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feedback on The Great Movie Experiment - an alternative to IMDB star ratings. | ananthrk: * I wanted to see more movies in the list (in Up&Coming page) and set it to 100. Now, when I hover over the links towards the bottom of the list, the visuals (such as the movie poster) are no longer in my view.* Some description/tagline/plot of the movie along with the poster would be good |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | gtt: Stydy math while you are young. Just in case. After 30 math is hard to grasp. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | binarycheese: Discrete math helps you think logically - i.e. how to solve problems |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | known: Yes, if aspire to be a great programmer. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | JoelMcCracken: I dont think this should dissuade you. Most of my undergraduate class are really awful at math (having had to take university level calc 1 and 2 several times each), however they are effective programmers.There are certain things you won't be good at, though. Like math. It will be hard to use programming to do math if you don't understand what you're trying to do. So certain things will be hard.The trick is, the longer you program, the better you'll be able to "intuit" math. By learning programming, you develop the skills to become good at math, as long as you try hard at programming. If you want to become a 9-5 Java programmer, you probably will never have any chance at improving your math skills.Programming isn't that hard. Not at all. I started learning younger than you. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | Hexstream: Programming itself doesn't require math besides the very basics, however the problem domain of your programs might require more advanced math.And it's never too young to learn programming. I know some people would consider 14 years old a late start. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | GeneralMaximus: Short answer: no.Long answer: I started programming when I was 13. I used to barely pass my maths exams. In 11th grade, we got to some basic Combinatorics, Complex Numbers, Coordinate Geometry and Advanced Algebra. Strangely enough, I got better at maths because I found these topics were relevant to programming and CompSci.In grade 12 we got to Calculus. I couldn't figure out how it was relevant to what I was doing in my free time, and I limped along once more.Don't worry. After you start programming, you'll come to like maths, if not love it. I have Discrete Maths in my next semester at college (the course is actually called Fundamentals of Computer Science) and I can't wait for this semester to end. I had calculus last semester, and I think I might fail (the results are not out yet). |
Fuzzy Logic SQL select framework | leonidtineo: At Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela, we have developed three general purpose fuzzy querying systems: SQLfi, SQLf-pl and PostgreSQLf. We have several in proceedings communications about them. If you are interested in using or contribute to the development: For PostgreSQLf contact professor José Tomas Cadenas <jtcadenas@ldc.usb.ve>, for SQLf-pl contact professor Leonid Tineo <leonid@usb.ve>, for SQLfi contact engineer Juan Carlos Eduardo <jceduardo@gmail.com>. SQLfi is also disponible at http://xica.bd.cesma.usb.ve/sqlfiv4 |
Recommendations for website monitoring tools | arien: You could try something like Nagios: http://www.nagios.org/. It's not a remote service, you have to install and configure it, but it's wonderful. |
Ask HN:SMTP Relay EC2 | cwitr329: I have been through this recently, and with alot of pain. Aristus is right, the EC2 IP block is blacklisted... So setting up a relay on ec2 is a bad idea. We have our EC2 Mail server instance on EC2, then have relays setup on slicehost which works great. |
How much money would it take to get into hardware? | brk: A lot of it depends on the hardware you're going to use. Assembling a bunch of off-the-shelf components into a new idea (ref: Chumby) is going to be much cheaper than developing your own custom asic's (ref: SiCortex).My experience over the course of a couple of hardware startups doing more off-the-shelf approach is it would take you about $20-$35MM in total funding for a typical hardware startup doing something semi new/radical.The hardware design itself can actually be relatively cheap. Packaging (custom tooling for cases, etc.) can easily cost you $20K-$300K (ie: as much as a big Angel round for some software startups). Manufacturing costs are usually a function of volume commitments and timing. So, you are going to be incented to commit to larger manufacturing runs than you are comfortable with to keep the per-unit cost low. Inevitably, after you do this you find there is some trivial but important item you missed, so you end up with re-work costs, or if you're very unlucky a lot of scrapped inventory.To answer your Tablet PC question, my guess is that you're looking at $10M. There is not a lot of invention there. You'd pull together a lot of off-the-shelf components into a new form factor. Most of your early costs would be sucked up by the design and tooling of the casing and overall industrial design. I'd venture that you'd be $500K into it just for ID and an ME to layout the (presumably) injection molding designs for the case and first mold. Budget another $150K ish for UL and FCC certs (your outsourced factory can help you with a lot of this process). Then you're likely to go through probably $250K in the initial hardware designs and single-unit prototypes. You'll generally need or want 1 prototype for each developer (probably 5-8 in this case), plus another 6-12 for QA, and another dozen or so for demos and for employees to carry around and just "use" out in the wild. If you're making a tablet with an $800 price point, your production BOM is going to be around $200, and total manufacturing costs around $350ish, but your first prototypes will cost you $1000ish/ea at first because a lot of it will be work done by hand, etc.So, thinking purely off the top of my head, you'd probably take a $1M angel round, a $4M A round and a $5M B round. Since this is a semi-proven CE device and not something radically new, you just need to build it and get it out there, not convince the world why they need it. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | tokenadult: I'm not that much good in maths, I know only school-level maths.You are fourteen years old. You probably haven't had much good math instruction yet. One of my favorite authors on school mathematics wrote, "The proper thing for a parent to say is, 'I did badly at mathematics, but I had a very bad teacher. I wish I had had a good one.'" W. W. Sawyer, Vision in Elementary Mathematics (1964), page 5. You can find a good teacher by finding good books about mathematics, even if you have never had a good teacher. Many working programmers haven't either, which is why some of them don't see the need for much math background to become a good programmer.You are young enough to learn a lot of math and to learn a lot of programming. Learning both hand-in-hand will make you a better programmer. One good book that combines both subjects is Approaching Precalculus Mathematics Discretely by Philip G. Lewishttp://www.amazon.com/Approaching-Precalculus-Mathematics-Di...http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=9168...which alas appears to be out of print, but may be available as a used book or from a library. It teaches key concepts of school mathematics while also teaching functional programming with the Logo dialect of Lisp.A great place to hang out online to learn math and programming is the Art of Problem Solving Forum, especially its subforum on computer science,http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/index.php?f=331which is moderated by a brilliant young man I know who is not a lot older than you are. