skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't think it's intentional deception. There are a large number of 'programmers' who read slashdot and reddit and so on religiously. They probably hold a job where they are a developer of some sort, and they know about all the buzzy hot stuff out there from reading about it, but when they sit down to code they don't get anything done. Usually they manage to carve out a niche in whatever organization they are in doing non-coding tasks.

They are complete wastes of whatever resources they consume, but they are totally oblivious to this either for psychological reasons (ego defense or something) or the usual 'incompetent people have no way to detect incompetence', but probably a generous helping of each, ego defenses prevent them from integrating the memory of each failure they are responsible for (when they are fired from one job they aren't qualified for they just apply for another job they aren't qualified for) and the incompetence thing means they are unable to detect any real reason for their suckiness, leaving them with only the potential explanations they can come up with (usually stuff about how they were distracted or were having personal problems or had too many things going at once, as they are convinced that if they could just sit long enough and work at it they would eventually get it done. They are of course wrong, no amount of time would allow them to succeed at the task in question.)
Yep. Use else when the two branches do symmetrical amounts of work. Don't use else if one is an early return.

If you find this discussion interesting you're probably stuck with codebases with overly long functions. My commiserations.
"the next step is to program models of people intelligent enough to self-organize into a line"

Goog luck with that...while they're at it, they might as well program Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny!
Upgrading to Snow Leopard
Cool, but I think the test should be done in full fight/flight conditions, would it change the result? Any ethical ways to even do that?

(rigging up an A/B situation on two sides of a theater and hoping it catches on fire one day?)
Heh. I worked for a startup that had three ex-Xanadu refugees. Never, ever work for a company that has more than one; once they reach critical mass you are doomed. Favorite memory from said startup was the PERT charts for "the big picture" used the color purple to denote items that "would make a good Ph.D thesis if you know anyone at Stanford or Berkeley looking for a topic..."
How about, "the first ten people to exit get $50"?
Reminds me of a subway station in Beijing. It's one of the more popular ones, an exchange between major lines, and once people exit the train they need to go down stairs to get to the other platform. Just in front of the stairs is an enormous shoulder-height roadblock, ostentatiously there to prevent the mass from just shoving people down the stairs.

Oddly, though, it also makes the traffic just breeze through that part of the station. People near the obstruction form nice orderly lines and, knowing that it's totally useless to try to push by, keep them.

Later down the stairs there's a 90 degree turn and immediately the crowd slows down again
My hatred of cockroaches outweighs your allergy, sorry.
Post-college working life: 22 - 72 (extended SS eligibility age for the USA). Half of that: 47.
St John's wort is one
Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction (e-Book)
Lighten up guys. Gruber's trying to be funny here and he mostly succeeds. I'm 100% certain that Lyons read this and thought it was hilarious. Journalists being hypercritical professional whiners, there's nothing Gruber's saying about Newsweek here that Lyons and his editors probably haven't said to eachother over lunch a hundred times already.
They must ensure that no data that requires coordinated changes is modified outside an STM transaction.

How does Clojure handle this? In Haskell, the type system ensures that STM operations can only happen where expected. (Reading a TMVar, for example, returns something of type STM (TMVar a). This means that the enclosing function must also return something of the type STM a. To get the actual data out, you run the transaction, which is of type STM a -> IO a. The type system automatically ensures that STM operations don't happen anywhere else.)
Pulseaudio support makes this a worthwhile upgrade for me. Now I can make a call while using Flash audio.
if a person can't code in front of another person it is just because they can't code at all.

This is not true, as long as you're willing to wiggle on "can't". I do pretty poorly at coding while someone else is watching, because it takes most of my attention to code, and if there's a social situation going on, too, there's usually not enough left. The less well I know the watcher, and the better the watcher is at what I'm doing, the worse I do. This is true for finding bugs, too; having someone trying to find the bug on the same screen as I am means I'm almost guaranteed to fail to see it before they do. Fortunately, after 30 seconds or a minute of fruitless looking, most people will go back to their desk and let me actually get on with it, and then things get done. :)
The tools that we shape, will in turn shape us. The trouble is that if you release a project early, the people who use it or participate in it could become used to its current state and fight against any change.

You can see this with Microsoft products. Microsoft has to have its updated products compete with its previous products.

