skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> For the "Enterprise!" developer pool, there's Java. The 500 line methods are still hard to slog through, though.

Great straw-man there. I didn't realise that javac required 500 line methods before compilation.

> In which case, the language of mandate doesn't matter much.

It's a lot easier to pass two collections to a method in Java than to a sub in Perl.
Account literally created a few minutes before posting.

YALT -- yet another languagewar troll.
Okay, got it, glass is more resistant to scratching than steel. Now grind sand and rock against either for days, let alone months or years. It's going to lose its optical qualities. Bad optics, no sunlight, no energy or LED light.

I _love_ the idea of a smart roadway that helps pay for its self. But I don't think this design hits the mark yet.
This seems completely par for the course. An organization wants to maximize the revenue. There are many cities competing for the honor of hosting a Super Bowl. Why leave money on the table? The list of demands pales in comparison to even the low end estimate of $60-90 million in economic value.

Unless the issue is that the NFL is a non-profit?
A Rare Look Inside the Air Force’s Drone Training Classroom
> One unscrupulous individual even took our viral Solar Freakin' Roadways video (by volunteer Michael Naphan) without our permission, and has used it to create another video, in which he has embedded deliberately misleading information. He is even making money by placing advertising on it to make a profit!

If anyone is wondering I think this is the video they are talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H901KdXgHs4

The funny thing is that they don't actually counter any of his claims, just mention everything that is wrong with the current system and say how it will be wonderful if that wasn't the case.

Yes, it would be wonderful, but when you're not even releasing the information for how much your prototypes cost the "it's going to get cheaper" argument isn't convincing anyone.
Facebook Could Decide an Election Without Anyone Ever Finding Out
Tailspotting: Identifying and profiting from CEO vacation trips
> Not everything is random variation.

But it must be acknowledged and accounted for. Smaller samples a regularly more variable; conclusions drawn about them are weaker.
Chrome plugin to block client-side analytics libraries
Tetris made out of rice
Neurotic Robots Act More Human
Honestly, I thought this was great. They don't have every minute detail figured out yet, but they've generated enough interest to start getting there. I'm just glad they spoke up.
The same things could be argued as for why, why C didn't win, or C++ didn't win, or even really PASCAL/Smalltalk/Lisp didn't win. "Winning" is temporary and not the end goal of any language and is best left to be declared by Charlie Sheen like pundits trying to demonstrate their language bigotry.

Is Perl the first tool that some of us think of when solving a problem? It might not be for you but it is frequently for me. Ruby might be your first choice, and really that's fine.

You're not a lesser or better programmer than anyone else if you choose something besides Perl either. Honestly, if you can solve the problems that you need to solve and you can work with your team, that's the only thing that matters. Not that you're using some language that isn't "winning".

As for Perl not having support for recent things like Stripe, that's just silly to argue (the author really should have searched the CPAN). Perl has many new modules, Dancer, Catalyst, Moose, Plack, Starman, Net::Stripe (maintained by me), and full support of AWS's offerings. And, yes modules written in 1999 do get used today, just look at all of LWP.

"Winning" isn't everything. Admittedly, Perl 6 isn't out or even moving forward visibly but doesn't mean that the language is irrelevant. Just watch https://metacpan.org/recent to see the pulse of the community and the new modules released and updated daily.
Am I wrong or is this stuff that is still under NDA?
Others have touched on this farther down, but this always sets me off: AppleScript is not confusing because of its native syntax. It's confusing because of the inconsistent, often contradictory, incomplete, and sometimes just insane dictionaries provided by the various apps you access with AppleScript.

Switching to JavaScript will do exactly zero to fix that. However, there appears to be new functionality inherent in the implementation, including better integration of native code (oddly, the examples are in ObjC instead of Swift), and I assume this will be faster than AppleScript. If this increases the popularity of writing scripts, then perhaps app-writers will improve their dictionaries.
For an attack on false information, they seem very light on the facts.

> False claim: We picked a really stupid place to put solar panels

They put forward several arguments as to why solar roads would be a good idea. The problem with this is that it does not address the opportunity cost - the argument should not be why solar roadways would be good, but why solar roadways would be better than solar rooftops or solar fields. The complete lack of figures here is not helping them.

> False Claim: Solar Roadways is going to cost $60 trillion dollars

OK, so it won't cost $60 trillion, so what will it cost? Again, no numbers, no estimate, just "we don't think it will cost $60 trillion, but we can't substantiate why"

> False Claim: Asphalt roads are cheap and maintainable

Not going to argue the claim (whether it is true or not). But what research have you conducted into how Solar Roadways would be better, other than the (unsubstantiated) claims that the roads will pay for themselves.

