instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
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How do you keep up with changing technologies? | jonny_noog: I can empathise with you though, as I started programming later than it seems most in this line of work do. I too sometimes think, "damn I would be much further along now if I had gotten into this stuff earlier." But then I guess I wouldn't be the person I am in other ways and mostly, I don't mind who I am.... |
How do you keep up with changing technologies? | jacquesm: I think the big trick is to know when not to chase what's new and hot, but simply to concentrate on solving problems, and solving them well. If you use the right tool for the job behind the scenes nobody cares what you built it in if you just expose the front end and it works well.Technology is becoming more ... |
How do you keep up with changing technologies? | spc476: Eventually, you'll come to realize that not only are you late to the game, but you're also early to the game, and even on time, depending upon the technology.When I started in the web hosting business, Linux had just crossed the 1.0 milestone, and the CGI spec was the sample code (in C and Perl) from NCSA, and ... |
How do you keep up with changing technologies? | scorpion032: We invent it.Or so I'd love to do; So should you! |
Most embarrassing command line gaffes ? | davidw: When I first got a 'portable' computer with Linux on it, in 1996, I was trying to use 'tar', but didn't remember the right options to pass to it, and wasn't on line (so no irc or what passed for search engines at the time). Those days, the man page wasn't very helpful in showing the 'commonly used' options, so... |
Most embarrassing command line gaffes ? | noonespecial: !sh <enter>trying to get the last server I ssh'ed back and gettingshutdown -h -t 0on a very remote server instead. My audible "doh!" and desperate "init 3" did not save me. Fear the !. |
How do you keep up with changing technologies? | known: I think we've professional programming life till 40. After that either you become a entrepreneur or a MBA. |
How do you keep up with changing technologies? | huntse: Well to answer your final point, there is never any absolute guarantee, but your best insurance against unemployment is to become really good at what you do. The second best is to make what you do be something commercially valuable. If you combine these two it's very unlikely you'll ever be unemployed for lon... |
How do you keep up with changing technologies? | bumblebird: I don't think technology changes that much, fashion certainly does. So if you want to be 'hip', keep up with what's "in" and what's "dead". But if you just want to get stuff done, use what you like. |
Most embarrassing command line gaffes ? | chaosprophet: Wiping out my Master Boot Record using dd. I interchanged if and of. And to think I was explicitly cautioned against this...Needless to say I've been quite careful with dd since then. |
How do you keep up with changing technologies? | warp: I rarely have to force myself to step outside of my comfort zone, because it's not all that comforting to begin with. For many things I do, I keep thinking there must be a better way to do things -- sometimes a better way comes along and I'm satisfied for a year or so, but eventually you'll get to a point again ... |
How do you keep up with changing technologies? | tom_b: I second the much mentioned idea of building timeless/technology independent skills. For example, use pure SQL as much as possible in your T-SQL procedures - this experience will transfer nicely to Postgres, Oracle, DB2, etc. Course, you'll have to convince employers that it transfers, but techies will know if... |
How do you keep up with changing technologies? | wglb: I think it is incumbent on each of us, practitioners of this craft, to take responsibility for our own education in this field.Vendors of software have an interest in what you learn, as it helps their products work better. And it can be useful to you as well. But if you rely on vendors to set your horizons, it ... |
Atlanta Hacker News Meetup? | bigjust: we could use http://www.freesideatl.org as a meeting place |
Is Google Go a reinvention of the pike programming language? | jacquesm: The major 'new' features in GO over 'C' are in my opinion the 'goroutines' and the 'channels'.I don't see either of those in the 'pike' documentation.Interesting how one of the authors of 'GO' is called Pike! |
Is Google Go a reinvention of the pike programming language? | pohl: Pike is interpreted and dynamic. That alone should be enough to qualify this Ask HN for a one word response: "no". |
Most embarrassing command line gaffes ? | fexl: When I'm extremely cautious I'll do something like this first:find . -name ".bak" -exec echo rm -fv {} \;That will print out the commands it would* do. If I like what I see, I simply run the command again without the "echo". |
Most embarrassing command line gaffes ? | fexl: Pardon me while I practice the "code" tag to avoid my posts getting botched:<code>
find . -name "*.bak" -exec echo rm -fv {} \;
</code>Thank you <b>very</b> much. |
Most embarrassing command line gaffes ? | fexl: Oh I give up. |
What is best book or tutorial to learn how secure a website? | jackman002: Here are a few links my host gave me when i ran into the same problem:
http://www.tech-faq.com/source-code-security-vulnerabilities...
