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What programming language should I teach my little brother? | stcredzero: Whatever you teach him, teach him something that you love. You will infect him with your enthusiasm and that matters an order of magnitude more than which language.Heck, there are plenty of situations where exactly this happened, and the programming language was COBOL or Assembly! |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | carlosrr: ActionScript was the first programming language I learned. I found some tutorials on how to make games and little by little learned by changing the source code. Being able to create graphics was very rewarding and the popularity of flash made it easy to show my friends what I had done. The feedback loop was v... |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | tphyahoo: perl, javascript, haskell.perl: practicality + fanatically helpful community, and it's in unix's dna
javascript: nice skill, something you can make money in if you're good, immediate gratification on web pages
haskell (or lisp): get some theory in there. i'd vote haskell because of the community |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | shaunxcode: smalltalk, absolutely. |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | limmeau: When I was at your brother's age (roughly), I started with dBase III+ and QuickBasic because that's what was installed on the discarded IBM PC/XT my father took home from work.What kept me motivated was that interactive programs were just an INPUT A$ and a LINE(x,y,x1,y1) away. Today, I'd have to write dozens ... |
What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to College Choice? | lallysingh: One thing to look for is lots of other disciplines around, where you can interact. I got some of my best experience programming while writing control code for a bunch of mechanical engineers. |
How-to Implement Machine Learning? | imusicmash: I think the Programming Collective Intelligence is going to go down as one of the most important and influential books of the decade.I'm a product manager, but was a Java & Perl programmer previously. I didn't know Python before I read this book. But the concepts are presented so clearly, the examples use... |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | thomatas: Javascript. It gives him a chance to create GUIs pretty quickly by saving any page he sees on the internet and tweaking it. And he can create things that are useful to him pretty quickly if you show him Greasemonkey. |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | lallysingh: The most important thing to get a programmer started is to get them a project they want to finish. So, get him on something with good feedback.Does he play any games that have scripting languages? Lua's pretty popular. Additionally, there's TorqueScript, for the torque engine (garagegames.com).If he's no... |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | DTrejo: I highly recommend JLogo:
http://www.bfoit.org/itp/itp.htmlThis site and JLogo are geared toward first time learners.It is very easy to take oneself through the lessons and learn all the basics of programming. After going through these lessons, taking AP computer science (Java) was much easier for me.(And if yo... |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | jefffoster: Squeak (http://www.squeak.org/) is fun. It's designed for teaching, has lots of high level libraries available and it's simple (everything is in one system).This isn't going to do much to help with Unix/Linux mind, but as someone else pointed out programming is supposed to be fun. |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | frankus: If he's a little on the fence whether he really wants to get into programming, I would start with something where he can do stuff that looks impressive with relatively little effort.C is a horrible choice by this standard, starting with the modify-compile-crash development cycle and especially once you get int... |
How-to Implement Machine Learning? | MaysonL: Python + sage |
What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to College Choice? | rantfoil: It's not the populist thing to say, but I'll say it anyway.The top colleges are a great place to be because of the friends you'll make and the level of competition at those places. You can meet amazing people anywhere, but generally speaking they are in higher concentration at more competitive universities.If... |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | andreyf: JavaScript, Python, Scheme, Ruby. |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | nazgulnarsil: weekly IM chats about material?
If we can get at least 5 people I'm in. |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | judofyr: I'm also in! My copy is being shipped at the moment, though. Should arrive around 3th Februar :/ |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | tptacek: Isn't there some Web 2.0 app that organizes book clubs like this?I have a couple books (signal processing, compilers, programmable logic) that I'd really like to work through with a couple people; what I really want to do is get together every other week or so over beers in Chicago, though. |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | truebosko: I've been going through SICP, albeit slower then I would hope so. I'm only into the initial sections and I would definitely be up for something like weekly IM chats at a scheduled time to discuss the book and help each other understand.That would be great, so count me in if it happens. |
What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to College Choice? | jmtulloss: I went with the college that had the "best" program. I loved every minute of it and got a ton out of it. The quality of the professors and students in a top notch program is invaluable. They provide you with stimulating material while you're in school and great connections when you're out.People say that jus... |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | creativeembassy: I would recommend Ruby because its loose syntax is more forgiving, good for new programmers. Then on top of that, learn Shoes for a graphical interface for creating games. Ruby+Shoes is the modern Basic.Then again, just have him learn Basic. :-p That's how I learned. |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | nemo2: I love Python, use it for all sorts of stuff, but I remember there were some things that went over my head learning it because I didn't understand OOP, and until I saw its beauty and the important aspects of writing clean code I hated the forced indentation. Plus I wasn't using vim then, and my lazy butt still d... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | rbanffy: I'm in too |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | CatDancer: Appjet (http://appjet.com/learn-to-program/lessons/intro) would be really cool. When he wrote a program, he could share it with his friends instantly just by sending them the URL. |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | brl: Sure, count me in. |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | chrisconley: It looks like there is at least a few people interested. Should we all leave a comment with contact info (if it's not in your profile)?My email is chris.m.conley at the goog. |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | metaguri: i'm in. i'm on chapter 2 right now. i think irc meetings are a good way to go. |
