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Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

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Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#31

Post by simonw »

oauea wrote: post #27
simonw wrote: post #10

In Python education: Getting new language learners to a functional local development environment as quickly and painlessly as possible. "Just use Anaconda/pipenv/the-Python-installer/Docker/etc" isn't a great answer, because they probably tried one of those six months ago, got into a weird state and can't remember what it did or where it put things. Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1987/

Let their first lesson be that they are responsible for their own machine. If they installed crap without being able to fix it or even remembering what they did, then they'll have to reformat and start over. Suggest they keep notes this time around.

Learning to program is intimidating enough already without telling people they'll have to reformat!

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#32

Post by londons_explore »

pjc50 wrote: post #18

Mathematics is the best field for this because a list of unsolved problems is kept, and many of them are relatively easy to explain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_m... Chemistry/materials science: room-temperature superconductivity is probably the big one. There are a whole host of problems in the energy space which would benefit from improvement; while "electricity+CO2+water => fuel" is…

> electricity+CO2+water => fuel

Considering fuel => electricity+CO2+water is financially viable today, the reverse can never be financially viable unless the prices of the inputs and outputs shift quite a bit...

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#33

Post by Datenstrom »

simonw wrote: post #10

In Python education: Getting new language learners to a functional local development environment as quickly and painlessly as possible. "Just use Anaconda/pipenv/the-Python-installer/Docker/etc" isn't a great answer, because they probably tried one of those six months ago, got into a weird state and can't remember what it did or where it put things. Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1987/

I agree and I have never tried it on windows but I suspect it is worse than Linux because my brother almost threw his laptop out the window when he first started but got along after installing Linux.

I think Rust excels here with:

    curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
And cargo is great to work with. Go seems to have similar problems from my experience.

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#38

Post by azhenley »

CS Education - Virtually everything is unsolved. How do we teach people how to code? What is the progression? Do we teach them how to "think" algorithmically first or just dive into a specific language? How do we assess their learning? Which skills are transferable?

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#39

Post by mpfundstein »

pandler wrote: post #29
ggambetta wrote: post #3

> The length of pi is continually increasing, and there doesn't appear to be an end. Huh? How is this an unsolved problem? It's known that pi is an irrational number, so it doesn't have an "end". We can always compute more digits. Or did you mean something different?

Giving OP the benefit of the doubt here, it seems like a straw man example off the top of their head, just to throw some ideas out there.

Is OP schizophrenic? Can wr please stop this theirs bllsht.

Write his or her if you want to be PC.

Otherse you are right

Re: Ask HN: What's an unsolved problem in your field?

#40

Post by m11a »

architrathi wrote: post #13

With so many data privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc) propping up across geographies, how do i make sure that my company is in legal compliance and doing right by our customers data.

There's a lot of GDPR consultants milking your company's cash for this.

Also probably a lot of articles on privacy law across the world, available free. For sales tax/VAT around the world, for example, avalara.com has comprehensive information and monthly newsletters for free.

Generally, you can't go wrong by just doing the right thing. GDPR is nothing excessive. Businesses that weren't being awful before GDPR are probably in the clear after GDPR too; they just need to update their privacy policies.

Not to mention: if you can't afford a consultant, you probably aren't large enough to be targeted by the regulators on tiny bits either. If you're acting in good faith, at least the European regulators will cut you a break and just tell you what to improve, without penalty, if you're ever flagged.

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