dgallagher

Thanks for the clarification billybob. :) Part of my perception was driven by the unknown; what would happen if Oracle stopped putting money into it? It's nice to hear that Percona appears to be a potential candidate to continue its development if anything bad ever happened to it on Oracle's end.

Ah cool, thanks so much!

I'm not sure how customizable Trac is, but one idea would be to implement reCAPTCHA for anything marked as spam (assuming robots are causing spam issues and not users). If it gets solved, it's probably a human entering something on the other end.

This is a Python 2 reCAPTCHA module I forked/updated: https://github.com/dave-gallagher/recaptcha-client-1.0.6-ssl

I personally picked PostgreSQL instead of MySQL since I don't trust Oracle. Why support a free database server when it competes with Oracle RDBMS? Granted Oracle RDBMS is extremely expensive, but still, something doesn't sit well with me...

Thanks for clarifying things jacobian. :) I'd love to help out in a limited capacity (time constrained currently, unfortunately).

In the past I've submitted tickets via the Django ticketing system indicating errors/clarification/what-not for the docs, but almost every ticket got flagged as spam and didn't get submitted. I kinda gave up after that point. Any suggestions on how to get tickets submitted?

Oh, and one tiny feature request to the ticketing system: password reset. :)

Official Docs - best official project documentation I’ve read. It’s actually so good, that I never (well - almost never) bothered to look for anything else. All my questions were answered by the official documentation.

I have a different opinion. The Django docs are good, but not great. Here's how I see them right now:

    - Combination of overview, how-to, and API reference.

Instead, I'd like to see it split up like so:

    - Overview section.
    - How-To section.
    - API reference.

The overview section should cover general concepts. "This is what a View is, how it relates to URLConf, etc...".

The how-to section should show you how to do certain things. "Here's example code of how you can configure settings.py, how to handle an HTTPRequest in a view function, etc...".

The API reference, just a list of Django objects (showing inheritance), their attributes, functions, and parameters. Excellent example: http://api.rubyonrails.org/ . Currently some of this is documented, but some of it is only visible in source code.

Right now, everything in the Django docs is semi-bunched together. This made it really hard for me to initially learn the API; I'd imagine others' have similar issues. Since then I've gotten use to the docs, but it's still frustrating at times.

I do like Django very very much, but this is one of its pain points for me. It goes away with experience, but for new users it likely poses a bit of a challenge.

I agree with you. Before there's a need for Django to be on Python 3, there must be a major need that Python 3 serves which Python 2 does not.

Lots of older drum and bass does sound very similar. Some of the newer stuff, like Pendulum, Sub Focus, and The Qemists, have taken the genre to the next level. It's much more interesting and exciting than in the past.

Pendulum - http://www.youtube.com/user/pendulumlive#p/u/9/X6BKBIOtRXw

Sub Focus - http://www.youtube.com/user/subfocustv#p/a/u/1/MYO_0Xfh58k

The Qemists - http://www.theqemists.com/youtube/video/OTGJW0-QPuw/

Yes, Core Data supports storing raw binary data. IIRC is also uses caching (for SQLite stores), and lazily-loads related objects as needed. You can customize this behavior to optimize its memory usage for your code.

Love the question. :) A few ideas:

    - You're not putting in enough effort.
    - You give up and move onto the next thing too quickly.
    - You're stretching yourself too far beyond your current abilities.
    - You're not analyzing, criticizing, and actively improving yourself well enough.
    - You're lacking in useful resources, such as good books or a good mentor to 
      help you overcome hurdles.
    - You're picking things merely because they're uncomfortable and cannot be 
      improved upon (e.g. sitting on a knife).

You've provided a valuable service and saved people time. The first question anyone will have about Kernel 3.0 is "What's new/different in it from 2.6.39?". By summarizing/quoting you let people skip skimming the article, or a Google search, and saved them time.

In regards to Flytivity (introduce people to each other at airports):

PG:You don’t know where people are going unless you expect them to tell you all the time. You have to find a subset of people who super-want to talk to one another. Enough to seek out and sign up for something they aren’t using. If I were you i’d stat over. You’ve spent 60 days on this. Plenty of companies start over after 60 days. The very best startups solve problems that founders themselves have. What is the worst problem in my life.

First idea that popped into my head: frequent fliers who like to sleep around and/or cheat on their spouses. If you're always on the go, away from home (for better or worse), an app connecting like-minded people easily might have a viable group of customers. Basically, a mobile/geo version of AdultFriendFinder.com. Want to share a hotel room to fool around in, and save some money by doubling up? Stranded out of town with nothing to do? Etc...