This is also true of Project Xanadu. If we consider the Web as an early form of Xanadu, we can see that it was released prematurely. There are lots of design flaws and over the years band-aides have been applied to them. There are still many people who fight against these band-aides (I'm looking at you IE6 users and corps who force the use of that browser). We're stuck using hacks for what should be easy. People are now used to do things the hard way and using hacks and cannot easily envision a system that doesn't suck.
Snow Leopard: Which Apps Won't Run?
Blanket rules don't make sense.
Micro-Robots developed in EU are the size of grain of rice.
Dont worry about the skeptics . If your a serious laptop computer user / traveler , who really cares about no glare the laptop burka works ! Its great for gamers , travelers ! You can pay all you want for some stupid high tech filter that wont work , dosent work .The name Laptop Burka was coined out of laughter out on my deck in the sun. My and I wife couldnt stop laughing. We love to laugh. So it stuck.
MacPorts Python ports are broken as well

http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/9fm2w/snow_leopard_m...

(I've been dealing with this one all day; the first comment in the reddit thread has been helpful though)

Here is a list of the status of macports ports in Snow Leopard:

http://trac.macports.org/wiki/snc/snowleopard
Wow I mean, I just feel kind of bad.

C++ lacks a feature set that would make developing a web application compelling.

How much customer development did you? Did you ask anyone whether this was their pain point or whether it was something else? Was there a niche market that just hasn't been able to build a suitable solution for 7 whole years? All of the possible benefits that people have cited such as speed, portability and familiarity to a niche audience don't make much a difference in web development due to the kind of development, the options already available and the kinds of platforms commonly in use.

I have this sickening feeling that you spent 7 years of your life and a significant portion of your savings working in isolation on a product that may not have any real market to sell into.

Some people are saying "Oh he just did this to be a hacker". I don't like this argument. I don't think it's alright that a talented engineer, a significant source of productivity and innovation for the people around them, would spend a significant amount of their work life (7 out of about 35 years or 1/5th of their most productive years as humans) developing something that doesn't have much value or doesn't solve a problem people have.

Am I the only one feels this way?
In Clojure they require that all operations that affect STM are explicitly done inside a transaction, otherwise an error is raised.
I see, so it complains at runtime when when a transaction is not "in effect" and someone calls a transactional function?
Yeah, it was a little surprising not to see the piece emphasize more the fact that for seriously and/or chronically depressed people, the condition is very much a net loss. Going through a down period of two weeks can ultimately be helpful. But accomplishing nothing and taking pleasure in nothing for months or years is clearly destructive. I don't think the piece meant to suggest otherwise, but it came off seeming as if it did.
And just for the record, my examples were on a 64 bit machine.
Seems to work fine, I've been using it for a couple of days.

Arch x64 users can grab it from AUR: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=7914
I did not revise my statement. You simply read it incorrectly.

To directly answer your question, I think that the merit of functional programming techniques is in their application as a whole. Sniping high-profile individual techniques does not bring a proportional benefit. It is simply cargo culting. It is "fashionable" to mention "functional" programming and to butcher the concept of referential transparency when writing code in Java, C++ and C# these days. All it does is create a new style of obfuscation for these languages.
pronunciation (the red loudspeaker icon) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sprezzatura

It's quite hard to pronounce, but the speaker makes it sound easy.
Hey Scott,

Page 2, mid-page I think you edited a bug into the article. You repeat the same phrase at the end of one graph and the beginning of the next:

This research has revealed that even a quantum computer would face significant limitations.

Contrary to the popular image, their work has revealed even a quantum computer would face significant limitations.

Also, on page 3 you omit a "the":

Exactly how much faster are we talking? To even ask these questions correctly, let alone answer them, requires knowing something about one of great scientific ideas of the past fifty years: the theory of computational complexity.

If only you were Don Knuth, I could buy a cup of coffee.
What I think would be concerning is if they already in the startup phase had a detailed platform. The party is going to be shaped by it members and not the other way around. In the beginning your voice is going to count a lot more, but there is also going to be more challenges. Then again democracy is all about making you voice heard.
Presuming this is a genuine question: the difference is whether one goes on to do more work after the 'guard' return, or whether one is just choosing which value to return.

I think the style guide is being silly, and there is no simple rule that says "always use an else" or "never use an else". I'd see "Avoid unnecessary indentation" as a better rule.
We're focusing on the C++ because it's in the title of the post, and as far as I can tell, it's the only real thing of note that separates this from yet-another-web-framework.

If the C++ isn't the special bit, what is? What should be be focusing on if not that? What makes this - excuse my bluntness - small, unknown, untested, unexamined, underused, framework interesting aside from it being in C++?

I believe that you think there's something special and notable about this, because no one works that long on something unless they do - so tell us, share with us what's cool about the work you've done.
> first one to see that this domain is somewhere C++ will excel in

C++ is used a lot in the big sites like Amazon and Yahoo and Google. The frameworks just aren't open sourced.

C++ remains a lot faster and a lot less memory intensive than Java/C#. It would make sense to use it any time load is pushing the hardware.
Right on - H1B is akin to indentured servitude. It's hard for the rest of us to compete with a captive work force.
You should come back to Reddit.