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | cconstantine: This has been said already, but I"ll say it again; the maths you need are concepts like symbol manipulation, logic. Beyond that the only math you need to know is related to the problem you're trying to solve with a program.I'm currently trying to learn a new-to-me language (clojure) and I'm finding working my way through project euler (http://projecteuler.net/) to be very helpful. It might also help you with math ;) |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | jimrandomh: The younger you are when you first start programming, the better a programmer you'll end up being. Don't let anyone tell you you're too young.You'll have to learn math /eventually/, but you don't need it yet. You can afford to focus on pure programming, and wait five years on the math. |
How much money would it take to get into hardware? | jwilliams: Hardware as a rule isn't necessarily expensive. If you had a specialised peripheral you might be able to get going on a million -- maybe even a lot less if you can push functionality to software (eg a simple setup where the fpga or microcontroller does all the heavy lifting).The problem is when you want to compete in a market with volume and wide distribution. Eg something like a tablet pc. Unless most of the idea comes from OEM parts then you need big money. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | mjgoins: In high school (at least here in the USA) teachers focus on math that will help students with the natural sciences, namely calculus and a bit of statistics.For programming, what you need to read about are Logic and Discrete Mathematics. And yes, they absolutely will help you be a good programmer. |
feedback on The Great Movie Experiment - an alternative to IMDB star ratings. | unalone: IMDb has a group of ultradedicated movie fans and it has an excellent rankings formula. The only reason their ratings are any good is that they have more movie buffs than any other place, so the reviews and ratings actually indicate a lot of very good movies. |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | kaens: Because everybody is already used to telling time in a certain way, and doesn't want to take the time to learn a new one, put in the effort to learn a new one, or deal with the initial wave of missed meetings and general confusion that would result as larger portions of the population moved to a different way of telling time. |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | parenthesis: What problem does it solve that UTC doesn't?Its time unit (1 beat := 1000th of a (mean solar) day) doesn't have any nice relation to the units of time with which people are already very familiar (seconds, minutes, hours). |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | mooism2: Most people only have to worry about time zones when they go on holiday, even in the internet age, so they gain nothing.It forces people to give up familiar concepts of hours, minutes, and seconds, for no good reason.It forces people in some locations to get used to the date changing during daylight hours (big change if you are used to the date changing at midnight, after or just before you go to bed). |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | coolestuk: I'm really appalling at maths, and yet I love programming, and have been doing it full-time for over 10 years now. I came to programming very late in life, and almost had to claw my way into the industry. I was almost 30 before I even touched a PC.There are the very odd time when I suddenly realize I need something from my school maths education (which was before 1978), and then I have to search out that stuff (e.g. geometry and trigonometry) and finally find a use for it.I know I would be a better programmer if I understood maths better, but then I believe almost everyone would be improved by a better understanding of maths. I'm sure that studying programming will actually make some areas of maths more relevant for you.It all depends on the kind of programming you want to do - in some areas I guess not being a mathalete might be a great hindrance.I'm pretty sure it will be frowned upon to mention any particular language here, but Hypertalk really doesn't feel much like programming. Maybe it's because my speech patterns have actually started to resemble Hypertalk. Hypertalk lives on in http://www.runrev.com/ . (I have no connection with them other than as a user of their software.)I wish I was in your place. I'd take every opportunity to learn maths, but I wouldn't let my maths ability/disability get in the way of my enjoyment of programming. It's a fantastic buzz, and I never grow tired of it (well, sometimes I do get a little frustrated).I'm not sure how many people have listed any books for you, but this is the maths book I used when I followed a 1 year course in computing:
http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Discrete-Mathematics-O... |
Cloud computing cheaper or more expensive than other solutions? | ErrantX: Having built a couple of scalable systems of my own (personal project one running on 5 machines currently and 2 works ones running on 50 machines and 17,000+(client)/15(server) machines respectively - though note those last 2 are not websites) I can say safely that the easiest option is to go with a cloud provider. :)It's a pain to make sure you monitor loads and tweak the availability as things grow. Whereas with Amazon (who I would 100% recommend having recently played with them) it is pretty much all automagical :)One of the things I used to do when I was a more naive programmer was attempt to reinvent the wheel. Take LiveMeta. I got distracted for at least 2 weeks writing a javascript/php visitor tracking system (and it was damn good :D) . But the thing is - it's not what the site was about, it was an incidental feature (solely for the developers too!) and in the end Google/Clicky provided enough features.I traded one cut and paste of the Google Analytics code for 2 weeks I should have spent on the other parts of the project.Same applies here: dont give yourself work. If the project is going to need to scale fast ebough to require cloud computing/scalable architecture pay the bit extra to have Amazon do it for you. 3 years down the line you might decide it is time to invest in your own network - but right now I doubtthat shouldbe your focus. :) |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | biohacker42: Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; - DijkstraWhile I fully agree with the above, and I am a good programmer, good at proving theorems, I am terrible at algebra, I can barely do my taxes. |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | ryanwaggoner: A better question might be: why would anyone think this would work? |
feedback on The Great Movie Experiment - an alternative to IMDB star ratings. | ccarpenterg: Putting a button to discard both movies at the same time would be better in terms of user experience IMHO. |
Cloud computing cheaper or more expensive than other solutions? | satyajit: I am in the same position you are.
I considered DreamHost, SliceHost, and few others and went in for a barebone Linux Xen virtualization hoting at vpsfarm.com. Good enough for me to boot up.
