Hacker News Reader

_giuon Providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.

you're right...

Sal received his MBA from Harvard Business School. He also holds a Masters in electrical engineering and computer science, a BS in electrical engineering and computer science, and a BS in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

...but I don't think that he's too poor to buy one. everyone has its own methods to work ;) he surely would draw better images, but I personally think that the quality of the lectures would remain on the same high level :)

_giuon If you have REST, why use XML-RPC?

I have to admit that I haven't experimented a lot with REST, so maybe some REST-experts here on HN will help me out answering some of these questions or give feedback regarding the answers that will follow in the next paragraphs :)

regarding question 1: I think it's all a question of how your method behaves -- or how it is implemented. if your method requires JSON, then you'll have to feed it JSON. if your method requires 2 parameters, then you'll have to give it 2 parameters (e.g. myservice.com/?param1=123&param2=456).

regarding question 2: no, it's definitely not a problem, until the library is not maintained anymore or god knows what else. well, yes, it's more intuitive to write a plain simple function then to construct a very complicated request string as you mentioned.

as I already stated above, I don't have enough experience with REST at the moment to give you a more precise response, so I hope this one suffices. I also hope that somebody here on HN with more experience in the REST field will answer your question more precisely, so I can learn a thing or two, too :)

_giuon If you have REST, why use XML-RPC?

With a REST implementation you roll yourself, you'd just have to re-implement this stuff, wouldn't you? Or what am I missing?

No, you wouldn't. as generalk sayed in his comment (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1053384), it's the reverse, namely with REST over HTTP you'll make use of HTTP, which perfectly provides the functions to accomplish the task of invoking a method remotely without having to implement this important part on your own. I'll try to make an example.

let's pretend you have a method called GetEmployeeByName(string name).

with REST you'll implement this method and allow your users to invoke it via http://myservice.com/employee/simpson. the invocation, parameter-passing, error-handling etc. is done via HTTP, so theoretically no work is needed on this part, since you don't have to implement HTTP.

with XML-RPC the thing is pretty different. you'll implement the method, but what you have to do now is -- as described in the article -- find a library (or implement your own) that will generate all the needed XML files etc.

you see, with REST over HTTP you just skip the XML-generating-and-some-more-task and let HTTP do the work. why reinvent the wheel when HTTP is suited pretty well for this part of the task?

I hope this clarifies everything a little bit.

_giuon 3D Flocking Boids

you can find a short description of what the algorithm does and some pseudo code here: http://www.kfish.org/boids/pseudocode.html

_giuon Ask PG: Feature request, remove yourself from the leaderboard

I think the leaderboard is a very good reward for the people who spend quite a lot of time on submitting quality links and contributing to discussions with good comments. every upvote on Hacker News (especially in the comments section) is hard-earned IMHO. the community upvotes quality, and that's one of the main reasons why I love to read links from Hacker News and take part on discussions here. for me it's really rewarding when I see that one of my comments / submissions got an upvote (note: I'm no karma-wh__e by any means!)

_giuon 12 Hours, 2 Guys, 6 Cups of Coffee, 1 iPhone App

yes, that definitely works only if you have 1 coder. fellow students of mine used email for SCM while working on a school project. it was pretty funny to hear that, since a) the major was Computer Science and b) the university would have set up SVN repositories on request (on university servers). well, after we told them about SVN and various other SCMT, they stopped pretty fast to use email for such an important task.

_giuon OP V: up-to-the-minute updates on the status of the LHC proton beam (CERN)

OP Vistars is "[...]a web-based resource which one can use to receive up-to-the-minute updates on the status of the LHC proton beams.".

you can read more about this tool here: http://www.cernlove.org/blog/2009/12/im-down-with-op-v/

picture of OP Vistars' operation during the energy record of the LHC's Twin Beams: http://mediaarchive.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Photo/Public/2009/0... (from: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1225474)

_giuon Ask HN: CS major who doesn't want to code. Am I in the wrong major?

very good point! we have a mathematician in our engineering team. one of our teachers (software engineer) was working toward his PhD in nuclear physics, but stopped in the tick of it because he wanted to work in the IT. you really just should do what you think is right for you. if you wake up in the morning and you're happy to go to work, then you know you've found the right thing for yourself. a major in CS doesn't restrict you. it's quite the contrary. you can choose to do a lot of things, since IT does not only consist of programming positions.

_giuon New language features in Java 7

nice new features. the diamond operator looks good. closures will be fun, too! starts to feel like C# (automatic resource management (C#'s IDisposable), language support for collections, strings in switch).

_giuon Amazing: Tupper's self-referential formula

the submitted link works for me!

anyone else has the same issue described on the comment above?

_giuon Ask HN: What tool makes you most productitive?

agreed. a whiteboard helps, too!

_giuon Extreme JavaScript Performance

thanks for the alternative link and the hint regarding Slideshare. next time when I find an interesting presentation on Slideshare I'll look out for an alternative link.

_giuon Alex Payne — My Get-Back-To-Work Hack

I use a proxy (Pivoxy) to block requests to distracting sites. not the most effective method, but it works pretty good for me.

