instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
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Could a Lisp be Blub? | patio11: Could a language ... cater to average programmers and be despised by hackers?Who a language "caters to", who an "average" programmer is, and who a "hacker" is are all social constructs which have no relationship to the objective reality of what features are in a language. People who wish to assert their super... |
Could a Lisp be Blub? | wglb: The blub argument is about not understanding that there are tools out there that do things that you can't currently imagine due to your immersion in your current toolset or a very narrow world view. |
Could a Lisp be Blub? | raganwald: Yes: http://weblog.raganwald.com/2006/10/are-we-blub-programmers.... |
Could a Lisp be Blub? | iman: There are languages that have useful features that lisp lacks. For example, Haskell has lazy evaluation and automatic compiler generated program correctness proofs (a decent type system).Then there are languages that try to be even more powerful than Haskell, for example Epigram, which has dependent types.Lazy ev... |
Could a Lisp be Blub? | gruseom: I've been thinking about this again because of the recent re-post of one of pg's Lisp essays (one of the two that originally provoked me into learning Lisp). The essay makes an argument that the answer to your question is roughly "No". The argument goes like this: no language that lacks Lisp-style macros can b... |
Could a Lisp be Blub? | jerf: How could you cripple such things? Well, first, culture. The primary difference between Ruby and Python is culture; the languages enable virtually identical styles of programming in practice (spelled slightly differently, but basically the same), but the cultures encourage different practices, such as how they fe... |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | keeptrying: The possibility of riches. |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | keeptrying: Passion for the field/area which would be affected by your startup. |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | keeptrying: The idea of starting something successful "from scratch". |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | keeptrying: The lifestyle that can be had from running your own successful company. |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | param: Try using this if you can: http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll |
Could a Lisp be Blub? | mahmud: Clojure risks heading that way; for all its beauty, clojure is losing its culture fast! You can already see Design Patterns being shoehorned on top of it, Java programmers will embrace it and extend it in earnest.The sort of applications being written with the language are a huge factor in making it attractive ... |
Could a Lisp be Blub? | rikthevik: Cadence's SKILL seems to be a pretty good attempt. Looking at it still gives me the willies.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_SKILL |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | Kaizyn: This really depends. Is the purpose of your startup to make you financially independent for the rest of your life? Are you already set and are now wanting to try changing the world? Can you live in your parents' basement for a few years while your great idea 'changes the world'?If you don't love what you're ... |
Real-world experience importing from China? | jacquesm: I once signed up with alibaba.com to get some leads on sourcing LCDs, since then they've been spamming me 3x daily about LCDs, so they're certainly efficient. I wished I could get off their list somehow :) Other than that no experience with them. |
Real-world experience importing from China? | rms: My only experience on Alibaba involved someone sending me a free sample of a fake product. Whatever you do, get references and make sure you trust them before you wire the money.As far as a general answer to your question -- it depends, but Ali Baba is certainly not only for suckers. It's too big to be worthless. |
Real-world experience importing from China? | mahmud: I poured my heart out for "you" a few days ago:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=762531Alibaba is a hub, but it's a very Chinese company; I was there in Hong Kong during their IPO and I can assure you, HK and all of China was abuzz. Nearly every Chinese factory has an account with them. You should be safe dea... |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | joez: C) is two very different things. As previous articles/threads (try google search) have suggested, quitting because you hate your job is not the right place to start but maybe good motivation to take the final leap. The satisfaction of seeing something you built from the ground up can be satisfactory and keep you ... |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | mudge: It has been said that a large part of what commonly makes a startup successful in the end is the persistence and determination of the founders. If you can generate more persistence in yourself by being passionate about what you are doing, then I think you are more likely to find a way to be successful. |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | dpcan: Lifestyle. |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | mudge: Another incentive for starting a startup is because you have some cool hack you want to try out. |
Best plugin for Jquery edit-in-place | dpnewman: http://www.appelsiini.net/projects/jeditableused it several times... excellent; flexible. |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | Virax: Changing the world. I can make money in far less risky ways, and I can pursue my passions in my free time. I am actually somewhat surprised that you managed to fit the word "lifestyle" and "running your own successful company" into the same sentence.Having said that, I seriously doubt I will ever found a startup... |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | credo: I'm not sure if one specific reason would be more important than others.For instance, I wouldn't want to work on something that I'm not passionate about (incentive B).
