1 Year of GitHub Streak - <AUTHOR>

Greetings HN community,
A year ago, during my senior year in college I have decided to write code every single day as a way to improve my coding skills. Today, I am happy to say that I've made it to 365 days without breaking a streak.
Was it worth it? Yes, definitely! Without doing this, neither Hackathon Starter nor Satellizer.js projects would exist on GitHub today.
https://github.com/sahat <comment><USER2> Hi Sahat!

Neat coincidence seeing this post. A few weeks ago I stumbled upon your tutorial for the tv show tracker application, and I went through it line by line. After that I decided to make my own web application and your tutorial was 100% what gave me the foundation and concepts to do that.

So thanks for the great write up, and ever since starting the project I've pushed every day! Only 11 days, but I hope I can get 365 as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome! but I want to ask, did this, at any point of time, felt like sacrificing free time that could have been used for other fun activities?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's an excellent question. Doing this did not, at any point in time, feel like I was sacrificing my time for other fun activities. I enjoy coding the point of addiction sometimes.

On contrary, I felt the opposite most of the time - "I should be writing code right now instead of playing video games or socializing on weekends." But that will differ from person to person. Certainly not everyone will enjoy programming 24/7.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congratulations! I also thought about this. I just want to code for me, to get better - without any pressure of clients or coworkers who can help me.

How did you get started with this routine? What was the hardest part / what was your daily goal (amount of commits/hours)?

thanks for sharing :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow! Your open source work is great. Congratulations. A great example of how maintaining good habits changes the game.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great! I think GitHub should create a rank of streak. :)</comment>


Why nobody talks about Lua - <AUTHOR> http://www.goplexian.com/2010/02/why-nobody-talks-about-lua.html <comment><USER2> I have trouble finding a use for Lua, even though I like it better as a language than most.

The problem is that it isn't a good "starting place" for an app. Instead you write something in C/C++ and say "oh, I wish I had a dynamic language for this part" and then you add Lua on top. And this is part of why Lua is such a compelling language now - by being extension-focused it's been able to iterate the entire language many times over and make basic semantic changes without worrying about backwards-compatibility.

But if I start writing an app and want something Lua-like....it ends up being easier to start in Python. There are some good projects out there to address this but it's a question of maturity - as of right now Lua still doesn't really satisfy as a "batteries-included" platform.

<comment><USER3> If the app you need to script is C++ there are much more appealing options than Lua, which is very C. You get ugly C style code in your C++.

QScript, ChaiScript, and projects like boost.python and libperl++, play much better with your C++.

<comment><USER4> And the slightly Lua derived Squirrel.

I've considered a number of these for my current app, especially QtScript, Lua and Squirrel, but eventually I settled on embedding a JVM, since it gives me access to a bunch of libraries and lets me use any JVM language (I'm personally using Clojure and Yeti, but users of my app could in theory use other languages).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Lua attracts a lot of devs with a pretty low-key, humble attitude. If you go to a Ruby mailing list and ask people "should I use Ruby for x?" the answer will mostly be a resounding "yes." On the Lua list, people will often tell you "that depends," will advocate for lots of other languages, or even tell you "no, I don't think so." I think that's in part because of Lua's history as an embedded/glue language: many programmers who work with Lua don't use it as their primary language, and so they don't have the same urge to hard-core advocacy and evangelism that many other languages' users have.

<comment><USER6> 'If you go to a Ruby mailing list and ask people "should I use Ruby for x?" the answer will mostly be a resounding "yes."'

Really? I don't think so. If it's for Web or desktop stuff, sure. For other things, there are a lot of "it depends".

Seriously, outside the heavy gravity of Planet Rails, Ruby devs are pretty open about what you can reasonably do with Ruby.

<comment><USER5> You're right, I chose a lousy example. Much of my experience with Ruby revolves around Rails, so perhaps that colors my perspective a bit more than I sometimes realize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lua is used a lot, but usually as a command and control language. Meaning that it is always used together with another language/system, where performance matters, both for runtime and development time, and memory constrains..

One of the the reasons that it hasn't caught on the server side is that the server engineers are lazy (in the friendly way), and have it easy. If you have performance problems, you can just throw more hardware to it. So Python is a decent choice, plus the lots of libraries/batteries included, make the life easy to lazy developers. Again, by lazy, I mean people that just want to use the stuff to create features, and not worry about fundamental stuff. The fun stuff is usually in large dataset processing scaling, database scaling, etc. where a single box is not the bottleneck.

But for mobile dev., python is just too much of a pig. I think lua will win when these devs. start moving to the server side. Mobile / embeded devs have to re-invent the wheel often, and are just use to it, so they are less lazy by definition (they are more likeley to just create a framework from scratch, then just use things that are already there).

But the current trend is the opposite, as more server guys are moving to client/mobile. There is more growth in the client/mobile side, so there is not much cross pollination going on upstairs.

Smart devs. are either solving interesting problems below in the embeded world, or above in large scale datasets. The middle stack (your average crud app), is left with more average types.

Since it takes a brave soul to start with a great language, which unfortunately doesn't have all the libraries that some more mature languages do, Lua hasn't found that great of usage yet in the server side.

<comment><USER8> I think the explosion of node.js is actually evidence of what you're saying; the web guys who were scared of the server are taking their javascript skills there via node.js.

Perhaps it could happen when a generation of iPhone developers who have written games in Lua decide they want to do some server side development.

I have less hope that Lua will take off though. Appropriately, I'm giving a talk on Lua/Erlang integration at Erlang Factory in March, which will be on using Lua as you describe - for command and control of a larger Erlang system.

<comment><USER9> I am still waiting for node.js for windows.

<comment><USER10> FWIW, I'm working on something similar in Lua, which uses libevent for high performance on Unix but also has a pure Lua (based on LuaSocket.select) backend for portability. I haven't tested it on Windows yet, but I don't expect any issues with running it there, and I'm planning on supporting it as a platform (for developing convenience, not performance).

It's reasonably complete, but its development is being driven by another project (a distributed filesystem of sorts), and it's still changing too much. I hope to have it released in a month or two, but I'm also in the process of buying a house, and that's keeping me plenty busy.

If you're interested, learning Lua should would be pretty straightforward. It sounds like you're already proficient in Javascript, and they have quite a bit in common.

<comment><USER11> Sounds great. I can help if you want help. Is your project hosted somewhere?

<comment><USER10> Not at the moment. I'm putting a webpage together to post a bunch of projects ATM, I'll get back to you. My contact info is in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> At my last company (that's still going, I've just sold out and moved on. . . ) I used Lua for the lion's share of our kiosk content distribution platform. It was perfect, especially considering how many times we had to dip down into C or C++ to get at devices. We built out a tiny host C program that dynamically loaded in modules and frameworks as needed on each kiosk. It was beautiful, FAST, and cross platform (XP/Linux/OS X). I'm back in the web world these days but I miss Lua quite a bit, it's a fantastic little language.

Really, if you're building desktop software I couldn't recommend it highly enough.

</comment><comment><USER13> Roberto Ierusalimschy, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janro, is the author of Lua and also author of several excellent books about Lua. Lua is a very nice language with a small footprint, powerful structure, and a fascinating and flexible object model.

Roberto is scheduled to speak about Lua at Stanford in the Stanford EE Computer Systems Colloquium from 4:15-5:30 in Gates B01. As is usual for the Colloquium, the talk will be webcast live and available for delayed viewing, on demand, over the web. Anyone who wants can attend live. See the Colloquium website for details: <http://e380.stanford.edu>.

<comment><USER14> Should be <http://ee380.stanford.edu>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seem to me that Lua usage reside primary in the game industry.

People who works in the game industry and people who works in web technologies rarely collide with each other.

<comment><USER16> It's a shame that it's mostly being used for games. It's got incredible flexibility and power and even the mainline runtime (sans JIT) is surprisingly performant. More people should give it a try.

<comment><USER17> Python and Ruby largely continue the class-based object oriented model and are thus easy to pick up if you come from a C++/Java background. While JavaScript is prototype-based, and thus somewhat exotic, it at least maintains the syntactic heritage of C/C++, so it's not as scary as it otherwise might be for beginners. Plus most in the web development background have already known the language for years.

Perhaps the reason Lua isn't gaining ground in the web scene is because it's too exotic, however fair that might be. It has a foreign object model and a different syntax. Both of these combined might create the perception that it's difficult to learn.

I'm not sure though. For me, I've always been interested in Lua, but I've never picked it up because I never see any web apps made with it.

<comment><USER18> _why wrote a web server in lua, just for fun. It's available as a lua rock (like a ruby gem or python egg).

<comment><USER18> My bad. I had a brain fart. He wrote a web framework (not server) for Io, not Lua.

<http://github.com/whymirror/yown>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think one of the reasons that Lua gets less attention (outside of certain niches, most notably the game industry) is that, to get the most out of it, you need experience with C or C++. The libraries available for standalone Lua are somewhat small compared to (say) Python, because in most cases you'd just use C libraries anyway. In exchange, though, you can leave each layer to focus on what it does best.

This probably rules it out for people who _only_ know Python, Ruby, PHP, etc., which in turn limits exposure among web developers, who seem to have disproportionate presence on blogs.

<comment><USER5> You're right, but I think this is much less true now than it was a few years ago. With the libraries developed by the Kepler project (for example) you can do quite a bit of useful coding without ever touching C.

