skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Thank you for the awesomeness you have infused your post with. I began on the very road you've suggested not to take about a year, never got anywhere with programming. Got a 9-5 after graduating then finally started doing what you've suggested...

Quit my cube job, got a technical internship, and code practically every breathing moment I'm not at work...friends and fun...what are those again? :P
I'm one of those people who have been trying to learn how to code, and I did start out using Codecademy. I quickly figured out what you're saying here: it kind of sucks. It was helpful for making me think about things with a programmer mindset and also helped teach me syntax, but I completed the entire JavaScript and Python tracks without any clue how to go on to make my own project. Also, it had so many bugs that half the time I ended up checking the Q&A section and just copy/pasting code that worked.

On the contrary, I'm now doing One Month Rails, a $20 course from Skillshare. The very first lesson taught me how to set up Git, get Ruby & Rails all set up on my machine, created a new project, and deployed it to Heroku. This was already a world more helpful than the Codecademy lessons. (I'm blogging about it here in case anyone is interested: https://cuppycode.wordpress.com/ )

Next I'm going to go through the Rails 3 Tutorial. If there are things like this (project focused, help you set up the dev environment) for Python, could anyone recommend?
Apple gets denied the iPad Mini trademark
Tommy Nicholas, cited in this article, here. Love this, disagree with the "forget Codecademy" part. Codecademy is incredibly useful and I still use it to learn things today, but it's really really important to understand what it's teaching you and what it's not.

It walks you through the thought process of various things you do when you write code and makes you actually write it, which is awesome. But that's where it ends so you've got to take the leap from there and actually BUILD something.
Rails Installer was pretty close to this.
Though interestingly, for quite a while the one thing hierarchical database were good at was the one thing RDBMS was bad at: reconstructing an arbitrary-depth hierarchy. Take the classic "bill of materials"... easy in a hierarchical database, but in an RDBMS you have to recursively query to walk the hierarchy, or use special support like Oracle's "CONNECT BY PRIOR"
Does it matter if not everyone watches right until the end and completes the final coursework?

I want to know as much as I can about different subjects but I want to immerse myself in them to different levels.

Sometimes I am happy just to stick a few videos on in the background while I do something else, so I get the gist of what something is about and know what to focus on later if I need more information.

I don't necessarily care if I could pass an exam or not.
This is neat and a great example of encouraging "p2p" marketing.
True, that's a nice number. But you have to keep in mind many of these startups, while doing something noble, still need to make a big business (often they're VC-backed). Increasing retention rates is essential for business and for making online education viable. I'm not sure if 5% retention makes the model work or if you need >10%.
> They break almost all of the tooling that exists for JavaScript debugging.

I just don't see the utility of pre-processors for JS or CSS. I know I'm in the minority here, are developers really working without debugging? I can't wrap my head around that workflow.
It's a hack. The line and X are in screen space and change position when you zoom in and out.
Nope, it doesn't count. The Chrome downloads API allows me to makes sure the file exists on disk.
Did they really have to pick one language to rule them all?

It seems odd to me to design a platform that only supports one programming language. What happens when people find better ways of expressing their intent?
That may be but I personally find it extremely difficult to juggle my everyday working life with an online class. I would much rather download and watch a video lecture on the way to work.
They probably need the space for a faster one...
> Turn them off and you get a very high cancer rate.

Or rather, enable telomere repair mechanisms, and you get a higher cancer rate. One of the things cancers must do in order to keep existing is to activate teleomerase or the alt telomere repair mechanism.
The scholarships may be privately funded, but 84% of Stanford research funding in 2012 was received "directly or indirectly from the Federal Government". That's a quarter of the University's overall income, according to its annual report[1], before you start accounting for tax breaks. I don't doubt the government gets a return on that strings-attached investment, but welfare has positive externalities too...

[1]http://bondholder-information.stanford.edu/pdf/AR_FinancialR...
I feel like if Codecademy just made really awesome video tutorials for installing Python or Ruby, setting up rails or Django, using FTP, setting up MAMP, etc. then that would be sufficient to get people started after doing Codecademy.
So, you guys have plans to upgrade when 1.8.7 is deprecated?
HR 933 prohibits courts from stopping sale of GMO seeds
Another article that equates "MOOC" with "online education".

Sigh.
action.io
The first lesson at Getting Started with Django really focusses on setting up a dev environment. http://gettingstartedwithdjango.com/
The eventual goal is to have a "career mode" (there are currently stub menu entries in the UI), which will likely be similar to what you're envisioning.
Nice to see you here!

