skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If she wants to sit in a cubicle churning out CRUD apps for businesses, then yeah, deep understanding of algorithms and data structures will rarely be called for.

If she wants to work on anything cool (the kind of problem that keeps you up at night), she almost certainly will run into a situation that involves knowing this stuff. I'm not just thinking of the usual definitions of 'cool' problems (compilers, etc). There are lots of problems that aren't as meta as a compiler that are also hard (and hence cool)... routing delivery vehicles, or optimizing any number of metrics.

Without a good grasp of what is out there, you'll be forced to do one of two things. Either you'll spend a lot more time than necessary to reinvent the wheel, or you'll implement the most straightforward solution, which might be far from optimal in both time and space. There is always the outside chance that you'll come up with something new and better than anything that already exists, but I'd argue the chances of that are much better if you already understand what is out there.

So yeah, I rarely need to do analysis for my day job, but am knee deep in combinatorial optimization algorithms for a side project.

For the followup question: any project that implements a language or a library is a place that good algorithms/data structures can make a tremendous difference. But there are applications everywhere. Even boring things like looking up a name in a phone book can benefit from knowing what a Trie is.
DHH interviewed by FLOSS Weekly (podcast)
A Game Development Example for Squeak
It is sometimes possible to use = for assignment, though I don't understand when this is and is not allowed. Most people avoid the issue by always using the arrow.

Somehow this does not seem like an auspicious starting statement!
Adobe knew about the Flash/Acrobat exploit for seven months
I think they call these propellers ;)
I agree -- and I've personally tried to create those incentives, whereby those people who have gone out of their way to improve things get the promotions and raises, and I make sure everyone knows why they're getting paid more. They see it going to the quiet guy who just kept tackling things he saw needed to be fixed, and then asking for more, and it certainly helped open some eyes. But not as much as you might expect.
Understand algorithms, data structures, and "theoretical" topics adds tools to your toolbox. If you are working on anything interesting, chances are you will end up re-inventing half a dozen wheels, taking much longer and coming up with a far less elegant and workable solution. The reason complicated topics exist is because they helped earlier solve problems that weren't obvious, and those problems are the ones worth solving.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, yes, you can write code knowing only the basics, and yes you can cobble something together, but you'll always be limited by yourself.

Not to mention, learning more theory can help open your mind to other categories of solutions and more ways to approach problems
Scratch that webnote
R is a superb prototyping language for statistical work, but making it work right for batch work is unnecessarily difficult IMHO. Still, an immensely useful tool.
And j seems simple and logical in comparison to this
ASK HN: Leading articles feature request
There's a leaders table, but what about leading submissions (of all time)? The more obvious the previous posts garnering karmic respect are, the more likely future posts are to follow suit, no?

[EDIT: I was going to say with the exception of external sites - I doubt all HN readers use/know about searchyc.com - but I thought it was implied by giving the motivation. One objection I can see to incorporating the data into HN, is that if submissions are made into a competition it could shift the primary focus of the site?]
Actually the house is seen as all architecture, the architect is relatively free from engineering concerns (bridge, all engineering.)

I agree though, to do something new, or to implement new ideas that have not been libraryized you need to understand the algorithms and be able to implement them.

Is it necessary? You can earn a salary without it. You can also earn a salary selling houses, it doesn't matter, it depends what you want to do. You need what you want.
Useful Things You Didn’t Know Static Typing Could Do
Indeed. I feel very screwed over by all of this. Making the wrong decisions got people lots of free money. Making the right decisions got me nothing, except interest on my savings account is now so low that it barely makes up inflation. (It was nearly 5% before all this!)

All these people that don't pay off their credit cards ensure that those who do get higher interest rates and fewer services. Thanks a lot, guys...
"Knowing the standard algorithms and data structures will help you in cases where you want something which is almost but not quite standard. For example, I recently wrote a no-inserts hash table, because for my particular application I wanted to start with a populated table and then gradually remove entries; by removing the ability to insert entries, I made the code much simpler and faster (no need for rehashing!) -- but if I hadn't been entirely familiar with standard hash tables, I wouldn't have been able to do this."

That is a great example (and answer!) thanks!
>> once lawyers get involved, nobody ever really wins except the lawyers.

Once you can't trust the people you're hiring, you can't win anyway.

My recommendation would still be the legal agreement, although I do agree with you that only the lawyers win. At the very least it should act as a deterrent - at least the freelancer can't win, so why bother stealing the idea? Just make sure that you verify their real identity and some information first, otherwise you have no way to enforce a contract.
Disclaimer: Totally amateur (ignorant?) comment.

