Hacker News full of Erlang articles

calcnerd256 16 years ago |

Perhaps a different topic is appropriate this time. I wasn't here when we did Erlang the first time, but I'm assuming that those who were are now tired of it. I think (though I may be wrong) that I'd be more interested in seeing some clever brainf and other esolang entries.

potatolicious 16 years ago | |

I personally just want to see a return to more technical topics and less human-interest pieces - if I wanted those I'd turn on the 6 o'clock news.

I love reading random stuff on languages/tools I don't even use - it expands my breadth and is always fun. I've never written Erlang, but now I may give it a shot.

This is what HN is great for, let's keep it that way.

timr 16 years ago | | |

I do too, but right now a directory of Erlang-related articles is on the front page of HN, along with a niche-interest article about patching Erlang for a future version of OS X.

This was cute the first time, but now it's kind of inane.

potatolicious 16 years ago | | |

This is a one-day thing (or so I would hope), but I hope the overall effect would be to drag HN back towards its roots - as an interesting place for technology discussion in all its forms.

apotheon 16 years ago | | |

. . . or maybe the effect will be to make people whose level of interest in Erlang is somewhere on this side of sane stop coming to Hacker News, and go back to the programming subreddit.

potatolicious 16 years ago | | |

But ah, I escaped from reddit, that's like checking back into the asylum if I go back...

ErrantX 16 years ago | |

The first time was pg's idea to get rid of the traffic spike that was killing the server and the content.

This time... it doesnt seem quite as vindicated reasoning.

You know: this could be a meme.... beware ppl :D

Xichekolas 16 years ago | | |

If we treat the Erlang blitz as a rarely used cultural hammer, then it represents a community-building/defining meme.

If, as you say, we start whipping out Erlang articles on a monthly basis, it just turns into noise.

ynniv 16 years ago | |

I kind of like the erlang marker - as soon as I see a front page full of erlang, I know that people are fed up with whatever used to be there. Once I know that, I can easily help the cause if I agree.

Xichekolas 16 years ago |

HN's immune system is Erlang it seems.

michaelneale 16 years ago | |

yes this is the second time. I am guessing the _why posts tripped the trigger?

There had been rash of things I have flagged lately, so obviously enough people it was decided to "cleanse" things a bit.

inaka 16 years ago |

i somehow feel like hacker news is tail-recursive, and we've been unrolled by the compiler and are now back at the top of the loop.

jobu 16 years ago | |

Hilarious. I was just scanning the headlines and thinking "WTF is up with all these Erlang articles?!" I'm trying to decide if posting this article is ironic or annoying.

mechanical_fish 16 years ago |

Interesting. In the absence of a downvoting feature, HN has evolved a mechanism for clearing unwanted articles off the homepage: Massively upvote an entire home page's worth of alternative articles. This is done by groups of unrelated people who concentrate their votes by using the word "Erlang" as a flag.

I'm not sure this will end well.

njharman 16 years ago |

I thought I'd hit the way back machine.

But really, even before why worship HN seemed really piss poor lately. Until few weeks ago I hadn't visited in long time and they types and quality of articles was way down from what I remember.

I've only ever been interested in about 20% of what's posted but recently I felt compelled to read only 1-2 postings a day. And the mix of articles that were uninteresting had shifted from Haskell this / circle jerk around my new startup to really poor fluff.

funny pics get 40 votes http://8bitb.us/why-well-never-hire-another-rockstar-program...

videos http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/avatar/hd/

allenbrunson 16 years ago |

i personally don't like _why, his writings, his code, his neuroses, or anything else about him. in the beginning i was willing to hold my tongue, because he was pseudo-dead, his fans were holding a eulogy of sorts, and that's hardly the time to be a critic.

the 15th or 20th submission on the front page was way too much, though. i am now officially supporting the backlash. bring on the erlang.

wglb 16 years ago |

So for those erlang-knowledgable, I understand that erlang is thread-scalable more than most anything. Are there other areas that erlang is similarly more scalable?

astine 16 years ago |

This is old news. Why is it being posted, save for the couple of Erlang submissions at the top?

gregstoll 16 years ago | |

I'm guessing the submitter is making a suggestion to deal with the _why/Zed Shaw articles.

icey 16 years ago | | |

Yes it's the old "fixing the signal to noise ratio by adding lots of noise" gambit.

hughprime 16 years ago | | |

Not a bad gambit actually -- I'll sometimes turn on my air conditioner to drown out the sound of my neighbour's music.

The analogy only works if, like me, you consider Erlang articles to be a sort of white noise that you hardly notice, and the-programmer-formerly-known-as-_why articles as being slightly annoying.

hvs 16 years ago | | |

It appears to be working, too.

icey 16 years ago | | |

It's kind of dumb since all it takes to get the _why stuff off the front page is for people to upvote other submissions that are arguably more relevant (and current).

apotheon 16 years ago | | |

. . . if, by "working", you mean "replacing one form of noise with another, much louder form that will probably outlast the likely lifespan of the original form".

astine 16 years ago | | |

I just hope that it doesn't become a weird meme, where submitting an Erlang article is the equivalent of expressing disapproval of the current trend in headlines.

"Oh no, people are submitting the same old Erlang articles, the current focus/glorybaiting must be getting annoying!"

gloob 16 years ago | | |

To be honest, that would probably be one of the best weird memes I've run across.

jcl 16 years ago | | |

...which is silly. There were maybe three _why-related articles left on the front page -- now half the articles are Erlang.

apotheon 16 years ago | | |

It's worse than that, now. I count 78% Erlang on the front page of Hacker News.

noodle 16 years ago | | |

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=775727

jmtame 16 years ago |

see what you started ejohn.org?

jeresig 16 years ago | |

If the penalty to writing my blog post is a whole bunch of Erlang posts then I approve!

apotheon 16 years ago | | |

I don't, so much, since this has gone from "Hacker News" to "Erlang News". There are already sites dedicated to Erlang.

s-phi-nl 16 years ago |

Not again...

wozza 16 years ago |

What is erlang?

wozza 16 years ago |

What is erlang?

wozza 16 years ago |

What is erlang?

amohr 16 years ago |

Downvoted for not being about Erlang.

wozza 16 years ago |

What is erlang?