I adopted Python because I was told Ruby is the dark side. oO

Just wanted to add a few things:

1- some contributions in this world are only accidentally world changing (see various open-source software). They were not done with some zealous ambitions. Their instigator merely had an itch to scratch and it turns out that the rest of the world appreciated it so much that it just took a life of its own.

2- I am a notoriously trashy person, yet I love a clean space, but I'm also notoriously slow to clean stuff. There's this little lady who has a business cleaning apartments in the neighborhood and she comes once in a while to clean up my place for 30$ (takes her about 30-45min). By some people's standards she's only making herself happy with her business. But I'll tell you, when she leaves my place my brain starts functioning again. The place is spic and span. I produce some of my best code and sometimes throw in new features for my clients for free. I'm pretty sure it might make their own clients happy. This is the butterfly effect of small contributions. You don't need to change the entire world to make a difference.

In Java accessors are almost mandatory if you intend for your object's properties to be publicly available (even the IDEs imply it, by automatically creating them for you). Whereas in languages such as Python and JavaScript, the implementation of this "pattern" makes them optional. You don't have to use accessors if you don't need them right now, since you can always go back and create them later without affecting client libraries.

What the article shows is that, surprisingly, JavaScript's native feature to do this is actually slower than the Java way (what the author called old-fashioned). Is this really a reason to revert to a clumsier pattern because we're optimizing for speed?

Saying that it's "harmful" might get many newbie JavaScript programmers run to start peppering their code with getter and setter Java-style. What happens later when the different scripting engines fix the bottleneck.

I think usability is a blend of user experience, usefulness and intuitiveness. I have a hard time associating the latter with either the programmer or the designer.

My experience, as a programmer working often with designers, is that many of them (not all) are more concerned with the visual appeal of an interface and to a lesser extent its intuitiveness and usefulness.

For example, I've built quite a number of web management systems. Most times, when I team up with some designer they'd want to make pretty icons. However, I've come to the realization that we get more praises when the client can just look at his system and recognizes what he asked us to build and can easily guess where to go next. And that more often happens with text buttons. I believe that visual cues have their place, but I also think that many graphic memes have gone beyond useful, which probably doesn't help the relationship between programmers and designers.

On the other hand, I remember a time when I would build some quick ass functionality, but presented in such a convoluted way that only other programmers could understand the prowess and usefulness of the feature. You had to get up up early to get me to change them!

Programmers tend to be very minimalist, whereas designers are often very expressive. I think there is an effort to be made on both parts to reach a middle-ground. Designers need to learn that pretty doesn't necessarily mean useful. And programmers need to realize that just because their work is useful doesn't warrant that it's usable.

There's hope though. In time I've learned and now strive to make features as intuitive as possible. I now also favor very pretty, text-only, icons.

[...]and the current trend of "removing functionalities" is not always welcomed by developers...

In my not so humble opinion, graphic interfaces should be designed with the Pareto principle as a guideline (80-20 rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle). Is the feature useful? Yes. Will it be used often? No. Lets put it in the "nice to have" list.

If the application caters to a broad audience with varying levels of expertise and usage, it should present interfaces with varying degrees of complexity. I've seen this applied in real life successfully (e.g. in Ubuntu: dpkg >> apt >> aptitude >> Software Center). I definitely agree with you though, that too many software nowadays try to make things too easy without offering a way to go beyond the basics.

The designer should know enough to you visual symbols that have real-world equivalents to convey the meaning of the button visually. Envelopes for mail. phones for contact button. Thumbs up to like, thumbs down to dislike.

This is my first time learning about the open source project (never been on hacker news before). Can anyone provide a link to what you would call a typical open source project in need of a designer. I'm terrified of working with you guys but am starting to feel like maybe I should get over that and lend a hand.

You shouldn't be terrified.

My advice: start with a small open source team (not small project) on a project you like. Maybe do not start with your real name (it will be easy to change aftewards). Come on one IRC channel of a project ( like #videolan on freenode) and propose your services. See how people react. If you like them, go on, if you don't, move along.

VideoLAN makes VLC. VLC is one of the best video players in existence, it's also fairly ugly.

JavaScript: http://eloquentjavascript.net/ (I recommend the interactive HTML version). Ruby: http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/

If I were to begin programming with the goal of working in the web today, I would love that someone pointed me to any of these 3 resources.

Like I said there are other beginner books and online tutorials using languages that aren't usual for the web like The Little Schemer (Scheme). It's always a plus.

You'll need to learn to use a good text editor or an IDE. I'm biased toward Vim, it takes time, but it's a good investment.

