skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The career I've had for the past 15 years--building websites--did not even exist when I started college.

The world you will live in in your 40s will be radically different than the world you live in today. Education is the best tool you can ever hope to have for coping with that change.

Go to college and make sure you study things you don't like or don't think are important--like literature, or art, or a foreign language. This will force you to get good at learning things, which is the #1 skill you need to thrive over your lifetime. (But being good at writing and analyzing is itself a very useful skill to have.)

If you are worried about the debt load, then do something to mitigate that, specifically. Do the first two years at a community college and then transfer to a university. Or take a couple years to work, and save up your money, then go to school. Or go part time while you work.

But definitely pursue your education. Otherwise you put yourself at the mercy of other people who did.
And that's a problem at least an order of magnitude more serious than which few pixels the cursor is covering.
It's other way around: with S3 you don't need your own server. KISS
All true thoughts, although I am happier the "European idea" (which in your case I take to mean as a federated superstate, do correct me if I am wrong) would be replaced by a looser, EFTA type arrangement.

I mean, wouldn't that lead to more decentralization (and thus innovation, and competition, and yes, yelling at each other but that's how you get the best ideas, not "the center declares an idea and everyone else implements it")

As an added bonus, it's more democratic.
Then you are doing it wrong. ;)

But seriously: How do you do common things such as `query-replace{-regex}` or `indent-region`? Have you rebound them all?
I would love to see a dataset of English word-pairs rated by their severity (i.e., how much "very" applies to modify the first to get the second on a scale from -1 to 1).

For example, "quiet" would have "silent" rated as 1, "roomy" might have "spacious" listed close to 0, and "gorgeous" would have "pretty" as negative.
http://Libgdx.com will do that for Java; also free.
> - I optimized for compression by doing things the same way everywhere; e.g. I always put the class attribute first in my tags

Compression algorithms can do a better job when they're domain-aware. An HTML-aware algorithm could compress HTML much better than a general-use plain-text compression algorithm, without requiring the user to do things like put the class attribute first. Of course, that also requires the decompression algorithm to be similarly aware, which can be a problem if you're distributing the compressed bits widely.
All the more reason to do our best to organize and share correct information about it.
The most useful words for a mathematical writer :)
If for nothing else - it shows MSFT's commitment to the language, to the platform and to the framework.
Ask: Has programming disrupted your companion relationship? 
I have been filling my programming toolbox with new technologies whilst building stuff for other people. Recently, I believe my relationship with my significant other has become a little rocky because of the time I've spent developing side projects outside my full time job. An example, this previous weekend I was working toward a deadline that was set for the beginning of this week, and had worked Saturday and Sunday (last night until 4 am). I am very dedicated in improving my programming skills/building my career and my significant other says they understand, but I don’t believe they do. Maybe I am bad at time management between work/life? Has anyone else dealt or is dealing with this type of situation and have recommendations?
haha ok. meow!
Net Blow-up Prototype
True! I'm just saying that good craftsmanship lies in understanding the situation and finding an appropriate balance. Ultra-efficient code is virtuous, but it's not the only virtue.
Not that it adds much, but the maps must not take into account Comcast's other holdings. The Upper Midwest is missing from that map which includes Midcontinent Communications which is a jointly owned by Comcast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midcontinent_Communications
Very impressive. I wish extreme performance goals and requirements would become a new trend. I think we have come to accept a certain level of sluggishness in web apps. I hate it.

I wrote a tire search app a few years back and made it work extremely fast given the task at hand. But I did not go to the level that this guy did. http://tiredb.com
Haha, thanks man.

I actually was blackout drunk for the first time in awhile and woke up to a bunch of extremely in depth comments about trivial stuff I had made here and on Reddit. Riddled with the standard grammatical errors.

Wish I had done something more productive really, come on drunk me.
Amish Hackers [2009]
I kind of fall in between the two streams of responses here.

On one hand, I feel that most of what I've REALLY learned about CS came after graduation. To be sure, I memorized a lot in school, at least long enough to regurgitate it on tests or briefly apply it in contrived class projects. However, I didn't permanently ABSORB that knowledge until entering the workplace. Working on non-trivial projects, enduring code reviews with very smart senior people, etc.

Perhaps having gone through a CS curriculum left marks on my subconscious, and made it easier to learn in the real world. I don't know. However, I certainly felt like a babe in the woods at my first job after graduation. A CS program did not equip me for the brass tacks I needed as a junior level programmer. By the time I reached the point in my career when I was making design decisions and needed strong CS knowledge, I was years out of school and was learning (or re-learning) those concepts through other means.