> False Claim: we can't afford to heat roads

They lead with ""Over 70 percent of the nations roads are located in snowy regions, which receive more than five inches (or 13 cm) average snowfall annually. Nearly 70 percent of the U.S. population lives in these snowy regions". Then follow up with "Each year, 24 percent of weather-related vehicle crashes occur on snowy, slushy or icy pavement. Over 1,300 people are killed and more than 116,800 people are injured in vehicle crashes on snowy, slushy or icy pavement annually." Finally concluding with "Does the current system of snow removal sound cheap to anyone? What would saving over 1300 lives and preventing over 115,000 injuries per year be worth? Not to mention medical bills, vehicle repair, lost wages, etc."

I am sorry, but that is not how it works. That is nearly implying that no one will ever die on a solar roadway. I agree that there may be benefits, but the article has used statistics in a way that is meaningless.

> False Claim: Glass is softer than asphalt

Where to start on this. Hardness is a horrible characteristic to choose a road surface for. Sure, glass may be harder, but will it be more durable? Cracks, structural weaknesses and fractures all will cause problems in glass if all you are worried about is hardness. It's been a while since high school science, but I still remember this. Asphalt doesn't need to be hard, as if it is scratched or compressed, there is just more road base beneath it.

There are many more problems with that article, but that should do for now. I am amazed that Solar Roadways would publish a rebuttal article in this style that is so light on the facts and that chooses claims selective to their cause (such as the hardness of glass). I feel sorry for those that have committed on Indiegogo if the calibre of the author is indicative of the calibre of the company.

Despite all of the above, I will give them credit for using "Clearin' the freakin' air" as a title for the article
So, they respond to numerous fairly well founded accusations that their 'idea' is laughably lacking in solid analysis with... a cherry picked selection of accusations and rebuttals which are also laughably lacking solid analysis.

My favorite part is where they used, as a defence to accusations that their idea won't fly commercially: "We are still in R & D, and we haven't even calculated the cost for our prototype".
Riiiiight. They haven't even calculated the cost of their prototype, but you can totally trust their claims that the product will pay for itself. I wonder what assumptions they've made about future energy prices. My guess - none at all.
They apparently only really apply when 'trade secrets' are in play, and CA has a pretty strict definition of 'trade secrets'.
I've noticed that HN commentary about non-computing topics start from the "here's why you can't do it" side of the spectrum and stories from the computing world start from the "here's how you can do it." I think it's just the nature of the audience and not necessarily intentional. Even beyond that, engineers tend to be contrarian by default when discussing engineering.

Elon Musk's companies seem exempt to that on HN, though.
I feel that the title is misleading.

Caltrans faulted by practicing terrible project management.

If someone underbids the next contractor by $250 million on a job they've never done before, you're supposed to politely laugh them out of the room.

Edit: for the benefit of those now arriving, the title and link have been changed.
JavaScript library for using SVG paths on HTML5 Canvas
If I'm understanding the article correctly, the only extensions iOS allows are keyboards, document pickers, photo editors, sharing services, widget things, and "action extensions." Assuming the action extensions aren't as catch-all as their name, this seems significantly more limiting than Android's model, where any app can arbitrarily define an intent (e.g. "com.example.calculatething") and send it with arbitrary data to any app that defines itself as catching that intent. These built-in extension types seem fairly encompassing now, but they don't leave much room to expand to future ideas, unlike Android's system.

Can any iOS developers clarify the situation? I've long been an Android fan (I've even written a few apps), but iOS 8 (and its integrations with Yosemite) are very tempting.
"but I don't see why they are insurmountable."

Have you tried thinking?

Start with "heating the road" to melt snow. The most efficient way to use sunlight to do this is to turn all the energy we get from it into heat. But wait, thanks to the magic of black body absorption and emission the asphalt already does this. And since it's black it absorbs most of the incoming light that strikes it transforming it to heat.

Yet this isn't enough to melt the snow on the roads, because we have snow on the roads. So somehow replacing this nearly 100% efficient system with one that is about 15% efficient will solve our problems how exactly?

You are allowed to dream as much as you want, but when one of your main applications of what you're touting as a solution breaks two out of three laws of thermodynamics you're selling bullshit.
Do we love our teachers? Online education and the future of college (2012)
1. I have a steep driveway, and when it was poured I looked into putting a heating element in it for about 20 feet to keep the ice off. I don't remember the details, but it was a fantastic amount of money to do it, and required special heavy amperage power connections. I abandoned the idea.

