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How did you get started in hacking/programming? | ivenkys: You are lucky - you stumbled on the right thing by accident , HTDP and/or Little Schemer are the right places to start followed by the more advanced SICP.If you can really grok SICP you probably won't need anyone to tell you what to read next - depending on your interest you will pick up the right book.What i ... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | nrr: The demoscene made me do it. I think the thing that got me hooked was seeing Future Crew's "Second Reality" and having the desire to do that kind of stuff.As far as the second question goes, I think I'd prefer to be blissfully oblivious. :) That said, I've blackboxed pretty much everything I know outside of Lisp... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | YuriNiyazov: Something should probably be added here: don't get discouraged by seeing that a lot of people here answer "grade school" or "middle school", whereas you are (inferring by "majored in social sciences" statement) in your early 20's. For most people on this site, programming permeates our very core, and you c... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | shareme: Google search for CircuitGirl..You should email her ask for a retelling of her story.. |
Which Lisp book should we publish first? | almost: For those that don't know (probably smaller on here then elsewhere but still):HtDP: How to Design Programs
SICP: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
PCL: Practical Common Lisp
ACL: ASCII Common Lisp
PAIP: Principles off Artificial Intelligence Programming
OL: On LispPersonally I'd probably go for ... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | _bryan_: I started programming in high school, with simple programs on the TI 81/82 calculator. I majored in computer science in college, where the focus was C and C++.I didn't really develop a passion for programming until I was out of college and learned Python (and later Ruby). I really wish I had started with one... |
Which Lisp book should we publish first? | plinkplonk: I would highly reccomend PAIP and OL (in that sequence). PAIP is fantastic in that it provides a 1000 pages of elegant code which conveys the "lisp way" by a master of the langauge. OL is of course the macro book par excellence.I wonder if there are any other books that show exemplary code in various langua... |
Which Lisp book should we publish first? | J_McQuade: I'd say Practical Common Lisp. While I actually favour all of the other books myself, I think that PCL is the better bet for a publisher, concentrating as it does on themes more relevant to the average non-lisp programmer.(I'd probably pick PAIP as the best of the lot, though) |
Which Lisp book should we publish first? | gommm: Hi, I'd go with PCL it's a good practical introduction...Off topic, but where in China are you based? If you're in Shanghai maybe we can meet up sometime, I always like meeting fellow HNers! |
Which Lisp book should we publish first? | steveeq1: The Little Schemer:
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/02... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | tlrobinson: TI graphing calculators got a bunch of people in my "generation" interested (I'm 25). My first non-trivial program was snake in TI BASIC.I think this generation's equivalent is probably iPhone. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | gigl: TI graphing calculator in 7th grade, followed by seeing one of my teacher's web pages he made for the course. I decided I could do a better job so I learned the basics of the web and bloomed out from there. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | ashishk: I started coding during my Senior year in college. Roughly 1.5 years ago.The reason? I outsourced dev for my first startup (which I started my Junior year) and it failed miserably. Small fixes took days. Terrible freaking way to start a startup.Anyways I started with HTML/CSS then moved up to LAMP (yes I know ... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | macco: What I learned:
If you self teaching, start with Python. Period.
Then later read htdp. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | meunierc: When he bought a computer, I asked my grandpa to show me how it worked. He said it wouldn't be interesting to me: it was all in English (which I didn't speak or read), and there was nothing more than letters and numbers to see, on a green and black screen. I told him that didn't matter. He took a book and ... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | dejv: I was 8 at the time and find some C64 Basic manual writen in German (I don't understand this language then and now) and I found some code so I retype it into the computer and just instantly like it. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | RevRal: I'm not sure if this counts; the birth of my hacking started on my dad's lap, doing amateur radio. We made our own radios with kits and parts from other things, and setup our own antennae outside.We even setup some crazy starmap printer, and I think it worked through our antennae. We didn't get a dish until muc... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | zaidf: 5th grade. I'd just landed in the U.S. No friends. No life. Just a Mac and an HTML book. I did what I could:) |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | lg: I don't know about HTDP, it was keen to impose 'good practices' on me and I got bored. Your first book on science didn't talk about lab safety, it talked about fun stuff to get you excited. A first book on programming should be the same, every chapter should present some tiny fun program and explain it. Is there... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | d0m: The real thing that opened my mind was "Effective C++". Before that, I didn't know how to code. This book showed me what a good code is and why it is important. Then, from that time, I read alot of books and my personnal favorite is SICP. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | tomh: Freshman year in high school, I was programming in BASIC on my very own IBM PCjr. After a few programs, I set it aside (or so it seems now) until my senior year, when I started programming in Pascal for an honors course which they called Computer Math at the time.What did I wish I knew at the time? That there w... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | pgbovine: unlike lots of people on HN, who are far more experienced hackers than i am, i didn't start programming for fun until my senior year of college (i did a fair amount of programming for classes and internships before then, but never on my own personal projects). i was always into digital photography, so i took... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | a-priori: Age 6. My dad brought home a 386 IBM-PC so he could learn AutoCAD. My brother and I somehow discovered QBASIC, played gorilla for a while, poked through it's source code not understanding a thing but feeling like "this can't be too hard".My first attempt at writing a program? DRAW A DOOR |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | chasingsparks: I asked my father to teach me basic in 5th grade after seeing the movie WarGames. My efforts were soon doubled after Angelina Jolie stared in Hackers. Since then, everything I have done has been out of sheer curiosity, but I'd be lying if I said these two pop culture movies had nothing to do with my init... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | matt1: I had a good friend in middle school who introduced me to an AOL Prog called Icy Hot. I was so intrigued that I did some research and learned about Visual Basic. I found code for some other progs, printed it out, and went line by line through it until I understood roughly what was going on. I made my own, then m... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | caryme: First my Geometry teacher taught how to write simple programs for our TI-83s.Then in IB HL Math in 12th grade, my teacher decided to have "C++ Fridays". After that, I entered college as a CS major (and vocal performance, but that is another story). |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | DanielBMarkham: As a gifted student, I asked our school for a computer when I was in 7th grade.They gave us a bunch of wires, a soldering iron, and instructions for making a homemade radio or some such.As a Freshman, the local Radio Shack had the TRS-80 and I spent all of my time bugging the salesmen as I played games ... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | genderfree: Summary of below: Since I was not aggressive/assertive and since I was coming up as a female in the 80's, a lot of my life track on the way to becoming a programmer was spent trying to deal with the stigma associated with my desire to do so.1982-83 (grammar to high school age):
My parents bought a word pro... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | runjake: 1.) BRIEFLY study a language. Then start hacking on and tweaking other people's code. The best and quickest way to learn is by doing, not reading this and that.2.) I don't really remember the "before programming" phase of my life as I started very young. But I guess I wish I knew #1. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | kajecounterhack: Open source development of a turn-based strategy game. I wish I knew how addicting computers could be, and how much they demanded my entire devotion to ever-changing technologies. |
Which vertical search engines do you frequently use? | breck: stackoverflow, twitter search, searchyc, facebook. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | Osmose: 1. I started with a little game by the name of ZZT by Tim Sweeney and Epic Megagames (who would go on to become Epic and create the Unreal Engine). ZZT used ASCII characters as graphics and was an engine on which to run games. It came with the map editor and used a language called ZZT-OOP to control objects.2. ... |
Which Lisp book should we publish first? | herdrick: On Lisp is unique. I wouldn't go with PAIP because AIMA has replaced it. But what's covered in On Lisp isn't found anywhere else. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | keefe: My dad left his old Atari (2600 Junior, I think) in my room and I found basic on there towards the end of grade school.
This was really frustrating to use, so into middle school I would coerce my dad into getting up an hour early so I could get to the 8086s in my school's computer lab and work in QBasic. After ... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | Mz: I'm female and have a social sciences background. I ended up with a Certificate in GIS due to an interest in Urban Planning. Somewhere along the way, I learned to write a little (X)HTML and CSS as a means to more effectively share information by running my own websites. This grew out of participating in email list... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | araneae: No real advice, but I can tell you exactly what I did with very little background (not that I'm any good at it.)1. Took a biology class that involved using matlab. Found the matlab part more fun than the biology.2. Went through this course on my own one week: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs1130/2009fa/i... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | pasbesoin: There are a few texts that are an order of magnitude more enlightening than the remainder. Not (just) in terms of content, but in terms of explanation as well as engagement.It is well worth your time identifying and working with these. Not to be snobbish; they are just so much more efficient, and enjoyable... |