On the other hand, I would say that it's foolishly short-sighted to forgo the credential on your resume. It is less important when you're young, and working for startups or small shops. However, with age you will eventually find yourself working for larger and more conservative companies (yes, there are exceptions to the rule, but how many 60-year old coders to you meet at the typical startup?). You simply MUST have a degree in order to get past the H.R. drones in those environments. Hell, this is still OFTEN the case even in small shops.

You can get around this glass ceiling by going into business for yourself. Running your own startup, or consulting practice... building a network, drumming up clients, and bypassing H.R. However, not everyone is made for that life. It's really more of a business career than it is a technical one. Also, what sounds exciting in your 20's might be a completely different story when you're in your 40's with a family... but at that point you're still 20+ years from retirement!

To sum it up, I don't know that you need a degree to be a strong software developer... but it IS a really important credential for the long-haul, which is easier to get under your belt when you're young. I should add that there's NO need to spend $100K or more on this. Although you need a degree to get past many H.R. drones, no one cares where your degree came from (or oftentimes whether you majored in CS even!).

If I were 18-years old now, in today's climate of crazy tuition costs, I would go route of spending two years in community college knocking out my core, and then transfer to a university for my major. Only the university shows up on your resume anyway, and no one cares. At the very least, I would attend a state school rather than a private institution. You might even consider pursuing your degree through night classes, while working by day. That's a PAINFUL lifestyle, but much more doable when you're young and don't have a family yet.
I have a number of friends in various pockets of the IT industry who do not have four-year degrees.

Of those, the ones that are > 40 wish they had the degree. I suspect they're hitting the upper bound of the career ladder for non-grads at the majority of the corporations in the U.S.

I can't predict the future, so I'm not sure if this limitation will still exist when you're > 40. It's just a factor to consider.

If you can make a comfortable living now, and you have the right self-discipline and temperament, you might consider working and doing school part-time. A Bachelor's will take much longer than four years, but it is doable.

Also, consider that you'll probably be working into your 60s. Why the big hurry to start full-time work at 18?

Just some random things to think about.

Edited to add: When I was younger, my dad told me to do the things now that leave you the most opportunities later. Getting a four-year degree would fall into that category, I think.
Porque no los dos ? (said in annoying taco-commercial voice)

If you can truly get a 60-80K job, then do it and go to school part-time; if you prefer, go to college full-time, and work part-time; if you make 30K, then you can attend college and come out debt-free. You won't be the first or the last person to work while in college.

A degree is very important; both for the education and for the piece of paper; however, it does not have to be full-time, or done in 4 years.
so no, no official way to change that main cursor.
Google "Trying not to be evil" (2010)
> a working knowledge of this will develop into the next important thing 5-10-20 years from now

Do you know something the rest of us do not about "the next important thing"? Surely you can imagine a scenario in which your "cutting-edge" skills become devalued. If history is any indication of things to come, such a scenario isn't that far-fetched.

> "Computer Science", as it is taught, can be 30+ years out of date, depending on the course

You're right - some courses are garbage. But when I was in school, the courses I took on databases, algorithms, AI, and mobile robotics were extremely relevant and still are today. Most CS curriculums teach fundamentals and concepts, which have never gone out of style.

When you say "30+ years out of date" the first thing that comes to mind is a computer engineering class I took based on the intel 8085 (1977), which was about 30 years old when I took the class. Writing assembly code for the 8085 happened to be one of the most interesting and important parts of my CS career, despite being 30+ years out of date compared to the Java and Python code I write these days.
Being a good draftsman is like being a good painter; it's all in the prep. There's a lot of work that goes into getting things setup and guides in place before the first real line hits the paper.

If you watch someone that's really good with a CAD program you'll see they do more work with things that don't end up on the final drawing than they do on the actually drawing.
This looks like it is probably a great lifestyle business (based on the claimed API requests and pricing) but I'm not sure that I would call it a startup. It sounds like it hasn't even had an employee devoted to it until recently. There isn't anything wrong with that at all but for a "startup" this wouldn't be a great outcome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company
>I anticipate being able to acquire a moderately well-paying ($60,000 to $80,000+) development job after leaving high school.

I think you need to be more realistic about your expectations. If you have no prior work experience you'll have a hard time finding someone to take a chance on you much less pay you 6k a month. Statistically speaking highschool graduates earn less on average than those with bachelors or associates. If you don't have a bachelors you will need at least fours years of full time experience as a front-end dev to compensate.

My first job after I earned my bachelors was as a front end developer and I was only making 4k a month (in Minnesota circa 2012) however it took me 8 months of searching (i think i cold called/submitted resumes to 50+ companies) and enlisting the help of two separate creative recruiting agencies as well as other individual recruiters who contacted me through sites like monster etc. It took that many people to help me find a job even when I had a 4 year degree from a school with a name that carried weight in the local community.

