skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
We had a client who wouldn't upgrade because they had several key programs that would only run on IE6, one of which included their accounting software.

I can only imagine how many hackers are licking their chops right now. I'm pretty sure some groups have been working on exploits for a while now, getting ready for the coming gold rush.
Apply your logic to another group which is dragging down society to competing at a level "we" don't find socially acceptable. Yay for slut shaming?

(For the record I don't advocate slut shaming and enjoy the company of promiscuous women. Just pointing out that Rayiner's logic applies equally well here.)
So true. On one side you have tech blogs & hackers launching successful (or not) start ups. But one should not forget that on the other side you still have many people in big companies dealing with pre 90' databases or applications, interacting with their unhelpful computer guy, struggling with ie6 or ie7. You can bring some joy to them one application at a time.
Ask HN: Consultants, what problem are you solving for companies?
TLDR: I am wondering how to go from contracting at $65 per hour to consulting fees based on the value I provide to the company.

One thing that stuck with me when reading Sebastian Marshall and patio11 is the idea of charging weekly rates. Sadly I don't think it applies to me. I think the key issue is I am not solving the right kind of business problem by marketing myself as web developer. There are lots of web developers so I am somewhat of a commodity. In effect I am selling my hourly programming labor.

What I need to do is find a business problem I can solve and market myself as the solution. Then I can charge based on the value I am providing rather than the hours I am putting in. If I can show I provide $100,000 of value then I could maybe charge $6,000 a week and how much time I spent working would be less relevant to the client.

The above outlines my understanding of the difference between a consultant and a contractor and why consultants are paid more. My understanding is consultants provide a solution to a problem whereas contractors provide raw labor. I think of it as a spectrum between labor and product. Consultants are closer to being a product rather than labor.

So I'm looking for examples of how other people market themselves as consultants rather than "programmer labor" so I can come up with my own idea.
I fail to see what it offers over Ceylon. http://ceylon-lang.org For the past two years I feel that Kotlin has gotten more hype than work put in it.
Recently found this :

http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs1101s/sicp/

SICP in Javascript.While the coding style is a little bit old school this should be linked in every javascript book / blog about learning Javascript. This stuff is just awesome.

I would gladly pay 30 bucks for a revised paper back version.
YCombinator asks for solutions to the world's water, food and energy problems. Instead they get 37 incarnations of 2048.
Show HN: Game #11: The Three Hearts
One of my friends (who is an anarcho capitalist) replied:

There's nothing wrong with creating groups, as long as nobody forces me to be a member. I'll read about open source vs free software, but I think you know my view: I'm against IP because I'm against legal fictions, because they violate natural property rights.

No one is forcing you to become a member of New York City or your particular town or state. You can move.

What anarchists are really lamenting is the lack of available space where people havent set up a group with a government. That just goes to show how it emerges naturally out of other states, which can briefly be described as close to anarchist. And sometimes those states arent so glamorous.

Anyway it's the same in software. It takes massive effort to build a system that is completely free for everybody. That is what the Free Software movement has done. But they are besieged at every turn by PRIVATE, proprietary interests such as businesses who lick their lips and want the "freedom" to use the software those guys built to RESTRICT the freedom of THEIR users. So the Free Software Foundation and its allies have a great ally in the US government and copyright laws! They use them specifically to banish infringers who would use software licensed under GNU License for example without giving their users freedoms.

Interesting? Government helping keep people more free. Thats what happens when the perps are private companies and not governments.

And to address your point - it is just as hard to move away from Windows and Mac, or from Android, iPhone and Blackberry all of them etc. as it is for you to move from the United States. Sure it's possible. But first you need a massive effort to build a natio-- err I mean a platform that is based on principles of freedom. And along the way you will need the help of governments to defend it from people easily coming in and ruining the whole thing because they were "free" to take what you built for their own selfish interests.

The dynamics are almost exactly the same! But it's an interesting case study because software battles are virtual, hurt less people, and softwrae moves really fast. Yet you can actually see the problems that would happen with anarchy without enforcement.

Even today, the free software movement is developing new licenses to combat a new threat: hardware that will only run an approved version of an open source program.
Bridges regularly get torn down and replaced. Nothing lasts forever, and thus nothing is built to last forever. You want to know one sure way to spot a scam? The person selling you on something tells you that it will last forever.
A first approximation for a strategy would be to follow a boustrophedon, and keep 2, 4 and 8 near the top, e.g. something like this:

. . . .
. 4 2 .
8 16 32 .
512 256 128 64
> Bitcoin with central key escrow is completely and utterly pointless

You've confused Bitcoin for a political movement; for most, that's not what it is and never will be, it's simply a payment network for e-cash.
You seem to be under the very, very, very mistaken understanding that "Free Software" requires either the GPL or copyleft. Apache, MIT, BSD, GPL are all both Free Software licenses and Open Source licenses. The definitions make "Open Source" and "Free Software" almost synonymous.

