skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There are a couple books I've wanted to write for a long time. I'd like to pay a copyeditor to fix my long-winded prose, and pay a designer to typeset it, then post it online as a PDF that will cost, say, $15.

Peter Cooper's unusually successful Ruby book sold ~8000 copies in print and 500 copies as ebooks. He made $19,000.

To gross $19,000 with a $15 PDF, I'd have to sell ~1260 copies. Compare to ~8000/500 paper/print, noting that the PDF will be the only available format for the book, and this doesn't sound impossible. If I raised the prices to a place that still undercut an Apress ebook, I could get that number down to 900 copies.

Of course, whatever number I hit, I own the book free and clear, at all points.

I'm interested in what Cooper thinks about the strategy of foregoing publishers altogether.
I want to add that this book has a lot of good advice for all sorts of jobs, if you look at how to apply it. Two advices I like are to list your next day's activities before leaving your work for the day, and to work out a blocking system with coworkers so they handle incoming questions for you so you can spend the time focused. The blocking would be handled in an alternating fashion every-other day. It is a really quick read and written in a conversational tone - check it out.
good to hear it, we at RailsFactory would surely participate in it
Oh come on, this is ridiculous. There are 11 Dutch universities in there (out of 16), but only 10 German universities (out of 383) and 4 French universities (out of at least 85)?
What are you saying exactly? None of those quotes seems obviously false, and they don't contradict each other. (It's of course perfectly possible that Vista was the best version of Windows that MS had produced until Windows 7 arrived.)
When are times when you can concentrate? Do they have patterns that you can see? Can you artificially re-create these patterns?

Are you disengaged from your daily work? Maybe you need more interesting endeavors?
> How can I best approach a software engineer with an idea?

Back up a step. Why are you approaching said engineer with that idea? Yes, I know that you want said engineer to build it, but why should anyone build that idea and not some other idea?

I'm sure that you've got good supporting arguments, but if you don't provide them, you're indistinguishable from the vast majority, who have nothing.

It's okay if there are holes in your arguments IF you admit them and talk about them. If we find significant holes that you don't tell us about, our experience tells us that there are additional problems and that you're incompetent and/or deceptive. That's not likely to lead where you'd like to go.

In short, tell us everything. We'll ignore what we don't need to know.
Show your tech guy your deliverables; what you're actually adding. He'll be able to point and say, "I did this and this and this and the proof is right there." You should be able to do the same.

If you're talking about compensation, make sure that everything is clear and out in the open and that there is no ambiguity about terms or conditions. This is really just a general rule for not getting in a spat.

Know how to set priorities, keep your scope focused, and explain the business reasons for any change you're driving. Little else is more upsetting than a nightmarish task seeming important but really being inconsequential.
>please ask your doctor / sysadmin which OS to use, not that guy on TV / tech column. or else we will make fun of you.

Maybe people would rather read an easy-to-understand column than ask a snobby nerd.
maybe i'm thinking of the wrong kind of content they want to crawl, but isn't it easier to provide special crawlable, plain html pages (possibly hidden to users or provided as an "accessible" version).
Play Sierra On-Line games in your browser (with added multiplayer)
Startups 101: The Complete Mint Presentation
"My current personal theory is, I wear glasses cause my eyes are a little screwy, and take speed cause my brain chemistry is a little screwy."

I wish this POV was more prevalent, and I hope that more people talking about neurochemical imbalances will help that.

Most people have no trouble with the idea of taking insulin shots to handle diabetes, but somehow taking brain drugs is de facto spooky bad. Pretty much, "Oh, psychiatric stuff. So you're like, crazy?"
What I mean is: Why did you delete it after you'd already edited the original comment? I'm curious.
May I recommend http://www.postgresql.org/?

:)
> [OT]the taj mahal in the logo might not have been the best idea. historically, taj mahal represents the muslim occupation of india -- a dark period for the nation

From HN guidelines: Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.

And this isn't even a classic flamewar, this is some new fangled absurd religious fundamentalism and probably the worst troll I have seen on HN. I am Indian, Hindu and feeling a bit insulted right now. Unfortunately, I don't have enough karma to be able to downvote you.
Yes, history (or "the common understanding of these events") is written by the winners. The democrats (small d) won the wars and conquered the world. Now, democratic schools teach pro-democracy views, which constitute the only acceptable mainstream position. Surprise, surprise.
I don't understand what you're saying. Firstly, web apps can never see anything after a # in a URL: the browser does not send it to them. Javascript can see it, but I don't think that's what you meant.