2. If using heating elements was cost efficient to keep ice off, you can bet the military and civilian airfields would use it to keep the runways clear. They do not. My father used to work at an Alaska military airbase, he said that snow and ice removal on the runway was a 24/7 operation. They weren't fools, if the heating element idea would work they'd have used it.
It's not the first time someone has called Perl a write-only language, I heard that joke first in 1996.
Lenses For Less Than a Penny
Top 4 Alternatives To Clickbank Video Tutorial
HNers tend to be technical people who like numbers. It's my experience that such people tend to dislike what might be politely called 'bovine excrement.' The lack of numbers[1] is, I think, triggering some members' "BS meters." In my field (physics), it's common to be challenged to demonstrate how you know something (or why you think something is true). It's a mark of a good scientist/engineer that they can back up their claims (which often involves numbers).

[1] For example, as others have pointed out, the story claims to refute the argument that solar roadways will cost 6e13 dollars... but when you actually read the counter-argument, it basically says "We don't know how much it will cost, it just won't be that particular number."
Not just the next contractor but the lowest bid by a contractor who has ever built a bridge before.

Just in case someone doesn't read the article. ;)
Naively, I would want x > 100%; after all, not being able to work doesn't just cost the employee salary. It costs them gained experience, bonuses, and vesting, to say nothing of a black hole on their resume. It's also better for the economy as a whole to have a strong disincentive to using noncompetes, even if the employee is compensated.
Original story -

http://www.sacbee.com/static/sinclair/sinclair.jquery/baybri...

It's a pet peeve of mine when it's really a story about a story.
"You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen.

And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. There are just certain things you can’t make electrons do. There are certain things you can’t make plastic do. Or glass do. Or factories do. Or robots do.

Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.

And it’s that process that is the magic."

~ Steve Jobs

This is why Apple doesn't make "vision" videos now, and it didn't during the Jobs years. During the period they did, they had serious problems in shipping any of the visions they have shown the world.

Microsoft is a bit like that. They know where the world is going, and Bill Gates himself knew from the very start where the world is going (short of a brief period where he conveniently ignored the Internet will happen). But they thought the fact they knew, that they had this cool idea and projection of how things will happen was giving them enough advantage. Nope.

It's risk-free to ship vision videos. They're like free T-shirts. There's infinite demand. But when it comes to shipping products based on them, most people can't live with the compromises and risk-taking a real product requires in order to ship.

With a new product you can't just look at the competition and confirm that what you have will work. You're on your own. Do you have the guts?
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- Experience with at least one MVC framework.
- Strong problem-solving ability
- Fast learner, intelligent and self-motivated
- Fluent in English.
- Located in Shanghai or have solid plans to move here.

Pluses:
- Experience with mobile development.
- Version Control (we use Git).
- Speaking Chinese and/or Dutch is a plus.

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It's amazing how painful javascript inheritance is
> Have you tried thinking?

This is unnecessary and completely undermined any point you had.
It seems Apple has reduced the scope of the NDA this year.
http://oleb.net/blog/2014/06/apple-lifted-beta-nda/
Articles which critique Perl as a whole by focusing on Perl 6 always strike me as a bit strange. As someone who works professionally with Perl every day, and starts several new projects using Moose-centric modern Perl techniques every year, the amount of time I or any of my colleagues spend thinking about Perl 6 is negligible.

The modern Perl movement, as far as I can tell, arose in part from Perl hackers who started to treat the wandering Perl 6 project — rife with neat ideas, if not with release engineering — as a skunkworks for Perl 5 extensions. In the gap between the middle-aughts and 2014 that this writer waves away with “is anyone still paying attention?” due to no Perl 6 release, the active Perl world adopted Moose, and many Perl-based Moose-driven technologies — Catalyst, DBIC, and so on.

These technologies, and the communities around them, have thrived on their own ever since. Nowadays when I think about Perl 6, it is often because I am at a Perl conference and Larry Wall is literally at the podium talking about it and I am like “Well. You go, Larry Wall.”

Perl really has reinvented itself in the last handful of years, at least in the eyes of those who make a living inventing new things with it. I can’t call this writer wrong — their perspective is their own. I suppose I can only learn to appreciate the notion that, to hackerly folks who aren’t as ensconced within the modern Perl community as I, the language is this thing from the 1990s that kicked the bucket through one bad decision in the summer of 2000, leaving behind acres of legacy code that’s still being scraped away.

