route66

As for the CL executable: this[1] answer on SO contains pointers to the executable making mechanisms for the most common open source CL implementations.

I agree completely that one of the bigger problems with Common Lisp might be that there is not much information readily available how to structure bigger projects. In general I find the projects of Edi Weitz a good read [2].

And so: I applaud your effort ... !

[1] http://stackoverflow.com/a/31332 [2] https://github.com/edicl/

While obviously colored memory , the standpoint was very pragmatic: http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch01.html

Next to that: I would only call it ideological if it was for some higher, intangible value in a future yet to discover. But I find the purpose of the GPL from inception until now only pragmatic.

Is there such a thing: an ideological vs a practical one? I understand the OP's concern as related to the freedom of software he writes. Where is here the split between ideology and practical?

The OP's question by the way, reminds me of this discussion http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3802516 , in which some argue against the GPL as "unfair" and ruining their day because it prevents usage in walled gardens (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3803492).

Would it be more pragmatic to keep the discussion on HN going instead of developing evasive concepts?

As I understand the discussion (underneath the commit log, josevalim gives a comment), it's not about re-inventing a job queue but to offer an API for queues where you can hook in what you want. That way other services can use a queue (sending mails, processing frobnicates) through an advertised interface without having to rely on a specific implementation. You still can run resque behind it. (Caveat: I only read the discussion, this is not informed by interpreting the code)

I do not understand your need to call him an self-centered pretentious asshole. I think these kind of needless qualifications only reflect back on you and add nothing whatsoever to the discussion. If the very mentioning of RMS put you so much in rage that you cannot even spell Tanenbaum correctly, what exactly do you want to communicate? fleitz is lecturing RMS exactly on what?

Without the efforts of the GNU people the world would be a place of much less choice and freedom in computing. That the majority of people is served better by a spreadsheet is a non-sequitur. The world is probably even served better by something else than software.

Given the spread of mobile browsing in the wider sense it's unreasonable to assume that the majority of users surf through a vpn. So which alternative do you provide to the users of a js-only site?

My point is, that this should be a concern for the developer of an application and not being pushed onto the "dumb user". I'm sure that there are better answers than three letter acronyms.

> it is important to note that public WiFi is never safe unless you are using a VPN

I would like to use the article and this statement to beat very hard the nitwits who advocate javascript-only websites.

Some here are dismissing js-alternatives to their products (e.g. html only) with the rhetorical question "who surfs without js nowadays anyway?".

How do you take care of aforementioned problem?

This is more or less the way SAML [1] works, at least in one of it's protocols. The authentication server redirects (after successful login) to the initiating service and supplies an assertion-token, often with limited validity. With that assertion token more data can be asked from the servers to the auth-server directly. No account_id's go over the wire, the cookie needs only to be valid on the authentication server. And you should really need it, it's not much fun to implement.

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAML_2.0#Artifact_Resolution_Pr...

I would expect that dons is talking about a 1M codebase which already consists out of manageable pieces. It's only, that the pieces have to work together, talk to each other, know about each other (but not too much).

Sometimes software solves problems which provoke incidental complexity because of sheer size and my experience (albeit not above 500k) tells me that indeed, all bits help, also compiler enforced type checks. I would never bet my life on tests. As you write: "because the tests should catch the unanticipated parts", that's the point: tests never catch unanticipated parts by their very nature. Sometimes, by sheer luck, yes.

User identification with the short comments usually found on HN might be difficult. The challenge still stands if I'm not mistaken: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1199592

Besides that, while I'm not sure it's still a valid concern:

When I switched from Windows to Linux in the mid 90's it was a transition from a box with an illegal copy of MASM and a not-really-working copy of a C++ compiler to a box with a plethora of PL's, databases, code-examples and whatnot with an enormous educational value for me. On the winbox I learned Assembler, on the linbox I learned to program, that made the big difference for me.

Is it still that way for others or is the current situation on windows better? (not considering OSX as you can install pretty much anything there nowadays)

Erik Naggum had a flamy comment on that topic: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/e5af8ef3f8...

The study you mention brings me to another point: In some cases the discussion here on HN revolves about believe systems, papers an references cited are often selected for an argument by authority. Moreover: would a paper in itself be enough? wouldn't you have to, critically follow through to the reviewing peers? concurring papers? This is indeed death of any discussion and it proves nothing in the end.

Typical thread of citations against citations: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3749114 but the debate is never coming beyond the point of "how do yo know this?" questions, masking "I don't like your point" as "you have no data backing this up".

I would say that most users of these kind of applications do not even dream of the consequences of the combination of the data the make available. It needs geek mentality and more algorithmic thinking then you would expect to realize this.

You could even try to reconstruct foursquare locations of people who are not on FS just by their FB buddies ... try to explain that to "normal people".

And isn't it a bit scary that you seem to need more and more caution as time goes by? Would we need more responsibility on the side of the makers or do we keep blaming "normal people" for the world we create? (like we do it with, let's say, their inability to maintain secure passwords?)

> but making the open source project pay-to-play flies in the face of the spirit of FLOSS

Ah, maybe I just do not agree with that spirit. The SBCL compiler fared well with Nikodemus Siivola's crowdfunding: http://random-state.net/log/3523852985.html

At the same time I do not get how this is a problem for people to accept wrt software, while it is the common suggestion to artists in copyright questions on HN: go crowdfunding!

> Of course he would never do that.