I tested the waters in SF as well by sending resumes to a few startups and I got a call one day from a recruiter. He went on to tell me that he really liked my design work and that I had a good eye for it but unfortunately my resume was simply too lacking in experience and no one was going to even consider me without 2-3 years of full time experience. He was really cool about it, taking the time out of his day to help me level me expectations as well as giving me some advice.

My suggestion would be to pursue a degree, even if it's just an associates. It would really be a shame to be denied a promotion so late in your career because you don't have a degree.
Audi guns for Tesla with Q8 e-tron SUV
Hi, how do you check if the snippet it pulls from stackoverflow works? Static analysis?
Nom Nom No Cartoon
It was used in Perth, AU when I was there ~15 years ago.
While I see your point, you're comparing a closed-source proprietary platform to the web. Apples to oranges if you ask me
a funding culture, a bootstrap entrepreneurial culture

These are two counter tendencies. The funding is available in Silicon Valley, but then your company might end up being loaded with startup bros and senior leaders in order to please the VCs. The bootstrapping is an attempt to avoid this and related outcomes (e.g., losing control over the company).
Is that a typo in the first word of the headline, or am I failing to parse the headline correctly?
The dev tools are good, though I think some of the documentation on msdn needs a lot of cleanup/improvement. It is not uncommon to get routed to older API versions or different languages. That said, it is getting better over time.

This tool definitely helps with C#.

One thing I like about Apple developer docs (on developer.apple.com) that MSDN doesn't have (at least didn't last time I looked) is the ability to get a PDF covering specific topics. These are useful when I would rather have not deal with a browser while developing.
+1 for jq. Lifechanging. I had to build it on CentOS6, but as you said, super easy.
The Guardian is left-wing and not surprisingly usually leaning anti-American.

I think if you were to ask the self-anointed 'elites' in the Guardian editorial room and then the British people what they think of America, you would find somewhat divergent percentages of pro- and anti-...

As an American, I love Britain and believe in the Special Relationship, as much as the Guardian (and occasionally our current President) would poo-poo the whole thing.
> Check out /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HiServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/cursors

Wow. Of all the good that OSX inherited from UNIX, why did it have to wreck any notion of a reasonable directory structure?
I have to admit that I actually came to look at the comments to see what kind of gymnastics the haters would have to do to say that this sucks...

I bet that the first one is going to be something about buttonmashers...I mean programmers using cut and paste and how they suck compared to real programmers...who must be using Go to write blockchain applications to fight the NSA.
All this left/right brain stuff is a myth[1]. I don't doubt doing something other than programming when you are stuck helps. My best ideas come in the shower, for example.

http://www.livescience.com/39373-left-brain-right-brain-myth...
> The only thing I see.missing is the money

It might not be all about what you see. To be fair, the same applies to me.

I didn't want to imply that the industry lacks good people in Europe either. But your examples do go in the direction I'm talking about. Big bio tech and university-tie-ins are not risky, experimental, high stakes affairs. They're predictable and respectable.
I belive it should be 'Through'
Google has been in The Netherlands for a while FWIW. That doesn't mean a startup campus isn't a good idea though!

Google Amsterdam
Claude Debussylaan 34
Vinoly Mahler 4
Toren B, 15th Floor
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Having this for Monodevelop and Unity3d would be great. Even better if we have community curated suggestions.
I usually enjoyed raganwald's posts, and agreed with him from time to time, but not always. But these "so and so is quitting HN" posts don't seem very valuable to me. It's arguably unfortunate that raganwald is leaving, but the site will go on. Eventually, HN may degrade into a modern version of Slashdot and maybe more and more of the old-timers will gradually drift away. There's no doubt that a number of them already have. But there's not much point getting all worked up over any one individual leaving.

I know pg has put a lot of thought into how to keep the level of discourse high, and into how to prevent the "Eternal September" effect. Maybe he'll succeed. Maybe not. In the meantime, let's talk about something interesting. :-)
I've also been playing around with gulp, and whilst still in the 'trying to use it like grunt' kind of mindset, I have seen some merit in using these stream based build tools.

Have to wonder why this all requires new build tools to achieve though.

It's obviously technically possible (npm shows grunt-gulp which does exactly what you'd think), so is the grunt architecture so firmly rooted in files that streams could not be leveraged, or is it something that will come in time?

Personally managed to get a nigh on perfect build process using grunt-watch, so no rush to move away.

Nice to see build tools still moving forward though.
The speed difference is negligible. The price difference for a custom domain is not.
ITT: perfect illustration of why he left, and why you should probably follow suit.
If everything is apps in the future then "front end" technologies may be compiled native code like Objective C or Java or even Python.

If your computer only uses voice, the "front end" technology stack is very different from what we have today for websites.