At an atomic/particle level, movement (speed) is related to temperature. If something reached 0 degrees Kelvin, there's no particle movement at all. You could argue that since time is relative to space (as opposed to an independent variable), time would slow down as temperature goes down. If the whole universe is cooling, maybe time is slowing down.

Source info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_temperature
I write in a mixture of cursive and print. Sometimes I'll write in cursive to offset text written in print, or vice versa. Ever since I learned cursive in the 4th grade, I've preferred writing in it. It feels more natural, more flowing.

I'd like to think my cursive is legible, but I generally write notes, papers, etc. for others in print.
you forgot the -r flag ;)
I thought the same thing. The fact that the article is said to have been in Turkish doesn't help with the fact finding effort.
I thought the same, but just 10 minutes searching around the sys-con sites I found plenty of evidence that Sys Con Founder Fuat Kircaali has a pretty intense temper and uses his entire company to channel it.

He would make a pretty hilarious sitcom character. It's pretty entertaining until you realize it's real and like Aral you're the victim of his wrath.

Google him and go to his own sys-con page (I won't link straight to it to avoid paying them google juice) and see his article on "Social Media Terrorists" for a classic result of what happens when a powerful man has too much of a temper. I took a screenshot incase they pull it down:

http://skitch.com/pelle/b3fam/social-media-terrorists-coldfu...

I would be embarrassed to have anything to do with that company. And yes the advertisers (like Sun, IBM etc really should not encourage that sort of behavior. Luckily Sys-Con is such a web 1.0 like company and I had happily forgotten all about them until I saw this article.
when I was looking into apl-esque paradigms the coolest thing I stumbled upon was a language called nialhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nial - very clean and really good use of syntax! I am going to check out J for sure though - thanks.
At least, they look younger.
The ZQ Community
I read that as an inbuilt in Python. facepalm
Those are all good points but I think it can work for Twitter because it's the only service that's:
- Real time;
- Accessible from anywhere; and
- With a huge userbase already.

I realize it would be a huge engineering endeavor for them. That said, as I mentioned in the article, if they don't go the "Twitter dollars" route they can go through a third party like PayPal's new open API or Amazon, which would make things easier.
I wonder what that would do. Would we start to live in a universe where entropy was reversed?
That is lots of paperwork. Think of 4-6 months at least.
Well I used to agree with what you said until I realized spammers can't start to chip away at your brand and image on Twitter. One new tactic they've just started is using @replies to show up in your stream. Just recently I've had a sex toy company and a female escort service @ reply using my handle. While everyone knows I am not a sexual deviant (at least I hope they know that.), I don't think this is good for anyone's personal or company brand. One way I have found to combat this is by just blocking the persons account. Then the @ reply disappears. But once spammers figure this one and out these types of @ replies become rampant, how long will I have to spend blocking these people?
If she is looking to be mediocre and use writing software as a ramp into being a nearly-technically-competent manager, then no, algorithms and data structures are not important. If she wants to have any deep understanding of this field? Well, 90% of it is data structures and algorithms. If you are so adverse to taking such classes, maybe IT vs CS is the path.
"a great many gifted and motivated young people are excluded from college for no other reason than their ability to pay, and we have failed seriously to confront the problem."

I can only think of two people who came somehwat closeclose to this description, and they were weighed down by family obligations, not paying for college per se.

I almost find it hard to believe in America that someone would be kept out of college by the price of admission. Many grants and scholarships are need based or partially need based, not to mention that many of the rest are achievement based so the "High Achieving Student" discussed here would qualify for those as well. Also, student loans are generally not hard to get.

Finally, if they could not finance it in other ways this "High Achieving" student they could join the military. If you are active duty, 100% of tuition is paid and your salary will easily handle books. The Gaurd programs differ by state, but they pay most tuition. Also, if you accept a commitment ROTC will pay.

If you need to support a family (such as having a child while still in high school or being the primary caregiver for a sister after your parents died) that might be a nearly insurmountable barrier, but aside from that I find it hard to believe a "High Achiever" would not be able to get into college for purely financial reasons.
"I begun to remember how much I hate business books..."

He's also illustrating the value of hiring a good editor.
that's why more people should be on ROWE (http://www.culturerx.com/) then their manager's schedules would be MORE efficient :)
Every system like that should have checks and balances built in to the system. The fact that there is no backup of this crucial documentation is quite amazing, that there is no way to reconstruct it even more (because after all, you did live that life and there are countless people that could testify to that).
I think that the lifestyle described would be amazing except for one fact: limited electricity and no internet.
because scientist working in US universities had to apply for the same green card quota as MS/Intel/Google

This doesn't mesh with my experience. They had to work within the same H1-B quota as the commercial sector. I agree that this is a serious problem in research institutions that are not affiliated with a university (universities can issue J visas for their visiting scientists and thus bypass the H1-B quota).