Why I didn't go for Amazon - though I think EC2 provides way more value for what I am trying to do. BUT - their pricing is very confusing and sucks - while companies like slicehost/engineyard give upfront pricing, and they are scalable too (may not be upto EC2 level). For me, the price plays a big role as we are bootstrapping from our own pocket.
EC2 pricing is a huge matrix of upstream, downstream, storage, bunch of other things, which makes it almost impossible to estimate how much you might have to pay! Having said that, I may consider them at a later point of time, where we grow (hopefully) to bigger infrastructure. |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | aristus: Is this a serious question? Internet Time was a marketing gimmick by a watch company. It's like asking why "Bat Time" didn't work.Me, I'm still holding out for this:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | trickjarrett: Two reasons:
1. There's no GOOD reason for this change to happen. It's change for change's sake. Sure it's more logical, but standards of time or measurement aren't changed for just that reason, they get changed when they're shown to be BROKEN and while our current time system is less than optimal, it's far from broken. Blame the Babylonians.2. Establishment.Dethroning a company, which has marketing, and products, and such is one thing. But to dethrone a concept requires a great big change, cataclysmic in some ways. Ignoring the first point, Internet time could have succeeded if it only reached critical mass.Imagine if Twitter decided that starting today they only showed message times in Internet time. Would that be enough for people to quit twitter? Possibly. But would they lose that many people? It's really more about the here and now, so people shrug, call it eccentricity, and the geeks go about educating people trying to make them understand the merits of the new time system.If it and Twitter hung on, more and more people would come to understand it. This is the first hurdle now behind us.Many of us Americans understand the metric system, but the government still uses miles, feet, lbs, gallons, etc. So the people then have to begin calling for the social change, and dealing with those who didn't want the change. This is the second major hurdle. Even if a loud and vocal group advocated the change, it would require a great deal of reason to enact the change.Consider all the clocks that would need replacing. The epic sweeping changes to the clock and watch industry. They would fight tooth and nail to avoid such change. The costs would be astronomical. Sure they'd see a surge in sales from those who adopted the new system, but I doubt they would see much profit after the change to marketing, production, etc. |
Cloud computing cheaper or more expensive than other solutions? | iamelgringo: My situtation is a bit unique, because I'm using EC2's for Windows server hosting.I tried using something like Web Faction or Slice host for a while. And, while they were fine, my *nix admin fu < Windows admin fu. So, it was taking me five times longer to set up a Unix server on slicehost that did what I wanted it to.I was frustrated, so I tried to set up a Windows server on EC2 running a WAMP stack. I had my site up and running within a few hours. I looked around for other Windows hosting solutions, and about my only other options were to get a dedicated box at 2x the price.It's been running flawlessly for a month. I'm really happy. I really don't see my self using anyone else for hosting right now. If Azure starts looking ready for prime time, I'll check it out, but right now, it's EC2 for me.So, not only is EC2 more convenient for me, it's actually cheaper than other Windows hosting options that I found. |
Anyone within traditional corporate env. think that Office docs are going away? | noodle: no, or at least, not nearly as fast as techcrunch is reporting. perhaps they're dying, but they're going to "die" like cobol is dying, most likely. |
Anyone within traditional corporate env. think that Office docs are going away? | bkbagel: Personally, I think TechCrunch's sense of importance here is a bit inflated. I think Office still has a long time left in its domination. Most companies are not early adopters. And I think Google Docs, etc. still require "early adopter" status in the corporate world. |
Anyone within traditional corporate env. think that Office docs are going away? | Allocator2008: Yes. In fact I think we will soon go back to having a room of "computers" instead of using an excel document. In other words, take your calculations up to a roomful of gals who will do the calculations, double check them, and then hand you the answer some time later. Since clearly spreadsheet software has no practical use.Or not.:-) |
Startup Share Distribution for New Comers | brk: http://www.paulgraham.com/equity.html |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | lutorm: Why is the US still not using metric? That's a compelling change, which would align it with the rest of the world. And it's still not happening. The chances of the entire world adopting a new time scheme just for the heck of it are zero. |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | axod: Because powers of 10 are less useful than other more useful numbers like 60. That's why IMHO metric isn't generally as useful for day to day uses. eg you get a dozen rolls from the baker so you can divide them between 2,3,4 or 6 people. Getting 10 would be silly. |
Consider Banning Infoworld | andrewljohnson: I suggest we lose nothing by not banning them.It's not like the articles ever trickle to the top. That's the beauty of the site. And if someday, they actually submit a good article, then I want to see it. We don't need some heavy-handed witch hunt. |
Consider Banning Infoworld | noodle: ah yes, the weekly "why don't we ban (insert site here)" thread. i liked what came of last week's:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=510309 |
Why don't I get some indication of a response to my comments? | apgwoz: You're not the first to ask for this. I have asked before, and there is a feature request submitted on the feature requests thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363 |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | showerst: I think time zones are actually pretty useful. If I have to call Frankfurt or Tokyo, it makes a big difference whether it's 4pm their time or 6pm.If things were the same worldwide then I'd have no idea if it's the middle of the night in the place I'm trying to call unless I've already memorized it. With time zones I can just look at a world clock. |
feedback on The Great Movie Experiment - an alternative to IMDB star ratings. | foompy_katt: It would be great if an one's own ranked list could be exported straight from your website. Maybe you'd want to keep track of individual users' lists anyway, to prevent people from gaming the results?Great idea :). |
feedback on The Great Movie Experiment - an alternative to IMDB star ratings. | k0n2ad: Cool idea - I would change both movies each time, though, if you haven't seen at least one of them (instead of flipping one at a time and keeping the other one up). Also, as people have already mentioned, keep them in similar genres or at least offer an option of "Can't make the comparison," or something similar. |