<http://github.com/keplerproject>

I do quite a bit of work with Lua and never use it with C.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I like Lua as a language. I especially like how easy it is to embed it into another program. I'll be using Lua for scripting my current project. The only thing I really don't like about it is that it treats all numbers as double- precision floats. It can be compiled to use 32-bit ints instead, but I'd really like to have access to both, especially since floating point arithmetic is insanely slow on embedded processors without an FPU, but sometimes I really need it.

<comment><USER20> If the processor doesn't have an FPU, there's not much of an extra disadvantage to compiling with int32s and then making reals just another data structure, implemented in terms of ints, with a library to manipulate them.

<comment><USER21> You'd lose the syntax for real literals, though.

And although you're technically true, the lack of a library implementing reals as userdata let me guess that few people have found this approach practical. Unless I missed it?

I guess people just use the LNUM patch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Yet when you look at what Lua's actually done and been used for in the > industry it certainly seems disproportionate to the eerie silence

Never hear about Bink! video player either although I see it's used in every game I play.

Also, I hear about Lua quit a bit.

</comment><comment><USER23> Because the arrays start at 1.

<comment><USER10> Dude, you can find a reason to write off every language in existence. Lisp has all those parens. Python has the whitespace. Perl...is Perl. Etc. Nothing's perfect.

Lua's a pretty good language, though. It's completely replaced Python as my default language (much like Python replaced Perl years before), because, while it too has its surface annoyances, it makes a lot of other very intelligent trade-offs.

For example, indexing arrays from 1 is a consequence of ensuring that Lua would have a syntactic subset usable as a data description language by non- programmers. It's almost identical to Javascript's JSON in that regard, but has been used in production as such for well over a decade.

Likewise, Lua's rather spare standard library is because the language strictly* limits itself to the ANSI C standard. In exchange, though, it's portable to literally anything with an ANSI C compiler, including freaking _Legos_ (<http://www.hempeldesigngroup.com/lego/pbLua/>). The whole thing fits in a 200ish KB library, too. Not bad for something as expressive as Scheme and Python.

* With the exception of dynamic linking, which can potentially provide everything else down the line.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I like Lua. I was just trying to be funny :)

<comment><USER2> I chuckled because it felt fresh, but it does come off as another kind of programmer-snark like better-known cliches about Lisp(parens), Python(whitespace), Java(overengineering), etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Every once in a while, I used to think, "What about Lua? Wouldn't Lua be nice?" Then I would start reading the docs, and stop when I came to the "local" keyword. Ick. Variables are global by default, you have to explicitly label local bindings. If any scope is the default, it should be local scope. Accessing an uninitialized variable is also not an error. Chalk this up to personal taste, but this reminds me too much of bad experiences in bash scripting. The languages I prefer: Python, Haskell, C, Scheme, Common Lisp... never play so fast and loose with where your variables go.

<comment><USER10> While you're right that "global by default" is usually a problem, it isn't in Lua, because Lua also lets you restrict the global scope (with i.e. setfenv). Generally, the "global" scope you get by default is "global _to the current module_ ", i.e., publicly exported from a module.

It's still not a problem if your whole program is in one file, though. Since the global environment is _just another table_ , you can set its metamethods to warn about any accidentally global vars. This is an example in PiL, and strict.lua is included in the standard Lua distribution. require "strict", problem solved.

The Lua designers know that unrestricted global-by-default vars cause a lot of pain in Awk, but defaulting to local scope for everything instead can make using closures awkward (as in Python), since it's difficult to know automatically where variables are local _to_. In the other languages you mention, C doesn't have proper lexical scoping, Scheme and Common Lisp have fully parenthesized syntax (and thus no scoping ambiguity), Python's closures are awkward, and Haskell (and ML) use let blocks and other explicit scope markers. This is a semantic issue in any language where you can nest blocks and the default is a series of statements, not individual statements (i.e., "begin" / "progn" is the default).

See also: <http://lua-users.org/wiki/LocalByDefault>

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Much of Adobe Lightroom is written in it, right?

<comment><USER10> Yes.

From Mark Hamburg's intro to _Lua Programming Gems_, pg. xii:

"...Large portions of Lightroom ended up getting written in Lua including the object-relational mapping layer for the database and the layout system for views. [...] As a result, we had an application that was smaller by far than some of its competitors, easy to change, largely cross-platform in its implementation, and suffered essentially no compile-link cycle. [...] Lua is both very expressive compared to most native languages and sufficiently efficient that you can let it do a lot more of the work than one might be tempted to do in other scripting languages."

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Lua is a GREAT scripting language. >_< And a LOT of people talk about lua. Like this million dollar company. <http://www.roblox.com/>

The users are allowed to script in this dynamic(changing) enviroment. ROBLOX is a plastic brick based online lego game. The massive physics engine creates realistic explosions, and LUA lets you alter it, make things happen. LUA is a GREAT language.

</comment><comment><USER27> I love Lua. Wish there was a shorter syntax for anonymous functions, though. (function(x) return x*x end)

Also, Lisp macros would be nice (didn't look at metalua)

<comment><USER21> Metalua comes out-of-the-box with a short lambda syntax: "function (x, y, ...) return foobar end" is shortened as "|x,y,...| foobar".

And it comes with macro capabilities, plus syntax extension facilities to make them more user friendly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I started using Lua as an embedded scripting language to drive a pretty complicated process. After a few weeks, i ended up switching to Python. The Lua libraries were pretty weak, the datastructures and builtin functions were wierd and inconsistent, and swig+python made for much faster scripting then exposing c interfaces to lua.

<comment><USER28> Oh, and the lack of an integer type seemed to make it really difficult to do proper bit shifting--i'd expect this to be the bread and butter of an embedded scripting language.

<comment><USER29> you apply the bit operator patch to get this.

<comment><USER30> You do not apply bit operator patch, you do use bitop library.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> We use Lua for embedded scripting in my current project. First I wanted to use Python, but I couldn't figure out how to build our app with MinGW while our Python is Cygwin's.. Lua is very easy to embed, but I think it should be easier to do error handling. We still fail silently on syntax errors in the script..

<comment><USER30> Error handling in Lua is really easy. Please ask your question on Lua mailing list or on stackoverflow.com, you'll get help on your problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I am using orbit in various web projects and a lot of lua as an in-game scripting language. I love lua and I am hoping that the community arround lua is going to grow!

</comment><comment><USER33> Just installed it, `sudo apt-get install lua50`. It's 352kB - smaller than most unix utilities.

<comment><USER30> Why not `sudo apt-get install lua5.1`? 5.0 is rather old.

<comment><USER33> Thanks, apt-get suggested lua40 and lua50 when I tried plain lua; I've got 5.1 now.

<comment><USER10> The biggest difference between lua4 and lua5 is that lua4 doesn't really have a module system, per se. 5.1 also has a better garbage collector. LuaJIT (which is based on Lua 5.1) is also an option, if you're on 32-bit i386.

For learning Lua, Ierusalimschy's _Programming in Lua_ is the best book, by leaps and bounds. There are a couple other Lua books, but that one is succinct yet comprehensive, like K&R and Pike's Bell Labs stuff.

The Lua Users' Wiki (<http://lua-users.org/wiki/>) is also helpful, as is the mailing list.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Objective C - "horrendously, absolutely awful" - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/sep/16/ios-android-windows8-programming-choose?commentpage=2#start-of-comments

<comment><USER2> I see you're new here. Thanks for submitting this, as it certainly is a discussion-provoking piece (albeit a bit trollish). That said, please make sure you that you don't link to the comments anchor, unless your intention is for HN folk to read the article's comments. Given that the quote cited in your title comes from the body of the article, I'm guessing this is not the case.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am new and thanks, I now know what trolling means (I didn't mean it)! I posted this article because I believe it may put people off from developing with Objective C due to some misconceptions about the language i.e. no iOS Garbage Collection doesn't mean that Apple are two generations behind Java or .NET or because only 6.1% of developers use Objective C means its an awful language to use.

<comment><USER2> By no means am I suggesting that you're trolling, just that the original article is a bit trollish. Don't let that dissuade you by any means, though :) Welcome to HN!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> These kinds of baseless statements really bug me. Where to begin.

First, Objective-C is _not a big language_. For example, look up Pierre Chatelier's guide [1] that maps from C++ concepts to Objective-C; there isn't a heck of a lot to know. Objective-C really is a language that you could learn pretty well in a couple of weekends. It's silly to suggest that professional programmers couldn't possibly find the time to pick up this language just because they're already firmly entrenched in the world of other languages. I'm forced to wonder if the article's author has used Objective-C at all.

The article doesn't give a lot of specific gripes. The only stated "problem" with Objective-C is its lack of garbage collection on iOS. Well it is widely known that Objective-C's lack of garbage collection is a _benefit_ to iOS, not a detriment, since iOS applications perform better. And Apple's new Automatic Reference Counting scheme (ARC) is a stroke of genius: it "gives back" to developers the simplified coding that garbage collection would have allowed, but _without_ sacrificing performance the way garbage collection does. ARC even avoids other problems, e.g. how to deal with retention of data across framework boundaries.

As far as needing a Mac to do development, that is technically true (but only for iOS; you could learn Objective-C using something like GNUstep and GCC on Linux, say). A Mac mini is not exactly expensive and it works with existing monitors and keyboards. There are also a lot of people already using Macs as their laptops, even if they primarily run Windows or Linux on it.