Green cards are different in that there is a fast track for people with world-class scientific expertise. It is possible to get a green card in under a year in that category. That said, that doesn't help people in the commercial sector who are just as equally valuable to the brain trust, which was the point of the article.

I think the US would benefit from a points-based immigration system like Canada and Australia have. That way you can qualify for residency independently from your employer's whim, and the government can manipulate the point value of different skills to fill holes in expertise.
Why technical marketing is important for programmers
A Better Way to Share Links in Email
The Dreamliner dreams on
thanks for this - exploring how R is vs. Statistica
Clojuratica: An Interface Between Clojure and Wolfram Mathematica
Friends of Ed offers one of their web development books on their website each Thursday as a $10 eBook. Apress also has a daily $10 offer, but Apress's are often outdated or about non-web technologies.
It's a double edged sword. Easy access to lots of people also means lots of people competing for the same resources. So if you are not 100% on the ball and moving that ball as fast as you can chances are somebody else will run with it.

In more relaxed atmospheres you might have a chance to make it on a slower pace but it will never be the hit that it could be without the power of the bay area behind it.

It's like going to hollywood if you're a pretty girl and you think the camera loves you. There are lots of pretty girls in hollywood and they all compete for that same attention. Don't be surprised if you end up waiting tables for the people that did make it - and you didn't.

To be a big fish in a small pond has its advantages, you have fairly little competition and you are almost guaranteed some exposure. But the chances of hitting out of the park are diminished by a similar factor.
Well, it seems you have a great service for Chamonix, and that's a good start.
I live in Whistler, and have been somewhat affiliated with this market in the past.

From a usability perspective, your homepage didn't really make me want to click on anything. It didn't make me want to enter a search.
You've got a great big photo of a mountain, and you tell me what you do, but I often prefer to be 'shown'.

Basically, i think you've got a bunch of text, and actually using the service looks to be somewhat secondary.

Once I actually go to the listings chamonix/accomodations page, the layout isn't super easy to browse through.
I use a 3 column layout like you do for featured items, but find a list much more easy to read when you have lots of listings.

The accomodation view pages I really quite like. This is of course one of the most important pages on your site. It is very clearly laid out, and usable. Lots of pictures is good, etc.

what is your plan on spreading this beyond Chamonix?

i took a quick look at some of the top google results for 'find location properties', and the first few results were not very appealing, which is very surprising. you may have found yourself a good market here.
"For example, I recently wrote a no-inserts hash table, because for my particular application I wanted to start with a populated table and then gradually remove entries; by removing the ability to insert entries, I made the code much simpler and faster (no need for rehashing!) -- but if I hadn't been entirely familiar with standard hash tables, I wouldn't have been able to do this."

The great thing about this answer is that it gives a specific example from personal experience - which the submission explicitly asked for (vs platitudes about how acquiring algorithmic knowledge is "cool" in general, with references to code monkeys/CRUD/dumb managers and so on).

Everyone agrees deep algorithmic knowledge is a good thing to have in general. Specific, practical examples, based on personal work or experience are hard to find - Skiena's book on algorithms gives some examples. He calls them "war stories".

I suspect that the student is right in that most programmers never use the algorithmic theory they learn and most jobs are the "stitch together api s" type. But if she is building something like etherpad for example, she would need seep algorithmic knowledge - essentially when a programmer "goes where no one has gone before" and builds something truly innovative.
Kids hate flashcards?
Don't mind being down voted, just curious:

1.Isolationists disagreeing with my "not all intervention is bad" position?

2. Against anything that might weaken government control?

3. Outraged by my suggestion that someone who's family was disappeared by Augusto Pinochet might turn their anger at the US?
If the male Peacock can be produced by a runaway beauty contest then of course the same can happen in other species, including humans.
Perhaps it also might go towards explaining why we need leap seconds every few years
This post is a bit old but still 100% valid. Jinja is a bit smarter than Django templates in some areas, includes Django support, and is wicked fast with the C speedups.
Why should the electronic version be significantly cheaper? The real cost of a book is paying a good author to do it.
So, how about 'is handwriting dead ?'

I find that I sometimes can't even read my own notes after a couple of hours, forget about weeks or months.

The faster I get with a keyboard the worse it seems my writing skills are.
Hey, the internet must be broken because I read Mr. Diller's words and didn't pay a thing.

Oops. Barry, you might want to consider your audience when talking to a reporter who works for an advertiser-supported publication.

