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Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | raintrees: I do not post very often, as I frequently seem to have little to add to the already proliferate content. But it seems somewhat telling to me that my biggest recent gain in karma was directly related to a comment on Dell that seemed a bit of a zinger.Most of my other sparse comments were questioning a premis... |
How do you explain closures? | zackattack: Closures are functions that exist inside a variable. Therefore an entire different level of scope, now exists inside that variable. The variable then becomes like an object in that respect.Easy. |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | _pius: You're definitely right. Worse, I can feel the increase in negativity and trolling influencing me to become a more negative contributor myself. |
How do you explain closures? | bobbyi: If they don't already understand object-oriented programming, you make sure they understand that first.If they understand objects, you explain that closures are the same as objects. They are bundles of state that carry around functions that operate on that state. The only real difference is that a single closur... |
How do you explain closures? | andreyf: You have about 10 seconds to get his interest before he starts thinking about his WoW raid tonight, and about 5 minutes for the whole explanation.Not going to happen. First, you need a person that wants to better themselves as a programmer, and understanding closures is just a part of that. Discounting the tim... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | vaksel: I think we need more erlang threads to drive the quality up |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | Freebytes: I was going to leave a rude comment in response to this as a joke, but someone beat me to it. What a jerk.(By the way, me saying "What a jerk." is a joke. (To prevent more downratings.)) |
How do you explain closures? | algorias: Closures are the context in which a function executes. The best way to demonstrate this is with a silly example that sticks in the mind: def learn_how_to_greet(formal=True):
if formal:
string = "Good day, Mr. {last_name}."
else:
string = "What's up, {first_name}?"
def greet(**kwds):
... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | louislouis: Comments get upvoted for different reasons. Split the karma into sections like funny, insightful, cool, whatever.. then u can weed out the crap. |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | ramchip: I agree. I had a submission killed recently, even though it was getting voted up very quickly and (IMHO at least) completely relevant; a few people flagged and said it was 'garbage' without bothering to open the PDF referenced in the article. Doesn't make me feel like posting again. |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | hyperbovine: HN should charge people for the right to post. Even $1 a month would go a long way towards separating out the yokels from those who actually have something to contribute. I'd pay it. |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | tptacek: Quick caution: there's selection bias here bigtime. If you read the comments on this thread, Hacker News is clearly in urgent danger of becoming Reddit. Of course, this post is designed to attract people worried about Hacker News becoming Reddit. |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | pg: A little, probably. There are good days and bad days. I was particularly struck by the harshness of this one:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=925034and also that such a huge number of people piled on to vote it up.In fact, that makes me wonder: could it be the voting that makes the tone of the site seem more n... |
How do you explain closures? | maximilian: I've got the following matlab code: eta1=0.7;
omega=10;
f = @(t) eta1*sin(omega*t) + (1-eta1)*sin(2*omega*t)
I can call f(2)
and return a scaler value. I could just make a function in a separate document, but then I would have to pass in my parameters eta1 and omega. By using a closure, I just have ... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | messel: Times are tight, so while more unemployed folks are desparately tearing revenue out of their businesses, the business growth is seeing less of the capital fired back in as growth.Suspect YC comments will be more optimistic with perceived wealth increasing and folks spending more of their hard earned $$I'm optim... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | bjclark: I've noticed it. Especially the anti-37signals comments. I got -4 for saying I agreed with DHH about something. |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | chasingsparks: If the proportion of negative comments is growing and if this is a symptom of karma lust, it's a pretty interesting event. The assertion being that as karma wealth grew, the system has became more volatile. There are some complaints about swarming in up-votes, but this thread deals with increasing down-v... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | logicalmind: The Law of Hacker News Comments: Any sufficiently long comment thread will converge on a semantic argument.Prediction, the comments in this post will converge on the semantics of the word "negative". |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | hernan7: I don't know... comments here have always had a dose of healthy skepticism. Now, if I never again read a comment starting with "meh", "yawn" or "shrug", I will die a happy man. |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | fauigerzigerk: I'm going to look through my comments to see if I'm contributing to that. Admittedly, it's tempting to react when I see something I disagree with. |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | zackattack: The reason that now it is a race to see who can write the first criticism or who can pick out the first inconsistency, is because people think that they will be upvoted for that.So, we just have to start changing what people get upvoted for.I think we should create a small group of supermoderators who have ... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | elblanco: It's perhaps not helpful that HN is also full of pedantic know-it-alls (I count myself among that group).A community of self-made people tends to self-select for a certain personality type. |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | fjabre: Agreed. This is kind of the reason PG did away with numbers on comments a little while ago but brought them back after a lot of criticism. |
Name my crazy idea | there: iDea |
Name my crazy idea | nym: Blank Slate |
How does a start-up team find off-site contracting work (web or mobile?) | _pius: It's easy to find contracting work that's more single contractor focused on the job boards. I'm not sure which boards, if any, are more geared explicitly toward contracts more friendly to teams. |
Name my crazy idea | nym: iVolve! |
Name my crazy idea | ABrandt: Interesting. Some time ago I had the same idea for a web app, but I can definitely see this being easier to execute as a strictly mobile app. Please keep us informed here--I'm quite curious if the whole "majority rules" strategy could actually work.Oh, and I vote iDea (Although the IP involved here could be di... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | techiferous: I'm a refugee from Reddit. That place has become too immature and ignorant. It's hard to have a courteous, intelligent discussion there; it very easily degenerates into name-calling, arrogance and dogmatism. It feels like middle school all over again.Hacker News' voting system is very Reddit-like, so it... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | dcurtis: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=924943It is because of this thread that I probably won't participate in discussions here anymore. The extreme negativity and personal attacks make me feel as though I'm not a welcome voice here.I miss the hacker news from two years ago, when I doubt wmeredith would have been... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | kingkawn: If you're convinced that the world is getting worse and less civilized, it means you're getting old. |
How do you explain closures? | dasht: I'm going to assume you mean closures as in Scheme, not closures in a pure functional language.For that, what I would try is an operational approach:"Joe, you know how local variables are allocated on a stack?" If he says "no" I'm not sure what the next move is but if he says yes, get him to briefly explain it ... |
Name my crazy idea | joeld42: AnyApp |
Do we still need static html templating? | daleharvey: very much so I think, I am on the second iteration of a web framework thing, in the first one the templating was done through a reasonably complicated server side interface.The second iteration I have pushed the templating into html itself (using data attributes and reserved classes) and find it incredibly ... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | jsz0: I haven't noticed it myself but I like seeing inconsistencies picked apart. It's constructive. If I disagree with someone they might get some value out of understanding why their idea/argument doesn't jive with me. I think it's only negative if you approach it with an accusatory or condescending tone. Otherwise i... |
Name my crazy idea | azblaze: iWish - iwishapp.com |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | WesleyJohnson: I haven't been around HN long enough to really notice a shift in the negativity of comments, but I have been around long to realize I could very easily become part of the probably that a lot of you talk about: signal to noise.I keep coming back to HN because of the caliber of minds that offer up advice, ... |
Strange Google search page? | nreece: It's a sidebar search page for IE. Nothing spectacular. |
Strange Google search page? | petercooper: Wanna see more? http://www.google.com/xhtml http://www.google.com/jsky http://www.google.com/imode http://www.google.com/pda |
Name my crazy idea | kalendae: there is a webapp called namethis.com that does exactly what you are trying to do (here on HN not your app itself). |
Name my crazy idea | Scott_MacGregor: Here are some of my ideas:
Appfelt,
RobbinsEgg,
PowderKeg,
iScream = (ice cream);
Harmonia,
BlueBirdie,
WunderSkin,
PavelsDog,
ShurBit,
DreamCast,
Snarl,
ProPell,
Wagoneer; and
MySalad. |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | techiferous: Another idea is to hide the karma number beside posts and comments. You still position the higher-ranked ones near the top, but no number is displayed so that it doesn't influence your vote as much (the bandwagon effect). |
Strange Google search page? | sriramk: this shows up in one of the IE browser 'explorer' bars. |
Tools for web design? | systemtrigger: I agree Photoshop is the wrong tool. Have you tried Fireworks? That's what I use. |