With progressive enhancement, your URLs should look like http://www.example.com/products/bungee-cords. If clicked they should render the page as appropriate. JavaScript, if enabled, will attach a handler to the links and when it sees you trying to click on /products/bungee-cords will halt that click and instead make an AJAX request for the equivalent content. There should be no need to have # links whatsoever.
- How do software engineers perceive business types?

Business types are people. I evaluate on character plus effectiveness. When forming an opinion, I generally look at their past success, their history of screwing people over (or not), and their smarmyness (or not), as well as their ability to communicate.

- How do they come to respect or disrespect someone in this role?

See above.

- How can I best approach a software engineer with an idea?

With a referral and/or some demonstrated way that you've done a ton of homework, and you understand what you're getting into.

Also, please demonstrate respect and partnership. "We need a coder for this", while not overtly disrespectful, implies that you see your technical partners job as one-dimensional.

- What can a business type do to build trust with a programmer?

Good referrals, pay invoices ahead of schedule, don't change scope often or arbitrarily.

- Horror stories or success stories about these two worlds coming together in startup glory or catastrophe

Rather not share right now.

- What motivates programmers? Success? Personal fulfillment? Money?

Some combination. I think most of us need adequate levels of all of the above, with one factor we can point to as being excellent.

- What do programmers think motivates business types?

Money, ego.
Try working in a coffee shop. As a barista.

You're not cut out for programming.
Mossberg on Win7: In just two weeks, on Oct. 22, Microsoft’s long operating-system nightmare will be over. The company will release Windows 7, a faster and much better operating system than the little-loved Windows Vista, which did a lot to harm both the company’s reputation, and the productivity and blood pressure of its users.

Mossberg on Win7: Even in beta form, with some features incomplete or imperfect, Windows 7 is, in my view, much better than Vista, whose sluggishness, annoying nag screens, and incompatibilities have caused many users to shun it.

Mossberg on Vista: It has taken the giant software maker more than five years to replace Windows XP with this new version, called Windows Vista -- an eternity by computer-industry reckoning. Many of the boldest plans for Vista were discarded in that lengthy process, and what's left is a worthy, but largely unexciting, product.

I'm saying, leaving aside his actual reporting on what the products do, his editorial opinion doesn't appear to mean anything.
Start following the development of Drizzle (https://launchpad.net/drizzle), it is based on MySQL and some of the core MySQL guys are working on it (for instance, Monty Taylor: https://launchpad.net/~mordred).

From what I understand (which may not be much...), long-time MySQL stalwarts would probably move to Drizzle instead of moving to MySQL 6, anyway.
Good list, but I disagree about growl:

http://onemorecloud.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/productivity-bo...
"And this isn't even a classic flamewar, this is some new fangled absurd religious fundamentalism and probably the worst troll I have seen on HN. "

Hey now there's Indian politics on HN vs the usual American politics! Woo hoo! I wonder if this is of "interest to Hackers"
There can't be general purpose reputation online. It's meaningless. There can only be reputation for specific behavior. Someone who has a lot of positive reputation on Ebay is reasonably likely to fulfill your order, assuming your is similar to the previously filled orders - check if all his/her other orders were for $1 and your's is for a million.

Just about any other karma system winds up measuring how hyper-active someone is online. My karma score tells you nothing about me at all except that I'm here a lot and talkative.

This can be good thing. Much real life bad or good reputation is unjustified.
I was having a big problem concentrating and getting work done so I tried something my friend told me to do. Sit for an hour, and do nothing. Don't plan, hardly think, just sit. It's hard to explain, but it feels like hitting the motivation reset button. I would say it's definitely worth trying.
Here are my observations, fwiw: A few of my clients choose the same route: Turn off the newer Windows XP Start Menu of two columns and go back to Classic Win98 single column. I honor their choices and leave their systems the way they want them.

But after forcing myself to use the newer version, I have found I can get to programs faster from the Start Menu by having Printers, Control Panel, My Computer, Network Neighborhood, etc. on the Start Menu, and keep my Desktop less cluttered.

Likewise, a quick glance tells me what that person's default browser is, as well as the default email program: They will be at the top of the first column.

At times, I will take the time to present these observations to those clients and I find that some will consider converting, while others will shoot me down, because change=evil.

The ribbon in Office 2007 seems to be the same deal: Since I am a previous version user, finding things is aggravating. If I hadn't clicked on the "glowing" round Office icon, I would have searched for Save for quite some time. This in a word processor!

But to a new user, the most obvious things I might need to do are right there, without all of the noise of all of the items I don't need in my way. The most basic markup tools are on the first ribbon presented. If I move to a slightly more advanced task, like outlines or inserting graphics, I get a different ribbon that has the exact tools I need.

Just because I forced myself to get used to the structure of the menus does not mean it was the most efficient way to organize those tools. Reminds me of what I have heard regarding qwerty vs. Dvorák.

