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Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | smokinn: I still don't know what the issue with supporting multi-touch devices in North America is but I strongly suspect it's because of software patents. Anytime a corporate rep is asked why their device doesn't support it they hem and haw and say that it's complicated but never give a real answer. |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | 10ren: Not an example, but there are many cases of people "working around" a patent. In this case, it is a spur to technological progress. That is, preventing progress can encourage progress.There's a "prospect" theory for patenting (which with this student is probably familiar), that a patent is like staking a claim to minerals, with a samilar effect: that it encourages others to stake claims nearby, and so explore that region. If others could use the same area as the patent, they wouldn't be encouraged to explore, and you'd get a technological monoculture (in another sense, this would be greater progress, in that it is more widely adopted).I've been trying to think of an example, but I can't. I think the main way a patent can block progress is if the technology is not exploited well by the owner (like smalltalk being too expensive), and in such cases, we don't hear of it. When a patented technology is exploited successfully, money and time is reinvested in developing it, so that progress on it is accelerated. |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | ivankirigin: Xerox Parc has a patent on a type of filter viewer that acts like a looking glass to see the effect of the filter. Every year, someone reinvents it and presents it at some HCI conference, only to be told they can't use it. They are sitting on it, not building it, and also enforcing it.SIFT is a vision technique that is patented and works very well. Patents are getting in the way of commercial progress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-invariant_feature_transfo...Amazon Onc-Click is an absurd patent. If we grew to scale, Tipjoy would probably have had to pay them money, like Apple does. |
Why does learning lisp make you a better C-programmer? | numeromancer: In every art there is a dichotomy between the practical and the theoretical, and each has their fundamentals. In Comp. Sci., those two sets of fundamentals are these: sets of machine instructions, which come in several varieties; and lambda calculus, or one of the equivalent (by Church's Thesis) formal systems. C and Lisp are similar in that they represent the first steps in each case to reach the other: C is a level above machine code, providing some abstraction and portability to the use of machine code, the fundamental elements of practical computing; lisp is a level above lambda calculus, providing a practical system for using functions, the fundamental elements of theoretical computing.In short, mastery of C is concomitant with the ability to measure the cost of computation (sometimes, regardless of the value of it); mastery of Lisp is concomitant with the ability to measure the value of computation (sometimes, regardless of the cost).Since C and Lisp lie on opposite borders of the universe of computation, knowing both will allow you to better measure the scope of that universe. |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | aidenn0: It's been speculated that Apple dropped ZFS due to patent concerns. |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | te_platt: By progress do you mean creation of new technology or making technology available? A case I followed (involving infringement on a fingerprint recognition patent) shows how even weak patents slow the development process.Summary - Small company receives patent, sues large companies for infringement, two years and more than a million dollars later patent is invalidated, technology moves on. All the gory details here:http://www.legalmetric.com/cases/patent/utd/utd_206cv00115.h... |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | tsally: Not software patents, but SCO v. Novell is certainly relevant as an example of commercial/legal forces hampering process. |
Please review my website, job4dev.com | khandelwal: It looks like you're allowing people to post available jobs for free. On job sites, typically this is a source of revenue. Where do you anticipate your revenue coming from? |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | petewarden: I have a couple of examples from my personal experience, neither earth-shattering, but when you consider X million engineers running into similar issues, the cumulative tax on innovation is pretty large.Working on F1 '98, we had to scrap a whole training mode where you'd see your time compared to previous laps because lawyers were concerned it overlapped with the Atari 'ghost car' patent:http://kotaku.com/270035/patents-are-interesting-ghost-modeWe spent a lot of time and energy trying to work around this, we weren't showing any kind of ghost car, just a time indication, but apparently the patent was broad enough to cover any kind of comparison.The second was a patent on controlling any kind of video effect based on a sound input(!). This severely constrained what we could do on a major video-processing package, forcing us to avoid some features. They tried to extort independent developers out of a lot of cash, despite being a painfully obvious idea that had been around for decades before the patent was filed:http://www.trapcode.com/US_SK_advisory.html |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | fragmede: Microsoft's long filename in FAT filesystem patent was recently threatened against TomTom (http://lwn.net/Articles/320737/).Instead of working on new features (whatever they may have been), TomTom must instead commit resources to working around the patent. |
