Useful Android resources | Hacker News Reader

Useful Android resources

sapandiwakar.in

38 pointsgoyalpulkit11 comments

Maybe it's because I'm new, but how do you vote down a story in HN, will I get that privilege with karma increase?

You can flag it but I don't think that should be used like a down vote would. It's more of a way to get rid of articles that don't belong on HackerNews. I don't see any reason to 'downvote' or flag this article though. I'm just getting started with Android dev and it seemed useful.

There has been one, and one time only, that I have flagged a story. It was unsubstantiated rumor-mongering with serious allegations, written by someone who has been known to lie in the past (about things as serious as having cancer), and it was an indirect link to try and get around the previous times the story had been posted and removed because of flagging.

Maybe it's because I'm curious and open-minded, but could you describe why this story should be down-voted?

Little substance is found in Top N lists. I would much rather have the author cover one library and explain how it has benefited his development process. What roadblocks did using xyz library overcome? What issues were found along the way? It is like providing a list of simplex algorithms. This is a simplex algorithm using divide and conquer, brute force, blah.

200 words on one library provides more insight than 'XYZ Library: A library that does XYZ for people that do XYZ.'

Lists rarely spark insight, but knowing that Bob overcame a barrier with Canvas by utilizing XYZ library, that's gold. Hell, I might even use XYZ to try to attack a similar problem.

Fair enough. But I don't think that's reason enough to flag the story; I think that's reason to submit links to more insightful posts such as you describe, and let them push less insightful ones off the front page.

PS. I'm glad to hear people appreciate posts with more detail and substance, as that's generally what I can write and like to read, but it often seems that the most commented on links are lists, and most of the comments are subjective arguments about why X should or should not be on the list.

I agree with your comments that detailed posts covering just one library and discussing about the specifics of why/why not the library is a good choice are much more interesting. But I think that lists of these kinds are useful as well, specially for someone who is just beginning their development as this lists some of the libraries that I think are useful for all kinds of applications. I have seen people writing code to perform things that are already accomplished by these libraries and maybe if they knew something like this exists, they wouldn't have to waste few good days on reprogramming the wheel. P.S. I am the author of the post so I might be a bit biased on this.

It is really nothing against you. The distaste is from previous black hats using these lists for SEO purposes/link bait. Easy to get backlinks, easy to put a link at the bottom with a DOFOLLOW that is completely off topic (hello infographics), etc. I had already upvoted, because I do not completely discredit the value of lists. I was just replying to the commenter above.

I recommend you read the unofficial FAQ [1] and the official guidelines [2]. In short, you can't downvote a story but you can "flag" it, which penalizes by pushing it down the page. You can downvote comments if you have atleast 500 karma.

[1]: http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ

[2]: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

thank you, that's what I was looking for

Ah, thank you!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com