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There is also ftype: (declaim (ftype (function (number string) number) add-string)) (defun add-string (a b) ...)

It sounds like what you're describing is not figuring out at a high level what to do, but formalizing that into low-level instructions for a computer. This goes exactly to my point…

The ill-conceived notion that parents giving children procedural instructions is somehow like programming brings me to a question for you as a teacher. I've noticed that the indust…

Well there is the Steve Jobs solution: don't have license plates.

> And this meant that the great danger to the peace and freedom of the world came not from Moscow or "international communism," but from the U.S. and its Empire stretching across a…

> neither Windows, Mac and Linux have any kind of permission system Actually, OS X now has the beginnings of an iOS-like permission system for location services and access to your …

Airbnb's technical quality has been obviously crap for its entire existence. Why are we taking engineering cues from a glorified room rental site that is frequently buggy?

The whole tone of this question smacks of "gold fever". I'm guessing you're thinking about entering the field, so I'm going to tell you what someone told me during the original dot…

Please don't complain about one of the most fertile job environments and wish for it turn it into another Europe.

Be careful not to conflate offshoring with outsourcing, which the article does. Some startups will have their own employees overseas, but my point is specifically about outsourcing…

Two things: 1) You don't outsource your core in business, so outsourcing tech is not appealing for tech startups, period. 2) Typically tech startups are more of a growth optimizati…

Here's Lisp (SBCL) vs. Python 3: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/compare.php?lang... Summary: crushes it.

Greenspun's tenth rule rears its ugly head. Go reinvents Lisp macros, poorly.

I strongly disagree that the high cost of living is beneficial for startups. Keep in mind the very term Silicon Valley comes from chip companies (Fairchild, Intel, etc.) who came t…

I think too often people make social rather than technical decisions Indeed. It's sad that as engineers (who theoretically espouse logic, reason, and evidence) we still end up maki…

Jon Huntsman, the politician and businessman, speaks Mandarin. As such, he served as US Ambassador to China. Zuck's not the first – I'm sure there are more examples out there.

For me something like list comprehensions is simply a matter of learning and expertise, not cleverness. Somebody banning them for "cleverness" reasons should be called out for what…

Nonsense. It could be steered (well, maybe rotated) with flywheels :)

All good points. I wasn't trying to suggest a solution, but merely trying to point out that job creation should not be the sole bar by which we measure the investment of capital, b…

Employment is all good and well, but one needs to consider: what are the second-order effects of that action? For instance, you could employ people to dig holes that serve no purpo…

The explanation of greater longevity is simple. Heart disease and stroke, at least in the US, together account for slightly more deaths than cancer. Suppose that moderate alcohol c…

promoted by people wanting to feel better about their alcohol consumption Maybe, but this works in reverse too. There is a bias towards assuming that behavior perceived as sinful m…

I agree that it is silly to think that not drinking is actually a risk factor for heart disease. I was never trying to support that claim. I was just trying to point out the instit…

Don't single out cancer without considering all-cause mortality. A number of studies show that moderate alcohol consumption results in overall less death even if cancer risk is inc…

Keep in mind that almost no organization (outside alcohol sellers) can "recommend" alcohol consumption for the simple reason that alcohol is extremely negative for certain cohorts …