jedsmith

They have their own compiler for a custom VBScript derivative. If there's no C anywhere in it, I'd be surprised, but I am operating without knowledge of its implementation or output.

Edit: So what did I do wrong here? I admitted that I'm shooting in the dark, admitted that I'd be surprised if my hypothesis was true, and had absolutely no knowledge of who the person I'm replying to is. It's certainly not on his profile.

I put forth an incorrect assertion, a couple comments corrected me and I was happy to learn this insight, but my comment is already -1 because I'm what, not contributing to the conversation? Or because I was wrong? Do you have to vote on everything?

It's really interesting to me that HN whines daily about the decline in comment quality, then turns around and grays this comment. Decline of HN, indeed, downvote everyone unless they're correct or a valued member of the community. After yesterday's observations I figured I'd give it one last go, but now I just hope this community dies the hypocritical death it deserves.

This isn't a C-specific problem; of course people are going to be more relaxed in their comfort zone. If you asked me to write a Web server in Python, I'd be a lot more relaxed about it than if you asked me to do the same in Forth. There's a reason nothing changed when he dropped C (what goes unsaid: is he putting C in the job description?).

Joel's observation about pointers is dead-on, but I've personally beat that horse on HN in the past and will spare everyone a greatest hits anthology.

Thank you. I looked for it and couldn't find it, and actually did mean yours.

You're not the only one that feels that way. Sadly, the elitism implied by "wow, our community sucks now" is overlooked by everyone practicing it.

Ah, but neither does yours!

Why does the mediocrity apply to the comment you're replying to, but not your own? Your comment is dripping with snark and someone called you on it (thankfully). I actually think your comment is shittier than the one you're replying to, because you put yourself on a pedestal of telling the rest of us what to do.

Was that comment at the top of the discussion before you snarked it to oblivion? Probably not. It was most likely already in the deep hell of very light gray, and your content-free comment just made it worse. Calling the kettle black, in my opinion.

That's your definition of quality, and I'm glad you shared it, but disheartened that you consider it the one true quality.

Reading your second sentence strictly, we can infer that to you, quality means (a) expert-level familiarity with a linked article, (b) insightful -- difficult to generalize because insight is different for different people, or (c) full of interesting content.

Of the three of those points, only one of them isn't dependent on the perspective, knowledge level, or interests of the reader. What is insightful to me might be common knowledge to you. What is insightful to you might be tediously stupid to me. What is interesting to you might be boring to me. On, and on, and on.

This really bugs me. What defines mediocre to you? We're defining the problem in relatives. I mean, look at the exchange that just happened:

> Comments are getting worse.

>> What is worse?

> Comments are overwhelmingly mediocre.

So, I ask, what is mediocre?

Comments are the thoughts of human beings using your system, and there's no technological or psychological means to have any semblance of control over them. Their perceived quality is a direct reflection of the community you have. Any attempt to "fix" perceived quality is going to divide your community, and any disruption or improvement to the community is going to indirectly adjust perceived quality.

Just like none of us writes like Thomas Jefferson these days and a number of words have fallen out of favor, so has your community evolved and a new definition of "average comment" must be found. This is all a relative game, anyway; a comment that you call mediocre I might find to be a golden nugget of awesome, and why should my opinion matter any less?

As an aside, I wish I had a dollar for every suggested technological fix to the declining-comment problem. Based on how this thread is shaping up, I'd be doing better than my 401(k).

Your comment is ironic given the comment that you started with.

I am speaking from the perspective of improving HN, so I'm startled (should I be?) to find that the first reply is an admitting that the community will eventually split apart.

That your last parenthetical is necessary to have an opinion about the direction here is telling, to say the least.

What I haven't seen anybody acknowledge yet is that "critics" includes everyone who tiredly mourns comment quality. Everyone.

Depressingly, HN would rather front page an article about personal growth than admit that maybe, just maybe, all of this meta bitching is setting the tone. That's from the top down and I partially, and with respect, blame pg for carrying the flag of comments suck -- instead of taking an opportunity to turn common sentiment around.

It's amusing how you went from "you're misunderstanding me," admitting that there might have been a mistake, to "you failed to fact check". I'm willing to admit that I'm wrong, be educated by others, and learn from my mistakes because it does appear that I misunderstood you; when you're an abrasive shit, though, I'm not really inclined to give you the time of day. I gave you one pass to communicate like a reasonable human being, because you're obviously aware of interesting information that I'd like to know, but you are now a waste of my time.

I'm really tired of bending over backwards to be nice to people on HN. A few threads of arrogant snark like this in the last 24 hours, and I'm really stretching thin on patience. Now I see what the long-term users are on about.

If you have a day job, look for the problems that your day job has to solve. Undoubtedly, these problems will be echoed at other companies like yours (and maybe even not like yours), and you have an opportunity there. You might have even been able to work on solving the problem, so you already have a leg up when you generalize it for others by knowing what to expect.

I'm practicing this at the company I work for, and I have many ideas. Be cautious about legality, here, and don't get too specific with how your employer solved the problem, just use the tactic to identify the problems.

I'd love to see your evidence that it is beyond drawing a conclusion from circumstances. That's a zero-sum game, right there, because there's no way either of us could have evidence as to the ultimate motive.

At any rate, I've said my piece, and I'm circling close to offending you -- which isn't my goal -- so don't take anything I say as intentionally offensive. It seems silly to argue about your life, anyway, from the perspective of someone not in your life.

It sounds suspiciously like you're accusing me of something. The statement after the word "because" in your quote kind of matters to the original sentiment, and you happily ignored it in your calculations. It doesn't take a rocket economist to do:

    Quantity x Spot Price = "Value"

However, it also doesn't take a rocket economist to figure out that value there is meaningless, since (a) you're using the spot price, (b) the quantity of BTC to move is greater than the daily volume of the entire market, and (c) attempting a move of this size would probably devalue BTC significantly. You have a value, but there's no way that can be its value currently, because you'd have to spread the transactions out over time -- making the value a different number.

If someone owned $5 trillion of gold, do you think they'd be able to successfully move it all for $5 trillion? That's why the value is meaningless. You're talking about an exorbitant figure of money which the BitCoin market can't support.