and I am still baffled to this day.
shouldn't the title read "whats your favorite ruby Javascript framework?"

I was hoping for info on dojo, etc....
For comparison, the original Ruby version:

def foo (n)
lambda {|i| n += i } end

It's five characters longer, but approximately 350% more readable.

Of course, a lot of that is because I'm more familiar with standard Ruby syntax than I am with this hack... but doesn't that tend to prove my point?
On a related note, anyone know if someone's bothered to create a Web Startup Ethics guide?
I'm not sure I understand. Why can't you use Dojo with Ruby on Rails? You lose the built-in ruby wrapper functions, but they're not required.
Big fan of Mochikit. As a python programmer it's got some good pythonic interfaces but it doesn't trample on the elegance of Javascript.
I've made a lot of changes, and things are looking, feeling, and performing better than ever! Let me know what you think.
this article implicitly raises very interesting questions about motivations and work/life balance. Dedication is one thing but at what point does it become unhealthy? Where is the line between making your company all it can be and is that neccessarily opposed to the success of personal relationships. Do you think you can have it both ways?
Terabyte Thumb Drives Made Possible by Nanotech Memory
"these folks"

There are at least two kinds of folks: those who are "fixing" Ruby the language, such as the Rubinius team, and those who are "using" the language.

I am in the latter camp. So sometimes I complain about what is broken--http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/02/why-ruby-is-not-acceptab... sometimes I hack around it. But no, I am in no position to change the language. If I was, I would actually implement the point-free and underscore conventions natively.

If you want to use closures, you want to use lambda, not String#to_proc. If you dislike using .call, Ruby also allows [] syntax, so:

r = 2
foo = lambda {|x| x * r}
foo.[3]

May be a little less objectionable.
IMAP Sucks
On standards, Web Standards, and "standardistasa"
JQuery, but I haven't tried a big variety. Right now, I'm using Prototype because that's what Weblocks uses by default.
You shouldn't have much trouble. I learned by drawing up a layout in InDesign (you can do it on a piece of paper, it doesn't matter). Get that how you want it, without regard to what you do or don't know how to do in CSS.

Then turn that into HTML/CSS. I find WebKit's CSS compliance to be better than anything else out there, but Gecko browsers are pretty good too, so use one of those two engines. You can solve most bugs with one or two Google searches. Within a week or two, you'll know 90% of what you need to, and it'll take you another couple months to learn the obscure stuff.
What is a "point-free holomorphism" ?

I study math, hack Scheme, and find myself totally confused by terminology.

Maybe it's a riddle or something -- "What does complex-smoothness have to do with lambda calculus?"
Well, by definition it's more readable, since nobody is familiar with the new notation yet. But objectively it has problems: unnecessary def and lambda keywords, using () and || for argument lists, using def .. end and {} for scopes. There's room for improvement.

Personally, I like many things from Haskell's syntax. I wish I could say this in Ruby:

foo = n -> x -> n += x
Wait for it! - The Little Book of Semaphores
I see what you're getting at - the user owns the data and access permissions (stored on the web), and the services work from that. With S3, this is a much more realistic idea. The problem is that many services will not allow your information out, such as facebook. The question is, is this something alot of people want? I know what I would like is to be able to always export my data out into a common format (like xml) so I can use it somewhere else.

If there were big demand for this kind of service, a startup could launch that became MyWebApps.com - a place where your data is stored and which has interfaces to the key other apps that you use and allow data to come out and possibly synchronizes etc. Your portal to the web where you always go first. This is a pretty ambitious idea with countless lines of code involved for getting all the different systems to speak the same language, but if it were pulled off, it could be big.
I like it. It sounds like you want to center the data on individuals, not on the applications they use.
None of my business, but this guy needs to take a spritz. I know it's fun being wonderboy and all, but once you do that 2 or 3 times very well, either you graduate into something tougher and better or you're just like a stupid little dog chasing a fake rabbit around a racetrack.

If I were him, I'd see if I could train a dozen startups at once, like YC. If that sounds too easy, try 20, or 40. I guess as a software architect I'm always looking for that next higher level of generalization. Once you do it a few times -- time to move on.

