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mburneyon Learning Smalltalk is not a waste of time

I thought that Python is designed to be a teaching language.

mburneyon Ask HN: Life advice for 25yo Web Dev, single, no debt, $30k/£20k savings

When I was 26yo I freelanced while traveling. I had a blast, but if I could change one thing, I would have saved money (or created passive income streams) to travel for a year without having to freelance. Why? Because you can have more fun and adventure if you're flexible with your time and if you have minimal responsibilities. Staying out until 6 AM in a Brazilian disco with 10 new friends that you've just met is a lot more fun if you don't have to be on your laptop three hours later to write code for a company in a different timezone.

mburneyon The Couple That Pays Each Other to Put Kids to Bed

Applying economic game theory to a relationship seems like a good way to take all the fun and passion out of it

mburneyon Homeless man releases app after learning to code

Being homeless and finding a way to release an app is a good example of resourcefulness.

mburneyon Letter from Steve Wozniak to a high school student in Korea

From my experience most "nerds" are actually way too quick to criticize others. They lack confidence in their social skills so they form an identity around their supposed technical abilities. Then they use that identity to justify bullying, but instead of beating up someone with a diminutive stature they'll post a tweet about how someone is a moron for not using the correct design pattern on some code they posted on github.

This is not confidence -- this is insecurity and arrogance.

mburneyon Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant

> A scientific idea is "correct" if it can be successfully compared to reality.

But this is similar to saying what is real is what corresponds to reality. Do you see the circularity here?

The philosophers who engage in questioning the "real" are not doing it for the reasons scientists engage in discovering "correct" phenomena. The longing for a deeper meaning and clarity beyond scientific inquiry is a spiritual longing. These philosophers are trying to describe ways in which human beings fit in the world, how we can deal with the groundlessness of our existence, what choices we have in light of the anguish that comes from our mortality.

The problem is that many people view this as a competition against science or "exact" thinking. It is not.

I think this quote from Leo Strauss sums up my point:

"Men are constantly attracted and deluded by two opposite charms: the charm of competence which is engendered by mathematics and everything akin to mathematics, and the charm of humble awe, which is engendered by meditation on the human soul and its experiences. Philosophy is characterized by the gentle, if firm, refusal to succumb to either charm. It is the highest form of the mating of courage and moderation. In spite of its highness or nobility, it could appear as Sisyphean or ugly, when one contrasts its achievement with its goal. Yet it is necessarily accompanied, sustained and elevated by eros. It is graced by nature's grace."

mburneyon Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant

Many philosophers have questioned the scientific definition of "correctness". For example Heidegger who argued that scientific truth is an approximation and measurement of things that we already presume to exist. These discoveries may be correct, and they may be true. But what about the more primordial truth (i.e. being) which we take for granted before we even begin a scientific inquiry? This is what he investigates, so pretty much all scientific definitions of correctness don't apply here. But it is very hard to convince followers of scientism that this investigation has any meaning, because they've already closed their minds to this form of thinking.

mburneyon I’m writing my own OS

treat it as a learning experience rather than a deliverable product.

But what is the purpose of mentioning this?

If you are recommending that he go ahead with the endeavour, then what does it matter if he ends up with a deliverable product or not.

Also, these kind of projects can have a timeframe of years, regardless of programming skill. If he finishes it, it will be a result of him sticking to it in the long run, not a result of how much C knowledge he had on the first day of the project.

mburneyon Online Course: Programming Languages

http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/OnLine/

mburneyon Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

I have seen programmers make the same avoidable mistakes over and over again without learning much from them. Sure, they learn from syntactical errors and perhaps how to avoid specific kinds of errors. But how many programmers will actually re-model their entire coding paradigm in order to improve?

mburneyon Protips for Aspiring Developers

Good advice, but I don't understand why writing a book is the "quickest way to get ridiculed". If a developer wrote a book that provides value, is accurate, and contained very useful code samples, I can't see how that wouldn't increase opportunities.

EDIT: Totally misunderstood that the OP meant it figuratively. Apologies.

mburneyon You're Overthinking It

What evidence exists that building a product that you would use leads to a greater chance of success? I can think of plenty of counterexamples of entrepreneurs that have built successful products for an audience other than themselves.

mburneyon Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

Think of a creative side project that you would really enjoy doing. Then do it. And take your time on it. Slow down. Tune out from what everyone else is doing. You have to give yourself time and space to breathe. Don't put pressure on yourself, make it fun!

Don't worry about reading SICP or becoming an expert at some technology. That will come automatically over time. Just choose one stack for your side project and go with it.

It doesn't matter if you code your project in C, clojure, or ruby. What matters is that you produce something that you feel good about. If you make a goal to produce something good, you will learn the technologies and you will become a good hacker over time.

I write all this because I was in the same position as you a couple years ago, so I scrapped my ambition of reading theoretical CS books and learning all the latest hot new technologies (I will do all that stuff later). I decided I'd make a game, and learn what I need to add the features that I imagined. And I progressed. It was so much more fun that way.

mburneyon Ask HN: Have you hacked your nutrition?

I have heard of some people having migraines on their first one or two fasts, but most of them say they no longer get them after those first ones.

