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PG on the cover of Forbes

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Re: PG on the cover of Forbes

#51

Post by tlb »

nivertech wrote: post #28

Y-Combinator has something in common with the Moore Law: self-fulfilling prophecy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy

There weren't any prophecies behind YC. We just decided to make something to make more startups, and executed.

Re: PG on the cover of Forbes

#52

Post by pg »

yycom wrote: post #33

And here was I expecting a typically insightful commentary by PG regarding the front page of a business journal.

It has unusually clean design. I've noticed that in other consumer goods lately. E.g. cereal boxes. I wonder if it's the result of a/b testing, or just a fashion.

Re: PG on the cover of Forbes

#54

Post by taylorbuley »

roadnottaken wrote: post #37
perlgeek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been explanations for the HN readers. Here's one that I'd put in a non-techy newspaper: The Y Combinator is a way to make computer code self-referential without having to introduce names for parts of the code. Or a bit less accurate: The Y Combinator is a clever way to make computer code self-referential.

Non-techy readers would have no idea what "self-referential" means. Probably best to just leave it alone.

I'm a coder/writer at Forbes. If I had to guess, that's exactly what an editor might say. Also, we're always crammed for word space so shorter (even if perhaps less nuanced) always wins.

Re: PG on the cover of Forbes

#55

Post by abstractbill »

axod wrote: post #49
abstractbill wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, it's not really supposed to be used, but it's impressive and interesting in the same way that e^πi = -1 is.

I didn't really find that. It's just functions calling other functions. How exciting can that get :/

If you told me (before I knew about the Y combinator) that there was a function Y such that Y(F) = F(Y(F)) for every other function F, I doubt I would have believed you.

Re: PG on the cover of Forbes

#56

Post by nivertech »

tlb wrote: post #51
nivertech wrote: post #28

Y-Combinator has something in common with the Moore Law: self-fulfilling prophecy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy

There weren't any prophecies behind YC. We just decided to make something to make more startups, and executed.

Same with the Moore Law.

Re: PG on the cover of Forbes

#59

Post by ig1 »

jdp23 wrote: post #7

i thought the virtual absence of women was interesting. Jessica Mah got two paragraphs near the end, Demi Moore a passing mention, and Jessica Livingston merited two sentences. she co-founded YC and is married to Paul, and they couldn't even ask her for a quote? other than that it was guys, guys, guys. http://bit.ly/ycturgor2 has more.

JL got more of a mention than Morris or Blackwell. I don't think the article writer chose to avoid or include women particularly, rather it just reflected the subject matter they were writing about.

Re: PG on the cover of Forbes

#60

Post by timtadh »

axod wrote: post #48
eru wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loops are just a special case of recursion, and only necessary for languages that don't support recursion very well. As an example, Scheme and Haskell have no use for loops.

Loops are how most people think. They're also how most CPUs think. It seems to me logical for both parties to express programs mostly using loops.

Except there is no difference at the machine instruction level between a recursive and iterative approaches. They are isomorphic to each other. That is why you can implement all recursive algorithms using an explicit stack and a loop and all iterative algorithms as recursive functions.
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