Ask HN: Why isn't homebrew officially supported by Apple? - <AUTHOR> Why isn't homebrew officially supported by Apple? OR why doesn't apple provide a command line based package manager? <comment><USER2> OS X/Darwin follows the design philosophy of it's cousin FreeBSD. The base system is only upgraded when a new OS version is released. Upgrades may or may not be the latest version of a software package. If the tool does it job and does it well then it may not be upgraded. The idea is " the lastest version may not equate to a better version" or "if it ain't broke, then don't fix it". So, the base system on your version of OS X will only be patched when there is a security concern or severe bug.

</comment><comment><USER3> Homebrew doesn't have any existing support to accept license to use for every application. Users of brew just download and install.

If Apple had to implement a package manager, I think they would ask application developers to accept Apple's own license and policies for distribution etc. which may not be acceptable with them.

Also, wouldn't it make Appstore redundant ?

</comment><comment><USER4> Because they will have to maintain it. If it already exists why bother?</comment>


A Peek into F# 4.1 - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/07/25/a-peek-into-f-4-1/ <comment><USER2> I wish I could convince more people of the importance of F#. It sits in such a unique place.

Its Ocaml heritage gives it tons of advantages over other functional languages rolled from scratch when it's time to write server or application code, it has a class library equivalent to the Java stdlib behind it, and its focus on data processing has made it a good choice for people doing data science.

<comment><USER3> If it only had an actual module system - that is, an ML-style one...

<comment><USER2> That is by far it's worst feature. I totally agree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not a fan of the new syntax for struct tuples, struct records, and struct unions. I feel like it could have been avoided with a lesser evil if they had followed the same approach that Scala is using for anonymous functions in the upgrade to 2.12.

Specifically, _don 't introduce new syntax_, but force your users to deal with the fact that your bytecode is now incompatible with previous versions and now requires a new minimum version for the VM. They can recompile...it's not really that big of a deal. It is far more of a big deal to rewrite all of your code than it is to upgrade your VM and recompile.

<comment><USER5> I definitely agree with you for tuples especially smaller tuples. As tuples get larger however performance can swing the other way. As someone who codes some F# for my day job it seems that while tuples should be easier in a functional language like F# for backwards compatibility struct tuples will be more awkward to use than in C# 7. I think they should of just bit the bullet for tuples up to a certain size.

For records and unions however I think the attribute is fine. Most of the time for types of more than 3 fields say structs can be worse in performance than classes anyway. Records and unions tend to be assigned more and live longer than tuples most of the time. For unions for obvious reasons structs are not recursive in nature which with unions is required somewhat (see [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms229017%28v=vs.110...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/ms229017%28v=vs.110%29.aspx)). Definitely wouldn't want structs to be the default here.

<comment><USER6> This tuple stuff is a mess. From the RFC: >This is based partly on the assumption that the proposed C# 7.0 tuples will use struct representations for at least some small tuple types.

This is what F# had to begin with! They were sort of pushed into using a heap- allocated type via System.Tuple, in the name of compatibility with the rest of .NET. Frustrating!

It's also sad to see no mention of really improved tooling, to put F# on the level of C#. MSCorp paid some lip service, well overdue since the F# guys are the ones that gave them generics which was the biggest thing technical advancement .NET had over Java.

<comment><USER7> > It's also sad to see no mention of really improved tooling, to put F# on the > level of C#.

Could you clarify what you mean here? Perhaps I could have written more about it in the blog post, but sitting the language service atop the Roslyn Workspace layer is critical work that:

1\. Gives F# a "modern" editor experience out of the box.

2\. Gives F# an entry point into the large amount of Roslyn-based IDE features. Workspaces are how they "talk" to the language, so that means that they can now "talk" to F# as well. This is not possible with tooling today.

This also has another big impact: F# will be able to use the CPS-based project system that is being built for C# and VB right now: [https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn-project- system](https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn-project-system)

<comment><USER6> Hmm, how much does this provide? Will this make, say, F# interactive competitive with C# interactive? (Which blew past it, despite F#'s near-decade lead.)

I'm tentatively hopeful I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> F# is definitely a great language. It would be amazing if the interop with Entity Framework was improved, too, with regards to code-first development. Not having a nice and easy way to define virtual properties on records and classes is something I miss a lot:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26775760/how-to- create-a-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26775760/how-to-create-a- virtual-record-field-for-entity-framework-lazy-loading)

Not sure how difficult it would be to implement a [CliVirtual] attribute ([https://fslang.uservoice.com/forums/245727-f-language/sugges...](https://fslang.uservoice.com/forums/245727-f-language/suggestions/6672675-an- clivirtual-attribute)), but that would definitely help and make the EF-models more readable.

But in general, F# is great. I hope more people will use it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I am very glad that Microsoft continues to actively support F# and I hope to see it making its way into more projects in the future.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's pretty cool being able to get this setup on my Mac and easily play around from the command line. It makes it much more accessible as a language than when it was more closely tied to the Windows/Visual Studio ecosystem.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've probably spent more time messing with F# on my Mint laptop than I have on my Windows desktop...

