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Review my Craigslist killer | vaksel: well first things first you need to realize that your audience isn't tech savvy. So your site should work without javascript.Install Noscript in firefox and try your site out. When you do, you'll see that your site is completely unusable if the person doesn't have javascript.(can't change categories)So either r... |
Review my Craigslist killer | TweedHeads: There are one million sites like yours out there. Half of them scammers. Yours looks like one of them.It has to be clean and professional to give me some confidence.And let me tell you, I really really hate CL. |
Review my Craigslist killer | psyklic: I realize you're targeting small towns and neighborhoods, but I live in LA and travel between numerous zip codes every day (and wouldn't mind stopping in any of them). |
When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages? | apu: Alan Kay has been asking this question for a long time now. His "Viewpoints Research Institute" is doing some interesting work in this direction.http://vpri.org/One of their projects is to see if they can build a complete software stack -- from the OS through the GUI and networking/graphics libraries to end-user s... |
When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages? | watmough: Practical implementations of languages based on lambda calculus and graph-reduction.KRC, SASL, Miranda. Simon Peyton-Jones was a key driver of some of this work, and obviously he's still a major force behind Haskell. |
When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages? | vlisivka: Inversion Of Control principle and Dependency Injection - 2002-2005. That is single possible answer. |
Review my Craigslist killer | mdasen: How do we provide an incentive for users to post on our site when we have very few buyers browsing the site?That's the big question that none of us probably have an answer to. Like PG said about auctions: "a startup that wants to do this has to expend more effort on their strategy for cracking the monopoly tha... |
Review my Craigslist killer | truebosko: I'm going to be overly harsh on you simply because you called this a Craigslist killer ;-)- Your site does not work with Javascript turned off. If you're trying to get the small towns and such, you need to be careful on this.- At first entrance of your site, it looks like a typical domain parked page with so... |
When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages? | jimfl: XSLT. Hahahahahaha! |
Review my Craigslist killer | cmars232: I could see having to sign up and register with menkle to sell something -- CL does that. But if I have to sign up to contact a seller, I wouldn't use it.Its little things like that that make CL such a winner. CL tells users that it cares more about them than profiting or collecting data from them.Also, the... |
How could FeedBurner be better? | iamwil: The graphs for "All time" loads slower than before the move to google.com.Often times, I find I just check which of my posts people like reading, and it gives me a tingle bit of feel-good before I close it and go look at something else. However, I often have to do 4 clicks to get there. |
Review my Craigslist killer | RobGR: * Incentives for users to post, i.e. beating the chicken and egg problem:
1) Find a way to offer a payment service, or easily integrate with google checkout, so that the user's "Buy" button is automatically hooked to their GC account and the item description, link to menkle.com item, etc is in the GC transacti... |
Have you raised money from your friends for your startup? | smoody: I did both times. The first time was a big risk because it was my first startup. I don't have advice on the best way to do it, but I can tell you this: If you're anything like me, then taking money from your friends and family will insure you keep the startup going no matter how bad things get. There's almost n... |
How could FeedBurner be better? | mixmax: My blog (http://www.maximise.dk/blog) uses blogger, but they can't tell me how many RSS subscribers I have. By asking Google I found out that I could get this number by redirecting my feed to feedburner and back, and let them count it.I never figured out how to do it. There were two problems involved for me:1) ... |
Help me make HN work well on the iPhone | arjunb: I hacked up dalampati.com/ihacker/ a while ago, but it's just the consumption-side of HN. |
How could FeedBurner be better? | bjplink: I can think of two things, right off the top of my head, that FeedBurner could do better:#1. Accurately measure subscriptions. That seems obvious but FeedBurner is actually terrible at one of their core features. It's not uncommon for your subscriber count to bottom out to zero from one day to the next as thei... |
When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages? | stuki: Don't know how transformational it has been yet, but I feel the idea that all side effecting code needs to be specifically noted by the programmer, a la Haskell, will one day be seen as a watershed.We're only at the very early stages of the parallelisation of hardware, but as that trend intensifies, I can't imag... |
When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages? | cchooper: How about regular expressions as an essential part of a modern, general purpose language (rather than a separate mini-language)? |