Logged in with history of voted preferences plus chosen subreddits it is much better than HN has been lately.

I use both daily. Starting a couple months ago the number of "I want to read" articles on HN has plummeted. Today it's .5 to 1 out of 10. On reddit esp in the subreddits I care about it's 3-5 out of 10.

HN started better but stagnated and is experiencing the doom of popularity. Reddit is the superior choice now because of it's downvoting, subredits, and training(although I'm not sure this is part of code any more. But, looking at my logged in front page and the default front page is night and day difference. So, something is going on.)

Note: Don't just compare frontpages. You have to login and use the tools provided to get results.

2nd Note: HN comments are still far superior (using HN's values of "superior") than the avg reddit comment.
Indeed, the struggle with the process of creation, the fear of rejection, misunderstanding, failure, is at the core of many artists. I look at entrepreneurialism and hacking as forms of art too, so the topic is very on point here in my view.

But back to that vulnerability. As an artist, you can connect to that immediately. It's moving to hear another artist talk that openly and honestly about something so central to their existence. One of my favourite things she said was about being a mule. We're all mules. And we can be proud of the effort, of continuing to show up, regardless of the result.

I'm a fairly hard-line atheist (I am open to actual proof ;), but there is something mystical about the eureka moment during the creative process. Sometimes it is a wave that comes at you when you hope to be ready, and you just try to catch it while you can. And several times I remember feeling the way she described the dancer becoming something more. I've seen that dancer before. Anyone who's created art for long enough has touched that, but as a logical person I'm almost ashamed to get that out-there describing my personal experiences. Hat's off to her for having the guts to do so and do so that openly.
Part of RMock.cs was not genercized.

Instead of this:
47: FieldInfo[] EventFields = typeof(DataReceivedEventArgs)

It should be this:
47: FieldInfo[] EventFields = typeof(T)
Even for those who don't need to be sold on Lisp macros, that was worth reading just for this sentence (in reference to C++ macros):

I forgot what rabid programming language fans are like; they can and will defend any system, no matter how dysfunctional, as long as it's _their_ dysfunctional sytem.

:-)
submitted four days ago with the original article title:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=788259

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
TechNation Australia + YouNoodle = all new Top 100 Aussie Startups Index
You may be right, but there's an alternative explanation that would make both your perspective and the article's theory hold. You chose the word "function" to describe how you feel. Functioning means I suppose meeting the expectations (both internally and externally imposed) in the society you are in, in the activities that you engage in, in the roles and relationships (personal and professional) that you are connected to.

If any those connections seemed to be wrong for you, but you were unable to see an alternative, wouldn't depression in the sense of the article be a good way for your body to try to devote lots of energy to finding an alternative?

Maybe a world with such tangled and deep functional requirements implies that in some cases the "solution" that depression tries to help you find, might not always exist. Or might require such a huge allocation of effort that one alternative - ignoring the dissatisfaction - becomes attractive.
Yes. Try disabling the Skype plugin and the .Net plugin if you have them installed. I found that tip in the Firefox support forums. (Will post a link if I have time to find it again.) It worked for me and several other people I know who had the same issue.
Expensive Cars Maintenance
As noted in the previous HN thread

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=788259

that submitted this article, Kay Redfield Jamison, author of Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament,

http://www.amazon.com/Touched-Fire-Manic-Depressive-Artistic...

and co-author of the definitive text on manic-depressive illness

http://www.amazon.com/Manic-Depressive-Illness-Disorders-Rec...

has thought out loud in her writings over the years about whether treatments for depression that help suffering people may also deprive society of creative output. Her current thinking on the issue--and she takes lithium herself every day--is that the best-evidenced mood-stabilizing treatments for mood disorders are helpful to patients and increase rather than decrease their ability to contribute useful work product to society. Her co-author, Frederick K. Goodwin, M.D., is still deeply skeptical of some antidepressant medications (e.g., the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) because of their capacity for inducing mania in many bipolar patients.
I've found that trying to get candidates to write code on the spot is often more trouble than it's worth. It can take ages to cover any significant ground, and nerves are always going to affect people in different ways.

If I find a promising-looking candidate, I send them a few really simple tasks to code up (nothing at all complicated, or particularly "academic", maybe an hour's work at the very most). I set no time limit, and even don't demand all the tasks are completed.

This serves as a very effective filter for quickly discarding the completely-useless (which easily comprises 70% of the applications we get), and for the rest gives me a pretty good insight into their abilities.

I've tried sending these tasks both before and after interviews, and I'm definitely in favour of sending them first and interviewing second.