Anyone within traditional corporate env. think that Office docs are going away? | JimmyL: No - and I'd also challenge the assertion that Dropbox and Slideshare are mainstream anywhere outside of the tech/early adopter community.These (and online docs) are products that people who like technology and new things use as a way to get their work done. The vast majority of people - and this is especially prevalent in enterprise contexts - don't care about a new way to get their work done, since the old one seems to work fine.Want to collaborate on a document? Either use Track Changes or press the "Share on SharePoint" button in Office. Want to share a PowerPoint? Email it. Want to version a document? Load it into the company's knowledge management system. I work on a leading-edge team inside of a very progressive (enterprise-size) company, and it's a battle to get people to use the wiki we have set up. |
I'm about to buy a domain from someone, what escrow service to use? | noodle: sedo seems to be the industry standard. looks like they charge $50 or 3%, whichever is more, for an escrow of an outside deal.http://www.sedo.com/services/s_escrow.php |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | mahmud: You will need math unless you want to spend the rest of your life as a second-class programmer. You don't have to wait for your teachers to "teach" you good math, you can start today by reading a good book. I recommend Peter Eccles' "Mathematical Reasoning"[1]; it will teach you how to think logically like a mathematician.[1]http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Mathematical-Reasoning-Pe...Mathematics will give you a language to reason about your problems, and once you have the foundations you can start using algorithmic cookbook-type solutions you find in texts for your own problems. A good grounding in Analysis, Logic, and some basic formal methods (you can ask me to explain what these are) will make you a better communicator with yourself.Along with mathematics you should probably venture more into systems programming. There are programmers who make software for other people, and there are programmers who make software for other programmers. At the risk of sounding snobby, you can probably guess who is having more fun :-) Master your environment. Whatever computer and Operating System you use, tinker with it to no end and figure out everything about it. Systems programmers make Operating systems and compilers, linkers and loaders, debuggers and disassemblers, packet sniffers, and hardware drivers and programming languages.Don't forget to have fun. Most people you see here are doing software for the money/independence. Nothing wrong with that. But you don't have any bills to worry about, so you can afford to actually become a HACKER (in its cool "dark shades and gelled hair" badass sense) you can start to make stuff your friends at school will go crazy over.In addition to maths and systems programming you will also need a COMMUNITY. A bunch of hackers who you can chat with online and show your stuff to. There will be experienced members and there will be beginners, however, your community should foster free participation and mutual respect (don't go to forums where people use sexist and racist language and don't hangout with people who call you "n00b" or some such derogatory terms. Bullies are the least capable hackers, usually.)Challenge yourself. Read books even if you can understand only the first chapter. That's usually a good sign that you will be able to understand the second chapter, if you read the first carefully and did the appropriate research. Browse wikipedia. Lookup difficult English words; not everything has to be technology related, I learned the ABCs of English at the same time I learned programming.You will become good at what you love, so if you love hacker culture, you will become a better hacker.Plan your weekends to have fun. Grab an assembly language text and sit by your computer to type in the examples. You might need to get an older computer and install MS DOS to read most of the cheap books; Windows assembly programming is not fun or easy, but Linux's IS (http://asm.sourceforge.net/) Nowadays, Windows is becoming a more difficult hacking platform, all the cool accessible systems programming level stuff are being done on Unix.Discover Unix. It's a beautiful thing. It's OK to be a hacking snob, if you talk to your friends about what you can do on Unix and brag about it, you will set a standard for what's cool. You will be the trend-setter that your friends copy and if enough of them are interested in hacking you will all compete for brag rights and all will become better for it in the long term. Make something and show it to your friends, either at school or online. That will motivate you more than anything.I know this is too long, but I had to say it. When I was your age and slightly younger, I was a child-militiaman. I carried a rifle and sat up all night for guard shift. I dug a well with my own hands. I collected wood all day and burned it in a whole to make charcoal for cooking. None of that matters now though, by the time I was 18 I was a Unix hacker; that changed my entire youth, I don't even remember being in a war-zone as a child anymore, all I remember is making my PC speaker scream with a buggy assembly language routine and waking up the whole family at 4AM :-) |
I'm about to buy a domain from someone, what escrow service to use? | mitchm: I've used escrow.com with great success. You can split the fee to escrow between the two parties or have 1 side agree to pay it. I think the seller decides what the split is, so make sure you agree on it before they set it up.At first i was cautious since escrow.com looks like it straight out of 1996 but it's legit. |
Help me become a great hacker | frisco: Don't forget that great hackers didn't become great by wanting to be so. They started working on a problem -- just like any other entrepreneur -- but their abilities to make machines do what they wanted was what set them apart. Technology is leverage.Start small. Make a website or write a tool for some idea you have, and your development will grow out of there organically. |
Anyone within traditional corporate env. think that Office docs are going away? | CWuestefeld: The author is completely dismissive of security concerns, but is incorrect in this attitude. These problems are not primarily technological (we know how to keep secrets, if only we could get users to follow the rules), so the barriers can't just be broken down by smart people.The problem is regulatory. HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley make online documents a non-starter for significant sectors of the economy. As long as business can be penalized to a degree that far outweighs any benefits for such decisions, these shared online systems will not chase away the traditional "I run my software and control my own data" model. |
Help me become a great hacker | mixmax: Offtopic, but maybe not: You're a great writer. |
Help me become a great hacker | tjr: You might find The New Hacker's Dictionary to be useful for establishing some background history and terminology.For programming material, maybe take a look at Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, and see if it looks like a good fit for you. The Little Schemer would also be a good read.Most important is to start hacking. Pick a language (Python, Ruby, or Scheme might be good starting places), learn how to write some trivial programs, and start expanding, seeking out more books and reference materials as you need them. |