_giuon Eulogy to _why

_why really deserves this tribute! he created great things and I always liked _why's idea of bringing programming to a wider audience (especially children). reading through john's post and thinking about the mystic (and very smart) person _why was, I'm really sad about the fact that he disappeared online!

_giuon _why is no more

looks a little bit suspicious to me: http://twitpic.com/ehm2h (_why created a repository called "lol" 30 minutes ago)

_giuon Guess who registered http://expert-s**-change.com

may I call this a very brilliant move?

_giuon Method Arguments In Ruby

I totally agree with you! the code is definitely more readable. I think the object initalizer (e.g. var o = new MyObject(){ID=123};) was a step in the direction of named parameters.

however, it looks like named parameters will be shipped with .NET 4.0: http://geekswithblogs.net/michelotti/archive/2009/01/22/c-4....

_giuon Method Arguments In Ruby

I completely forgot about that (long time no intensive Java programming for me)! thanks for the correction

_giuon Method Arguments In Ruby

Java has the same types of method arguments.

C# (.NET 3.5) misses one type of method argument: the default parameter (it will be shipped with .NET 4.0). I have to admit, it happened only once that I missed default parameters in C#. however, there's a workaround to solve this problem: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa287762(VS.71).aspx

_giuon Schneier on Security : Flash Cookies

schneier writes about how evil the flash cookies are, but he doesn't mention how to deactivate them. I did it (http://giu.me/s/ngaf8k), and that's how it went down (note: some flash applications won't work anymore after you deactivate the flash cookies!):

first, go to the Website Storage Settings Panel by following this link: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplay.... while there, hit the delete all cookies button.

next step, visit the Global Storage Settings Panel located at http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplay.... deselect the first option (the one that permits third parties to save data on your computer).

finally, excuse me that I didn't use the exact english description of each option. as you may guess, my settings are displayed in another language than the english one (it's the german one, to be exact :).

_giuon Zed Shaw on SF vs NYC

zed had the exact same thought:

"WTF. Why is my post about moving to SF #1 on HN? I need to write something that is worthy of that spot again."

(http://twitter.com/zedshaw/statuses/3363785875)

_giuon Ask HN: Where do you live?

nice! I'm from the Zürcher Oberland! my uncle lived in Dübendorf for quite awhile.

_giuon Next-gen Java Programming Style

"The Java concurrency primitives like locks and synchronized have been proven to be too low level and often to hard to use"

synchronized is not hard to use. it's rather not a good practice to use it, since it will slow down code massively.

_giuon Ask HN: Where do you live?

Zurich, Switzerland, too! hopefully there are a few others!

_giuon Sudoku Magic allows you to take a photo of sudoku on iPhone and it solves it

it also gives you the possibility to play the photographed sudoku on the iphone. reading the headline, I tought the app only solves a photographed sudoku, which per se is not very useful (except you want to impress your friends). it's a pretty cool app. I recommend you to watch the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO8QjTZkcmw)

_giuon HalfMask - an Experiment in Password Masking

nice idea and nice realization, too! it works pretty good! if you can't read the password after you've typed it in, try to mark it with SHIFT + LEFT-/RIGHT-ARROW or SHIFT + HOME/END :)

by the way: the guys from arc90.com cook up pretty cool things in their labs, like the greatly useful Readability bookmarklet http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

_giuon Fake Steve Jobs on Chrome OS

they held the extension system back possibly because it could have been a bottleneck or because they just didn't want to give you the possibility to use an extension that blocks their ads. however, they are working on the extension system (http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensio...) and you can already start creating your own extensions (http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensio... or http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extensio...).

_giuon Ask HN: Drupal or Joomla?

my partner set up Joomla for the Seminar Paper we wrote last year. don't know why he did that since later in the project we had to code, but after using it for a day or two I immediately asked him to set up Trac. it just was a pain viewed from the usability point. so, my advice is to stay away from Joomla if it's an option. I can't say if Drupal is better or not since I've never worked with it, but what I can say is that it can't get worse than Joomla! conclusion: use Drupal.

_giuon Ask HN: What news sites are your favorites and why?

I like to read Heise Online (http://www.heise.de). I have to mention that Heise Online is written in german and an english version exists at http://www.heise.de/english/. But the official english version of Heise Online is called The H (which belongs to Heise Media UK Ltd.): http://www.h-online.com/ .

I especially like (and recommend) the security section of Heise Online (http://www.heise.de/security/), which is also available on The H for english readers: http://www.h-online.com/security/ .

now, the other sites I read on a regular base are:

http://reddit.com/r/programming (I know you saw that one coming)

http://reddit.com/r/haskell

http://reddit.com/r/ruby

... and some other subreddits.

I can recommend you to search for other technical subreddits at http://www.reddit.com/reddits/ that match your interests.

_giuon Ask HN: What's the Purpose of Hacker News to You?

Generally, the discussions are at least an order of magnitude more interesting than the articles themselves

dito!

I must admit that I've never used the RSS feed (that's partly because I'm not the big RSS reader type). I always get my daily portion of Hacker News directly from the homepage :)