glesperance

Unfortunately I do not see incentive for the mass to move from facebook to this new solution.

It is really though already to educate ppl about privacy issues already let alone trying to convince them to migrate from facebook to another solution.

Even in a best case scenario where there would be a general consensus about leaving facebook, the migration task itself is so huge that it would probably make the project fail on its own. Nobody wants to be scatered between FB, Twitter, the other bazillion sites that we're subscribed to and this newer one.

The state of todays base of node (v8) has nothing to do with the concept/paradigm its trying to put forward -- that is event driven web apps. Hence, one must not discard node as a bad solution only because v8 is not optimal in all situations.

Everything is always a work in progress.

For those like me that were too curious to wait for an interview to know more about this startup : http://nextmontreal.com/gush/

Its nice to see that other teams are currently working to solve the noise vs signal problem by using people to curate content in a more networked way.

Also, pardon my curiosity, but is that the idea with which you applied to YC or did you come up with it for the interview ?

In any cases, good luck w/ your interview ; there is sure a lot of future in that type of apps!

Am I the only one to wonder why there are no mention of coffee-script at all ?

It seems to me like a very effective and easy way to make programming more efficient and improve code readability.

Moreover,coffee-script handles all OOP concepts that could be needed to use node.

It would be nice -- after the deadline is done -- to have stats about the applications ; i.e. how many applications have been submitted, how is the distribution of application submissions by time/date, geolocation, etc.

They could make their app completely open source then ; in that way they'd probably have a better quality assurance process than "suffer, apologize & fix".

Blending this with browserify + backbone + redis will be really easy to do. I think it will definitely simplify the dev of our app ; allowing us to share even more code between the client and server so that we can maximize code reuse.

I guess your comparison between the Xcode price and the one of the apple computer on which it runs is legitimate.

The problem here is not the cost of the package in itself -- it is indeed cheap in comparison to the aforementioned computer -- but in the fact that apple chose not to include this cost _in_ the retail price of OSX.

All the bruden is dropped on the devs who then needs to re-sell their apps, generally on the app-store where they are taken another cut.

Apple's strategy seems to give the maximum to the user, while charging the devs that then charge the users. They lock-in their user base, letting the devs deal with prices increases on both sides.

With this and the huge margins apple are already taking over the developers' revenue I really feel like we as developers are getting less and less respect from Apple.

I really think that what made OSX great was the fact that Xcode was completely free. We are the ones that make a platform a great one because of the app ecosystem that comes with it.

Putting prices -- however small they are -- on these dev tools put a barrier on the accessibility of the platform as a application dev environment.

I'm honestly really happy to have focussed my efforts towards web based apps instead... If its the future of computing -- iOS apps, and on device apps instead of web based -- it sure doesn't look so bright.

If you're using node.js ; stylus seems really good. I'll be using it as soon as I have the time to clean up my CSS.

[LearnBoost's Stylus: Expressive, dynamic, robust CSS] : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2162620

I think the real reason explaining why apple has been able to get away with that is the fact that by (1) denying the issue, then (2) minimizing it by saying its a problem with all other phones, and thus (3) making the antenna problem an industry wide one, they were able to play win some time.

You see, the iphone -- or for the matter, any apple product -- can only be fully appreciated within a specific mindset, by adopting a specific reference frame, or point of view. To me, apple had to restore this my-iphone-has-so-many-feature-i-dont-care-about-the-issues POV that enabled them to initially sell a device with a lot less battery longevity than other competitor in the past.

Playing on time and making this a industry wide issue that is not so important, both allowed them to win more customer but also to allow those to adopt/restore this POV. Thus the more they had owners who just signed a X-years contract to get the new iphone the more they had advocates for their case.

The way I see this : its the ultimate win of the fanboy/evangelist strategy agains't the traditional "be-aware/show-you-care/do-your-share" PR moves.

Just a measure of performance, for definite set of problems :)

If someone -- or any company for the matter -- can afford or not bad PR is way beyond the point.

The thing is : you usersy might be wrong,or might be right ; but the point is more that users are your even more than your whole business, giving them a good experience is your ultimate goal ; not just selling them a microblogging app.

In my opinion, comparison to steve jobs / apple here are extremely irrelevant ; yes, steve jobs might have earned the right to be obnoxious to bad clients, but the point is that apple as a company doesn't.

For one thing, its because their marketing goes hand in hand with their excellent customer service that this company is successful. Not because one compensate for the other. Its really a shame that somebody can treat its user base like that.

1- Choose a goal/project

Try to think short term here since you probably won't be full time on that, and so it won't replace your job in the short term -- i.e. get a goal that is both easy and fun to you

2- Choose a prog lang

Depending on what u want to do in the future with your skills, you'll choose another language.

For that, either ask around or here in HN I guess.

3- Google [language] tutorial

4- then Google [language] [goal/project] tutorial

glhf !

I'd actually suggest, any good tutorial on the net ; pretty everything that you need is there, just need to google it there.

You'd be surprised at how much resources there is online.

Honestly, buying books as introductions seems useless to me besides the fact of that buying the book might actually push you more into the actual programming act.

But for her to start, the best would really be to pick tutorials that not only relates to her future use of the program but also to what interrest her. Because, after all, she probably won't be programming websites or wordpress themes.

Quick googling for "math related python tutorial" got me this :) http://showmedo.com/videotutorials/series?id=101

seems pretty cool intro.

12 years old ; Fascinated by computer viruses, and hacking :)

But nowadays, what I really think amazed be, and still does, is the way we are able to go from a thought to its implementation through the use of a programming languages in about no time.

Think of any other field other than software engineer where you can go from hypothesis to modelling and then testing in about a few hours or days ? There ain't many. (On a side note that's why its becoming more and more prevalent to use programming to model and study real world situation ; e.g. economics, standing-ovations, etc ).

I do agree with you here, trying to consume and digest everything that comes out in one's field of interrest is not only pretty hard but also extensively time consuming.

I guess the point of the article is more to, induce people into considering more academic papers when they do research -- that is, either for their own non-academic or academic research.

I always find it interesting to read those, when they're closely related to what I'm trying to do or what I am currently doing / researching.

And as far, as trying to catch-up with a whole field of interest, often enough, there are books -- written by the same researchers that wrote the papers you missed -- that presents you the latest advancement in the field over the past years ; all the while presenting you the way of thought that accompanies these discoveries... A good example of that would be "Burst" by A.-L. Barabási, a personal favorite :)