http://www.fortify.com/landing/extra/ppc_source_code.html?so...
http://sectools.org/ |
Ask HN:Review my science fiction story. | dan_sim: it should be formatted to be easier to read. |
Is Google Go a reinvention of the pike programming language? | wglb: Very cursory examination shows no goroutines, lots of talk about Objects (not in go) and a dynamic appearance. I would say no. |
Ask HN:Review my science fiction story. | tsestrich: It's very difficult to critique specifics without handing you back a physical paper with redlines on it. Generally, the grammar needs a lot of work, as does the tense (jumping back and forth between past and present), and the flow from paragraph to paragraph. A lot of sentences are actually sentence fragment... |
Ask HN:Review my science fiction story. | khafra: I don't see any big problems with the idea behind the story; but you might want to write it in your native language and have someone fluent in both languages translate it to English.Also, like tsestrich said, it fails to draw in the reader. "The year was 3065" is not a magnetic, memorable, or unique opening se... |
Ask HN:Review my science fiction story. | synnik: I read the first two sentences, wasn't drawn in, and would have closed the page, had this not been explicitly a request for help.In short, what you wrote reads like notes for a story, not a story itself. Don't tell people it was 3065, and then give 3 word descriptions of other aspects of society.
Instead, write... |
Atlanta Hacker News Meetup? | bmickler: Count me in! Post a time a place... |
Ask HN:Review my science fiction story. | sethg: I couldn't get beyond the second paragraph; asserting that your main character is a Super Genius living in a Perfect World is not a good way to make me care about what happens to him.One SF author (Damon Knight?) once said that when he has an idea for a science-fictional world, he asks himself, "who does this hu... |
Ask HN:Review my science fiction story. | roundsquare: So, the story has some potential. I would like to see what comes next.However, you are severely limiting your audience in many ways. Most people don't know what it means to index a database. Many don't know what lisp is, or even what a programming language is (even worse that you call it a language and ... |
Is security by obfuscation sufficient? | MichaelApproved: Random file name: You can create an md5 hash of the original file name and use that for the public file name. From what I understand it's extremely unlikely to have two strings hash into the same value. It's also long and nearly impossible to guess.Security: I had a similar need for my website and figu... |
Is security by obfuscation sufficient? | eli: It's not clear what you're trying to secure against. Are you worried about securing a particular image so that only certain designated users can see it? Are you worried about the original name "leaking"? Are you worried about someone iterating through all of your images?In general, relying on a "secret" URL is not... |
Is security by obfuscation sufficient? | falsestprophet: First of all, Amazon S3 is absolutely not a CDN.How easy would these be to guess?There is a 1:3e38 chance of two randomly generated UUIDs colliding.What is the best algorithm to create them?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_Unique_Identifier#I...Should I just make them all private and use authent... |
Ask HN:Review my science fiction story. | adriand: I read your story. Here are my thoughts.The good: you actually wrote it (well, the first half of it). It flows well from a plot perspective (something happens, then something else happens, with good pacing). And you asked for criticism, which is important.Which brings me to the bad: the grammar is poor (see... |
Advice regarding past due accounts and getting paid? | duh: Grow a spine and stop working if payment is late, even by one day. |
Advice regarding past due accounts and getting paid? | sganesh: Here's a businessweek slideshow.. http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/02/0212_how_to_collect/... |
Advice regarding past due accounts and getting paid? | mechanical_fish: Demand upfront payment. ;)Failing that, make the quantum of unpaid work as small as possible. Offer them the first three hours on credit, but make them pay a bill before they get a second three hours.Write your contracts to specify several intermediate payments. This is how, e.g., construction contract... |
Is security by obfuscation sufficient? | prodigal_erik: The secret filename is not only on the wire but will show up in history and logs, which makes it a step down from basic HTTP authorization. I'd use at least digest authorization for anything that matters in any way. |
Advice regarding past due accounts and getting paid? | jacquesm: Re. past due accounts: Call. Every day. Be very polite, tell them that you still haven't received payment and that you'd like to know for sure that payment has been made. Repeat.This worked flawlessly for me in the past but I did take in to account that I probably wouldn't be working for those customers ever ... |
