Advice for Haskell beginners (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://www.haskellforall.com/2017/10/advice-for-haskell-beginners.html <comment><USER2> Addenda (relevant to community musings today):

Be aware that as a small and very distributed community, the Haskell world has less power to eject bad actors than more centrally managed and resourced projects have (e.g., Golang and Rust have much more structural power to moderate). Awful and abusive people exist in the community, and it's best to just start blocking and ignoring folks who disrespect you.

The amazing thing about the Haskell community is that knowledge is very well distributed throughout the community these days. The culture, influenced by academia, strongly values writing and publishing ideas rather than sharing them orally or in the workplace. This means that if you're interested in learning, there are a ton of places and ways to do it.

If you're looking for good initial connections to folks who are respectful, well informed, and unlikely to expose you to some of the frustrating cabals in the community, I've got a few recommendations

1\. Gabriel Gonzales (this is his blog, and he's @GabrielG439 on twitter)

2\. Chris Martin of TypeClasses. I'd also list his partner in crime Julie Moronuki, but her social media interaction is reduced these days. These two focus on helping programmers get up to speed with haskell from a variety of starting points, and they care more about functional programming than haskell specifics.

3\. Patrick Thompson of Github (@importantshock on Twitter). A fantastically skilled person who will link you to a network of amazing Haskell folks who do stuff in a positively next-generational way.

Two people who are adjacent to the Haskell community and incredibly interesting, but probably can't answer direct questions for you. Worth a follow.

1\. Dr. Edwin Brady, creator of the Idris language. He's widely respected, humble, and has a beautiful vision for how humans and computers should interact to write programs.

2\. Dr. Bodil Stokke (@bodil on twitter). Bodil is not so much a Haskell person these days, but she's got a phenomenal breadth of knowledge and always has interesting things to talk about in the FP space. Worth a follow if you're on that platform.

I suppose you can ask me for help too, but I'm certainly not as competent as these folks.

<comment><USER3> > Addenda (relevant to community musings today): [...] Awful and abusive > people exist in the community

Are you referring to people saying negative things about Learn You A Haskell?

<comment><USER2> No. I'm referring to people like Tony Morris. There are more folks I could name, but I think they're less obvious.

Scala's community essentially began to adopt a thinly-coded code of conduct that said, "Don't be like Tony Morris he literally runs people out of the scala community" it got so bad. He continues to be unrepentant and uses his influence to fan a slow but very distressing conflict between the Cabal community and the Stack developer community.

As for LYAH, it's a decent book. It's got its problems (in some cases it does obnoxious and useless things like make fun of overweight people).

<comment><USER4> I don't have any personal knowledge of it but I've heard that the code of conduct you're referencing was actually created and weaponized by certain sociopath-types to eject Tony from his own open source library in a hostile takeover.

And not that it excuses his behavior, but I also seem to recall Tony suffering from some very severe back injuries accompanied by chronic pain.

(Not to white knight a person I'm barely aware of but your description seems pretty one-sided based on what I've seen)

<comment><USER2> > I don't have any personal knowledge of it but I've heard that the code of > conduct you're referencing was actually created and weaponized by certain > sociopath-types to eject Tony from his own open source library in a hostile > takeover.

Not that I agree with this narrative, because AFAICT it wasn't true, but even if it were? Good. That's the power and mechanism open source working as intended. If you're a burden to the project, you're cast off. And Tony is an insufferable burden. The code is free, and owned by the group.

The fact that he expected "ownership" of a project set up with a leadership committee is a good example of the kind of silly behavior I'm talking about.

> And not that it excuses his behavior, but I also seem to recall Tony > suffering from some very severe back injuries accompanied by chronic pain.

I was around for two public declarations of dramatic self harm. I'm told there are more. And I hope he finds a way to deal with these problems, they're serious and can be life threatening. I don't wish violence on him.

But I want him to stop making communities worse with his senseless negativity and hostile communications. If he has problems in his life that impair his ability to interact in this fashion, we should not enable his abusive behavior out of charity. That's actually disrespectful, and while it may benefit Tony in the short term, in the long term he finds himself forced out of communities that no longer can or will bear the weight of his presence.

> your description seems pretty one-sided based on what I've seen

It's certainly one sided: it's my side. I for one ran into him a lot. It seems like he took special delight in demanding I take his impromptu "quizzes" in Scala and he'd hound me ceaselessly until I did. His ultimate goal was to prove I was "not a functional programmer." He's been cut off by a lot of longtime members of the FP community for a reason.

<comment><USER4> Defending Tony Morris isn't really the hill I want to die on, seeing as how I have no experience with the situation and I unfollowed him a long time ago to get away from the negativity myself. I was just repeating what I heard some prominent people mention here and there, but I guess I got a bit too caught up in playing devil's advocate.

Thanks for sharing your unfortunate experience, and I agree that health problems or things like that should not be an excuse to behave poorly. Take care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this (short) article had a lot of good points, though I do take minor issue with one bit:

> Some people learn Haskell with the expectation that they will achieve some > sort of programming enlightenment or nirvana. You will be disappointed if > you bring these unrealistic expectations to the language.

While I have not achieved any sort of nirvana, I do believe that learning Haskell has "enlightened" me insofar as I now look at programming in a fundamentally different way. I put a much greater emphasis on writing many small functions, I use types wherever possible (and type hints too, since Python is my primary language), and I avoid side-effects when I can. All of these things I do because Haskell taught me just how powerful simplicity can be.

I also learned about different ways to conceptualize the relationships between data, and I learned about laziness (something I'd never heard of before then). Haskell has a lot to offer for people who come from an imperative background.

> Haskell is not an achievement to unlock or a trophy to be won because > learning is a never-ending process and not a finish line.

While you can never "finish" learning, you can set milestones to mark your achievement. Comprehending some of Haskell's features (both the basics and the advanced ones) are perfectly acceptable milestones by which to track progress. I don't think that's a bad thing.

\---

That said, overall the article is very good. I agree that newcomers should write small programs, get their hands dirty, and learn to really use the basic features of the language firsthand before moving on to more advanced things. (And especially I agree that new users should avoid typeclasses at first, or even at second.)

<comment><USER6> Regarding `avoid side-effects`, the amount of side-effects that are required for a typical real problem solving code base is quite reasonably measurable. For example, the number of network calls, DB calls, FileSystem read/writes are are measurable. Have you been able to reduce the `side-effects` significantly or have just become more aware of it?

When we started using ExpressJS (coming away from Java), there was a tremendous change. As soon as you begin to code in Javascript (say from Java/Ruby/Python world), async hits you. There is no escaping it. And the programmer faces a tax (every time when implementing async/await or generators), his/her awareness about side-effects (deliberately generalizing IO as side-effects) and they tend to be more careful with it.

<comment><USER7> Avoiding side effects sounds like something someone new to Haskell would say. Haskell in no way avoids side effects. Actually I'd say it embraces them by introducing special semantics just for them! What it does do is encourage you to move side effects to the "edge" of your code base and produce a more clean separation between pure & non-pure code. This is incredibly valuable for testing and overall correctness.

<comment><USER5> Right, and this is what I actually meant. It's not that side-effects disappear, but rather that I try not to litter my code with them. I _avoid_ them in the sense that I don't embrace a side-effect-heavy style of coding, as I did with my imperative code prior to learning Haskell.

Perhaps I could have worded that better. Sorry for the confusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I started learning Haskell by working on a proof of concept for a relational language. The big advantage, I think, was I _didn't_ try to do anything fancy with monads or typeclasses. I was just interesting in expressing functions, and that got me fairly fluent in that subset of Haskell.

It definitely helped later when I started working on a language myself, and now needed to write a parser and do a lot of transformations using uniplate.

My biggest piece of advice for beginners trying to do anything more complicated that requires dependencies is to use stack[1] and set up a skeleton project.

Set up your stack.yml file with the latest nightly (hack on nightlies, release on LTS) and then visit stackage[2] to see docs _completely in sync with the versions you're using_. You should just be able to add dependencies you need to package.yml.

That gets you a fairly stable environment where things will actually do what you expect, which eliminates a big source of confusion and frustration.

[1]: [https://docs.haskellstack.org/en/stable/README/](https://docs.haskellstack.org/en/stable/README/) [2]: [https://www.stackage.org/nightly-2018-08-21](https://www.stackage.org/nightly-2018-08-21)

<comment><USER9> Cabal newbuild is quite nice.

For newbs stack is fine. But I genuinely question any serious code base that needs stack. Genuine cabal hell hasn't existed since around 2010. And the mini purgatory that some people call hell is impossivle with cabal new build.

My perspective is perhaps biased, but I also am comaintainer of widely used libraries used literally everywhere plus I've done commercial and recreation and research flavors haskell dev for over a decade, currently at a fortune 10ish sized company.

Though zooming out: these days I tell learners they should try everything out, and revisit various tools as their mastery grows.

For industrial / large prjects that want pinned deps, I've seen folks happy with the mafia build tool or even going full nix for end to end os level reproducible build and config.

