This article seems to be picking on date / time manipulation within PHP. I don't see a database in use.
The title should say something about PHP not handling date/time correctly. This is nothing new.
I'm not positive if MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or similar would perform the same date and time manipulation correctly. However, I know from personal experience that MySQL handles date/times more consistently than PHP.
I'm curious to see if someone with more knowledge than myself can chime in on the issue.
> I'm not positive if MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or similar would perform the same date and time manipulation correctly. However, I know from personal experience that MySQL handles date/times more consistently than PHP.
Postgres boasts some very pedantically excellent timestamp and timezone support. If there is a bug, it will be rectified in all possible haste once reported.
The first century starts at 0001-01-01 00:00:00 AD, although they
did not know it at the time. This definition applies to all
Gregorian calendar countries. There is no century number 0, you go
from -1 century to 1 century. If you disagree with this, please
write your complaint to: Pope, Cathedral Saint-Peter of Roma,
Vatican.
PostgreSQL releases before 8.0 did not follow the conventional
numbering of centuries, but just returned the year field divided
by 100.
From the article:
"Databases rarely handle timezones, daylight savings time and rule changes correctly, so avoid the database specific functionality all together."
The article isn't "picking on" PHP, it's highlighting that timezone rules are constantly changing (which is not a language-specific problem) and details how to handle them (e.g. using an extension that's updated more frequently).
Date/time handling code is pretty tricky - not leveraging what's in your platform is going to suck up a lot more time than you think. As for "databases rarely..." the answer to that is not to hand-roll your own wheel in PHP but to get a better database.
WSJ seems to have made a recent change to stop the old search-for-the-title-in-google trick. If you visit the article first and then leave and come back with google referers it doesn't work anymore. But if you've never visited the article and you come from google it does show it. Even when you delete your cookies and then try to come via google it won't show the article. That means they're using flash cookies or some other insidious persistent cookie technique. Not sure if this violates Google's terms.
Have you tried deleting your cache? The simplest explanation for this behavior is that the old redirect was cached. It could be something more insidious as well, of course, but that would be... evil.
"What stories require 10s of millions of dollars to bring to life? Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance of the film industry. But, what stories require 10s of millions to make?"
Any science fiction/fantasy movie with complicated sets and lots of effects for one.
Any historical piece, with revives an older world.
Anything involving lots of actors.
Anything involving even one famous actor.
10 million dollars is at the absolutely bottom end concerning most of the famous Hollywood movies. Budgets around 70M-100M+ is the norm.
Perhaps we choose dichotomies such as the article suggests because they serve as useful points for further discussion.
You offer many examples of companies that do not fit the two extremes of Spolsky's article. Where would you place them on the sliding scale you mention? Both have grown quickly and taken venture captial. I would place them more toward the Amazon side of the scale.
Very little in the world is black or white. Conflict and disagreement happens quite often. What you do about conflict and disagreement is the important part.
On the one hand Fee Fighters is fighting the "noble" fight, but they lose points for being so ideological.
BBB is a business and their terms are well known. Fee Fighters knew them and was required to abide by them and chose not to.
I do like that Fee Fighters is bringing this issue to bear. I'm personally not a fan of BBB. Pay to play doesn't seem like the incentives are aligned correctly. That and I can't afford their accreditation process for my business.
It's in the letter, which is in the post. You may not agree that those terms are good, but Fee Fighters agreed to them, and BBB is stating that they weren't followed. I doubt FF cares about fighting back in courts, so it will never really be settled whether they did or not.
Nobody here cares about "codes of conduct" that require members of organizations not to say mean things about those organizations, so this whole argument is a dead end and I strongly recommend we all not try to hash it out.
Nobody cares about the BBB code of conduct.
Quick guess: more than 3/4 of HN would agree that "codes of conduct" are harmful --- not just "not binding" but "harmful and evil --- that require members not rat out organizations as scams.
I actually quite agree that the BBB code of conduct is harmful. I'm not trying to argue for the code of conduct.
What bothers me about the article is that Fee Fighters is arguing from the point of a victim. Yes BBB has a harmful code of conduct, but Fee Fighters had a chance to review it and signed up for that.
> Nobody cares about the BBB code of conduct.
I don't understand this comment? This article is about how Fee Fighters lost their accreditation due to the BBB code of conduct? I think Fee Fighters cares about the BBB code of conduct. Many people who have upvoted this post and downvoted my original comment care one way or another I believe.
FeeFighters isn't arguing that they're a victim. They're arguing that they're the good guys, as evidenced by how obviously BBB is acting like the bad guys.
You're missing the fact that FeeFighters thinks BBB accreditation is laughable. They didn't write this post because a cosmic injustice was done to them. They already felt like the BBB was a cosmic injustice, even when they were accredited. They're gleeful that BBB is so willing to play the villain, and absolutely are willing to twist the knife into BBB's self inflicted PR wound.
If you're getting downvoted (I didn't), it's probably because you're missing the subtext. The BBB is worthy of mockery; this post mocks it; you seem surprised... why would anyone mock the BBB? Click click downvote.
>What bothers me about the article is that Fee Fighters is arguing from the point of a victim. Yes BBB has a harmful code of conduct, but Fee Fighters had a chance to review it and signed up for that.
The thing is, every agreement written by a lawyer has some overly broad "I can screw you" clauses. Heck, this one doesn't even read that badly. I mean, it sounds like they are reserving the right to stop people from associating the BBB with broadly offensive causes. I mean, if you are supplying the KKK with robes, I'd rather you not have my logo on your website. That seems pretty reasonable. If you turn around and then use that clause against someone who is legitimately criticizing you, you are a scumbag and should be called out on it.
For those interested in this kind of story, and manipulation of markets in general, one of the best books I've read on the subject, published in 1923: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
I have an issue with the general premise of this article.
Who is saying that javascript is web assembly?
I've only seen one comment in the comments so far, and its weak at that. Yes no human can read Google's javascript, but that says nothing about its efficiency, optimization, or correspondence with machine language. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2783060
The title should say something about PHP not handling date/time correctly. This is nothing new.
I'm not positive if MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or similar would perform the same date and time manipulation correctly. However, I know from personal experience that MySQL handles date/times more consistently than PHP.
I'm curious to see if someone with more knowledge than myself can chime in on the issue.