People will go out of their way for sex, including logging into an app and planning ahead. The question is, how big is the customer base, and what are they willing to pay? Do you end up with too many men and not enough women? Perhaps it's different between W4M, M4W, M4M, W4W.

If you had the pleasure to live in Massachusetts to experience all this, we had three really large storms within about two weeks of one another in Jan/Feb (can't remember the exact dates). The result of this? 6 foot snow banks everywhere. Mall parking lots were much worse since they'd pile snow in ~30-foot tall mountains. That made it extremely hard to see around corners driving.

Highly anecdotical, but I noticed that many drivers became less aggressive. Roadways were clear, but not being able to easily see around corners resulted in less people cutting me off. This lasted for about a month before things melted a bit, and drivers quickly re-earned their title as Massholes. ;)

Definitely by the end of the year, if not sooner. I'm getting close to having a full functioning beta (likely in 3-4 months), and will likely do a private launch with some testers shortly after.

I'm currently working on a hybrid app that's a desktop app and web app. The desktop code is mostly done, and the web code is coming along nicely. It's very interesting working on both sides of the equation; both have their challenges. While I'm still keeping the idea close to my chest, it's an untapped market which could potentially be very big.

I think there are plenty of opportunities on the desktop-side of things; millions of computers are sold every month. While we may be entering the long-tail of dedicated computer sales, being replaced by iPads and other specialized devices eventually, it's going to take a while for that switch to fully happen. At least 5 if not 10 years or more; the keyboard/mouse interface still rules for content creation, and many people spend their days sitting in front of one.

However, it's becoming very difficult to release a desktop-only application without some sort of web component. Everything from note taking software, to video games, to music software, is all expected to be connected online somehow.

I'd imagine a sticking point for some corporate software is security. Most companies are not comfortable having their data stored on someone else's servers, potentially unencrypted. Some even have special agreements with governments and businesses preventing them from doing so. A lot of these companies are being left out of the cloud.

Two possible solutions include providing server software for IT departments to deploy (been there, done that, it's not pretty or cheap), or to have some sort of encrypted solution syncing to the cloud. The trick is, data must be fully and securely encrypted "before" going to the cloud. If someone breaks into the cloud provider's storage, or intercepts the data in-transit, they must get gibberish. The cloud provider can't read the data either; only the business. Just an idea to think about. :)

Love it! Bought a copy too! IMHO you're the best commenter on HN edw519! :)

I think, if continued to be allowed, software patents should expire 2-3 years after being issued. We no longer live in a time where it takes decades to invent new software technologies, requiring a patent to protect the inventor for years/decades to recover their investment costs. Software and technology moves so quickly that long-term patents stifle innovation and creativity.

My preferred way to read is to have a physical and digital copy. The digital goes wherever I go, on my laptop and iPad, and is easily searched with a query string. The physical stays at home, and has all of the advantages you mention. I love having both, and feel handicapped if I only have one. But it's still not ideal...

--------------------

I envision a future where we'll have the best of both worlds; a physical book with double-sided e-ink pages. The front cover is a touch-screen running iBooks, letting you swipe around to find something to read. Touch it, and all of the e-ink pages instantly display the book.

Now you can easily flip through it like a normal book, far faster than an iPad. Text-searching is a breeze, impossible with a paper book. Using your stylist, mark pages with notes, highlight them, do whatever. A small microphone lets you record audio notes, tied to a passage of text. Everything saves and syncs to the cloud, following you wherever you go.

Errata auto-downloads and updates your books as needed. A small camera, integrated into the hard-cover lip that extends above each page, tracks your eye-movements and watches what you read, looking at facial expressions and pupil dilations, to determine what you found most important. In the future if some information it saw you read is wrong, you'll get an auto-email or tweet telling you about it.

Every paragraph in the book will be connected to a community-discussion board, where you read and ask for clarification regarding confusing text, similar to djangobook.com. It's a social reading experience, letting the community at-large make comprehension easier.

Physically the e-ink Book comes in many different sizes, from small and pocket-sized, to large and biblical. Text auto-adjusts, similar to the Kindle. Battery life is measured in months. Embedded video, audio, and animation is common.

Something like that will kill paper books and e-readers, since it marries the best of both worlds.

Technically you can build basic CRUD stuff using Xcode and Interface Builder on Mac OS X:

    1. Design your GUI using Interface Builder
    2. Design your Core Data model in Xcode.
    3. Connect the two using Bindings in Interface Builder.

