cessor

I tend to solve a problem that I fully understand in order to get a feeling for the language and what it can do. For example try programming a version of tetris or blockout. You know what the result should look like and will be able to evaluate how the language behaves, what apis there are and how well it is documented.

You might want to experiment with different types of projects, for example a little webserver, webscraper, games or general tooling for whatever problems you encountered before (I tend to write desktop cleaning programs a lot).

Maybe you can find inspiration in this book:

https://pragprog.com/book/btlang/seven-languages-in-seven-we...

I feel really bad about the fact that this is a thing. Apparently there are a lot of "entrepreneurs" that will always choose to annoy and damage others for a little currency. Why do these things have to be made illegal? They were immoral to begin with, that alone should stop people from doing it. Shame on you, people who sneak insurance into shopping carts and Ask-Toolbars into Java installers.

No. I want the website to leave me alone. If it becomes hard to keep track of conversations, then maybe you should have less conversations and only discuss matters that are really important to you.

I feel overwhelmed. It is really beautiful but the math is inaccessible to me.

I like it, it looks really great!

However, the html offers a couple of great chances to use angular directives or some databinding. Especially the custom directives offer a great way to show the semantics or the intent of what the page is all about, so that in the end the dashboard could read somthing like:

   <overview>
     <users></users>
     <servers></servers>
     <documents></documents>
     <tickets></tickets>
   </overview>

   <server-list></server-list>
   <user-list></user-list>
   <extras></extras>
   <...></...>

Something like that; you get the idea.

Keep up the great work!

I study psychology. I have a masters in computer science and I am amazed every day anew how much of my old skill is very usefull within other domains. I don't label myself a hacker.

Thanks, I will have a look at it!

I am interested in building a device like this (for other purposes and not for cats), but I have no idea how to put the hardware together or where to start. I have been thingking about bycicle security a lot lately and a tiny GPS + X (gsm, wifi, etc.) might me useful.

Could someone point me in the right direction? Where do I start?

I sure do think it is possible. I am not sure how soon you will actually run into problems, but I have been using Dokuwiki, which uses text files rather than a database for all storage purposes. Although it is not in itself a good example for a community-centric software, it shows what can be done, the contents are versioned, there are access control lists and so on.

If you can build a wiki based on files, why would you not be able to do so with some kind of forum community? Maybe Dokuwiki is already a good solution for you.

I feel that the others readers reactions show that you could elaborate your motivation some more. A database can be a quick and useful solution and solves many problems, such as distributed access, central management and administration, security and backup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DokuWiki

And this is where meaning is relevant. Good naming is important to convey the level of abstraction. What you describe is as if you were to compare the functioning of, say, the liver, by looking at its cells. Proper naming conveys what you are looking at and you can chunk things together. If all the functions are named at the same level of abstraction, of course the code will be much worse to read.

If all the names are just a and b, well, of course it is harder to follow the flow of a program because the use and meaning of the functions has to be infered by their definition. Good names help identify paths of flow, but I rarely see this separation in a clear way, resulting in the problen you describe.

Making use of "chunks" makes code better to read. A function is essentially a proper chunk (whereas a comment is a bad way to do the same thing). Depending on the paradigm, I usually enjoy code that has tiny units, but many of those - i.e. a function with 100 lines is harder to read than 100 functions with one line each. Ideally each name adds proper meaning to the code so that the intent becomes clear. Code like this is usually easier to change, reuse and test (tdd).

This can go the wrong way - many people mentioned how too many abstraction layers in big java projects are a pain, and I agree, as they often make the code more meaningless and abstract, rather than concrete. Oh yeah and pattern names do the same thing.