That's rather an admission Diller hasn't really been to the clue store in a while.
FreshDirect wrote "an enormous amount of code" to minimize boxes per order
I forgot that Jinja had some C speedups. I think the last time I installed it, I was in a rush and there was an error.

It makes me wonder if http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2008/9/16/why-jinja-is-not-django-an... is using the speedups or not. It seems that 400 ms might be slow with them all enabled...
Not to mention Google Reader being counted as only one person.
I don't agreed with you.

Apples products work well. They've have genuine quality to them, not only in build, but also in functionality.
Apple’s Tablet Is The Kindle In Technicolor (With Laser Beams)
That doesn't make sense. The banks make money off people who carry a balance.
Nice thought, except that temperature is simply a measure of speed. When something is said to be a certain temperature, it is said to be moving at such a speed with a certain amount of kinetic energy. That is why when liquids get "hot" enough, they start emitting gas... which is really just particles that have essentially reached the escape speed of their respective surface tension (roughly speaking).

Which is sort of a backwards way of saying that General Relativity actually talks about the relationship between speed and time, saying the faster an object is going, the slower (in a sense...) it is travelling through time.
Stealth Search Engine Blekko Raises $11.5 Million
The central plot device of the movie is that the CEO tries to hire the people developing some innovative software. One of them joins, but the other refuses. The first guy realises that the CEO is stealing his friend's code in order to make their 'own' new product.

And as for '3rd graders' - lose the attitude. This is HN, not digg.
My uncle had horrible handwriting, and then learned calligraphy, so he now writes beautifully. I would be sad to see that art form die off. But other than that, I'm happy to see cursive handwriting disappearing.
or "If you don't ask, you don't get."
Media moguls rethink Web advertising in downturn
I never noticed this before, interesting.
Money considerations may influence kids long before we bother to measure whether they're high-achieving or not.
How to opt out of being Facebook's corporate shill with privacy ad settings
The Scheme Language, and Using it on the iPhone [slideshow]
Gawker Media revenues up 45% in first half
"they are engaged in a zero-sum game to extract as much value as possible from the world"

I don't think this describes what a Silicon Valley startups are doing at all-- specifically, it's not a zero-sum game. Lots of startups are creating new markets that didn't exist before them.
I'd really like to hear any answers to "Are there Open Source projects which demand a high level of algorithmic knowledge?" I suspect (but don't know for sure) that the linux/bsd etc kernels and networking code would be full of neat algorithm/data structure tricks.

Maybe a shortcut to find such projects or applications would be to look for projects where high performance is a critical (vs nice to have) property of the program.
4chan's explanation of the AT&T blocking
This is tied to an earlier article about arguing. It's difficult to win an argument if your position is based on facts and another person's argument is based on their opinion...
Usury doesn't mean that high-risk debtors will have access to credit with reasonable interest rates; it means they won't have access to credit at all. If you're in a situation where your best option is to take a 25% loan to pay for bills, that's a truly shitty situation, but how can it be improved by taking that option (which we just agreed was your best option) off the table?

Some of my thinking on this subject was the result of this excellent thread on payday lenders: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=543086
Also, AT&T's statement: http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&...

Including this amusingly phrased statement: "Here's more on how AT&T's denial-of-service works."
A friend of mine has a 2 year-old daughter. She's already learning how to type on the keyboard, though she's still a couple years away from entering school. Most likely, when she reaches age 5 or 6 she will already be able to read and write fluently with a computer, maybe have an IM account and even chat, but she will not be able to do handwriting.
Bring a ham radio station, that would be my plan.
Because the majority of the percentage of the price goes to the publisher, not the author. Since the publisher is incurring less cost for producing an electronic copy, they should charge less.
Combining HTTP and JavaScript APIs with php
Use XML/Text HTTP APIs and JavaScript, combining with php and get a ip to geo location aggregator (or use the free script directly).
Thank you both, hopefully I'll remember them for next time!
Definitely going to try to make this one - first time. I am have randomly met some fellow HN contributors, but never actually gone to a meetup.
Thanks for the suggestions, one of my team members has been gushing about Resharper, but I haven't checked out those other ones.
Brochures printing
What stops you from never deciding on a good answer and just using the service for free?
No, it defaults to recursively scanning the current directory, but you can easily override this if you want, eg:

setup(dirs=['.', '../lib'])
AT&T's response to the 4chan blocking
The US presidential election was won with influence and money. Would Obama have won as an independent candidate? In that sense, the election was indeed gamed. Andrew too, is trying to use his influence (his 4630 Twitter followers) to win votes on HN. Because other stories on HN don't have the weight of massive Twitter broadcasts behind them, I view Andrew's actions as gaming the system.