My main issue with workflows like those centered around stack is that I've seen a lot of folks just not think about library versions and deps as part of their library/application foot print. And this has various consequences in how they engineer and upgrade their own libraries and applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're not on a purely intellctual trip, my advice is to first get a feeling for the language before trying to understand everything. Every widely used concept arises out a necessity and not out of thin air. Don't read all the monad-tutorial first. It's hard to understand not only why this abstract nonesense is useful, but even what it "is" (assuming you have no serious math background)! The interesting thing is that the concept arise naturally if you spend some time tinkering with haskell. The Functor arises almost instantly!

<comment><USER11> Sounds like the Haskell Pyramid [https://patrickmn.com/software/the-haskell- pyramid](https://patrickmn.com/software/the-haskell-pyramid)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Haskell is not an achievement to unlock or a trophy to be won because > learning is a never-ending process and not a finish line.

Haskell aside, I think this is a fantastic point regardless of whatever it is you're learning. There's always so much more to learn and having this mindset makes it a lot easier to do so.

<comment><USER13> Reminds me a bit of the quote:

"A classic is something everybody wants to have read, but no one wants to read." \--Mark Twain

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have skimmed all the famous books so far on haskell. But the best learning resource to me so far has been the UPenn course [0] because of the quick coding and feedback loop in the browser. Also, the beginning assignments involve visualizations, which is always good to check if you are doing things right or wrong.

0\. [https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cis194/fall16/](https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cis194/fall16/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I read through part of the "Learn you a Haskell" book that was posted here yesterday, and started getting really excited to use this beautiful language.

And then I started looking into ways to use it for making games and was... disappointed. Maybe I've been spoiled by the vibrancy of JavaScript's ecosystem, but I hoped to find a library for simply rendering existing meshes with existing materials and the closest I found was a library of base OpenGL hooks. Add onto that the lack of half-decent UI libraries (on the web you can use Elm, which is similar but different) and it feels like the only thing Haskell is practical for is headless data-processing, which is a shame.

<comment><USER16> Not exactly games, but _The Haskell School Of Expression_ by Paul Hudak is targeted at multimedia work in Haskell. I haven't read it, but if that's what you want to work on, it might be worth checking out.

<comment><USER15> I'll check it out. Mainly what I'm interested in is doing world simulation in Haskell; it seems like it would be a really interesting language for that. But that kind of thing isn't very useful without a decent way to visualize and interact with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My advice for Haskell("monad") beginners would be to try to re-implement the("a") State monad by yourself without using any libraries. It helped me understand that monads are nothing more than just function composition.

<comment><USER5> I like "Functors, Applicatives, and Monads in Pictures" [0] as a gentle introduction to the concepts. Same revelation as yours, but through a different vehicle.

[0] [http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_...](http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_monads_in_pictures.html)

<comment><USER18> [https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate- guide](https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide) is also didactic but goes into more details, and is not Haskell-specific (IIRC functors, map and so forth are all defined in JavaScript)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> raffael-vogler With regard to yesterday's exhumation of LYAH I'd like to point out typeclasses.com which I just discovered on r/haskell through this announcement: [https://joyofhaskell.com/posts/2018-08-06-announcement.html](https://joyofhaskell.com/posts/2018-08-06-announcement.html).

</comment><comment><USER19> Can anyone recommend a similar article for Rust?</comment>


New Zealand amateur astronomer captures amazing deep field image of Centaurus A - <AUTHOR> http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=107812

<comment><USER2> I'm absolutely speechless! Very impressing job. Take a look at [http://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com/Astrophotography/Ce...](http://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com/Astrophotography/Centaurus- A-Extreme-Deep-Field/i-hFknr4n/0/O/Centaurus-A-OlsenSidonio- final-2575x3879.jpg) prepared by Rolf Olsen (the author of the post) and Mike Sidonio.</comment>


Facebook Groups: more control, or hit at Google? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/09/BU861FPT92.DTL <comment><USER2> Do these groups allow you to aggregate the various group walls into your news feed? That was my main issue with the old groups system. It was a pain to go though a dozen groups checking their walls for new posts.

If so, I may re-activate my FB account and give this a go.</comment>


Enveloupe: An API for snail mail - <AUTHOR> http://enveloupe.com/api/new <comment><USER2> Prompting users to enter payment information over unsecured HTTP...smart.

<comment><USER3> Yep, although the form posts to a secure URL: [https://api.stripe.com/v1/tokens](https://api.stripe.com/v1/tokens)

<comment><USER4> Doesn't make it better tough, a MITM could change the action URL of the form.

<comment><USER5> MITM requires a man in the middle. For the most part, a state level adversary is required for a generalized MITM attack.

<comment><USER6> Come join my wifi network at the coffee shop :-D

<comment><USER5> Yes, but that's not a general MITM attack as the NSA has pulled off. Only the folks at that particular coffee shop are placed at risk from this particular adversary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is Lob as well: [https://lob.com/](https://lob.com/)

<comment><USER8> I'm about to use them for a startup. Anything I should know? Tips and tricks welcome.

<comment><USER9> (my opinions, not my employer's standard disclosure) Lob team has been great to work with - they've accommodated a lot of tweaks we've needed (custom paper, much higher levels of verification). They're good at API backwards compatibility, but they are pretty active on the development front, so it's worth keeping an eye on what changes are coming through on the SDK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wasn't there a company that started doing Instagram postcard mailing, and eventually offered the API as well they were using?

<comment><USER11> My side project, OttoPost[1] does Instagram postcard mailing. It's currently using Lob's API (which has been great). There are several others too, though.

[1] [https://www.ottopost.com](https://www.ottopost.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice! As a heavy user of postagram .. (#1 grandson.. Check) An iOS app that makes this appear in the print options please then I can..: login to a central site afterwards and choose the content I want to print -> snail mail it to destination

Additionally you could Offer printers to local stores, I could print to my bodega/gas station/Amazon parcel drop/staples etc (Pickup the job via qr code displayed on phone/Apple Pay) for things I need now

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For some reason, the https redirect broke - working on fixing it. Rest assured, [https://enveloupe.com/api/new](https://enveloupe.com/api/new) works perfectly.

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks cool! This should totally exist and be independent of any given country's postal system. Perhaps prepend a "SHOW HN: "

</comment><comment><USER14> If I were you I'd put link to API docs in top navigation. If you are targeting to devs, that's the first thing they look for.

</comment><comment><USER15> Payment info over HTTP? Ehhh, no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm looking for something like that that's the best fit for singleton mailings. I want to send one letter at a time. The pricing here isn't unreasonable for that ($1.09), but it seems geared for bulk mailings? Any suggestions?

</comment><comment><USER17> Plenty of printing companies have APIs already (and much lower prices).

<comment><USER5> Can you list a few?

<comment><USER17> I've using Printing 4 Less. They've got one, and they're not exactly a big fish. I'd imagine most of these would: [http://www.piworld.com/article/the-2015-printing- impressions...](http://www.piworld.com/article/the-2015-printing- impressions-400/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks interesting, though I must ask - where exactly is the API? Or are we to hook up directly to the HTML form endpoint?

</comment><comment><USER19> You should link to the landing page.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'd like to see the same service for the UK.

<comment><USER21> Lob employee here. We are running beta services in the UK, please email firstname.lastname@example.com for more information!

<comment><USER20> brilliant, i didnt know this. Thanks</comment></comment></comment>


Modellers claim wars are predictable - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091216/full/462836a.html <comment><USER2> The model was built to fit the data, which isn't difficult. The hard part is getting it to predict anything, which this model has not.

</comment><comment><USER3> They are only showing that the size of attack is predictable, not the timing...</comment>


Show HN: Instant Search for iPad - <AUTHOR> http://marktholking.posterous.com/preview-instant-search-for-ipad

<comment><USER3> The next time Google wants some feature to become ubiquitous and on the forefront of every developer's mind, all they need do is very publicly offer a job to the first developer to create it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN,

Please check out the latest collaboration between myself and bmahler - <USER2> Search for iPad.

I'd love to hear what this community thinks, is this something you would use? What would you like added to make it more useful?

</comment><comment><USER4> I can't wait till this instant search fad is over...

</comment><comment><USER5> Somebody is hoping for a job offer from Apple...</comment>


5 Reasons a $1,400 iPhone Isn't Crazy - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/5-reasons-a-1-400-iphone-isnt-crazy-1501412403 <comment><USER2> It is when you don't need all that fancy shit and can easily get a functional equivalent for less than $300.</comment>


Google App Engine Blog: A Brand New Language on Google App Engine - <AUTHOR> http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2009/04/brand-new-language-on-google-app-engine.html <comment><USER2> This is SO utterly LAME. I was hoping they were finally going to support PHP or Ruby...

