ASK PG: hacker news website problems
7 comments
Part 2 drives me crazy.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=151663
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=151663
Agreed. Any time you type a comment longer than a paragraph or two, you get that message.
This seems like a fundamental shortcoming of the continuation-based request approach. POST URLs should never expire.
This seems like a fundamental shortcoming of the continuation-based request approach. POST URLs should never expire.
This seems like a fundamental shortcoming of the continuation-based request approach.
Nope. You just add times to the closures.
Nope. You just add times to the closures.
That happened when I answered pg once. I always thought he just erased my comment because he thought I was a redundant cheesehead.
I created a poll http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=196196 with some of this issues, I'd like to see how many people care about each one and maybe we can convince PG to start fixing some of them (or release updated source code and accept patches)
I haven't looked that closely at arc, but if it's a continuation based web server (for some reason I thought it was) it has to store those continuations on the server, which means it has to get rid of them after a certain timeout period. Considering I get that expired message quite a bit, I suppose the timeout isn't long enough.
On the plus side, because I have to go back, about half the time I go back I see someone has said something similar to what I was going to say but clearer and more succinctly, which means I don't have to bother posting whatever I was writing.
On the plus side, because I have to go back, about half the time I go back I see someone has said something similar to what I was going to say but clearer and more succinctly, which means I don't have to bother posting whatever I was writing.
That sounds understandable technically, but if there has to be a timeout, perhaps continuations aren't a great idea for this sort of thing.
3. Scribd
EDIT See the comments at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=195067 for more on the Scribd issue.
EDIT See the comments at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=195067 for more on the Scribd issue.
This is bearable with
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=195431
whereas there's no apparent client-side fix for (2) - and (1) sounds bad, although I've not had it happen myself. That said, HN was down for me for most of yesterday, although ycombinator.com was fine. (?)
I don't follow... Can you elaborate?
Apparently, if you submit a PDF, Hacker News automagically converts it to a Scribd iPaper link.
Some people apparently find loading the flash iPaper viewer as more annoying than viewing a raw PDF.
Some people apparently find loading the flash iPaper viewer as more annoying than viewing a raw PDF.
iPaper: It's like paper...jabbed into your eye.
I personally would choose scribd over PDF, but the firewall my employer has in place blocks scribd. I still want to read the linked document so PDF becomes a necessity unless I use a proxy which could get me fired. Maybe that'll jump start my startup. :D
The problem is that some pdfs on scribd are rendered in a way that makes the text fuzzy and almost unreadable. The only way to read the text in those cases is to load the raw pdf.
That's not the biggest issue for me.
Often the PDFs that get posted are interesting enough for me to want to archive and read more in depth on the bus, when I don't have an internet connection. Scribd makes this a royal pain in the arse.
Also, I strongly prefer the native feel of a decent PDF reader over a slow Flash UI running in the browser. (no, Adobe doesn't count as decent.)
Often the PDFs that get posted are interesting enough for me to want to archive and read more in depth on the bus, when I don't have an internet connection. Scribd makes this a royal pain in the arse.
Also, I strongly prefer the native feel of a decent PDF reader over a slow Flash UI running in the browser. (no, Adobe doesn't count as decent.)
problem #3: No downvotes on stories.
Seriously, after the "last wave" of newcomers there's been quite a lot of crap on the main page. A downmod arrow would be nice. Not to decrease karma (it should be limited so that noone could downmod a 1 point story) but to keep high quality of the site.
Seriously, after the "last wave" of newcomers there's been quite a lot of crap on the main page. A downmod arrow would be nice. Not to decrease karma (it should be limited so that noone could downmod a 1 point story) but to keep high quality of the site.
i'm pretty sure pg considers the no downvote thing to be a feature, not a bug. it was designed that way on purpose.
[deleted]
Upmoded for point number 2, really PG it makes no sense.
Is #2 ("Unknown or expired link") a bug or a feature? It sure feels to me like a bug.
ia gree, 2 is very annoying.
I was wondering lately, perhaps it is the time for the site to be passed over to the community so it can get some improvements.
pg is using this site as his test bed for arc. I don't think he wants it to be community driven and improved (yet).
I know arc itself has two versions one developed by the arc community (anarki) and then a separate one developed by pg.
I know arc itself has two versions one developed by the arc community (anarki) and then a separate one developed by pg.
Source code is available, IIRC.
The released code is fairly old (I think the auto scribiding came after the last release of Arc).
1. It refuses loading long pages (pages with a lot of comments) at some point in the middle, maybe it's due to my slow connection to this website, but even on slow connection it should finish loading in a finite time period, not leave me an uncompleted page. Recently I had really a bad time in trying to read all comments at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=192654 .
2. "Unknown or expired link."