Girls perform better academically in almost all countries - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/international/21645759-boys-are-being-outclassed-girls-both-school-and-university-and-gap?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/pe/theweakersex <comment><USER2> There was discussion on this the other day.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9158812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9158812)

</comment><comment><USER3> The most interesting part of the article ot me was the discussion of income in the workplace in contrast to the performance in school. They point out that women tend to select subjects in college that result in less income and that they seem to care less about that. I wonder how much of that attitude results in the income difference between men and women. I also believe that some of the behavior typically associated with boys and their bad performance in school leads to them succeeding in the workplace. Trying to be in control and showing typical alpha-male behavior causes nothing but trouble in school. In the workplace on the other hand,it's something that might lead to some conflict, but also to higher income. On the flip side, following orders diligently is great in school and leads to a stable career, but you might lose out to the pushy alpha-male.

Obviously like pretty much everything on this topic, those are very broad generalizations, that are not indicative of any one individuals behavior.

<comment><USER4> "The average 15-year-old girl devotes five-and-a-half hours a week to homework, an hour more than the average boy, who spends more time playing video games and trawling the internet."

I think it shouldn't be underestimated when it comes to gender gap in tech. The sad (and short) story is that a lot of teaching is uncoupled from the future career life. Vide [http://xkcd.com/519/](http://xkcd.com/519/)

</comment></comment><comment> matt-attack > "IT'S all to do with their brains and bodies and chemicals,"

What's funny is that is precisely the reason that girls and boys compete in separate classes in athletics. It's why there's a women's olympic medal in swimming and a men's.

So when are schools going to begin grading the girls on one curve and the boys on their own?

<comment><USER5> It isn't even true that it's _all_ to do with brains and bodies and chemicals.

Sure there are underlying sex differences, but the best boy at anything is a lot better than the average girl, in the same way the best girl at anything is a lot better than the average boy. Where athletic championships are concerned the differences in the distributions make a difference, but to organize a society around the tails of the distribution is a mistake.

Men are shaped by social expectations as much as anything else, and those expectations are communicated to them violently and in no uncertain terms. To be a successful man you must over-produce so you can take care of your family. You must defend something: your family honour, your country, your personal integrity. And you must do so violently, or you aren't a good man.

These characteristics are pretty much universal, but once upon a time kingship was pretty much a universal characteristic of human societies, and we don't see too many of them around any more. Kingship was also considered "natural" and "inevitable" at the time when it was merely common. So I'd be wary of arguments that simply because beating the hell out of boys and men until they are shaped into a particular mold is common, that it reflects more than relatively weak proclivities on the part of the people being beaten.

Until we recognize that boy's poor performance in school is due to masculinity being socially constructed in ways that fail boys and men academically, we will continue to perpetuate this systemic injustice, and we won't really know what boys and men are capable of.

<comment><USER6> Thank you dude. I really needed a good comment on HN.

I personally never had time for school, I needed to earn money and I am glad I didn't go to school/university longer. It would have been a huge waste of my time and it would have massively inhibited my professional success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have had first-hand experience with this: video games are largely made for males - partly due to video game developers being largely male. When boys prioritize playing video games, this impacts their academic performance.

Also, the rise of at least one series of books targeted towards females (twilight saga) has likely had a huge impact on the reading levels of girls since 2005, while the last best-seller books targeting boys (Harry Potter) was made back in 1997 and has since lost much of its appeal. Also, Harry Potter didn't outright exclude girls with its content, while Twilight saga was hated almost unanimously by boys. As a result, you find more girls reading for pleasure.

The effects of arts and culture are probably as important as the genetics/hormones of growing children.

</comment><comment><USER8> One factor that have changed is earlier puberty for women. It is an advantage in School With early maturity. [http://www.cwhn.ca/en/node/39365](http://www.cwhn.ca/en/node/39365)

</comment><comment><USER9> As a woman in this industry, you have to be twice as good as men to be taken seriously. Thankfully that is easy.

<comment><USER10> Adults only here!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Short version: Boys and girls are different.

Or, _vive la différence_.

Or, "Men and women deserve equal respect as persons but are not the same" (E. Fromm, _The Art of Loving_ , love and its connections with emotions, psychology, and religion).

The article is awash with phrases that constitute _lying with statistics "; basically the article is a case of trying to get attention based on nothing very solid or new.

So, (1) a lot of what the article is saying about so many women in college doing so well can be explained by:

"But men and women tend to study different subjects, with many women choosing courses in education, health, arts and the humanities, whereas men take up computing, engineering and the exact sciences."

and

"A big reason is the choice of subject: education, the humanities and social work pay less than engineering or computer science."

So, a lot of women are in college getting Bachelor's and Master's degrees as preparation for K-12 teaching. Add in the women there on the way to a nursing RN and have some more. Law? Get some more. Social science for work in HR? Got some more.

The rest of the humanities? Women on the way to their Mrs. degree.

Business? A CPA is a good career career path, especially for women.

Women doing well in math in college? Sure: They want to be K-12 math teachers.

But, from the OP, apparently still

"whereas men take up computing, engineering and the exact sciences"

so that the men are still there for technical training for hard work of applications, not just teaching, in a career.

To be more clear, for the "academically" part of the title here, we're talking the real goal of academics, chaired profs at the top research universities, maybe? Nobel prize winners in the physical sciences? Fields Medal winners (math)? The girls/women are doing better there -- gee, why'd I not notice?

Oh, I understand! In part we're talking K-6 where the girls have better manual dexterity, better hand writing, better verbal talent, better social skills (how to please instead of piss off the teachers, nearly all woman), better clerical talent (keep those columns in long division nicely lined up), much more interest in fictional reading, better social skills working in groups, much more eager to _behave well* in class. Ah, now _that 's_ much of what is meant by "academically"!!

Gee, what's that got to do with high end academic success? Well, let's see: Good starting attitude for such success is,

"That old stuff is junk. Pitch it. Let's do some much better, new stuff. E.g., Maxwell did really well, but he was never clear on what would happen if the lab were moving rapidly, say, near the speed of light. So, looks like need to tweak Maxwell's equations.

Or, the Riemann integral? Gotta be kidding! Looks like we can redo integration theory and integrate darned near anything and show that a function on a finite closed interval has a Riemann integral if and only it is continuous everywhere except on a set of length 0.

Control theory? Sure. But what about in gusty winds? Now what? How 'bout some _stochastic_ optimal control?

Malaria caused by _bad air_? Gotta be kidding. Let's find out what the real cause is. How about something from all those mosquito bites?

I can't do linear regression because some variable was listed twice or some variables are linear combinations of some of the others? Silly. Yes, I know, the normal equations matrix does not have full row rank and, thus, doesn't have an inverse, but why do we have to go through that matrix inverse stuff? We don't!"

In the 10th grade I had such a case: My plane geometry teacher was a very ugly and angry woman. It was a good high school, and she actually could mostly work the exercises, but otherwise she was not much of a mathematician.

So, no way did I want to have my knowledge of plane geometry, a subject I loved, owe anything to her. So, I slept in class and refused to claim to do any of the homework.

But, I no doubt did by far the most homework of anyone in the class, solved every non-trivial problem in the book including the more difficult supplementary problems in the back.

So, on the state test, I came in second in the class (the same guy beat me by a few points on the Math SAT also).

But on that test the last problem was about inscribing a square in a semi- circle -- two corners were to be on the diameter and the other two, on the arc. How to do that?

I said, go off on the side and construct a square, bisect one side, use that point as center and the distance to an opposite corner as radius, and draw a circle. Extend the bisected side to a diameter. Now have a figure similar to the desired one. So, for the given figure, just need, say, the length of half a side. So, that will be a forth proportional. So construct that and, ..., done.

So, I wanted to check this and insisted over her objections that the teacher see me after school. She said I couldn't go off on the side and construct that other figure. Sounded like nonsense to me.

As a college freshman, a girl asked me, given triangle ABC, construct D on AB and E on BC so that AD = DE = EC. Hmm .... Go off on the side and construct a figure similar to the desired one and for the crucial length AD, get that from a fourth proportional.

The girl asked, "How'd you know to do that?"

I told her it'd figured it out in the 10th grade.

She said, "That's the advanced technique _smilitude_ we are studying."

"Well, I reinvented it in the 10th grade, and the teacher said I couldn't do that."

No wonder I didn't much pay attention to the teacher.

High end academics is about research, research, and research. There have to do some things that are new, and typically have to be the first one ever to do that thing. So, have to be able to say that not everything from the past is the best possible and can stand up as the first person ever to say how to do better, and that's not what gets good grades in K-6 or most of K-12 or most subjects in college.

Looks like the OP is talking about nothing very new, different, or surprising.