</comment><comment><USER3> Too many April Fools Day jokes from Google, sigh.</comment>


Why does Alexa / Google Nest harm wireless networks? - <AUTHOR> I work for a WISP and do lots of housecalls where the internet has gotten slow.
I've learned a strange lesson through repeated experiences: After checking all other known variables, the question must be asked:
"Ok, do you have an Alexa?" (or Google nest).
A surprising amount of the time the answer is "Oh yes!" and by unplugging it, we find it's as though we had performed a technological exorcism. All the bandwidth demons are gone.
It's not only a bandwidth thing. Google Nest and Alexa completely crowd out other devices, and do something to the router where you can't even get an IP without powercycling it. I don't mean to be vulgar, but Nest and Alexa seem to gang rape everything on the network.
I haven't taken it as far as bringing one home and watching it's activity, to spy on the spy. One thing I can confirm, though, is that the bandwidth issues do not always come from Alexa / Google using the internet.
I've seen a lot of WISPY people on hackernews, so I thought I'd throw this question out there. <comment><USER2> Somehow tens of millions of people don't have this problem. Is there a particular router model involved?

<comment><AUTHOR> Generally Netgear, TP-Link, and sometimes Microtik are used. Netgear and TP- Link seem to both have the same clash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Probably uploading people's voices to their Data Centre and may take a bit of the bandwidth.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also it's Ubiquity network. May be relevant.</comment>


Update on Google Native Client - now built into Chrome - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/native-client-announce/browse_thread/thread/e69fe64e8decbe16 <comment><USER2> Ehm, I'm by no means a security expert but Matasano's overview [1] of the security model seemed to throw some sizable monkey wrenches into the works. Has Google addressed those criticisms?

[1] [http://www.matasano.com/log/1674/the-security- implications-o...](http://www.matasano.com/log/1674/the-security-implications- of-google-native-client/)

<comment><USER3> "P.S. No, we haven't forgotten about the security contest, but we really don't like to rush the jury. Please watch for a related announcement in the coming weeks."

I would assume the security issues will be mentioned or addressed in their upcoming announcement.

<comment><USER2> How did I miss that?

Even granting the benefit of the doubt that they have solved the issues raised this still seems like putting the cart before the horse to me.

<comment><USER4> I think the headline is a bit optimistic. NaCl _will_ be built into Chrome _after_ they fix all the security holes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The pertinent part is at the bottom of the post...

Finally, some of you have asked when Native Client will be ready for end- users. In this context, we recognize that there is well-justified resistance to installing browser plug-ins. For this reason we have a strong preference for delivering Native Client pre-installed or built into the browser, and we'll be focusing on that as our main strategy for delivering Native Client to users. Careful readers may have already noticed evidence of integration into Chromium <[http://dev.chromium.org>](http://dev.chromium.org>); in the Native Client source. Recognizing the many technical and non-technical challenges to browser integration, we will continue to support our NPAPI plug-in until we can deliver the system via a better alternative.

</comment><comment><USER6> The headline is a controversy-stirring deception: the word "Chrome" does not appear in the linked email.

What it does say: "Careful readers may have already noticed evidence of integration into Chromium <[http://dev.chromium.org>](http://dev.chromium.org>); in the Native Client source."

Chromium, not Chrome. "[E]vidence of integration", not completion. "[I]n the Native Client source", not the Chromium/Chrome source.

</comment><comment><USER7> Let me play devil's advocate here:

So now chrome contains means to call native code. Isn't that what we initially used as a reason to move away from IE which also allowed to do that via ActiveX?

So if IE allows native code to run, then it's bad.

But if Chrome does it, it's cool.

Just because one is sandboxed and the other is not, does not mean that it's inherently more secure. Sandboxes can be broken out of.

In IE, I can at least turn this crap off.

<comment><USER8> > Just because one is sandboxed and the other is not, does not mean that it's > inherently more secure.

Actually, that is actually what it means. Security is the reason for the sandbox and is an essential property of the native client. Sure, bugs could exist that defeat the protections but that can just as easily be said for any code.

ActiveX is very different -- by design, there are no protections.

However, I'm not sure I understand why the code has to be native -- A think Google could have built a C-compatible VM machine language that would be easier to validate and then just JIT that in the browser. They already need a patched GCC to compile the native code for the client. And a VM JIT could be ported to other platforms besides x86. Why does it have to be native?

<comment><USER4> _Google could have built a C-compatible VM machine language that would be easier to validate_

A JIT is significantly more code than the NaCl verifier, and generally JITs don't handle SIMD well.

<comment><USER8> A JIT could handle SIMD if those instructions are included in the VM. I'm not thinking about a high-level VM like Java but something considerably more low- level. A machine language with the most important features of any modern CPU but without the ambiguities and trappings of any particular architecture. In NaCl, they're already restricting the code to a subset of x86 instructions, so it's not far off.

And it doesn't even have to be JIT -- it could just be a compiler that translates from the verifiable VM code directly into x86 before anything is run.

<comment><USER9> > A machine language with the most important features of any modern CPU but > without the ambiguities and trappings of any particular architecture.

Could you elaborate? I'm not convinced that x86 looks like other architectures.

<comment><USER8> All architectures have opcodes for moving data, addition, multiplication, bit shifting, etc. They also all have a stack and registers. While the details are different (number of registers, for example), in general they all work the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What are the chances of this being adopted anywhere else (leaving IE out, of course)?

<comment><USER11> They say they are trying to respect the NPAPI spec, so it should work with any browser that works with NPAPI that is to say firefox, webkit, opera etc except IE I guess (not sure).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Will the bulk of the browser wind up inside the NaCl sandbox? A supervisor runs a bunch of sandboxes - one for each tab - each having the minimum necessary hooks for communications, storage & interface.

</comment><comment><USER13> I know Google is a big company but it really seems like they're going off in a thousand different directions these days. Might not be a bad idea for them to focus a bit more.

<comment><USER14> Most of Google's weird stuff makes sense in the long term. Google is big on making web apps, for example, so they have a serious interest in making web apps less painful. To that end:

1\. They design a browser to make web apps more reliable and secure. One process per tab, plus fine-grained OS-level security.

2\. In that browser, they introduce a JavaScript engine meant to make execution of JS a lot faster.

3\. They continue to fund Mozilla, which is working on some of the same things, and may have a better approach to the JavaScript performance issue with TraceMonkey.

4\. And now the Native Client. Theoretically its speed may even be surpassed by sufficiently good JITting of JavaScript (or whatever), but practically it will probably be pretty handy for some applications. It's nice to be able to get native speed _now_ instead of waiting for a better JIT to be developed and deployed.

About the only thing Google's spending serious money on that _doesn't_ improve the environment for their money-making products is the Google Lunar X-Prize. And that can be justified by the sheer coolness of sending probes to the moon.</comment></comment>


Dropbox: The hottest startup you've never heard of - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/16/cloud-computing-for-the-rest-of-us

<comment><USER2> I think this article is perfectly valid. What everyone here is forgetting is that we are a pretty focused demographic of technical people. If you ask the average CNN user what Dropbox is you'll probably get a blank stare. The fact that an article like this is BEING written is just another sign of Dropbox's success... it may be crossing the tipping point to main-stream media and adoption outside of the tech community. I bet if you looked you would have found something similar about Twitter at some point where social media savvy people were going "WTF? I've used it forever"

<comment><USER3> _> cloud computing -- that catchall phrase corporations use to describe services delivered via the Internet_

With this line they are streets ahead of most pure tech sites in terms of accuracy.

<comment><USER4> I love Dropbox for not using this horrible term.

<comment><USER5> Horrible term? Just because it's the catch phrase du jour doesn't mean it's totally meaningless. I get annoyed with the buzz and malapropism just as much as the next guy, but like it or not, cloud computing is a major global phenomenon.

<comment><USER6> It IS a meaningless phrase in the sense that it's being used.

When I was studying network engineering, "the cloud" used to encompass the broader network environment that INCLUDED the Internet as an extension of your enterprise infrastructure. Now? It's a hyperbolic, singular phrase that is limited to using the internet as an extension of your operating system without fully explaining or at least detailing for the end user why it matters.

Especially in the case of those god.awful Microsoft commercials. In their case, the way it's presented, the cloud is nothing less synonymous with social networking. Change your Facebook status from Windows? That's the cloud. Upload a picture to Flickr? That's the cloud. It's no better than that phase of 'web 2.0' that was nothing more than superficial design elements that included shiny buttons, dropping vowels and slapping the term 'beta' on everything. The web is cyclical and this is the latest cycle.

While that in and of itself isn't BAD per se, it's a phrase that's come synonymous with "rockstar" and "ninja" when talking about hiring developers. A total and complete non sequitur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been shocked at how often I see the Dropbox icon on friend's systems. I no longer live in silicon valley, and so I am completely out of the echo chamber (except what I read here at HN). These are not nerds, not techies, and not people who follow TechCrunch. These are artists, musicians, old folks, nomads, and all sorts of folks that just don't do technology. But, they get Dropbox. Admittedly, my parents aren't using Dropbox, but my parents don't read CNN.com, either, and I can't imagine what they would even use Dropbox for. I can't even get them to use flickr for photos, despite buying them a digital camera (my mom still uses a film camera when she travels because she's afraid she'll lose or break the digital one).