What's a good database schema for "Top comments in last 24 hours" | paulgb: SELECT * FROM comments WHERE posted_at > SUBDATE(NOW(), INTERVAL 1 DAY) ORDER BY karma DESC LIMIT 50;My SQL might be a bit rusty, but you get the gist of it. Why not do that?Your question is a little confusing without knowing the schema you are using already. Do you want the top comments of each hour? |
What's a good database schema for "Top comments in last 24 hours" | russell: I would add a time stamp for the last update and a total column. Update the total and timestamp every time you update a bucket. Zero any buckets between the saved timestamp and now. To get your list select comments updated in the last 24 hours and ordered by total. You will have some rows with artificially h... |
What's a good database schema for "Top comments in last 24 hours" | aristus: Um, very. 25 columns?Just record each commentid and vote like so: create table vote_history (
commentid int,
ts int
primary_key (commentid, ts)
);
Where ts is a unix timestamp. Now you can get rankings for any time slice:select commentid, count(commentid) as points from leaderboard whe... |
Is it essential to have personal websites? | alabut: Yes, utterly and absolutely.If you're a designer: personal websites are a sandbox where you can experiment with new designs, see what works for what kind of content or app, try out latest trends (if you're like that) or buck them with your own style.There's a book on the subject by Joe Shepter called Personal W... |
Is it essential to have personal websites? | russell: It's useful to have one, because prospective clients will go to your domain to see what your work looks like. If you have a domain but no web site you get questions. If you have a portfolio, then it is not really a requirement, but it does add to the image of professionalism. If I were you I would go for si... |
Is it essential to have personal websites? | unalone: Essential? No. You get a web site to fulfill a need. If you have no need for a personal site, you don't need one and shouldn't have to get it.That said: I use my personal site to organize the work I've done, and that's something that no other web site does well, so for me (and very possibly for you, if you do ... |
When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages? | cpr: What's funny is that even all the latest trace-compiling (V8, TraceMonkey) and JIT-ting (lots of others) implementation technologies for dynamic languages date from the early 80s (the Schiffman-Deutsch JITting Smalltalk compiler, specifically).Though there was also a fair bit of Self optimization work going on at ... |
When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages? | DaniFong: I would say the programming aesthetics really do count for something. This has influenced Python, Mathematica, Arc, Fortress, and the list goes on. Yet it's fairly new. |
Help me make HN work well on the iPhone | bestes: Aside from the issues mentioned (#1 up/down vote arrows too small and too close together, #2 screen is too wide, which makes the text too small, #3 links are useless without copy and paste unless they are live or super easy to remember):
#5 When you click into the comment or reply box, the iPhone goes into a su... |
Have you raised money from your friends for your startup? | russell: Dont ask for what they cant give. $1000 is reasonable. If you ask for large amounts and fail, you could be sued and you will loose because you will have violated securities laws.If I were you, I would draft a short letter stating what you were going to do with the money and state that the venture is highly s... |
How could FeedBurner be better? | aj: I recently quit using Feedburner. Why? While it was a pretty good service, it got bought over by Google.Personally, I'm planning to get rid of Google in my life. Entirely. And Feedburner was just the first step |
HN useability problem: multiple visits to comments clumsy | qhoxie: Yes, and it has been discussed many times. Some of the proposed work-arounds are quite good.Check http://searchyc.com |
HN useability problem: multiple visits to comments clumsy | jpendry: I agree it would be nice to see new items, but I would be afraid of losing the simplicity of the design for the feature. |
Review my Craigslist killer | unalone: You have very low information density. I go to Craigslist and see an incredible amount of data instantly. On your site I get very few things at once. |
When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages? | jderick: Model checking. |
Review my Craigslist killer | algul: Take a look at the Craigslist message boards. You'll find all sorts of customer complaints about how Craigslist has been taken over by spam, in all sorts of areas, including the personals. Offer your site in those cities where the "overtaken by spam" complaints are the loudest and you'll provide a real alternati... |
What's a good database schema for "Top comments in last 24 hours" | bprater: Sometimes denormalizing a database is okay. But when you get into programmatically mucking with CSV data in a field, you probably have pushed things a bit too far. |
Help me make HN work well on the iPhone | breily: The only improvement I can think of is to set the pre areas to wrap. Right now they completely ruin browsing on the iphone, as they make the screen way too wide and this makes the font way too small. |
Perfect language to use for hopefully widespread Unix prog? | cperciva: C has worked pretty well for me. |
Perfect language to use for hopefully widespread Unix prog? | SwellJoe: If the project is larger than trivial: Perl, unless you need an X-based GUI.Shell has the problem of being inconsistent across several platforms.../bin/sh on Linux systems (except Ubuntu) is BASH, but on FreeBSD, Solaris, and others it is a classic shell. If you are extremely careful, you can write in very s... |
