Hacker News Reader

shapeshedon Exa Is Deprecated

There is something to be said for boring, reliable software. New languages seem to rewrite UNIX tools and abandon them as a rite of passage.

shapeshedon Building a static serverless website using S3 and CloudFront

Deploying static sites is the original and best candidate for engineers overengineering

shapeshedon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2017)

Clearmatics | Software Engineers | London | On-site or remote

Clearmatics (https://www.clearmatics.com) is an established blockchain R&D company in London, UK. We have good ties to the Open Source / Ethereum community, our Lead Engineer works closely with the Ethereum Foundation, and the company is an EEA Member.

We're looking to hire multiple senior engineers to expand our team. Our stack is Ethereum-like so familiarity and passion with the space is key. We are looking for people who are not afraid of unknowns and enjoy working with others to problem solve and break new ground. You should have more than a passing interest in the Ethereum or cryptocurrency space, with contributions to Open Source Projects being a distinct plus. You should be able to reason about technical problems, argue thoughtfully and contribute in a team setting.

We have a lot of hard problems to solve. If you'd like to make significant contributions to the blockchain ecosystem and think you are a match then we'd love to hear from you!

https://clearmatics.workable.com/j/649B4309C7

shapeshedon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2017)

Clearmatics | Blockchain Engineer | London, UK | Full-time | http://www.clearmatics.com/

Clearmatics is an established blockchain R&D company in London, UK. We have good ties to the Open Source / Ethereum community, our Lead Engineer works closely with the Ethereum Foundation, and the company is an EEA Member. We're funded and have revenue, so we won't be doing any ICOs. We're looking to hire multiple senior engineers to expand our team. Our stack is Ethereum-like so familiarity and passion with the space is key.

* Good grasp of Computer Science fundamentals (data structures, algorithmic complexity, etc)

* Experience in strongly typed languages (C/C++, Golang, Scala, Rust)

* Demonstrable interest in Ethereum / the cryptocurrency space

* Comfortable working in a new field

* Experience with network and concurrent programming

* Willingness to work on research projects and brainstorm solutions with team

* 5+ years experience as a software engineer

https://clearmatics.workable.com/j/649B4309C7

shapeshedon Hugo: A fast and modern static website engine

I switched from Jekyll -> own rolled Node.js generator -> Hugo.

For me it is better because of simplicity and speed. I use it to power a 400 page blog (https://shapeshed.com/) with this source code (https://github.com/shapeshed/shapeshed.com).

I used Jekyll in a small organisation and it meant everyone needed a working Ruby environment This caused much pain across platforms. Hugo ships a single binary for multiple platforms so setup is far simpler. It is also amazingly fast and there have been major performance improvements in 0.17 too (https://gohugo.io/meta/release-notes/).

I love it!

shapeshedon Ask HN: How do you manager your passwords?

Pass https://www.passwordstore.org/

shapeshedon Wire – Modern Communications Network

Good luck but I'm not really sure how this product is differentiating from other bundled voip and messaging products other than better UX/UI.

Where is the revenue model and where are the open APIs into the service? Messaging is becoming really saturated now. User experience might get you some of the way there but interoperability with things outside your walled garden is also important for success IMHO.

shapeshedon Why curl defaults to stdout

Do one thing and do it well.

IMHO cURL is the best tool for interacting with HTTP and wget is the best tool for downloading files.

shapeshedon Show HN: Howm – A Vim-like tiling X11 window manager

I'm another advocate for dwm and st. Compiling dwm takes seconds (it is a small codebase) and keeps configuration out of the core.

shapeshedon ISPs take legal action against GCHQ

Some more information on the legal action here [1]

The action makes repeated reference to the European Convention of Human Rights, and UK lawyers have already questioned [2] the legality of revelations around GCHQ's activities in relation to ECHR.

The current legislation [3] covering GCHQ's activities is from 1994.

1: https://www.privacyinternational.org/blog/stop-breaking-the-...

2: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/28/gchq-mass-sur...

3: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/13/crossheading/the...

shapeshedon Introducing Moto E and Moto G with 4G LTE: Smart phones priced for all

Seems you can't buy the phone outright in the UK and have to buy it through network providers. Would have been good to see an unlocked version purchasable direct from Motorola.

shapeshedon Poll: The new HN comment system – agree, disagree, or wait and see?