If I could invest in Dropbox, I would. But, that wasn't always true. I met Drew at a YC party before they had anything to show, and were still figuring out the diffing/versioning problems, and all the underlying hard problems. And, I came away thinking, "Well, that's been done before. A lot. And it never went anywhere." I had even built a little web-based file manager and sharing app as a RoR practice app, a couple weeks before. So, I thought I knew a business that wouldn't go anywhere when I saw it. I thought highly of Drew, but not much of the idea. I was obviously very wrong about the idea.

Anyway, my point is, Dropbox hasn't been something "you've never heard of" for quite some time.

<comment><USER8> My dad is using Dropbox to share his songs. He saves to Dropbox, and then shares links on Facebook. All his masters are backed up there as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Major news outlet learns about cheaper way to share files from their intern who uses it at school like everyone else: News at 11

</comment><comment><USER10> >> _"...And there's little to stop...Amazon (AMZN), with its own Amazon Web Services, from making a greater push into Dropbox's territory...."_

Dropbox actually runs on AWS by using Amazon's S3 for storage. This is what allowed them to get up and running quickly and cheaply without needing a lot of venture funding.

I would not be surprised with Dropbox's continued growth, if they in the future were to set up and manage their own data centers to avoid being dependent on Amazon or anyone else's platform. This would be advantageous if Amazon were to decide to compete directly with a similar product.

<comment><USER11> Someone questioned whether Dropbox could compete with Amazon at scale, but decided to delete it. This is a really valid question. I recalled a while back that Backblaze asked a similar question and came up with a really cool solution.

[http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a- budget-h...](http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how- to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/)

I see this as Dropbox's future. PaaS is good for getting started, but with numbers like what's shown in that blog post, it's hard to argue that something like S3 is really priced at commodity levels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> counterpoint: Dropbox is a great product, clever tech, insightful marketing etc. Even the YC application was great. And I think there's a large market (even its present size is more than enough to sate my own avarice), but... it doesn't seem that it could become a truly _huge_ company (like Xerox, Google), without launching a series of increasingly unrelated products. Though perhaps that's true of many huge companies (e.g. Apple, Sony, HP - even Microsoft has Office).

<comment><USER13> possibly. that said, 100m in revenue 4 years after launch with a fairly unbounded market (every consumer), looks like quite the promising start.

<comment><USER12> > Benioff predicts sales could hit $100 million this year. (The company > declined to comment.)

Unfortunately, a prediction; and also by someone not privy to actual figures...

> Dropbox reportedly experiences well over 10 times year-over-year growth...

Sounds pretty good!

> ...and positive cash flow.

The mildest expression of profitability possible. Though I'm pretty sure they're doing way better than >0.

From scanning many acquisitions, my feeling is of the order of $200 million. Though I'm basing that mainly on business acquisition (e.g. by Oracle), so I might be very off for consumer acquisitions (considering youtube, facebook, twitter etc).

<comment><USER14> With their kind of scalability, any positive cash flow is awesome news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> When we were trying to figure out if Dropbox would be a good sync tool for Leanpub, Peter went in to a local coffee shop and asked a bunch of people if they'd ever heard of Dropbox. All of the baristas and everyone else in their 20s had, and had accounts. About half of the people 30 or older had heard of it, and most of them had accounts.

We were pretty impressed with the numbers, and we ended up going with Dropbox, and we've never regretted it.

</comment><comment><USER16> > The hottest startup you've never heard of

I wish this were true; unfortunately I hear lots and lots about them when they run a "spam your friends for more free space" promotional.

<comment><USER17> Get better friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Expected an article from 4 years ago...

</comment><comment><USER19> Excellent, if my non-technical friends ever ask why I don't go to mainstream media for tech news, I'll point them to this article.

</comment><comment><USER20> My dad uses Dropbox and I didn't even tell him about it. Such a badass company.

<comment><USER21> Even more badass is your dad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> My mom came to me earlier asking me to help her install Dropbox. She's about as informed about computer stuff as i am about fashion. That's a good sign for Dropbox :-)

<comment><USER23> My mom did the same, except she called using Skype :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> While I'm sure Dropbox has their work cut out, you know they are onto something when you run into their flyers outside college dorms cross country in Chapel Hill, NC.

<comment><USER25> Hey, there are even old boring people walking around on campus who are users . . . heck, even in _Carrboro_

If it wasn't a HIPPA issue, we might be using Dropbox for more internal projects here

Love, love, love dropbox. You undergrad at Sitterson?

<comment><USER24> Nah, just got my communications(!) degree and moved up to NYC :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Today I was at a University small business lecture. Someone asked one of the entrepreneurs "What was your biggest mistake?". The guy said his laptop had been stolen, but luckily it was all auto-backed up onto Dropbox. A nice anecdote and good press!

</comment><comment><USER27> I love dropbox and we use it personally and for our company (we are paid subscribers). But it seems to me that this space has fewer barriers to entry than say Groupon. People argue that Groupon has little barriers to entry but the fact is that it cost a lot to sell and get merchants on board. Dropbox is a very unique and helpful product but what will stop the competition from creating something similar and possibly better?

</comment><comment><USER28> Now is maybe the really scary time for Dropbox - here come the "me too's" including corporates who will say "Hey looks like people are starting to want this file storage and sharing thingy" - we can do that too and offer it to our own customers.

Should be interesting.

<comment><USER29> Microsoft already tried their hand at it with Windows Live Mesh. Technically Apple's MobileMe is the same thing. The 'corporates' are already on it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Dropbox is awesome, I use it, I love it.

I had the same thought as SwellJoe around early 2008: That's been done, it ain't gonna go anywhere big. Obviously failed prediction on my part.

So the question is, what made Dropbox successful? There are plenty of players in this area (some of them are older than dropbox): box.net, mozy.com, Windows Live mesh, backblaze.

Furthermore, techies can easily do backup to their own S3 account, but they love Dropbox.

What's the success factors? YC? Being MIT graduates? The clever "Tell your friends and get more space for free" email? The market is just HUGE?

I know that 1 of them is using Python. =)

</comment><comment><USER31> I like Dropbox but i use it less often. What i am waiting for is the same solution from Apple. Their cloud facility has been just finished and they will probably offer similar service not later than this year. It might not start as pure storage facility but will start by account and device activation from cloud, iphoto & music backup and then after figuring out how this cloud thing work will probably offer similar subscription fee based service. After all why they still didn't buy Dropbox? Probably they are working on it.

</comment><comment><USER32> There is a PyCon video about Dropbox: PyCon 2011: How Dropbox Did It and How Python Helped <http://pycon.blip.tv/file/4878722/>

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm glad the article pointed out the cartoon dinosaur riding a shark on the jobs page, even though they mistook it as not taking things seriously, instead of convincingly signalling, by the fact of its nature and presence (as an awesome and surprising drawing on a recruitment page that's subversive of conventional expectations for a potential employer), the claim made in the heading on that page, that Dropbox is a pretty sweet place to work.

</comment><comment><USER34> We've been using it for our band, and it's been working great. A really useful tool that the non-techy members have had no trouble adopting.

</comment><comment><USER35> Dropbox it's certainly one of the most helpful startups for the average guy.

I put into use at the last company I was working for (a non-tech company) and everyone got immediately hooked on Dropbox. It made their file-sharing much easier.

So I honestly understand this article, even though for us it's been around for so long.

</comment><comment><USER36> Any media outlet tempted to use a "you've never heard of" headline should seriously reconsider. Guaranteed to irritate everyone who HAS heard of it instantly.

<comment><USER37> I heard a radio report in NZ over summer about the kids these days using words like Cool and Wicked in ways that weren't their original meaning.

Someone deserves a medal for epic trolling. (I don't know what the station was -- I was in a hire car and channel surfing and decided to listen to the news broadcast)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is why traditional / mainstream media is fighting a battle to remain relevant.

<comment><USER39> This they call fighting?

<comment><USER23> Certainly better than their previous attempts: [http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon- february-28-2011/the-b...](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon- february-28-2011/the-biggest-newser)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Finally something I can be hipster about.

</comment><comment><USER41> Eh, "you've never heard of"?

<comment><USER42> It's CNN, it's for normal people.

<comment><USER41> Ah normal people. Got it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: How would you describe the Internet to someone who has ZERO computer knowledge? - <AUTHOR> A similar question was asked in a recent Viget post and I thought it would be interesting to discuss. <comment><USER2> Please elaborate on "zero computer knowledge." Is this someone from the past who doesn't even know about electricity, or just a typical person today who knows computers, but has no knowledge of the "magic" under the hood?

I'll assume the second.

Explain that the internet is just a collection of computers that are connected to each other. Some computers are always on and hold websites (servers) so that other computers (say, typical PCs) can connect to them to see the websites.

Now there are some computers that have the job of acting as the phone book so that the other computers know where to find the servers.