What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to College Choice? | ibgeek: I'm currently a junior in college. I decided on a good (but not great), liberal arts school with about 1800 students over going to Univ of Florida, where I was also accepted. Here's my analysis of that.Advantages up to this point:
* Flexibility -- There is a lot of flexibility in my choices of courses and in ... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | thehickmans: This sounds like a good way to keep motivated, having tried and failed to get through SICP on my own. Count me in. |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | scott_s: There's lots of good advice here, and I've upmodded the ones I agree with. But, really, it doesn't matter. Anything that lets him create something is good.Some people here are concerned about "best programming practices" and learning certain lessons. He's 13. Just let him play, and if he likes programming, he'... |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | jakozaur: Python and teach him early library Pygame. For 13 the motivation is the key and nothing could beat creating own games. |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | maneesh: Ahh---sorry for the self-promotion but I really believe what I am saying: I wrote a book called Game Programming for Teens, which teenagers tend to like because it teaches them to make video games off the bat (using a modified version of BASIC), gets them interested in programming, and then helps them move on ... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | macmac: I am in! |
What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to College Choice? | easp: For most private schools (and the more prestigious public schools), the only people who pay list price are those most able to pay it. Working class and even squarely middle-class kids will generally qualify for significant amounts of need-based financial aid in the forms of grants. So, to the degree that cost is ... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | chrisconley: Freenode channel ##hn-sicp has been setup for weekly meetups and/or ongoing discussion.I also set up http://groups.google.com/group/hacker-news-reads-sicp for arranging discussion times and any other miscellaneous things if needed. |
Do you criticize? | HeyLaughingBoy: I find that it's not the criticism that's the problem: it's the presentation.If instead of saying "this dialog box sucks," you say "the user might find it easier to use if you move this button over here" you accomplish the same thing, but with a much less negative impact. |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | sown: i started with LOGO |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | mmmurf: The approach I'd use would be to find a problem he wants to solve, and teach him to solve it in a few languages.One of the big "duh" moments when learning CS is when you realize that all languages consist of similar structures to let you get things done.Not sure what his interests are, but I'd probably choose f... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | moiz: I want to be in... but I've 5 other courses to deal with... |
Review our startup: Mugasha - A better way to listen to electronic dance music | pgebhard: Does anyone else feel that the play/pause button is backwards? For me, the button displays the "Play" arrow when the music is playing and it shows the pause button when it is paused. I know that sounds like how it should be, but I think that's the reverse of most other players that show the Play button when... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | nx: I'm SO in :D:D |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | kwamenum86: Go with C++. I learned C++ at 12 and learning every other language (except those based on the functional paradigm) has been a breeze. Starting with a more "difficult" language will give him a good foundation. And C++ really shouldn't be too difficult anyways if he is really interested in the material (so... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | carbon8: In |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | brentr: Why not tell him of several languages and let him ask you questions and decide for himself what to learn? Those who accomplish the most are those who strike their own path. |
What Criteria Should a Young Hacker Apply to College Choice? | numair: Since you're young, and you're already a hacker, you might want to look at going to a place where there's an entirely different sort of student body. This would help "balance" things out a bit for you, and would give you a more interesting life. If you take the time to understand and collaborate with your new... |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | green: I can hardly speak for everybody, but I know for sure: 1) life is too short just to work for nothing 2) shit happens 3) may be your business model need to be concentrated on profit now, less on investment |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | zupatol: It might be fun to start with a specialized language like processing, which makes it easy to create interactive animations. Here is what the creators of processing say:'Processing was never intended as the ultimate language for programming visuals; instead, we set out to make something that was: * A sketchb... |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | ksvs: One thing you could start doing now is lining up potential alternative jobs. You could even start working part-time somewhere else. One good thing about startups is that they can be flexible about things like that. And the founders who recruited you can hardly blame you. |
Once you open source, can you take it back? | paulhart: Yes, Jive Software did this. I was working for another company at the time and a colleague and I provided several enhancements to their codebase. However, before they would accept them we needed to get our boss to sign a document assigning all our work on their code back to them.A few months later, they annou... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | noblethrasher: I'm in. rod at ennobleit dot com |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | llimllib: > I don't have any contacts that could lead into consulting projectsThis is the problem! You need to do some networking; and I don't mean in some sleazy marketroid way.Go to barcamps, meetups, language groups, hacker groups, photo meetups, or whatever floats your boat. Get people's twitter names and keep up c... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | yan: I just finished chapter 1, but would love to join you guys. |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | KirinDave: Since many HN readers are in the CA Bay Area, would it make sense to add a bi-weekly or monthly physical meeting to this as well? |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | staticshock: I got SICP as a christmas present, I'm in. |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | jhancock: 5-7 months savings is above average I would guess.