Please review my site favilous.com | Fizzley: The first thing I noticed is that the site is painfully slow on my computer (in both Chrome and Firefox). I think the changing image is hogging CPU. |
Review my site -- socialreader.net | voidfiles: I like the idea of having some transparency into google reader, its like the last place where good stats aren't readily available, but I am having a hard time understand what I can you use your site for other then, top 10 lists. Is that all its going to be? I signed up created a topic and then didn't get any content on that topic.I use google reader all the time, its my main source of reading news. I have two years worth of shared, and stared, and noted data. Is there anyway for you to look at that and figure out what I am already reading?Does friendfeed aggregate all of google reader, or only the google reader accounts that have been linked to friend feed accounts? |
Review my site -- socialreader.net | UpFromTheGut: Is this meant to be used in lieu of a feed reader, or in complement? At some point you should work on nice error pages, by the way: http://www.socialreader.net/blah/ |
Anyone into industrial design? | arfrank: I've been interested in learning more, but haven't found any real good sources for getting an intro to the knowledge. I asked a question here a while ago and the best advice given was to look into general design and from there move on. |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | jchonphoenix: The most obvious one that comes to mind is LZW, which basically killed the entire compression scheme. |
Do you know websites telling how to make use of old cell phone parts? | ilamont: Can't help you with the disassembly question, but in terms of making use of the parts, some interesting projects show up on Hackaday (http://hackaday.com/). Click on the cellphone hacks category. |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | btilly: There is a ton of really interesting and cool stuff that was done in wavelet research years ago which got patented and hasn't really seen the light of day in the way it should.If the patents hadn't existed I'm sure we'd now have much better widely available voice recognition, image recognition, and related data processing software than we do now. |
Any new hacker podcasts? | krs: Here are a few I listen to:The Command Line Podcast: http://thecommandline.net/category/podcast/Hacker Medley: http://hackermedley.org/Software Engineering Radio: http://www.se-radio.net/FLOSS Weekly: http://twit.tv/FLOSS |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | dstorrs: I worked at a company called Pica9, generating PDFs on the fly. Another company has the patent on that, so we had to spend a considerable amount of effort working around it, making sub-optimal choices at easy decision point in order to make it legal. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | icey: I really like the new setup. It's much less confusing than it was before.I've used it every few days since you first announced it here - it's pretty fun to play around with.I don't know how feasible it is to do this, but instead of prefix and suffix, I would really like to be able to use wildcards in my search. For example, say I'm looking for a domain that starts with the word "dog" and ends with "cat" or "cats"; I would like to be able to search "dog*cat?" instead of 2 boxes over 2 searches (one for the "cat" suffix and one for the "cats" suffix). |
Anyone ever get a cease and desist while using Google Maps? | dirtbox: So long as you apply for an API key, I'm pretty certain you're good to go. This is precisely the type of thing they want the service to be used for. |
Location Based Dating? | hn204: There are definitely dating services working in this direction, at least for people with iPhones. I don't know if anybody is integrating with existing social networks though.I've seen iTryst Lite and datingDNA on the iPhone that take location into account when matching people. Not sure how much success they're having though. Adding onto existing dating brands would probably get more traction.. |
Anyone into industrial design? | dirtbox: At the risk of sounding like a shill, you should have a look at Shuttle PCs. They have a very elegant and logical way of using a very limited amount of case space. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | prosa: Spectacular, and FAST!One small note, from my experience: it wasn't immediately obvious that results would appear right away, partly because of the drop down and submit button at the bottom. |
