Most cited

Posts that commenters keep linking to, ranked by how many different people have cited them in Hacker News comments. 415 posts.

Any topic
2014
153

Java for Everything

I used to ask interviewees, “What’s your favorite programming language?” The answer was nearly always, “I just choose the right language for the job.” Duh. Does anyone ever deliberately pick the wrong language? This was clearly a way to avoid actually naming a language for fear of picking one I didn’t like.

161

Engelbart's Violin (2012)

Computing pioneer Alan Kay tells us that a computer is "an instrument whose music is ideas." This seems like a beautiful metaphor, until you realize that we have somehow ended up in a world where the profession of musician is nearly unknown. To continue with this analogy, let's imagine that you were a child who loves…

164

Performance is a Feature

We’ve always put a heavy emphasis on performance at Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange. Not just because we’re performance wonks (guilty!), but because we think speed is a competitive advantage. There’s plenty of experimental data proving that the slower your website loads and displays, the less people

167

The Rule of Three

Every programmer ever born thinks whatever idea just popped out of their head into their editor is the most generalized, most flexible, most one-size-fits all solution that has ever been conceived. We think we’ve built software that is a general purpose solution to some set of problems,

171

The Wire in HD

This tale begins and ends with a fellow named Bob Colesberry, who taught me as much as he could about filmmaking in the three or four years I was privileged to work with him. To those who knew Bob, it will provoke warm memories to say that he was not a language guy; he understood image, and story, and the delicate way…