Or maybe: Men went for the technical fields hoping to use such as a foundation for a career, but now the main _technical_ career is computing, and there most of what a student needs on a job they have to learn themselves with/without course in computer science. So, a lot of people are concluding that college is not really essential for a good start in computing. For engineering as a career, that's less popular than before.

Physics? A lot of the interest there was in work in US national security, but that work less hot as a field than some decades ago.

But for K-12 teaching, nursing, pharmacy, law, HR, CPA, etc., those _female_ fields have remained relatively solid. So, women are still doing well in their fields while the men are having to build careers heavily outside of what is taught in college.

<comment><USER6> > "Well, I reinvented it in the 10th grade, and the teacher said I couldn't do > that."

I love when you realize these things. I had a similar moment recently when I showed some amateur set operations library I wrote for fun a couple years ago to a friend who I am teaching to program. So she's a mathematician and she pointed out that my source code was actually the exact definition of some of the set operations. Which, in retrospect is funny because what I did was try to emulate a subset of math using linked lists and predicate functions.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does HN ranking work? - <AUTHOR> This question is born out of curiosity - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16041795 is on the 5th page after 3 hours, 67 points & 85 comments, but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16038243 is on the front page after 4 hours, 3 points and no comments. Another front page example is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16037863, 4 hours, 4 points no comments (as of 1:39PM 12/31/2017).<p>Does it also have something to do with who submits? <comment><USER2> IIRC there is intentionally a measure of randomness in the algorithm, so that unusual posts can occasionally surface.</comment>


Angular as used in production at Google – gift of the year? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@asandholm/7-reasons-why-you-should-give-yourself-the-gift-of-angulardart-41549fdfa816 <comment><USER2> I hope, it will force them to clean up more of Angular bugs

</comment><comment><USER3> Неужели этот язык никому не интересен?</comment>


Most Popular Programming Languages of 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codeeval.com/2014#.UwBq6oWVJat <comment><USER2> For a minute I thought my knowledge of PHP was doomed. So I Googled, first result:

[http://langpop.com/](http://langpop.com/)

That's better. PHP is not yet the new FORTRAN.

<comment><USER3> Sadly the guy I sold that on to hasn't been doing as much with it as he could, like adding new data sources. I still think it's one of the better efforts out there, though, although of course I'm biased :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > This year's most noticeable changes were a 300% increase in Objective-C > submissions, a 100% surge in C#, as well as a 33% increase in Javascript > submissions while PHP lost -55%, Perl dropped -16%, and Java shrank -14%

Changes of this scale would lead me to question the methodology. There may well be some major trends at work, but it seems tremendously unlikely they are at this order of magnitude.

<comment><USER5> The oscillations mostly occur in languages with low market share, while the error of measurement is probably fairly constant as a percent regardless of how widely the language is used! Also...from the TFA:

> based on thousands of data points we've collected by processing over > 100,000+ coding tests and challenges by over 2,000+ employers.

They are measuring what 2000+ employers decided to test, which seems to me could be quite noisy anyways. Take the study for what it is...its still useful, just not really universal in its conclusion.

<comment><USER6> It would be useful if we knew from where those 2000+ employers are. This could be a highly focused view of some niche area for all we know.

In this regard, although TIOBE could have the same problem, it seems to use a greater number of different sources to compose their index.

<comment><USER5> I think they would have the same problem to a lesser degree if they sampled 20,000 employers. At the low end, you would still get a lot of fluctuation year-on-year because their simply are not enough data points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 5% share to javascript --- half as popular as Ruby, and only 5 times the popularity of Haskell?

Fails basic sanity checks.

</comment><comment><USER8> "based on thousands of data points we've collected by processing over 100,000+ coding tests and challenges by over 2,000+ employers"

Some context in the title would have been really helpful...

<comment><USER9> Yes, you can get an idea which languages are used most at interviews, but perhaps it isn't good for that either

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oholoh seems to agree on Python being the most used programming language, but with very different results: [http://www.ohloh.net/languages/compare?measure=contributors&...](http://www.ohloh.net/languages/compare?measure=contributors&percent=true&l0=cpp&l1=java&l2=php&l3=python&l4=ruby&l6=-1&commit=Update)

</comment><comment><USER11> I think Project Euler would have better data for this.

</comment><comment><USER12> Would be interested in at least reading, but your stupid floating share bar covers the text on mobile.</comment>


The Boy Scout Rule - <AUTHOR> http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/The_Boy_Scout_Rule <comment><USER2> The Boy Scout Rule: "Always leave the campground cleaner than you found it."

I've always tried to do this in every environment I've worked in, from programming, documentation and planning down to the details of the coffee/snack bar.

</comment><comment><USER3> A fascinating article about some of the adventures of the man, Frederick Russell Burnham, who inspired the creation of the Boy Scouts:

      https://magazine.atavist.com/american-hippopotamus

(The article isn't about the Boy Scouts, nor only about Burnham. Burnham's relation to the Boy Scouts is a factoid mentioned near the end of the article.)

</comment><comment><USER4> There's a lot you can learn from scouts!

[http://www.usscouts.org/advance/boyscout/bsoathlaw.asp](http://www.usscouts.org/advance/boyscout/bsoathlaw.asp)</comment>


MySQL infrastructure testing automation at GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://githubengineering.com/mysql-testing-automation-at-github/ <comment><USER2> I take it from this blog that any engineer at GitHub can get a copy of anyone's data. I find this vaguely terrifying, especially because Yahoo! was so careful internally about what an engineer could actually get access to. Most data like this had usernames/names/emails/other sensitive info redacted.

Can anyone at GitHub get a copy of my private repo(s) because I'm out if they can.

"Move fast and take a copy of the referrers table."

<comment><USER3> I'm curious: what have you ever seen Github publish that would indicate there was any such security around your private repos within their organisation? I would have assumed there was none myself, but you seem to've assumed they'd treat your private repos like financial data or something.

Legit question, in case someone thinks I'm trolling or whatever.

<comment><USER2> I think they'd treat my data as if it's like gold and not any engineer can take a copy because:

a) potentially threaten GitHub's business (blackmail, disgruntled employee, internal threat, security services, concerned comments like this etc.)

b) real companies store their source code on GitHub; their source code is, at least, 50% of their business.

c) GitHub isn't really a startup anymore, they have hundreds of employees, you can't let that many people have unfettered access to data. Someone could loose a laptop...

d) As mentioned, Yahoo! was very careful with customer data

e) It's called a Private Repo

I'm making a big set of assumptions, you are right. I'll move my GitHub to my own server now... installing GitLab which I absolutely hate but it's better than trusting an unknown set of engineers.

I've just realised probably any Digital Ocean engineer can get root on my box if they want to right :-(

<comment><USER4> Why do you hate GitLab? I've had it deployed for nearly a year and some recent releases have resolved many of my concerns.

> I've just realised probably any Digital Ocean engineer can get root on my > box if they want to right :-(

I would assume yes.

<comment><USER2> Just can never bloody find the thing I want. It's the same when I drink Pepsi or Burger King; purely psychological...

<comment><USER5> You want to at least have some control over the hardware. Disk encryption on a dedicated server or (even more ideally) a caged, locked, colocated rack.

The system administrators of anything multi-tenant can access your data. The problem is they probably don't care. It's up to you where to draw that line, though.

 _" Administering a mail host is sort of like being a nurse; there's a brief period at the start when the thought of seeing people's privates might be vaguely titillating in a theoretical sense, but that sort of thing doesn't last long when it's up against the daily reality of mess. Now that I think about it, administering a mail host is exactly like being a nurse, only people die slightly less often."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Super interesting post. Would love to read more detail about their backup and restore infrastructure.

If Tom and/or Shlomi are reading this: you mention taking multiple logical backups per day. What benefit does this bring versus just having one per day and doing a point-in-time restore using binlogs? Is this just a tradeoff between time taken for a restore and storage you're willing to dedicate to backups?

Disclaimer: I work on Facebook's MySQL backup and restore system ([https://code.facebook.com/posts/1007323976059780/continuous-...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/1007323976059780/continuous- mysql-backup-validation-restoring-backups/))

<comment> shlomi-noach @jivid the logical backups are done per-table, not per-server. Per-table logical backups are useful to the engineers owning the data. It makes it easy for them to restore data from a single table.

When an engineer loads logical backup data, it loads into a non-production private zone where the engineer has access to the data, and can then make informed decisions on whether there is need to re-apply data changes (due to bug, due to need to review historical data, etc.).

This of course has the advantage of quicker restores (only need a single table), and this happens to cover the vast majority of cases. This doesn't cover the case where we need to restore consistent data for two or more different tables.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's the difference between gh-ost and the Percona tool? ( pt-online-schema- change ) Also did you try to use a recent version of MySQL that supports live migration?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://githubengineering.com/gh-ost-github-s-online- migrati...](https://githubengineering.com/gh-ost-github-s-online-migration- tool-for-mysql/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great post! Do you use semi-synchronous or asynchronous replication? If you use asynchronous replication, when a server crashes and this triggers the automated failover, do you lose the last transactions?