But the term "Open Source" is much easier to co-opt and abuse. There are a variety of things that broadcast themselves as "Open Source" based only on the sense that "Hey you can look at our code! You can't actually do anything with our code, but hey you can look at it, so duh, it's Open Source!". This is not actually Open Source.

The problem with Open Source is that it seems intuitive that these Open Source posers could be correct--the "open" vs "open" clarification is more difficult and nuanced and not-intuitive esp. compared to clarifying the meaning of Free in Free Software as "free as in freedom" vs "free as in beer".
STOP !
A lot of people probably don't open source their web code because it could open them up to attacks, but it also probably wouldn't be that interesting.

It never would have occurred to me to open up my work's rendering pipeline, it's just to boring and ho-hum for words.
Pointless, I think. They'll only be able to make the most basic of software.

If every doctor could write their own SQL queries against their own data, if the dentist office manager could pull the list of customers who live within 2 miles, if the marketeer can put his own static site very quickly, if the scientist can write code the parses his text and automatically pull related text from wikipedia and links to relevant papers written between 1738 and 1776. Why must they wait for you and I to do this? Why the wait?

I'm not sure if programming teaches critical thinking, reading and writing any better than the existing subjects we have.

My point is that learning critical thinking, reading, and writing is what we should focus on because it ultimately makes better programmers.

For what is a good program if not a well thought through problem (logic) turned into a few lines of text (writing, reading) that provide the solution.
Licenses are a toolbox, like the tech they cover.

Wanna stop basically everything commercial related? AGPL

Wanna stop tivozation? GPL 3

Wanna allow tivozation? GPL 2

Wanna allow general commercialization? 2-clause BSD

EDIT: if anyone remembers the OSS license feature matrix site that's new, plz reply.
Seriously? Really? Every programming-centric forum that I've read for the past 20 years, HN included, has recurring flareups about this specific topic. Every single one. The debates don't even change, at least not in their fundamentals. I bet this very thread will turn into 500-600 posts which don't look all that different from innumerable threads on Usenet from 20 years ago.

Point being, half of the posts on every single one of the instances of this seemingly never-ending debate are from people explaining why they prefer BSD/MIT, and none of them are for the reason you gave. Like, none of them. So, there's plenty of counterexamples for you. I don't know how you would have missed them.
Show HN: Tetris++
https://2048.ycombinator.com/
hahaha.... bad link sorry
People can still keep using XP for as long as they want as long as they keep the machine physically disconnected from the internet!

The big risk is remote exploitation[most of the time].
That's a very naive viewpoint from someone who doesn't work in industry.
Eloquent JavaScript second edition, a work in progress
You can have an end goal of increasing freedom and just disagree that coercing people in any way shape or form to spread that freedom is either wrong or counterproductive. Especially if you have a belief that simply sharing knowledge is a way of increasing freedom and human advancement, "do whatever you want with this shit I just wrong for fun" can be just as powerful.

Really when you get down to it, the battle is still open source (however you want to define it) vs non open source, and squabbles between copyleft vs permissive can miss the larger picture.
So GPL'd software is highly valuable where BSD'd software is just hobbyist stuff...because of the license?

Less loaded (and more accurate) one-liners might be...

GPL: you may use this code, provided you follow rules representing my views on software freedom.

BSD: you may use this code however you see fit.

Which approach fits with your personal philosophy depends on you. But certainly BSD does nothing to lessen the highly valuable software licensed with it. OpenSSH, sudo, and many others, for instance.
I made one for js : https://github.com/asadlionpk/SPHjs
Two of the older posts of this article did say it was old:

1. From that time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=58444

2. Says (old article): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=288749

3. Says (2002): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4954663

and 4. unqualified https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6968775
Oh, nice. This should be quite good for my OCD tendencies :D
Probability Distributions and the Brute Force Approach
It depends on the country. I work for 700 usd per month and that's a high salary where I live.
But Arithmetic is not. I am not making the case for Math, but Arithmetic. I am not making the case for Computer Science, but programming.
Sorry I don't mean to be overly dismissive. I'm taking a look right now. I do like that you include history & background. Also I like the addition of a style guide and a separate section on tools like modules & package managers.
Migrating Legacy Data with ActiveRecord
I agree with you. Invoicing is pretty sensitive, I need to feel that the service is going to stay for a while and will not back-stab me somehow.
You should charge something for this. Even if you charged $10/year, it at least gives the impression that there is a contract and agreement in place that you will maintain the service and protect and provide the service. I have no interest, personally, in entering a bunch of invoice data in a service that might get shut down in a year after the developers lose interest in maintaining something that they lose money on.
Absolutely, but that model relied on programmers being paid by MIT, who was in turn paid by the US taxpayer. It was never going to pay for millions of programmers salaries, it was designed for the elite few.