Why prioritise this over an API for HN? 2014 and we are still screen scraping.

shapeshedon Moving from Ubuntu to Debian

Choose Arch. Pick any desktop environment and learn how easy it is to switch if you don't like Unity/Gnome/etc

shapeshedon Dopplr is shutting down

It would be interesting to graph SaaS products being purchased and then being closed down over time. It would be a good barometer of the skill levels of decision makers in acquiring businesses.

shapeshedon Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

If you run Linux in a VM on VirtualBox on OSX you get the best of both worlds. If you are curious it is a great way to experiment.

The other point to make is that if you use terminal POSIX compliant tools (vim, mutt, tmux) and favour web applications over native ones you can create a highly portable environment so the choice of underlying OS becomes a subjective question of taste.

shapeshedon Node.js and the new web front-end

Isn't the point that with a REST interface you can move your UI layer entirely to client-side JavaScript with any of Ember/Angular/Backbone. Behind the REST interface your tech can be anything and you can swap it at will.

shapeshedon Floobits-Vim: Real-time collaboration plugin for Vim

I haven't seen anything to compete with tmux and wemux https://github.com/zolrath/wemux. It works great!

shapeshedon Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth on shaking up system software

Whatever you think of HUD, Unity, Ubuntu TV, Ubuntu on Android you have to admire someone pursuing a vision.

shapeshedon RubyMotion - Ruby for iOS

There's a reasonably new language called HTML that is a good development platform too. Works on all devices.

shapeshedon Kickstarter: rails.app

OSS development has to be funded somewhere and to date it has been the benevolence of bigger organisations that have awarded grants or developer time. This gives the opportunity for a developer to offer to solve a problem and for the community to vote with their pockets. It empowers developers and the community to get behind a problem space and if people don't want it it won't happen.

shapeshedon Yahoo Crosses The Line

This is like watching a once great sports team play in a rusty, deserted stadium. This hurts so much because Yahoo helped make the a web a beautiful, free place where humans could create and communicate. They once understood that but are now reduced to mugging full pockets in back alleys. Pretty clear the company is being run by stooges and fee chasing lawyers now and is sinking fast.

shapeshedon Ubuntu for Android

Canonical may not have the resources or funds of Apple or Microsoft but they are innovating better than both at the moment. Unity is daring to be different on the desktop, and Ubuntu on Android is a simple idea that could really change the way people think about the PC. The ideas might not all work out in the long term but for sheer creative thinking you have got to applaud what they are doing.

shapeshedon Why French Parents Are Superior

This is a good example of creating a utopia to explore everything that is disliked about a status quo.

The article is almost entirely anecdotal with little offered to back up supposition and conjecture.

shapeshedon The Redis Manifesto

'Code is like a poem'. 'We optimise for joy'.

Too often software development is veiled in acronyms and jargon. It is great to see a lot of humanity in this manifesto. Software development becomes a huge part of a benevolent dictators life. The simple aspiration of saying 'I want to enjoy this' is a refreshing thing to see.

shapeshedon The Apple Voice

This is a Github internal memo doubling up as marketing. Smart.

shapeshedon Mail Pilot: Email Reimagined

email sucks. collaborative tools are what you should be backing VCs!

shapeshedon Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood.

I agree that Hollywood is in decline because is failing to change and innovate. Creativity has always been sold by record labels and movie studios and technically this looks an increasingly irrelevant role. Production, distribution and marketing of content can all be handled by the web, not monolithic entertainment companies.

The challenge is to create applications that remove that middle layer and keep things open for the creators of content. To date the pattern is repeating itself. App Stores and streaming services are take huge cuts from creators of content. Proprietary formats are prevalent everywhere, designed to protect marketplaces that exploit the creators of content.

Please prove me wrong but I'm currently watching a terrible show where Hollywood is morphing into VC-backed entrepreneurs and big Internet companies. They are no better.

shapeshedon Mayor Bloomberg Will Learn How To Write Code In 2012

How long before the TV series 'Coding with the Stars'?

shapeshedon Trouble in Node.js paradise: The mess that is npm

Isn't this just that node is a newish framework? Discoverability and metrics of quality are issues but I think many devs are excited by node because it is green field. More libraries are good in the long term as the best ones will rise to the top. npm itself solves dependency management really well, but I agree currently a feature like npm star doesn't really work. I'm not sure npm should be solving this problem though. The most valuable data comes from GitHub on modules.