<comment><USER8> It looks like the answer to my question is here: [https://githubengineering.com/orchestrator- github/](https://githubengineering.com/orchestrator-github/)

<comment><USER9> The author of Orchestrator also goes into questions like that at [http://code.openark.org/blog/mysql/mysql-high- availability-t...](http://code.openark.org/blog/mysql/mysql-high-availability- tools-followup-the-missing-piece-orchestrator)

Tangentially, in that blog post I was impressed by the list of companies running orchestrator.

> orchestrator is actively maintained by GitHub. It manages automated > failovers at GitHub. It manages automated failovers at Booking.com, one of > the largest MySQL setups on this planet. It manages automated failovers as > part of Vitess. These are some names I'm free to disclose, and browsing the > issues shows a few more users running failovers in production. Otherwise, it > is used for topology management and visualization in a large number of > companies such as Square, Etsy, Sendgrid, Godaddy and more.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the link: it's a fantastic read!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Shiohara – Open-Source CMS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ShioharaCMS/shiohara <comment><USER2> We've been building a lot of content systems lately and found Wagtail to be pretty useful ([https://wagtail.io/](https://wagtail.io/)). We build pretty much everything on Django so it's a natural fit for us.

Understanding the models and the way they show up in the admin takes a bit but it's pretty smooth after that, and very programmable. And its built-in API uses DRF, so you can expand on it with that easily. Our frontends are all React-based and it works out very nicely.

Looking at this I kind of checked out once I saw Java, which I'm not inclined to deal with these days. To each their own of course.

<comment><USER3> I like this specifically because it's written in Java. To each their own indeed.

<comment><USER2> Completely fair! Just not the right tool for us & our work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have to chime in, as far as open source projects go, the branding is fantastic and feels very refreshing.

Go the website and look at [https://shiohara.org/](https://shiohara.org/). Top right, there are other projects and they have icons like Period Table of Elements symbols.

Example: [https://github.com/openturing](https://github.com/openturing), [https://viglet.com/turing](https://viglet.com/turing)

On all the projects, you can bounce straight to the release notes. Well organized, you can bounce straight into API docs. And a demo: [https://demo.shiohara.org/welcome](https://demo.shiohara.org/welcome)

Almost feels like Python projects that use Flask-style docs.

Any thing planned to integrate graphql alongside/as an alternative to REST?

<comment><USER5> Seems like at least two of the projects are just ideas/placeholders though:

[https://openbanking.net.br/](https://openbanking.net.br/) with empty repo here: [https://github.com/openbanking-net-br/open- banking](https://github.com/openbanking-net-br/open-banking)

[https://viglet.com/nakamoto](https://viglet.com/nakamoto) with empty repo here: [https://github.com/opennakamoto/nakamoto](https://github.com/opennakamoto/nakamoto)

IMO it'd be better to just not include them in the header if there is no code or even a TODO list to show yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi SahAssar,

You are right, I will remove this project from site.

Thanks,

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So I have bit of a use case of having some sort of cataloguing tool.

Essentially I want to create something that can export a row in a table or a item in a JSON array. Where I can have a set of enums and fields.

And then view every with an editor but also be able to upload an MP3, have it, uploaded to backblaze and then the URL put into the field.

I could make some quick web app that does this. But I wonder if a CMS solution would help there?

<comment><USER7> Hey

You can try out daptin. It is a headless CMS in golang. Except for the "enums" I think it should be able to help you achieve the flow you described.

Daptin has rclone integrated in it, so it can sync with BlackBlaze. Essentially you will need to do the following:

1\. Declare one table

2\. Make a asset column in that

3\. Bind that asset column to a cloud storage(blackblaze here)

4\. Daptin will expose assests as urls, but you can choose to write another action to fetch BlackBlaze url and put it in another column

If this sounds too complicated or docs are not enough (which probably would be the case) feel free to create an issue on github and ping on slack. I would be happy to help you out with your first few projects.

[1] [https://github.com/daptin/daptin](https://github.com/daptin/daptin)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Recommend adding phonetic pronunciation to the README. In practical terms, being uncertain as to the correct pronunciation is an adoption hurdle.

<comment><USER9> If it's like a Japanese word, pronounced "Sheeo Hara" without space. Literal meaning would be "salt flats" but this pronunciation implies a surname (like "McNamara" do)

<comment><USER10> Hair-uh or harr-uh or -ah?

<comment><USER11> harr-ah. With short As, and a somewhat Spanish R.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Where does the name come from?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is the name of a great friend named Enrico Shiohara who worked with me at the Vignette Company. But he was in a plane crash

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Headless-CMS makes this platform obsolete from the get go. The modern approach of separating responsibilities dictates that a CMS should not handle the rendering of pages, but rather provide a publishing interface and "content-as- a-Service" for whatever frontend/edge-device the site is presented on.

<comment><USER14> I'm pretty sure there are cases where people don't want to have the modern approach and run two services for it. Having a random CMS taking care of these tasks is good enough for a lot of use cases.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your project management setup? - d-d I'm a team of one. Right now I use GitHub and a bunch of MD files which works for one person, but things are taking off and may turn into three or five remote people. I'm curious what's working well for others regardless of company size. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://clubhouse.io/product/](https://clubhouse.io/product/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Project management setup and checklist Replicon</comment>


Show HN: ColorFavs – Create and Discover Color Palettes - <AUTHOR> http://www.colorfavs.com <comment><USER2> When clicking on a palette I get a 502 and what seems to be a recursive redirect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. I'm currently getting slammed from ProductHunt, DesignerNews and WebDesignerNews. I'm working with my host to keep things going for the time being until traffic levels out. Give it a try again it should work.</comment></comment>


Vim PDF Documentation - <AUTHOR> http://nathangrigg.net/vimhelp/ <comment><USER2> Probably would have been more helpful to link to the blog post explaining the project - [http://nathangrigg.net/2013/09/reproducing-vim-help-as-a- ful...](http://nathangrigg.net/2013/09/reproducing-vim-help-as-a-fully-cross- referenced-pdf/). It would be great if the top comments at least had a look at the PDF, and maybe read that blog post - the file is full of hyperlinks (that was the whole point), has a beautiful index viewable in the sidebar of Skim, and he made it because he wanted to read on his iPad, and be able to annotate...

Very cool. Would love something similar for Emacs... Maybe it exists, haven't really looked

<comment><USER3> The Emacs manual is available in many formats, including PDF:

[http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/emacs.html](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/emacs.html)

<comment><USER4> The Emacs documentation is excellent and among the handful of products that have documentation that approaches that of Vim's in any meaningful way, but the PDF does not have interpage links like the one in the OP does. That is not as important as it is with Vim's documentation because of how the documentation is written and because the topics are more self-contained, but it is a significant difference.

The documentation within Emacs has such links though and the topics are slightly more discoverable because the documentation can be searched without knowing its prefixes for different sections ahead of time. I have to know that some commands are organized with i_<topic> to find some insert mode documentation for instance with Vim. They are consistent in their semantics though, but that is one gotcha for newcomers and something I did not realize initially. Without that merely doing :h <topic> won't return what the user is actually wanting the documentation for as topics shadow each other in their naming and are made distinct with the naming prefixes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is neat until you realize that by converting it to a PDF, you lose all of the jumping around goodness that Vim offers you to help you navigate this monstrosity.

<comment><USER6> The PDF is full to the brim with hyperlinks. That is the point of this.

<comment><USER7> Making vimites use the mouse? That's essentially blasphemy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's helpful, and also a clever pun: there is not a lot of software that can claim a help document of a approx. 2600 pages. very correlated to the steep learning curve of vim.

I fucking like it :)

<comment><USER9> 2567 A4 pages in my PDF viewer. Quite neat.

Honest question: why PDF? From within Vim one uses :help and the internal hyperlinks. What do people here think the value added of the PDF is? I won't be printing it!

<comment><USER10> > why PDF?

I wanted to ask the exact question. Nobody sits down and read it from the beginning, and without links, there is no point of a PDF.

<comment><USER11> PDFs have links, including this one!

> The files are fully cross referenced using interal hyperlinks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Awesome. This is something that's been on my idea list for years. Set up a git tip then SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.

</comment><comment><USER13> Not too many pieces of software out there that can say their software is so well-documented, it almost takes up 3000 pages.

<comment><USER14> Is help documentation almost 3000 pages or is the source almost 3000 pages? :D

<comment><USER15> Help documentation. I am honestly a little shocked by the length, I knew the docs were exceptional, but surprised by how long they are.

<comment><USER4> This includes both the user's manual, the reference manual, and platform specific information in one file. The user's manual is a subset of the reference manual, and that is 500-600 pages long by itself. The reference manual is enormous, but that is the nature of reference manuals. What is even more shocking is how clear the reference material is despite its breadth and technical subject.