[1] [http://chachatelier.fr/programmation/fichiers/cpp-objc- en.pd...](http://chachatelier.fr/programmation/fichiers/cpp-objc-en.pdf)</comment>


Learn Rails for Free - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cnzYKfySRk

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey,

After spending some time with (paid) projects like TreeHouse, RailsApps, BaseRails - I opted to start producing similar content but at a different cost (free!).

I'm hoping my series can help some of you become more familiar with Rails - and feel free to sub to me if you like it :)</comment>


Guys, "guys" is perfectly fine for addressing diverse groups - <AUTHOR> http://blog.metaobject.com/2015/06/guys-is-perfectly-fine-for-addressing.html <comment><USER6> The real issue is that just over a century ago we lost a 2nd person plural pronoun and haven't really found a good subsitute since. When "you" took over for "thou" as the 2nd person singular pronoun we never replaced the original use of "you" with anything. So "guys", "y'all", "youse" are all attempts to fill the gap.

<comment><USER7> Folks kinda works. I usually use "guys" when addressing people, but when being extra sensitive (eg, if I'm addressing a bunch of MTF trans girls), I'll be careful and use "folks".

To make a list, for things that I use in a "Hey ___, ..." context, with varying levels of casual:

        - Guys
        - <USER2>
        - People
        - You lot
        - Motherfuckers/jerks (other insulting term that's obviously not meant in earnest)
        - <USER3>
        - Chaps (debatably gender biased)
        - Team (or other factual statement e.g. colleagues)
        - <USER4>
        - Dudes (also debatably gender biased, but depends on how well people know you. I call everyone dude, I am probably immature)
        - Reprobates/scallywags/some other sort of old world sounding term.

<comment><USER8> Yep. "Folks". I use it in all of my communications to my group (I am not the manager). I've tried others: "Guys" is clearly gender specific, "Ya'll" is pretty informal (although I use it on occasion), "Team" is barf-o-rama.

"Folks" works well. It's reasonably formal but not gross and, best yet, its inclusive.

<comment><USER9> HN is a fantastic resource for non - native English speakers. "barf-o-rama" added to dictionary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's not about offending people. It's about including everyone. I've taken my daughter to Girl Scout meetings and had to hear 'Ok, moms...' constantly. It doesn't offend me but it doesn't make me feel like a part of the group either.

<comment><USER11> I think you're taking the words too literally. The adult women could be aunts, guardians, sisters, adoptive mothers, biological mothers, etc. We can always seek out ways to find words to be unfit in a sentence, but, the purpose of speaking is to communicate. Normal people will understand that 'moms' in this case means any adult who in this scenario is representing a child in some capacity. It's shorthand.

Sure, the speaker could have included all possibilities when addressing the audience, etc., but why? We know what they mean, they didn't intend to exclude you in any way and as an adult you can process the exceptions (moms, the bathrooms are there) you can figure out where the men's toilet is.

If we concentrate on people's speech patterns, we can always find faults. There are better things to spend your energy on. We could also embark on pluralization vs apostrophe too, it's a noble cause, but we all know what people mean.

<comment><USER12> I think OP is well aware that the speaker isn't specifically addressing moms and only moms. But even knowing that, it can make you feel less included, which is in itself unpleasant, even if on a more rational level you know that you are included.

<comment><USER11> I've been in these situations and I really don't feel excluded at all by casual language. I'm sure I could, if I wanted to find cause, but I don't because I understand the subsurface meaning of what people are saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13>
      With the Political Correctness police gaining momentum again after being laughed out of the 80ies

People say this kind of thing, and I know there are terms people have suggested that I find kind of silly.

However, we know better than to call people negros, and most of us know not to call a grown woman at work a "girl", (or a black man "boy").

The principle is pretty clear, we're just haggling over the details.

Essentially no one disagrees that there are some words that are overtly insulting, and others that are more or less subtly patronizing. We (myself) included, just have a knee-jerk reaction that "of course this one's ok". And we're probably right some of the time, but we're wrong other times.

<comment><USER14>
      With the Political Correctness police gaining momentum
      again after being laughed out of the 80ies

Maybe he has a point, maybe he doesn't, but when he talks like that I'm inclined to wait for someone who's not an ass to make the same argument and listen to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This "right to be offended" train of thought is parroted often by religious groups to try to remove speech and images that they do not like. I've been relentlessly called "too skinny/gay/etc" by people throughout my life and, yet people are getting upset about something that is gender neutral like "guys"? Give me a break. God forbid they actually have to deal with somebody who actually isn't nice or intentionally targets them about some aspect of who they are.

<comment><USER16> See, I would have thought someone who has been discriminated against would have more sympathy, not less.

<comment><USER17> As someone who has faced racial and religious discrimination, I would say no. I prefer it when people are more easy-going. Fine if you don't like who I am as long as you leave me alone.

I see this as another descent into a general milieu of intolerance and hostility, a kind of madness of crowds that seems to possess cultures every few decades. This rarely ends well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd argue the term "PC brigade" is not perfectly fine if you want people to listen to your arguments.

<comment><AUTHOR> The PC brigade won't listen to reasoned arguments anyhow, so no loss.

<comment><USER17> Nobody expects the Inqu^H^H^H^H PC brigade! It is probably better not to catch their attention anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Hi everyone".

I like using "Hi People". Because it's kind of nice and acknowledgementy.

I will judge you by all the things you say and all the things you do. But that's human nature isn't it.

Edit: I can't use the otherwise excellent y'all because it's not compatible with my nationality/accent :-)

<comment><USER19> "everyone" is offensive to people with dissociative identity disorder. Such people have multiple identities (or personalities), so they are not "one". You're basically erasing they're identities by using such language.

<comment><USER20> DID does not exist in the Tumblr version that gets talked about a lot. Actual DID is rare and has different forms. The DID you're talking about affects maybe 0.1% of the population.

Women, on the other hand, are about 50% of the population.

<comment><USER19> Whether it's 0.1% or 50% of the population doesn't matter, the point is it's offensive to some people, and it takes no effort to stop using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I mean, even if you personally feel that "guys" is totally fine for mixed gender groups, it clearly bothers some people. So why not say, "hey, everyone..." instead of "hey, guys..."?

<comment><USER22> "So why not"

Why not? Because I'm growing increasingly tired of having to keep up with all the various people who are offended by trivial bullshit so that I can adjust my own language to fit them.

There is no right to not be offended, and I think that fact is a core part of freedom of speech, both Constitutionally and socially.

Edit (the following line is out of place and unwarranted in this discussion but I will keep it in for the sake of posterity.): We live in a harsh world, and there is some nasty shit out there. I think people need to learn to grow a thick skin already.

Don't misunderstand me, I fully embrace peoples right to request people to change some of the common word usage, but I also support the right of people that don't want to do so.

"I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." - <USER5>

[http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/349](http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/349)

<comment><USER23> _I also support the right of people that don 't to do so._

But you seem to be against those people accepting consequences of that action. What if I'm offended and decide to stop hanging out with those people, or decide to remind them each time that they are offending me? They should accept my decision and not tell me to "grow a thick skin" and pretend that their offensiveness is my fault.

<comment><USER22> "What if I'm offended and decide to stop hanging out with those people, or decide to remind them each time that they are offending me?"

Let me clarify a bit please, I fully support people trying to educate people on potentially sensitive verbiage, and their ability to remove themselves from a situation where they aren't comfortable. I think you are right and my "grow a thick skin" comment was unwarranted so I have put an edit in saying so. My primary issue is this:

Censorship, full stop. Don't like something? Ok, tell the world your reasons, and try to convince it to follow your lead. Don't, however, use "offensiveness" as a tool of censorship of things you don't like. That's my main point, so sorry if I muddled it a bit. Censorship from either point of view is my issue.

Of course, you also have to take into consideration that I am saying this from a decidedly American perspective, where freedom of speech is respected to a higher degree than almost anywhere else.

I think Christopher Hitchens put it well. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIU96N7ciXM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIU96N7ciXM)

<comment><USER24> What part of "hey people, please don't use 'guys'" is censorship?

I still say 'guys' pretty regularly but every time I do I now check in with myself and think "was that a strongly gendered use? could I have said it better". Not because I feel forced to protect everyone around me, but because I want to do better at including people.

And finally, the obligatory "Free Speech" xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

<comment><USER17> >And finally, the obligatory "Free Speech" xkcd:

Which could be translated as:

"Nice free speech you got there. Shame if there were any 'consequences'..."

True, one of the necessary conditions for free speech is that the government does not punish unpopular views, but another, even more important and vitally necessary condition underlying free speech is the tradition of respectful disagreement. This tradition is one of the prime values of the enlightenment, and it was hard won, emerging as it did from the repressive regimes and brutal religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries where people believed that they were under a divine imperative to eliminate all dissent.

The idea being propounded by the xkcd comic, that it is justifiable to mob, harass, shout down, and punish people you disagree with is deeply incompatible with enlightenment values, and represents a step backwards into barbarism.

<comment><USER21> It's interesting to see this viewpoint given as a reason to continue using language that we've been told is offensive and exclusionary towards a large group of people. (If you disagree with "offensive and exclusionary," substitute in "plausibly impolite" which doesn't change my main point and seems inarguable.)

