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Ask HN: Favorite HN comment(s)

197 points| _6cj7 | 8 years ago | reply

There are bunch of informative/interesting comments on HN. Throwing here just few of them:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14327829

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12941574

Which HN comment(s) are among your favorite ones? Which ones have created value for you?

89 comments

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[+] tptacek|8 years ago|reply
This is actually a feature of HN (but a well-hidden one). My favorite comments here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=tptacek&comments=t

[+] yodon|8 years ago|reply
Wow, your list of favorite comments is every bit as wonderful as your list of comments. No wonder yours was the first name here on HN I learned to look for to learn from (with dang's being the second)
[+] Springtime|8 years ago|reply
Oh wow, didn't notice until now know they added this. Looking at my locally saved single comments the feature was added somewhere mid-2016. Though thinking back I rarely visited HN in that period between then and now which may explain why I'd missed it.
[+] tmaly|8 years ago|reply
wow, I did not know this. Thanks, I am bookmarking this one.
[+] ktta|8 years ago|reply
I don't think really meant to be hidden. You can go to anyone's profile, click on favorites->comments
[+] Briel|8 years ago|reply
Since our mental wellbeing plays a huge role in how we use our knowledge and skills, one of my favorite HN comments (which is actually a quote from another source):

"Human life the Stoics appear to have considered as a game of great skill; in which, however, there was a mixture of chance [...] In such games the stake is commonly a trifle, and the whole pleasure of the game arises from playing well, from playing fairly, and playing skilfully. If notwithstanding all his skill, however, the good player should, by the influence of chance, happen to lose, the loss ought to be a matter, rather of merriment, than of serious sorrow. He has made no false stroke; he has done nothing which he ought to be ashamed of; he has enjoyed completely the whole pleasure of the game. [...]

Our only anxious concern ought to be, not about the stake, but about the proper method of playing. If we placed our happiness in winning the stake, we placed it in what depended upon causes beyond our power, and out of our direction. We necessarily exposed ourselves to perpetual fear and uneasiness, and frequently to grievous and mortifying disappointments. If we placed it in playing well, in playing fairly, in playing wisely and skilfully; in the propriety of our own conduct in short; we placed it in what, by proper discipline, education, and attention, might be altogether in our own power, and under our own direction. Our happiness was perfectly secure, and beyond the reach of fortune."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12995076

[+] unknown|8 years ago|reply

[deleted]

[+] acheron|8 years ago|reply
"JavaScript Delenda Est", by zeveb: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11447851

Excerpt: JavaScript is the XML, the Yugo, the Therac-25 of programming languages. The sheer amount of human effort which has been expended working around its fundamental flaws instead of advancing the development of mankind is astounding. The fact that people would take this paragon of wasted opportunity and use it on the server side, where there are so many better alternatives (to a first approximation, every other programming language ever used), is utterly appalling.

[+] ejcx|8 years ago|reply
Js is clearly very popular. What are these fundamental flaws that js has that this comment mentions? I don't understand why it would be the "paragon of wasted opportunity".
[+] nulagrithom|8 years ago|reply
My opinion towards JavaScript is much like Cato's towards Carthage: it must be rooted out, eliminated and destroyed entirely. I don't know if I'd go quite so far as to say that the fundamental challenge of mass computing is the final destruction of JavaScript — but I want to say it, even though it's false.

Beautiful.

I actually really enjoy node.js and the ecosystem + community surrounding JavaScript. There's seriously a lot of passion and work going in to it.

JavaScript itself though? Horrible. I hate it.

[+] ptr_void|8 years ago|reply
I'm a student trying to learn server side programming, I've started with node js. There seems to be a whole lot of modules to help with anything and with ES6 js doesn't seem so bad, and very fast (to write) as well compared to C++ that I've attempted. What are these better languages, what should one learn now for server-side when starting out?
[+] Tomte|8 years ago|reply
Graphs of the memory hierarchy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4048204

What's bayesian and frequentist statistics: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4741146

Again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=384399

DSA math: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6195606

Automotive development: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10496625

QNX and message passing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9872640

Path through InfoSec: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11710028

What does performance in Erlang mean: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6359493

Emacs and C/C++: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8617300

Money and self-publishing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8373185

Kerbal Space Program: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12640451

Bush v. Gore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12187666

Teaching a class: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=818367

Precedence climbing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13915458

[+] olalonde|8 years ago|reply
Best HN comeback: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
[+] yodon|8 years ago|reply
When I was a kid, a neighbor friend of my sister's came over to our house and very arrogantly announced "I live next door to a Nobel Prize winner." We all made polite comments. After she left, my mom turned to us and said "I so wanted to tell her 'my dear, I sleep with one.'

Yes, it was probably the only block in the world with two Nobel Prize winners living on it.

[+] bastijn|8 years ago|reply
Not only that. But that same thread goes into his idea being the same as Dropbox, both being startup ideas at the time. Seems the latter won that comeback though.
[+] r3bl|8 years ago|reply
You've now reminded me of my most-upvoted HN comment to date: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11417168

I remember a couple of techies sitting around, watching the thread, and the guy pissed us off to the point where I just couldn't keep my mouth shut.

[+] cperciva|8 years ago|reply
How did I guess this was going to show up again?
[+] koolba|8 years ago|reply
That's a classic. The second reply as well.
[+] sndean|8 years ago|reply
There's a whole series of (long) comments by arcfide [0] about APL, and code in general, in the "Smaller Code, Better Code" thread [1] that I thought were great.

In particular this one [2].

"I'm pushing the other direction. If you can see your entire compiler at one go on a standard computer screen, what sort of possibilities does that open up? You can start thinking at the macro level, and simply avoid a whole host of problems because they are obviously wrong at that level. When you aren't afraid to delete you entire compiler and start from scratch? What sort of possibilities does that open up to you?"

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=arcfide

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565743

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13571160

[+] protomyth|8 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=287767

anamax 3190 days ago | on: So, you're gonna code the whole thing, do the serv...

If they don't have the money to pay you, you're not an employee, you're a founder and you get the same deal that they get.

If they balk, suggest that they find another code monkey while you find another biz monkey and let the market decide who ends up with the bananas.

[+] msutherl|8 years ago|reply
On chef and cucumber: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13209760

On Knuth, C, and Haskell: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12741430

On npm and In Praise of Idleness: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12209300

On revenue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11307264

On cranks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10931403

On "Great Men": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10166372

On the vastness of space: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9937353

Advice from a doctor: https://www.are.na/block/324266

A+ dig at pg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7140065

A+ troll: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7229519

[+] m1el|8 years ago|reply
User Steuard explains why EmDrive doesn't work and responds to an ad-hominem attack

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9473209

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9476202

[+] swingdoc|8 years ago|reply
Sorry to point out that Steuard comments are as valid as me stating that because I don't understand how to calculate the integral, there can be no way anyone else can . Just because some people don't know how to do something doesn't mean its not possible.
[+] scott_s|8 years ago|reply
Steuard deserves a medal for that thread. (Or a beer, coffee or cookie. Whichever he likes.)