cmbaus

I always thought NeWS was way ahead of its time. The modern web application stack looks a lot like what Gosling did in the 90s, but with PostScript replaced by JavaScript+HTML.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS

This closely aligns with what I've seen in the field.

It might happen, but at least in the segments of the industry I work in, I don't think it is common. What is more common is human error. Most of the businesses I deal with are highly regulated, and they wouldn't risk fudging the numbers. In fact much of our business these days is related to enforcing compliance regulations.

If you knew how dirty most financial data is when it is released, you would probably be checking your statements more carefully.

I've spent most of my career servicing the financial services and investment industry. While I've enjoyed much of it, I also found a lot of it surprising to say the least.

What many people in finance haven't realized is most of the industry is an IT problem. Much of the work I see involves ingesting data, analysing it, and reporting on it. Most everything else is sales.

Most of the people doing this work come from a finance background and only have a rudimentary understanding of IT or programming. Many know Excel and PowerPoint pretty well, and those tools are pushed to extremes.

The work I see being done by junior analysts is often manual IT work. You wouldn't believe what goes on behind the scenes assembling the statements and reports that are sent to clients. It can be surprisingly difficult to sell software in this environment, because many stakeholders would rather get another junior analyst than solve the problem with software. There are some enlightened firms when it comes to technology, but I would say that is the exception.

Ultimately what I think is going to happen is that companies that are built from the ground up around a technology infrastructure will become more efficient and win business from traditional companies. It will take a long time to displace the bigger players, but it will happen. WealthFront is a good example of a financial company that is built around technology. Eventually these types of firms will win out in the market.

Update: Here is an example of the type of work I see analysts doing:

Manually copy data from 5 different systems into a spreadsheet at the end of the month. The data always has flaws, so go back and validate the data and resolve the issues. When the data is clean, do some processing on the data in the spreadsheet and create some graphs.

Then cut and paste output from the Excel spreadsheet into 150 client PowerPoint presentations, and combine that with commentary saved in an Word document from another department that is stored on a network drive.

At the end of the month an analyst will work 80 hour weeks to complete this in 3-5 business days. This type of workflow is not uncommon.

Out of curiosity, what software were you using?

One of the most unpleasant (although memorable) experiences of my life was having to hold it for over an hour while sitting over the wheel well on a bumpy bus ride in the middle of Belize.

I'm glad this is being discussed, because for many years inlining functions was considered a performance panacea in C++, with no regard to the size of the object code that was being generated, or the effects inlining was having on instruction cache performance.

The C++ community has brought itself all kinds of complexity and long compile times all in the name of performance which, in my mind, was always pretty suspect.

If they can make this work in Tahoe that would be great. A few commercial airlines have tried service to South Lake Tahoe, but the weather has made service too unpredictable. It might make sense to use Reno or Minden NV airports to access Tahoe.

As a hiring manager outside the Bay Area (Tahoe), I can say that the hiring situation is worse than I have ever seen it.

Dividends are only one way to value to companies. If Apple fired everyone tomorrow and stopped selling products, their stock would still have value because of the cash (and real estate, etc) they have on the books.

Buffet basically assumes that he is a better investor than his shareholders and by not paying taxes twice (corporate and individual) on dividends he will do better investing the profits and growing book value than his shareholders. Pretty good assumption so far.

I think the author is using Withings: http://withings.com/

It is in Andreessen Horowitz's best interest to get valuations for Series A funding down.

Yes! The tools are a means to an end. The goal isn't to impress other developers with advanced knowledge of design patterns. The goal is to impress users. If your products impress users (which Instapaper and Tumblr certainly have) I think that makes you a damn good programmer.

I wouldn't call continuing where the inventor of mainstream content publishing (ev williams) left off with blogger, a rehash. After Blogger, Odeo, Twitter, and now Medium, I think he knows what he is doing.

I'm glad to see this article at the top of Hacker News. It is easy to not realize how big audio was in consumer electronics all the way up until the early 80s.

Many of the great engineers of their day worked in audio, and I find myself continually attracted to their creations. Many who work in software today, may have been building amplifiers and speakers in the 60s.

I don't think those diffs are centrally managed though, which is a big problem.

I see this problem all the time in our marketing department. I think Microsoft Office is the problem, and the solution is to move toward systems which support collaborative document editing like wikis.

One of my pet peeves is emailed Word documents that the author has no intention that the reader will print. I prefer to read most documents in a web browser. I consider Word documents (and PDFs) to be skeuomorphs from a time when the printed page was the only means to share information: http://baus.net/documents-are-skeuomorphic/

Word is convenient for the author, but not the reader. I suspect over time its use will diminish as better collaborative systems become the norm.

This might be the strangest rant I've read on HN.

This comment just made me realize how right on the original vision of justin.tv was. It was probably 10 years ahead of its time. Maybe PG is a genius at finding founders who see the future.

I am always surprised how quickly individuals will give up control over their own content.

I found the part about CVS surprising to say the least.

guess not.

Hmm wonder if I'm dead.

This website for one.

> If you want long term economic security, own something

Couldn't agree more. Thinking that the only means to an income or wealth is labor a very limiting point of view. I'm optimistic about the trends toward entrepreneurialism and ownership, especially in technology. I think this is good for the economy and society overall.

Referring to comments as dangerous is dangerous.

This conversation reminds of the old programmer joke:

How many programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Five. One to screw in the light bulb and four to say, "I could have done that."

It is like you read my mind. I've been thinking I'd love to have a simple web based markdown editor.

If I wrote a Python implementation in JavaScript, I'd probably have some hubris about it as well.

I'm not sure if the developer is one person or if they wrote the landing page as well, but let's assume it is that same person.

If someone has focused enough energy to implement a language in JavaScript, it is probably fair say that marketing isn't his or her primary skill.

At the same time, reading over the text again, people have said crazier things and done much less. If the developer's goal is to replace JavaScript with Python and his or her first attempt is to implement Python in JavaScript, I, for one, applaud their effort.

I can't believe all the negative comments here. Someone has implemented Python in JavaScript. I personally think that is incredible.