Though it's hard for many of us to disagree with it when:
1) we heard of quora due to TechCrunch
2) we keep hearing of quora due to TechCrunch
180 karma · joined November 7, 2010
1) we heard of quora due to TechCrunch
2) we keep hearing of quora due to TechCrunch
eBay used to be good as well, then one day they got so big that buyers and sellers were practically left to settle their disputes on their own. eBay used to be my #1 stop for anything that I wanted to buy online. After getting burnt 2 or 3 times, I haven't opened a page on the site in over a year and haven't bought anything from it in the last 3.
I'm also going to make the bold claim that if Facebook was in its current state 3 or 4 years ago, in terms of quality and community, it would probably not have gotten the success it currently enjoys. Most of us would just consider it another MySpace or HI5 clone.
As far as Quora goes, if it is indeed successful, it might also very well be a victim of its own success, but maybe by then it will be financially viable, which is the one thing that matters most to its backers.
On the other hand, if you're conditioned to believe and trust in the transmission of knowledge through independent reading, like most autodidacts are, you perceive them as an opportunity to improve.
I, myself, am an autodidact programmer. I had never heard of many resources before encountering them in threads on HN, Reddit, or Stackoverflow. I haven't read all books, or followed all the videos, but at least, now that I'm aware of them, it prompted me to start working toward shifting a few things in my life to allow me the time and opportunity to dig deeper in the material.
It's a process.
Ironically, governments throughout the world still struggle to find solutions to education. Please, just teach people to open a book and do some damage.
I suppose you are a recent Vimer. I'd suggest to once in a while peruse threads offering Vim tips, such as in Stackoverflow. You might find some true gems in there. As noted by auxbuss, [shift-v jjj x] solves your issue.
To vi(m)/emacs? An example?
Will there ever be a point at which they're allowed to use their money to give to whom they see fit?
Microsoft still host some very cool projects and I think many programmers would be very happy to work on stuff such as Kinect, Bing and Seadragon to only name those.
However, if you're talking about general perception toward the company, then the answer is a big fat NO. I think too many people have been burnt with their tactics over the years and those stigmas take time to heal.
For all things that microsoft has contributed to the advancement of computing and its vulgarization, they are also responsible for stalling in many areas where they couldn't catchup fast enough, using their influence in oft-questionable ways. Lots of bad karma there and very uncool.
They managed to mess up the single most important application, the browser, and did nothing to fix it for years, just because they could. Web developers are only now coming out of this nightmare.
Today, I'm very reluctant to even use something like Bing, that admittedly works quite well, just because the thought of what microsoft could pull, once it gets back into a position of power in the search market, makes me shudder.
I know most people have a notorious short memory span when it comes to such things, but count on people like me, with the ability to hold a grudge, to remind them what hell felt like.
Microsoft isn't cool and it won't be for a while.
This is the third of the kind I've seen in the past 3 months. Oddly enough they all claim that ActionScript will make it big in 2011.
I have studied no graphs, haven't analyzed any job boards and seen no statistics, but I'm still going to claim here that if ActionScript was a stock, this is one prediction that I believe would make a lot of sore losers in 2011.
- get familiar with HTML and css. That is, learn the basics, their purpose and how they interact.
- get familiar with some basic JavaScript and how you use it on the browser.
- learn one of the prominent web languages for the server-side. Python, Ruby, PHP, etc. I used to recommend PHP as a first language because compared to other languages, it was ubiquitous amongst hosting providers. Nowadays, I recommend against, especially if you already have some programming experience. Python and Ruby also have a decent offering and they have the added benefit of a community that generally promotes better programming practices than PHP.
Having an overview of the entire development process, you should now be able to pick one area where you'd like to expand. Being a programmer I suspect you might pick either server-side or browser scripting (JavaScript). Stick to one at first and learn it well. When I started the web I rarely did any front-end at all. I concentrated on the server-side and was aided by some CSS and JavaScript coders. Likewise, I often worked with JS programmers who didn't want to know anything beyond the realm of what they were doing. It's a symbiotic relationship. - It may be tempting to do everything vanilla at first, but quickly switch to using a framework, they're often packed with lots of best practices. They're like training wheels, you can always take them off later when you feel confident.
As you get comfortable with one field you can expand on others. After years playing in the server, I'm only now expanding my client side skills. Also, beyond technologies, other areas of interest that can expand your overall understanding and web expertise, are interface architecture, usability and various other optimizations. As you go, you'll stumble upon many.
It's neither a mistake nor inaccurate. Once you've observed, measured, calculated and concluded, you can involve all form of non-empirical disciplines you want, after all we are morally and emotionally bound beings. One thing we can't do however is hide from the truth the data has spoken. Those are usually very profound paradigm shifts, a crossroad between being comfortable with what was revealed, or choosing to be more at peace with one's oblivion and folkloric truths.
"Some questions, e.g.: should we perform stem cell research on embryos, should we eradicate mosquitoes, should we try to affect human sexual patterns leading to AIDS, etc. are scientific [...] i.e. they cannot be approached by handling equations alone in an objective matter."
If the approach can't be objective then the question isn't scientific. Granted, those are science related questions and have a dose of moral and ethics involved, but that's not what science is about.
Science isn't there to answer what you should or shouldn't do. It's there to provide you with facts on what would happen if you do it. Change your question should we eradicate mosquitoes into what would happen if we eradicate mosquitoes and we can talk science. Lets take out the tools, dust off old books, go in the nature, observe, measure, extrapolate, calculate and conclude. Then based on those conclusions we'll look at each other and our moral fiber will tell us, nah we should probably let the little scoundrel be.
Science is there for anybody who wants to open their mind to it to enjoy. I'm sure some republicans have and assuming those numbers are correct, 1 of 3 things happened: 1) they've changed their affiliation over time (becoming either democrat or unaffiliated), 2) they didn't find what they were looking for in science and stopped practicing, 3) they're in the current minority.
I once got hired in a company where I found that a developer had convinced the management of letting him build a framework. Since our boss swore by this guy, we had no choice but to keep using his pile of garbage. I've subsequently used various frameworks and have had various frustrations that with time I think I can pin point. Here's my list of recommendations for people undertaking the next life changing framework out there:
- Always start by asking yourself "Am I nearly as good as I think I am?"
- don't try to fix the world with your framework. Stick to the 80/20 rule. Simple tools that solve 80% of problems efficiently and unambiguously. Leave it at that. Please, pleeeaaase don't venture in the other 20
- provide damn good APIs and hooks to extend your base libraries.
- make it equally easy to avoid using your libraries. If your library is meant to be used by somewhat smart and responsible people, do your very best to keep them in charge. You may recommend against certain practices, but don't you put safeguards that prevent me from implementing the occasional hack.
- document both, how to do it your way and how to go around.
- document your framework's capability as well as limitations. I have no clue why most library authors avoid talking about limitations. They know what they are and they know people will ask about them, yet they don't document them. If your ORM lib doesn't offer a certain facility, please just tell me. Spare me the countless fruitless hours of searching google and irc. Let me know I need to go down to sql, I won't mind. Don't just hope that I will never need to use it in my life and leave me hanging. Tell me. TELL ME.
Emotional reactions? At first, joy to find the library. Then came disappointment, when I looked at the source. Soon followed by frustration, when I realized I had to go in. Anger as it proved harder to figure out the nonsense, quickly followed by fear and doubt when I wondered if I was going to make it. Hope, when I had a breakthrough yesterday evening and finally, joy again since I completed my changes about an hour ago.