If you want to try it, it might be better to ease into it, for example try having some fruit instead of no food at all.

mburneyon Ask HN: Have you hacked your nutrition?

I fast for 24 hours (i.e. no food, only water and a couple cups of black coffee) twice a week. Contrary to popular belief this does not activate "starvation mode", it burns fat and keeps the weekly calorie intake low.

mburneyon Steve Jobs didn’t

I read this a bit differently than saying that anyone can do what Steve Jobs did.

To speak plainly, to be patient and put the dots together, to lead without charisma are all incredibly difficult things to do. It really does take genius and only the extraordinary amongst us can do it.

If you have a natural, god-given charisma, its very easy to be a leader. No accomplishment there. But you would lead for what purpose?

If you have some uncanny ability to predict the future as a whole, without error, you would be popular for your predictions but you wouldn't build much of anything, because building great things requires trial and error.

If you were merely a design expert, you'd make nice looking things, but you wouldn't be able to scale it, compared to the non-designer that sees the greatness in other designers.

Being foolish and curious really trumps all other skills, but how many people can truly endure being foolish and curious?

mburneyon Why we should teach our kids to code

Algorithmic thinking may be a useful skill but in my experience, there are down sides. Many (not all) programmers are rigid in their thinking; yes they can solve problems logically but sometimes this obstructs other ways of thinking.

Ever since I learned programming, I've found that the more I write code, the harder it is to get in the flow of other tasks that require a loose, less rigid mind set (sports, dancing, writing, music, business). So now I deliberately do things to balance these mind sets.

mburneyon 80% of People Quietly Despise Their Lives

I have come to the conclusion that following or pursuing goals and dreams is not the key to happiness. Yes, it is something worth doing, but it is not a magic pill.

Running a business, or working on a creative project can also cause a lot of unhappiness and misery. I've been pursuing my goals and dreams for a couple of years now and I don't think it has made me happier at all.

I've found these things to be much more important:

-Maintaining a calm, relaxed state as much as possible. Not suppressing anger but not letting it destroy you either.

-Physical and mental challenges; doesn't mean you have to quit your job and pursue some grand scheme though

-Socializing

mburneyon "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

I'm curious how efficient most coders are even in an 8 hour work day. I find that I can only log about 4 - 5 hours a day (on average) of solid coding time (or marketing/business work). This is because I limit myself to an 8 hour work day, but of course there are breaks and inevitable down time.

mburneyon Life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

Most of these life lessons have nothing to do with travelling. Most people I know (especially in their late 20's) would come up with a similar list even if they've barely travelled.

I think this is just merely the blog poster's world view articulated into 29 points, and incidentally he has travelled the world instead of living in one place.

mburneyon 37Signals Quietly Removes Its Famous Basecamp Manifesto

That's a bit harsh. It was a popular page that centered around the brand of a popular company and caused their fans to perceive them in a certain light. It is natural to want to know if the removal was deliberate or not.

mburneyon The Problem With Silicon Valley Is Itself

My point isn't to agree with the author that every company should try to be a game-changer. In fact, too many SV companies already think that they are game-changers before they've even launched anything. That's part of the problem.

My point is that when you have the startup process manufactured and replicated into a kind of meta-startup (like YC), at a certain point the goals of the founders become more about conforming to the community and impressing each other rather than creating a genuine product.

Obviously not all YC startups are like this, but any time something grows and scales, there is a danger of it losing its original purpose.

mburneyon The Problem With Silicon Valley Is Itself

This article makes a good point. The problem is not that startups are derivative or solving trivial problems. The problem is that the whole startup process has been manufactured and scaled to the point that it has lost its intrigue and stifled its innovation.

Apple, Google, and Microsoft were outsiders when they were startups. Current SV incubator teams are more like elite in-crowd communities, safe and insular.

mburneyon I Did What I Loved and Nearly Destroyed Myself

Agreed. I am a coder and philosophy was my first love.

mburneyon I Did What I Loved and Nearly Destroyed Myself

It is just not the case that there is a sustainable career out there for every kind of passion. Non-academic philosophy doesn't pay, coding pays.

mburneyon Sitting for hours can shave years off life

The fact that you fight competitively means that you're not sedentary for a good portion of your time. Binge training is still training.

People who do nothing physically demanding and sit at a desk all day are a lot more at risk. And probably not enjoying a full range of activities either.

mburneyon Fructose: compile Ruby into PHP

I've had consulting gigs where I was forced to write PHP apps because of management decisions. Something like this would have been helpful.

mburneyon Joel Spolsky: Lunch

I'd rather not be compelled to eat with co-workers at lunch. Lunch should be a time to do whatever you want. For things like meeting people/friends outside of work, having some quiet time to read a book, or going to the gym.

Some days I don't even feel like eating at lunch, and prefer to have a late lunch in the afternoon.

And why the compulsion to sit with people that I already interact with the entire day? Nothing wrong with being social with your co-workers, but it ought to be natural. This isn't kindergarten.

mburneyon Software: More Battlestar, Less Gunsmoke

So should scientific and technological progress in general be like Battlestar? I would much rather it not have a known ending. If I wanted that, I'd choose religious dogma.

mburneyon Dabble DB shuts down on May 18, 2011

Sure, but what about the app itself?