If startups are mostly luck, then this guy sounds like a habitual gambler. If they are mostly skill, then he's stuck in a rut. Either way, I hope he's not doing the same thing ten years from now. That'd be sad.
The point-free style means avoiding lambda expressions: http://rickyclarkson.blogspot.com/2007/09/point-free-program...
I think a problem is that either all the APIs have to agree, so new sites can be added without manual coding, or every startup has to agree on something, which could get hard. Also, the sites without APIs will not be included in this app?
It was actually a typo. Fixed, thank you.
This is neat. We can hope for more entrants in the "CSS platform space" -- the base-line for web site usability will improve as a result, as most designers will be able to move up to a higher level of "typographical abstractions" without getting stuck on one or two bit-rotting libs.
"First of I am not a hacker, so I can clearly see things you guys can't (vis versa). Stop building cool things and build something useful for the 95% of us who don't know how to."

I am a hacker.

I am also an adult and therefore I actively choose what to do with my time and what to build, and whether to build something cool, useful, both or neither.

What I really don't need is inarticulate people who haven't demonstrated any particular expertise in anything giving me advice on what to build and how I should spend <b>my</b> time and resources.

Now go away and do something useful.

As you said, "Sorry if I offended you .. , don't take it personally."
Once you've got a bit of a start (i.e. you can write

h1 { color: red }

or whatever, try CSSEdit for the Mac. It's really good for rapidly understanding what you can do with CSS - it's pretty much the OmniGraffle of CSS editing, if that makes any sense to you.

Highly recommended.
This approach should be sensitive to sample size, but I don't see any discussion of that. If he's tried it a lot, there should be some discussion of error on the first 10 hours, 100 hours, 1000 hours...
This is cute but first-class functions would be better. I've had to switch to Python to find them.
Has "spritz" taken on a new slang meaning? From what I remember (as does the dictionary) it means carbonated water.

> once you do that 2 or 3 times very well, either you graduate into something tougher and better or you're just like a stupid little dog chasing a fake rabbit around a racetrack

Does this apply just to the tech industry? Or would you say that artists, architects, and novelists should move on to a new profession once they produce a few good works?

Maybe J.K. Rowling should have stopped after the 3rd Harry Potter book. She was already a popular and financial success by then.
http://oauth.net/
Leopard vs. Vista: feature chart showdown
Surprisingly like real life (in a big company where managers care more about their fiefdoms that doing what's right).
Technology, the Stealthy Tattletale
A company claiming to be interested in buying Viaweb instead copied us (as well as they could) and went on to be very successful. They didn't kill us, because they were in Japan. But I expect they did make it harder for Yahoo to launch a Japanese version of Store.
Listen "adult" the way I see it is very simple. If you are offended you are probably one of those hackers I am talking about. If I made a similar statement and said that NBA players need to play better, I am sure Steve Nash wouldn't feel offended, the ones who will (like you) are probably the other 80% who quite frankly are just above mediocre. Now, Prove me wrong and show us what you have that is sooooo useful.
I'm offended. Not by what you say (which would take some effort to decipher) but by your tone. You only need one O in "so."
What's sad about doing what fulfills you, and doing it damn well?
Thank you. Now we are getting somewhere.
Ask YC: Should I send this to Angel Investors so they might invest in my project?
I have created this document that I want to use to find a small amount of Angel investment to kick forward my project. I am a terrible writer (to put it mildly)... I need confirmation that my grammer is ok and if that the document is reasonable overall.

http://www.officezilla.com/officezilla-opportunity.doc

I could really use some very honest opinion so don't hold back :)
Xobni is an example of this.

I myself work in the game dev industry, currently providing services of game dev, and it's not for the web but for heavy desktops.
I am not offended. I just think you are just wasting everybody's time and have a misplaced sense of entitlement.

Why should I spend time on "proving you wrong" or "showing you what I have"?

Who are you to judge what is useful or not, how other people should spend their time and resources? If you are not a hacker that is fine. Just "prove to us" you are good at something (anything!) before making such outlandish requests asking other people to change how they work to satisfy your notions of what is proper.

If a hacker wants to work on a webOS (to use your example) it is no one's business but his own. If you have some inchoate desires on how you'd like the internet to function, and you can't do anything about it and are not willing to pay anyone to do it, its just too bad.