Help me become a great hacker | mechanical_fish: We should really develop a ceremony. A sort of Hack Mitzvah. We could have an eminent member of the open source community dress up in a big ceremonial robe covered in surplus electronic parts, and people could approach one by one to be handed a tiny gold-plated lambda and have the ceremonial blessing pronounced: "Today, you are Free. Go Forth and Build Something People Want."I'm not sure I'm kidding. The time after one leaves school can be very stressful. Especially if you're trying to cope with parental pressure. So it feels kind of boring, perhaps even harsh, to just come right out and tell you: There's no secret. Just build something. You do not need our permission, and we will give you contradictory advice anyway [1], and all the tools you need are in front of you [2]. Stop flipping wistfully through the Ruby book and dive in to Ruby! If you need help being silly go visit _Why's site!http://shoooes.net/ [3]You may also find the presence of actual humans helpful. They can be good for one's morale. Are there any tech-related gatherings in your town? If not, is there a better town you could move to?Oh, and be sure to watch this Ira Glass video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xE&feature=relat...There may come a dark time when you need to watch this video daily. Hang in there.---[1] We're all working on different things, which require different technologies. We have different preferences. And, even if you get everyone to agree on the problem, nobody really knows what the best solution is, or whether the best solution will remain the best beyond next week.If you really want a recipe: Linux, emacs, Rails, jQuery, Web app. For furious debate about every single element of that list... see all the rest of the posts on HN.[2] Well, okay, technically that's not true. You are going to need a lot of time. And food. And the occasional break. Get a day job! You can practice subtle career-path misdirection if you manage to get a day job that combines medicine with a smattering of technology. There are lots and lots of those. You might even like one of them.[3] This was going to be hacketyhack.net but it is currently... "transforming". |
Help me become a great hacker | triplefox: A good start would be: try not to waste what you've learned. A starting point would be to imagine ways to improve medicine via computing. There are always ways that our information systems can be improved. It doesn't have to be an impressive field or anything, even a small problem will work. Design what you think a solution might be. Learn enough to do coding experiments with said solution. You'll iterate over it a ton. If the problem turns out to be big you will probably find yourself exploring things far off from the original problem and eventually, maybe years out, discover you've hit on something new. It might be viable as a business, or just a ground-breaking concept. Either way you will hit on it if you keep exploring.(This is from the perspective of doing mostly non-commercial programming. In commercial work you are mostly cleaning up other people's messes; there is little of interest and few learning opportunities after a certain baseline.) |
Help me become a great hacker | edcdave: For basic motivation and direction, try Don Lancaster's site and books.Reading programs is just as important to the budding (and expert) hacker as writing them. As goofy as it sounds, I found lots of inspiration trying to convert BASIC game programs (as in Ahl's 101 Computer Games) to Python. First time through try to get it to run. Then try to get it to work with fewer lines. Then add some features. You'll be surprised how much you learn.Good luck. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | dkarl: You don't need any specific mathematical knowledge, but it is vital to practice and understand mathematical thinking. Your goal should be to finish a couple of proof-heavy undergraduate theory courses, such as 400-level analysis and algebra.Along the way you will learn lots of useful math, but that isn't the point -- other than the math you encounter in your CS classes, there is no specific mathematical knowledge required for programming. However, you need to do a lot of proofs and understand the power of mathematics, and you need to have the mathematical background to tackle whatever your specific interests turn out to be. (For instance, if you become interested in data mining, you will need to have enough mathematical maturity to study statistics by yourself, starting with any requisite calculus and linear algebra you happen to lack.)Some people will correctly point out that you don't have to know jack about mathematics to be a good programmer. While this is true of many programmers, you sound like an especially smart kid, and you will not reach your potential without studying high-level math. |
Why don't I get some indication of a response to my comments? | mooism2: Not saying you shouldn't be able to be notified when you get a response, but when I used Reddit I hated that little red icon, and would have loved it if there was a setting to disable it. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | alan-crowe: The big overlap between mathematics and programming is proof
by mathematical induction. The standard example in
mathematics is proving that1+2+...+n = n(n+1)/2The proof has two parts, first is it true for small values
of n, and second does truth for a large value follow from
truth for all small values.Well, 1+2+3 = 6 and 3x(3+1)/2 = 6, so small n is looking good.What about general n? Can we get the formula for n from the
formula for earlier n, perhaps n-1?Suppose we already knew 1+2+...+(n-1) = (n-1)((n-1)+1)/2 = n(n-1)/2.Adding n to n(n-1)/2 does indeed produce n(n+1)/2 so gives
us the second part and completes the proof.The standard example in programming is writing a fast
sorting routine. Given data x1,x2,...,xn pick one item,
perhaps x1, as the pivot and work through the data
accumulating two lists, big and little, of data larger than
and smaller than the pivot. Join the sorted versions of
big and little with the pivot in between.The algorithm works because it works for small n as special
cases and works for larger n by breaking the big case into
smaller subcases.A list with only one item is inherently sorted and a list
with exactly two items is easily sorted by swapping them if
needed.A list with n items gets broken into a pivot and two lists
big and little. Both lists are less than n long. Even in
the lopsided case that one is empty the other is only n-1
long because we have taken out the pivot. So the sorting
routine is going to work because it works for smaller cases,
by just the same logic that underlies mathematical
induction.School mathematics has a misleading focus on
computation. University mathematics is focused on proof.In programming we tend to keep the proofs in our heads and
not write them down. The reason for this is that computers
need a great deal of handholding and babysitting. A computer
program is mostly made of details that spell things out for
the computer in detail. These details are typically
mathematically shallow. Provided we have not made any small
slips with the details the program will work and obviously
so.On the other hand, interesting programs have tricky bits
that are not mathematically shallow. How do you write those?