It will be very very basic, but you can get something built without writing a single line of code. Ideally find some sort of tutorial that steps you through how to do every step, especially configuring and connecting Bindings. You won't truly understand everything, and the only way to do so will be to take the next step and learn C/Objective-C and the Cocoa API.

The only thing that's keeping me from switching is Django (currently 1.3), which is on Python 2.5-2.7. It might be some time before they migrate to Python 3.

Alex Gaynor mentioned that he'd like to work on porting Django to Python 3 this summer, noting that an end-of-summer port is not an official position of the Django developers (2nd link):

http://alexgaynor.net/2009/nov/28/django-and-python-3/

http://alexgaynor.net/2011/feb/17/django-and-python-3-take-2...

I don't believe Django has officially announced when they will move to Python 3, or what version of Django that'll occur with. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Currently though, I'm not sure if Django "needs" Python 3 all that badly. Eventually yes, but not necessarily right now; Python 2 is still quite popular.

Couldn't you buy insurance that covers the bond? Typically this is much less than a bonds face value.

When do you expect to find one of these stuck to the bottom of your car? ;)

In all seriousness, do you believe it would be possible for the FBI to make a similar device to use on bicycles (inside handle bars), motorcycles, scooters, or Segways?

If you haven't seen it, South Park did an Apple episode recently and it was all about the iTunes agreements:

90-sec clip #1 (SFW): http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/382781/business-casual...

60-sec clip #2 (NSFW): http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/382785/im-gonna-clickd...

Full Episode (NSFW): http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e01-humance...

Note that the full episode is down until May 27, 2011 due to "contractual agreements" (e.g. bookmark for later).

The firefight took place in Abbottabad, Pakistan:

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbottabad

Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=safari&q=ab...

Google Earth (copy/paste): 34° 8'48.00"N 73°12'59.00"E

I like this technique to organize Django's settings: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/88259/how-do-you-configur...

Example: https://github.com/JimDabell/lojban-website/tree/master/lojb...

I loved the "Making Crash Bandicoot" series on your site. It's well worth the read:

http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-ban...

I think that's called job security in some circles. ;)

There will likely be a point in the future where the abilities of human technology surpass the abilities of humans themselves, making us irrelevant (relatively speaking). We will probably integrate with technology along the way, passing along our good and weeding out our bad, but the end result will be far different and superior to humans. It will be the byproduct of our race, much like we are the byproduct of the first multi-cellular organisms.

Throughout evolution, no species has ever permanently dominated the top of the food chain; it always gets replaced by something else. There's little reason to think that won't happen to us too.

If you can bring money to the table, that's a big plus. This can either be from personal investment, or customers you have already lined up dying to buy Product X, which you need a partner to code up for you because it doesn't exist yet.

Design and mockups are helpful. If you have an idea for a web app, create mockups, diagrams, and flow-charts. Explain what every link and button does on the webpage. How it should behave, what should be happening behind the scenes, etc... Balsamiq Mockups, Photoshop, and Visio/OmniGraffle are your friend. The more detailed the better, so long as it's intuitive and easy to follow along.

If it's an iOS app, build the GUI. There are a lot of apps that help you mockup iOS stuff. Same goes for Mac OS X and Windows programs.

And of course, you should be able/willing-to-learn how to do business stuff. Finance, accounting, legal work, incorporating, all of the overhead that's part of running a company. Get deals with vendors, payment processing companies, capital planning (e.g. budget out how much it'll cost to host on Amazon AWS vs. Rackspace vs. Linode, etc...). Market research, what competitors are up to, how you plan to outflank them, etc...

In a nutshell, you need to make yourself valuable to a programmer. The more refined your idea is (assuming it's good, has an achievable revenue model), and the more you bring to the table, you increase your likelihood of finding someone who wants to work with you.

Where do most programmers hang out? StackOverflow, Github, Bitbucket, blogs, IRC, Hacker News, at work, in front of their computers hacking. There are programmer meetups you can find on Meetup.org too.

And of course, nothing is stopping you from learning how to code! I'm also a business/finance guy, but taught myself Objective-C/Cocoa and Python/Django. It's perfectly doable, but takes time, dedication, determination, and patience. Grab some books and get crackin! :)

Original study is here: http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/15/5643.abstract (full-text requires subscription)

What are the hours like? Is 9-5 Monday-Friday the norm, or do you expect 7-day workweeks and 24/7 on-call? Etc... Is overtime paid or not?