Advice regarding past due accounts and getting paid? | eli: We invoice again with a big red OVERDUE stamp and call. Then call again. And again. Then send a letter and another invoice. Call again. If there are enough outstanding accounts we sometimes hire a stern-voiced contractor to call people.Worst case, we give a collections agency the extremely delinquent (like, years ... |
Advice regarding past due accounts and getting paid? | mark_l_watson: I offer a 12.5% discount for customers who use 'express service' which basically means that they agree to pay within 7 days of invoice and agree to use my simple NDA/contract and not use up my time doing contract negotiation.If they don't pay on time, they lose the discount.I've been lucky: only one no-p... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | ihumanable: If you want to get a handle on the basics, especially ruby basics, try out ruby koans.http://github.com/edgecase/ruby_koansThey are simple exercises that you can work through without prior knowledge, its a fast and fun way to get your feet wet. Then its important to read some books and get a good foundatio... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | icey: I would start with these books:http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Ruby-Novice-Professional/dp/...http://pragprog.com/titles/rails3/agile-web-development-with...With your deadlines, you're going to have to skip over some CS basics just to get everything going. That's okay though, there is enough to learn to keep you ... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | coderdude: Just a general bit of advice: You will learn more iterating through "change the code, save the file, execute the code, repeat" than any amount of plain reading. When I learned Python, I sat down with Dive Into Python and the command line. |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | Quiark: > I've been reading books, but reading hasn't been doing much for me, since I'm not really absorbing the material. I want to try 'testing' things out...I don't know if that makes sense, but I feel like if I have exercises to do, I will understand concepts much faster then simply reading.OMG of course, this is h... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | christonog: Hey there, Though I am a little ahead in building a Rails app, I'm essentially in the same position you are in and (more importantly) have the same mindset of building it myself. Shoot me an email and hopefully we can help each other with our projects. |
Ask HN:Review my science fiction story. | mkyc: I've re-written your story to read as I read it:In the year 3065 of The Future, people not only have all they need to be happy, but are indeed happy. Alas, uploads remain an imminent futurist dream.Enter a man, a normal man, a man filling in a 10x10 multiplication table. But that multiplication table held not the... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | abstractbill: Get whoever coded this site for you to explain how to deploy it, in enough detail that you would be very confident re-deploying it several times a day if you wanted to. If the original coder is unavailable, find a hacker friend who can figure the process out for you.Once you're comfortable deploying, sta... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | kyro: Hey man, I recently had a similar revelation that I just needed to learn how to code. I picked up ruby a week ago with the intent of learning rails and building web apps. I knew a bit of python/django before, but nothing that could be considered hacker knowledge. If you want to learn together, let me know. It'd p... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | sutro: Read this: http://norvig.com/21-days.html. If you start now you'll be good to go in 2019. |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | mping: I would dare to suggest that you create a HN thread for other novices. Better yet, you use this thread to ask your questions, and some folks here will try and answer politely.Don't worry about the possible flak because of the n00b questions, we ALL were n00bs at one point of time...As for point 4, you can learn ... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | jacquesm: Hey Biz2Hack,You posted this earlier today and I wrote you a reply, then when I hit 'submit' the page was deleted!Here is what I wrote:(1) Well, you certainly have your problems cut out for you.You won't be lacking in motivation, that's for sure :)Where to start...Programming is a method, a way of thinking, i... |
Is security by obfuscation sufficient? | gojomo: Obfuscation via a suitably-long unpredictable URL can work, but as others have noted, there are a number of ways such an URL can leak -- toolbars/browser-plugins being one of them. Also, that a user can easily forward the URL to others to grant access may be a bug or a feature, depending on your preferences.One... |