To be fair: this indeed describes a lot of what I am hired to do. It’s just that I replace it all with newer and better Perl…
You would label be as a computer, then.
There was a blog post about this
http://oleb.net/blog/2014/06/apple-lifted-beta-nda/

Further, Apple agrees that You will not be bound by the foregoing confidentiality terms with regard to technical information about pre-release Apple Software and services disclosed by Apple at WWDC (Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference), except that You may not post screen shots, write public reviews or redistribute any pre-release Apple Software or services.
Read Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace by Nikil Saval. Its a history of office layouts. I like the Cave and Commons described in the book.
That, and the fact that asphalt doesn't cost $70 per sq foot. More like $2-3 per sq foot, and probably cheaper if you're doing it at large scale.
Maybe true, but I've learned not to make assumptions about how large & complex systems work based only on the little piece I can see from the outside.
It saddens me to see how much this (obviously terrible) idea has caught on in the general population. Science literacy should be a higher priority for our education system.
Ask HN: Which programming language would you like more articles written about?
I'm looking to expand technical writing through a programming series, and this will serve two purposes for me.

1. Get on a writing schedule.
2. Learn more about the language (more so with Haskell).

I've been writing a lot of code in Elixir and Go recently, and Haskell has interested me for a while now. Because I'm fairly indecisive, I'm reaching out to peers with hopes of finding a demand for articles in one of them (or anything else, really).

Thanks for any suggestions you may have!
That used to be the case, but changes slowly now. Enough less powerful states may understand common needs and unite to combat the stronger region, both economically and militarily.
An impending train wreck in social psychology.
Could be an article about the state of education in the country :) .
I was recently asked to add some trivial code to the end of an existing unmaintained Perl script written long ago. Something along the lines of

$x = `cat FOO 2>/dev/null`;
if ($x == "foo") {
system("BAR");
}

When I tested it I found BAR was executed no matter what FOO contained without any errors or warnings. WTF? After a little more searching I found the problem was that I should have written

$x = `cat FOO 2>/dev/null`;
if ($x eq "foo") {
system("BAR");
}

I have absolutely no patience for this kind of crap, but I don't have time to replace the whole thing right now so I just suck it up and move on. I can understand how Perl may never die completely but I'm never going to use it for anything new.
There are fusion paths that don't result in neutrons but you don't get to limit yourself to just those path's. Consider DD fusion > 50%He + 50%T but you don't get to keep the T in a thermal DD plasma so you need to also look at DT's paths.
This is probably just a side-effect of getting programs to do stuff being more easy and malleable than working with real objects where you have to take physics into account, not something wrong with the audience. The chances of a random engineering idea being impossible is much higher than the chances of a random application idea.
Because it's a stupid idea that somehow caught attention of the clueless media.

It's been discussed a lot when it was posted, and the guys who came up with the idea can't address any major criticisms.
if ain't php ,think will stick to perl.. first web base language learn..
Perl lost because PHP took its place on the web development front.

Perl lost because Python/Ruby took its place on admin front.

Perl lost because the new version took forever to get ready and broke compatibility with the old code.
Did I read that right about the range operators: triple-dot (...) is like the inclusive range that perl, python, ruby (etc?) denote with double-dot (..), and in swift double-dot (..) is actually a special range operator that excludes the upper limit?

If so, that seems backwards, and too late to fix :-(

(not huge, but unfortunate)
What is a zero hours contract?
I was a Perl scripter (I never rose to the level of JAPH) from around 1998 to 2002, with my final accomplishment being a two-way HRIS synchronization system between our installation of peoplesoft and our LDAP server (Netscape LDAP server, awesome product).

And then I met Python, and I never wrote another line of Perl, and have written some python code almost every week since then.

There were two personal reasons why I left Perl.

First - I would write some code, it would do what I wanted, but then I would come back in a week (or even a few days) and have no idea how it worked. This is code that I wrote. Yes, I know this is a personal failing (I said these were personal reasons) - but, on the flipside, I've never had anything I've written in Python that I didn't completely understand how it worked any time in the future. Perl just let me write code that was too complex for my brain to comprehend. I blame implicit variables. [edit - and perhaps an over reliance on regex.]

Second, If I hadn't used them for a month or so, I used to struggle with Arrays of Hashes and Hashes of Arrays. Once I eyeballed my template, it all came back, but the syntax imposed enough cognitive overhead that I struggled with that data structure (which is one that you use a lot).

On the flip side - the very first day I was learning Python, I thought to myself, "What if I just drop an array (list) as an object in this hash (dict), or a dict in this list? Will this work?

And it did. Close to zero cognitive overhead.

So, that's why I left Perl - Readability and complexity of what should be bog simple data structures.