Perfect language to use for hopefully widespread Unix prog? | davidw: Depends what it needs to do, of course. Can you tell us a bit more? |
Review my Startup, MotoListr.com | tontoa4: Clickable link / http://motolistr.com |
How do I protect my start-up from law suits? (USA) | raquo: I think you are to pay lawyers to figure out what disclaimers you must make, etc, if you are in this kind of business, otherwise is just gambling. |
Review my Craigslist killer | MaysonL: One possible method for building user bases - one zipcoed at a time: signs - see the thread on SomeLittleTownsingles.com a while back. |
Review my Startup, MotoListr.com | satyajit: Not much happening here, but a very simple interface.
Clear, easy to navigate. Though little basic.
Sending email page has funny question "Are you human?" - isn't that too easy to crack? You don't even take 'y' as an answer, only obvious ans is 'yes'!From biz perspective - how do you plan to monetize? By $9 l... |
How do you find work? | davidw: Open source projects are a way to keep yourself visible, although of course that's not an immediate way to find work. Ask friends, lower your prices... it's probably tough with the current economy. |
How do you find work? | rdrimmie: Are there any relevant local meetups or foo/bar/startup/etc camps? Any sort of gathering where there'll be other local people you can meet and talk to? |
How do you find work? | tontoa4: Did you try Scriptlance.com, HireACoder.com, or any of those type of sites?I know there are some cheap people on there, but those that use that kind of site often know not to hire the least expensive.Do you have any ideas of your own?Take this time to create your own startup. I have a ton of ideas that are sel... |
How do you find work? | jacquesm: Hm. My work finds me most of the time, but every now and then I'm running on 'idle' for a month or more and I start to look around. One of the things I've found over the years that it pays big time to keep in contact with all your business buddies. Let them know you exist and that you still remember them and ... |
How do you find work? | nolanbrown23: Put a some info in your profile here; you never know who needs help with their startup.Have you tried some of the Gig boards that are out there like 37Signals and Joel on Software? I've had good luck with those before trying to find a way to make some spending money. |
How do you find work? | palish: I found my first job by going to my highschool job fair and begging a guy from Boeing to let me work as a programmer. He told me I was too young (just turned 17 at the time) but since I was "highly motivated" he would call some friends on my behalf. He referred me to a local business that develops frimware. ... |
How could FeedBurner be better? | ComputerGuru: It's perfect if only it would work as advertised.Or rather, it was perfect until Google bought it and then it tanked. |
Review my startup, mobify.me | sam_in_nyc: This is really cool! I hope everything works out for you guys.I hope you guys got the "mobify.it" domain |
Review my Startup, MotoListr.com | sam_in_nyc: This is an idea that requires reaching a "tipping point" in order for it to work. It could work, but you're going to need a solid strategy for getting people to adopt this over, say, craigslist or one of 20 other classified sites.Being "incredibly simple," at this point, is probably not enough to get enoug... |
How do you find work? | iuguy: Think about the things that you've done. Think about the sectors, the solutions, the requirements.Find similar things. If you can re-use what you've already done you're halfway to a profitable solution, but it lets you bid lower than the next guy.Find your niche. Exploit it. Reuse it. Recycle. The possibilities ... |
How do you find work? | mikeyur: As simple as it sounds, be social. There are countless times where I've been looking for work and a simple twitter message has resulted in business friends pointing me in the direction of their friends, and so on.Use twitter search to check out who is looking for a RoR or PHP dev. This is how I get most of my ... |
How do you find work? | rubing: Start offering free weekly classes on programming at your local starbucks. Make it something real general like homepages for small business. Or facebook profiles, crap like that. Then if somebody wants more substantial private help or consultation you can charge them for it. |
How do you find work? | joshsharp: There was a similar thread not long ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=445776And my comment from that thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=445836 |
Help me make HN work well on the iPhone | charlesju: Just toss a view into your code that uses iUi |
How do you find work? | JacobAldridge: I'm...asking everyone I know if they know anyone in needGood, but: Are you clear on exactly what your ideal client looks like? If you're not, then this question won't be clear. If the question is vague or general, it's easier to answer 'no' than to think about it.You'll get more responses with a clear qu... |
How do you find work? | menloparkbum: You're doing the right things. It's just very bad right now for freelance work. I have an artsy-fartsy startup but do heinous "enterprise" style Rails contracting to make money. My contract was just terminated, because I was too expensive.