Here's what I recommend:1 - Get out of NYC fast!! Find the cheapest place you find comfortable and your 5-7 months savings will get you 12+ months. This does not need to be in the U.S.2 - So you like coding? Ok, but what if for the next 5 years the world w... |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | pedalpete: You say you don't have any control over the funding, and you didn't mention how large the start-up is, but maybe this is somewhere you could take some initiative. Would the founders let you get involved in the funding?The reason I ask is that I assume from your experience with the Hedge Fund, that you probab... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | r11t: Excellent. I just started with SICP. So doing it together with HN folks sounds nice! |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | vaksel: cut your living expenses...have a car? sell it for a beater. Have high rent? Move to Bronx or Brooklyn or Queens or Jersey City(if your work is close to penn station). Or if your parents live locally, move in with them(I did this). Switch to a ramen diet....stop going out, stop buying shit. Stretch every penny.... |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | cperciva: I'm worried about that 1-in-20 (?) chance that we don't manage to line up funding in timeYou should be worried -- and if I were you I'd re-evaluate your odds. My guess is that a startup which would print money would still have more than a 1-in-20 chance of failing to get funding at the moment.Assuming you de... |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | tptacek: If your current startup is 5-7 months away from a funding event (which may get less and less likely as the recession grinds on), consider that you may just be in the wrong startup: 3 months could be enough time to jump start something else that could actually be cash flow positive.The standard answer, to consu... |
Computing/Biology Resources? | bcater: I really enjoyed Guyton:http://www.amazon.com/Textbook-Medical-Physiology-Arthur-Guy...I wasn't a biology major, but from what I understand, this is a standard in the field. |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | ars: What will you do after 5-7 months? If your money did actually run out what would you do?Whatever that is - do it now, not in 5-7 months.For example: say you'd stop paying rent, and get evicted, where would you go? Whereever that is - go there now. What else would you stop paying for? Phone? Cable? Pretend you have... |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | kirubakaran: Cool! I am in. |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | nickfox: Take a deep breath and relax. You've chosen to be an entrepreneur because you can't stand working in the 9-5 slave trade. Good choice. You are taking a big risk. It's exciting, it's scary, it makes you feel alive! What a great feeling.Let's take a worst case scenario. The company fails, you lose your apartment... |
Computing/Biology Resources? | davi: I learned from the third edition of this textbook, and it was excellent; maybe others can confirm this for the most recent edition:Molecular Biology of the Cell - Fifth Edition
http://www.garlandscience.com/textbooks/0815341059.aspYou can get a feel for lots of textbooks here, by searching within them for things ... |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | YuriNiyazov: Relax. I have no problem living in New York on $3K/month gross pay. That's 36K/year. Since you are working at this startup for essentially free, you should be able to convince them that you actually can only afford to work there 3-4 days/week as opposed to 5-7 which is what you are probably doing right now... |
Musicians? | lincolnq: I have played violin since I was very young, and more recently viola. I've been interested recently in electric violin/viola, but I haven't gotten to try them yet. |
Remedies for RSI? | AlanEdge: Surprisingly, lot of RSI problems originate from poor back posture, which distends the discs through which nerves run down to your wrists.Wrist exercises may provide short-term relief without actually solving the root of the problem.>>Try tweaking how you sit and sleep (90% of your waking hours).1) Get a used... |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | known: Even though you hate C, I recommend C, because you learn intricacies of computer software with C. |
Why is SICP generally preferred over HtDP? | ericlavigne: I have recommended SICP to friends that already have some programming proficiency. I have recommended HtDP to friends that are just getting started with programming.HtDP is easier to study. It is also designed to be used with Dr. Scheme, which is a good learning tool for beginners. I recommend reading HtDP... |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | mikeyur: I'd try to contact other startups and see if they need freelance work done. Instead of looking for another job, continue doing what you're doing and work part-time elsewhere.Email other startups and ask if they're hiring, tell them about your situation and if you can pull your weight and do what's required I'm... |
Musicians? | graywh: Playing an instrument has a good correlation with higher intelligence. And it's no secret that hackers are some of the smartest. |
What programming language should I teach my little brother? | drhowarddrfine: Then you should teach him C or assembly. But you don't want to teach him C. So fuck off. |
