I'm sorry, but this is a perfect example of the difference between design and eye candy. Often, people wonder why I spend $50,000 a year going to design school, when I can learn how to make things that are just as shiny by reading psdtuts.com.

The difference is that style is only skin-deep. It's superficial. It's an added bonus on top of design. Design, on the other hand, is the core of the product: how it functions. It's the soul: what story it tells.

Your redesign, while prettier, does nothing to improve the user experience, or to tell a story. Sure, it's easier on the eyes, but it's a much worse design, in that it makes the user experience worse. It's now harder to read: less information is on the screen. (11 story as opposed to 25, on my screen.) The information hierarchy within stories is less clear. The eye has to jump around more to get the secondary information (poster / point count / comment count / time posted). The flag functionality is simply gone…

You did a good job making it look better, and should be commended for that. But as for the design, try again.

PS: Take this as friendly critique. Take it in, learn what you can, try again. Rise, repeat. Don't be discouraged, but realize you have a long way to go. You'll get there!

--

Note: Check out this redesign, which I think is quite effective, and is installable as a extra stylesheet on the current HN code: http://akhun.com/seo/skitch/Hacker_News-20120420-180413.png

  1979
  Recruiter: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how's your COBOL?"
     edw519: "10."
  Recruiter: "Great! I have tons of work for you."

  1983
  Recruiter: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how's your data base?"
     edw519: "4. But I'm a 10 in COBOL."
  Recruiter: "No one cares about COBOL. I need data base people."

  1987
  Recruiter: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how's your Microsoft?"
     edw519: "4. But I'm a 10 in data base."
  Recruiter: "No one cares about data base. I need Microsoft people."

  1992
  Recruiter: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how's your Oracle?"
     edw519: "4. But I'm a 10 in Microsoft."
  Recruiter: "No one cares about Microsoft. I need Oracle people."

  1996
  Recruiter: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how's your HTML & CSS?"
     edw519: "4. But I'm a 10 in Oracle."
  Recruiter: "No one cares about Oracle. I need web people."

  2001
  Recruiter: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how's your Javascript & PHP?"
     edw519: "4. But I'm a 10 in HTML & CSS."
  Recruiter: "No one cares about HTML & CSS. I need back-end people."

  2009
  Recruiter: "On a scale of 1 to 10, how's your Ruby & Python?"
     edw519: "4. But I'm a 10 in Javascript & PHP."
  Recruiter: "No one cares about Javascript & PHP. I need Ruby & Python people."

Number of days without work since 1979: 0.

Lighten up, guys. If you can build stuff, learn, and work well with others, you'll probably always be fine.

I've had this kind of argument presented to me every few years since the 1990s. It was probably happening for the forty years before that. Soon we'll need "real engineers" - and these fly by night part timers who don't have a "proper" background in computing are doomed! DOOOMED I SAY!!!!

Tosh.

I'm a guy who has got a subject specific degree - more than twenty years ago now (1st in Computing and Artificial Intelligence for those who care). I was selling software before that, and have spent most of the time since in industry.

What have I noticed since then? Amount I've actually used the "hard" CS stuff I learned there - close to zero. Correlation between "being good at math" and being a successful developer - basically zero. Correlation between having a degree and being a successful developer, after the first few years in industry, basically zero.

I don't see that magically being different in the next four years.

(Curiously the "being good a math" thing seems to be something US centric. I've not noticed the same focus on that with folk in the UK or elsewhere in Europe).

The space that developers get to play in has got larger and larger over the last 30 years. I don't see that changing. Quite the opposite in fact.

Sure some of that is going to be in areas that really need some hard-core math or engineering skills. Those jobs are out there now (embedded development is exploding again, big data has been around for years, the clever end of game development). I'm sure they'll be more in the future.

But there are also many, many jobs out there that don't. Many, many jobs that involve developers being good generalists, or having cross-over with UX and design, or having a decent understanding of economics, or understanding big-money. I'm sure they'll be more of those in the future too.

One thing we're really excellent at is wrapping up complicated stuff in abstractions that are stupidly easy to use. We're excellent at de-skilling our own job. And every generation whines that the previous one can't build their own computer / write microcode / write assembler / manage with less than 1k RAM / cope without a visual editor / manage their own memory / build their own OS / write their own application stack / whatever.

Yet people somehow carry on building new and neat things.

If you're a hard-core CS/algorithms person - go for it. They'll be lots of work for you. If you're not? Go find another niche. There are many, many out there. Be a good developer. Have fun. Make neat things.

And thus ends this particular Grumpy Old Man's Saturday Rant :-)

When I first saw the title of this essay, I thought I already knew what I was going to say...

Something about how my own todo this now has only one item on it, the single most important thing to do next. I gravitated to this based on the great quote by chess master Jose Capablanca:

[When asked how many moves ahead he looked while playing]: "Only one, but it's always the right one." (from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca).

Then I read pg's essay and Bronnie Ware's blog post and realized that this post was less about work and more about life.

Then it hit me: My life's todo list still has only one item on it and always has:

"Always do the right thing."

I realize that this can be very hand wavy because the "right thing" means something different to everyone and even something different to me at different times. But still, it has been the perfect #1 for my todo list.

Several years ago, my mother, who lived 1000 miles away, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and could no longer use the phone. So I began flying back to Pittsburgh every other weekend to be with her. After a while, even this wasn't enough. So I moved to Pittsburgh to be with her every day.

People tried to say the right thing to me, but it never was right. They'd say things like, "I admire your doing this, but you really don't have to because she doesn't even know who you are," or "You may be making a sacrifice now, but in time you won't regret it; you'll have nothing to be sorry for." And I thought, "How sad. After all these years these people still don't get it. This isn't a sacrifice from me to her. It's a gift from her to me."

I'm a little uncomfortable distilling pg's and Bronnie Ware's five thoughts from down into one, but "Always do the right thing" just works for me. I just hope the others in my life find something that works as well for them.

This is absolute and utter nonsense.

Firstly a tiny amount of people know C, C++, Java, Python & Ruby. If you found someone with that lot I'd probably hire them on the spot. That shows some real skill, multi-linguists are actually pretty rare, discounting the obligatory uni taught LISP and Javascript.

Secondly there's a constant need for people who make CRUD apps. Constant. Almost every business can benefit from a totally custom app with it's own special workflow. We tried RAD tools, we tried auto-generate tools, we tried plugin workflow that would be 'user' edited. Turns out if you don't involve a programmer it all goes very wrong.

After 20 years of promises from Delphi, VB6, Java, Rails, etc. the reality is it's getting harder to make good apps because everyone's expectations only go up. Bottom line is to make a CRUD app you still need a programmer. Almost every business is realising they need a programmer.

The market's only going to get bigger, much, much bigger.

This reads like it's from a person who's never been out of the ivory towers, hasn't actually been inside a real business.