I think I was replaced by two others who were charging a lot less... |
When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages? | tlb: One place where big new ideas are badly needed is in robotics. No existing language is a good match for programming continuous, dynamic movement. I've been working on a bunch of techniques to make it easier, but they're not ready for general use yet. |
How do you find work? | sanswork: If it's an option for you relocate. I'm desperate for PHP/Ruby developers in Sydney and I know when I was last in Toronto it was the same way. We just can't find decent developers that aren't already in a great job. Even if moving isn't an option try finding cities with real shortages and looking if you ca... |
How do you find work? | ejs: I find this very difficult as well (although I am just getting started), but I can only really blame myself for not being more social (as mentioned here). It is just much easier to code up more stuff or work on a new project then it is to really market ones self.
I also worry that I focus too much on learning dif... |
How do you find work? | amjith: Write tutorials on your blog. Don't hesitate to share your knowledge. Even if you don't have great writing skills, people are attracted to quality content and tips & tricks. Put a link on your blog that you are available for hire. Publicize your blog through the right medium (reddit, digg, dzone).There are plen... |
How do you find work? | shuleatt: For one thing it is not obvious how to contact you. Your blog has one ambiguous link for email but it doesn't even load. Maybe obvious, but you need to make it simple for someone to reach you.Nevertheless I am actually looking for RoR help. Hit me up: sam dot huleatt @ yahoo dot com |
How do you find work? | jjguy: You need to find the thing that distinguishes you from your peers. My story is undoubtedly different than yours, but I'll share parts; perhaps it can help you.I went to college on a military scholarship. After four years of school, I spent 6 years in the military. Three critical things came from those years: ... |
Help me make HN work well on the iPhone | umjames: Pardon my ignorance, but what's specifically wrong with the HN site on the iPhone? I've been accessing it since the first gen iPhone came out, and I haven't noticed any problems. |
How do you find work? | petercooper: There are lots of people looking for freelance Rails developers. You need to engage with the community more somehow to ferret them out. |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | aneesh: My doctor. Or my hospital. Or pretty much anyone in healthcare. |
Is it essential to have personal websites? | chris11: I would suggest that. I was applying for a job at my college doing programming work for a website and database. One of the questions was whether or not I had a personal website, which I didn't. I did not end up with that job.A website will make you more professional. Let's say I come across your blog. If I re... |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | freejoe76: My employer, The Denver Post. My bank. My library. |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | lux: Most public services ought to have them. Not just APIs, but even simple stuff like an RSS or ical export for garbage/recycling days so I can throw it in my calendar. It's about usable data formats too.Great question, by the way :) |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | mtrimpe: Albert Heijn, or any other supermarket. |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | tptacek: My municipal government. |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | mwerty: imdb |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | vaksel: traffic lights system |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | liangzan: dropbox |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | natrius: Most gyms make you swipe a card to get in, so they have a pretty good idea of how many people are in the gym at a given time. If they anonymized that data and made it public, I could go when I know it's not going to be crowded. |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | arjunb: interface Energy {
getUsage();
setPowerState(outletID, powerState);
...