I do hope that you will open up most (if not all) of your courses for self-study mode. There are a few courses I really wanted to take, but due to the lack of time I really couldn't commit myself at the time they opened (I wanted to do them in the summer instead!).

I also think this guy makes valid points: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5469909
I found that, a red sword, and a red coin which didn't have coordinates. Tried following the lines they made but didn't have any luck.

It's also weird that there are large numbers sometimes and red numbers sometimes, they definitely mean something. From the video they posted this won't be an easy puzzle to solve.
This is the most fun single-player experience I have ever had, bar none. It should be a mandatory part of the curriculum for high school physics courses, as I wish I had been able to experience something like this when I was that age. Orbital mechanics can be a little bit counterintuitive on first glance, but the sense of reward this game provides for, well, understanding physics, is just phenomenal.

In an earlier build the sun (Sol) was just a single point gravity well, and I spent hours trying to figure out how to manipulate the simulator and the gravity well to accelerate my Kerbals to breakneck speeds. Think the best I got was 0.1c (and completely flung out of the solar system).

I'm glad to see they've added plenty more planets and other celestial objects to interact with. Highly recommend this.
This post:
http://sivers.org/learn-js

And HN thread of it:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5434627

Might be of help.
Sorry to nitpick: MatLab, sans the h, it's matrix lab, not mathematics lab…
No, it's not obvious.

Is this the monty python argument room? There's a vast amount of research into the negative effects of social isolation on humans and other mammals. Did you have something to add regarding this study, which is just one more drop in that huge bucket?
ooh yes. faux-sepia, vignetting, scratches. beautifully done!

I'm not too impressed with the "treasure map" style maps of my local neighbourhood though, apart from the names in a different font, an arbitrary icon here and there, there's hardly any details at all, not even the larger roads are complete.
should be ok now?
What about someone who has a job where they code full-time (or close to it) but they don't enjoy what they're coding or they don't feel like they're getting better in their current position? Sometimes you're not in a position where you can leave at the moment and find a better coding position or you're not yet good enough at coding to get a job where you actually learn. It's incredibly hard to code for 30-40 hours a week and then try to do it for 5-10 hours a week extra after work to get better.

I'm worn out after 40 hours of work, so creating my own projects and/or working on open source projects is difficult. However, without doing that, I don't feel that I can move on to a more challenging development position because I have no code I can show.
I understand that, you are saying that you have an id of who you want to talk to. The problem is, where do you start looking? Even with .onion you need an entry point to the tor network. It can be a DNS server, a web server, or whatever; but it must be hard coded (unless you start broadcasting on the local network looking for an entry, which I havent seen an example of). That is the problem. The first entry point can easily be taken down.
Yup, all good
"there is some truth in the first on"

What do you mean "some truth" .. different CPU architectures have different assembly language .. what's to get?

Oh, and SIMD instructions are an extension to the x86 instruction set .. not an abstraction.

What is your background on low level development, may I ask?
HN gives me the impression that on a bi-daily basis there's someone, somewhere (generally an American brogrammer with too much hair and weird glasses living in the Valleyr or NY) who WANTS that I want to learn to code.

Is that someone actually the exact same person (looks like it) ? Does he know that code can be executed outside of a browser ?
Show HN: javscript model of Ackermann steering
They already have the Titan, four times more efficient, with 17 pflop consuming only 8000 kwh.
I totally agree. I started with installing Eclipse, creating a new Android project, adding a single button and... Just going from there.

I had no intention of publishing it to the official Google Play Store, but I did, purely as a learning experience (and I sure learned a heck of a lot because it's definitely not a straightforward process).

And I'm sure we all have experiences like that, right? You'll be amazed at what you can do by just jumping in.
Sorry for taking so long to respond. That would be fantastic if Padrino got that as well.
So I notice these anti-Ruby/JS/Rails/Python comments from time to time on HN.

Sometimes I will scan the author's comment history to gauge why they might write such a thing. Clearly you are not a troll and that was a serious comment. It seems you are a Java guy (which seems to be the case more often than not).

And the above comment isn't the first negative comment you have left in a threads attacking the legitimacy of another programming language.

I write a lot of Java too, and so I understand that it isn't a language that is regarded as 'cool' and does get put down from time to time.

But it's crazy to me that people will channel their insecurity regarding their own choice of language as a reason to attack other people's choices.

You seem very defensive of Java[1] and so I thought you would have first hand experience about how childish and irrational it is to attack someone else because they don't code in the same language as you.

And for programmers of other language, not all us Java guys are insecure assholes :)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5171053
I agree with the general idea, but think it can still serve benefits. From my own experience, Codecademy can be good training wheels but you have to go outside of it--essentially use it as a tool to know what's out there to play around with.