So, just like going to a new restaurant and taking a chance on the house special outside of my comfort zone rather than ordering what I am used to, with each new operating system and version, I try them out for a few months before passing judgment.
Just talked to the #mysql people. 6.0 is dead, yes, but the plans for it will be put into a 5.x release. 6.0 is just being rethought as the roadmap as a whole is changed. 6.0 as it was is dead, but there will still be a 6.0 eventually.
Right but I can selectively run ltrace, where as my logging statements are always in the code, and if statements have to be evaluated etc
"but the best part is the proof that today a tech fanboy can take the director’s chair and quickly prototype a smarter product

Alternative copy:
"but the fact that it hasn't shipped yet is the proof that the consumer electronics companies behind the most innovative products on the market today are packed full of hard-working, imaginative, smart people, and that can't be replaced on a whim"
Based on the amount of money he can generate , he should in future negotiations have more pull.
The question is, when will you ever have the leisure to reference it?
Despite having done a lot of reading and researching about self publishing - and knowing people who've done it - I don't have any hard experience with it, so there are probably 101 HN readers with better answers, but..

I think a publisher like Apress can provide a lot of value. They have dedicated copyeditors, lawyers, and editors. They have design templates and workflows, ready to go. They can take imperfect content and make it sell. If you'd need to outsource many of these functions, perhaps a publisher is the way to go. There are a lot of "not so good" or poorly presented self published books out there that just don't sell.

Self publishing can work wonders, however, in situations where you're confident about the tasks involved. From my experience, the average HN reader or the average writers of stuff that HN links to are solid enough writers to not bother with independent editors - though you'd need to build up some willpower to be good at chopping ;-)

Technical reviewers would be more important, IMHO - and you can lean on your contacts/friends for this. This is one of the greatest assets a publisher provides. Last, if you have even a slight eye for design, you can pick up half reasonable layout and typesetting skills (in something like Indesign) in weeks.

Keep in mind, too, that Beginning Ruby is a 650 page book. Publishers seem to encourage long books, but I doubt you'd need to produce something so long - so making less money might not be such an issue. I think PeepCode does okay with its PDFs even at $9 a pop because most are 100 pages or fewer and don't take several months to produce.

Lastly, you need some way to get those sales. You either need the audience already (a popular blog, say) or have your marketing skills up to scratch. There's a lot I could write on this topic but this comment is getting a bit long, and I'll just end with.. consider doing it. If your topic is good and your writing solid, selling it shouldn't be the world's biggest problem to solve ;-)
What is the point of this remark? Feynman was brilliant and deserved that Nobel as much as Gell-Mann. The difference is that Feynman was also inspiring, while the Gell-Mann perhaps deserved a second Nobel. That's plenty of reason to admire the first and not the latter.
Maybe a tenth of an orgasm?
How Understanding Our Strengths Improves Us
Windows XP hasn't stayed still for all that time. When XP came out, minimum specs were 64MB and a 233MHz processor, 128MB / 300MHz recommended. Try running an XP SP3 machine on those recommended specs today and you'll quickly see how limited it is, especially with browsing the modern web, or running any "big" productivity app, like a photo or video editor, or an IDE.

The fact is, XP has been quite scalable as hardware has moved on; it hasn't been a significant factor in limiting the amount of hardware juice getting through to applications running on top of it, which is one half of what you want out of an OS; and in terms of virtualization of hardware resources across multiple apps, the other half, for the majority of desktop usage it's been fine.

Windows 7 for me primarily means an improved kernel with more API functionality; a very confusing shuffle of configuration locations; a space-inefficient shell UI; and a start menu / task bar combination that I dislike compared XP's start menu and task bar. Oh, and less menus, for increased user frustration. (I'm not a fan of whizz-bang GUI gloss, it's generally the first thing I disable.) Win7 for me is a very mixed bag, but a necessary "upgrade", simply to track what end users and customers are experiencing.
API-driven phone calls
I would like to know this as well. He is clearly an insider NOW. I would imagine few successful entrepreneurs start out this way.
I don't believe that to be the case, unless Ruby and JS books work very differently from other technical topics. There are probably people like the late Richard Stevens who could call the shots, but big-name tech people I know who've written multiple books have gotten crappier deals than the one Cooper is describing here.

What mystifies me is, if you have a successful first book, the career argument for writing a second book is much weaker. Under no circumstances will the money ever work out in your favor. Why do people write multiple books? I guess they must just love writing; I can understand that.
I don't know that it's going to happen anytime soon, but I can see exchanges between karma and real currency eventually leading to a reputational economy. See Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. http://craphound.com/down/download.php I wish that pg would start allowing karma transfers here so we could start experimenting and I could cash in all of my stupid points, but that experiment is not one of his goals.