You need to think like a mathematician writing a proof. You
need to find bases cases and inductive steps.Mathematics and programming are different but mutually
illuminating. There is a very close connection between a
mathematic proof and the explanation of why a tricky
computer program works. Learning how to create mathematical
proofs will help you with writing tricky programs and
vice-versa.The most important example is calculus. Many mathematics
students struggle with calculus. It is a useful exercise
(perhaps for 16 to 18 year olds) to write your own computer
programs for numerical differentiation and for symbolic
differentiation and to get the two to agree as closely as
rounding error permits. Much that is obscure about calculus
then becomes clear.The overlap of mathematics and programming is very clear in
formalisms such as ACL2
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/moore/acl2/ which use a
computer programming language as a logic in which
mathematical theorems are stated and proven. The ACL2 book
is excellent, but alas, it assumes a university level grasp
of meta-mathematics. I fear that the book the poster seeks
has yet to be written. Perhaps some-one on HN will take up
the challenge? |
Help me become a great hacker | mannicken: How do you know that programming is your true passion if you've never built a program? Try it and see if you really like [rogramming. |
Help me become a great hacker | jimmyjim: "And here I am, about to graduate university, and I am fairly certain that a medically oriented career is not for me. After years of lurking HN, reading TC"Sorry, what's TC? |
Help me become a great hacker | grahamg: Go Away. It's people like you that are starting to turn this site into another Reddit or _gasp_ Digg.By the way, reading books might help. Tell your parents to fuck off as well. They sound like douchebags. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | nreece: The local ISP's website, and Altavista I guess. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | kyro: It was nickelodeon.com on a commercial at the age of 10 or so. And it was pretty damn amazing, strange, and breathtaking even, the first time I booted up AOL dial-up and loaded the page. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | paraschopra: Yahoo.com at a computer being displayed at a tradeshow. I was mesmerised at that point... |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | babyshake: I don't really recall the first URL, but I have a very clear memory of the first time I saw broadband access. My dad's friend gave us a demo of how you could load yahoo.com in "only seconds" with his cable connection. Within a week, we had our subscription. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | Shooter: symbolics.com |
How much money would it take to get into hardware? | graemeklass: The major costs would be the assorted tooling charges:
- plastic moulds: for a tablet size probably $50-70k. I would recommend you get an experienced industrial designer to guide you through this process. Make sure if you get quotes from China that you don't give the 3D model for the quote - give 2D technical drawings with enough information for a quote but not for full production (your industrial designer should know this).
- PCB boards: nowadays tooling charges are quite low. We use OurPCB.com for a smallest circuit board and the tooling charge is in the low hundreds. We source the important components and get them to ship it to the PCB makers. they then send the completed PCB's to us.
- packaging: allocatae a few thousand to set up your box or plastic packaging.Stage your production:
- pilot run (say 10 PCB boards to get all of your component logistics sorted out).
- 1st run (100 PCB's with 100 plastic shells and packaging)
- production run (1000 PCBs, 1000 plastic shells and packaging)Assemble, program and test your devices close to you (ie. your garage :). This allows you a) to keep your IP close to you and b) iron out any production bugs, processes etc. so you are ready to outsource the whole production and assembly (if you so wish). |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | gne1963: www.cnn.com |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | nostrademons: gopher:some.obscure.university.address.edu. It was late 1993. |
Poll function | frisco: Feature. Many polls aren't binary choices, and this allows for that. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | triplefox: I vaguely remember using some university's gopher system at a demonstration Internet setup circa 1992-93. That would make me seven or eight years old.The first url I actually remember would probably be liii.com:8000 as that was the host of a Merc MUD I played on(Barren Realms). I have some recollection of playing on it a few times before we got internet access at home. Now they're at http://www.barrenrealmsmud.com/ and I haven't visited in probably a decade now. Nice that they're still around.The second early url I remember is crl.com, the dial-up ISP my dad signed up with. We had a shell account on a real Unix box, with a whopping 5mb storage, and we weren't allowed to run SLiRP/TIA so we couldn't emulate a SLIP/PPP connection and use graphical browsers(a sore spot as the Web got increasingly graphical). They moved to business-only services some years later (and we moved on to other ISPs) Now the domain appears to be taken by a drug company. I don't remember what crl stood for, even.A third good one was ftp.wuarchive.wustl.edu. They had a pretty spiffy anonymous ftp in the early 90s. Apparently it is now "too expensive to push bits to the world."My predominant memory of the internet before around 1996 was that the Web was only one of several viable systems: email, Usenet, telnet, and ftp were also used by my 8-to-10-year-old self. But as I got older, the Web rapidly took over everything. I was still using dial-up right up until 2003 when I went off to college. And then still used dial-up when home on breaks, until I got a laptop and stole the neighbor's wi-fi. It's funny to think of how much dial-up's user experience grew less tolerable over time. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | thwarted: It wasn't the first, but one I remember shown in the trailer for the movie The Craft (I have no idea what movie I actually went to the theater to see). It is memorable because someone yelled out in the theater "HOLD ON WHILE I GET A PEN TO WRITE THAT DOWN", and the theater broke out in laughter. Little did they know that this little WWW thing wasn't just a flash in the pan. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | lionheart: http://www.yahooligans.com I used to love that site when I was a kid. |
