I'd personally suggest looking at Python as a first language. Others here will suggest Ruby (esp with the mention of LISP) or Perl. Of course there are many others to suggest but that trio has a good enough balance of power, complexity and understandability to get you up and running without throwing up too many barriers.
You can't go wrong with really any language to get your feet wet. It's really a matter of finding documentation, books and a community you resonate with to keep your attention and get you excited about all of the possibilities.
You are right. Publisher and "The company behind" do not necessarily equal "maker of". Perhaps I should have instead posted the Reuters article titled "Electronic Arts to buy Chillingo for $20 mln".
I read the "early" as pre-release and thought someone was trying to re-implement clojure in CL. I'm relieved.
What's the backstory on this, fogus? I've not read about a CL Clojure pre-dating the JVM implementation. Was this just a prototype or was there a plan to platform on CL at some point?
It really depends on what type of vim user you are. I used vi/m for 10 years before starting with emacs. Emacs works better for me. I know people for whom vim works better for them. It would be a shame not to find out for yourself.
I have to question your reasons for making a stand just now on the re-implementation of standard website features throughout the proliferation of diverse web publishing systems. It's been quite a ride since the first CMSs decades ago but the scenery has been much the same, you must admit.
You can claim that the release of standard CMS features by one company or another is not newsworthy (which is why we have the little arrow over there by the link) but I'd then submit that most developments by technology companies (large and small) are less then entirely novel. If those developments are deemed not-news-worthy, HN will have even less to do with the activities of entrepreneurial operations.
Well last week we had a post about posterous adding markdown and syntax-highlighting and it got 99 points on the front-page. Now we have this post, about them adding the ability to create pages, on the front-page with 17 points after 1 hour.
I might be interested in hearing about major or innovative new features at posterous but these seem to me to be fairly standard features for a blogging platform and thus not very newsworthy. We don't get front-page stories every time wordpress or tumblr add a new minor feature.
So why are people upvoting this? Is it people who are posterous users and who are upvoting it as a sign of approval? Or people who want to show their support for posterous because they're a YC company. Or are there people who genuinely think that the fact that a blogging app now lets you create a page is really interesting tech news.
Keep in mind that there are 400+ YC founders out there now, and we roll deep. A lot of us do keep tabs on Hacker News and we do vote up and support our friends.
I'm not familiar with the term 'juice' but I think you admitted to what the GP was in spirit complaining about. I recognize there isn't any ill will here, and you're only naturally supporting your friends (of which you have more than most folks on HN), but this isn't very different from a voting ring on Digg.
I'm not complaining coz I'd do the same if I was in YC. HN is just like TechCrunch in that YC startups 'unfairly' get more exposure than non-YC ones. Building unfair advantages is essential to startup success.
I'm pretty sure there is nothing unfair going on here. This is news.ycombinator.com and people who come here care about ycombinator companies. The YC related posts aren't bigger or any different from others and I think they are submitted the same way.
It's not YC doing anything, just us the audience clicking on the arrows.
I wasn't complaining. I enjoy this place a ton, but it's pretty obvious when a 20 minute old submission has 80 votes for it and zero comments. [citation needed]
I believe he was referring to those who built and those who currently maintain Wikipedia. It is likely that those individuals set out not motivated by money but for some ideology, a "dent" in the universe.
I would assume the NSA releases their Linux kernel because the license compels them to. I could be wrong. Maybe it is a trap.
Most open source and free culture advocates are _self_ motivated by a drive to give their stuff away to other people. The entire talk is about self interest, completely the other side of the planet from altruism. It sounds like you actually agree with what he is saying but are entangling entangling money and self-interest in precisely the common way this talk seeks to dismiss.