I think the past decade has shown that free, open source, and completely proprietary software can all co-exist without negatively affecting consumer choice.
A <$100 purchase does not buy an active staff of highly paid developers for multiple decades -- that some people feel otherwise is what's mind-boggling to me. Nothing else I've ever purchased came with a 13 year warranty in the first place. When you talk about never buying a Microsoft product again if they don't service your purchase indefinitely, I really doubt you're applying that same standard to any other company. There's nobody at any company pushing out new versions of firmware for 13 year old wifi routers, new drivers for 13 year old mice, 13 year old printers, 13 year old game consoles...
This is what I tried to do, but you need to get the timing perfect after doubling up the right hand 64 to link that left 3 times. So perfect, in fact, that you'll only manage it roughly every other time:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7436184
Ask HN: Should I work in Palantir Technologies or Rocket Fuel Inc?
There are already a few 'Should I work at company X or Y?' sort of questions, but I think my circumstance is a bit different and unique, and the answers to this question would be valuable, so I just list my options as a new question here.

So I recently got offers from both Palantir Technologies and Rocket Fuel Inc. They are both quite promising companies, but are working on different directions.

Rocket Fuel Inc. is an ad-targeting company, they have very large scale systems (which I have interest on), and AI problems. I imagine there are many work related to 1) scaling the system 2) building tools for analyzing data and automation 3) AI-related algorithms and developments.

Palantir Technologies on the other hand is working on something really unique that few are working on but have great value and potential. I would imagine it deals with many new technology challenges that is completely new and few have seen or heard before. The company is super famous, and hires super talented engineers.

I heard a theory that computers can empower human in 2 ways (Automation and Augmentation), I see Rocket Fuel is doing really good on automation, while Palantir is working on Augmentation. They both create great value, and are both very appealing to me, but I have a thought that the consumer web sector is bit outdated now.

So I am having headache on which company to choose. What I look for is:
1) a place where I can apply my CS skill on, an opportunity to join a team to create great value
2) work that helps me improve, and lead me to my next goal (possibly join smaller start-up, or build my own start-up)
3) network and make friends with great engineers, designs, product managers, etc. so that I could be more exposed to startup opportunities.
Show HN: 177147
Download Future Media Asynchronously with AppCache
> Now, Scala has many features; which of them, do you think, are the largest contributors to that adoption?

Low-boilerplate syntax is certainly a big plus, but I think the biggest feature of scala is that it makes it easier to handle cross-cutting concerns without stepping out of the language. Concretely: a consistent, natural syntax for async calls; better ways of handling errors (validation monad), dependency injection without reflection. And almost as important is the ability to construct DSLs in the language itself (e.g. spray's routing syntax); I know at least one company where this was the primary rationale for adopting scala.

So I think higher-kinded types are a key feature, even if to start with users are only using the libraries built on top of them (you can do specific bodges like C#'s async/await without them, but to have a consistent, extensible syntax that does collections, async calls, and error handling you really need the higher level of abstraction), as are implicits and dependent types (both vital for DSLs). And there were certainly times when I found myself wishing for macros before they existed. Some users might come for the syntax or the traits (though I think error-handling and good async abstractions are at least as appealing, particularly in finance where a lot of the adoption is happening), but you stay for the type system.
All of those ideas (philosophy, math, political systems) required rigorous effort to formalize and reach a broad audience.
Shamelessly plugging my library for js : https://github.com/asadlionpk/SPHjs
Have you ever seen Underscore.js? It's a javascript toolkit for solving problems in a functional manner.

If you are interested in learning more, the video below walks through examples.

http://youtu.be/tbt36MvV6qQ
The second edition is partially online already at http://eloquentjavascript.net/2nd_edition/preview/
Are you referring to this example: https://variancecharts.com/examples/bar_grouped/ ?

I tend to prefer horizontal bar to vertical bar charts for English graphics because the label text reads left-to-right, making it easier to read.

It's a good observation though; readers often expect the independent variable to be on the abscissa.
We'll be discussing these kinds of graphical decisions in a series of free articles on the site.
Anyone know where you can still buy legit copies of Vista?