Please review my website, job4dev.com | adrianwaj: It looks a lot like a Jobberbase install with custom theme and tags. http://www.jobberbase.com/ |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | aristus: Singular Value Decomposition was held back for 20 years by patents owned by BellCore. I had to scrap large interesting portions of Dowser to avoid potential problems.As a counterexample, Autonomy has a patent on Bayesian text classification dating from the late 90's. I've always wondered why they didn't say anything after Paul popularized it for spam filtering. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | adunsmoor: It looks like there is a bug when using the prefix and suffix fields together.Entered "ns" in the prefix field and saw a bunch of domains. Added "ing" to the suffix field and nothing showed up. I figured the site was just slow until I realized that it wasn't going to refresh.Cleared "ing" and typed "g" in the suffix field. Showed results. Then added an "n" just before the "g" to get "ng". Less results than before as expected. Then added an "i" just before the "ng" to get "ing".That gave me a list of domains starting with "ns" and ending in "ing".(Using Firefox 3.5.7 if that matters) |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | slig: Hi, since you already have lots of country-specific TLDs, I suggest you to add .br, or more specifically, ".com.br". I'm not sure on how you could profit from it, but I bet you can get some traffic from here. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | AdamGibbins: Please add Gandi.net as a registrar, they're by far my favourite and I know other people have similar strong views. |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | mattjung: http://mises.org/story/3280 |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | scotje: I really like it, really simple to use and fast like other people said. In fact, I found a great name related to my main project that I'm going to snap up.The first time around though, I didn't notice that I could pick my preferred registrar at the bottom to get you the referral. Maybe that should default to empty and ask your preferred registrar on a domain click if it's blank? Just a thought. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | lssndrdn: In IE7, the CSS is being completely ignored and the page does not work (Note: I am behind a proxy, it might have something to do with it). It works with Firefox.Also, I know of a domain, seventypercentwater.com, but it doesn't show up in the list when I search for "seventy". What am I missing? |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | jeffepp: Great app, found it from your first go-round here and obviously is much cleaner visually.Would be nice to be able to only check certain extensions without losing too many points (.ly or .us only)So useful, thank you. |
Review my app. Better search for Mail.app | mronge: Clickable link: http://www.getrocketbox.com |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | kirpekar: Bookmarked, thanks! |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | dschobel: Fantastic work! Just curious, why does it not return any results for long strings?For example, putting "hacker" in the Beginning box and "ne" in the Ending box yields no results. |
Review my app. Better search for Mail.app | moconnor: You might want to try naming submissions like this as: "Ask HN: Review my improved Mail.app search algorithm", or "Tell HN: I made Mail.app better!" On the other hand, I'm new here, so what do I know? :-)Great looking site btw, although I've never had a problem with searching for mail with spotlight / Mail.app and nothing I see here convinces me of the benefits. Maybe more obvious and cool screenshots? |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | adrianwaj: no .cm ending. Otherwise good. Left sidebar looks weird in Chrome. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | petercooper: Was yours the site with the numbers to weight the score along the top for each column? As a geek, I far preferred that because I had more control. As someone looking at this with the eye of your average user, this system is better. A bit like comparing vi and Textmate, I guess. |
What if we weren't free publicity for Apple, Google, and Microsoft? | gridspy: Most of the things these companies release are interesting, and affect our lives in one way or another. I'm sure that individual engineers in these companies get a little thrill of pride when they are mentioned in HN.So yeah, they would notice - it would probably get posted by a HN reader inside the corporation.I don't think that any result, silence or otherwise would be the end of the world for anyone. Their own PR engines are huge. |
Is There Enough Tech Talent in NYC? | thedob: To answer your question without inciting the classic NYC vs. San Fran debate: Yes, there is enough tech talent in NYC. There's a stable and rapidly growing tech scene here with startups across various disciplines, and finding engineering talent is not an issue. The latest news.YC inspired Hackers & Founders meetup had over 100 people and a waiting list to boot, which is evidence of the entrepreneurial enthusiasm.Is San Fran a better choice? It could be, but let's leave that to another thread. |
Is There Enough Tech Talent in NYC? | aditya: Yes, there is. Recruiting works the same as everywhere else, personal networks, user groups, campus recruiting or a wide variety of technical recruiters.The bigger question is, are you closer to your eventual customers? How are you making money? NYC is great if you want to be closer to the advertisers and digital media people. SF is great if you want to be closer to the VCs and other tech related folks, but finding good engineers is equally hard (or easy) in both places. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | pbz: Maybe I'm not understanding how it should work, but I'm not getting a lot of results. For example try to enter something crazy / random in the beginning, like "kqxj" you get no results. Even for something like ending in "hedule" (since there seems to be a bug if you type in more than 5 characters) only a few entries are shown for domains that end in "schedule"... It's pretty fast though. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | andreshb: I like it very much, ive used bustaname before, but I think ill try this one too next time I buy a domain. |
