HN jumped the shark into the realm of blatant self-promotion years ago, getting worse over time. I'll admit I've done it a few times too. Feel dirty, but, the market is a jungle.
if this is who I think it is, Dan Bricklin, I want to chime in to say thank you for VisiCalc, sir! I was a user and big fan of your work.
for the kids/newbs: effectively the (co)inventor of The Spreadsheet. and consider that spreadsheets were easily the killer app for the first PC's, thus giving them much more business value, in turn causing more money to flow in, helping to create many more paying jobs, etc, in a happy snowball effect which leads to Linux, Google, AWS...
here's where you might say, "sorry, different Bricklin." oops
best constructive takedown of Lisp I've read, thank you. I've had a love/hate relationship with Lisp for years. Yes, its strength is also its weakness. Its so much harder on the programmer at read/review time. Even though at write time its power is unmatched, almost intoxicating.
Signpost.com's backend was Lisp. Originally, when the company was named Postabon.
I know because I worked directly with their cofounding CTO, Shaneal Manek, during the early buildout phase. I wrote their launch iPhone app, and it talked to a web service Shaneal made, in Lisp. Our app was featured on live TV during some morning business news segment, major network. It was pretty exciting. Anyway they later shifted the feature set and, I believe, rewrote the backend in Java, after Shaneal went to Greplin. Pure speculation for the rewrite was because it was considered as being easier or "cheaper" to find Java devs. Though I'd argue a sharp/solid engineer can work in any language, and Shaneal was definitely that.
I'd suggest also that perhaps the biggest strategic win was that the combination of our slick iPhone app and the Lisp backend with the CxO's pedigrees all helped them to eventually land investment from Google Ventures. Runway and eyeballs are king.
I also worked at Orbitz as a senior engineer back when they used ITA and ITA had not yet been bought by Google. So I can +1 confirm on what is probably the most famous commercial application of Lisp.
On the server-side most bots are easy to recognize in an automated way. not all, but most. So speaking in general terms if the advertiser (by this I mean whoever's product or service is being promoted) site wants to filter out bot traffic, or only place ads with partners who block bots, there are ways of doing that, or at least reducing it. This has been pretty well-known for over a decade in this industry, easily.
articles like this give me mixed feelings. Python is one of the best languages to use. GUIs are, in general, one of the worst UI types, clearly inferior to CLIs and web UIs -- in the general case.
> A single persons observations are not indicative of even a general 'reality', nor a convincing data set.
I've noticed that over the course of 40+ years that almost every morning, when I wake up, and the windows aren't closed, not wearing a blindfold, etc. than it tends to be "bright" from "daylight" due to the Sun. And by golly I see lots of portrayals consistent with that, from other people, in all the books I've read, and on TV, in movies, magazines, photos, second-hand statements from others in direct conversations, etc. All consistent with that. With the obvious exceptional cases that every adult, non-retarded person takes for granted. Duh.
> A single persons observations are not indicative of even a general 'reality', nor a convincing data set.
show me your data? cite a paper URL k thx plz!
you are one of the dark patterns of HN. you are the kind of commenter which makes HN a crappy place to interact. shame on you. grow up. or go somewhere else. or just keep your mouth shut.
normal person: I've noticed over the course of 40 years of real life, thousands/millions of direct RL observations (including.. wait for it... wait for it... seeing, hearing, reading, testing, etc.), that on most days when I wake up, in the morning, and I don't have a blindfold on, and the windows don't have drapes closed, etc. then it tends to be bright, and well lit in the room from that Sun thing.
post to HN:
> do you have any data to support that? cite the paper URL k thx plz? you obvious degenerate superstitious uneducated fuck
HN: a certain percentage of you are annoying as hell. grow up. use your fucking brain. go outside sometimes.
good point. reasonable. the making of generalizations does not outlaw other generalized groups or categories.
an entire side discussion about Bayes predictions could be entered here. where having a few rough rules would yield a 90% beneficial prediction. add a 2nd rule or exception boosts your yield to 95%. add a 3rd rule/exception boosts your yield to 97%. and so on...
observation of reality. not theory. not wish/want/should/ought. actual reality.
trust me, if you're smart and wise then the older you get you should be getting more and more reality-based in your decisions. not theory. not ideal. not PC. reality.
Google seems perfect for two kinds of programmers/engineers:
1. you are 20-something, white or Asian, fresh out of college, Jewish/Stanford/Ivy/otherwise-2nd-gen-pampered-background, male, maybe still in college or 1st startup AND you are willing to move anywhere they want, do anything they tell you, you have no spouse, no kids, no ill parents, no local geo investments, no major illnesses, not multi-careered, you're still impressed by Shiny/Words, etc.
2. you are 30/40-ish but now established as a Major Name (Linus, Vint, Guido, etc.) and/or owner of a company Google wants to buy, and therefore $M+ talks loudly
if you don't fit (approximately) into one of those two boxes, then Google is a non-ideal fit for you
META: downvote me all you want HN, I do not care what the GroupMind's Allowed Opinion algorithm here thinks anymore