A good forum/site to hang around, ask questions, help others? | jacquesm: I haven't a clue but if you find such a place please do post it! |
Tools for web design? | trusko: I would be also interested to see some good answers on this topic. I have pretty much the same background as you. I am trying to more design myself, before doing mostly web development - Java before now mostly Django. I recently switched to Mac. I am wondering if anyone has any suggestion on some good free tool... |
Tools for web design? | brandon272: The Dustin Curtis design was likely created in Photoshop. Photoshop is a great tool for both web design, and print. There is nothing about Photoshop that precludes it from being a great design application for the web as it gives you pixel-level precision.Though it sounds less as if you're asking what tools ... |
Do we still need static html templating? | cd34: MVC keeps your developers out of the HTML and your designers out of the Code.Smalltalk got it right in the early 70s. It is still right today. |
Should I trust my competition? | jacquesm: Sounds like you should not put your stuff in their SVN, and I really don't see why that would have to be that way, you can run a repository anywhere that has HTTP access.As for trusting them, if you put your stuff on their servers they have access anyway... (unless it is compiled, that's a different story) |
A good forum/site to hang around, ask questions, help others? | Concours: I use twitter for that, mostly do a small search to find a target user, based on his location and direct him the question, he often tweet the question to his followers and come back with an answer, otherwise, I don't know of anything like a global forum for that. |
What is on your playlist right now? | potatolicious: I hate to be negative, but this isn't Digg or Reddit. I'm not the grand poobah of what should be talked about on HN, but this seems really, really far from what most of us come here for.Flagged. |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | karanbhangui: I'm going to say learn/refresh your python. it'll let you focus on the programming, and not have to worry about language specific constructs.Good refresher: http://www.diveintopython.org/ |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | patio11: You're sort of finding the pleasure and pain of a CS degree: Data Structures doesn't teach you how to program, except in a superficial way in a single language. It teaches you how to manipulate certain building blocks of our field. You'll be thinking in terms of lists, sets, and hashmaps until the day you di... |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | volida: you should just pick a language and build a project. The language doesnt matter.You will probably get involved with many languages in the future.Every language has its purpose. |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | jmonegro: First, don't feel that you have nothing to give back - not everything is about programming ;p.Here's a bit of my personal experience. almost two years ago I took my first formal programming courses. It started out with Algorithms (DFD, etc.) and Operating Systems. Then we moved on to C++. At first, I felt jus... |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | RK: Scheme with http://www.htdp.org |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | visitor4rmindia: IMHO as a learning language nothing beats LISP. It's a little tricky in the beginning, but the pay-off is great simply in the way it changes your perception of programming.This is a great place to start: http://gigamonkeys.com/book/ |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | gord: Well your coming to that realization 15 years earlier than I did. I developed commercial apps in C/C++ and only recently have discovered lisp and other related languages, and just find them to be much more enjoyable to think and hack in.If you want an absolute mind blowing trip, grab a copy of scheme or a lisp v... |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | plinkplonk: This is probably different from the other (great) advice on this page, but here goes.If you have 10 months before you got back to university, I suggest, you work with one language and build something substantial in that time. It doesn't matter which language you select (and this is where my advice differs f... |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | henrikschroder: When I started a CS program 15 years ago now our first language was Scheme. This turned out to be an excellent choice, because it put everyone on the same level. The syntax is so simple that those with no experience could focus on the algorithms, and it is a functional language, so those with a lot of e... |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | ahlatimer: I'm a fellow CS student, but I'm a bit deeper into the curriculum. As a Junior, I'm just now learning other languages in class. I see those first two years as something necessary. It's fairly trivial for me to sit down and read most OO languages now that I've been taught Java for two years in college (plus o... |
Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative? | Mz: As a place grows in size, it changes in structure. There are always growing pains. Some places handle the transition better than others. Small, close-knit communities where people know each other well function very different from large communities where most people don't know each other well. |