<comment><USER17> The dose makes the poison.

The difference is that you see fit to declare holy war over very trivial micro-offences, while the religious factions after the enlightenment managed to interact peacefully despite profound disagreement with each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> While I personally am a little less casual with language and would avoid saying something like guys or gals or peops. Before we get too exact about language, we have to understand how casual language has been accepted in schools and in society.

People will say things like 'thanks man' thanks buddy --when I don't know them well and not their buddy -I could find it offensive, if I were of the sort; It's not as if they don't know my forename. This is what society has allowed, along with the acceptance infantilization of adult behavior. Moms and dads and other adults wanting to appear hipper and cooler by adopting juvenile language --like guys.

So before you castigate people for their unconscious language choices, (lots of women use 'guys' to include both sexes), understand why.

Moreover, as with many words, they can have multiple meanings depending on context. Let's take sanction. We know the meaning given a context. Same with 'guys', or the pronoun 'you'

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder how generational or regional or maybe even contextual this is? A couple years back, I overheard a young teenage girl address the rest of her female soccer teammates with "hey guys." Is it not exclusionary when said by a girl? When addressed to a group of all girls? When not in a professional setting?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not perceived as exclusionary by >90% of the people in the informal poll cited.

<comment><USER16> "Informal poll" == "possibly true facts"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is a great example of mistaking a nuanced social issue with one that has a binary answer. In many social situations saying "guys" is not gender specific... but that does not mean that it is "perfectly" fine to use in all cases. Some people may find it offensive or exclusionary in some cases and it doesn't hurt to be respectful of that.

We should of course be on the lookout for those who would try to chill free expression via enforcing some sort of Orwellian newspeak by making baseless accusations of being offended/excluded/discriminated against... but those people are rare, pretty easy to spot, and outnumbered by good people who have legitimate complaints. And BTW if you want to have credibility when calling out the former, it might be a good idea to be respectful and earn gravitas in the eyes of the latter.

</comment><comment><USER27> Bikeshedding while Rome burns.

</comment><comment><USER28> I noticed the "guys" issue years ago, when I was teaching and needed to get the class's attention: [http://jakeseliger.com/2010/03/21/hey-guys-read- this](http://jakeseliger.com/2010/03/21/hey-guys-read-this). I still haven't found a good replacement: "Everyone" sounds a little too formal, and talking to "everyone" using that word makes it sound a little too much like talking to no one.

</comment><comment><USER29> Appeal to dictionary? Perennial favourite distraction and obfuscation technique.

Because, you know, common usage never changes.

</comment><comment><USER30> "Guys" is fine, except when it isn't. It's a pain point for some people, and it's reasonable to be sensitive to that.

> Yeah, and medieval oppression was actually real, unlike some other > "oppression" I can think of.

That crosses the line into the ridiculous, and is precisely the kind of poison we should try to avoid. Oppression means longstanding cruel treatment or control. The author doesn't perceive longstanding class, gender and race based control and oppression over the last few generations in our society. That makes the author maybe not a great source to take advice from on the topic at hand.

<comment><USER8> Oh god. So much this. Author is a ding-bat for pulling that terrible argument out. It makes it very hard to take the rest of the argument seriously when poorly thought out garbage like that is introduced. "I don't notice or feel the oppression, therefore it must not exist. Sample size of N=1 is good enough for me". Thick.

<comment><AUTHOR> You really think the "oppression" of women in western industrialized nations today is comparable to the oppression of a conquered people in medieval times?

<comment><USER30> Certainly not, no-- but that doesn't make the oppression we're talking about not real. We've come a long way. The oppression today is not anything like it was 50 years ago. But just because we've come a long way today doesn't mean that we need to quit striving for the ideal and trying to do better tomorrow. That's a fallacy. If everyone always thought that way, we'd have just been done when we gave women the vote a hundred years ago. Or maybe the 3/5ths compromise was a big improvement over the status quo at the time. I certainly don't think the oppression of various groups in the West is comparable to oppression of conquered people in medieval times; but that's no excuse to claim that the oppression of various groups in the West in modern times is not real.

<comment><AUTHOR> What oppression?

<comment><USER20> Just for clarity: are you saying that women don't face any oppression in the US? How about Europe?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am asking how women are oppressed in western democracies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's almost like words can take on different meanings depending on context.

</comment><comment><USER32> In my language variety, the issue never comes up. A group of people is always addressed as "y'all". "Guys" would sound weird whether the group was mixed gender or not.

</comment><comment><USER33> I prefer to use "people" but I have also found that I prefer to spend my time around people that wouldn't have cared if I used "guys".

</comment><comment><USER34> I just use "Hey folks" in mixed company. I have a strong compulsion to be very accurate/precise about things though.

</comment><comment><USER35> A guy I work with also always says "The boys" or "The guys" when referring to his co-workers.

It just feels strange to me, even if they are all guys.

In German we have "Leute" which means "People" but doesn't have a singular.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd love to see stats broken down by age. Anecdotally, it seems older people tend to see it as less gender neutral, and younger people tend to see it as more gender neutral.

<comment><USER16> If you click through, the stats are basically junk. Self-selected survey distributed via Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> An interesting experiment to try is to say "girls"/"ladies" instead of "guys" for non-gender-specific uses, and see how weird it feels.

</comment><comment><USER38> I use "Hey, civilians" just to be safe.

</comment><comment><USER12> What the poll shows is that it's only considered neutral when plural, and in the vocative case.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. Which was the case being discussed. As discussed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is a great opportunity for "Ya'll" and "Yinz" to rise in popularity.

<comment><USER17> Or bring back the original 'ye'. It is still in use in some parts of Britain and Ireland.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Question for the Room.

</comment><comment><USER41> Do the platinum rule: Treat and teach others the way they want to be treated and taught.

<comment><USER42> ...except that you can't know that ahead of time. Some people are unreasonably touchy, or even looking for an excuse to start a fight. I found one among my followers on Twitter the other day, using my _positive_ reference to a group as an excuse to burnish his own Enlightened Person credentials. We can argue over whether they're few or many, but to deny they exist is to leave the realm of rational or productive discourse. The best we can do is make an estimate of how a _reasonable_ person might want to be treated and taught, and that's what the OP is trying to address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I won't stop using it. I think it's bullshit. I'm honestly sick and tired of the language police trying to change society because they are somehow offended by a word that is non-offensive.

The word "cis" and "mansplaning" are both pejoratives..and it offends me. But it doesn't stop those same people who don't like the word "guys" from using it (and making it normal).

This is my problem with the entire discussion about this. It's not about removing offensive words or "equality". It's only about giving power to one group of people. The politicians love it because whenever there is an US vs Them mentality, they can take advantage and win votes.

<comment><USER44> "cis" isn't a pejorative in any sense I've seen it used, can you expand on why you think it is?

<comment><USER45> It's as much a pejorative as 'hetero', which is to say not at all.</comment></comment></comment>


The Church of BSD (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://www.unixprogram.com/churchofbsd/ <comment><USER2> To use (whatever is your provider, often Google's) cache, just replace the protocol with "cache" like this:

cache://www.unixprogram.com/churchofbsd/

Or use the Internet Archive / WayBackMachine (from 5.1.): [https://web.archive.org/web/20180105140154/http://www.unixpr...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180105140154/http://www.unixprogram.com/churchofbsd/)

<comment><USER3> Hmm, how does this work? Is it a browser thing, or ISP providing this?

<comment><USER4> It redirects from a google search.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I put 2005 on this because of [https://web.archive.org/web/20050205225509/http://www.unixpr...](https://web.archive.org/web/20050205225509/http://www.unixprogram.com/churchofbsd/), but it feels like it might be earlier. Anybody know?

<comment><USER6> 22.08.2000

<comment><USER5> That's the date of an email quoted in the text, so it's really just a lower bound on the article year, no?

<comment><USER6> That's what Google says, which I thought was based on a "clever look" at Last- Modified or explicit dates in the article. However, the articles mentions Windows XP, which I think wasn't known until 2001. So Google might have just picked the only parseable date from the page.

Edit: After about 5 minutes curl answered: Last-Modified: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 20:40:54 GMT (which is unsurprising given the web.archive.org info showing amends of the page)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> aaaand it's down</comment>


Apple announces WWDC dates (June 7-11) - <AUTHOR> http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ <comment><USER2> Very few Mac sessions, all promo graphics are about "apps", and all Apple Design Awards are picked from the App Store (i.e. no Mac apps eligible).

It's almost like Apple's trying to tell us something...

<comment><USER3> Well, Apple has one platform that is winning (for some definition of "winning") in a market that will be the focus of the coming decade(s), and another platform that lost long ago (even if it's currently growing) in the market of the past two decades. I'd think it irresponsible of them not to focus their efforts on the iPhone OS.

Also note that the only development platform for those Apps is the Mac.

<comment><USER4> Mac is a minority platform. iPhone OS is a minority platform. Both are tremendously successful for Apple and growing consistently. To say the iPhone is a winner and the Mac is a loser is cherry-picking your criteria pretty carefully. Yes, the iPhone is bigger in its market and didn't have an unfortunate stretch of history under Gil Amelio, but both seem to be doing extremely well these days.</comment></comment></comment>


Elon Musk's Promises and Goals for Tesla, SpaceX, and More - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/ <comment><USER2> 5% cute and 95% terrible to navigate.