Money in GEO API's? | aditya: There's definitely room for innovation in the space.A lot of Geo data on the web right now is unclean and there's not a lot of people other than Google and Yahoo and MapQuest providing API's to it.Also, Twitter recently acquired geoapi which was going in the right direction. So, go for it! |
Review my web based twitter command-line interface | twism: Releasing a bit early. Any feedback would be appreciated. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | krobertson: Love the simplicity and quality of the site. I like the "How can we improve this page" everywhere. It is nice to see a constant message of trying to improve and making it drop dead simple to send feedback.Above all though, the speed of the lookups is impressive. So many other tools are slow and clunky. |
A competitor stole my iPhone app content — what should I do? | nym: The guy's twitter handle is @fluter, as http://twitter.com/fluter ... hope he shares light on his side of the story. Also I'd like to see a diff on the databases. |
Good books on memory? | kqr2: Check out spaced repetitive learning:http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...Some open source software:http://ichi2.net/anki/ |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | javery: Ruby would be a good choice, I hear the Prag Prog Learn to Program book is great and uses Ruby.I was at my daughters new school the other day and I talked to the Librarian who is also teaching technology and he talked about using Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) which looks very cool and is somewhat game focused. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | sp332: Following hacker tradition, you should throw K&R at him and see if it sticks :) |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | gcv: How about DrScheme? I can't imagine more direct, rewarding feedback than the built-in graphics libraries. It's totally usable for games. It comes with a solid development environment, with a good step-capable debugger. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | RyanMcGreal: My son wrote a program for school in grade 8 with Python and PyGame that modeled mutation and natural selection among populations of predators and prey. It was a great learning experience for him, and introduced him to: classes and methods; inheritance; functions; datatypes; modules and namespaces; cartesian geometry; for, if and try blocks; and so on. It was challenging but not impossible for him to understand the stuff. Now he wants to be a video game designer when he grows up. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | gnosis: Logo. It's the gold-standard of introductory programming languages. It has also been described as "lisp without the parenthesis", so it should have many of the lisp fans on here on board.Finally, it's just fun. I have fond memories of moving that little turtle around with simple commands like "FORWARD 100" and "RIGHT 90", when I was introduced to programming at around the same age as your nephew. You really couldn't ask for a better first language. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | b-man: I would recommend several things,Squeak by Example[1], or better yet etoys[2]How to design worlds, as already mentioned hereAlice[3], with something like [4].Good old scratch from the logo tradition would also be cool[5].[1] http://squeakbyexample.org/[2] http://www.squeakland.org/[3] http://www.alice.org/[4] http://www.aliceprogramming.net/[5] http://scratch.mit.edu/Check them all out and decide for yourself. All of them are very consistent and fun. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | Dilpil: XNA studio is nice because it comes with a finished game that you can edit, and there's no pointer nonsense to get tripped up on. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | algorias: I'd say python with pygame hits the sweet spot of being simple and rewarding (for 2D stuff anyway), while still exposing enough of the underlying mechanics to be a good learning experience. You need to implement the main loop yourself, call collision detection functions, update and redraw sprites, etc.Considering that, the interval between sitting down and having something that actually runs in front of you is still reasonably short. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | d0m: I'd personnaly show him a bit of python and start him with small games. Sorry, but I don't think scheme is the way to start for a kid. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | iamwil: I recently had a kid that wanted to program as well. He's about 12. Wanted to program games, but didn't get very far in a directX book.I had a couple choices for him, due to some requirements:
1) Something easy to install or didn't have lots of things to install
2) Something with a all-in-one gaming library
3) Something with some sort of community around it.