I like this exercise. It forces yourself to explain a system in the most simple terms possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> The definition shouldn't assume the reader has any technical knowledge (think tribal medicine man, or most people's grandmother)

<comment><USER2> Thanks, but the difference between tribal medicine man and typical grandmother still leaves room for confusion. A typical grandmother knows that computers exist, but a tribal medicine man might spear me for stealing his soul with this mysterious "light box."

The reason I ask is because I wanted to know if I was supposed to explain the computer to this person or just how it interacts with the internet.

Maybe the question could be "explain the internet to someone from 30 years ago. (Computers present, but no complete internet to speak of)"

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I guess more grandmother than medicine man.

Another quick question, is knowing what a computer is necessary for someone to understand the internet?

<comment><USER2> I suppose you could explain it in abstract terms without knowledge of a computer (ex. the internet is a wonderful place where people can connect from all around the world in the blink of an eye), but that wouldn't really convey the nature of it.

The question is also open to further interpretation: Is it, what the internet is, what it can do, how it works, what it means to society, or something else? There are many ways to "explain the internet" to someone with no knowledge of computers, but to explain how it is, or how it works, they must understand what a computer is.

<comment><AUTHOR> As you stated above, the Shoghi Effendi quote is close and he doesn't mention computers. I think the definition doesn't explain how, just what and would get bonus points for why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd call it "a mechanism of world intercommunication embracing the whole planet, freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvelous swiftness and perfect regularity."

This was written by Shoghi Effendi in 1936 predicting the technology of a future world commonwealth.

<comment><USER2> Frighteningly close, but we're not quite there yet. The _"freed from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvelous swiftness and perfect regularity"_ part is still lacking (consider recent stories about governments monitoring and censoring the internet, and massive outages from damaged cables).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you really mean zero computer knowledge that's pretty tough challenge. I'd probably have to try a few times until I could develop a pitch that seemed to work. The "curse of knowledge" means I don't think I could imagine what it'd take to get across the concepts to someone. I'd love to try.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Internet is like being able to sit down at your desk and being able to read any book in any library anywhere on earth, instantly.

<comment><USER6> A lot of people in the 90's used to describe the internet this way, but I think it has sort of evolved beyond just a library of knowledge.

What about the availability of instant, practically free communication?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Porn and free music."

They may not understand it, but they'll want to check it out.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think you _don't_ need to be objective -- you just need to whip up enough enthusiasm to get the person over their fear of the evil compuwebs and trying it out. After that, they'll learn themselves. I had this with my mum, who is now happy googling away, buying things from amazon, and watching youtube.

Start small, with the benefits of one or two sites. Find a site that offers a batch of benefits together -- say, google, google mail, google video, google maps, and google shopping -- and tell them that this is 'home.' In fact, you could just tell them that Google is the internet, teach them to compose a search, and be done with it. People take to the web very naturally once they try it.

</comment><comment><USER9> The Internet is a global communications network which is accessed by viewing electronic documents called "pages" which contain certain highlighted parts called "links" that when accessed will lead you to other pages. A small on- screen arrow called a "cursor" can be moved around the page you are currently viewing with a navigation device called a mouse and this is used to browse and navigate documents. People use the Internet for things like news, commerce, entertainment, pornography, copyright infringement, and watching videos of lesbians eating each other's shit out of a cup like an icecream cone.

</comment><comment><USER10> the internet is a ginormous trailer park. it is open to anyone without limits. some people park their trailer for no particular reason. some bring their lunch wagon to sell food. some have a movie wagon. lots of wagon do not charge the residents for their service, they just love to have a lot of people around their wagon and figure a way to make money from them later. you can live the park anytime you want. you live there for life for a mere 5.99/month... ....and so on....

</comment><comment><USER11> I explained the _Web_ , not the Internet, to a relative with zero computer knowledge as follows:

* think about magazines and how they're made

* you have to put all the text and pictures together, then you have to print them in a huge printing plant, load them onto a thousand trucks and take them around the country

* it's slow, it's very expensive, and you might end up with millions of magazines that nobody wants, and have to throw them away

Now, imagine someone though of a better way.

Instead of you having to print the magazine on paper and take them to people, you let people's computers come to the magazine's offices and take a copy of the magazine. Then they read the magazine on the computer.

They seemed to take it well.

As far as explaining how the internet works, I've always said "you don't need to", any more than you need to explain how the phone systems works.

But how the phone system works is instructive. There are all the different countries around the world, using different languages, different equipment, different voltages for their power, but somehow, we got them all to agree on some things, so you can just pick up a phone, anywhere in the world, and dial another phone anywhere else in the world.

That's how the internet "works". Everyone has agreed on the right way for computers to talk to each other. The details are meaningless.

</comment><comment><USER12> The Internet is a tool that shrinks the world: it lets you communicate with whoever you want no matter where they are, read any document wherever it is and whatever the format (book, txt, html), manage every aspect of your personal life (everything from editing photos to tracking your duties with something like Google Calendar) from one single computer and even have fun with on-line games.

</comment><comment><USER13> Just tell them it's like a highway, for information, oh yes...

<http://www.acme.com/jef/netgems/superhighway.html>

"...A highway HUNDREDS of lanes wide. Most with potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member VIGILANTE POSSES with nuclear weapons. 237 ON RAMPS at every intersection. NO SIGNS. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions. AD HOC traffic laws. Some lanes would VOTE to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a CAPITAL OFFENSE on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just SHOOT you without a trial for talking on a car phone..."

</comment><comment><USER14> A computer is basically something that helps me think outside of my head, like pen and paper or a chalkboard or camera and printer. The difference is that a computer helps me write, draw, and design things, and play around (with abstractions like words, numbers, diagrams, pictures, audio, video) in often easier and unique ways.

The internet is a way for me to do these types of things on a computer with other people, observing and interacting with their abstractions and letting them do the same with mine. Often, this creates an opportunity to make $$ because maybe I or others have or can come up with information and other stuff that is valuable or desirable to someone. It also provides ways of finding out about what people in general are thinking, doing, making, and wanting.

Of course, many forms of media also function similarly, but often more slowly and with less integrated ways of communicating. Take YouTube, which combines ad-driven and searchable video with discussion and polling in relative "real- time". Without the internet, a broadcast TV network might air a program which allow viewers to call-in to discuss and rate various aspects of the show. However, many aspects are not only different, but asymmetrically so. Here are some of these aspects:

\- YouTube viewers register their contributions themselves - little or no effort by the "network" and certainly not the producer/provider \- even if the network had someone transcribe the discussion, it would not be available soon or cheaply \- ads (which drive so much of the web and so the internet for many) are simultaneous, usually unobtrusive, targeted, and often interactive as well \- the act of viewing/interacting on YouTube itself is a contribution (via logging/cookies) which in aggregate and dynamically drives further content/discussion \- eventually the network company can focus on advertising and let viewers budget for content :-)

Much of the above applies in large part to organizational use of computer and internet as well, though philosophies of management, security, IP, etc can determine whether the technology is a boon or dongle. Then again, the same could be said for how I or anyone else tries to make use of the technology...

</comment><comment><USER15> It's like if everybody has a TV and a mini TV studio in their home. The number of channels are nearly illimited. Main difference is that huge part of the content is text.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd start with a dictionary. A good dictionary has pictures and historical figures, almost encyclopedic. Then, add video. It's easy to imagine moving pictures in a book. Maybe add sound as well.

Next comes news. The book, somehow, can provide the daily news. It's pretty easy to imaigne daily updates to the book.

Once they see that the book can get the news, it's not to hard to extend the communication to other books. so, you could write in one book, and read the words in another.

I'd say that's about it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Imagine big telephones that could transmit written words, images, audio, and even video. That thing over there, yeah the one with the keyboard and screen, that's the advanced telephone we call a "computer." Instead of dialing someone with numbers, you dial with letters. And we call the big telephone network the "internet."

</comment><comment><USER18> The Internet is a series of tubes.

</comment><comment><USER19> Show, don't tell.

Or, as Louis Armstrong once said, "If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know."

</comment><comment><USER20> Virtually everything is free of cost

</comment><comment><USER21> Telepathic magic mirrors.

</comment><comment><USER22> Suppose there is no electricity. Suppose you're a tyrant ruling over a massive empire that spans a continent or two. For military and economic reasons, you need an official communication system, but the obvious method of having someone physically carry the messages sucks. It's slow. It's terrain- dependent. And your messengers can be captured or eaten by wolves.

Suppose you have really good telescopes, and can construct watchtowers that are tall and easy to defend. With two watchtowers 10 miles apart, a sergeant in one tower can wave a red flag or a blue flag, which the other tower can see with its telescope. With some convention like Morse code, you can relay information between the two watchtowers.

Suppose now that you build a massive network of these towers. You want to enable communication from any tower to any other tower. Clearly this is possible, but there are issues. How do the towers agree to relay messages? How do they deal with congestion? How do they recover from small errors?