It's an excellent example of how to write quality documentation. What Vim's maintainers get, and what is often neglected in products, is that the documentation is part of the product's value and must be as high of a priority as the rest of the product. If you have had the misfortune of working with Cadence's OrCAD (or pretty much any engineering software) the value of excellent documentation being available is very apparent.

Despite OrCAD's potentially 20k+ USD cost the documentation is very scant and greatly harms its barrier to entry for user's; as a result understanding how it works require tutelage from another expert as though writing has not yet been invented and stories are still only being passed down orally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One thing I'd love is for the PDF to have a TOC. It would be great to have when opening on my iPad in iBooks!

<comment><USER6> It has both a "printed" TOC starting at the end of the first page, and a PDF TOC which should be visible to iBooks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It is amazing how much I rely on Vim on a daily basis and yet how small a proportion of it I actually know.

<comment><USER17> Same. I use d$ (i.e. d and the movement command $) to delete to the end of the line. Apparently you can just use D. Also, I didn't even know you could do N | to move the the Nth column (e.g. 30| moves to the 30th column).

<comment><USER18> I don't know if this is the case in vim, but in nvi C works like D except it also puts you in insert mode. Which is exactly what I want to do almost every time I delete to the end of the line.

S is likewise super nice: it clears the line and puts you in insert mode.

<comment><USER19> the "c" verb is called "change"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have read the introducing blog post. I also appreciate the effort the author put into this, which will be useful for others. However, I think using an SSH client on a tablet to connect to a machine with Vim and reading `:help` from there would have been a better practice of Vim.

</comment><comment><USER21> I love this, I just wish there was a way to have the font in something more readable for the areas that aren't positional format sensitive. For some reason, I can read monospaced fonts for code perfectly, but when it comes to text, I have difficulty reading it.

</comment><comment><USER22> ...but you can't read it in vim, you have to use emacs doc-view-mode for that ;)

</comment><comment><USER23> I suggest playing nethack to get comfortable with VIM navigation. Helped me a lot.

<comment> qu4z-2 I'd just like to point out, though, that in the real world "vim navigation" is not very hjkl-heavy. (Much more w, b, f, t, search, etc).

Having said that, go play nethack anyway :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Thank you Nathan. This will be nice to have the reference on my ipad while I am learning.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is sure going to be very useful at times! Thank you very much!!! :)

</comment><comment><USER26> Thank you, Nathan! This is going straight onto the e-book reader.

</comment><comment><USER27> Now I want a pdf for every man page on my system.

<comment><USER3> You can do that easily with:

        man -t bash | ps2pdf - > bash.pdf

You can even list all man pages with "man -k" to automate the process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Very cool, added it to my iPad! Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER29> Thanks! Added to my iPad!

</comment><comment><USER30> As a Kindle owner, I don't really appreciate PDFs...

<comment><USER31> As a regular PDF reader, I don't appreciate devices that can't make it easy to read an old and common format easily.

<comment><USER30> The problem it's not the device, but the constrains of the format.

Most PDFs resemble an A4-sized sheet of paper, and downscaling it to fit the screen of a small device usually ends up in usability/readability problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is an ironic project because the Vim docs are one of the worst places to go for Vim help, partly due to their size and unsearchability.

<comment><USER33>
        :h 'option'
        :h :command
        :h i_ctrl-w
        :h ctrl-w
        :h v:
        :help auto<Tab>
        :help <C-d>
        :helpgrep foo | cw

        <C-]> on an highlighted word to jump to its doc
        <C-t> to jump back

The vim documentation is the best place to go for Vim help and it's on your computer.

Its size is a direct consequence of its completeness and its "unsearchability" is a direct consequence of the ignorance and possible unwillingness to learn of those who can't find their way.

<comment><USER32> Let's look up help on how to write a function

:h function

Ok, that's wrong.

Let's look up vimscript then, that probably has function information

:h vimscript

Nope, that's not what we want. But obviously function is further down the list

/function

Oh dear.

Let's say we want to do something on opening a python file, and we see someone else using Bufenter

:h bufenter

Ok, no usage examples. What to do?

Eventually we find out about autocmd, by luck. What if we want to include multiple statements in an autocmd?

:h autocmd

Nothing

/multiple

Nothing

Let's say (when you get lucky, again) and find out about :cmd1 | cmd2, you want to learn about |

:h |

nope

:h pipe

not even close!

Ooooooooooh maybe we have to escape it?

:h \|

what?

ooooh wait, we're in command mode, DUH

:h :pipe

aw, shit.

Maybe we want to split an array in vimscript.

:h split

Nope.

:h arary

Nothing. Maybe it's a list?

:h list

Nope. No splitting today, I guess.

If you think :h i_ctrl-w is intuitive, then, well. Have you ever been treated for schizophrenia or psychosis?

Let's say on entering a ruby file we want to press enter.

:au bufenter *.rb <cr>

open rb file..

trailing characters: <cr>

Oh god what the shit?

:h bufenter

nothing

:h ... it's now impossible to look up help on this problem. It's also impossible to google for it

We want to change the background color

:h background

Uhhhhh

:h color

Ok, I get it, I'm not going to find help on this. Time to give up.

I want to figure out how to set guicursor

:h guicursor

Are you 98% serious right now? Why are the examples using :highlight Cursor? Jesus.

Vim has horrible help. I will wait patiently for you to upvote my answer as opposed to downvote it, and I'll consider us even.

<comment><USER33> "writing a function"

        :help
        (scroll a bit)
        (find "usr_41.txt Write a Vim script")
        <C-]>
        (read)

"learn about |"

        :h :|

"split an array in vimscript" (what does that mean? "splitting a string into an array" or… something else?)

        :h split() or if that's not what you want,
        :h list-functions

:h i_ctrl-w is not intuitive when you start Vim for the first time but:

1\. it is easy to understand how it works and apply that to subsequent searches,

2\. it is indicated in the first screen of :help.

So yeah, after using that search query once, it is very intuitive. Schizophrenia != intelligence + curiosity.

"Let's say on entering a ruby file we want to press enter"

        :h autocmd
        (reading)
        autocmd BufEnter *.rb <CR>
        (doesn't work)
        (thinking)
        (oh! <CR> should be a normal mode command of course!)
        autocmd BufEnter *.rb normal <CR>
        (doesn't work)
        (oh! I remember, :normal only accepts ^M!)
        autocmd BufEnter *.rb normal ^M

"change the background color"

        (look at how it's done in a random colorscheme)
        :hi Normal guibg=#0066ff

"how to set guicursor"

        :h guicursor

What do you want to do with your guicursor if not setting its color and/or shape and/or blinking behavior? Everything is right there.

Vim has a large documentation that you learn to use little by little, query after query but all your examples assume no prior experience with Vim's :help

Impatience leads nowhere.

\---

By the way I __never __downvote anything: I upvote to express my agreement and I answer to express my disagreement. That, and I don 't have downward triangles anyway, a consequence of my presumably low "karma", maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> not the best help book imo

<comment><USER35> This is wonderful, thanks!

I also use the vim docset with Dash constantly!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Sorry to be that guy, but it should at least point out it's also accessible with :help within vim.

<comment><USER37> The OP knows this already. He stated it in his blog post:

> Vim's documentation is incredibly complete and very useful. Unfortunately, > it makes heavy use of cross references, and the cross references only work > with Vim's internal help viewer. I have no qualms about reading a reference > document, but I would strongly prefer to do this kind of reading reclining > on a couch with an iPad, rather that Control+F-ing my way through a read- > only Vim buffer.

<comment><USER36> This isn't a useful reply, it's clear the OP knows it - how else would he have compiled them? It gives the wrong impression to link to 11MB of pdf's with no mention of :help!</comment></comment></comment>


Police raid home of security researchers who discovered e-vote vulnerabilities - <AUTHOR>

Independent researches have found several security vulnerabilities in the e-voting machines that will be used this Sunday in the elections of local authorities in Buenos Aires. Tonight police raided homes of several of those researchers.
The vulnerabilities include a filtration of the SSL keys the machines use to communicate and authenticate with the central counting servers.
https://twitter.com/stimpyjaycat/status/617180410561339392
In spanish, about some of the vulnerabilities: www.telam.com.ar/notas/201506/110512-a-diez-dias-de-los-comicios-portenos-descubren-filtraciones-de-seguridad-en-el-sistema-de-voto-electronico.html <comment><USER2> When the revolution comes, I hope to be the first up against the wall:

      http://advogato.org/article/1087.html

      https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=8131

      http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2015/7/4/42525/46892

My Kuro5hin story is now in vote by the membership; anyone may join the site but there is a one-time $5.00 troll-suppression fee.

15 votes makes front page, so for $75.00, you could register fifteen sockpuppets then post it immediately. I'd do that myself but I'm totally busted.

