zachallaun

I really appreciate the thoughtful response and constructive criticism! I think that much of it is valid.

All of this actually fell out of a desire to better understand Clojure's `for`, which is a piece of code I would have run away from not too long ago. (Earlier versions of this post made significant mention of `for` and its implementation; that it was totally stricken from the final version was, I think, an unfortunate product of editing.)

I'll certainly think more on your second and third points.

Very cool! I'm not completely sure how it would support comprehensions over more than one list, though (as in the permutations example).

Clojure's `for` is ~80 lines of code, and isn't particularly accessible. My goal here wasn't to reinvent the wheel, but to give an example of a not-totally-trivial macro that does something neat. :)

(Clojure is simply my lisp of choice. This could be just as easily implemented in elisp, which does not have this built in.)

[edit] For those interested, here's an elisp version: https://gist.github.com/4430934

I think that this is an interesting experiment, and reminds me of Clojure's hiccup[1] library.

In hiccup, you model html to be rendered as nested vectors and maps, such that

    <span class="foo">bar</span>

becomes

    (html [:span {:class "foo"} "bar"])

Where this is a real win is when you realize that it's just data:

    (html [:ol
            (for [x (range 1 4)]
              [:li x])])

Lisps are well suited to model html.

[1] https://github.com/weavejester/hiccup

Comments like this are always particularly frustrating to me, as it suggests that you did not actually read the article, and are now trying to prevent others from reading it based on your impression.

The company had a referral system in place such that 5 referrals meant the referrer obtained free LifeShield monitoring for life. Why would someone slant a review such that they could get a bad product for free?

It was much later that LifeShield announced a new program that gave $150 for each referral; this was a good while after the review of the product.

I am incredibly excited about this.

One thing that I'm curious about, however: it (seems like it) will be a web-based platform. Can anyone comment on whether or not this is an advantage or disadvantage? I imagine a fully functioning offline mode will be available, and I can see chaching things like documentation locally, etc. But there must be a compelling reason that newer editors are not web-based (or maybe the better term would be browser-based).

Was there no better way to express this?

1. It's simple, and there is no barrier to entry.

2. As you so astutely pointed out: it's a form. Very little need for styling.

3. The idea is clearly not to lay down your master plan, but to see if anyone else is interested in solving a specific problem.

Would I use it? Probably not. Can I see it being used? Sure.

Read from the perspective of someone very much still learning to code, this was excellent. I particularly valued the idiomatic comparisons to 'naive' implementations (the kind I would initially reach for). One of the later sections on lazy generation also opened up some new doors for me, and gave me a nice solution to a problem I've been having with a piece of code.

I don't believe this to be the venue for sharing landing pages with no useful information.

While it's here, though, that top viral bar seems to seriously cheapen the page. It looks tacked on, and the Gentlemen Square logo is suffering from its size.

I'm confused. Did you read just the first sentence?

The second: It’s my fault, actually. Followed by an entire post re: errors made in planning DevDays '11.

The title Eloquent Ruby has been getting excellent reviews by beginners and Rubyists alike. And I happened to have loved reading it.

It is basically a book of best practices and ruby idioms. (For example, the use of a ruby object's each method instead of for..in.)

Some previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2735832

> "YC has invested a total of around $5 million"

It's incredible to think of the value that has been added to so many companies for the price of a single large series A.

That a term is overused does not mean the underlying concept is exhausted.

I remember seeing this back in January, actually. (I believe here on HN, but maybe not.)

The content is cool, but it was also a clever marketing strategy of Board of Innovation. I actually happened to be doing a presentation on business models some short time after first seeing this, and this presentation inspired me to use their tools to create some of the visuals.

Actually, there may be something of a trend towards transparency forming.

http://paulgraham.com/airbnb.html --- http://www.bvp.com/Portfolio/AntiPortfolio.aspx

First, welcome to HN! As a quick aside, it's generally taboo to sign comments with things like your Twitter handle or personal URL -- feel free to throw them in your profile :).