}I wonder if we could create a developer community oriented around defining interface standards we'd like to consume. |
Have you raised money from your friends for your startup? | RobGR: You will have to research the law yourself, but there is a limit to how many people can invest in a business before you cross a line into "selling securities" and have to formally be a real corporation with stock. Not that you can't do it, you just want to be aware of this and do it correctly. I think the Nolo... |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | sam_in_nyc: Not too many. If they don't I just use Dapper, and then Yahoo Pipes if needed.Amazing "hack" about Yahoo Pipes... they block usage based on an IP accessing a pipe. Yet, you can make that pipe access the "singleton" version of itself many times. So let's say you want to pull up Delicious tags of 10,000 UR... |
How do you find work? | Trainwreck: Have you tried oDesk or Elance type of venues? There are also Rent-a-coder type sites as well. Good Luck! Send me your resume in case I hear of anything. |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | gibsonf1: I really wish gmail had an API! |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | gnaritas: Google analytics, it'd be really nice to have access to all that data. |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | noblethrasher: Academic Application Suites like Blackboard and the University IT system - but that's mostly for allowing better interoperability between organizations on campus.My wireless telephone service provider. I would especially like to be able to query and download my voicemails.Better ODB (On-Board Diagnostics... |
How do I protect my start-up from law suits? (USA) | newy: Incorporate.Seriously :) You basically detailed one of the primary reasons why folks incorporate. Not quite following your analysis of how that is "putting the cart ahead of the house"... |
iPhone app development on Windows via Apple Remote Desktop on a mac mini? | wmf: So now you can't afford an iPhone or a KVM? You're cutting way too many corners here. |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | psadauskas: Congress |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | rokhayakebe: InfoUSA. |
iPhone app development on Windows via Apple Remote Desktop on a mac mini? | wallflower: Yes, it's possible. I'm assuming you don't have the MacMini in the same building (otherwise, just plug a monitor, mouse, and keyboard in). The co-location service below does what I'm assuming you'll be doing with your friend's MacMini.http://www.macminicolo.net/macmini.html |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | andreyf: Elevator. I want my iPhone to tell it when I enter the building, and that I'm going to the 6th floor. Ditto for when I'm going back. |
iPhone app development on Windows via Apple Remote Desktop on a mac mini? | menloparkbum: You can do it, but it will suck. |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | shalmanese: Hacker news doesn't have an API yet... |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | petercooper: eBuyer.com - they're like the NewEgg of the UK. They have some great bargains from time to time but you always have to visit their site to dig around for them.. they have no Twitter feed, no blog, no API for their products, no affiliate program.. it sucks because otherwise they're the best place to buy com... |
Programming internationally? | davidw: It's not all that easy - you need to find a job before you go. One way might be to just go to your target country and look for a job. If you find one, they can help you do the paperwork. You'll probably have to go back to the US at that point to get a real working visa. It's a bunch of bureaucratic BS, but ... |
How do you find work? | bkbleikamp: Network like your life depended on it (maybe it does?). A few good contacts are worth more than any job board or anything else.You need to find other good networkers. Once you find them, help them before they help you. Prove to them that recommending you will make them look good, too. |
Programming internationally? | menloparkbum: I've worked in Japan. It is easy if you already have a job offer. It's probably impossible if you don't. Getting an apartment there is painful because Japanese won't rent to foreigners without a Japanese person signing the lease. I think it might even be a law? So you either need a Japanese co-signer or y... |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | timtrueman: Power grid data would be nice, maybe then devices could start knowing when it best to power down or charge. |
Programming internationally? | sanswork: It honestly depends where you are and where you are going. I'm from Canada originally. When I moved to England I had to go to the embassy and fill out a form and show some birth certificates(I was claiming ancestry). I'm now in Australia on a working holiday visa. To get that I filled out a form on a web ... |
Which company do you wish had a developer API? | pietro: Rail, bus and airline companies. It would be useful to query not only the timetable, but also any delays or changes, and of course booking via an API would be awesome. |
iPhone app development on Windows via Apple Remote Desktop on a mac mini? | alnayyir: It won't support OpenGL, and it will suck. |
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