I've got several clients with various systems and software that probably won't run with 7 or 8.
You have the wrong goals.

don't try to change the world, change the market, change the way people buy carrots or whatever... Don't try to get millions of customers. These are not personally fulfilling goals, and in some cases these are careful what you wish for.

your goal is to find out what you truly enjoy doing for the sake of the art of it, not the commerce, but the art. Maybe it doesn't involve computers at all.

some people are very successful entrepreneurs because they enjoy practicing the art of business. You may not enjoy that so much. Figure out what you enjoy and don't attach a business or wealth goal to it. Just do it.
Possibly inspired by the current xkcd comic (note the alt text)

http://xkcd.com/1344/

Edit: Whoops, it was put on github beginning 10 days ago. Just a coincidence, then, I guess.
I'll be in SF 9-16th April.
A guy running a courier business stole from me. I was naive & in a desperate position, so I'd rather not go into details.
remember XHTML2 ? XFORMs , yeah,it was a pain to write but FULLY EFFIN extendable ... so much that browser vendors did not want to implement these stuff and came back with hacks like web components and shadow dom making everything even more painfull to write and extend...So there was an opportunity,it was missed.
> This is true because the 3 (and modified 2) clause BSD license are GPL compatible and approved by the FSF.

They might be compatible with the GPLv3, because of its allowance of extra terms; they are strictly incompatible with the GPLv2, een though the FSF claimed that they were compatible with it when the GPLv2 was the current GPL version (the FSF's claim that they are compatible -- a self-interested one to induce people to relicenses BSD-licensed code as GPL-licensed code, is indefensible since both versions require specific copyright notices, the BSD license itself, and the specific disclaimer of warranty included as part of the BSD license, and all of those requirements are additional requirements incompatible with the GPLv2.)

The FSF has an overt interest in promoting the relicensing of code under the GPL which gives them a motive to exaggerate the degree to which this action is valid under other licenses. They are not neutral, objective party when it comes to license compatibility.
> “If I type https://google.com into my browser and press enter, what happens?”

well, it closes the circuit in the enter key causing the electrons to move...
Data Mining, machine learning and statistics
The second edition is coming along: http://eloquentjavascript.net/2nd_edition/preview/
The funny thing about your comment is that you could have made the exact comment in 1995 to dismiss Java. Sometimes it just takes very long for ideas to reach mainstream, but they can nevertheless become extremely successful.

The most important innovation in the Hindley-Milner type system was parametric polymorphism, since that is the thing that enables you to build more powerful abstractions. Since the release of Java 1.5 and C# 2.0 that is now fully mainstream, but it took more than 25 years.
This looks very cool - I will certainly sign up for the beta. I think there is real potential in this space.

The only concern - and maybe you have a solution - I have is that to my knowledge, XBRL has only been required on 10K's and 10Q's since around 2009 (I may be incorrect, 2010?). As someone involved in research with financial data, there's really no avoiding using pre 2009 data. Parsing that from raw text files is even harder than XBRL - is TagniFi able to do that as well? (I've perused your website but haven't found the answer). Unfortunately, without that capability, I'm forced to rely on services like Fact Set at least partially.
Indeed, THAT is who you cover a somewhat dry topic.
And poetry, prose, movies about aliens and smart-ass comments.

:)

Even people without regular meals sometimes tell jokes or play snakes and football.
Cal Poly at 0% ... So you're saying there's a chance!
Temperatures and Prime Numbers
But he doesn't say the above is ideal, he says it's not unethical - which he also says of permissive licenses.
Ask HN: When will Git v2.0 be officially released?
It hasn't been merged to master and a tar isn't uploaded on kernel.org yet.
It seems like a degree in philosophy would. RMS's qualifications appear to just be his experiences.
There is no "Occupy founder", and in fact the movement went to extraordinary lengths not to have any leaders or anyone in any position of authority to "speak for" it, which proved to limit its ability to succeed.

This is an example of the hasty generalization fallacy: falsely declaring a single individual/event to be representative of an entire movement/all events.
> what makes someone a credible philosopher?

Peer review in major academic publications typically. Philosophy is a lot more rigorous than many imagine. RMS' ideas are interesting, and may even form the basis of some philosophical positions in the future, but I would not call him a philosopher in the academic sense. A lot of the distinction is wrapped up in culture and context. As a programmer, I work on subjects that delve heavily in mathematics, but I would not call myself a mathematician, because I am not part of that culture or the peer review process.
Related: Why isn't there a wrapping version of <input type=text>? For a single line of text which you wish to wrap, using a <textarea> with JS hooks to prevent pressing the return key is a terrible hack. Why can't you do <input type=text wordwrap>? Or <input type=text style="word-wrap: break-word;">?

Also, in this day and age of sans-serif, variable-width fonts, why do we have to specify rows and cols on <textarea>?!