NeoCities • Hacker News Board

Re: NeoCities

#171

Post by krapp » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 11:26 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #48

slg wrote: post #22

Don't use this for anything you view as important. I just checked and there is no collision detection for usernames. You can signup for an account using any name and your account will seemingly just replace the previous created account. That is a big enough and obvious enough flaw that it also makes we wonder if this is just a phishing expedition or a way to mine email addresses.

Check out his tweet that started this: https://twitter.com/kyledrake/statuses/337706291801763841 He started a month ago. The 'Just Ship It' mantra basically declares that crappy bugs like this are A-OK. I don't know why you're surprised.

I'd like to suggest a new mantra: 'Make Sure It Works First Then Ship It'

Re: NeoCities

#172

Post by blahbloh » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 11:37 PM UTC

Fun with your friends!

http://penismonster.neocities.org

Re: NeoCities

#173

Post by csense » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 11:44 PM UTC

thomasfl wrote: post #144

csense wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you choose Ruby as the language?

I think it's a pure joy to read the ruby source. Allthough ruby is not fast, it's got some of the simplest most elegant frameworks out there. Sinatra is not much more than a router config file with some logic. Sequel is the simplest database orm and migration tool around. And slim makes very readable templates. All frameworks perfect for the first minimum viable product. If this site takes off, I would perhaps pay so…

> it's a pure joy to read the ruby source

If you like it so much, here's a copy-paste from the project for your edification [1]:

  def new_tags=(tags_string)
    tags_string.gsub! /[^a-zA-Z0-9, ]/, ''
    tags = tags_string.split ','
    tags.collect! {|c| (c.match(/^\w+\s\w+/) || c.match(/^\w+/)).to_s }
    @new_tag_strings = tags
  end

I don't mean to pick on this project in particular. In fact, this project as a whole is quite possibly the cleanest Ruby code I've ever seen.

That being said, Ruby's syntax makes me want to gouge my eyes out. There's equal signs, unquoted regular expressions, exclamation points, absolute value bars, and at signs all over the above code. You can't even sort-of follow what this code is doing without searching through the manual every third character. Ruby syntax is worse than C++ and almost as bad as Perl.

Someone tried to explain Ruby syntax to me last week [2], and I'm not sure if I understood it more, or less, as a result, because my conclusion was that Ruby's syntax is so bad, the language shouldn't even be able to exist! I.e., there are a large number of syntactical ambiguities, so writing a parser for it should be completely impossible!

[1] https://github.com/kyledrake/neocities-web/blob/933c3549264e...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5872899

Re: NeoCities

#174

Post by songzme » Fri, Jun 21, 2013, 11:46 PM UTC

wow! This is super simple to use! 10 minutes into it, I now have a splash page of myself! http://songz.neocities.org/

Re: NeoCities

#175

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 12:00 AM UTC

csense wrote: post #173

thomasfl wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a pure joy to read the ruby source. Allthough ruby is not fast, it's got some of the simplest most elegant frameworks out there. Sinatra is not much more than a router config file with some logic. Sequel is the simplest database orm and migration tool around. And slim makes very readable templates. All frameworks perfect for the first minimum viable product. If this site takes off, I would perhaps pay so…

> it's a pure joy to read the ruby source If you like it so much, here's a copy-paste from the project for your edification [1]: def new_tags=(tags_string) tags_string.gsub! /[^a-zA-Z0-9, ]/, '' tags = tags_string.split ',' tags.collect! {|c| (c.match(/^\w+\s\w+/) || c.match(/^\w+/)).to_s } @new_tag_strings = tags end I don't mean to pick on this project in particular. In fact, this project as a whole is quite possib…

> equal signs

I fail to see how using equal signs for assignment (or for defining assignment methods) is a problem with syntax, rather than an enhancement to clarity.

> unquoted regular expressions

What's wrong with that? Regexes are a different type than strings. Why should they look like strings?

> exclamation points

...again, so, what?

> absolute value bars

vertical bars used to set off block argument lists aren't absolute value bars. (Neither are vertical bars used for logical-or.)

> at signs

Again, so?

> You can't even sort-of follow what this code is doing without searching through the manual every third character.

Yes, I can, and not just "sort-of follow" it.

> Ruby syntax is worse than C++ and almost as bad as Perl.

There's no accounting for taste, I suppose.

> there are a large number of syntactical ambiguities, so writing a parser for it should be completely impossible

As Ruby does exist, and is parsed, this is clearly not the case. That said, ruby's syntax is not optimized for machine parsing, its designed to be ruby-developer-friendly rather than ruby-parser-developer-friendly.

If you want something optimized for the developer of the language's parser, look to Lisp.

Re: NeoCities

#176

Post by vinceguidry » Sat, Jun 22, 2013, 12:20 AM UTC

csense wrote: post #173

thomasfl wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a pure joy to read the ruby source. Allthough ruby is not fast, it's got some of the simplest most elegant frameworks out there. Sinatra is not much more than a router config file with some logic. Sequel is the simplest database orm and migration tool around. And slim makes very readable templates. All frameworks perfect for the first minimum viable product. If this site takes off, I would perhaps pay so…

> it's a pure joy to read the ruby source If you like it so much, here's a copy-paste from the project for your edification [1]: def new_tags=(tags_string) tags_string.gsub! /[^a-zA-Z0-9, ]/, '' tags = tags_string.split ',' tags.collect! {|c| (c.match(/^\w+\s\w+/) || c.match(/^\w+/)).to_s } @new_tag_strings = tags end I don't mean to pick on this project in particular. In fact, this project as a whole is quite possib…

What's difficult about that function? It's terse, but very understandable.

Oh, the inability to parse Ruby shouldn't be held against it. It has (at the least) a context-sensitive grammar. So do lots of languages, including HTML and perl.

Not being able to parse it doesn't really mean what you think it means. It just means that in order to figure out what it does programmatically, you have to evaluate it. Its unparseability makes certain things impossible, like writing a perfect syntax highlighter. Also makes building certain tools you'd normally see in an IDE difficult.