What is hand-coded assembly language used for these days? | scumola: I've re-written many perl things in C to speed up processing time - for me, it's better than buying more/newer hardware. Also, for smallish scripts that I invoke millions of times or a small perl script that does regexps, I can rewrite those in C to boost speed as well. I don't do any ASM code anymore, but C... |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | marcofloriano: I´m a CS graduate too (fifth year) and i know how you are feeling.Before entering the course i was skeptical , and until the thirty year i fell like i was wasting time. The point is, when you are at the academic world, it´s not about how get real things done, it´s more about to learn general concepts to ... |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | wheels: Learning languages in different families teaches you to abstract away the abstract algorithmic concepts from the language family specific concepts. If I were designing a CS program, I'd probably include: - C (imperative)
- Python (object oriented)
- Scheme (functional)
Interesting with that selection is ... |
Should I trust my competition? | Mz: If there is a technical means to cooperate without just handing it over, I would shoot for that. If not, then at least try to get a strong contract spelling out the specific limitations on its use -- ie that it's for this one client...etc. |
Overcoming coder's block? | matthewcford: For me it's writing blog posts: http://matthewcford.com/coders-block |
Overcoming coder's block? | andhapp: I normally change the technology I am working in and move to something else or just pick a random topic and read about it as much as I can and then as matthew said do a blog post on it. For example: State machines and Ragel state machine compiler. |
Do we still need static html templating? | radu_floricica: Theoretically you could add unique ids to every tag and common sense classes, but from my experience the guy who will work on that html won't like it. I don't know if he could work with it or not, but I'm pretty sure he'll protest. It will break too many assumptions for him. |
Does deleting a profile from Facebook ensures that all data is deleted? | jsean: No and no.
My guess is that it's done using a flag in their db.user_active = 0or perhaps more efficiantlyuser_deactivated = [date] |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | mpf62: I would recommend learning JavaScript. Java, VB, PHP, etc. are pretty much all the same in comparison to JavaScript. I’m not talking about syntax or patterns but about general purpose. In my opinion, JavaScript is the most important complementary technology to the - what I call them - backend languages.Today, we... |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | mahmud: Learn Unix on a real OS; like BSD or Slackware.High level programming languages are froth; once you understand the basic concepts, it's best to work with C and system calls til you're absolutely sure what you are doing. Learn how to use a debugger, disassembler, packet sniffer and every utility you can find for... |
Overcoming coder's block? | known: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development |
Overcoming coder's block? | pavelludiq: Thats a hard one. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance talks about the concept of a gumption trap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumption_trap and how we might get out of one.With me, its usually normal to feel "down" for some amount of time from time to time. I usually use this down time to sleep and re... |
Overcoming coder's block? | chaosprophet: I had a similar issue sometime back. Here's what people on HN said: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876674 |
Does deleting a profile from Facebook ensures that all data is deleted? | tokenadult: A link for Facebook users on the subject tells how-tos, but doesn't verify what happens technologically when one asks for a full account deletion.http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703From the ToS:http://www.facebook.com/terms.php"You may also delete your account or disable your application at an... |
Does deleting a profile from Facebook ensures that all data is deleted? | radu_floricica: Google for example makes it pretty clear that, given the complexity of their backups system, they'll never be able nor try to delete your data completely. I'm guessing most companies are the same, backups are essentially read-only. |
Overcoming coder's block? | davidw: Go for a bicycle ride (or some other exercise). |
Does deleting a profile from Facebook ensures that all data is deleted? | calyth: You're talking to a bunch of idiots that even when you made privacy settings that you don't want other apps to know your name, it still shows through.Expect nothing from these goofs. |
How can a startup create its own board of advisors? | grellas: This thread (with my two cents thrown in about "window dressing" advisory boards versus others) addresses some of the compensation issues in a helpful way:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876691In general, the public company model does not fit early-stage startups and all compensation at the early stage com... |
Does deleting a profile from Facebook ensures that all data is deleted? | tkahn6: You have to either ask them for a complete account deletion (I've never heard of this working - although it may) OR you have to manually delete everything you've ever done.