Musicians? | cperciva: I play violin; I'm currently the concertmaster in the best non-professional orchestra in Vancouver. |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | redline6561: I'm certainly interested. I got bogged down in Chapter 2 last year. Time to go again, I suppose. |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | curiousgeorge: You should assume funding will not happen. Follow your intuition here. And then calm down and realize that 5-7 months of living expenses isn't exactly scraping by. Follow everyone else's advice on cutting costs, and look for part-time work.Your deeper problem is the expectation that someone else will inv... |
Musicians? | cheez80: drumset since middle school, orchestral percussion since about then too, and mallet percussion (and drumline stuff) since high school. wait, that sounds a bit misleading, since i don't do the orchestral, mallet, or drumline stuff anymore.i also played piano since like 6. stopped when i hit high school. |
Remedies for RSI? | johngunderman: There are three things that really helped me when I began developing RSI1. Learn and use keyboard shortcuts. The mouse was a major issue for me, so I started to use the keyboard as much as possible. I installed gnome-do so I would be able to access all my apps through the keyboard.2. When you aren't typi... |
Musicians? | brianto2010: I can play both violin and Bb clarinet; I started both in elementary school. However, I only play violin now in high school.From your link:
"music: n. A common extracurricular interest of hackers..."This definition is not just limited to just playing an instrument, though. It also talks about music appreci... |
Has Anyone Installed Pligg? | vyrotek: I didnt think Pligg was any harder to install than Wordpress. Finding good themes that match the version you installed is a pain though. |
Has Anyone Installed Pligg? | nostrademons: Yeah. It wasn't too bad...10-15 minutes of work IIRC. There was a bug in it that I needed code to fix, but I posted a report & patch on the forums and I think it's since been fixed. |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | rgrieselhuber: Move to Thailand and chill for awhile. It will help you get your priorities back in line and that 5-7 months (if based on NYC living expenses) could last a few years. |
Anyone want to work through SICP together? | curiousandy: Count me in |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | sam_in_nyc: Forget about your start-up and live it up for 1 month! |
Why is SICP generally preferred over HtDP? | mechanical_fish: HtDP appears to be eight years old, and SICP is 25 years old. Therefore, the number of people who have been exposed to the one is likely to be several times larger than the number exposed to the other. That may explain why one seems to be recommended much more often than the other.That certainly applie... |
Musicians? | LogicHoleFlaw: I played woodwind instruments all through middle and high school. I started on the clarinet, then the alto and tenor saxophones, and the bassoon as well. I was quite proficient and seriously considered majoring in bassoon performance in college but I decided to pursue CS instead. Unfortunately I haven't ... |
Musicians? | rms: I played various combinations of drums through high school. Right now I'm taking a tabla class. |
Has Anyone Installed Pligg? | kwamenum86: I have never used it but several clients of mine have used it which usually means it is easy to use. |
Musicians? | GavinB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1phz4-G1tcI wrote the music and played the guitar and bass. |
5-7 months of living expenses left; terrified. Advice? | somnambulist: Hi there!I really don't know as to whether whatever I will be writing down will be of any help to you or not, but I would be very happy if it would. Anyway I'll give it a try.You ask 'Has anyone here been through disaster before?' Well, the truth is almost everyone (barring exceptions, and exceptions don'... |
Musicians? | iloveyouocean: I play the Dumbek. Mostly middle-eastern style. |
Musicians? | somnambulist: I play the guitar (amatuer), keyboard and the harmonica.Basically I am a keyboardist.Watch me and my band playing in one our college concerts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqvS4RuDKXgI am the one playing the keyboard.It's a Nepali song, but well you might just like the melody, for music knows no languag... |
Musicians? | timothyandrew: I play bass. Used to play the piano. |
Musicians? | curiousgeorge: piano. |
Musicians? | defunkt: I've played guitar for a while. I try to practice at least three times a week for 1 - 4 hours each sitting. |
Musicians? | DTrejo: I used to play clarinet in middle school and elementary.I racked up ~5 years before quitting.I also have a Bb r13 clarinet for sale. |
Musicians? | shutter: Piano, mostly. Actually, I'm graduating this year with a decree in both CS and music. |
Musicians? | joshsharp: I've played guitar for years, not bad but I'll never be great. Just a bit of a hobby, something manual to pick up and play with when I'm not coding. |
Musicians? | kaens: I actively play guitar, bass, and drums. Have been playing guitar all my life.I can play piano and violin.I like playing around with sequencers, I have some very quickly made tracks up at http://last.fm/music/kaens , probably some stuff with more time put into it up in a few weeks. |
Musicians? | Erf: I compose electronic music. Attempted to learn to play keyboard at a late age, but progressed unsatisfyingly slowly.I would agree that a disproportionate number of programmers I know are musically inclined. |
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