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Ask HN: Things that suck?

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Re: Ask HN: Things that suck?

#71

Post by e15ctr0n »

comrade1 wrote: post #65
comrade1 wrote: post #62

Fellow programmers that don't use an IDE and insist on vim or emacs.. I often work on large projects with dozens of programmers and the developers that don't use an IDE are very small-thinking. They don't seem to know any libraries besides the base libraries and can't integrate large systems together. They're fine for writing algorithms but beyond that they slow everyone else down.

I wonder why the downvotes? This is based on observation on large-team projects. Maybe you have a different insight?

I didn't downvote you but I'd honestly like to ask why you think that integrating large libraries would speed you up instead of increasing the bloat of the code base?

Re: Ask HN: Things that suck?

#72

Post by snihalani »

sejje wrote: post #8

Driving. I want to be able to look out the windows or work or whatever I want to do. Power. I'm so tired of my devices running out of juice. Road trips and festivals etc become much less fun when I have to continually worry about how to charge my phone or laptop. Craigslist: They shut down services like padmapper but continue to give us a totally shit interface to work with. Finding a place to live, in particular, is…

How does craiglist shut down a service like padmapper?

Re: Ask HN: Things that suck?

#73

Post by unfamiliar »

xur17 wrote: post #16
sejje wrote: post #8

Driving. I want to be able to look out the windows or work or whatever I want to do. Power. I'm so tired of my devices running out of juice. Road trips and festivals etc become much less fun when I have to continually worry about how to charge my phone or laptop. Craigslist: They shut down services like padmapper but continue to give us a totally shit interface to work with. Finding a place to live, in particular, is…

The vehicle maintenance one would be great - have an odb device that connects via bluetooth to your device, and knows when to schedule oil changes, or handle more complex issues.

Or... just pay someone to check it once a month for you, like you might have a gardener or cleaner come round to your house. Not everything needs a high tech solution.

Re: Ask HN: Things that suck?

#74

Post by comrade1 »

e15ctr0n wrote: post #71
comrade1 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why the downvotes? This is based on observation on large-team projects. Maybe you have a different insight?

I didn't downvote you but I'd honestly like to ask why you think that integrating large libraries would speed you up instead of increasing the bloat of the code base?

Just the reality of the projects. Just doing something simple like database access from a java project, or matrix math in a python projects, you're going to use a library.

Re: Ask HN: Things that suck?

#75

Post by krapp »

xwowsersx wrote: post #61
hellbanTHIS wrote: post #40

There are a lot of terrible things out there but one that really bugs me is all the misinformation/propaganda that the internet causes. I didn't see it coming, I thought the web would make people more informed, not less.

Check out http://grasswire.com (I'm the co-founder). It's a newsroom that's fact-checked and curated by everyone. We're just getting started and have a lot of work to do, but we've had some pretty good success so far crowd-sourcing the news and debunking misinformation/propaganda that tends to spread like wildfire on the internet.

How do you fact-check the fact checkers, or the facts? Every newsroom and plenty of other sites claim to be impartial and unbiased, but it's impossible, once you have an audience, not to play to that audience.

On the front page you state what could be interpreted as an anti-capitalist, left-wing bias: information that governs the world should be controlled by everyday people, not governments or corporations. And yet 'everyday people' can be just as biased, bigoted and self-interested as governments and corporations. Curation does not in and of itself imply impartiality or truth - if anything, it can magnify the biases of a group through network effects and positive feedback loops.

Re: Ask HN: Things that suck?

#77

Post by jonnathanson »

jrudin wrote: post #41
jonnathanson wrote: post #22

This isn't a "thing that sucks" so much as a thing that will suck, but California needs to gets its act together with water supply and use. Smarter use is one thing, but it's abundantly clear that we'll also need more of it. Desalinization technology exists, but is considered to be prohibitively expensive relative to the benefits -- or at least that's the received wisdom we always hear whenever the subject comes up.…

Thats a great point about California's water supply. Just wondering, why do you think power grids are so challenged?

Exactly why the power grids are so challenged is a bit above my intellectual or educational pay grade. (I'm neither an electrical engineer nor a city planner.) But I do know that the system is aging and is stretched to capacity. SoCal, in particular, is riddled with more issues than NorCal -- probably because of greater population, more A/C usage during the hot summer months, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Things that suck?

#78

Post by patrickmay »

comrade1 wrote: post #65
comrade1 wrote: post #62

Fellow programmers that don't use an IDE and insist on vim or emacs.. I often work on large projects with dozens of programmers and the developers that don't use an IDE are very small-thinking. They don't seem to know any libraries besides the base libraries and can't integrate large systems together. They're fine for writing algorithms but beyond that they slow everyone else down.

I wonder why the downvotes? This is based on observation on large-team projects. Maybe you have a different insight?

My experience is significantly different. I find that developers who use Vim and Emacs are generally more experienced and have chosen their tools with care. They understand the importance of simplicity in design. They don't pull in large libraries arbitrarily. They commonly write more efficient code to provide the same functionality, with less bloat.

Your mileage may vary, but the best developers I've personally worked with all use Vim or Emacs.

Re: Ask HN: Things that suck?

#79

Post by patrickmay »

comrade1 wrote: post #62

Fellow programmers that don't use an IDE and insist on vim or emacs.. I often work on large projects with dozens of programmers and the developers that don't use an IDE are very small-thinking. They don't seem to know any libraries besides the base libraries and can't integrate large systems together. They're fine for writing algorithms but beyond that they slow everyone else down.

Your point about inability to integrate large systems is the exact opposite of my experience. I find that Vim and Emacs users are the most proficient in using tools to build and integrate large systems. Most, again in my experience, know multiple languages, including shell scripting. They also are very comfortable with command line tools. This has significant benefits when turning a system over to the operations team.

By way of comparison, the IDE users (with some exceptions) are stuck when needing to accomplish anything not directly supported by the IDE.

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