In a study that I did I found that bad naming makes people approximatly 15% slower. The comparison was between single name identifiers, abbreviations and "normal" words. Have a look, you might have to translate it though...

http://www.cessor.de/empra13

Cleaned up data linked as a spreadsheet at http://www.cessor.de/antwortdaten

As a follow up on my opinion, here is another item that was recently on hn. Tj Hollowaychuck is leaving node for go, mentioning this discrepancy (runtime focus vs working with it time focus) as a reason https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7987146

There is no such tension inherently, yet I have seen a lot of violations of good practices in the name of "more performance". C# might be slower than C++, yes, but the question is: is it fast enough for what I would like to do? The fact that it is garbage collected and doesn't require pointer syntax makes it nicer to use, yet it runs slower. I have made similar experiences with databases, normalization is often discarded due to performance concerns (woohoo, too manz joins). It is true, making a join is slower than not making it, but the performance is gained by having less redundancy checks (I know, I am oversimplifying this). I am just very tired of seeing performance as an infinite target for optimization at the cost of maintainabilty, readability and so on. Exaggeratingly I could state: If you want it REALLY fast, write it in assembly. Do you see what I mean?

I recently realized one aspect of why it is bad: https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/

is probably the first thing that pops up when you search of python and tutorial, yet it reads like it is adressed at people that are looking for a way to augment their unix shell. This is not very helpful to most people. Thankfully, there are many alternatives, however it is bad that this is the first thing that pops up.

I am confused by the why is "X so slow" argument. Conceptually and practically, Python might be slower than native C code, but the tradeof lies in the relationship between runtime and "design"-time. It is a little slower, but it is faster to learn, read and write. Demands for "more performance" should be driven by actual numbers: How many people should your webservice serve in a second, minute? So far python has been fast enough for anything I wanted to do. For everything else there is numpy/scipy - fortran for the win!

I think you just somewhat proved my point.

I am not so much scared by functional programming as I am annoyed by functional programmers. I feel that they often come over like mathematics professors that just fill the chalkboard with lightning speed and look at you like "seriously, how dare you ask this dumb question". They go ahead explaining to you how your language is crap for all its sideeffects, smugly explaining how their language doesn't have those and then explain to you how Simon Peyton Jones shoehorned them into haskell with a monad. Also you always appear to fail to understand monads and they always fail to explain in an understandable way (although they're not that hard to get).

Functional programming is great and feels right, I am amazed how knowledge of fp affects my js, C# and Python up to this day. But from a social perspective: Loose the smugness, and then we'll talk fp.

Thank you for this comment. I came here just to ask what others experienced. I love these buttons (all hail confirmation bias). It would be great to hear from other peoples experiences whether their users use oauth or not.

I agree with @inglor, the post could do a bit more to reel you in. From skimming over the content I could only understand that it is not backbone, modulesmodulesmodules. I found the page has issues conveying their surely valid and useful point, but they are using all the lazy folks, which are also potentially the lazy people that want to build apps using a framework.

I believe the buttons are correct - a signup with a modern startup web software (ie. an app) feels much less like "starting to use our software" but more like "sign up for this email campaing we're running". Signing up usually requires an email address and then results in "Greg from Blahblah-App" follow-up emails. To me it feels like many startups are truly so desparate for some users, that they will follow "best practices" and spam the hell out of anyone who will leave their email address. I am not a fan of this culture.

I loved the one that somehow looked like BF* but was actually JS ;)

Confusion could arise when doing python in ruby or having some subtle distinction between c and c++, but I guess the test is not made to trick people or diagnose actual language knowledge. Still, lots of fun!

Thank you for your rational and neutral reply! My intention is not to just troll around.

You ask: > Couldn't this reasoning be applied as criticism for the funeral of Michael Jackson, Jim Henson, basically any celebrity or political figure, and any soldier who returns from military service in a casket?

I don't see this as a rethorical question, and I am going to answer it: Yes, definitely. In my opinion valuing the death of a politician or another person of public interest in the media higher than all common-day tragedy is an insult. My brother lost his very best childhood friend in a tragic car accident. My grandma commited suicide (which surprisingly, tragically is actually not that uncommon with elderly people). Where is his hashtag? I am not trying to make the same argument or really claim the same sympathies, but I am trying to point out that loss is universal, sad and never fair.

In some cultures the idea of absolute equality in death is prevalent. This concept is canceled out by the media attention of the death of a person. I feel very hurt, and loss is bad, there is no question that the individual has a right to mourning and grieving over the loss. But since there this is a universal concept it is unfair to bring other people into this. I do not blame Eric, but I am not sure I understand the motives of making this in to some sort of hashtag campaign.