4) It'd be nice if there was a book for it.So with those there, there was:
Ruby and HacketyHack. http://hacketyhack.heroku.com/ It also has a app framework called shoes that you can use to build both games and apps. However, since _why left, all this requires a lot of hand hold to set up.Lua and Love. http://love2d.org/
Lua is an easy language to pick up as it's pretty minimal, and love's 2D engine is pretty fantastic. I've used it before and it's pretty easy to get started with, and plenty of examples, as well as a vibrant community.Python and Pygame. http://www.pygame.org/news.html
Pygame has all of the above, and for me, the final winner, since there was a book that walks the kid along from basic text games to the graphics part. http://inventwithpython.com/ |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | pingswept: diveintopython3.org + pygame11 might be a little young (not for programming, but for what I've recommended above). |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | zaidf: HTML and Javascript worked for me.Basic(4th grade) -> HTML(5th grade) -> Javascript hacking(using view source)(8th grade) -> Visual Basic(8th grade) -> ASP(9th grade) -> PHP(11th grade) -> Python(uni)My personal learning route between ages 10 - 20.If I could change...1. I wish I had hopped onto PHP earlier.2. Also wish I didn't waste a huge chunk of time in middle school struggling with Java. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | samc: He's in love with the idea of writing a game. He might not actually like programming.So, you need to start with something simple that will get him immediate results. Which really means HTML these days as everything else needs umpteen objects before you can see any results.If he takes to it, you can then move to CSS and javascript. And if you get this far then the leap to actionscript or python or whatever isn't that big and you'll know that you have a good student, |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | j_baker: The Little Schemer: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/BTLS/That's all you need. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | kungfooey: I suggest checking out this talk at Nashville's Barcamp '09.http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2370164Christopher did a good job talking about his approach to teaching a group of kids how to game. Syntax isn't as important at first - if you get them hooked on something simple like processing (http://processing.org/), then they will learn syntax later. Most kids just want to see results as quickly as possible. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | cema: I second Javascript. It is widely and immediately available (even gui comes for free), allows using and learning different styles of programming, can be used to immediately write useful little programs, and scales up to moderately sized projects.Python is good too. Not always immediately available, but easy to install. Other than gui (which would need to be learned), shares many advantages of Javascript. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | alttab: Something with immediate results.Mine were HTML, TI-83 Basic, and Visual Basic. All of these could get something visible and interactive relatively quickly.These days, I would say things like Javascript/Ruby/Python, while more simple than C/C++/Java, still don't have a direct pipeline to results that matter (for a learner).Pygame would be my choice if ¥ou had to go the scripting route. |
Has anybody JRuby for their webapp? | icey: I was using JRuby + Rails for some exploratory development very recently. It was pretty nice, the only complaint I had was the startup time when doing script/server... but really that wasn't all that bad either.If you've done much with Java, then it's really worth looking into JRuby. Also, Charles Nutter and the rest of the JRuby community are awesome. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | Sukotto: He might like Robocode http://robocode.sourceforge.net/Teaches basic programming as a side-effect of trying to make your take kill the other tank.I haven't tried it, but what I've seen of it looks pretty interesting. |
Good books on memory? | icey: It's not sexy, but I've had great results with "The Memory Book":http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Book-Classic-Improving-School/d...If you want to start working on it right now, then you should definitely read through the Mentat Wiki:http://www.ludism.org/mentat/ |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | metamemetics: definately python over javascript!-interactive shell-easy to debug-lot of great simple graphics libraries too-making 3d shapes is funner than div containersFor 3d shapes, http://vpython.org is a good simple library. He will be able to figure out how to get balls rolling around in no time.For a media library with sound for making 2d games, definately go with SFML (simple fast multimedia library) over pygame: http://www.sfml-dev.org/It's faster and also has versions for C, C++, .Net, D, and ruby, so if he wants to learn one of those languages later he can try to port his game. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | qhoxie: Ruby and Shoes are a great pair to introduce people to code. Quick and elegant results. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | gcheong: This is an excellent series of blog posts about a father trying to teach his 6 year old son to program a simple game. Maybe you can draw some inspiration from it.http://davidbau.com/archives/2005/07/27/a_programming_questi... |
I need a VoIP provider. Who do you recommend? | sfriedrich: les.net |