So you assemble your finest engineers, give them a large military grant, and they develop some common conventions (protocols) for the tower operators to adopt. They develop Imperial Protocol (IP), a system that gives each tower a unique address and lets any tower try to send a small message packet (a few sentences) to any other tower. But IP does not ensure that the message will get through.

With IP in place, they then develop Tower Channel Protocol (TCP), which operates on top of IP and ensures reliability. Basically, the source tower and the destination tower strike up a metaconversation, notifying each other about how many words they've received so far, and resending IP packets that got lost in transmision. TCP offers a reliable point to point communication line.

With TCP in place, they develop Hannibalesque Tome Transfer Protocol (HTTP). When a general wants to send a large report, the tower operators first send some headers (like the headers on a fax) describing the document that is about to be sent and mentioning how many words long it is, then the words themselves. This is all done over a TCP connection.

When a general in province 7 wants to get the report <http://province13.empire.mil/report/OPERATIONAJAX.pdf>, the tower operators find the tower named "province13.empire.mil" and send it an HTTP request asking for the document named "report/OPERATIONAJAX.pdf". That tower gets this request, and sends back the report as its response.

So HTTP is built on top of TCP which is built on top of IP which is built on top of red and blue flags.

Replace Tower Channel Protocol by Transmission Control Protocol and Imperial Protocol by Internet Protocol, flags by cables, and towers by computers, and you have the internet. Replace Hannibalesque Tome Transfer Protocol by Hypertext Transfer Protocol, and you have the web.

Note: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_line> Note: Are we actually seeing a practical application of the Slashdotesque "TCP/IP over ____*!!" meme?

</comment><comment><USER23> I'd say "Mr. Senator, congratulations on getting seated as chairman of the science, technology, and transportation committee. Before you start making laws, maybe I should teach you a couple things..." and then after an agonizing few minutes, I'd say "Forget all that...you know how the pipes in your toilet work..."

<comment><USER24> _"Forget all that...you know how the pipes in your toilet work..."_

The sad part is, you would likely also get a blank stare to this as well. There are people who float through life with nearly NO understanding of any of the things that make their lives possible. Some even consider this something to take pride in.</comment></comment>


Whale poop is vital to ocean's carbon cycle   - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18807-whale-poop-is-vital-to-oceans-carbon-cycle.html

<comment><USER2> Wow. I wish _our_ excrement drove the development of life like this. All we make is bacteria, instead of rebooting the food chain.

</comment><comment><USER3> Damn, I was reallly hoping I'd see a picture of a whale log when I cilcked through. No such luck.</comment>


Teaching Distributed Systems in Go - <AUTHOR> http://da-data.blogspot.com/2013/02/teaching-distributed-systems-in-go.html

<comment><USER2> I think students always complain the first couple times they are forced to learn new languages, but this is an important skill for them to master.

There were several student complaints about the lack of an IDE or debugger. These tools do exist: I use LiteIDE, with syntax highlighting, code autocomplete and built in Go debugging everyday. Perhaps the professor was not aware of LiteIDE, but his students could have used Google.

<http://code.google.com/p/liteide/>

<https://github.com/visualfc/liteide>

Go also has great built-in profiling support: <http://blog.golang.org/2011/06/profiling-go-programs.html>

Installing Go is easy, you can download it as an archive or use your package manager:

<http://code.google.com/p/go/downloads/list>

      aptitude install golang-go

Also even installing Go from source is easy:

      cd ~/
      hg clone -u release https://code.google.com/p/go
      cd ~/go/src/
      ./all.bash

I think the hardest part is the environment variables, but these are well documented.

<comment><USER3> A quick google search for "LiteIDE screenshot" shows the following URL for screenshots for those interested:

[http://mac.softpedia.com/progScreenshots/LiteIDE-X- Screensho...](http://mac.softpedia.com/progScreenshots/LiteIDE-X- Screenshot-97382.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From one of the cited student comments:

> Also setting up a Go environment on a new machine is a nightmare.

How so? There are binaries for all major platforms: <http://golang.org/doc/install>

All you have to do is extract the archive and adjust the PATH.

> Compilation in general is a huge, unintuitive mess.

Compiling a Go project is dead simple: it's just "go build". How is this a mess?

<comment><USER5> If they are talking about installation/building on personal machines, not university machines (dgacmu's explanation seems fairly plausible there), they may be calling those things difficult when comparing them to using an installation wizard to install some IDE and clicking on menus to build.

My assessment of hassle between the two would be the opposite, but I suspect it varies greatly.

<comment><USER6> > they may be calling those things difficult when comparing them to using an > installation wizard

The Windows MSI package and the OS X .dmg have wizards.

<comment><USER5> Ah, fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used Go for the Distributed Systems course at UIUC. Assignments can be written in any language, but programming help is only provided for Java/C/C++. 4/~80 people used Go.

It was very enjoyable. The networking package abstracts some of the cruft of the underlying C libraries, and with the RPC package I didn't have to worry about serialization and dispatching.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm taking this course next sem! Skipped it this sem just so I could do it in Go.

<comment><USER9> Kesden is letting us use any language in 440 this semester, Go included. All of the handouts are still in Java, but we were told multiple times to use whatever we want. The only catch is if we want any help on the projects from him or the TAs then we have to choose from four: Go, C, C++, or Java. (I actually think I might do project 2 in Rust, FTW).

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I heard about that. Thing is, I talked to him last sem and he wasn't sure that Go would be allowed at that point, so I decided to wait a sem. Have you heard anything from the people doing it in Go this time? Its awesome to have the opportunity to use it, but I think it would throw people off for a the first 1-2 weeks while they were getting used to it which might put them at a disadvantage relative to the class. Andersen said something similar too - [http://da-data.blogspot.com/2013/02/teaching-distributed-sys...](http://da- data.blogspot.com/2013/02/teaching-distributed-systems-in-go.html)

<comment><USER9> I've heard good things so far. I know a couple groups using it and their impressions pretty much echo what you said. They felt a bit behind during project 1 while they tried to learn the new language, but are starting to feel more comfortable with it now (we're a week into project 2 currently).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 15-440 with Andersen and Bryant was one of my favorite classes I took at CMU. I took it the first time it was taught in Go. I fell in love with Go and still miss it. I didn't find the language that difficult to learn. As he noted, not having to write your own data marshalling code and RPC let me focus more on the core algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER11> What's this about "you can't hand out precompiled library code and use the go build tools"...you really can't have binary libraries in Go and use the standard tools? That seems a bit strange for a native-compiled language.

<comment><USER12> Not true (anymore).

[https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!searchin/golan...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!searchin/golang- nuts/binary/golang-nuts/e8jhJKBp2To/cjRAMYmeZKYJ)

<comment><USER13> Hi, Jabbles - alas, scroll down a bit in that problem report and you'll see a later commit by Russ that removed the support:

"I removed support for this shortly before Go 1, because it was causing worse problems. My intention is to allow this usage in Go 1.1, but only if there is no src directory in the GOPATH tree in question. That is, if you create a directory listed in GOPATH that has _no source at all_, then it will be treated as binary-only."</comment></comment></comment>


Sudan has more Pyramids than Egypt - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3641516.stm

<comment><AUTHOR> I know I promised I'd post an article about how they have five sides (that's including the bottom, for those who were wondering--Law of Fives and all), but I figured the revelation that most Pyramids are in fact, not Egyptian, would be more of a "paradigm shifting discovery" to most.

What next?

<comment><USER2> You are all about paradigm shifting now;)</comment></comment>


Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg: "Now Is When We're Going Big" in Ads (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://robhof.com/2011/04/20/1014/ <comment><USER2> I guess I just don't understand why such an incredibly intelligent, articulate person would want to focus their interest on this. I suppose one can only ask: if this activity accrued little money or power would this person still be interested in it? I mean would she have been a behavioural psychologist in another life? Or is it just leadership whatever the battle?

<comment><USER3> That's not the only thing she does. Moreover, ads can be interesting too.

<comment><USER2> To me their interest is less important than their value. I guess I just don't value them.</comment></comment></comment>


Kind reminder: please (re)read the HN guidelines - <AUTHOR> http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html# <comment><USER2> Yes, yes, HN is going to the dogs, it's not as good as it used to be, it's all because of the new users, and so on and so on. It's been like that since I joined two and a half years ago.

<comment><USER3> Right on, swombat.

Last year, upon Iteration 27 of this same subject, I threw something like this together in jest:

                     Quality of HN Comments Over Time
       |                   . .
       |                  .   .
      q| . .             .     .
      u|    .           .       .               . . .
      a|     .         .          .           .       .
      l|      .       .              .      .           .
      i|       .     .                  . .               .
      t|        . . .                       you are here -->. .
      y|                                      (that's all)
       |________________________________________________________
        M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A
                        '09                     '10

I must have been on to something because so many didn't realize it was a joke. What fun that was. All I have to do is shift the x axis every n months: some things never change.

Original thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926604>

<comment><USER4> This is completely off-topic, but how do you format your comment to force mono-spaced font?