For a while I've told myself that I'd like to auction this username for charity, mostly just to see what happens, though I like the idea of converting my years of activity here into a charitable donation.

On Hacker News, karma really does just measure activity. My point is that it is theoretically possible to give karma more meaning than it has today.
About Apress refusing to make the eBook free, I think you're too hard on them:

What really flipped my lid, though, was seeing other Apress books like Dive Into Python and Pro Git getting the treatment I wanted. You can read both of these awesome titles online, in full, for free. Offering electronic content for free to promote print book sales isn’t an alien concept to Apress so someone’s playing favorites over there.

More likely, the idea sounds crazy and/or scary to them, but they decided to try it out with a few of their books to see how well it works. You're in the control group. Maybe that's the result of "playing favorites," but a less whiny way to put it would be that other authors had more influence or did a better job of advocacy. Or you were just unlucky.

But you can take comfort in the possibility that your campaign to make the Beginning Ruby PDF free helped convince Apress to make some of their other PDFs free.
Reg, thanks very much for this. I haven't read the whole thing (I have to get some work done first), but serious consideration of what is or isn't a DSL is always welcome.

Much of what I see aren't DSLs; they are more domain-specific dialects or, really, APIs.

The trouble is that people have different critical judgment when they view something as an API or as a DSL, with the notion of a DSL allowing less well-considered APIs to slip though.

"This discussion is extracted from a forthcoming talk--"The Revised, Revised Ruby.rewrite(Ruby)" or "R5"--to be be delivered at Stack Overflow Dev Days."

Will this be recorded?
learn to program - a bit of lisp, a bit of C [not to do it but to appreciate the mindset]

Mentioning VB, Microsoft or Clearcase are very uncool and will turn away any talented people you might want to learn from, hang out with, hire or become co-founder with.

Can I suggest not use the words 'cog ... gear' - which suggests you have a worldview [shared with most recruiters] who think beautiful work is something that takes no human passion.

Learn a little bit about aspergers... when approaching someone who is creating, perhaps quietly put a post it note such as "lunch @ 2, sushi ?" just within view while saying nothing.

A useful blog to read might be 'Rands in Repose'

If you've worked to launch an app, you must know all this already? Jump in again, find some smart guys and build another startup. Then write a book on the topic and become famous on the talking circuit... you're probably ahead of the game already.
I wrote a reasonably extensive post on all the things that annoyed me about Vista here (and many of them are also applicable to 7):

http://blog.barrkel.com/2008/08/venting-on-vista.html
That's great, but I wonder how heavy the nuclear reactor would need to be that provides the 2 MW to power this thing. Is this something we could practically loft into orbit with present-day rockets? (Ignoring the not-entirely-unreasonable-in-this-particular-case environmental objections to flying nuclear reactors through our atmosphere on failure-prone chemical rockets...)

I suppose, on the upside, that once you had this thing in space it could stay there -- a nuclear reactor plus plasma rocket which could just shuffle back and forth between Earth orbit and Mars/Jupiter/wherever, refuelling at every Earth stop.
You also get this in Safari.

Incidentally, for Mac users it's incredibly trivial to set up a hotkey for the search box. I have it mapped to CMD-E, and it greatly eases my web flow.
Ask YC: Google apps vs. Zoho Apps
Just wondering whether anyone has compared or tested premier editions of both these apps? Price wise they are both in the same range but wanted to know about other stuff like features, security, innovation etc. from someone who has used both or done some good research.
The Best Answers to Tough Interview Questions
I don't think I'll ever use this, but I love it, for the simple reason that it consolidates Google's famous blank design. Going to that page and seeing the logo and the blank box feels really comforting, like Google's making an effort to commit to their simplicity.
i think this article is great, i read it, then downloaded the source to jscheme, and ported a portion of it to ruby. then i understood more about how lisp works, i got to a working repl that had + implemented.

http://berlinbrowndev.blogspot.com/2008/07/simple-lisp-imple...

then half a year later I thought what the hell and sneaked in a production app written in clojure to one of our tomcats. for me learning something new is always about porting it to something familiar to grok the basics and then force myself to write real code, then there's no avoidance of those important details
this is very limited functionality. eg. donesn't work for js code snippets. thx though.
He did make it look easy. It's like he said "Well, you just ask for 100k, get it, build some stuff, get more money and then..."

I think one thing that got him inside was the execution. Mint is just cool to use. If I was an investor, I'd try the site and just say "Hey, this is really cool to use. And useful. And in a lucrative niche." Then I'd write a check.