"hey Wall Street Investment Bankers, I don't think you provide any value to me by working on exotic derivatives. I don't understand how they work or why you spend time on them. Please stop what you are doing and work on balancing my bank account and pay my credit card bills for me and persuade my bank to give me more money"

Bozo alert! Other people don't exist to satisfy your desires or work towards your vision of what the world should be. You might be able to get other people to work towards what you want if you offer something in exchange - money, skills etc. In the absence of having anything to exchange, you are just babbling into the wind.

Demanding that someone work in a style that seems perfect to you (when you admittedly know nothing about what they are working on or what the issues are) seems to be .... suboptimal.
I'm not an expert in this kind of questions (yet?) but I'd personally state what percentage of ownership/share of profit angel will receive in return to an investment made. Though may be it will be wiser to negotiate it when somebody will contact you.
And what would that accomplish? DBAs will still be able to look at all the data. Just like you give your cc to the waiter or your SSN to the DMV, nothing's truly private anymore.

I think it should be expected that employees of a website (especially startups with few employees) can see all the data. I know I have to look at my data all the time to fix bugs and such. It'll be nearly impossible to debug some problems without doing that.

At some point, you just have to trust that the people viewing your data is honest and be diligent about checking up on your own records (credit reports, cc, banks statements, profile info, etc).
I didn't intend to insult anyone. Seriously. Sometimes we must call the cat by its name. Ok saying "do something useful" may have been a little harsh. Sometimes we need a mean voice to sparkle the energy, not some nice/sweet talk. Think "Hitler" he did a lot of bad, but sparkle lots of Good ( from people who wanted to prove us that Good still exist) around us. That is not to say we need the bad, but sometimes I takes a mouth like mine. I didn't point to anyone in particular. When people post comments like "You are crazy to build your startup around Facebook" I understand it and do not take it badly. All I do is go back to the lab and tell my team " Hey guys, noone is happy Let's build something good, something that adds value". We all say we like feedback, but we want to dissect it. No. Take it all the same. Now If my team had the expertise to solve this issue, I would not ask for action here. We have Mobile expertise and we do not ask for help here. That's all guys. And remember I am not a hacker so maybe you can simply say " He doesn't know what he is talking about. After all I am still unproven" (until I launch, then yo will love it. Something actually useful)
I was thinking 5% but I was afraid to add it in up front.
My tutors' blog is a great example of very smart people who take the traditional Christian view of reason and revelation:
http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/
Edited: PP. I could ask people to all follow a new religion named "Zigajaga", but they probably won't. I am not demanding you. I don't know you, and honestly after today, your username won't remind me much, but all I was doing was asking you guys to help. Now you can look at the first layer and say "Oh just another ignorant one", or you can say "What can I learn from this post"? The answer will be "Am I doing something useful?" or "Do I really need to write a script that reads a post and knows to send it to me or trash it or block the username forvever?" and that would be building what I ask you to? Not Demand, Not Forced, But asked. At the end, seriously, I got love for all hackers. I trully do, but if that means I can't be honest and straight with you guys then it certainly means I was wrong in the first place.
May be it will be a good idea to put some numbers in but say it is a ballpark number that is a subject for negotiations and will depend on a final agreement terms?
Senators Want Probe on Content Blocking
I use the Web Developer Toolbar.https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60

Any reasons why Firebug is better?

WD seems to do the same things and more.
Disclaimer: I have no experience in this

However, if I were going to give you 20K I would want more info about what you plan to do with it. Break down how much servers, pbx, etc cost and why you need them

Also, I would think that a 1-2 yr revenue projection is kind of pointless, it seems just like wild guesses at this point.

Its good to let me know how you are going to make money. But the projections do nothing for me imo.

BTW, it looks like you have a pretty solid legit product. good job.
We're using YUI too. Has worked well for us so far.
so u r valuing ur company at $380,000. seems extremely reasonable.
You don't get it, Cool is Useful.
No one cares what YOU want, we care about creating something useful, be it for ourselves or for a larger group of people. Further, utility can, in fact, be derived from "wow" apps. You wouldn't understand because, as you've said, you're not a hacker. You should try it though, because building something yourself is a lot of fun and very rewarding.