Obviously this takes awhile but it is doable. I cleaned out my account a few years ago this way. |
Does deleting a profile from Facebook ensures that all data is deleted? | ams6110: Even if it does, whatever was public may well be cached in innumerable places all over the internet.You pretty much have to assume that whatever you post on sites like that will be "out there" forever. |
Overcoming coder's block? | macemoneta: A good night's sleep. |
Overcoming coder's block? | jgalvez: First, go for a walk. Everyday. No excuses. 1 hour minimum.Then, stop trying to work at the end of your day. Start working within the first 6 hours of your day.Tea is awesome.And if you're into it, cannabis is a great concentration/inspiration aid, but just a couple of hits, you know. Otherwise you get too was... |
Overcoming coder's block? | DanielBMarkham: Two things:1) Understand whether you are blocked on a design question or a coding question. Is the problem you can't find the answer or the problem that you can't make the answer happen in code?2) Purposeful distraction. Sleep. Go for a walk. Play a FPS. Learn to distract yourself for short periods thro... |
Automated Money Transfer, how? | mahmud: Are you seeing so much cash-flow that you need to automate it?Last time I wrote a script that managed a finite resource for me, it made 200 phone calls in 5 minutes on my dime!If you can't write a web utility to do that, you probably are not ready to move money around via a script yet, if ever. |
Overcoming coder's block? | barrybe: 1) If you find yourself trying to design features and write the code simultaneously, then try breaking up those steps. Get away from the computer, grab a pencil & paper, put your designer hat on and go to town. Then drop the notes by your desk, grab lunch, come back, and act like you are implementing someone e... |
Overcoming coder's block? | blue1: Some things I have learned:Make a big, approximate plan of everything you have to do. Take the first step and detail it, dividing it in little, non-scaring tasks. Then start working on the first. While you are working on one, concentrate on that and forget about the big map.Seriously divide work and non-work lif... |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | djb_hackernews: I'm not saying it should be rule number 1, but every CS student needs to understand they are learning the topic of the course title, not whatever language is used to teach the topic.You are not in a CS curriculum to learn C++,Java,Scheme,etc. |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | Mentat_Enki: Scheme. |
How can a startup create its own board of advisors? | medianama: Ask them to invest in your company |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | jstraszheim: OK, a bunch of others recommended it, but I'll add my voice and recommend SICP. There are lots of good books on programming, but it is the best single source. After that, decide what parts of programming you like, and come back asking for more specific books.Good luck.Oh, and the stuff Mahmud said about ... |
Changing usernames | davi: email pg http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=374196 |
Overcoming coder's block? | stuartjmoore: Draw it out. |
Does deleting a profile from Facebook ensures that all data is deleted? | bingaman: FWIW, I have tried to completely delete my Facebook account and it did not work. They have no reason to delete your data, it's valuable information that you freely gave to them. |
Does deleting a profile from Facebook ensures that all data is deleted? | adrianwaj: just remove all the data from the fields:before-interests: "sports, hacker news, etc."friends: 100after-interests: "-"friends: 0I did that once.. delete what you can. |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | Aegean: What they teach you as C/C++ is the final point that these languages have come. It is the final outcome of their evolution. It is absolutely normal that you don't get it when they teach you encapsulation, classes, functions, return values, arguments.How did they get created or conceptualized in the first place?... |
A web magazine about song writing | michael_dorfman: It sounds like a nice hobby, but I'm not sure it's a sound business.Your content is going to have to be pretty stellar to be able to charge $3-5/month, and you're going to have to have a fairly significant subscription base if you want to cover your expenses and pay yourself (and your writers, etc.) a ... |
Review My Library, Tempest | aschobel: Looks interesting, quick comment on the demohttp://projects.digitalflophouse.com/tempest/exampleMaybe move the Coordinates box right under the image and put some text like "Please Click Above To Generate Coordinates"First thing I did was quickly scan the page and click "Render Heat-Map" button which threw up ... |
Confused semi-newbie programmer needs some advice. | messel: I've been fascinated with scala (http://www.victusspiritus.com/2009/10/31/im-having-way-too-m...) recently.The perks:
functional and object oriented
compact syntax
lift is an excellent web framework
appears to guide design towards application or library perspectives
Dave Pollack feels that his perception of pro... |
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