Finding a hacker that understands music? | icey: I think you need to define what you mean when you say someone that understands 'music'.Do you mean someone with experience in the music business? Someone who understands thing from the perspective of a musician? A hacker with knowledge of distribution channels? Recording labels & studios? |
Finding a hacker that understands music? | physcab: I think you are best served by diving head strong into a programming language in order to make your idea a reality. When you struggle, get on mailing lists and forums. Go to Hacker meetups. Hang out at your nearest school's computer science lab. Contribute as best you can. Through that you will build conn... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | yan: My contact information's in my profile. If you have any questions, no matter how general or specific, don't hesitate to bug me. |
Finding a hacker that understands music? | yan: Just curious, are you familiar with the music business? Or a musician that had a bad experience interacting with the industry? Or just someone who has a random idea?P.s., I'm also in the Baltimore area (~10 mins south of B'more). Drive near Frederick every so often when going to Annapolis Rocks. |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | jlees: I've been reading books, but reading hasn't been doing much for me, since I'm not really absorbing the material. I want to try 'testing' things out...I don't know if that makes sense, but I feel like if I have exercises to do, I will understand concepts much faster then simply reading.IMO, then, you've been read... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | vaksel: Here is what you should do:1. Get the firebug extension for firefox. It will allow you see changes live on your site, exactly how it appears in your browser.2. Hit F12 to launch it.3. Start out by learning basic CSS. Find a class to play around with, let's pick something like textarea {
color: #000000;
... |
Recommendations for an online service that prints and mails postcards? | anguslong: Postful is one I've used in the past. Does have API:http://www.postful.com/help/integrationAnd, PostalMethods is one I've been meaning to try -- again with API:http://www.postalmethods.com/ |
What art to you guys enjoy? | jazzychad: I like surrealism, particularly Salvador Dali. |
Is security by obfuscation sufficient? | clutchski: It depends on your risk profile. For a bank, no. For an lolcatz photo site, sure. |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | tsally: Whys Poignant Guide to Ruby is an excellent, gentle introduction to Ruby. If it fits your personality that is. Have a look and decide for yourself.http://www.scribd.com/doc/2236084/Whys-Poignant-Guide-to-Rub...Remember that Rails is just a large Ruby program. The best way to understand Rails is to understand... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | bugs: One thing that will be limiting your motivation is how much you actually like coding if you truly do like it I'm sure you can be competent as to what is happening on your rails site in your time frame but if you absolutely loath programming the goal may be a hard one to reach.For ruby you probably could do well s... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | biz2hack: Thank you all so much! I will definitely keep you updated of my progress, and if there is anyone who would like to e-mail me to get in contact with me, my e-mail is in my profile. Thanks again! |
What art to you guys enjoy? | wgj: This was asked recently. You might find some inspiration in this thread:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=913911 |
When to listen to users & when not to? | timcederman: The trick is not to have users design for you. You're only soliciting what they're thinking and how they act. It's up to you to decide what to do with that information, not the user. |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | Mz: My websites started with someone else asking permission to post something I had written on her site. She made a little subsite on her site for my stuff. I sent more content to add to it occasionally. When she could no longer keep up, she gifted me the templates. My then-husband was pursing a degree in computer ... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | marcamillion: biz2hack....like everybody else pointed out, the best way to get into it is to jump in with trying small changes, and seeing the effect of those changes. I was in a similar position as you recently, except that I know all the fundamentals of programming - did a BA in Comp Sci :)However, I have recently ta... |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | jmonegro: What better language for someone like you than my language of choice, Ruby.Get started here: http://tryruby.sophrinix.com/. Now.