I agree with the rest of it, but would also add that in addition to writing out code, take notes, too. This can be alongside the code you just wrote or somewhere else, but take notes somewhere. This has a couple benefits: it usually means that you'll have to read an article or watch a video twice, plus it allows you think about what code is doing. Even if you're taking the advice to write out code, it's easy to gloss over that part.
The cost of building the thing has already been paid. It is a sunk cost. If it costs $352/hour to run the roadrunner and they can only get $150/hour in income to operate it, it don't matter how much it cost to build it.
I can explain. It was just a misunderstanding with Backupify! Backupify is cool. The name was trademarked because some shady companies were creating ransomware/shitty software and using World Backup Day to promote it. The lawyer was just overzealous with the stupid notices. :( I apologized to Rob about the other day.

But anyone can use the name! We just wanted to protect our visitors. I am just a college student and the site was hand-coded & designed by this awesome redditor who just graduated highschool.
Show HN: DubDub - Push Notifications For When WWDC Tickets Go On Sale
That was absolutely chilling! I am sorry I don't have anything of value to contribute but to me this is an historical equal to the Soviets launching a satellite into space. I think it deserves an internet infrastructure response from the US.

Thank you for posting
If you're not at an age where you've experienced the people around you "settling into" their default state, which tends to involve either/or marriage/kids for most people (in my experience, by the time people have hit 30-40), you really might want to consider the breadth of your perspective on social relations.
I'm not convinced that "screening them before" should quite extend to the level of "sponsorship fees" mentioned here: http://goo.gl/E1gKN
When you zoom in, the dust spots rotate. Awesome.
Which Learning Methods Actually Work?
When we find the time ;)

Or when someone compiles Ruby 1.9 to JS, I will add it.
Pick up some Forrest Mims books. You've probably seen them before.

http://www.amazon.com/s/url=search-alias%3Daps&field-key...
There's a similar one in Amsterdam.

Seems to be the only "special" icon in NL though.
Exactly. I recommend something like Codecademy to absolute beginners because it helps build muscle memory and gets your fingers wet. It helps you pass that initial mental paralysis where you're staring cluelessly at the screen. Codecademy needs to double down on these benefits and specialize for beginners (while making their limitations clear) or launch follow-up tutorials to help people advance and actually build real-world projects.
How to learn
Rails Tutorial (http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book) teaches you to do all those things and more. More importantly it is absolutely free. I'm just pointing it out as I wasn't sure whether you were referring to another book when you mentioned "Rails 3 Tutorial" as your next step.

For starting python I've seen http://learnpythonthehardway.org/ recommended a lot on here. It is also free online.
Small correction: The static keyword has not been removed. It takes the place of the const keyword which has been removed.
I'm more likely to finish a few chapters of a textbook than a series of videos:

1. Videos are usually too long. There isn't a natural break to stop and try things out. (Udacity does a good job with this one.)

2. Information density isn't constant. With text, this isn't an issue: I naturally adjust my reading speed if I hit a sparse or dense area. With video, I have to either live with it or constantly re-adjust the video speed.
None of the ogres or trolls are mapped in my neighborhood either, nor are there any ships falling off the map in to a pit of monsters, lame. Although I do give them points for the flatness of the map.
I don't see how something can be a "dirty secret" when everyone already knows about it. This is not news, and I think the author is well aware of that and just wanted an eye-grabbing headline.

As for courses being too fast: they're college courses. That's a core part of their value proposition. If they were slower, or did not follow a rigid schedule at all (like the "better" examples presented in the article), they would be a fundamentally different product. The author simply doesn't understand the concept behind MOOCs, and probably isn't their intended audience. He would be better served watching lectures on Youtube (I don't mean that sarcastically, there are fantastic courses available there).

Synchronous learning is not, as another poster claims, an anachronism. It simply isn't necessary or valuable for everyone. For some, myself included, it is a significant benefit. That is the market that Coursera and edX are targeting, and one shouldn't criticize a company simply because one isn't a member of their target market.
Built this as a Sunday morning project and it appears to work quite nicely. Feedback is welcome!
Damaged Underwater Cables Are Causing Internet Slowdown in India
That was for a proposed advertising package for reddit.com. That definitely isn't coming to me.

Why doesn't anyone believe me? I live in my parent's house and I got a broken car. I love HN because it helped inspire me to do something. That's all. I'm almost crying here. :'(

Please call me at [redacted] if you don't believe me.
First, it's my bed. Second, I didn't know the world was round, I've always thought it was flat.