Worth noting that unlike other delays, The Model 3's target date was originally December and then pushed up. July is 5 months _ahead_ of the original schedule!

Model 3 Launch

ANNOUNCED: MAR 31, 2016

TARGET DUE DATE: DEC 31, 2017

REVISED DUE DATE: JUL 31, 2017

I'm very excited. Electric transportation is one of the most moral technologies we can work on to get out of oil's malthusian trap. I have a lot of respect for Musk pushing the envelope as much as he can.

<comment><USER3> >Electric transportation is one of the most moral technologies we can work on to get out of oil's malthusian trap

While I agree with the sentiment and can't wait for good mainstream electric vehicles, I would like to be pedantic and point out the possibility of generation of the electricity to run an electric vehicle being very dirty. As well as the (not current, but theoretical) possibility of using clean energy to synthesize combustion fuels for engines that efficiently clean all outputs.

A transport being electric does not automatically make it better.

<comment><USER4> Electricity is fungible in the sense that it can come from many sources. Oil is not-- it really only comes out of the ground. (Biofuels also have the same problem.)

You can think about making cars electric as removing a tight coupling between transportation and fuel. It creates a more generic interface, which will create more flexible implementations. For example: wind, solar, and using charged car battery fleets to balance the electric grid at peak times.

It's hard to see how combustion can ever be better than electric. Even in situations where you completely offset the carbon by synthesizing fuels with clean energy, you still have huge issues around air quality in dense urban cities.

Electric motors are also massively easier to maintain, have fewer moving parts, are quieter, etc etc.

<comment><USER3> The seemingly constant point of contention is the 'battery technology'.

I'm sure you have heard some form of: "Electric cars will become dominant once battery technology catches up"

I feel like we don't often consider the thought that hydrocarbons may be the best 'battery' technology.

Edit: I don't really think they can be, outside of back-up generators. Power stations supported by The Grid should be far better than gas stations supported by pipelines/trucks.

<comment><USER5> There have been billions of $ spent on synthetic hydrocarbons research, so I think "we" have considered it.

<comment><USER3> 'We' in this context intended to mean 'people discussing alternative energy' not 'humanity overall'

I don't often see it brought up, even in discussions of energy storage support for inconsistent energy sources.

<comment><USER5> 3 technologies I've seen discussed extensively in the alternative energy context:

* Methanol from food sources * Methanol from non-food sources (switchgrass) * Biofuels for aircraft (military and civilian)

I can totally believe you didn't see these talked about. But you can find articles in the New York Times on all 3 technologies in the past couple of years.

<comment><USER3> I guess we are pretty much at the peak of synthetic oil and it is a dead end in terms of energy storage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Somehow all of his projects tie together to build a full Mars infrastructure including solar energy, solar mobility, high speed tunnels, space travel and even that satellite network he planned to beam internet to earth from LEO. If he manages to do that in his life time and Mars becomes a popular alternative to Earth, his wealth (or that of his descendants) will exceed anything there ever was. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt and JPMorgan in one person. Of course, it's highly unlikely and just a though experiment at this point.

 _edit_ a word

<comment><USER7> I thought the Boring company was the most "obviously for Mars" project. One of the cheapest ways to create pressurized, radiation-sheltered spaces is to dig.

<comment><USER8> Don't discount the self-sustaining Gigafactory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Usually I'm kind of annoyed by the HN peanut gallery when they mostly ignore the content of a really interesting page to complain about the typeface or how it looks with Javascript disabled, or whatever.

But ye gods -- this is probably the worst UI/UX I've encountered this decade. What the hell were they thinking?

<comment><USER10> Seems to me that it's partly an art project + joke. I thought it was amusing and actually pretty efficient at conveying its information—once I figured out the basic model for navigation. In any case, it's clearly not an attempt at strictly optimizing usability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's a guess at the motivation for the... eccentric, design: it's a weird contrast to see something so trivial and incompetent looking displaying information about Musk's very non-trivial, competent work.

I found it amusing personally.

</comment><comment><USER11> It seems like this page is trying to show a bunch of Musk's "failures", and really its showing how ambitious he is. He is succeeding at many things not just any one thing.

</comment><comment><USER12> Am I the only one that finds the Boring Company the most interesting of Musk's current projects?

If he can pull off fastish, cheapish tunnelling under major cities we could see a renaissance in new subway construction in American cities.

<comment><USER13> The actual boring of the tunnels in cities is the smallest part of the problem. Still a lot of work to get there! But maybe someday :)

<comment><USER14> Tell that to Seattle

<comment><USER15> Isn't it a main goal of the Boring Company to reduce the cost of projects like what is happening in Seattle?

<comment><USER16> Thought the same thing. And be able to go in different directions than being limited. See Big Bertha being stuck for two years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, this is a horrible interface

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow so much wrong with this UI. From the floating head to the weird use of space. I just can't parse any interesting info from here, which is a shame because I think there is something to be gained.

<comment><USER19> It feels way too competent in other respects to not be intentional. I think someone had a lot of fun making this, and I'm having a lot of fun exploring it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The UI here is fascinating. I'm so lost, yet I'm so intrigued to keep clicking around.

<comment><USER21> It's interesting Bloomberg with with a brutalist approach to the aesthetic. I'm not sure it lends itself that well with the content they were presenting.

<comment><USER20> I was surprised as well. This is also on the front page which is interesting given the target audience. In a strange way I find it fun, though a bit unusable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Didn't make it past the "click to enter" splash page. Who thought this type of web design was a good idea?

<comment><USER23> I think it's cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Found the designer's personal page: [http://jamespants.com/](http://jamespants.com/)

<comment><USER25> well... I guess you can say he has his own "style"

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Reminds me of the blinking Web of the '90s.

</comment><comment><USER27> Looks like the designer took some inspiration from Homer Simpson

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azl5jxcXCZk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azl5jxcXCZk)

</comment><comment><USER28> This is some very confusing UI.

<comment><USER29> Funny, I think it's part of a semi serious "brutalist" trend I've seen pop up these days. Taken to the extreme there.

<comment><USER3> My understanding of Brutalism (as it related to buildings) is that it is supposed to feel daunting, uniform, and unashamedly utilitarian while being (almost surprisingly) highly usable and subtly beautiful (to certain tastes).

So I would say a 'brutal' web page would be a plain Apache file index. Basically the opposite of what we see here.

<comment><USER29> Architecturally that's right, but people have been using this term for the kind of bare, high contrast, blueprintish genre. I don't advocate the accuracy here :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This page makes my eyes bleed!

</comment><comment><USER31> who created this UI?

<comment><USER16> Created on FrontPage

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Model Y before 2020. Then electric will finally be S3XY

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder if in 300 years Musk will be mentioned in the same sentences as Genghis Khan...

I've been continually amazed at how Musk has been able to generate buzz, and then eventually execute on that buzz.

For instance the Price to Earnings ratios for traditional automakers are better now than they've ever been, but Tesla has surpassed Ford and GM in market cap; but Tesla has negative P/E!

Musk has done so many things his own way, and he's been successful... eventually.

But there have been expensive lessons: the Falcon wing doors probably adds $20k and 6 months to the launch of the Model X.

Failing to use lean manufacturing principles drives up the cost of Tesla's vehicles, and probably reduces quality; from the stories I've heard of the number of people at the end of the production line, it sounds like old GM methods.

The turbo pump failure ground SpaceX launches to a halt.

Will his enterprises be successful in the end? Who knows!

Disclaimer: I work for a Tesla competitor.

<comment><USER3> I don't have information to validate or dispute this but the argument a co- worker of mine always makes is that Tesla (and Musk) are 'propped up' by government money and never should have made it this far.

I would be interested to get your take on this assessment.

<comment><USER34> >'propped up' by government money

It's pretty well documented,

[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk- subsidies-2015...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk- subsidies-20150531-story.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin Is Not a Pyramid. Coinbase Is - <AUTHOR> http://www.yegor256.com/2017/08/15/bitcoin-pyramid.html <comment><USER2> NYSE is pyramid scheme too then?

<comment><USER3> No, it's not. It's regulated by the government.

<comment><USER4> So a regulated market is a market and an unregulated market is a...ponzi scheme.

That was a terrible article, by the way. Cyptocurrencies flow in and out of exchanges constantly. If Coinbase makes any sort of guarantee that Bitcoin will go up in price, then what you argue would have merit, and Coinbase should be reprimanded.

As for Strip accepting your coin account- have you ever tried? If you can satisfy all the regulation requirement of being a commodity exchange (AML etc.), they might actually accept your application.

As for utility of a commodity, unless you are a large integrated circuit manufacturer, gold would have no utility as well. Other than it is shiny and looks nice, gold is useless to everyday live.</comment></comment></comment>


Proposing an Incremental Java EE Roadmap - <AUTHOR> http://johnclingan.com/2016/10/19/javaee-incremental-roadmap/ <comment><USER2> The sprints sound like a good way to get actionable items done -- this works for other communities. But what's the goal? To promulgate more APIs under the 'EE' brand?

The JCP is doing just fine; in my opinion some proposals have re-shaped the language more than the designers originally intended -- but given broad community acceptance, this is usually a good thing.