What should I teach freshmen about Web 2.0 (and maybe entrepreneurship)? | volida: I thought Web 2.0 is old news :p |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | techiferous: In order to accelerate learning, I believe it is best to try to learn one concept at a time. That's why I like to introduce people to the LOGO programming language if it's their very first programming language. It introduces many basic concepts that we programmers take for granted, for example:* the fact that a computer will take everything you do literally and can't read your mind* commands* sequential iteration of commands* loops* conditionalsIt's also easy to get quick results which keeps an early learner from getting discouraged. Once the learner is bored with LOGO, then you take them to a more powerful language. Ruby is nice because--even though it can get complex--you can start off very simple.I would recommend this book for learning Ruby as a first language: http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Program-Second-Facets-Ruby/dp/19... |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | araneae: It's very awesome.One thing that would be very cool... is regex support? :DBut barring that, a "contains" box. I.e. if I don't care if the website starts with cat or ends with cat, as long as cat is in there somewhere. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | mullr: Processing. It's simple, requires very little setup, and most importantly it's FUN. You can give other people the things you made, and it works very easily with cool stuff on your computer. (webcam, sound) You can do animations and make simple games really easily. Spend a few evenings playing with it and I think you'll agree. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | Tristan-Leroux: I'd say Python too. It was the first language I ever tried and it was very rewarding in terms of what I could do at such an early level. But I was a couple of years older and very much into technology already. But I stand by Python. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | tsestrich: Simply awesome. I must have used every single domain name search app there is and this is by far the best |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | appathy: Want to start a dating site? everymate.com is available |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | giardini: A hairshirt and a whip, possibly, or sackcloth and ashes. At least a good talking to.Seriously, by the time he's in college programming will likely be near the bottom of the list of skills in demand. While programming has provided many a good job for several generations, another field such as biotech or nanotech would be better for the next generation. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | derefr: I'm a game designer now, but I definitely wasn't back then; instead, I got my start playing with scripting in RPG Maker. Kids, I think, don't want to make new engines or mechanics; they mostly just want to create content to use with their favorite pre-existing mechanics.It didn't really ground me much into the why or how of what the game engine was doing, though; today, I'd recommend playing with a genre-specific game framework written in LÖVE—not least because learning Lua will actually count toward your resume in the games industry, and because it's easy to distribute on multiple platforms with no fuss. |
Has anybody JRuby for their webapp? | gfodor: Yup. Startup time is the only downside. Being able to drop to Java for speed or libraries is totally awesome. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | imok20: Make him a language: let me elaborate. Use Python or Ruby and write a library of functions that he can call in particular ways that will make a "game." Let him learn how they work, and let him dive into the source code and figure it out and eventually make his own functions and classes and ... etc.Discovery is the most rewarding part of learning to program, and having fast payoffs is always nice to keep a kid interested. Worked for me (I started with Logo around his age, but Python/Ruby is way better.) |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | cemregr: This is amazing work. Congratulations. |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | dan_sim: play guitar instead |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | psawaya: Kind of obscure, but you might want to check out NodeBox. It's a bit like Processing, but for python.
http://nodebox.net/code/index.php/Home |
Review my tech job hunting service | JFitzDela: I appreciate any advice given at all. I'm a programmer, not a designer, so don't expect a whole lot outta me in that department.I'd like to know what you think of the a) usability of the service and b) ideology behind the pricing, restrictions on budget, etc.Thanks a million! |
Review my tech job hunting service | ismarc: I'd suggest including the differences in the $75 vs $150 tiers without having to submit a job. Would be kind of nice to know what you get for what money, or how much you'll be charged before you've given all the info away. Other than that, I kinda like the design of it, would prefer a country/state/city type dropdowns for location instead of just a "location" entry (but allow a textbox for like, zipcode). |
Review my tech job hunting service | lpolovets: From the employer's perspective:
In your FAQs, you mention that there are no refunds. I'd urge you to reconsider. I worked on LinkedIn Jobs when it first launched. Initially, traffic was low and some postings didn't get a single applicant. For these users, we ended up extending the listings for free and IIRC even gave refunds or credits when someone simply couldn't fill a position after trying repeatedly. The problem is that when your site is small, it's a high risk for a prospective employer to post to it. Knowing that you can get your money back if things don't work out really helps. Money-back guarantees are a great marketing feature.IMO, $75 is a high price for a site w/o a track record of effectiveness. It's hard to put that much into a posting on a site that gets... tens of hits per day? hundreds? When one can pay twice that to post to LinkedIn or HotJobs or some other portal where you can literally get 1000 times more views. Also, I think Craigslist jobs are still free in many places, and that's something you're competing against as well. I'd start really low.. maybe $20-25 to post. Assuming you get some traction, get a few testimonials that you can feature on the site to raise its perceived value, then you can start to slowly raise prices.