The Soylent story must be approved by the site's admin but I am certain it will be.

My Advogato story is already on the front page. It has lots of google juice but not much actual traffic anymore.

I am exhausted, I need to sleep but please email your post to:

Richard M. Stallman email@example.com

Eric Raymond email@example.com

Thomas Leavitt email@example.com

Jean Evans email@example.com

Dave Johnson firstname.lastname@example.com

Scout around for forums and blogs where this could be even remotely on-topic.

<comment><USER3> I'm confused.

The voting is in Buenos Aires, but you end your submissions with "political repression such as we see today in Brazil".

Are you confusing Argentina with Brazil, or were the researchers actually located in Brazil?

<comment><USER2> oh crap I am very sorry.

I will mail the admins to ask them to edit my stories.

I at times have severe insomnia.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Generate names like Snapchat, Evernote, PayPal for your next project - <AUTHOR> https://namewink.com/?ref=hn3 <comment><USER2> Nice work. I like the design, and the names you generate are better than others I've seen on similar sites.

Question – why is "anrdoezrs.net" prepended to all of the buy links? (I'm assuming it's an affiliate link?) I use an extension (uBlock Origin) that flags it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking it out! and the kind words. Yes, those are affiliate links. They just redirect you to whatever registrar you select in the settings. I guess I'll have to find an alternate method for such extensions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good concept I think it could be improved by running the given word through a thesaurus rather than just adding prefixes and suffixes.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, I'm already working on generating with synonyms. Thanks for checking it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Love it!</comment>


Ask HN: Open and Free Freelancers Market - <AUTHOR> tl;dr - Is there an open/free job board for software development contractors/freelancers that promotes highest talent at highest pay (where the developer makes the top money not the company)?
- I want to find or create a job board where the top developers/engineers can win.
- I want the system to promote top talent, not cheap talent.
- I want the clients coming to that system to understand that top talent will save them and make them 1000x more value.
- I want developers to get paid 10x-100x more then a junior developer. (Because they can provide this 1000x more value). To be specific $100/hour - $1000/hour should be the norm.
- I want to be one of those developers.
So if this doesn't exist, I want to make it.
Here are some ideas:
- The system is 100% free and 100% open and belongs to the developers.
- Direct communication between client and freelancer would be encouraged. - Direct payment between client and freelancer would be encouraged. - Escrow solutions could be provided if needed. - Peer review processes could be deeply integrated in the system: - Peers could test and rate each other's skill levels in a mutually beneficial way. - Peers could promote and improve each other's Profiles (and which would generate a highly polished resume if used for traditional job applications).
I have other ideas about how to create a system that promotes top pay, top talent, and top performance. But I would love to hear feedback from the community here. <comment><USER2> Each of those so far over time has devolved into a place where recruiters try to promote their projects in order to attract developers they in turn can sell as an anonymous commodity to their respective clients.

The solution to the problem you're describing isn't getting freelance developers on yet another job board but precisely the opposite: Instead of marketing them as an anonymous bundle of TLAs have them actively market themselves as valuable problem solvers with specific experience and niche specialisations.

A possible approach for achieving this could range from individual coaching to courses about sales and marketing as well as helping freelance developers with creating compelling websites and online presences for their businesses.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course it would be ideal if freelancers could just find contracts because they have a great portfolio, but that isn't reality.

It has to be a big site in order to compete with the SEO and marketing budgets of big agencies.

Individual freelancers don't stand a chance of being found.

So I want to create a place where we can be found and also promote each other.

More importantly, it needs to be a site where clients can post potential jobs maybe with a process of clarifying job description and help identifying a realistic budget.

<comment><USER2> > Of course it would be ideal if freelancers could just find contracts because > they have a great portfolio, but that isn't reality.

Then why not create that reality instead?

> Individual freelancers don't stand a chance of being found.

Steady and consistent efforts (blog posts, involvement in open source work and similar public projects, talks etc.) accompanied by networking and customer referrals go a long way. This isn't something that can be achieved quickly but over time and through consistent work you can build a decent public presence as a freelancer / consultant.

> So I want to create a place where we can be found and also promote each > other.

Sites like this are ten a penny. How would you compete with the SEO and marketing budgets of big agencies yourself?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Fiverr and CraigsList already does most that. Freelancer and Indeed fits the other parts of your niche. How are you going make this solvent? What is your pricing model? What you want to do has been done before. But it usually dies on vine because it can't get the traction in the industry or folds on the bandwidth cost.

Sit down and write a full business plan on how you get your business going and keep it going. And yes, even non-profits have businesses plans.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most of the sites charge a 10%-20% cut of the job, restrict direct communication, ban people regularly for stepping out of line, and are designed to make the owner a bunch of money (instead of the freelancer making good income and the client getting a good product).

I want to build a site by developers for developers. I would make money by doing contracts myself, as would all developers who worked on the site.

We would all benefit by cutting out the middle man and offering a premium service where we can't compete today.

The overhead of a site like this is minimal and bandwidth costs would be paid on a volunteer basis (sponsored by developers/freelancers like me).

<comment><USER3> Do have a business plan put together yet? What will be your costs? Servers platform, bandwidth, database, administrative (you need paid)? How are going to make money when everything is voluntary? Please talk with a mentor at the link below:

[https://www.score.org/find-mentor](https://www.score.org/find-mentor)

If you factor all that in you you have to charge 10%-20% to fund the base services?. If have an abusive client or contractor are you going let them go to harass? Yes, then you'll have low overhead but a bad reputations for not protecting your people. No, then you'll look restrictive and have a higher administrative cost.

Don;t forget admistrative costs. Your time costs money. It also keeps you away from working on contract.

Your point about 'designed to make the owner a bunch of money': you do realize that most of these site work on 1-10% profit margin with the owner putting in 60-100 hour a week for 5-10 years before they turn a profit if ever. Here's a good read on that:

[https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/financial-management/long- bu...](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/financial-management/long-business- profitable/)

I really think you need to set done with a pen and paper with electronic devices turned off and write down a list of similar services. Write down what you like and dislike about them. Then write out what why they would do something you dislike.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No there are not really great websites for this.

There are a lot of problems that go beyond development and even the social- aspect of the site.

I'd love to discuss more, as I have had similar ideas for creating a job board such as this. Send me an email: email@example.com</comment>


Terrorism trial to be heard entirely in secret for 1st time in modern UK history - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jun/04/uk-secret-terrorism-trial-legal-justice-human-rights

<comment><USER2> "if the trial were held in public the prosecution might not proceed with the case". Worrying. "But the evidence on which the crown relied to argue for the secret trial could not be presented in open court" "This relates to the pair's alleged possession of a document entitled "Bombmaking". What do you bet that the evidence is improperly obtained, like with the NSA.

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks like "national security" became a catch-all concept these days.

But not sure how the government gains from secrecy in this case since they seek to advertise a successful anti-terrorism program. That should be conveyed by public and publicized prosecutions.</comment>


Forrst: Stack Overflow Meets Tumblr - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/forrst_stack_overflow_meets_tumblr.php

<comment><USER2> I saw this at the New York Tech Meetup and thought it looked awesome. I think he said the waiting list is something on the order of 10,000 people (but he's letting in a bunch every day).

He couldn't have explained it better - it's a place where developers can feel comfortable posting code and tech advice among their techy friends. Great idea, and awesome design as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much. I'm thrilled it's been so well received thus far. (NYTM turned out pretty well given my anxious nature when speaking)

<comment><USER3> you did awesome there. and Forrst rocks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think I would have clicked this if I didn't recognize the name from the shirt Gary Vaynerchuk was wearing at RailsConf. See? T-Shirts are useful.

</comment><comment><USER5> The name makes me think of Forst beer: <http://www.forst.it/> which is brewed up in the middle of the Alpine, German-speaking part of Italy.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like the idea of this site Kyle and the design is awesome. If it works like it sounds, this will a great fit with developers. How long have you been working on this? I am applying now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I've been working on it since January. It's been really interesting building a product aimed at developers and designers; we can be a pretty vocal bunch. Luckily, so far, it's been awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've only been a member for a few weeks but I'm beginning to notice a positive influence on my work as a result of Forrst.

Most of my jobs lean towards the role of a developer and not a designer anymore, but since I joined Forrst I've gone into my few design tasks with more focus on quality and detail. I'm experiencing a new found motivation to put extra time and effort into details knowing I intend to post something for others to see (and critique or praise) now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Humbled to hear that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Forrst guys, you need to buy forsst.com asap, I've just misspelled it 3 times.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done and done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This sounds like a good idea. One question, though, I have this long list of "solutions" that is not strictly code or design, but still related (the "I just managed to jump through hoops to make this thing works, gotta write it down"-type), how does it fit within Forrst's content types, or it does not?