You'll need to learn HTML and some CSS. There are countless lists of recommendations out there for best books on x. Just checkout StackOverflow with similar queries for JavaScript, CSS and HTML. e.g. http://blog.reybango.com/2010/12/15/what-to-read-to-get-up-t...

You'll need to learn to interact with databases. You'll need to learn some SQL. However, I've been doing this for quite some time and I've only recently been playing with document oriented databases (aka NoSQL), it is my opinion that there are very few situations where they might not be suitable. Seeing that nothing prevents you from mixing solutions (SQL + NoSQL), I would frankly recommend to a beginner to invest in NoSQL first. Redis, MongoDB, CouchDB are the NoSQL DBs I've played with and would recommend.

Thanks!

Maybe the voting in such topics would be symbolic. It would be visible, but would not really affect karma. StackOverflow addressed their similar concern with Community Wikis.

I suspect many people will feel similarly. If my suspicions are correct, I wonder if we're witnessing a paradigm shift about problems such as alcoholism, drugs and homelessness. Are we as a society beginning to accept that some people are beyond redemption and should just be considered a "loss"? How far can we take this?

Every life has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Some lives are very short, a few are very long, and most somewhere in the middle of the curve (something the insurance companies call the actuarial).

Everyone wants to live as long as possible, but how you get from beginning to end varies widely. What works for me, may not work for you. Trying to impress one social groups idea of 'proper lifestyle' is what causes most of the problems in America (possibly elsewhere) today.

There are times, when a little bit of the problem, is a better cure than all the societal enforced behavioral change. For the most part, we really are smart people.

What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Are there good hackers that find this interesting? look at the votes.

Uhrm... there's a flaw in this logic somewhere. You could drive a train through it.

I consider this article to be noise. Sure, it's interesting to read, but it's contributing to the creation of the sort of volume that will require either a) spending too much time skimming HN to find interesting content, or b) categorization à la Reddit/Slashdot/etc.

Chicken Scheme, the startup incubation in Chile, DSPL: Dataset Publishing Language, and "At St. Paul 'wet house,' liquor can be their life - and death."

Which of these doesn't belong?

p.s., sorry you got hit with the "I disagree with you, so I'm downvoting you" reaction on this one.

As far as the article being off-topic.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

This thread is worth perusing:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2235206

I could not understand why you were bugging me for my use of the term good hackers, when the obvious main point to be made was, if yes or no the article was, in fact, HN material, which I felt and continue to feel it is.

Many of us haven't been around this site as long as some of the people raising their concerns in the thread you pointed me to. We don't know what it was like in the old days, our only compass for what makes a good HN post is the guidelines, which can be interpreted subjectively in many situations ([...]That includes more than hacking and startups[...], [...]anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity[...]). Some of the best articles that I've found on this site snuggly fit within those characteristics (e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1978295). I believe the current one to have some of those same characteristics, because it highlights an out-of-the-box approach to a problem so very uncommon in the mainstream. 4 days ago I was chatting about homelessness with my business partner, and we were discussing hypothetical solutions to fix it, or at least make it less of a problem and reasons why they would or wouldn't work and some of our solutions were pretty much along those lines and also raised some ethical/moral questions. We're both programmers and though this is arguably not hacker material, we're also entrepreneurs and our ideas often stem from these little discussions that help us look beyond the status quo.

It seems from the thread that you posted that some old timers are trying to get HN to fit back into its old box. I'm still unsure if it would have much appeal to the kind of topics I'm referring to. If their veteran status grant them a say in the direction of HN, I can only suggest to push for clearer guidelines.

Btw, I cannot remove the good hackers from the original post to the thread, it appears that the "edit" timer has expired.

So we agree, then?

Good. Glad to put that to bed.

Please leave the childish insults at the door. Misunderstandings happen, but insulting someone for it is wrong.

> so I see no point in continuing this discussion.

If the only thing in your comment is an insult, a statement about ending the discussion, and karma, it's a poor comment and you should just not write it.

> downvote away if it makes you feel like a bigger man.

This comment should be down voted. It's a poor comment by any standard. It offers nothing to the conversation, is rude, and far below HN standards.

You're new here, so I just wanted to take the time to explain why these types of comments are bad for HN and to try and help you improve. I hope it does. =)

Yes we are nice to each other here, it is kind of the golden rule. There are plenty of sites for technical dogma battles and less than civil discourse. HN is not one of those sites. It is what makes it what it is, and we are kind of fanatics about it staying that way. There are too many of the other sites and HN is kind of different, we like it that way and want it to stay that way.