I've made this point before [1]: Further additions to the 'EE' suite just enforces a separation from SE with regard to the features an implementation can expect to be available -- it's just another profile. EE primarily benefits vendors of EE application servers, and consultancies who can promote EE as a distinct from SE, even though there are no technical hurdles preventing one to run EE APIs' concrete implementations in an SE setting, as has been commonly done since EE stagnated. In other words, everything is fine, we just don't call it EE anymore (and we don't need to, because we're not the ones who benefit from the separate branding).

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12054705#12057590](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12054705#12057590)

<comment><USER3> It's not like Oracle even cares about the "EE" name anymore, so why not? I mean, for crying out loud, Java EE 7 came out over 3 years ago but they still don't offer any certifications for it, but they do for Java SE 8 which is just under a year younger.

And you're right, most people doing greenfield at this point are probably using "EE" components in "SE" projects. I use Spring (Boot), but also use Narayana (JTA), Hibernate (JPA), ActiveMQ (JMS), and if Spring didn't handle DI itself I'd pull in Weld (CDI) as well. Hell, if you don't want to use Spring you can just use Wildfly Swarm.

Java EE is dead, even if Oracle finally finalizes Java EE 8 I see most work migrating from wars/ears deployed to containers to running embedded containers like Spring Boot (+pick your container) or Wildfly Swarm.</comment></comment>


Why do we let sexist creeps pervade the software industry? - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/106119964731604142156/posts/DkFAzuwmcTW

<comment><USER3> Note: I really would like an answer for the first question. What's the reason that everyone seems obsessed over getting more women into programming?

Why do people care so much about having lots of women work in the software industry?

Seriously, there seems to be this desire to get women into programming. If women really were into programming they would get into it despite the 'sexist creeps'. It might surprise all the people here but a lot of industries (like real estate and sales) have a LOT more sexist creeps than programmers.

There are lots of areas where people are sexist and racist and jerks - <USER2> doesn't stop the people who want to get into those areas from getting into them.

Perhaps women just don't want to get into computer science. And no amount of bending over backwards and trying to appeal to female programmers will get us to a situation of 50% female developers.

The first question people going on and on about 'ratios in the software industry' need to answer is -

Are there really that many women interested in becoming a software developer? Is their interest a lukewarm type of interest where the minute they see one sexist programmer jerk they run off?

We are talking about the same women who fought tooth and nail for things like the right to vote and who do lots of really tough things like raise a family (often alone). Are we to believe that a few sexist programmers scare off these same women?

Final Question: Is the presence of some percentage of sexist jerk programmers the real reason there are far fewer women in programming? Is that really what differentiates programming from fields with more social interaction (like sales) or fields with more of a human aspect (like health care and medicine)?

<comment><USER4>
      Perhaps women just don't want to get into computer science.
      And no amount of bending over backwards and trying to
      appeal to female programmers will get us to a situation of
      50% female developers.

Or perhaps they _do_ want to get into computer science and there are a number of obstacles stopping them. Most people would agree with this.

If you're going come up a controversial answer, you better have some solid evidence backing you up.

<comment><USER5> _What_ are these obstacles? Employers are dying to hire female programmers. Universities are dying for females to enter CS programs. Right now, a women that sets her mind on programming has an easier chance of landing a job than any given guy.

Basically, women just aren't interested. I'm not sure it's an obstacle.

Why aren't we just as concerned that there are far fewer male hairdressers than female?

<comment><USER6> You have ignored the 18 years leading up to the university.

Infants: Pink clothes (ok, no biggie)

Toddler: dolls, playing mommy and dressup

Preschool: more of toddler, perhaps getting into TV now. Oh look, none of the women on TV are into science or tech. Maybe I shouldn't be either.

School: Come on Carly, let's play with dolls. But I wanna play on the computer. LOSER.

Teenager: What kind of a nerd plays with electronics and gadgets, lets go shopping!

So society is completely geared towards beating it out of them. As the father of a pre-teen who has probably solved more software bugs than most her age and is deeply into robotics, it is a constant, constant battle even though she loves the field.

Let's not forget all the aunties, grandmas and neighbours who don't encourage tech curiosity for girls. "Hey, here's another shitty fashion toy for your birthday" meanwhile, the girl is thinking "I really wanted a gizmo... oh well." Even though dad specifically sent around suggestions for the next robot she wants to build.

Your universities can want females all they want, but society... I want to punch it sometimes.

Edit: I should mention that TV is getting a little better with this. There are a couple of female leads in shows that are technically oriented.

<comment><USER7> As I recall from my own primary and secondary education, being a nerd who likes reading about science and math, and spends most of his time after school on his computer is not exactly encouraged by society either. Your parents want to cut down on your time spent in front of the computer, your dad wants you to go outside and play sports, the jocks at school give you shit, the girls pay no attention to you.

Girls interested in computers may be portrayed as losers and antisocial and outcasts, but guys interested in computers have been portrayed as and treated by society as antisocial outcast losers for as long as there has been such a thing as a computer geek.

Given that amount of social pressure and shaming and exclusion faced by young computer nerds, one wonders why _anyone_ would go into tech. But more boys do and fewer girls do.

<comment><USER8> _Girls interested in computers may be portrayed as losers and antisocial and outcasts, but guys interested in computers have been portrayed as and treated by society as antisocial outcast losers for as long as there has been such a thing as a computer geek._

Popularity and clique mentality tends to be much more of an issue in female circles than with males. I would say that, if one were to assume either sex will get untold amounts of hell for dabbling in tech early on, a female will probably get it worse.

You also have to note that culturally, there is the "nerd" phenomenon backing guys being interested in tech. If a young woman decides to get into tech, she doesn't get the same label as a guy does, she's often labeled by her peers (which can be fairly brutal) as a loser, outcast, or just "not one of the girls".

Now, given that last point, take a female developer who's young and just trying to get into things: you'll never quite be "one of the guys", and by choosing this vocation you're throwing up a flag that states you're fine to never be "one of the girls". That's not a fun combination to go through your youth with.

<comment><USER9> Exactly the point I wanted to make, but pithier. Kudos.

<comment><USER8> Ah, appreciate you saying that. There was a part of me that was hesitant to post it as I'm not a female, but just going on what I see with siblings/friends. Glad to know I'm not totally off base.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I skimmed the comments on Tom's boob pic. Most of the women also thought it was funny. Only a few women were loudly critical. Do we solve sexism only when 100% of women are satisfied? That's going to take a while.

<comment><USER11> You're getting voted down for not going with the group-think. For some reason, some people think that if even 1 women is offended, then it's sexist. They couldn't be more wrong.

Anyhow, if all humor that made fun of someone or something were banned, there wouldn't be much left. That's the basis of most of it, and they continue to find it funny to make fun of some things, but not others.

Everyone should stop being offended on behalf of people who aren't like them. Seriously. If you're offended because it affects you, I'm all ears. If you're offended because it's rude to do that to someone else, but you have no stake in it... Shut up. You're making the situation WORSE.

<comment><USER12> So, if I get offended because I see someone shout out at an Indian woman crossing the street "Fuck off back to pakiland you dirty paki", I've made the situation worse? Can you explain what I should do in such a situation, or even better, what would you do?

<comment><USER11> That's an verbal attack, not just an offensive statement. It's quite a different category than taking a picture with a woman using her boobs as O's in a logo.

The woman in the photo obviously wasn't offended. Most other women apparently aren't, either. But for some reason, MEN feel the need to make a big deal out of this situation.

If a female blogger were writing to say she was offended by this situation, I'd be paying a lot more heed.

People talk about equality and all, but when it comes down to it, the people defending 'women' from this are actually worse than the people that supposedly caused an offense!

Wrap your head around this: Why are men getting up in arms about this? Because they think women need their protection. They are playing right into the sexism by thinking women can't handle this on their own.

If women can't handle this on their own, they're welcome to say so, and I'll jump on a white horse myself. They aren't saying that here. Or ANYWHERE that I've seen lately.

I'm apparently one of the few men out there that actually believe a woman can handle things. They aren't inferior; They don't -need- my help.

So everyone should heed their own advice and back off.

<comment><USER12> Well, you didn't qualify your original statement.

So, if I hear 3 people making a whole load of racist comments in a bus, but not directed at a specific person, should I ignore it?

I'm Indian by birth, and have lived through a lot of racism. I'm not inferior, and I would never have gone begging for help, but I'd sure have appreciated people intervening at times, even when I wasn't under direct attack.

In the UK, women are typically paid 15% less than men for equivalent jobs. Should I say nothing about this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you're wondering why a field once roughly equal in its gender balance is now male-dominated, perhaps some real quotes from the hiring manager at this company will shed some light.

"Oh, a female applicant!" (Tone: Surprise)

"He's male which immediately places him above [the female applicant]" (Tone: Joking... but inappropriately sandwiched between comments relevant to their ability to do the job, imo)

Argument ensued as I pushed to see how serious he was being... had an interesting 5 minutes of biting my tongue while the owner of the company justified not hiring women, at length. The usual stuff, maternity leave etc. Plenty of anecdotes.

Most interesting part was right after the surprise at a female applicant, though...

"I've only known one female developer that was any good... now, you might say that there just aren't that many female developers full stop, and that's true, but there must be a reason for that"

I passed the conversations on, as verbatim as I can, to the relevant governmenty people but they can do nothing and I can do nothing. The only person that can do anything is a female applicant, if they don't get accepted, and it's shown that this is due to discrimination.