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I think even if you posted it as a code post and just included a couple snippets, with the tips as the description, that'd work just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great site and a great community that keeps adding fresh content (a la HN). There's a solid mix of designer & developer related news and I always seem to find myself learning something new when I visit the site. Keep up the good work guys!

<comment><USER11> Agreed. I've found myself checking forrst first thing every morning. It's inspired me to actually get on with a few personal projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sounds like the dribbble of programming. Not that it's a bad thing.

<comment><USER13> There's also plenty of design related posts or "snaps".

<comment><USER12> It seems more versatile, yes. I don't know if that dilutes or improves the service, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does any one have invites? email: username @gmail.com

<comment><USER15> I was literally two seconds away from clicking reply with the comment 'wow, you must have been the FIRST person to sign up to gmail to get that username', and then I felt a gear turn in my head.

<comment><USER14> Haha, maybe I should have used brackets? <my username> @gmail.com

I hope email@example.com didn't get an invite instead of me, I should check my account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd also love an invite. email is (my username) at gazit.me</comment>


ICIJ Panama Papers searchable database - <AUTHOR> https://offshoreleaks.icij.org <comment><USER2> A LOT more servers need to be provisioned is my guess</comment>


Particle Love - <AUTHOR> http://edankwan.com/experiments/particle-love/ <comment><USER2> Very beautiful. Is this WebGL?</comment>


Dive Into Python 3 (online book) - <AUTHOR> http://diveintopython3.org/

<comment><USER2> What's interesting is that according to the author Mark Pilgrim:

      Python 3 is a commercial disaster. In 2010Q3 I had
      negative sales of DiP3. More people returned it than
      bought it. I'm considering retro-fitting the book's
      content to Python 2.7 and re-releasing it as "Dive Into
      Python 2." Seriously.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/f545e/i_am_a_fourtime_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/f545e/i_am_a_fourtime_published_author_i_write_free/c1dcgsm)

<comment><USER3> DiP3 is not a very good book. (Neither was DiP.) I don't know how relevant that is to sales, though, but considering that some of the bigger Python groups actively recommend against it, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an impact on sales from that alone.

Edit: I don't recommend learning Python from a book. I recommend <http://docs.python.org/tutorial/> if you know a programming language already, or <http://learnpythonthehardway.org/> if you don't. (Yes, I know there are dead-trees of both of these.)

<comment><USER4> What Python book do you recommend for someone who wants to start learning the language? Thanks.

<comment><USER5> Learn Python The Hard Way.

<comment><USER6> Does it cover Python 3? I cannot tell from reading <http://learnpythonthehardway.org/> \- maybe I missed something.

<comment><USER7> Heh, not exactly:

 _"A programmer may try to get you to install Python 3 and learn that. You should tell them, "When all of the python code on your computer is Python 3, then I'll try to learn it." That should keep them busy for about 10 years."_

<http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/ex0.html> (under Warnings for Beginners)

<comment><USER6> Is that actually good advice?

<comment><USER8> Yes, that is a good advice.

Someone wanting to learn Python (or any other language) will be better served if they are helped to focus at most important and least painful things first: in this case, python 2 is everywhere with huge number of libraries. Whatever you need is 'pip install' away.

Learning Python 2 is not a waste of time: whatever you learn and is changed in Python 3, will be easily relearned once it becomes needed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just ordered DIP3 yesterday, after having finished DIP. Since the original DIP was based on v2.33 I am currently missing a lot of new features: decorators, descriptors, meta classes, dictionary and set comprehensions et al. DIP was awesome! and I think I have learned a lot from Mark's pragmatic conversational style.

Regarding DIP3. As someone pointed out that the new book has not gained much traction since its release in late 2009. But I have a feeling this might have changed now with v2.7 release with which most of the v3 features have been back ported to 2.x already and I am wondering if it's actually safe to read this book while using v2.7.2?

        Many of its major features have also been backported to the backwards-compatible
        Python 2.6 and 2.7. [1]

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Python>

</comment><comment><USER10> People may complain all they want about the overall book or even Python 3 in general, but the chapter about strings (<http://diveintopython3.org/strings.html>) is amazingly good and will help you understand a lot about encodings, internal string representation and how to read/write strings to the outside world.

Of course a lot of the chapter is python 3 specific, but IMHO p3's handling of strings and encodings is very well done.

Provided that the strings you are going to deal with can be represented in Unicode, which still isn't always the case: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_unification#Rationale_and_c...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_unification#Rationale_and_controversy)

</comment><comment><USER11> For all the criticisms that DiP gets, it is still the best formatted online book I've come across. The line number/hover over highlight thing is awesome. The code examples are interesting. The explanations are in-depth without spending 10 pages holding your hand.

I learned quite a few cool Python tricks from DiP and it was the first book that got me _excited_ about programming. I remember reading the chapter on list comprehensions and thinking they were the coolest thing ever (and I still love 'em!). Whether or not all the code is 'pythonic' or uses deprecated methods, it was still worth reading in my mind.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm curious why people consider DiP to be a bad book? I personally can't defend it since I haven't read it

<comment><USER13> _"This book is so full of bad initial examples and difficult to follow instructions that it actually hurts Python to have it exist. When beginners stumble onto it they end up getting discouraged and go on to another language. I personally have had too many friends who are eager to learn programming find this festering dung pile before I could warn them and get turned off from programming."_ \- Zed Shaw

<comment><USER9> I do not agree. In fact, the insanely cool examples are what makes this book worth reading. This book is not for beginners but for programmers who have experience in some other language and are curious to know why python might be a better choice for them as their next high level language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> DiP3 is a good book, if you are already familiar with Python. It's not for newbies. In fact, when I didn't know Python I disliked DiP3 to the point of making rude and ignorant comments about it on public forums. Now that I have a humble portion of Python, I like the book and refer to it often. Mark Pilgrim has an engaging style, too. I always appreciate a little style.

If you are looking for an intro book, go with Zed Shaw's "Learn Python the Hard Way." There's another guy with lots of style.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Doug Hellman's great resources. His book "The Python Standard Library by Example" is basically a print version of his PyMOTW project (<http://www.doughellmann.com/PyMOTW/>). While not an end to end "learn Python" the examples, at least in my case, have led me to ask quite a few questions that open other doors into Python that I haven't been exposed to.

I like what Zed has put out, but the books Lutz has out are great as well. Hetland's book is OK and Paul Barry's "Head First Python" is a great read if you're a true beginner to get your feet wet with a fun book. It's an easy read, but I would think that the transition to "Learning Python" would feel like a slight step backwards - however "Programming Python" by Lutz may be a better logical step (instead of going back through a lot of the basics).

<comment><USER9> I agree! After finishing DIP, I am looking for a book to introduce me what all is available in the python standard library.

I could use the official python library [1] but I usually prefer reading away from the computer and then getting back to get some actual work done; so I am looking for a dead-tree book.

Currently I am thinking b/w PER [2] or PSL by Example [3]. I see that PER gets referred to everywhere but that could also be due to the fact that it came out in 2009 and PSL by Example just came out last month.

On a quick look, it seems PSL by Example gives more of a tutorial feel (which I think is great!) whereby PER is essentially a reference. What would you recommend?

[1] <http://docs.python.org/library/>

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/Python-Essential-Reference-David- Beazl...](http://www.amazon.com/Python-Essential-Reference-David- Beazley/dp/0672329786)

[3] [http://www.amazon.com/Python-Standard-Library-Example- Develo...](http://www.amazon.com/Python-Standard-Library-Example- Developers/dp/0321767349)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have DiP3, and have used it for a couple of tricks, but I found learning Python through Project Euler + documentation to be much more useful.

Also, having learned Python 3 first, I can't stand porting things to Python 2. It's like taking a final draft of an idea and trying to turn it into a rough draft.

</comment><comment><USER17> The Stanford Intro to CS course was the best reference for learning Python that I used. The companion manual was How to think like a Computer Scientist and I thought it was just great. I can't speak to the DIP books, but I would wholeheartedly recommend the references above to anyone I knew.

<comment><USER18> *MIT Intro to CS and Programming

<comment><USER17> Yes - thank you :)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A very easy way to send webpages to friends. - <AUTHOR>

A few months ago, I created YourPane. I use it daily since, and I find it indispensable, since it allows you to send a webpage to friends with three clicks. It hasn't seen much usage, though, so I wanted to present it to you in hopes of getting some feedback about what to improve/change.
The address is www.yourpane.com (clickable in comments). Basically, you install the bookmarklet, add one or two contacts and then just click the bookmarklet when you want to send them a page. YourPane will email them the url and they can either visit it from the email or see it embedded in their pane.
Any feedback appreciated! <comment><USER2> I can see the utility of it. What is not addressed in the site is what you get out of it, privacy policy/data retention policies, and if it's free forever or if there are ads inserted into your email etc.... Maybe add an FAQ to your site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, true... It's just a side project, data is removed when both people delete it, and the plan is to have it be free forever, yes. There are no ads inserted anywhere.