I haven't been able to find an instructions on what formatting can be used in comments, like to quote a previous post, for example.

<comment><USER5> <http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One question I ask myself now before commenting is: Will this comment significantly improve this conversation?

I try not to comment if the comment is merely:

1\. clever and amusing 2\. expressing anger/disagreement 3\. disproving a wrong but unimportant claim made by another commenter.

Besides these, submitting, upvoting, downvoting, not voting and flagging are enough to make HN more interesting for myself.

<comment><USER7> I find myself writing comments fairly often, but end up pausing before I hit the reply button to re-read what I'm replying to and to think if my comment is actually contributing to the discussion. A good percentage of the time, I just end up closing the window.

I may have good intentions to begin with, but if what I say reads as being one of the three points you wrote, there's no point in having other people argue against my invalid or ignorant claim. It just leads to semantical flame wars.

<comment><USER8> Me too. But the worst thing about commenting here is how all the context that you are replying to goes away and you can't re-read your comment within the context of the discussion, because all you can see is the immediate comment you are directly responding to. Interestingly, this is the only site I comment on that has that behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the biggest reasons I can think of for the eventual decline of HN are the result of these words;

>>>On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.<<<

The problem over here is that people's version of what gratifies their intellectual curiosity varies. What I find interesting is deeply subjective and I need to acknowledge that to contribute anything, anywhere. The same thing goes for HN in general.

HN is starting to attract people outside of its core audience and in doing so it inevitably leads to the point where people come in whose mean of what's interesting is different from the mean of what's interesting for the core audience.

It isn't their fault, but this process feeds into itself. So, if I see a post here on HN on death. I have this tendency to post up stuff related to death. Regardless of the fact whether or not they adhere to the spirit of the guidelines. People see that and they are more inclined to upvote it, since there is already content like that on the front page. So, it accelerates.

You might have noticed that the front page of HN always follows a pattern there are a series of similar posts which come up and stay there over the course of time. This is a good thing and a bad thing as well. The trick is in stopping it at the right time. That's where the community and the moderators come in, but if the majority of the community don't know any better than that. This means that the community can't self adjust. The moderators then have to play a stricter role, which is inherently negative in the longer run.

At the same time, if you define those words too strictly then HN won't be HN, anymore. This is the underlying paradox that needs to be solved to avoid that decline.

</comment><comment><USER10> As long as someone has opened up a guideline discussion....

"Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

Agreed in full.

However, downmodding without constructive criticism leaves the downmodded with no sense of what to improve in the next comment. A downmod could easily be due to underdeveloped point, style, or disagreement about an opinion. At least 2 of the 3 reasons can lead to better future comments.

<comment><USER11> So assume it's that your comment fell into the "noise" category and work harder on producing "signal" next time. We don't need to have a discussion every time someone felt that some post did not contribute sufficiently to the discussion.

<comment><USER10> The noise category assumption is a fair one. "Work harder" is a vague recommendation. Are there more specific recommendations you could make?

No, a discussion would create noise, which would not be valuable for the HN community. A voluntary, anonymous, tip about what made the downvoted comment noise would be more than sufficient. To avoid it becoming a discussion, no reply would be allowed. (Just to throw a half-baked idea out.)

Downvotes could easily become learning exercises that boost the comment quality over time.

<comment><USER11>
        The noise category assumption is a fair one. "Work harder" is a vague recommendation. Are there more specific recommendations you could make?

Don't post just because you can. Don't echo comments others have made. Don't post "obligatory" comments or content-free Reddit memes. Say something meaningful that is not immediately obvious.

Don't treat post writing as an exercise in upvotability optimization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> At its worst, Hacker News has continued to impress and inspire me as vastly superior in quality and consistency compared to other online communities.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm pleased to see that I am officially allowed to complain that HNN is getting to be just like Reddit.

<comment><USER14> Hacker News is starting to feel like programming.reddit.com a year ago. Now, Reddit is getting more and more like Digg a year before that. Digg certainly looks like Youtube comments one year before. Now, Youtube, _that_ surely is now just like Myspace some time before. And Myspace now is somewhere close to what the AOL forums used to be. But AOL - don't look at the AOL forums! they now look as bad as Usenet did when everyone joined there, before they were Google groups, before they were called DejaVu, when all the newbies had just spoiled all the good old newsgroups.

We should all return to Usenet. There's nobody there, and we could build a cozy place with no trolls and newbies, and share really interesting stuff and discuss it intelligently.

But I'm sure the dumbfucks will follow us around, from here to the end of time.

<comment><USER15> Youtube is improving.

They have votes now. I've seen a few insightful comments there (it depends on what kind of video you're looking at, of course - _you_ being the crucial word here.)

<comment><USER16> A million monkeys banging on typewriters occasionally produce insightful comments by sheer random chance.

They still produce more insightful comments than Youtube commenters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> thanks hopefully this can stay near the top for a while. been getting a lot of off topic posts again recently; adverts, thinly veiled spam, repeat posts etc.

one thing i do wish hn had is a link/title checker to stop people all linking to same story hours or days apart.

<comment><USER18> I'm pretty sure if you try to submit the same link multiple times HN will show you the originally submitted story.

<comment><USER19> It doesn't always work though. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1632572> and <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1630579> were posted one day apart, with identical URLs.

<comment><USER20> Actually the link checker only checks vs. links that are currently loaded into memory.

<comment><USER21> links loaded into memory - how does that work? Can you please explain?

<comment><USER20> Anything that has been accessed within the past x amount of time and hasn't fallen out of cache yet. For more info, check <http://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/master/news.arc> around lines 1485, 1550, 233.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My main annoyance with HN posts lately is the use of profanity in post titles and occasional posts that are, in general, NSFW. For those of you in startup land this probably isn't an issue, but on behalf of those of us who are still "workin' for the man" please take a moment before hitting the submit button to imagine that you still have a boss and consider whether your imaginary boss who just walked into your office and saw this post title on your screen would be A) pleased that you are taking a moment to keep up with industry trends while you're waiting for your code to compile or B) wondering why you would waste your time reading such trash. If it's the latter, consider whether this is because the topic of your post is really inappropriate for a professional forum (if so, please don't bother posting it) or if it is an appropriate topic but you're using profanity as a crutch because you're too damn lazy to write an articulate, descriptive title (if so, stop being lazy and rewrite your title).

</comment><comment><USER23> A reminder from the guidelines:

Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.

And some recent examples of comments here on HN:

"All you have is a pink blouse and a pathological case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder" -- <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1644724>

"I'm sorry, but even on HN I feel it is appropriate to reply to this jackass with only two characters: FU" -- <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1644606>

So sometimes HN can feel like a pretty rough place and a reminder is in good order. To HN's credit, though, these comments tend to be few and tend to be downvoted. You can also find comments like this floating around:

"Email me, and we'll figure out a good time for you to come buy and visit; I'll buy you coffee." -- <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1641763>

</comment><comment><USER24> Everyone seems to be focusing on the voting of comments, but I think the tips on what to submit (and vote up) are the most violated, as seen by the now almost daily post about men vs women.

<comment><USER25> Not to mention a morbid fascination with death.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I must have noticed this too, because I switched my hackernews bookmark to go directly to the newest submissions a few days ago, since I didn't like what was on top. Reading and upvoting from newest is the most effective way to change what is on the frontpage. <http://news.ycombinator.com/newest>

Lamenting the bad is less effective than embracing the good. As in life.

</comment><comment><USER26> My take is that hackers are sometimes _gasp_ interested in discussing political issues. Thus, the best approach is not to have people constantly chastising topics/comments as off topic, but to keep the quality of each comment high enough that an intellectually curious person would enjoy reading it, even if it's about something not typically associated with hacking.

</comment><comment><USER27> hey, I have a question that is related to the hacker news guidelines. So, I'm considering taking my blog static. You know, it goes with the whole early 90s feel of my website. Also, I'm lazy and maintaining a good comment system is work.

So, I was thinking, I'd submit every blog post here, and basically say "go to [link to hn story] to comment" (I could also do a ssi include of the hn story comments, but I would be less in the clear from a copyright perspective there, and it'd open me to worrying about things like cross site scripting, which is one of the things I wanted to avoid by going static anyhow, and users would still need to click the link to comment.)

Anyhow, a friend of mine who isn't a hn user thought that spamming up hn with every blog post I wrote would be, well, spammish. My thought is that hn seems to be mostly okay with that sort of thing.

I'd like to get some feedback from others on this idea.

<comment><USER28> I consider it spammish too (there's my feedback.) But my observation is that there are a ton of people who link their own blog posts all the time, and if the blog posts are of an OK quality, everyone here seems to be fine with it.

<comment><USER27> hm. What do you think of the other suggestion, a "submit this to hn/talk about it on hn" link that asked a user to do the submission for me? does that make it any more or less spammish, in your opinion?

<comment><USER29> While it may be a bit spammy, with the frequency you updat your blog, I personally wouldn't see it as such. However, you're tying yourself to HN for discussion (typically a good discussion), but I see it as "setting precedent" for others.