Google's official blog post:
"Find treasure with Google Maps
Sunday, March 31, 2013 at 10:37 AM"

The YouTube video accompanying that post, published on March 31, 2013.

And Hacker News is a US-based and US-focused website. So excuse me for letting my US bias creep into my throwaway comment.

But I apologize to all those in Iran who are celebrating April Fools Day right now.
> and you can get architecture independence for free

And you target JavaScript for precisely the same reason :) Perhaps the better way to say it is this: C is a language which was once written by hand, but which is increasingly being used as a target for higher-level languages. The same thing is happening to JS, but at least to me "JavaScript is the new C" is not a particularly useful way to express that similarity.
You have to bootstrap onto the I2P network initially. There are several IPs hardcoded into the router by the I2P project, which are run by volunteers. If these IPs are blocked in your country, you are out of luck.

There are a few possible solutions to this. First, allow users to add new bootstrap nodes to the app. Second, provide "meshnet" functionality to the app. I am considering both. The latter is much more complex to implement, but Android provides an API called Wi-Fi Direct which I could conceivably use to connect Nightweb nodes together if they are in close proximity. I'm open to other ideas.
Did you get an internship without being in school for a CS degree?

I'm at a point somewhere between not knowing how to code and not being skilled/experienced enough for a jr developer position, and would work for next to nothing, but every internship I see requires that you be in pursuit of a BS in CS.
I disagree.

Learning to set up your own environment builds tenacity. Having a one click install would take away from the learning experience and the beginner maybe more likely to quit if something breaks or goes wrong instead of googling around for a fix.
I read that as "Because FundersClub has validated the business model," not because of the SEC approval.
I have taken classes at several top private and public universities and except in a few smaller, more advanced classes few questions were asked during the professor's lectures. And only some of those questions were helpful to the majority of the class. Having discussed this with many other students I believe this is typical, at least in US universities. (I have heard it is even worse in European and Asian universities where interruptions are discouraged. Is this true?)

I believe this is due to the constraints of the tradional class format. It is simply impossible to both cover the material and answer very many questions in typical length of a class. This means that if the class has more than a small number of students their questions simply cannot be answered during the lecture.

This is why many larger classes are divided into sections with labs run by grad students. These smaller forums are are better for discussion but their quality depends on finding grad students who are good at teaching. This is also fundamentally not scalable.

Online learning has the potential to break thru this limitation. The recent wave of MOOCs are a huge improvement over the online classes of just a few years ago. I believe there is still lots of room for improvement from both tailoring the class to the individual student (e.g fast vs slow pace) and A/B testing which has only just begun to be applied.

Interestingly some of these improvements can be applied to tradional classes some of which are already using online discussion forums and automated grading. A hybrid approach (in person lectures and discussions with full online support) will probably provide the best overall quality but will be more expensive than a pure online approach and not practical for people who can't physically attend classes.
I'm not sure we have the necessary language in common to communicate here. Functional programming is not just about stateless pure functions, it's also about composing computations. I'm curious if you've ever written in a natively lazy functional language like Haskell, or encountered `delay`/`force` promises in Scheme. The `const` I'm referring to is not the `const` of C et al: (http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/base/latest/doc/...) and is just an example.

A "promise" is a delayed computation. It's a stand-in for a value, and the computation referencing it will suspend its execution until a value is available for it to consume. Similarly with Iteratees. They encapsulate specific patterns for building computations out of other computations.

What makes the "promise" pattern relatively less imperative than threading callbacks is that it abstracts out a specific pattern for ordering a computation, so that it doesn't need to be restated every time.

What makes the "promise" pattern relatively less declarative than "purely declarative" is that the control of the computation can be specified in the language itself. It's just abstracted out to the pattern in common. Similarly to re-writing certain stateful `for` loops with `map`.

Promises are a pattern in the functional programming paradigm. The "functional programming community" is where the construct comes from, and using them lets you write code that is closer to the declarative ideals of functional programming than the article's specified alternative, threading callbacks, which has relatively more in common with the explicit control of the order of computation that is implied by imperative programming.

I don't see anything in the article that remotely justifies "It's not functional at all. This reaffirms my belief that blog posts are a terrible place to learn. People who know the least shout the loudest.". In fact, I don't see anything wrong with it at all, or anything that substantially disagrees with what I've said or what I've seen any of the type of (yet-unspecified) authorities of certified expertise that you've appealed to have said. Yes, Promises are relatively more declarative, but they're also relatively more functional, relatively less imperative, and I don't see any basis for calling somebody an idiot for not using those terms with total mutual exclusion.

So please, raise, any specific objections you have which I have not addressed, or else have the honesty to retract the undeserved insults you've thrown at the author of this article.