I'll add them to the front page, thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I used it briefly but then stopped when I discovered the gmail bookmarklet. It's the same thing with my address book built in and doesn't go through a third party.

</comment><comment><USER4> StumbleUpon toolbar has this feature already. Is there any other benefit using your toolbar?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I didn't know SU had this feature. We don't use a toolbar, so we don't know what sites you visit.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://www.yourpane.com></comment>


Report: 59% of employed data scientists learned skills on their own or in a MOOC - <AUTHOR> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/report-59-of-employed-data-scientists-learned-skills-on-their-own-or-via-a-mooc/ <comment><USER2> It's actually very common to be in a career not related to your college degree. There is individual level data in the Census Bureau's ACS PUMS data set for those interested in this kind of thing.

Self-promotion alert: I worked on a website that has some statistics about this. I found out that only 8% of chemical engineering grads (my undergrad degree) actually work in the field. ([https://careertrend.com/major-chemical- engineering.html](https://careertrend.com/major-chemical-engineering.html))

</comment><comment><USER3> With relatively little academic rigor required for such a role, can we trust the results that data scientists are putting out, on average?

<comment><AUTHOR> not unless they have a bachelor's or master's STEM degree + years of experience or Phd in a STEM field, I'd imagine.</comment></comment>


How Pwn2Own Was Almost Won Via XSS - <AUTHOR> http://jon.oberheide.org/blog/2011/03/07/how-i-almost-won-pwn2own-via-xss/ <comment><USER2> Dear Google,

While I am impressed with the ease and speed the web market can install an application on my phone (it seems to trigger basically instantaneously), I was very dismayed at the security implications of this functionality. This example is only one of a myriad of reasons I'd rather not have it enabled.

Please allow me to disable this functionality on the device itself (and not just as an option accessible to my account on the web).

</comment><comment><USER3> I met Jon a few weeks ago and we talked about the possibility of this exploit. At the time I didn't believe that the folks at Google would miss something like this.

It just goes to show you can't be too careful when interacting with today's cloud services.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure this implicates cloud in particular.

I see it as a company that doesn't understand the difference between securing an operating system and securing a website. Which is especially bad considering the train wreck that is web security. Jon was apologetic that his bug was so 'lame' since, unlike operating systems, the web was generally not designed to be secure.

"Web security" in general depends on the secure behavior of the web browser, which in turn depends on the security of the operating system, hardware, and so on. If you reverse the arrows in the architecture, as Android appears to have done with Marketplace, then the whole thing becomes much less stable.

<comment><USER3> Yes of course not cloud in particular, but web services in general. It just gave me pause because if Google messed this up, how many other services with less man power that we trust with our data have similar vulnerabilities?

<comment><USER4> Approximately all of them.

IMHO, browsers' implementation of the web "security model" (I use the term loosely) is not the thing to base the security of your entire architecture on.

But hey, who am I to argue with Google?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Am I reading this right that there is absolutely no HTML escaping for app descriptions on the Android Market? Seriously Google, like none?

<comment><USER6> Remember when YouTube had a similar issue with <script> tags executing from within comments?

<comment><USER7> It wasn't quite that simple ;-)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/cluc5/html_inje...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/cluc5/html_injection_vulnerability_in_youtube_comments/)

The payload in the case of YouTube was only slightly more complex (two <script> tags instead of one), but it sounds like the underlying cause was very different.

\---

Many websites and web applications are vulnerable to XSS in one form or another. The difference here, as people have pointed out, is the trust placed in the site by Android. It's not very often that an XSS vulnerability can execute arbitrary code on a remote system. :-P

<comment><USER8> I think the underlying cause was the same - unescaped output that was supplied by the (malicious) user.

<comment><USER7> Mmm, from here it looks like YouTube had a sanitizer in place that failed: it's not clear that the Android Market was sanitizing the output here. That's what I meant by the underlying cause being different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Unfortunately, Google had significantly tightened things up and we've been > unable to expose any additional XSS

I'm impressed that not only did Google fixing the vulnerability but they also appears to have done a full security audit. To many companies would just fix the known hole and leave it at that.

</comment><comment><USER10> This made my day. You'll often hear people exclaim that XSS vulnerabilities don't matter because they're all client-side, but they are a means to an end. They are but the tip of the iceberg; without the tip, the rest of the iceberg is invisible.</comment>


PayPal leaves Turkey as can't obtain permissions from regulatory bodies - <AUTHOR> https://www.paypal.com/tr/webapps/mpp/home <comment><AUTHOR> Translation:

Important information for our customers in Turkey

We regret to inform you that PapPal is ceasing its operations in Turkey.

Starting on 6th of June 2016, our customers in Turkey will no longer be able to send and receive money from their accounts. Our customers can access their accounts and transfer any balances into a Turkish Bank Account.

We want to stress that as PayPal our customers are our number one priority. However our application for license was denied by the local regulatory body and we were ordered to stop operations.

We advise our customers to follow for more information about the impact on them.

We thank our customers for choosing us and we will continue to work to obtain the necessary permission so that we can provide service in the future.</comment>


Jamie Oliver Proves McDonald's Burgers "Unfit for human consumption" - <AUTHOR> http://politicalblindspot.com/hamburger-chef-jamie-oliver-proves-mcdonalds-burgers-unfit-for-human-consumption/

<comment><USER2> Misleading title. What Jamie Oliver has done is note that McDonald burgers in the US are not fit for human consumption until they've been processed.

But he missed a much bigger scoop! The same is true of McDonald's burgers in every country! In fact, burgers from every chain aren't fit for human consumption without processing (at a minimum, cooking). Hell, without at least _some_ processing, the burger would still be walking around going "moo" and emitting greenhouse gasses.

So the issue isn't "you can't eat it until it's been processed"; that's a given. The question is "what processing is okay", and in particular, "is using ammonium hydroxide safe". And according to the FDA, the UN, the WHO, and most EU countries, it is: [http://www.foodinsight.org/Resources/Detail.aspx?topic=Quest...](http://www.foodinsight.org/Resources/Detail.aspx?topic=Questions_and_Answers_about_Ammonium_Hydroxide_Use_in_food_production)

And that seems to pretty much cover it. "The food industry uses ammonium hydroxide as an anti-microbial agent in meats, which has allowed McDonald's to use otherwise "inedible meat."" True, but they also use _cooking_ , which also allows the consumption of otherwise "inedible meat". Is cooking safe? Science says yes. Is ammonium hydroxide safe? Science, again, says yes.

Edit: Also, if we're going to go off of "it sounds scary, it must be bad", all burgers contains sodium chloride, and chlorine is a very toxic, dangerous gas! It will kill you if you breathe it! That's the real scandal! The truth is out there! Fight Big Chlorine!

<comment><USER3> > In fact, burgers from every chain aren't fit for human consumption without > processing (at a minimum, cooking)

Freshly butchered beef is safe to eat raw so long as the butcher used basic hygiene. People have been eating raw meat for ages. Look at any of the cuisines from Europe through the Levant. They all have traditional raw meat dishes with histories as old as agriculture. In general it's quite tasty, much the same was sushi is. Raw lamb however, I would say is a taste I've not acquired.

Anyhow, even if McD's patties are perfectly safe, there is still a point to be made about what we're trading away with factory processing vs more traditional labor intensive methods.

<comment><USER4> Nobody wants a quick €26.95,- burger for lunch.. McD burgers aren't high end because consumers don't expect high end going to a fast food joint.

<comment><USER3> So this is something else I think has gone very wrong in the US. Good food doesn't have to be an expensive luxury. Tartar doesn't have to be high end. In fact, it's best as a quick cold lunch on hot summer days. It's just beef and onion with minimal prep. It should be cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _On the official website of McDonald's, the company claims that their meat > is cheap because, while serving many people every day, they are able to buy > from their suppliers at a lower price, and offer the best quality products. > But if "pink slime" was really the "best quality" that McDonalds can muster > in the US, then why were they able do better in Latin America and Europe? > More to the point, why can they apparently do better now in the United > States?_

Is the author genuinely confused, or even under the impression that _anyone_ might be confused, by that statement from McDonalds, into thinking that the meat they use is the absolutely very best meat possibly available? That when you're paying $1 for a burger, you probably aren't getting quite the same quality as when you buy a nice fillet in a good restaurant, and that "best quality" was not only standard marketing hyperbole, but also was a reference within the context of their goal of being better than their rivals?

<comment><USER6> McD's use a low quality product in one country. This isn't just "not best quality", it is very low quality meat.

UK advertising laws have the concept of "Legal, Decent, Honest, and Truthful", I don't know what it's like in the US. But calling the worst quality level of meat available from a carcass "best quality" seems deceitful.