Pretty sure there's nothing more I can do at this point :( Very, very angry and feeling utterly powerless.

<comment><USER14> You could tell the female candidate.

<comment><USER13> Two problems with this:

1) She can only bring a discrimination case if she doesn't get hired and can show it's because she was female. If they hire a better male applicant, there is no case.

2) If she brings action against them which fails, I am then wide open to libel and / or slander.

<comment><USER14> Oh, I completely realize there are problems. Just pointing out what else could be done. Also, she doesn't have to bring a case against them, nor do you need to present yourself and leave yourself open. Not sure if just letting her know anonymously would do anything for her. Personally, I'd want to avoid working in such a place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For the same reason that we tolerate trolls and a-holes of all races and genders. Which is that most people dont care. We happen to have 80% men in the industry. Since 'male sexists' seem for some reason to be more common among the male population, we do have a bit more of them than other branches with a more balanced male-female ratio.

I've yet to see a study proving that we have _in proportion_ more sexist men than other fields.

</comment><comment><USER16> I met with a Director at a local consulting firm a couple of days ago and while discussing the growing mobile practice at his firm and talking of the team in charge of it, he referred to the lady who held the reins in growing the practice, and how effective she is and how hungry she is, in growing it.

And then he made the comment that she being all that, is also "easy on the eyes". I flinched, but held my tongue and it bothered me afterwards enough to think why he felt compelled to put that out there, especially to someone he just met.

I agree the problem is pervasive, whether its against women, minorities or the guy down the hallway.

<comment><USER17> I don't see this as necessarily a problem. The fact is, men judge how women look and will comment on it when among other men; _so do women_. There's nothing inherently sexist about saying a woman is good looking. It was probably more his attempt to relate to you on a personal level.

<comment><USER18> Actually, I work with a load of men (and a chunk of women), and this kind of conversation never comes up in the office, because it is understood to be deeply inappropriate for a work environment.

<comment><USER19> Your work place must be one in a million. (Not that is bad or good, just different).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm more on the web marketing side, and it's nearly every 1-2 weeks where I see someone write an article or give a presentation likening customer acquisition and conversion to "tricking hawt chicks into hooking up with you." It's absurd. Real men operate with respect, not misogyny.

</comment><comment><USER21> I have seen precisely zero evidence of any "sexism" in the software industry. Maybe I'm going to the wrong conferences but this bullshit is getting old.

<comment><USER22> Clearly your anecdotal evidence provides incontrovertible proof--proof enough to declare this "bullshit."

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> There hasn't been any sexism at the developer conferences I've attended. At all.

However, I've heard personal accounts from friends who have attended conferences of other circles (say, a linux-centered conf), and the account is quite different.

It really depends on the culture of the group.

\--

I don't think Tom's photo is sexist. It's inappropriate, perhaps (depending on the audience), but not an attack on equality.

Naming a project 'Pantyshot' and 'Upskirt' is.

</comment><comment><USER24> Why do we let the same tired discussion about gender pervade HN once per week?

<comment><USER25> Because the discussion needs to happen. We don't get to sweep it under the rug.

<comment><USER26> Discussion, or circle jerk?

I'm not arguing against the problem or trying to find solutions, but I saw nothing new or interesting in the linked post. "Same tired discussion" is right, every discussion on the topic here on HN plays out the exact same way and goes nowhere. It's the religion or politics equivalent of HN discussions.

<comment><USER27> Is there a polite way to say "circle jerk"? I've often found myself wanting to convey the idea without sounding so crass.

<comment><USER28> "A small group of gentlemen working separately to achieve a common goal"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I understand that age (lower in this case) is not a barrier to talent and that we in general seek talent. That said, why do we allow misogynist behavior? If these wunderkind were our children (of any age) these sort of actions would be curbed as best as might be possible. Children of all ages push boundaries--- when there are no boundaries, there are no limits to behavior.

</comment><comment><USER30> What is it about Google+ that brings out the sexism debate? Not too long ago, the public display of a person's gender was going to enpower stalkers and rapists.

The same boorish nonsense goes on in other contexts, but doesn't seem to attract the same level of drama.

</comment><comment><USER31> On its own, the fact that women represent less than 50% of the people involved in programming is not proof of sexism being worse in IT than in other fields; many other fields show significant gender imbalance.

On its own, the fact that a number of women involved in IT complain publicly via the internet of sexism is not a proof that the situation is worse in IT than in other fields; women in IT are more likely to communicate via the internet than those in other fields.

Yes, there are other factors in play (parents & school counsellors bias, peer pressure, etc.) that influence the choice of a career. But when you put it all together, it is hard to deny that there is a sexist attitude in IT. The fact that there might be a sexist attitude in other fields is not a valid excuse for not doing the right thing and call out those that show a lack of respect towards women in IT. [Yes, the same point could be made about other fields.] To deny that there is a problem is to be part of that problem. Respect from others is not something one should earn, it is something everyone should expect to receive.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm saddened (but not surprised) at the negative reaction to the google boob picture. The fact is, there's nothing bad about that picture at all, and Tom is not a misogynist for posting it.

Take a close look. There are 3 people in that photo. All three are smiling. All three are having fun. What exactly is wrong with that photo?

Is it bad because it portrays the woman as a sex object? Why is that bad? Does it means that all women are sex objects? Obviously not. Does it mean that the woman in the photo is ONLY good for sex? Obviously not.

So what's wrong with the photo? Is it because it encourages men to think of all women that way? Has any such sort of causal link been found? How many men at your office slap you on the ass on a daily basis? How many of them take you right there, on the office desk, just like in a pornographic magazine's depiction? What percentage of men behave like creeps? 1%? Do you honestly think that the only thing keeping the other 99% from going on a rape orgy is that they haven't been fed enough sexist propaganda? Do you think that the 1% would magically stop if you could just remove all material you find objectionable from the world?

Who is to blame for the inappropriate behavior of these creeps? Licentious media? Just like violent video games turn our children into vicious killers? Just like marijuana turns people into psychopaths? If someone stabs someone with a kitchen knife, do you blame Henkel? If someone steals a car, do you blame Grand Theft Auto? If someone rapes a woman, do you blame pornography?

Blaming someone else for a person's bad behavior is naive, childish, and dangerous. The person to correct is the person who committed the act.

So what's wrong with that photo? Is it because its sexual nature offended some people? Some people are offended by a picture of two guys kissing. Should we condemn that too?

Do you believe in the possibility of some women actually ENJOYING being treated like a sex object? If not, your objection becomes very understandable. It's fairly common to wrongly assume that everyone else thinks the same way as you do. If the thought of being treated that way disgusts you, then you'd probably assume that nobody in their right mind would enjoy it. You'd probably go through a laundry list of reasons why someone would participate:

* She was coerced into it

* She's not in her right mind

* She was drugged or drunk

The problem is that this line of thinking leads to the misogynistic view that women are somehow incapable of making their own decisions (we see this already in legislation that excuses the woman for having sex while drunk, but not the man). Suddenly, woman is a poor, defenseless creature who must be protected from everybody, especially herself.

So what's wrong with that photo? All three members are consenting and enjoying themselves. Who are you to criticize their choice?

</comment><comment><USER33> The real question is why is this guy so sensitive? There are sexist people in every industry of both sexes.

</comment><comment><USER34> Oh, just grow a pair. And a sense of humor. Sexy is GOOD.

I SO wish more posts contained sexy images (of any gender) than your repressed, frustrated, fearful and boringly unfunny drivel.

</comment><comment><USER35> Has there been a well defined study, interviews of women in the industry as to what do they want? What do they think and go through and what would they like changed?

</comment><comment><USER36> you know what the solution is?

reddit/stackoverflow style voting on badges. some way of tagging someone at a conference or whatnot as being an ass, or cool, that way you get a warning that this person is a douche. i'm bettin the same people who are creeps are the same people i wouldn't want to bother talking to anyway.

the only problem is someone of course is going to hack it...

</comment><comment><USER6> I was at a tech meetup a couple of weeks back and I walked in to see a lot of women. It was really refreshing.

Fast-forward a little bit and you can hear guys snickering when the women went up.

I don't understand it but I fucking hate it. My sister is great at her job (IT project management) and my daughter loves programming. I can't wait for her to show some guy how to do the job.

Some of the women made the best presentations, maybe because they're women but probably because they're just smart.

I wish I could punch all of those insecure, sexist guys in the mouth.

<comment><USER37> Violence will most certainly not solve the issue and seems ironically to be a typical male response.

Where these men were truly snickering at the fact women were speaking? Correlation does not always mean causation.

I don't know what would be snicker-worthy of women speaking. I can think of several reasons why attendees might snicker at a speaker regardless of their sex.

<comment><USER6> I distinctly heard "snicker snicker woman snicker snicker".

I wouldn't have remembered otherwise.

<comment><USER37> maybe it was "haha, that was a great joke...oh look a woman speaker, awesome...dude i have a similar joke for you"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wow - I completely read this as 'sexiest creeps' and it gave it a whole other connotation.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm guessing a lot of people haven't worked in other industries. Like on a mfg floor, or at a lumber mill, or on a fishing boat. Or as part of a custodial staff.

The sexist creep ratio in the SW industry is lower than most. The SW Industry appears much more sensitive to the issue, however.