However, over the long-term, I also wouldn't want to work on something that doesn't have a reasonable market (incentive A).imo your description o... |
Control Mouse Cursor with Keyboard? | chaosprophet: Try Keymouse. I'm not sure if it's freeware though, and it might be windows only. |
Haiku? | tommusic: come be a poet
with people around the world
one line at a time
http://haikoo.org |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | cgherb911: A, but its not about the money. If you don't have a value proposition you don't have a business. Is there a pain point that you solve? How painful is it? Where there is a real need will yield success. And I mean success in the interpretation that correlates to your business's or NPO's goal. |
Whats more important? Size of the target market or Passion for an idea. | wlievens: The order for me would be CDBA. If I were to to it, that is. |
Haiku? | qbit: Haikus on HN?What has the world come to now?Still, I can't resist. |
How to avoid high redirecting costs from phone provider? | mahmud: Twilio does that and inbound calls can be as cheap as 3 cents/minute.If you choose to use them, try to fit your voice message into under a minute. Whenever people call your number, twilio will play your "thanks for calling, we have your number, we will call you back" message. The Twilio API can send missed call... |
Haiku? | abijlani: Code is poetryUI a storyHack... a haiku |
Pitching startup concept at an exhibition/showcase | apsurd: 1. pitch it to us.2. iterate based on feedback.You asking us to give advice on something we know nothing about. Is this an entrepreneurial-based contest? A technology one? Do they want financially sound concepts, or change the world ideas? Who are the judges? Peers, technology figures, academics, business owner... |
Pitching startup concept at an exhibition/showcase | mahmud: And now for some unsolicited "advice":Pitch it to your clients; i.e. start selling to buyers, cut the funding phase out.My family and friend have contributed money to my project, but nothing gave me the boost in confidence and the rush of excitement as that $95 I got from my first user (I charged my second clie... |
What's a Non-Programmer to do? | joshuamarch: I strongly recommend you read 'Four steps to the Epiphany' by Steve Blank. As a business focused founder, you need to be handling customer development - really going out there, talking to customers, understanding who is your core market, getting paying customers, validating this into a proper scalable busi... |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | jacquesm: paradigm shiftleverage |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | TallGuyShort: It's not limited to tech people, but I do hear them say it a lot: "irregardless".edit: Oh and let's not forget Scott Adam's favorite: Synergy |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | tdonia: savvy |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | RiderOfGiraffes: Quantum, in almost any context. I do use non-trivial, but I'm a mathematician, and I refer you to Feynman's comments about tthe use of 'trivial'. |
Pitching startup concept at an exhibition/showcase | pclark: venturehacks.com |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | gdp: I have to step in here to defend "non-trivial".Perhaps it is abused as a term by the population at large, but I'm reasonably sure it has its roots in theoretical computer science and maths. It has a meaning that is distinct from "complex". It means that something requires something more than pure mechanical veri... |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | zackola: kludge
synergy/synergistic/synergize
proactive
xml |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | lamby: "Realtime" |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | yan: Enterprise. |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | ganley: There's a joke that when an engineer says 'nontrivial,' he means 'impossible.' |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | odvious: revolutionary |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | davidw: "Trivial" itself can sound quite snotty, said in the right way. |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | jsm386: dead simple |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | yannis: Erlang! |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | Maro: synergy(Go watch 'In good company') |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | michaelcampbell: "Configurable" |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | gaius: Idempotent.But non-trivial does have a specific meaning: it means that we don't have any code already written or proven technique that we can simply reuse for or apply to this problem, and some new knowledge will have to be synthesized, and there's a risk in making any estimates of time/cost until more is known. |
My accounts: Twitter hacked? GMail hacked? Computer hacked? | noodle: this is what i would do if i were in your shoes, in this order: - change your email password immediately. just in case.
- fix the title of this article because its misleading.
- inspect those emails a little closer. they might be bogus. could be spam/phishing.