(as an aside, LinkedIn did this too. Job posting started at ~$50 and slowly moved up to their current price of ~$200 as the value of the site became more clear and demonstrable to potential employers)From the jobseeker's point of view:
You're making people sign up to view details for a posting. IMO, that's too aggressive. You want people to become really engaged first and find jobs that they want to apply to, and then ask for them to create an account at that point. If you ask too early, many people will just abandon the site.More comments:- Not sure what a provider is? Is that someone who provides labor or someone who provides jobs?- The UI is really simple. At first, I thought it was a little too simple, but after a few minutes it grew on me =).- I can't figure out if you're screening job applicants and job postings, or just job postings.- Is there a specific problem you're trying to solve that you don't think is currently addressed by other job sites?- The trick to a successful job site is to get a huge base of jobseekers. If every posting gets 100 views and 5 applications of which 1-2 are good, employers will gladly pay to post on your site. Try to come up with ways to get jobseekers to visit your site often -- job hunting tips, rss feeds, etcGood luck! |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | dmn: Idk what else to say except Awesome :D |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | jk4930: Okay, I throw something different in:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioBrickhttp://2010.igem.org/Main_PageWe'll see what kind of games he'll produce. :) |
Review my tech job hunting service | vital101: I like the color scheme, but I think that there isn't enough contrast between the colors. It all sort of blends together and becomes gray. |
please review Landing Page Analyzer | paraschopra: Clickable - http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/landing-page-analyzer/ |
please review Landing Page Analyzer | JFitzDela: Great job! I used it to analyze my most recent project, and I was genuinely surprised by the results -- your questions highlighted areas I've neglected to consider or approached incorrectly. I especially love the detailed feedback after the quiz.Only feedback I can offer is to perhaps re-evaluate the grammar and spelling in some of your questions -- not a big deal, but an easy fix.Good luck! |
Cases where software patents have prevented progress? | tmitchell: During development of Doom 3, id Software fell into a bit of a patent conflict with Creative. Relevant snippet from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_3:"A week before the game's release, it became known that an agreement to include EAX audio technology in Doom 3 reached by id Software and Creative Labs was heavily influenced by a software patent owned by the latter company. The patent dealt with a technique for rendering shadows called Carmack's Reverse, which was developed independently by both John Carmack and programmers at Creative Labs. id Software would have placed themselves under legal liability for using the technique in the finished game, so to defuse the issue, id Software agreed to license Creative Labs sound technologies in exchange for indemnification against lawsuits."I remember something about Carmack coming up with a workaround that paid a performance penalty so others licensing their engine could bypass the Creative mess.Creative has also taken quite a bit of heat over the years for sitting on Aureal's IP and stifling innovation in sound technology, but I don't have specific examples to cite. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | bemmu: I didn't set any prefix or suffix and instead just selected all the radio buttons. Now I get it, but at first I was confused why no results are coming up. |
Review my app again? Short domain name search | lkozma: Great project, congratulations.I am still curious about one aspect: why do you realease the source code? (same question for browsershots).. I think for such a service the vast majority is not interested in the backend code and those who are interested might take it and build a competing product, not being required to release the modified code. Am I missing something? What is your take on this ? |
My nephew wants to learn programming. What should I recommend? | roundsquare: Not sure if this is available, but is there a class near him which has kids about the same age? Thats how I got started in programming. It was great because the teacher knew how to teach kids and having other people around as enthusiastic as myself created a great environment. |
cheap SMS service for application | dkersten: Clickatell[1] is cheap and provides a number of methods to send SMS: email-to-sms, HTTP (XML, SOAP, urls), SMPP, FTP. They also support inbound/two-way messaging and shortcodes, though I assume these cost a good bit more.[1] http://www.clickatell.com/ |
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