Part of that is that F# doesn't really have the level of tooling that I've come to expect from C# in VS, with ReSharper.

I would like a static analysis tool for F# that tells you when you are doing something that is legal, but dumb, as ReSharper does.

<comment><USER11> Consider using [https://github.com/fsprojects/FSharpLint](https://github.com/fsprojects/FSharpLint)

I'm not sure if it is integrated to ionide yet.

<comment><USER12> it is for atom, not yet for vscode</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: MasterWP – become a WordPress power user, fast - <AUTHOR> https://masterwp.co <comment><USER2> Looks promising, signed up. Like how it offers a bridge between basics and advanced. Lots of courses offer an introduction but you're left to work out the rest yourself.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice, looks like a useful course. I've used WordPress a bit but interested to get a head-start on doing more with it, very useful for clients.</comment>


A handy ruby trick: Class.new - <AUTHOR> http://codeulate.com/2011/02/a-handy-ruby-trick-class-new/

<comment><AUTHOR> I discovered a handy way of making throwaway classes this afternoon using Class.new. I thought it might be new to others too.</comment>


Ask HN: Are you tired of Google Reader? - <AUTHOR>

Currently Google Reader is the main app that most use to read RSS, but it doesn't really handle reading other sources such as articles that you come across online. For those, there's Instapaper and Read it Later to name a few.
I was wondering is there room for innovation in reading apps. I think it's safe to say that people read a lot more (specially online) these days than ever before. In addition, I don't think the amount of reading is going to decrease in coming years.
Do you think there's a market for a better reader app or Google has already won the war? In addition, will you pay for a better reader app? If so, how much and what features you would like to see?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Google's Google Groups is also the most popular interface to USENet, do people ever bother to install a superior reader? People still use Hotmail and Yahoo mail even though POP3 and IMAP interfaces are freely available, and desktop clients offer better interfaces. How many people are making a living from chat clients? Torrent clients?

You will find that people hardly seek out superior ways to do the usual everyday things, unless prompted by a friend or mass public hysteria about a new possibility. News reading is not the sort of activity that encourages viral behavior; it's a solitary activity and the reading tool in-use can not compete with the ever changing content for attention (except in format and protocol changes, when the tool that supports the widest range of formats becomes popular.)

Your best hope, if you build it, is to be ready to launch something "blackhat" and subversive, if and when a major online paper goes paywall. But once you do that, you're entering unmonetizable territory.

<comment><AUTHOR> Then how do you explain Evernote with this theory? They seem to be doing just fine.

I am not talking about creating a desktop app or a new protocol. I'm suggesting a better reader web app with more functionality than just displaying RSS feeds. Something that makes keeping up with the information overload more manageable, be it RSS feeds, email, articles, etc.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd like to have more filtering in Reader. E.g. hide articles based on a regex. Have a collaborative filtering layer so once I've voted a few dozen articles from a feed it figures out what to hide.</comment>


Optimizing your very large site for search - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/webmaster/archive/2009/01/19/optimizing-your-very-large-site-for-search-part-1.aspx <comment><USER2> The "remove port numbers" suggestion is misleading. It should be "don't run your web server on a port other than the default HTTP port", especially with the suggestion to use redirects to canonicalize URLs. Most sites that run their web server on a different port have a good reason for doing so (although I think a subdomain would make more sense all around).

</comment><comment><USER3> What did he say?

<comment><USER4> Hmmm. He recommended using canonical URLs without query strings, stemming your URLs to avoid subdomains, using all lower-case in URLs, all of which seems mildly reasonable and is consistent with our plans.

One site I work with gets 67,000 visits from Google search for every 1,000 visits from Live/MSN search, so perhaps I should pay more attention to what he's saying. On the other hand, the Live/MSN search traffic is so small perhaps it's not worth trying to optimize for.

<comment><USER2> If Google is able to find those pages and drive traffic to them and Live/MSN isn't, it's _not_necessarily_ the site that needs to be optimized, it may be that Live/MSN needs to stop ignoring content or stop considering things like uppercase or query strings to be indicators of second- (or third-) class content. Agreed though, it could just be that Live/MSN just doesn't have the users/traffic, in which case, why are they telling _us_ how to optimize for them?</comment></comment></comment>


Rochester Made - <AUTHOR> http://rochestermade.com/

<comment><USER2> Great job...more to come from the #roc</comment>


"...one of the most useful applications you've ever installed on your iPhone." - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/finally_find_in_page_comes_to_mobile_safari.php

<comment><AUTHOR> Context: "How to become rich even if nobody is following you on twitter" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1107828>) - my "1$ a day" app now "...one of the most useful applications you've ever installed on your iPhone."

</comment><comment><USER2> or buy an Android.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. Or Windows Mobile (shudder). They all got in-page search. How that got left out of the Safari design is beyond me.

The other thing that got left out is the ability to scroll to the bottom of the page - there is scroll to top, but no scroll to bottom (a real problem on long pages - it may be practically impossible to flick your way to the bottom of a long page). So, I made another app - "End Of Page" - this one's totally free and hits the App Store on Friday (Apple willing, of course).</comment></comment>