If government and market forces cause the web industry to stagnate over time (see: net neutrality, pervasive privacy concerns), then the hot industry of the future might be something totally different.
Nevertheless, it's good to be at a place where both are valid options for non-bigshot founders.
Look, I'm not a huge fan of resumes, either, but if your suggested alternative is "beef up your LinkedIn profile", then I submit you've not got a single clue what you're talking about. This is bolstered by the fact that you apparently still think "hitting the ground running" is a thing that exists in the world. I will enjoy hiring the good developers that you've missed, just because you think PHP is some magical language to which solid experience in other programming languages does not translate.

I mean, seriously, fucking LinkedIn endorsements!?
>>We actually ask websites to tell they're a part of this, but we cannot control what they do because they can simply display:none.

You could certainly just check to see they're using it properly. Do a screen scrape or even have someone hit the page every month or two, ban anyone abusing it by not notifying users.
The CS degree isn't worth what you'd have to pay for it, but you'll need the knowledge later in your career. Your intuition that "I'm also worried that not pursuing a degree will exclude me from certain well-paying jobs, especially later in my career" is spot-on.

My advice is this: If you have the discipline to take night classes, see if you can pursue the degree part-time while working part-time. Taking one or two classes at a time - especially in CS where you have a bit of experience - should be a breeze.
If your schedule is that tight, you've already failed.
Won't antitrust regulators oppose this?
One quick correction is that founders typically have common stock, not preferred.
fantastic post @oxplot! That chart of time vs motivation is unbelievably true.
ViziCities 3D city visualisation is now open-source
Biased hiring practices like...GPA?
...besides, when I hear the word pointer mentioned within the context of computing, I'm more inclined to think of things like stack pointers and instruction pointers.
A lot of these features sound similar to MinimaLT: http://cr.yp.to/tcpip/minimalt-20130522.pdf

Do you have explicit DoS protections?
Why $50,000 in loans? How about a state school? You can always get an MS at a private school later.

Getting a job may be easy now, but how about when it is like it was in 2001 or 2008? You will be competing for each job with several others who have a BSCS? That is for jobs that do not explicity require a BSCS. You may also be married with children then. You have the time now and lack financial obligations other than keeping yourself fed.

I know people like John Carmack and Jamie Zawinski are out there, but it very rare to meet someone without a college degree who knows what primitive recursive functions are, or how to design a four number binary adder with logic gates, or the difference between deterministic and nondeterministic pushdown automata and so forth. People without a degree might know all the keywords for a language, but are usually lacking on some abstract theoretical level. Another problem is not just what they do not know, it is what they do not even know that they do not know.

Of course you know your own personal situation better than any one else. But if you can go to school you should. Even two years of learning will help. But some of it is on you, tests and homeworks do not cut it, if you are learning an important subject, sometimes you should spend hours studying beyond what you need to get an A. Or doing independent projects to get some real world grasp of the some theory.
I detest the walled garden, but we know from experience that most regular people that own their "own" computers rarely control what's on them.

For them it's either control by Apple/Google/etc or "hackers".
I don't know exactly what the issue might be, just read in some online forums that they still use the runtime from Novell days.
Is there a way to redirect all[1] requests to index.html? The use case is an Ember app that uses history location and is deployed as a static website. In this case, requests to `/whatever` still need to serve index.html and let Ember handle the routing. Can GAE app.yaml specify rules like this?

I ran into this problem with S3 and ended up writing a simple server to handle it and deploying to Heroku.

[1] By all, I mean all except the ones to /assets or something similar.
It makes for shitty writing.
You don't have to go there; especially not the whole 4 years; just googled Illinois state is more like $6500, and community colleges are way cheaper -- and you can use CLEP too! (OTOH, CS at UIUC would look really coll on the resume, so maybe transfer for your last 2 years, or go for an MS)
It pains me if I am honest. Our CMS is built on .NET and it's like an uphill battle selling it as it's on IIS and it's .NET. I have played around with the idea of reworking it into an open source language and open source database but I would miss Visual Studio and the language a lot.

I don't get all the hate?
Android app to make your life easier
Do you receive SMS with list of what you need to buy? If yes, this app will help you!
Check it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.avapps.smstodo
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPFNDA2qVzg
What this app do? Just helps you to build todo list from SMS message. Thats all, no ad, no monetization :)
The cable industry was substantially deregulated in the 1990's. For example, municipalities were prohibited from granting exclusive franchises in 1992: https://www.mackinac.org/10118. Most areas continue to have only one cable company for the simple reason that it's not profitable to compete with the incumbents.
Could you give me a list of all your CDN domains so I can blacklist you?
Government Aims to Build a ‘Data Eye in the Sky’ (2011)
Can't wait for round 2!