That's a very interesting learning resource. I wish something similar came for Scala or Clojure (as opposed to tryclj, which does not have all those "Learn" pages).
Here's a monstrous list of online sandboxed REPLs, i think the first group, codepad, IDEone, etc can do scala and clojure but probably you'll want to go with one of the one click donwloads like Haskell platform, the typesafe installer or leiningen, unless they've somehow developed a miraculous classpath hell resolver.
Saying that HTML is nothing but a technology created for hyperlinked text is like saying the mobile device you're using all the time was created to pass phone calls. While this is true, it is a truly weak statement.
You make it sound like learning the native will magically lead to create better working apps. This is just not true.
I'm not saying going native doesn't have to potential to help developers create faster apps, but when making something like this feed, HTML5 would not seriously be a bottleneck.
And you're claiming to be a "very experienced web developer"? Dunning-Kruger much?
Please don't generalize, this is not always true. Being a programmer (with a formal CS background) who used to make a living as a professional designer, I have met a lot of people like me. Good design is about solving problems, good programmers usually solve problems.
When it comes to aesthetics, it's something that people do learn, and programmers can learn, too.
- giving the executive decision powers in the hands of most of the developers is a recipe for a disastrous product
I respectfully disagree here too, for the sole reason that developers can learn the ability of making decisions in a relatively rational way. I would even wager to say they might be more inclined to trust in data.
I should have started with "Most programmers make horrible designers"; my apologies for that. The point is, even making a not-so-bad design, takes a lot of thought; more importantly, it takes courage to push a design concern that will make implementation harder and take longer to finish. I certainly believe that people are amazing, and they are capable of doing amazing things. But also there is the issue of possible vs probable. And, I don't take it lightly when I see a good programmer and designer in the same person.
There is a lot of room between a 1-man show and Intel/Tesla. People really think it's all or nothing and there is so much room in between.
It doesn't mean it's a lifestyle business either, you can have a business earning over $10 million revenue p/year in this in between and with no funding. Is that really just a lifestyle business?
Most people i've met seeking venture capital have zero chance of being capable of building the next giant company. Yet many have succeeded in raising capital regardless. VC's generally aren't willing to take on much risk, so you see them spending lot's on low-capital requirement companies that are +EV. And little on companies that need large amounts of capital to scale.
Nothing wrong with a "lifestyle" company and making a couple 100k for yourself. No need for all the headaches of running a public company and possibly getting kicked out of your own company by VCs, boards, etc. like Jobs did.
You're generalizing too much if you believe that the whole AWS stack is bad.
S3 is very reliable, and I'm not aware of anything as reliable (we're talking eleven nines)/simple/cheap/distributed.
EC2 gives you the ability to manage instances in several continents with a dead simple API, which is unheard of anywhere else at this price.
ELB is very reliable, simple to use, and saves you hours of setup.
My point is that if you really wonder why anyone would want to use AWS, you might not be considering AWS, but only EC2, and in a very non-international way.
Arh. I should have written EC2. Sorry for the confusion. ( Will double check next time before i make a post )
I do realize there is other AWS services that are great and simple to use. But for hosting i dont think anyone should choose EC2.
If you really believe there is more information in SmartOS' wiki than in man pages & other proper documentation available about Linux, I don't think the problem is with the Linux monoculture, but somewhere else.
This is the world we live in. A world where being seen enjoying something matters more than actually doing it. People's need for social validation is so strong it sometimes saddens me.
The positive point is that we (as in, hackers) are on the side of building things and solving (although sometimes artificial) problems, so we can at least make what we can to benefit from people's behavior.
There's something that I am genuinely wondering. Will car ownership really decrease?
Where I used to live in 2003, in China, taxis were really cheap, and public transportation was functioning OK. Yet, after some economic boom, people started to buy more and more cars. It was very provable that cars were a negative in every possible way. More expensive, PITA to maintain, inconvenient to park, incompatible with drinking alcohol or being tired, but still, people preferred to own and drive their own cars!
I know a self driving car is not exactly like a Taxi driver (or even like a private driver), but the parallel is close enough for me to wonder about the consequences.
I think there's another factor in play in a place like China. Many of these new car owners probably grew up with cars being an unattainable luxury - now, suddenly, they can actually just own one. I can't blame such people for jumping on the opportunity, practicality be damned.
For the average chinese person, is it cheaper to use taxis & long range busses & subways to go everywhere, or a personal car? Will the taxis come out to your residential area, at any time? Your still paying for taxi labor on top of a car.