So HNers, whatd'ya get for Christmas? | nailer: The Guggenheim Museum & Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright in Lego.http://architecture.lego.com/en-us/default.aspxOrdered by Mrs Nailer and shipped to the UK.I've loved Lego and modernist architecture since I was a child. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | btilly: My wife and I were both grad students and got dissatisfied. She went to medical school, I looked for a job suitable to someone in his late 20s dropping out of a math PhD with a Masters.The first job I found was a programming job at a churn and burn consultancy. A couple of months in I was asked to learn Perl.... |
Have you given up your dream for your dream job? | Mz: I think the answer to a conundrum like this is very personal and tells you a lot about what you value more. |
Which vertical search engines do you frequently use? | gpmedia: For people that don't know what a vertical search engine is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_searchUsually Google using the "site:" command for stackoverflow etc, since I'm satisfied with the way Google orders the results. |
Which vertical search engines do you frequently use? | rokhayakebe: crunchbase, glassdoor, imdb, (clerkdogs), twitter, backtype. |
Which vertical search engines do you frequently use? | noonespecial: Octopart |
Which vertical search engines do you frequently use? | mey: If once every month or so counts.Google to search wikipedia, stackoverflow, imdb |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | Tichy: I suppose get excited about something you can do with computers. As a kid, it excited me that I could influence what appears on the TV screen with my ZX Spectrum. I programmed lots of stupid drawings and animations (animation as in a character moving across the screen).While it might seem as if my generation was... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | tpyo: My father taught me when I was young. Learned a few languages by myself. Tried making websites. Too easy. Tried making games. Too hard.I stopped programming. Because I tried making games, programming is not for me. Maybe if I was not so ambitious, it would've been.I'll never know: I'm trying things other than pro... |
So HNers, whatd'ya get for Christmas? | brutimus: The foodstuffs I received this year. Didn't get much outside of foodstuffs.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brutimus/4216683268/ |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | colbyolson: I hope there's someone out there who remembers this, but I started out on mIRC, first on a few IRC servers, but then got into the MSNChat rave.Writing scripts, prots, take-overes, and connections were just so fun. I loved the competitive nature, having races to see who had the better protection scripts. It ... |
What are incentives for scientists to perform replication studies? | hga: A key insight here is that in many fields you can implicitly confirm results from a study by basing your own research on them. If the foundation is rotten, you should be able to figure that out sooner or later, which will lead you to trying to replicate the original results---initially, to see what you're missing... |
What are incentives for scientists to perform replication studies? | russell: Replication is important because initial results are often wrong because of misinterpretation of the results, experimental error, or experimenter bias. Others in the field want to make sure their work is on strong ground. |
Which vertical search engines do you frequently use? | gtani: I've put up some google custom search engines by collecting the 20-40 most active delicious taggers for a topic, e.g. clojure, and counting their tagged domains.Works ok, a little better precision, lose some recall vs. generic google searches, but need to renew the list of domains pretty frequently |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | gtani: i was working at a smallish financial institution, they asked anybody who doesn't want to do databases and unix shell scripting, step back!So my first languages were APL, C, awk and a few 4GL databases, oracle, nomad.Now, i would start with ruby and python, then look at erlang, clojure, scala, haskell, ocaml, F#... |
Which vertical search engines do you frequently use? | johnm: markmail, krugle, imdb |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | Zarathu: When I was 11 I grabbed a small book on Visual Basic so I could write a keylogger to steal my sister's AIM password. It was fun, learning about how to use the WinAPI and various other components, even though I didn't really understand the abstract concepts behind it.I did VB, ASP, and dabbled with the .NET fra... |
Which Lisp book should we publish first? | rosejn: Practical Common Lisp, or even better, Programming Clojure. |
What did Santa bring you? | RiderOfGiraffes: Already asked: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1015120 |
What magazines do you subscribe to? | rmason: Forbes, Inc, Wired and WHIR |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | onassar: Frontpage > JavaScript scriptlets > PHP > MySQL > Apache > OO Coding > MVC Based Coding > Digg FE Developer :) |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | lallysingh: (1) For me, a Trash-80 and lots of spare time. But for you, find something programmable that can help with your normal day-to-day life. Scheme, python, or lisp are pretty good places to start.(2) You don't really know a technology unless you have a project you want (want) to finish. Before then, there's ... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | NathanKP: I got started with BASICA on a Tandy 1000. My dad had a newer computer at the time but he certainly wouldn't let me use it. He was afraid that I would get stuck in an endless loop while writing to the hard drive and wipe it (which he had apparently done before in his own early programming experiments).After... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | charlesdm: I started off messing around in HTML when I was 10. A few months later I decided that I wanted to have a dynamic websites so I moved to PHP & did a whole lot of DB-related stuff - 'because it was cool'. Kept working on my PHP skills and general tech skills until I was comfortable enough to do Desktop coding ... |