- see if you can get a password reset f... |
My accounts: Twitter hacked? GMail hacked? Computer hacked? | jacquesm: > I'm not sure how else I could describe the issue.Try 'my accounts on' as a prefix ? |
My accounts: Twitter hacked? GMail hacked? Computer hacked? | qhoxie: After a bit of searching around I verified that there had been no activity in my GMail account since I left on Friday, so they couldn't have accessed the confirmation email to verify the Twitter accountBe sure to check your filters as a common attack is simply copying all mail to another account. |
Market research? | willphipps: Would tech VC blogs help?http://www.theequitykicker.com/
http://www.the-accelerator.blogspot.com/
http://maxniederhofer.com/
http://www.freddestin.com/
http://www.avc.com/Best of luck. |
Open-source feedback software? | thesethings: It's not exactly what you're looking for, but there enough of an overlap for me to mention Review Board, written in Django, that is really for code review, but supports screenshots.Anybody looking to make open source "visual feedback" software may want to check out the code.http://www.review-board.org
-
H... |
How would you find a designer? (We've already checked under the bed) | Novash: Try1) At the end of the rainbow (people always forget this one)2) If you can hold a couple more months, ask Santa for one, but that requires you to have been a good hacker all the year and have always freed all resources on the destructors and never left a dangling pointer.3) Post a job add on Stackoverflow.com... |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | screwLoose: 'webinar' has been annoying me for years now. |
How would you find a designer? (We've already checked under the bed) | poppysan: I'd be interested in the right project. Maybe we can trade details? |
What does the image on http://paulgraham.com/index.html signify? | ScottWhigham: Obligatory link: http://paulgraham.com/index.html |
What do you think of "Congregous" for a social networking startup? | Novash: I think the name is fit, but we already have far too many social networking sites. |
What do you think of "Congregous" for a social networking startup? | tdoggette: I think your link goes to a blank page. |
How many hackers are also fighters? | noodle: i used to be a professional martial artist until i killed my knees. now i fence. |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | electronslave: Drill. Like "drill down".It seems that trepanation might be a good response to someone using this word."Could you drill down into my data set and shift some paradigms?" "Yes, and while I'm at it, I'll equalize your humours." WHIRR "Indeed." |
Haiku? | BearOfNH: Hacker News haiku:Should one write about natureor technology? |
What do you think of "Congregous" for a social networking startup? | dcbrandao: The name is similar to Kongregate, but not as memorable. |
How many hackers are also fighters? | Novash: I used to fight Aikido but now it is hard to find time for it since I work far (and by far I mean 2h30 each trip). Also, I recently suffered an accident (read, nearly broke my feet) that left me with a permanent damaged tendon on my left feet, rendering me unable to kneel down properly, which rules out the Shi-... |
How many hackers are also fighters? | ionfish: When I did ju-jitsu in university, everyone there studied physics, chemistry, engineering or computer science.I found it slightly surprising at the time, but I suppose the arts and humanities students had better things to do. |
How would you find a designer? (We've already checked under the bed) | sid: I can tell you how i found mine.During highschool I had a friend who was always a design focused guy. He was good at painting, drawing sketching, it was a natural abilityWe went to uni together also and i did a CS degree whilst he did a general science degree.At uni he did a few CS subjects and did a few electives... |
How many hackers are also fighters? | khafra: Systema, Silat, and Xingyi. I've noticed a lot of graduate students in the sciences out rock climbing, too. |
How many hackers are also fighters? | jacquesm: The way you've phrased your question it's kind of hard to say that you're not.So, I'm not :)I don't like fighting, though I appreciate the discipline and control that goes in to things like karate.When I was a kid and in high school I fought my lifes share of fights and since then I've worked hard to stay awa... |
How many hackers are also fighters? | movix: I do Movement Meditation in a class run by a seventy year old guy. I'm the youngest at fourty-five. It's an art, no violence or aggression, but intense training. I don't get injured - ever.Previously kubatan, and some close protection training. I rate Systema very highly, but I still think running away is the be... |
What do you think of "Congregous" for a social networking startup? | movix: I see where you're coming from, but it still makes me think of 'incongruous' |
What do you think of "Congregous" for a social networking startup? | DanielStraight: Not so hot. I also think that doing font shadows on small fonts is ridiculous because it just makes it harder to read. But I'm obsessed with readability, so... |
What do you think of "Congregous" for a social networking startup? | bdr: I know exactly what it means, and I can easily spell it and pronounce it, but it's still horrendous. The person who wrote this poll must be a developer because it's so objectively oriented. Here are some subjective aspects to consider: what other words does it remind you of? would you be embarrassed to tell someon... |