Apart from the obvious stupid-filtering benefits, I've found it helps immensely in keeping interviews relaxed. Having seen some code, I have a vague baseline for their abilities, so I can start with something I know they're familiar with and slowly work towards more complicated and interesting topics (without having to drop any questions that are met with a blank stare).

Although getting example code after an interview is an interesting experience. My predictions about a candidate's performance based on an interview have proven, with alarming regularity, to be way off the mark.
Is it used in their world-facing front ends? That's the part I don't get using C++ for.

I can understand 100% using it for data processing in the back-end systems, but not for the usual web framework parts...
Interesting just to learn about Lamarckian evolution (which is mentioned in passing).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckian
Swallowing an elephant in 10 easy steps
Personal Bankruptcy
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Doesn't this describe most people's work lives?

As an engineer, you're usually pretty lucky if 1/5 of your stuff reaches a wide audience. And much of the stuff that does reach a wide audience really isn't game-changingly-useful, it's just a nice feature to have.

Tech is a very hit-driven industry, where about 1% of software gets 99% of usage. It's usually impossible to predict that 1%, so you have to expect some duds on the way. And it's quite possible that big successes will be built off the duds.
Science: Itchy and Scratchy Are Funny
I disagree. The rule works for me.

I now find myself using 'cond' almost exclusively over 'if'.

And there is a little misunderstanding propagated: "Even in a language like C/C++ you can do something approaching functional programming by avoiding statements". I don't think so.
While a popular home remedy, beer often makes the condition worse.
Ignoring chemical imbalances, most depression stems from a loss of control in ones life. If depression is really just a side effect of having a self image and a sense of control over that future self image then the benefit is the ability to adapt. The problem may not even have a solution, it may just be a need to reconfigure the self image in accordance with reality.
Any ethical ways to even do that?

Pick any two exits at any large train station in Japan and perform "construction" on them during the morning rush hour, which gives you carte blanche to alter their topography any way you see fit. At that time of day, you've got densities and speeds approaching "fire in a crowded theatre" anyhow.

The number of people who pass through, e.g., a single point in Tokyo Station between 8 and 9 AM every single day staggers the imagination if you've never seen it.
A couple of suggestions and they're not listed in any particular order:

1. Run a spell checker on the content of your site (ie, Installation is not spelled Instalation )

2. If you're not going to provide source or open source your product, provide debug and release versions of your product; don't tease people that your release version is much faster

3. If you know you have "many bugs", then document them and and give folks a head's up - don't leave people guessing!

4. Explain to people "Why" they want to use your product; there are so many other products out there with tons of support and documentation - why would anybody want to use your product?

5. Open source it and consider still taking donations, consult on its use and maybe even release a book on it if you're going to continue on its use

Again, identify who your audience really is; there are lots of packages being used to fill the niche of web app frameworks; what is special about your product and in what circumstances would someone need to use it

Good luck!
What caused the housing crises was unparalleled greed, govt. free-market-is-everything ideology and political correctness.

The USA is going to be hammered for this for a long long time.
Having good diet is very important and if you don't have that, take vitamin supplements esp selenium and iodine. Don't over take anything. Depression is an imbalance (of mostly brain chemicals).

sam-E, Valarian, GABA, Gotu Kola, Skull Cap.

I'm a firm believer in people are different and need to find their own solution (which may involve going to professional and subscription drugs). It took me several years to find what works for me. St John's Wort did not at all. YMMV

I guess most those are anti-anxiety / mood levelers which works for me but I'm probably MD.

The thing that has broken me out of depression the most is sunshine! Just going out and standing in the sun, eyes closed face towards sun. I also take off my glasses and let reflected sunlight directly into eyes. 2-5min. Preferably around middle of day. Which I'm guessing is some combination of vitamin D and getting my circadian rhythm straitened out.
The Lazy Evil Genius
This article is great and I hope to see many more like it on hacker news. I know most people hate the goldfish tendency of most social networks to go through "forgotten" articles, but stuff like this needs to be brought up. Long and interesting articles make this site so much more livable :P.
And here we have a classical bikeshedding article.

This sort of thing really doesn't matter much one way or another. Do what the rest of the codebase is doing, and move on with your life. If you're writing your own code, do what you feel like doing.
It's bad that the word depression is used for two dramatically different conditions.

Clinical/chemical depression. (which btw causes loss of control of ones life)

Emotional depression.
I'm a pretty hard-core C++ guy and it wouldn't really occur to me to write web apps in C++.

The one place that I could imagine it being useful is in binding existing C++ code to a web service. In our case, were there a lightweight wrapper for providing a REST API including HTTP server, I might consider that over our current setup of binding to the engine from another language.