Regarding the "personal API," I think it's a good idea if properly implemented (read: incredibly easy to use). Obvioulsy you haven't done much research because there are people working on this already. Someone below mentioned OAuth, and OpenID is another effort in this direction.

You'd get a lot farther if you simply just asked the community if someone was working on this and/or pointed out that it's a good, useful idea.
A brief history of record industry suicide
i currently don't

it would be nice though, but the thing is that since right now im making apps for my own, this apps are very "hermit" apps, they work for me, but for others they would be very clumsy, unintuitive, buggy, pain in the ass apps ;)

but when i do i'll let you know ;)

i do use mac, by the way, these apps are build using cocoa

hey, do you have some of your music online?
Is it just me or is Xobni the perfect example of all that is ridiculous about what is or isn't this bubble we have nowadays? I mean seriously... a social networking Outlook plugin?
If you're only going to buy one book on CSS, I highly recommend CSS Mastery by Andy Budd. It actually has a great introductory section in there, and no one puts into plain English better the reasons why certain hacks are used in certain browsers. Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm is a solid intermediate level book and if you want a good one on usability, I think Jakob Nielsen's Prioritizing Web Usability is a solid, well-researched read. While Defensive Web Design for the Web by 37signals is alright, I think it's a bit dated and I found it focused more on sites that execute certain principles badly. I really wished there were more books on sites that get interfaces right--or even one on evolution of a design with commentary by the UI engineers...but that would be too useful.

I wrote a cursory article about CSS techniques on Particletree.

An Overview of Current CSS Layout Techniques
http://particletree.com/features/an-overview-of-current-css-...

It's from 2005, but I think it's a good start for getting your head around the fundamentals. And honestly, while Firebug is a great tool for debugging CSS issues, it won't help you introduce to what's going on.

In the end, there's no crash course into CSS/UI design. It's an investment and even after you get a handle on executing good CSS, it won't necessarily help you create fantastic UIs. Remember, one doesn't always follow the other.
I agree with (1), but most "functional" languages aren't just functional.

As for (2) -- "A rising tide lifts all boats."
The revenue projections are pointless but they are required in this kind of document anyways.
Trick question.

If you stay as healthy and have as good relationships when you're starting a startup as not then "you're doing it wrong." Or you're just unhealthy and antisocial to start with.

Tradeoffs...
I don't really have any experience in this either, but I can offer some help with grammar / minor details:

> $20,000 investment -- if you're sending this anywhere outside the US, remember to change the currency or specify USD.

> pbx should be capitalized (PBX) since it's an acronym. If there's a chance your readers don't know what PBX stands for, you may want to say it is as well.

> In case this doesn't format properly, the s tags are strikeouts and [[brackets]] are my additions: "OfficeZilla allows private and shared calendars, contacts, forums, knowledge 
base
 [[bases]], 
email
 [[emails]], chat 
room
 [[rooms]], phone message 
pad
 [[pads]], project 
manager
 [[managers]], to-do lists, and 
url
 [[URL]] sharing. OfficeZilla has no usage limits 
including
 on the number of users, files, or mail."

> "OfficeZilla is translated into Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish[[.]]"

OfficeZilla accounts include non-profit organizations, medical offices, legal offices, realty offices, title companies, planned communities, network marketers, schools, along with other groups, companies, and organizations.

> "Create partnerships with realty franchisors 
with a particular focus
[[, focusing first]] on EXIT Realty 
who
[[, which]] has the most realty agents & offices already using the system"

> OfficeZilla 6 Month Plan: Shouldn't the stuff under this be bulleted as well?

> "OfficeZilla[[,]] as it is[[,]] will remain free, attracting between 15 and 30 new signups a day representing hundreds of additional potential users[[. Each account holder may also]] 
and the potential that the account holder will
 want to upgrade to a customized system or add modules for a fee. Continuing [[to sign]] 
signing
 up free customers is a priority[[.]] 
having a
[[A]] solid free system equals free marketing and 
allows
 goodwill 
to be developed
."

> "In order to drive each system deep, there will be one new developer, one technical support person, and one salesperson hired for each system" -- I don't really understand what you're trying to say here, but I'm sleepy and it could just be me.
It does seem to be a glaring missing item, I will put that in.