When you get that done, if you want more goodies, email me (email in my profile) or reply, I'll be glad to help.Also check out http://www.htdp.org |
Is security by obfuscation sufficient? | soult: There are two things to consider: First, you need to make sure that your filename is a long, unique, hard-to-guess string, that is easy to generate. This rules out all 5 UUID specifications:Version 1: MAC + timestamp => easy to predictVersion 2: MAC + some other static data + partial timestamp: => Also easy to p... |
Is security by obfuscation sufficient? | yumraj: Let me try to answer your question in a different way.There are two things, security and the perception of security. For arguments sake, even if we assume that the method of simply creating UUIDs for file names is secure (which as several people have said is not a valid assumption), I would argue that it does n... |
What exactly is going on? Hacked site. | bwwhite: I've seen exploited servers in the past with odd .htaccess files, performing redirects to spam sites depending on the requestor's source IP or some other identifier. Not sure how the server was exploited originally though. |
What exactly is going on? Hacked site. | SwellJoe: Why not ask the administrative contact for the landolakes.com site? Why would Hacker News readers have any idea what happened on an obscure website that none of us have probably ever visited?Anyway, there are an infinite number of ways sites can be hacked. It was probably just a dumb mistake, as nearly all ... |
What exactly is going on? Hacked site. | rms: This is an increasingly common SEO trick that Google doesn't seem to be that good at picking up on. Or at least they are unable to detect it for a few days.I don't think there is a specific vulnerability here, just whatever vulnerability the black hat SEOs can find to exploit. |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | biz2hack: Hey everybody, I just wanted to let you know I've created #HNBeginners for those who are just starting out and or those who would like to contribute and help other people out who are just getting started. Please drop by if you can! |
Finding a hacker that understands music? | iterationx: You could go to an HN meetup or maybe attend a conference. You may need to work on selling yourself because your post did not indicate (to me) what value you will bring to the partnership. |
Solution for eye strain? | vorobei: My eyes got much better after I started playing tennis. I think the act of tracking the ball is basically the same as the eye exercises you're suppose to be doing every 30 minutes (looking in the distance then up close, etc). |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | randliu: Since you're in the bay area, you should look into regional meetups for people learning/using rails. There's one at Berkeley the third Tuesday of each month (Nov 17 this month)http://ruby.meetup.com/81/ |
any SDKs for embedded secure processors? | cperciva: I assume you've already talked to the faculty at MIT and they haven't been able to provide any useful contacts for you; have you also tried talking to the security group at the University of Cambridge? They've done a lot of work on breaking smart cards, so they're likely to know some of the right people. |
Learning 2 Hack - For the very first time. With a deadline. | Daniel_Newby: Once you get going, you'll want version control to keep track of the editing process.So what version control software is good for a total novice? (I use git because it is industrial strength, but that may not be the best for biz2hack.)What version control does: It keeps a record of all the little change... |
any SDKs for embedded secure processors? | wmf: Have you looked at these? I warn you, they are expensive.http://www-03.ibm.com/security/cryptocards/pcicc/overview.sh...
http://iss.thalesgroup.com/en/Products/Hardware%20Security%2...