I feel that this is very unfair, because in this emotional discourse there is no rational argument allowed. I hear people say that "Well what would it hurt, it is just a name in a spec!?". Would we feel the same way if religious groups would claim to influence technology in such a way? How about a Jesus Blue or a JHWH-Green. Religious feelings are also not up for debate, which is why I am claiming to feel molested, because there is no arguing allowed.

Eric might not be the active agent in this, and I understand the context. Wether Eric feels addressed by this or the person behind the hashtag, I believe that my argument becomes clear.

Please don't make everybody appreciate this story of grief. Everybody who is aware of this now is really sorry for Erics loss. We will accept that cancer is bad. We accept that your daughter dying at this very young age is tragic. But we all will suffer loss in our lives, most of us when our parents die.

Making one's daughters death public like this is arrogant und unfair. It lifts his loss over the ones that we ourselves will have to suffer. We are not even allowed to discuss this rationally, because of the strength of the emotion.

I do not support this "movement", hashtag or thing in general, and I feel emotionally molested.

Edit: Happy downvoting. My grandma killed herself at the age of 86 with a plastic bag. I am claiming IngeborgCreamBeige.

Well yeah, a crime - or should we say contravention - that we are all guilty of at some point in our professional lives.

Depending on how many users his service has, this could be a significant amount of work, even though the absolute probability of it happening is very low.

I see, you are asking for the email address, so that people can unlock their account in case they delete their oauth token provider (i.e. their tw/fb account), did I understand that correctly?

But do you have to do this whenever a completely new user tries to access the website? Is setting up an alternative access method not a very different concern?

As a user of these services I can stay that I am very happy about this *(I didn't know, but somebody here on hn claimed github auth did the same thing). This is exactly how it should work. What on earth is your excuse to really need my email address? I am sorry if I sound rude, but this behavior enrages me somewhat.

If you wish to track data that is connected to my identity, i.e. provide continuity in your service, store some stuff that I made, settings, preferences, you don't need my email address.

If you really wish to communicate: Talk to me on twitter, it's nearly public! With oauth you receive a token as a representation of my identity, not my email address. If you really need an email address - then why do you need oauth?

If I go to a store to just browse through the shelves I don't have to give the clerk my telefone number. Why would he need it anyway? To annoy me every once in a while and bully me into visiting his store, which I voluntarily entered in the first place?

Here is a positive example: - Go to iron.io - Log in with your twitter account - Nothing happens: You can use the app and they show you around pretty nicely.

Yet Iron provides a service upgrade, which requires credit information. They ask for it, specificly when they need it: When you want more from their service. In that case you have to provide them with the info.

This is how websites could handle this issue. Log in with oauth. If you REALLY personally need to contact me, then you can ask me later. Not upon login or to distinguish me from other people or provide continuity.

Emails are communication handles. They shouldn't be a poor man's surrogate database primary key.

I remain very curious: What does _your_ service need my email address for?

We had this discussion when we were talking about web based IDEs here on hn the other day (can't be bothered for the link). I like oauth, but I hate clicking "sign in with {Facebook|Twitter|Github}" and then being asked for a user name and email address. This is redundant and nonsensical...

Most app people are very happy to immediatly use the account email to send you stupid personalized followups, aka "Peter From Lame-App".

If it would be "click, see and forget" - OAuth signup would be great, but being required to accept spam really breaks the deal. I am not sure if too many people share that feeling, but it really bugs me.

The issue you point out with aggressive App spam on facebook is different with other services, I feel. Twitter Apps usually ask whether they might tweet something in my name. So I believe you are right, facebook might have screwed this up a little.

I liked this test. I am running a calibrated display, so I am assuming the display is not a factor. Remember to relax your eyes frequently, starring at a color for too long tires the cone cells and might affect your test results as a fatigue effect.

I noticed this as well, just giving the range is not really helpful. Also the scale is strange, 0 being the best. I was confused when I scored a 4...