Review Bitme.me - rank urls with Bitly | MicahWedemeyer: It took me a bit to get "bit meme" instead of "bite me -dot- me"In all brutal honestly, I won't use it (as HN already provides me the list of links I want to see), and I can't imagine that other people are really clamoring for yet another way to find cool links, what with digg, reddit, facebook, twitter... |
Review Bitme.me - rank urls with Bitly | adam-_-: So much mashable! |
Which Lisp book should we publish first? | lispython: Since a lot of people think PCL is a good choice, what do you think the new book Lisp Outside the Box form Nick Levine, It's a practical introduction too. |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | cmelbye: Pretty cool idea. It would be a more open competitor to Apple's GarageBand music teaching features. I think your idea of adding more value to the site would be a good one. Apple has quality and integration with a nice music creation software. Perhaps you could include more information from lyric sites and guit... |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | PieSquared: If you included guitar tabs and perhaps allowed users to upload custom tabs (so that people can improve on publicly available ones), it'd be absolutely great. I'd use it on a weekly basis at least, if not daily. |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | yters: I, for one, like the idea and can see myself using it in the future. |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | sant0sk1: clickable link: http://www.learntoplayanything.com |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | vaksel: it's a good idea, and has some decent traffic #s(i.e. "sweet home alabama guitar lesson" 14,800 searches/month) but it seems to be a little bit competitive. Go exact searching for "sweet home alabama guitar lesson" and you get 185,000 sites.I think "sweet home alabama guitar tutorial" is a much better fit. Only... |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | greatreorx: I like the idea. Not sure about making money from it, but definitely see it as useful.typo on home page... "Also contact us if you want to contribute by helping uns organizing the links."Can you add more specific information to your search results lists? For me right now, this page...
http://www.learntopl... |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | ggrot: The way I see it is that you are taking advantage of bad search results in a specific area. You are simply creating a web page that tries to match a specific video with a specific search query and monetize by putting your ads around the content (the youtube video).If you simply built a single page with a collec... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | nathanmarz: 1. Started hacking the TI-82 in 7th grade while bored in math class. Moved on to TI-89 in 9th grade, and then "graduated" to assembly language so I could make better games. I then moved on to "real" computers with C++, which seemed like an incredibly easy language after doing assembly!2. I personally found ... |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | Tichy: I like it.Clicking on the logo should bring you back to the homepage. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | ashley: Thanks to everyone for sharing their stories! This is really great to read, and it's even better that there's no cookie-cutter way into programming. I guess I had too much of an attitude that this is like grad school in a basic science or a career as a classical violinist, where you pretty much have to have f... |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | mattyfo: As a guitarist this is a very painful spot for me and good instruction is worth a lot. If you can figure out a model that connects people like me with quality content efficiently then you win. |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | deadsy: I wanted to program computers before I had access to one. I would take books out of the library and write programs in the pseudo language they presented. In 1982 my Dad brought home a Sirius microcomputer for his work. That had BASIC, so I started writing programs in that. Also in 1982 I took my life savings ($... |
How did you get started in hacking/programming? | primodemus: 1 - At school i tried to write a symbolic differentiation/integration program in C. I failed miserably. A year later chapter 2 of SICP blown my head to a thousand pieces... Nowadays I program in F#, Haskell and C# (mostly C#) for a living, but Lisp is still my favorite language.2 - Programming is mostly ab... |
Would you work for a company just out of Chapter 11? | tdoggette: If they want to pay you good money to do work you want to do, take it: we're in a recession. If it tanks, it's a resume line item, if not, so much the better.Of course, if you have an offer from a company you're sure won't go under, then that might be a better move. |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | mkramlich: ask Adrian Holovaty what he thinks. maybe even get him to contribute. he's clearly a good hacker, plus, a good guitarist. rare mix. may be smart to leverage it. |
Is this an idea worth pursuing further? | NickNYC242: This is a good aggregation idea for learning - why not find a few content providers/creators that could serialize a process for learning - so pieces of a song, or basic chords for guitar. Get some content made by people looking to raise their recognition, and customize it for the site. I'll bet you could ge... |
Review Bitme.me - rank urls with Bitly | Barnabas: Nice and snappy. I like that in a web app, so kudos there. Still, YSlow gives you a C for not gzipping or using a CDN. Personally, I see no real reason not to use something like Google's AJAX library hosting (http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlibs/) for your JQuery stuff, unless it's super custom.Not clear on t... |