These ingredients have terms in the UK, but there are loopholes and these are exploited sometimes. Mechanically recovered meat used in Sausages ([http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science- environment-21530861](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21530861)) (Something called a "sausage" in England needs to have certain quantity of meat, where both the quantity of meat and the meaning of meat are defined in law)

([https://www.gov.uk/food-standards-labelling-durability- and-c...](https://www.gov.uk/food-standards-labelling-durability-and- composition#meat-products))

<comment><USER5> How do you define "quality" when talking about McDonalds food? If their burgers taste better than their rivals (subjective, of course) then aren't they the best?

<comment><USER6> Quality for a meat product would cover things like breed of cow used; cut of meat used; and the way that meat is processed.

Using meat from Aberdeen Angus beef cows, and using nice cuts of steak, and mincing it, would result in a high quality product.

Using meat from old dairy cows, mechanically recovered from the carcass after everything else has been used, results in a lower quality product.

I think taste is not relevant to quality. They're not saying "tastier than the rival products".

<comment><USER7> > I think taste is not relevant to quality.

That's an extraordinarily strange definition of quality. By your definition quality is completely useless and means nothing except "more expensive".

So you basically think people should spend more money for the sake of spending more money? (Why not just send it to me instead?)

But of course in the real world quality does have an effect on taste (or nutrition).

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure how you managed to misread my comment so badly.

Something can be very tasty and very poor quality. Add enough salt, fat, sugar, and spices and the worst quality 'pink slime' is tasty.

But a filet mignon is expensive, tender, usually high quality cut of meat that isn't particularly tasty. It doesn't have much fat and isn't weight bearing which affects the taste.

<comment><USER7> > But a filet mignon is expensive, tender, usually high quality cut of meat > that isn't particularly tasty. It doesn't have much fat and isn't weight > bearing which affects the taste.

Then why buy it? What do you gain by spending extra on it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Most disturbing of all is the horrifying fact that because ammonium > hydroxide is considered part of the "component in a production procedure" by > the USDA, consumers may not know when the chemical is in their food.

I can understand McDonalds goes for the maximum profit. You get what you pay for. But I (naively) thought every company would be required by law to _at the very least_ tell their clients when there's chemicals in the bloody food. That's the part of this I can't understand.

<comment><USER7> > when there's chemicals in the bloody food

There's always chemicals in the food. That's what food is made of.

So not "when there's chemicals" (because the answer is always), but rather _which_ chemicals, for example flour, salt, sugar, water, etc.

But practically speaking they don't - for example a mold release (oil) doesn't have to be disclosed. I don't like that law, but it is the law.

PS. If you are one of those who use "chemicals" as a shorthand for "dangerous chemicals" then ammonium hydroxide would not count because it's not a dangerous chemical.

<comment><USER9> > _There 's always chemicals in the food. That's what food is made of._

Not very useful pedantic correction. He doesn't mean flour, salt, sugar etc.

He means artificial sweeteners, preservation chemicals, additives, etc.

Stuff people have not traditionally eaten for evolution-spanning years to be adapted to them, and are only used to maximize profit.

<comment><USER7> > He means artificial sweeteners, preservation chemicals, additives, etc.

Then say so (although additive is a meaningless word - don't say that).

> Stuff people have not traditionally eaten for evolution-spanning years to be > adapted to them, and are only used to maximize profit.

That's your definition. Other people don't define it that that way. I've heard definitions ranging from "dangerous" to "not natural", to "using the chemical name of something".

And your definition excludes sugar (sucrose) and corn (since they are both new), and includes sugar of lead (which has been eaten throughout history despite being toxic), so it's not a helpful definition.

What about Sodium acetate? How would you rank that? Chemical, or non chemical?

Plus if you are concerned about "maximizing profit" then don't eat wheat - modern dwarf wheat was invented to maximize profit. Then again everything people sell is done to maximize profit......

Your definition is useless and you know it. If you are concerned with a particular type of ingredient say so directly. I have great concern over preservatives and artificial food colors - but I don't call them "chemicals" since that means everything and anything.

<comment><USER9> > _And your definition excludes sugar (sucrose) and corn (since they are both > new), and includes sugar of lead (which has been eaten throughout history > despite being toxic), so it 's not a helpful definition._

I'm pragmatic. I don't care about having a perfect definition. I'm not writing a dictionary entry -- and some things are inherently fussy anyway.

People know what I'm talking about: any kind of stuff added to food that doesn't belong to it in the first place (the way flour and salt belong in bread and beef belongs in meatballs).

Stuff that serves no nutritional value, and is only used to: give them more enticing color, preserve them for longer periods, have them be able to survive frozen, enable lower quality or throw-away animal parts reused, make them more addictive to consumers, make them cheaper, etc.

 _> Then again everything people sell is done to maximize profit......_

In some kind of hell, maybe. In the real world there do exist people that take pride in their work, and who wouldn't fuck with the food they serve to "maximize profit", even if it means they wont get as much money as they could.

You know, the kind of people that refuse to let their famous restaurant turn into a nation-wide chain, despite the offers, cooks that insist on using the most fresh ingredients, etc.

<comment><USER2> > Stuff that serves no nutritional value, and is only used to: give them more > enticing color, preserve them for longer periods, have them be able to > survive frozen, enable lower quality or throw-away animal parts reused, make > them more addictive to consumers, make them cheaper, etc.

So...no salt, pretty much no sugar, no smoked meats or cheeses, no cured bacon or smallgoods, no pickles, no jams, jellies, or preserves, no applesauce? After all, those techniques are purely used to "preserve [the food] for longer periods prior to the advent of cheap, universal refrigeration. (And historically, there _were_ no "throw-away" animal parts; we ate everything including the brain, eyes, and lungs. So I'm not really sure what point that's meant to make.)

Your "pragmatic definition" of food additives seems to be "stuff that seems weird to coldtea". That may be pragmatic, but it's not useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of the Ammonia the tobacco industry started adding to cigarettes. Not to kill germs but to increase the amount of nicotine contained in the vapor smokers inhale. That cost them quite a lot of money (after 30 years). I'd say obesity is becoming just as dangerous as smoking... [http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/04/minnesota.tobacco/](http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/04/minnesota.tobacco/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Misleading title. The pre-treatment meat was unfit for human consumption.

<comment><USER9> And washing it with dangerous chemicals make it "fit"?

<comment><USER10> Ammonium hydroxide is not a dangerous chemical. It is generally regarded as safe by the FDA (that's the FDA's lowest level of regulation, along with chemicals like sodium chloride and dihydrogen oxide).

<comment><USER9> How much of what FDA approves is due to lobbying and lowering of standards?

Of the kind that no FDA guy would like to feed his children with those if he had an alternative?

<comment><USER10> Don't know. You could ask this question about any chemical. That doesn't make it actually dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For any ChemE out there, is ammonium hydroxide a stable chemical compound? Or does it revert quickly to an inert form in the presence of air, water, and light?

The question arises from analogy with chlorine. To remove chlorine from tap water, all that is needed is to let a glass sit on the counter for a while.

</comment><comment><USER12> Strange source, somehow? Anyway there is no time mention but it looks like McDonald's solved the issue at least two years ago?

</comment><comment><USER13> My knowledge of modern chemistry (and chemical manufacture) is a little sketchy but, at a crude level, isn't this just taking unfit meat, soaking it in piss and then passing it off as safe?

<comment><USER14> No.

<comment><USER13> Why?

Until recently Ammonia was extracted from Urine and rotten vegetables was it not?

<comment><USER14> Urine contains a lot of things, urea being one. Urea can be broken down into ammonia, but ammonia isn't ammonium hydroxide any more than sodium chloride is chlorine. They're not washing the meat with piss by any measure.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Making my app mobile? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
So I've been working on a fitness app for a couple of months now - its still in its early stages, but its closing in on 200 members pretty quick. That said, as I continue to work on and improve the app - the greater need I feel for a simple mobile version (i.e. logging in and data entry).
My question is this: should I make a quick and dirty version for mobile browsers so it can work on all devices? Or should I focus on releasing an iphone app for now (which would take me longer than the mobile browser version) and come back to android/blackberry apps later (probably 6-8 months down the road)?
This isn't going to be a huge value prop for the product, just kind of a needed feature right now, so I don't want to spend needless amounts of time on it while the product still needs more iterations, and the team is comprised of just me.
About the app - its for weight lifters, not the average joe looking to get skinny. (feel free to give it a look at liftrr.com) <comment><USER2> As someone with a blackberry that's been looking for something like this for a while, I vote mobile site since blackberry is usually the last one to get an app :)

But seriously, if you're not looking to spend a lot of time on it I'd go with the mobile site option. It works for everyone right away, is going to be the easiest to implement (basics only, of course) short term, and you can gauge what the demand is like for mobile use.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment biggitybones! I agree!

I will definitely post it here when the mobile version is up!</comment></comment>