</comment><comment><USER40> Who is "we"? Oh, that's right - the sexist creeps who apparently make up the software industry he's referring to.

You encounter this anywhere dominated by one sex or the other. It's not at all unique to the software industry.

</comment><comment><USER41> Why do we let sexist creeps pervade the loading docks/road crews/World Bank?

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm glad someone called Tom out on that image he posted. It's minor in the entire scheme of things, but what irritates me are the casual comments and reactions like "That's ok.. haha, very funny!" It's like there's this cognitive dissonance happening: people believe in equality between sexes, and treating women like regular humans with respect... yet we also make casual comments that treat females as just objects. It's not just engineers of course, it's most men. And I'm being very very strict here. I'm talking about saying things like "Check that ass out." or "Damn, I'll do that" when you're with your buddies.

I may sound like a downer that can't have fun, but when the vast majority of humans on this world end up cheating on their spouses, you have to be somewhat serious about this.

<comment><USER43> Please provide evidence for your claims about cheating.

Secondly there is no issue with treating women with respect in the workplace and have fun with them after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The picture is not offensive to anyone who matters, honestly if you are offended you should probably go build a sexless utopia and die off in a generation.

</comment><comment><USER45> I am very curiuos, what will happen when even thinking about woman as sexually attractive will be a crime, let alone any chance of showing her that.

<comment><USER25> That's a slippery slope fallacy. I grew up around feminists, and I can guarantee you, that is not where equality leads.

<comment><USER46> And before everyone starts bashing feminism by lumping them all in with Dworkin and the most extreme examples, please try getting to know one first. Their views are usually pretty reasonable.

<comment><USER47> _Their views are usually pretty reasonable_

You make it sound as if feminists are some kind of weird cult ;) But your basic point is true: just because a woman is a feminist doesn't mean that she thinks all penetrative sex is rape, such as Dworkin believed.

<comment><USER45> You know, we are near the situation when asking a girl out for a cup of coffee is perceived as an atempt to rape.

<comment><USER48> We are not 'near' that point. The Rebecca Watson incident clearly demonstrates that we are already there.

<comment><USER25> 1\. Woman does a presentation where she talks about objectification of women in a male dominated social group.

2\. Woman gets hit on in an elevator in a foreign country after leaving a bar at 4am. She declines.

3\. Woman mentions incident as a "What Not To Wear" style off-hand comment in a video blog about the conference, before going on to more important things.

4\. Richard Dawkins flips his shit.

5\. Some men think this situation means politely asking a woman out for coffee will get you accused of rape.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Microsoft Hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on Windows Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/making-windows-phone-7/all/1

<comment><USER2> I know there is a lot of Microsoft bashing here (and most of it deserved) but I think it was a smart move for them to be willing to start from scratch and it shows someone there is trying to put out decent products. Whether they succeeded or not in this case I can't judge but I think this shows an honest effort.

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny note: about halfway down the page is a microsoft employee doing research on a mac.</comment>


Ask HN:  Does anyone use popups? - <AUTHOR>

Working on a project that makes it really really easy to put a popup on your website.  Want to see if anyone here uses popups and would be willing to talk for a few minutes about it. <comment><USER2> Sent you an email with my contact info.</comment>


Students Speak Up in Class, Silently, via Social Media - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/education/13social.html?_r=1&hp

<comment><USER2> This concerns me, but not for the reasons addressed in the article. I don't think distraction is the issue at all. I think the issue is whether this leads to students being more or less likely to speak up in, for lack of a better term, real life. I can see it going either way.

It seems the more reliant we become on screen-to-screen text rather than face- to-face conversation, the less proficient we will be at face-to-face conversation. But at the same time, this could be a way to bring people out in the open and encourage them to get involved in all kinds of discussion, whether screen-to-screen or face-to-face.

I would be inclined to measure the results. Use the technology in one class but not in another. On the last day of class, don't use it in either class, and see which class has more face-to-face participation, the one that had to do it from the beginning or the one that got eased into it.

It's much harder though to measure the long-term consequences. If technology like this continues to become more and more pervasive, there may be no "last day of class" in which people are forced to speak up. The analogy to physical exertion is well warranted. It is now possible, because of technology, to live your entire life without engaging in strenuous physical activity. This was simply not the case even 50 years ago. In another 50 years, will it be possible to live your entire life without engaging in face-to-face conversation? If so, do we want that?

<comment><USER3> IANAT (I am not a teacher): Hmm.. I certainly don't think classroom style would lead to people not engaging in face-to-face conversations - I think many/most people seek that out by themselves socially (and entertainment technology like say WoW has much more impact on that). I think it's a really odd context - volunteering in class to answer (normally fairly closed) questions; it's not a presentation, it's not a conversation of peers. I think the main thing you can learn from that is to get over risking being embarassed by asking stupid questions. But I think in terms of social/communication skills, group projects / debates are much more valuable.

I think the main reason people don't speak up is social - it's not seen as a cool or valuable thing to do by peers (and I've seen that even at university level in a self-selected group interested people, for anything beyond small groups, except with exceptional lecturers).

Chatroom style interactions seems to somehow change the dynamic somehow. One of the better set of lectures I had used an everybody-vote-on-answers-to- problems format, and because you're not singled out, there was much more engagement. It also gives the lecturer/teacher more input (whereas volunteers I think are often on extremes of ability curve).

<comment><USER4> My soon-to-be alma mater has very small class sizes (student-teacher ratio is less than 10 to 1, most upper level classes are 4-8 people), so class here really is often a "conversation of peers". Discussions are an excellent way to learn, both because they encourage questioning and sharing and because they force you to engage the critically engage material on a regular basis rather than just memorizing it long enough to take a test.

People often seem to think of discussion-style teaching as being a social science/humanities thing, but it also works surprisingly well for math, computing, and science. I think a lot of people have the idea that in more technical courses, you have to do lectures (maybe with labs) because you're basically trying to teach a bunch of information. Most schools focus on teaching technical skills and knowledge, and expect you to just pick up on how to think as you go along.

Turning that around--teaching thinking and letting students pick up technical skills from examples--seems like a better idea because technical knowledge progresses so rapidly and because technical skills are easier to pick up. It also enables discussion-style teaching in math, computing, and science. Instead of listening to a lecturer spew material you could have found in a book, you solve problems together.

(Aside: interactive learning is really the only way to justify the high cost of college from an educational perspective. Ignoring stuff like networking and partying, it seems like going to a school where they teach by lecturing is a waste of time and money, since there are so many free lectures available online.)

The "everyone vote on answers" format is a surprisingly effective way to improve engagement in lectures. They get people to pay attention, they give you in-class feedback about what you have learned, they give the teacher more input (like you said), and they make lectures a bit more fun without being too cheesy.

Another simple technology-based way to improve engagement is to have students post their writing for class (reading responses, essays, etc.) on a forum. I took a class once where, instead of sending the professor a reading response for every class, we posted a reading response to a class Facebook group once a week. We were also required to write at least one substantial reply to others' posts once per week. The interaction was awkward, at first, and some people did the bare minimum the whole time, but after a few weeks a good chunk of the class was posting more than they were required to on a regular basis. Besides simply improving engagement, it seemed like it was making people think and write better, probably because they knew their peers were going to read what they wrote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Kind of sad that we're developing crutches to cope with, instead of addressing, social anxiety. Ofcourse, there's a counter-point that we use mechanical engineering to cope with our physical weakness instead of developing our muscles. A further point, however, is that while it is impossible to develop enough muscle to build a pyramid without pulleys, it is quite possible to develop enough confidence to speak up without fear.

<comment><USER2> Mechanical engineering has also made us lazy though. People didn't have to work out 200 years ago. They just worked. If you want to be in shape today, you almost have to do it on the side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been saying for a long time that we need to adopt use of technology in the classroom more often. Kids are accustomed to interactive media and yet we teach them with books and lectures only. I think this is an interesting idea because some of these children will grow up and be using social media at their jobs one day. That's not to say that it should replace a class discussion, but it's a cool way to let kids express their thoughts without interrupting the lesson. Many seminars encourage the audience to tweet their questions so they can remember them... how many times as a kid did you have your hand up for so long that you forgot what you were going to say? Tweeting your question while it's fresh in your mind would eliminate that problem.</comment>


Quick bit about Gruber and Doctorow - <AUTHOR> http://www.scripting.com/stories/2010/04/02/quickBitAboutGruberAndDoct.html <comment><USER2> If we really want to get idealogical about it any generic x86 machine isn't going to pass the freedom test. None of Intel's x86 chips are open designs. They probably ship with a closed source BIOS and maybe even with a closed source operating system by default. I suppose I could buy it and install Linux BIOS + Linux OS but ideologically I can't justify supporting these tyrannical companies. So clearly if you buy any x86 computer you are hurting children. To truly be free you must build your own computer from scratch.

<comment><USER3> It's not about being open all the way down; it's about being open enough to enable unpredictable innovation. As I said in another thread, even though Mac OS and Windows aren't open source, they are open enough to allow application innovation. Likewise, x86 machines are open enough to allow OS innovation (although there are non-technical reasons why it's hard for non-Windows OSes to take off).

(But speaking of BIOS, I wonder what people will think about Google Firmware once it is released...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "If you must have an iPad, then buy (and use) something open to balance things out." -- This doesn't really solve the problem of Apple eating our seed corn.</comment>