Should I support OAuth or OpenID? | chris24: I would look into OpenID and Twitter integration (http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Sign-in-with-Twitter). But instead of providing just a text field when accepting OpenID, provide quick links to login with the major, more-general web app providers (Yahoo, Google). You don't even need to tell your users that you're u... |
How to jump into "real world" programming? | cmelbye: Pick an idea and make it. I've been doing that and it's really helping me with Ruby and it's led to me learning about a lot of other things like SSL, server administration, message queues, etc. |
How to jump into "real world" programming? | elbenshira: I keep a list of possible projects on Google Docs. Most of the projects are small web-based apps.A great place to start is to use an existing API with a lot of data (Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps, etc) available to you and do something fun with it.Another idea is to contribute to a young programming langua... |
Should I support OAuth or OpenID? | chaosprophet: Both. Between OAuth and OpenID you are bound to catch most of your users (as they would be having either a Twitter account or a Google account). |
Would you work for a company just out of Chapter 11? | loganfrederick: How confident are you in the company moving forward? What were the circumstances for it going bankrupt?If you feel confident about the company's future, then analyze it like a normal job offer.I'd imagine the only concern in joining a company that was bankrupt is whether it will happen again. If you bel... |
Should I support OAuth or OpenID? | richardw: They do different things (federated login vs. access authorization) so focus on which you need most. Note that they are being combined, so hopefully the choice won't be necessary for too long:http://step2.googlecode.com/svn/spec/openid_oauth_extension/... |
Why can't we prove the Blub Hypothesis? | cubicle67: I'd interpreted Blub not as any specific language, but rather any language has the capability to become Blub when a developer falls into a particular mindset.To me, a language becomes Blub when the developer using it loses all inclination to look beyond it; to them there's no other language that could offer ... |
Why can't we prove the Blub Hypothesis? | ezy: My guess here is that "programmer productivity" is probably the wrong measure. And that by trying to be reductive about that, you will probably miss somethng valuable...My idea: what if we came up with an app idea and set two teams to it, with the only restriction being the language they could use (one Lisp, one ... |
How to jump into "real world" programming? | tomlogic: Pick an open source project that you like and use. Look for open bug reports (easy to do on SourceForge projects) and then dive into the code to fix the underlying problem.Or, take an existing project and read through the code looking for bugs. In C code, using sprintf() instead of snprintf() is generally a... |
Should I support OAuth or OpenID? | xpaulbettsx: If you run a site geared towards novice computer users, my advice is DON'T. OpenID is still far too janky of a user experience, you're totally beholden to the providers, which are all different, and the "IE6" crowd just does not get it. |
How to jump into "real world" programming? | aaronbrethorst: I've always had my greatest success when I scratched a personal itch.My first released app, iRooster, helped me wake up in time for class, and ended up paying my rent after Apple featured it in a weekly email blast.My first iPhone app helped me track the daily fluctuations in electoral vote counts betwe... |
Should I support OAuth or OpenID? | lyime: Start with Facebook Connect if you haven't already. In terms of UX its the best single sign-on experience. |
Why can't we prove the Blub Hypothesis? | shalmanese: The ICFP Programming Competition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICFP_Programming_Contest |
Should I support OAuth or OpenID? | trusko: I would say that it depends on the audience. I have to agree with xpaulbettsx, for some users it might be a problem to get the concept. However, I like OpenID idea a lot and plan to use it in my project.I just hate having 73 different user accounts on 57 different sites (I forget passwords and not all sites ha... |
Why can't we prove the Blub Hypothesis? | mnemonik: Peter Norvig, Lisp As An Alternative To Java: http://norvig.com/java-lisp.htmlPeter Norvig compares Java, C/C++, and Lisp between 38 programmers and himself. All were asked to write the same program, record how many hours it took, how many SLOC, and then Norvig analyzes the results.EDIT:Norvig also links to a... |
How to jump into "real world" programming? | chipsy: Take a big idea and bite off the smallest piece of it. Preferably a boring(or boring to most people!) problem with one or more obvious solutions. Why boring? Because programmers have a nasty habit of wanting to jump to interesting, challenging problems at an early stage, before they have properly evaluated real... |
How to jump into "real world" programming? | silentbicycle: I suspect part of your dilemma comes from too many CS students having the same problems. There are already a zillion webcomic downloaders, blogging engines, etc. You have other interests, yes? Perhaps you're geeked about baseball card statistics, blackjack, typography? Scratch an itch. Run with it.What t... |
Why can't we prove the Blub Hypothesis? | scythe: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1894453/development-time-... should be helpful.SPOILER: Ada and Haskell get high marks. |
Why can't we prove the Blub Hypothesis? | asciilifeform: This is why:http://www.loper-os.org/?p=85Racing computer languages the way one might race horses is a fundamentally misguided thing to do. The race is to the Blubulous simply by virtue of being a race. |
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