What do you think of "Congregous" for a social networking startup? | wizzard: Immediately made me think "gangrenous." |
How many hackers are also fighters? | JimmyL: Karate in while studying computer engineering in University.The Sensei was a trained mechanical engineer, and about half the group either had iron rings (which they all took off before fighting) or were in the process of getting them. |
How many hackers are also fighters? | DanielStraight: Considering how uninteresting "no" is as a response, I think this thread will tell you precisely nothing. |
How many hackers are also fighters? | electronslave: Having noticed a slight trend along these lines, I tend to avoid people who are violent and have under-developed social skills, as poor anger management strategies seem to ride along in the same bucket. |
How many hackers are also fighters? | yummyfajitas: Eskrima (filipino martial arts) here. In addition to being fun, it also gives you strong and flexible wrists. |
How would you find a designer? (We've already checked under the bed) | movix: We're considering a reciprocal barter system - coding for design.Any interest to you? |
What does the image on http://paulgraham.com/index.html signify? | movix: The other bit makes me think of little green men - is it a sign??? |
What's your least favorite tech word? Mine's "non-trivial". | yagibear: disambiguate |
Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature? | bdmac97: Uhm... no? Why would it be "dirty" to do that? As long as you have a valid way to access the data you're just doing your customer a favor.I think it's only dirty if you're not upfront with the customer about what you are going to bring in from your competitor and/or what you're going to do with the data. |
What do you think of "Congregous" for a social networking startup? | icey: It made me think of "egregious". (Probably not great) |
Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature? | chengas123: Not at all. Especially, if you also offer an export feature. Trapping the user's data in your product is not nice. |
Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature? | run4yourlives: My thought is that it is "dirty" to not allow your customer to easily export their data from your project.If a customer chooses to use a competing product, and you make it hard for them to do so in order to keep them, you've already gone from being a help to being a barrier to your customer.If someone el... |
Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature? | tedunangst: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000052.html |
Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature? | Edinburger: Check whether you would be violating the Terms of Use of the competitor's product (e.g. by screen-scraping their site). Of course, if you are small you are less likely to be sued so you might want to take the risk. |
Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature? | aplusbi: Not at all, as long as you provide an easy and open way to export your data for your users (and potentially your competitors) to use. |
Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature? | caffeine: I think you should probably shoot the competitor an e-mail and mention to them that you're doing it (and tell them about your useful export API, and ask if they can reciprocate!) |
should we be publishing screenshots? | henriklied: Definitely, yes. The first thing I take a look at when browsing for a new web based application is the screenshots (yes, before the screencast).Do not hide what you are trying to sell. |
How many hackers are also fighters? | schof: Krav Maga, Kali, boxing, and bits of Muay Thai and Wing Chun; Python, BASH, and a bit of C. |
should we be publishing screenshots? | jacquesm: Makes you wonder how they will respond when actual users are looking at those screens. Do they have to sign an NDA too ? |
Is it "dirty" to have an "Import from [competitor]" feature? | Anon84: As long as you have a "Export to [competitor]" feature as well I don't see what the problem is. |
How do I find out whether something was submitted? | sharpn: there's a 'HNSearch' icon at the bottom-right of your screen :o) |
How do I find out whether something was submitted? | sarvesh: HN automatically redirects you to the page if the link was already submitted. This works most of the time. If you really want to be certain you can try searching in searchyc.com. |
How many hackers are also fighters? | le_dominator: Five years in muay thai (MTA in North Hollywood) and blue belt in brasilian jiu jitsu. Lots of concussions, broken hands, messed up hips and tendons ;)Seems like hackers are more into martial arts rather than MMA or muay thai or boxing, BUT I've met some guys that are engineers and programmers.Fighting ta... |
What does the image on http://paulgraham.com/index.html signify? | AlphaEvolve: An idea of progress, moving forward. |
How many hackers are also fighters? | Evgeny: Hapkido consistently for a few years, also started some Krav Maga just a few weeks ago. Some Taekwondo and Aikido in the past.
Haven't used any in RL yet and hopefully never will. :) |
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