Webcam streaming solutions? | Steve0: If you already have a vpn setup I would recommend a simple IP webcam. For example: http://tinyurl.com/d33j7d or http://tinyurl.com/d2hebyThose have an integrated webserver, which means there's no need to have a computer running as host. |
Has iPhone 3.0 Spotlight changed the way you use your phone? | gstar: Not yet! Crikey, give it a day or two.Although, I have used it quite a bit to look up contacts, and to search for an email. I found the email search a bit wanting though.Overall a huge improvement, I just wish i could press cmd-space to activate it. |
Webcam streaming solutions? | ktharavaad: I saw this over at the demo.com website and it seems like a pretty easy and cool solution for video streaming.http://www.vuezone.com/I'm not affiliated with them in any way. |
Review my site MusterBlog (www.musterblog.com) | freddy: ok yeah I agree it is not pretty quite yet just wondering if those features would be meaningful. They are there, but only are visible after login etc. Do you see value in those features I guess is what I am getting at? |
Switching from MediaTemple to Slicehost | rickharrison: Yea it definitely will. Just follow the tutorials on slicehost's website and you will be fine. Start off with ubuntu 8.04 imo |
Switching from MediaTemple to Slicehost | lethain: I've been running my sites (Django-powered) on Slicehost for about two years and have been very pleased overall.A few observations:1. Running Apache with both mod_php and mod_passenger (assuming that would be your deployment method for Rails app) on a 256 meg slice may be tight if your traffic levels pick up. (Based on experience with mod_wsgi, mod_python and mod_php, I haven't explicitly used mod_passenger and am unaware of its memory/interpreter model, but think it is similar to mod_wsgi.) But it will be enough to manage your existing blogs and additional PHP applications as long as the load doesn't explode.2. You don't need any linux administration chops to get started, but every year or so I've learned enough additional practices that I grab another slice, setup the new slice from scratch, transfer my webapps/sites to the new slice, and power down the old one. There are just a number of small best-practices that--when avoided--add up to a hard to manage setup over time, especially when managing multiple sites within multiple servers. You'll probably want to do the same.3. Slicehost has great resources, http://articles.slicehost.com/ , which should cover most configuration/setup details.4. Switching over to my own slice and doing administration myself has been a very valuable experience for me, and I really do recommend it. |
Feedback on Thymer - a GTD/project management app for teams | jbm: I love this app already.Guys, if you want to do a Japanese cell phones version, give me a holler. I might be able to help. |
Is GRE useful outside graduate school? | noodle: there's a lot of criticism of the GRE. people basically point out that its only good at determining who is good at taking standardized tests, since it isn't a very good predictor of graduate school success.its just one of those things, though. not all programs weigh it heavily. |
What's Your Vote Worth? | stonemetal: I guess it depends on what you are talking about paying for. $100 for the front page seems cheap, $100 for my one up vote seems to high. So far as I can tell, me voting a story up or down in no way effects my reputation( I can't tell who voted an article up or down and I don't get points for it.) It is my comments that carry both my recorded reputation and my actual what my peers think about me reputation. However moving what appears on HN to a money basis would effect how I view the site or more likely stop viewing the site. The signal to noise ratio would change for the worse. |
Is GRE useful outside graduate school? | stonemetal: No, and it isn't worth much inside graduate school either. Some schools especially towards the high end have stopped using the gre and sat as qualifiers. |
Please explain what happens in this execl() problem. | alecco: buffers?BTW, don't think this is "Hacker News" ;) |
Please explain what happens in this execl() problem. | parenthesis: > I get two warnings for execl() & exit() when compile man execl
man 3 exit
will tell you which headers you need to #include. |
Please explain what happens in this execl() problem. | cperciva: This had better not be a homework problem.The lines "Line number 2 before execl" and "Line number 1 before execl" will not be printed on most systems because most systems default to line-buffering (when writing to a terminal) or fully buffering (otherwise) output.The lines "... after execl" will not be printed if execl succeeds, because execl does not return if it succeeds.Other bugs: You're not checking the return status of execl; you've declared main incorrectly; you need to #include <unistd.h> and <stdlib.h> if you're going to use execl and exit; you should pass a terminating NULL to execl, not 0 (the C compiler will coerce 0 to a pointer, but NULL is not guaranteed to be (void *)0). |
Why if visitors return, site does not grow | stonemetal: mathematically possible? Easy you have reached the X people interested in the subject and no one new comes to read the blog. Probably you don't have enough juice to get good ranking for search terms so not much search traffic is going your way. |
Why if visitors return, site does not grow | spoiledtechie: Keep writing. Thats all I found I could do with my blog. I just have to keep writing and the more I write, the more posts I create the more search traffic I get.Keep working on it.How long have you been writing? |
Are there any technology/geek radio stations online? | ideamonk: no idea about radio stations... checkout some podcasts by people behind stackoverflow.
Revision3.com -- checkout some shows related to hacking. |
Why if visitors return, site does not grow | coglethorpe: Guest post on similar blogs with more traffic. If done right, they get free content, you get a link or two back to your site.Use blog carnivals. blogcarnival.comMake sure you point users to the subscription option clearly. That helped my numbers rise... |
How useful is Pair Programming? | nshah: There's both sides of pair programming... recently I attended a presentation where the presenter basically said that pair programming should be mandatory... on the other hand, I've done pair (and even triplet) programming... Here's my thoughts:* Advantages
- Works great in initiating a new team member in to a large project
- Gives each developer a chance to do code-review on the fly
- If there's good rapport, pair programming can get a lot more done* Issues
- Requires good co-ordination between team members
- Two similar thinking people may not be able to take full advantage of this technique |
How useful is Pair Programming? | gcheong: The fact is that very few studies have actually been done so most of what you get are anecdotal accounts.