Why? Maybe he was paid by the linux foundation during that time? Other sources of income? The gratuit "of course" is not clear to me.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you try to say, but: " rails.app ought to make Rails more popular [...] wider deployment of Rails enriches Ruby developers". Are you saying that Yehuda should not make money from his efforts, but the Ruby developers in turn can use the results naturally for their gain?

Hmmm ... Romanticism at work?

As far as I can remember open source always has been a sponsored or subsidized undertaking as far as it concerns meaningful or central projects.

Without it, the linux kernel would be only teaching material on Finnish universities, MySQL would not exist, Erlang would be a Danish mathematician and a waiting cue formula. The basis for the ASF is the web server which was developed at the NCSA. So you're on the right track with the "Can you imagine..." question.

Whats wrong with someone who want to make a meaningful addition to OS and asks money to be able to give full attention to the project? Isn't that more realistic than to hope for loosely coordinated efforts of spare time developers?

[note: I use this term not to criticize the persons in question but to point at the focus of the contribution. Also scratching-own-itch projects can easily err on the wrong side of the pareto ratio]

http://norvig.com/design-patterns/ illustrates the role of design patterns in dynamic languages: some are less important, others stay.

But you could come up with that for yourself by comparing the need for a visitor pattern in, say, Java and Python respectively its implementation in both.

[EDIT] Of course other programming paradigms can develop other patterns, if they are confronted with problems they cannot solve from the outset. That was more raganwald's point.

That hotlinking came up only later in the discussion. It definitely started with some of their pages having the same structure as some 37signal pages to great dismay of the community.

Careful though with tests that literally execute every line of code: You tie your test to your implementation. That makes even the slightest refactoring difficult. Better to have unit tests that only care about the functional interface.

Fred's official standpoint is here (the slug already says it):

http://www.usv.com/2010/02/software-patents-are-the-problem-...

Of course it is not clear if he lives up to that stance in all cases (http://www.usv.com/investments/) , but I read CPlatypus' statement more as pointing out the structural problem.

Providing content by means of distribution is not adding value. It's only that: distribution. The creator is adding the value. Why should he not be rewarded? With your line of argument you are in line with the entertainment industry who effectively monopolized the distribution channels for a long time.

The site is down, the content is (at least for me) not available in google cache, so I suppose it's the same for others as well.

And yet it's the top story on HN right now. When do we start giving tl;dr's for the headlines?

[EDIT] managed to find a mirror. This mail in the thread gives a bit more context: http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1203.1/00446....

I assume nothing. I'm only wondering about the tone sneaking in. That aside:

I just notice: <programming language> is on the rise according to indeed.com trend stats.

I follow the link "watch <programming language> jobs"

I see that virtually none of the ads offer jobs where this pl is used.

What do you make of that?

The big three are Java, C# and C(++). But I do not need to go to indeed to know that.

Indeed is used often to show that language a has more adoption than language b. a and b being languages in the non- or pre-commercial domain. I'm only arguing that statements like "haskell overtakes prolog, statical typing > declarative programming" cannot be inferred from indeed data.

As for the "reasonable indicator": if the average java/php job points out that "haskell/erlang/prolog is a pre" , job ads might only be a reasonable indicator for the languages we already know to be at the top.

Add to that my non-native-speaker-ness ... I will watch my language better in the future. But actually "screw indeed" would have been wrong: there is nothing wrong with indeed: they just aggregate job openings.

A bit OT, but: checking popularity with indeed.com is a fishy thing. First there is a trend even for simple PHP-only shops to post ads with the phrase "Haskell, Lisp, Scala, Clojure knowledge is a pre" (Yes, the "beating the averages" effect reached recruting years ago)

Haskell as an example: Haskell County healthcare and the company Haskell & White and more like these are occupying the first three pages of haskell results before there is a Java dev ad using the "at least one of { Scala, Erlang, SML, Haskell, Prolog, Lisp, Clojure }" phrase.

Clojure: on the first page I count three real clojure jobs and seven "at least one of ..." mentionings.

For Scala the indeed search turns out to be more relevant.

Conclusion: Get out of my face with indeed.com, their data is next to unusable for PL connected job trends.

In a (possibly flawed) attempt to cheer you up: be aware that you basically say

- failing is frowned upon in Germany

- I do not want to run that risk

- so I will not try to start a company

Thereby effectively continuing the mantra "do nothing you could fail in".

I think that entrepreneurship has got a lot to do with "acting in spite of" and would not assume the situation in the US (I don't know personally) to be like there are happy parties where people are celebrating crashed businesses...

If you wait for 9.2 you can say

    SELECT query_to_json('select x as b, x * 2 as c from generate_series(1,3) x',false);

http://people.planetpostgresql.org/andrew/index.php?/archive...

I can't find the link now, but the reverse (insert, update from json) I remember also to be possible.

Hmmm ... aren't these cogs called libraries?

But the question was: can I afford to go through a tcp socket (and that's a long way, possibly even to another machine) or not. A language cannot cover this up.

Is it possible that

a) not all code written is for web apps

b) that said recent technology also only fits a niche for modern web apps?

I think you view on what constitutes modern web apps or software in general is biased in favor of some examples who benefit by using mongo/couch/redis whatever. (And are very vocal about it)

[EDIT: spelling, and to add that I have tremendous joy in playing with couch, redis, node lately. But at the same time I try to stay critical: what are the real trade offs when I employ these tools?]