You remember the web rings? It reminds me of that. Perhaps a single platform for managing discussions of articles/posts/blogs similar to news list sites, but specifically for discussion of the posts, not specifically for news. I mean, we could all find a majority of these articles on our own if we wanted (eventually), but the community discussion about the topic/story is what really adds to it.

In short, I personally don't see an issue with YOU submitting each post, but I wouldn't post just to comment and would be disheartened if it became a standard way of providing discussion about your posts.

<comment><USER27> >In short, I personally don't see an issue with YOU submitting each post, but I wouldn't post just to comment and would be disheartened if it became a standard way of providing discussion about your posts.

hm. well, in that case, maybe I shouldn't do it? I mean, really, what I want is to outsource the 'community management' stuff. As far as I can tell, hacker news has (for now) has the best community of any similar site I know of.

I could set up my own community site that other bloggers could use for comments... but that would defeat the point for me, as I wanted to outsource the community management bit.

<comment><USER29> Maybe it's all the recent discussions around the eternal September recently, but this has kind of stuck in my mind, and Reddit with the subreddits actually seems kind of ideal for what you're looking for. Set up your own subreddit and just submit every blog entry to it. You then have a catalog, an easy way for others to discover new posts, and a discussion forum all built in.

<comment><USER27> hm. neat... and it wouldn't spam up the rest of reddit? hm. I don't spend much time on reddit, so I don't really know of the culture, well, much, but that might be the way to go, I mean, if that sort of thing is acceptable within the cultural norms of reddit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mkr-hn I try to be a good new person who follows the rules. :)

The rating system is probably the only one I've seen work this well. When I see myself getting downvoted, it tells me pretty clearly that I need to go and reconsider what I posted.

The apparent degradation in quality is probably because the average quality of discussion on the internet has declined as more people entered the melee. It'll probably go back up as new combatants start to get better at expressing their ideas. That, or it'll become so hopelessly unproductive that everyone will collectively decide the internet was a bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER30> I just can't believe the volume of new posts. I posted a link to my own python blog 23 hours ago and since then there have been 470 other postings. Perhaps an idea is that people should only post their own work or even it HN was limited to programming related posts only. I come here for insights into different languages and the programming profession. I'm not that interested in the politics of another country or parenting tips for New Yorkers.

</comment><comment><USER31> It is August. A lot of people are on vacation - including writers of blogs and articles. Get used to it. We have X numbers of stories on the front page, we won't always have X amount of interesting stories. Some days we will have 0. The world doesn't fit into nice even patterns.

</comment><comment><USER32> The title should say "please (re)read _and follow_ the HN guidelines".

<comment><USER33> The title should say: "Reminder: Kindly (re)read and follow the HN guidelines." Describing one's own reminder as "kind" is presumptuous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The only trend I've seen lately that's bugged me is people creating "throwaway" accounts with names intended to be a joke specific to the comment they've posted.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is a nice public service announcement. It does make me think that these guidelines should be linked to more prominently somewhere, maybe on submit page?

</comment><comment><USER36> Maybe there should be a link to this on the post and reply forms, at least for newer accounts.

</comment><comment><USER37> So, where's nickb?

Oh, and Erlang, Erlang, Erlang.

That is all.

</comment><comment><USER38> I don't see HN going downhill in terms of submissions or in discourse. Things are mostly the same as they were 2-3 years ago.

I do worry -- perhaps unnecessarily -- about the killing of submissions for no obvious reason. Apparently using a URL shortener is verboten, although the HN guidelines don't mention this. But using one will get your story autokilled.

Yesterday, I tried to submit what I thought was an interesting story about Scoble's Building43 and older founders, but the submission page kept calling me a spammer. I am by no means a spammer.

I really want to understand what causes stories to be killed, mainly so that I can participate in good faith. But even asking about this seems to make one _persona non grata_. I sense a chilling effect here. I hope I'm mis-reading all this, and that I'll be proven absolutely wrong. :-)

<comment><USER39> What do you need the URL shortener for? I find it very annoying to have to click in order to see who the author of the content is when I can just look at the domain name at the end of the HN submission.

<comment><USER38> _What do you need the URL shortener for?_

Actually I don't use them here; never have. I just noticed a post having been killed, and saw a followup from HN staff explaining that using a URL shortener will cause a post to be autokilled.

I don't care about URL shorteners. I am concerned about what the rules are, and particularly the rules that are not explictly stated in the HN Guidelines.

<comment><USER25> That's fairly logical though, a url shortener would allow re-submission of the same link over and over again and drops the hint of where the link goes to from the 'new' and 'news' pages as well as the ability to hover on the link for the full url.

All of which are useful. Url shorteners are ok for twitter or IRC elsewhere they're just unnecessary complications.

<comment><USER40> He's not arguing for URL shorteners to be permitted. He's arguing that the prohibition should be made upfront.

<comment><USER25> How much more up-front than seeing your link go 'dead' could it be?

After all it's not like anybody reads the guidelines linked above anyway before submitting a link, especially not if they're old hands (and most likely not even if they're not). Maybe a message could be added to the submission process that said: "You've used a URL shortener, _bang_ , you're dead", but that's pretty obviously the reason why. After all, all your other links will get through just fine.

<comment><USER38> The URL shortener was just an example -- just one example. My point is not about bit.ly or anything like it.

My point is: there are apparently a bunch of rules, and I don't have the sense that I understand them. Worse, I have the sense that _asking about the rules_ is frowned upon. I find this a little chilling, and it seems to fly in the face of the quasi-libertarian spirit I generally find on HN.

<comment><USER41> That's by design. The worst thing you can do is tell spammers why you flagged their thing as spam.

Right now, there are spammers repeatedly submitting shortened URLs to their WOW Gold sites and not checking to see if they're killed. That actually stops a good fraction of it, because frankly, they're not very smart people.

If you told them exactly why their current tactic is not working, they'd immediately move on to the next one and the next one until they find one that works.

<comment><USER38> My point has nothing to do with spammers or URL shorteners -- that was just an example. See above if you care to know my actual point.

But this is probably related. I think the anti-spam measures are probably going too far. I'm not a spammer. No site I've ever attempted to submit has been been a spam site, an ad site, or anything else self-serving. Yet my most recent attempts to submit have been stomped on, accusing me of "wasting my time" by attempting to spam HN.

Here's the most recent article I tried to post -- you judge whether I'm submitting spam sites: [http://www.w3matter.com/journal/2010/8/29/startups- old-peopl...](http://www.w3matter.com/journal/2010/8/29/startups-old-people- and-robert-scoble.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think this is just a reminder to those that can't push their agendas on the new Digg to not come here and try to push it. Take it somewhere else.

Good riddance.

</comment><comment><USER43> I blame digg

</comment><comment><USER44> aside from this one, i never read the comments. i'm just here for the links not the community editorialization of them. but my faith in "communities" has dwindled over the years through my continued participation over the years in this thing called "the interwebs". as the japanese would say, ganbatte kudasai. keep up the good work/do your best.

in other words, please do not ruin this nice little community with your own baggage.

</comment><comment><USER45> Still better than reddit.com/r/programming

</comment><comment><USER46> Remember, it will be September soon. That's probably the point of this post.

</comment><comment><USER47> Done. What do I win?

</comment><comment><USER48> >> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation.

What if I make snide comments in face-to-face conversation?</comment>


How Millennials in the Workplace Are Turning Peer Mentoring on Its Head - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2016/07/26/reverse-mentoring-target-unitedhealth/ <comment><USER2> > They're very tech savvy. they know the ins and outs of Microsoft Office. > They know all these things that might not be quite as easy for older > generations."

 _That 's_ what tech savvy means? I would think all those older workers would know more about Office, from having used it for twenty years, than most people entering the workforce.</comment>


Ask HN: Is this scam? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, i just wonder , is staff.com scam or legit? There is no good information on the web? Thanks. <comment><USER2> If its not I would be seriously ridiculously surprised. But I am 99% sure it is.

The videos from youtube are over a year old. The channel has no staff.com logos or anything at all. all videos are under 500 views. The exact hourly rates for each different person is an exact number.

[http://www.freelancer.com/](http://www.freelancer.com/) is not a scam if you are looking for that type of thing</comment>


Are the APIs you use really "open"? - <AUTHOR> http://api500.com

<comment><USER2> I think there is a lot of confusion recently between an API and a service endpoints providing access via the API.

And this article really isn't about openness of APIs at all (its not even all that much about openness _or_ APIs -- application programming interfaces -- at all.)

Its mostly about accessibility, reliability, and accountability of service endpoints, for which the openness of the APIs provided by those service endpoints is one factor.

But it uses both "open" and "API" as buzzwords divorced from any concrete meaning.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nope. Linkedin has recently been proving that APIs are progressively closing some doors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Twitter, faceook, Linkedin... And so much more that are in reality not open and can revoke you at any time for any reason.</comment></comment>