I think pair programming has it's uses, for example, when a developer is stuck on a problem and can't move forward it's often helpful to have another set of eyeballs, but I have yet to see it effectively used full time (except for consultants who get to bill out at a double rate!).A good book to check out with some counter arguments to pair programming and XP in general is "Extreme Programming Refactored: The Case Against XP". |
How useful is Pair Programming? | Edinburger: I've led agile teams for the past three years where there has always been some pairing and some solo work. I'm sorry I can't offer statistical data, only my anecdotal observations:* Pairing is particularly useful when breaking new ground.* Pairing is good for knowledge sharing.* Pairing is good for quality.* One pair is slower than two solo developers.* Based on the last 3 years I don't buy the idea that long-term pace is higher because we'll have less technical debt due to pairing.* Improved quality may not be worth the lower overall pace* You hired professional developers - let them work the way they think is best or find new developers i.e. respect their preferences for pairing or going solo. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | DanielBMarkham: From what I've seen, this is something with a lot of hype. I've seen a lot of smoke, but little fire.Anecdotally, I've heard and seen that it helps, and that it hurts. I've seen people praise it as the answer to all productivity problems (along with TDD and ATDD, of course) and I've seen people curse it.My opinion? It's good for leveling out the programmers on a team. If I had 6-8 team members I might have one pair going at all times -- usually the pairing up a weak/new developer with somebody who can help him. But I wouldn't expect productivity improvements -- I'd simply use it as a way of level-setting the team. It seems like a good mechanism for bringing people up to speed quickly.Having said that, you have to let the team be the judge. If they like it, do more of it. If not, don't. Whatever you do, don't let hype and religion get in the way of the team performing. Life is too short to make it miserable by doing something everybody thinks is stupid.Some of the TDD guys are doing ping-pong pair programming. That's where person A writes a test for new code, then person B writes code for the test and then writes a new test for new functionality. It bounces back to person A, who writes the new functionality and then a new test for new stuff, etc.That at least seems more interesting for folks.Personally, I don't like it. But I try to be open-minded about it (especially since I teach this stuff!)Be aware that in some anal-retentive shops, pair programming is a security violation. (You're not supposed to be sharing your terminal session with anyone) |
Best site for Photoshop tutorials? | catone: I'm late to answer this, but there are a few major tutorial aggregation sites: http://www.good-tutorials.com - http://www.pixel2life.com - http://www.tutorialized.com/ |
How useful is Pair Programming? | intellectronica: _very_ useful, but not exclusively. pairing is great for gaining momentum, learning a new technique or domain, focusing on solving a particularly hard problem and mentally syncing with your co-prorammer. it is draining and ineffective if done for more than a week or two. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | mpk: Pair-programming as a dogmatic part of the development process is, IMNSHO, very overrated.Coding standards, simple interfaces, commit policies, etc are far more important.Pair programming is useful for,* Building small but critical pieces of code which everyone interfaces with on some level inside a group (a core plugin API would be a good example)* Knowledge transfer. I use PP extensively to work-in new people and get them comfortable with a codebase, svn commit policy, documentation, etc. (I let them choose the tools, read on for more on that).* Solving short coding problems in a common piece of code.Code review also plays a much more important role than PP. The ability to read, understand and change each others code should just be built into the development process instead of trying to force an artificial level of quality/shared-knowledge via PP.As an example, in my spare time I'm implementing a simple and clean Ruby version of some core functionality that we have in C# and JS (yes, I know, odd combination). A colleague is tracking my commits and implementing the same system in Python (also in his spare time). At any point in the future, someone wanting to implement this in Perl (for example) can just follow the commit changes on this reference implementation.PP is also tricky when you choose to do something other than C# or Java, because in those cases you have a common IDE that's used in the company.If you're doing anything unix-y some people will use emacs (setup their way) and others screen + vim (setup their way). Some poor misguided fools will use Notepad++ on Windows, and while that's fair enough if it works for them, that doesn't help matters any for PP.I'm not dismissing PP, but the XP model just isn't suited for every environment. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | blasdel: Almost all of the methodology promoted as "Pair Programming" is at best neutral, but there is a kernel of awesomeness in the idea:Get two developers working in close proximity, criticizing with each other constantly as they work. The more yelling the better. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | andrewljohnson: I've read that pair programming is good for mediocre or novice programmers. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | menloparkbum: Pair programming is useful when the project is so heinous and boring that nobody would work on it unless there's another person sitting next to them keeping them on task. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | akeefer: Microsoft did an internal study you might find interesting:http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/abegel/papers/...I also know that they sponsored research by the Stanford CS department where they gave pairs and individuals the same programming task (completable in an afternoon), but I have no idea what the results of that were or if they were ever published.My personal experience is pretty analogous to other people's: it causes you to work more slowly and carefully, it's good for knowledge transfer, and some people are better suited for it (personality-wise) than others. I find it most effective when avoiding errors or technical debt is imperative or when you want to transfer knowledge, and not as useful otherwise.I've also noticed that my perceived productivity is lower when pairing than it actually is; I'm so used to cranking by myself that slowing down so someone else can talk with me about what to do, or being the "navigator" and not coding at all, makes me feel like I'm not getting anything done. In reality, though, I'm actually getting a fairly decent amount done, and more importantly we're probably avoiding mistakes or blind alleys that would have cost me time in the long run. That makes it hard to measure the real productivity difference: if two people had coded by themselves for 8 hours, more "work" would have been done than if those two people paired for 8 hours, but how much of that would have been wrong, or unnecessary, or overly-complicated, or introduced more technical debt?It's the sort of skill that takes work, and that gets easier as you do it, so I'd encourage you to try it out. As with any new way of working, it'll be awkward at first and then get easier, and I think it's worth at least learning so that in the future you'll be able to judge for yourself when you feel like pairing will be most useful and when you're better off flying solo. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | dkarl: In my experience, pair programming is to programming what eating less and exercising is to obesity: most people simply can't bring themselves to do it, even after trying it and experiencing success. My advice is to just forget about it, like doctors these days who prescribe drugs for cholesterol and high blood pressure without even bothering to mention that those conditions can usually be controlled via lifestyle changes. Unless you're really lucky, you won't find anybody else willing to practice it with you.If you actually get a chance to introduce pair programming to your organization, go for it. In my unfortunately limited experience, pair programming paid for itself by virtually eliminating some classes of mistakes. Typos and other oversights are caught faster and more efficiently, of course, but more importantly, things that lone programmers tend to put off figuring out, the mental and sometimes subconscious TODOs, get hashed out immediately. That saves time rewriting bad designs.Unfortunately, as with lifestyle change, people start enthusiastically but quickly sour on it until the mere mention of it evokes anger and resentment. |
Web 2.0 and The Four Steps to the Epiphany | andhapp: I was going to buy this book...but I read this review...http://eightpence.com/the-four-steps-to-the-epiphany-review/ |
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