terryk88a | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: Are people only smart until they talk about things you know more about?
terryk88a's comments
terryk88a | 12 years ago | on: Don't forget to talk like a pirate
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: Show HN: Turn your pen into a touchscreen stylus
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: What is spaghetti code?
'while' and 'until' showed up in RATFOR (rational fortran) which fits into the lexical ancestry of 'C'. I think that the Algol family had these too.
without the more powerful control statements, GOTO was heavily used, and with wild abandon. Some variants even let you GOTO up and down the execution stack.
trying to trace logic (of course there weren't symbolic debuggers way back when) could be like following a strand of spaghetti.
my most (not) favorite modern examples are coroutines, but let's not forget the evergreen example of enterprise java wherein one can easily achieve stack depths that boggle the mind.
nevertheless, spaghetti code is a frame of mind in which the untutored implement minimally functional software systems that only work for trivial conditions and for which the source code itself can not be reverse engineered except with great magic, epic heroism and extraordinary luck on the attack roll.
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: The first open company
or he really believes this BS and has narcissistic personality disorder
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: 3-D Printing, robotics swing manufacturing might from China back to the U.S.
Crickets.
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: 3-D Printing, robotics swing manufacturing might from China back to the U.S.
I suspect it may be one of those near-prophetic works of science fiction that will amaze future generations - "How'd he see that coming?"
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar
You do not deserve respect. Ever. You must always earn it.
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: The Crazy World of Code
Back in the dino days, the rate of change was tiny compared to today's daily delta V. We mostly had monthly and a few weekly rags to tell us about the next big thing; there weren't that many next big things, anyway. Hey, it was a really big deal when cartridge tapes came out and we didn't have to thread a 1/2 inch magtape by hand anymore... Geez, who could forget 1-base-T networking? or 9600 baud modems? Whew.
Don't get me started on software innovations like Oracle SQL\Forms! ManOhMan! Fergit CICS!
Seriously - the barrier of entry is so low now, that the least of us can throw something up on the wall and if it sticks or even just leaves a little residue, the flies are all over it, preaching it up, "This is the best shit ever."
There really isn't much new out there, mostly it's just lots of new flavor wheels. Think "Hudsucker Proxy" at times like this...
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: Making Online Notarization Legal
Based on comments here, multi-factor (non-wallet) authentication is used to identify the parties. This method of ID verification is a technique that I helped pioneer at Equifax many years ago, and I've been disappointed that it hasn't ever really seemed to take off before. I occasionally see it in use here and there, but now really expect it to be recognized for its value. Not perfect for every case, but a useful tool nonetheless.
Cheers and way to go!
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: To Achieve Greatness, You Must First Acknowledge that You Suck
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: Declaration of Internet Freedom
For example, what does "universal access" mean? How about "free to connect"? Is this declaration demanding that access to the internet be free to all? As in no cost?
The language "access" to this or that has been subverted in recent years to mean that the accessed resource should be free of charge. E.G. universal access to (free) healthcare. That is decidedly not what accessible means.
So I won't be supporting this declaration. I can't tell if it is demanding Free Internet, which is not a universal right.
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
terryk88a | 13 years ago | on: I analyzed the chords to 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
This may best thought of as a lexical analysis of 1300 popular novels. E.G. what is the most popular word following the word "it". The key of a tune 'controls' the chords available, using a typical chord progression. A song in the key of C most typically has the progression C-F-G or I-IV-V in roman numerals signifying 1 for the dominant C, and 4 and 5 for F and G respectively the fourth and fifth notes in the key's scale.
More interesting might be what are the most popular chord progressions. E.G. I-IV-V or II-IV-Im. Which is what I was expecting to click through to.
A million monkeys can write a hit in how many years, now? And BTW "it was a dark and stormy night" don't you know.
terryk88a | 14 years ago | on: Display 100 Hello World Without Using Loops
Unrolling loops can be a good thing when optimizing code, but you can't get much worse than tail recursion. It's always a win to eliminate this code pattern. The order of complexity is the same, but your stack will blow up for large N.
I don't know what you're looking for when posing this problem. A simple loop is already the most efficient technique.
loop good tail recursion bad
Of course, this is just a homework quiz, right?
terryk88a | 14 years ago | on: Tipping doesn't make any sense
terryk88a | 14 years ago | on: How to learn Emacs
terryk88a | 14 years ago | on: How to learn Emacs
it's my productivity secret weapon and I don't wanna share!
terryk88a | 14 years ago | on: Let's Start Something
this is just more of the same.
terryk88a | 14 years ago | on: I don't hire unlucky people
However, he apparently has no shortage of suitable talent available when using this method.
Gell-Mann Amnesia is rather strictly defined by its creator in the journalism domain, but perhaps it could be stretched to include the commentary here at Hacker News.
Still, I think that tagging your answer as "amnesia" does not work - unless you, yourself, manage to forget to be skeptical... on topics where you are not expert and commenters are still show-casing Dunning-Kruger.
And it's hilarious how many of them there are here!