Re: your comment, you're absolutely right that entrepreneurship is not for everyone, and that many people will benefit more from college than without. However, Thiel doesn't argue that everyone should dropout of college. Rather, he claims that the best and brightest don't necessarily need it, and would be better served with "freedom" from education.

Should we burn down Harvard? Definitely not. But you don't need it to be successful!

This is an oddly compelling case for something that I would have written off as superfluous. I love the little things you learn here on HN.

The larger goal, however, is to set a precedent for other high-growth pre-IPO's within the city.

I question whether or not you read the article...

  Still, there’s a lot of groups in the city lobbying against
  any change in taxes, confusing the issue with “corporate 
  welfare.” I’ve read through some of the materials they are 
  sending out, and while a lot of this is politics, there seems 
  to be a lot of genuine confusion between the nature of the
  way big companies, small businesses and startups work.

This isn't a handout; it's an attempt to fix one of San Francisco's competitive disadvantages. I can't blame Twitter for lobbying against an abusive tax code literally found no where else.

There's a great message in here: All the hustle in the world is wasted on a problem no one wants solved.

The underlying rule of HN is pretty simple: Post anything that would interest hackers.

I would say that a man who has decided to take matters into his own hands in a trying time, instead of waiting for the solution of others, fits the bill. It's nearly the definition of hacking.

Let's hope, then, that you do not choose to share violent, nude photos of yourself. For most people, though, I think this is an adequate (and, in my opinion, not too harsh) deterrent.

I'm sure that it exists, but could someone describe for me the main point of differentiation between Receivd and a shared folder on Dropbox?

That is, what should be compelling me to download another application to do that which I can (seemingly) accomplish with one already installed?

I'm not trying to be simply critical, but rather just pointing out that, at least from the landing page, there isn't anything necessarily motivating me to sign up. (That said, as it's on HN, I'd love to sign up, if only to provide feedback!)

This class seems to provide an interesting contrast to the YC model of mentorship, where the former centers on knowing what to build and the latter centers on knowing how to build it.

Of course, this is just the impression I've gathered. I'd be interested to know exactly how much emphasis YC puts on similar principles (read: Customer Dev). And if such emphasis is lacking, why?

I was under the impression that "rockstar" or "ninja" was generally frowned upon, but the terms seem to be making a(n unfortunate) comeback. (Read: reddit)

That said, Bump seems like a cool company, solving a cool problem. Best of luck finding your rockstarninjas!

I don't believe that a downvoted comment more accurately reflects the feelings of HN than an upvoted rebuttal.

You're right that "bad for the world" opinions should likely be downvoted, but I often disagree with comments that are not so without feeling a desire to downvote them.

This is quite entertaining.

In the same vein:

"What Happens to a YouTube Video Uploaded 1,000 Times" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/youtube-video-uploa...)

37signals' office seems to say, "You're in, you're out." Fried has, on multiple occasions, suggested that offices are the downfall of work. You're more productive in your natural environment. Their office seems to reflect that: You come in to work, quickly and efficiently, and then you leave and head home to get your real work done.

In contrast, Zappos' office seems to say, "You're already home."

[edit] It's also worth pointing out that these companies are employing very different people. Zappos has a huge focus on customer service, and their "people friendly" office reflects that. The engineers and designers at 37signals, however, very well may appreciate the minimalism and simplicity of their environment.

You're likely right in that tablets aren't about to kill PCs, but suggesting that tablets remain a simple "trendy gadget" seems a bit silly, especially considering Apple's Q1 reports [1].

Perhaps the iPad isn't to your taste, but it was to 7 million others. (And some 16 million overall.) One could argue that Apple does, in fact, have the largest consumer base of early adopters and trend followers of any company, but when you fan base grows larger than many other markets, you kind of have to call it main-stream.

I'm pretty sure that the iPad isn't the second coming of Christ. I'm comfortable saying that. But it's something other than a trend at this point.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/18/apple-q1-2011/