http://www.cputech.com/acalis/ |
Do many people use PRWeb.com? Is it effective? | paraschopra: Yes, I used it. Can't say if it is effective or not but looks legit to me, not like other spammy PR distribution websites/ |
Better deals - ruder customers? | tptacek: Because price is a filter; the more restrictive the filter, the more valuable your product actually is to your customer, and therefore the less likely they are to squander the relationship. |
Better deals - ruder customers? | SwellJoe: In my previous company, as it was reaching the end of its life (I was becoming burned out on the idea and the business) I made dramatic price changes over the span of a couple of years. I increased the prices by about 50% every six months, and made minor tweaks to the model lineup to make them more profitabl... |
Better deals - ruder customers? | dcx: Because if you offer competitive deals, that opens you to market segments who purchase based on price. That often means they are lower income, meaning a lower hourly rate, meaning spending time haggling may be rational for them.Also low income is correlated with low education/working class demographics, which have... |
Better deals - ruder customers? | tallanvor: In my experience (supporting 3 very different types of products with 3 very different companies), the amount of money a customer pays is somewhat inversely proportional to how demanding they are.My guess is that companies that pay more for software also tend to hire people to manage and provide tier-1 suppor... |
Advice regarding past due accounts and getting paid? | cubicray: some links:http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/08/28/getting-delinquent-clie...http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/09/11/tips-from-the-trenches-...http://www.acuitydesigns.net/how-to-deal-with-non-paying-cli...http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/7-great-rip-offs |
What art to you guys enjoy? | ganley: In that previous thread no one mentioned my favorite, Jasper Johns. Though if you like Waterhouse, Johns may not be your cup of tea. |
Guido van Rossum's comment about go and scratch | zeynel1: http://scratch.mit.edu/http://golang.org/http://twitter.com/gvanrossum |
Better deals - ruder customers? | mhmt: Another point is they think that if one company has a low price on some thing it can go even lower. Furthermore, they think they should get lower prices for all other products, too. |
Guido van Rossum's comment about go and scratch | DanielStraight: I don't read anything from Guido, so I don't know how he thinks, but I would interpret this as meaning that he doesn't see anything new and exciting in Go, but that he does in Scratch. That alone forms a comparison. A programming language that kids could actaully learn that would let them make web games... |
Guido van Rossum's comment about go and scratch | dkersten: I imagine he thinks that Scratch has more interesting and compelling features as a language that tried to do new things than Go does. I personally found Go to be very underwhelming and think that if it wasn't riding the Google wave (pun kinda intended), nobody would give it a second look. Theres simply more i... |
Guido van Rossum's comment about go and scratch | tamas: I don't see it as cryptic. He just said "it's a toy".
Also: oranges are way better than apples |
Guido van Rossum's comment about go and scratch | megamark16: Perhaps what he's trying to say is that he's more interested in making programming more interesting and accessible for 1000 more children than he is in making an application able to scale up to 100,000 more users. |
Guido van Rossum's comment about go and scratch | acg: I don't think they can be compared, he appears to be stating a preference (not dismissing go). |
Guido van Rossum's comment about go and scratch | b-man: Scratch, Squeak and other similar environments follow the leading of Seymour Papert and his Logo language:low threshold and no ceilingFor that they are different, and for that they are interesting. |
Writing an 80App | zeynel1: http://www.80legs.com/http://80legs.pbworks.com/80Apps |
DropZap has a high rating in the US app store. How should I market it? | peteysd: Marketing is something that you probably should have been thinking about well before you released the game. That said, at least you're thinking about it now. A lot of app developers think that "if you build it, they will come" and with all the noise in the App Store, that's just not going to happen.Presumably ... |
Guido van Rossum's comment about go and scratch | Semiapies: I don't see it as a cryptic remark; it does seem like a bit of an inkblot to some folks, though. |
Alternative careers for a developer | matthewking: I went through a brief period where I was convinced I wanted to be a carpenter, specifically making furniture. I've also worked as a builders mate and roofer in the past both of which I enjoyed and all of which settle my desire to create something. It seemed better to be building something that actually ex... |
Windows 7 worth the upgrade from XP? | conrad: I'm trying to figure out the same thing myself. I love my XP install, but seven does have some awesome features. Don't go back to mac unless you just want to do media oriented work. |
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