chris_p

I really like this! I recently started making simple cocktails, and I am certainly going to use this.

Things I'd like to see: * I prefer milliliters over oz (I didn't even know what it was before I googled it, since I live in Europe), please make this an option * Some form of autocomplete, preferably with a dropdown list (but make sure it doesn't obstruct the next textbox). There's a jquery plugin that does dropdown autocomplete well. * Pressing enter should make the next textbox active (seems more intuitive than tab in this case) * It would be nice if the ingredients in the ingredient list below a cocktail were clickable. Clicking them should add them in the list of selected ingredients and update the cocktails visible.

> and come from divorced families

What does this have to do with the rest of your sentence? Are you implying that people who come from divorced families are more self-centered?

The iPod, maybe?

> If you think being famous is what makes someone qualified to create a product you want to buy, then you're not going to buy his product.

That's not what he said. He only asked for some evidence that the writer is really good at "Designing Web Applications", and knows what he's talking about.

In that sense, all games are rendering in 2D, because screens are 2D. They just do it in a much more complicated way.

What I'm seeing in this demo is 3D in every sense, the code is basically a very simple 3D engine, and it requires knowledge of computer graphics to understand it, so the top-level commenter here asked a valid question.

> It's great that we see youth influenced and impacted by HN.

So this is the HN version of "We did it, reddit!".

Who is insulting him? People are just saying that his age is not relavent to what he did, and I agree. His post should describe the project. It should be about how awesome his project is, not about how awesome he is.

That's awesome, but I don't like the UI. A slider would be nice!

Here's how I see it if I don't resize my window: http://i.imgur.com/WeV5K.png

On the other hand, today everybody has access to MOOCs, google, communities like HN, reddit, stackoverflow and organizations like MakeGamesWithUs.

I totally agree. If anything, 14 year olds have more free time to spend on their hobbies and can learn new things much more easily than adults.

> Granted the web as it exists today makes it infinitely easier to learn today than it was when I was a kid, but I'm not going to use that as an excuse.

You should. It's not just Google: Communities like HN, stackoverflow and reddit provide motivation and help when you need it. Now, with MOOCs being the latest trend in education, anyone can take university-level courses from world-renown on many topics for free.

> Even with Google in all its glory I can't say unequivocally that I would be shipping code if I were 14 today.

Are you sure? Why do you think age actually plays a role in a person's ability to ship code?

That's what I noticed too! I don't think there will ever be a merge, but they're definitely doing it on purpose. Brand awareness?

I meant older people didn't have that chance when they were my age. 15 years ago computers weren't that common. Nowdays, almost every child in the western world has access to a computer from a very young age.

Even if you're right, even if it's something rare, we're missing the point. It's not about how rare it is, or how wonderful he is. It's about the product/game. Or at least it should be, in my opinion.

It's interesting how the Instagram profile pages look kinda like facebook's. The cover photo, the layout and the way everything is arranged.

That doesn't make sense. Everybody knows that the number of views a post has is an integer, it doesn't really cause that much of a confusion for anyone. Most europeans are used to it.

What they should do is display the right separating symbol depending on the user's location.

I sometimes see commas on YouTube's views count, seriously. I think it depends on your location.

> I'm pretty sure your age matters if it drastically deviates from the norm.

No, it doesn't. Most people deviate from the norm on something. Age, gender, disabilities. So what?

As a teenage programmer, I can say that teenage programmers aren't that uncommon any more. It's not remarkable, age really doesn't matter. Anyone over the age of 10 can learn programming by taking programming courses from world-renown universities nowdays. I'm 16 and I've been programming for years. That's only because I had a chance to learn programming and I took it, not because I'm more intelligent than a someone who's 20 years older than me and only got a computer when he was 18. Other people at my age didn't have such chances, and I'm thankful.

> You didn't get to the front page.

I did, but that's not the point.

> Why do you think the problem is with the way that he describes his project, and not with the way that you describe your project?

Because successful marketing isn't everything, and because he is not describing his project. The title doesn't say anything about the game. The developer's age doesn't describe a game. I think a community like HN should value the quality of the product over the age/gender/awesomeness of the developer. But obviously I'm in the minority, and I'm just stating my opinion.

If people are going to use something I make, I want it to be because they enjoy it, not because of the number of years I've lived on this planet.

> Why are so many HNers being dismissive of this young fella?

I feel like I should explain my reasons:

He acts as if his age is very important in his accomplishment. Why is it in the title? Why does it matter so much that he is 14? Maybe he has been programming for much longer than the 30 year old who released a website yesterday. Nowdays, anybody over the age of 12 can take online university classes, publish apps (especially when they get the art from sites like MakeGamesWithUs) and learn programming much more easily than 10 or even 2 years ago. 14 year old programmers aren't that uncommon anymore.

I've posted some of my projects to HN a few times. I only got to the frontpage once. I never mentioned my young age, because it's not relevant. I've probably sat in front of a computer many more hours than the Average Joe. If anything, I'm under accomplished. The success/experience ratio matters more than the success/age ratio in my opinion.

But the game is cool indeed, and it's always nice to see somebody complete their first project.

> Because he's 14 and super stoked about accomplishing something that many people twice his age couldn't do So what? Why does age matter so much? A 28 year old may have less programming experience and help from sites like MakeGamesWithUs and still complete similar projects. Why is it so important that he's 14? He obviously isn't the only 14 year old coding and completing a project, it's not even that rare anymore. Probably not as rare as a woman making iPhone app, at least. With today's technology, everybody over the age of 12 can learn programming, build apps and complete university classes.

I post my projects to HN too, I have only once reached the front page. I never mention my young age, and I won't do it here, because it doesn't matter and it's not relevant.

It's the number of neighbors each boid considers to calculate its velocity. There's also an option that defines the maximum distance for collision detection, but it's not accessible through the UI.

Thank you! Do you think there's any way to not rewrite the entire thing?

This sounds very interesting. Drop me an email if you want, my email is in my profile.

Truth is I didn't spend much time choosing the default values. And there are still a few configuration variable in the code that are not accessible through the GUI.

Bird flocks are actually much simpler. It's just three simple rules that define how each boid moves.

Yes, they do. They're not meant to completely avoid each other, theoretically there's a Z-axis that's not visible.

Try increasing the collision avoidance importance in the options and decreasing everything else. Generally, playing with the sliders can result in completely different behaviors.

Thanks, I fixed it!

Depends on where you live, there's no standard.

throw-a-video-lecture-on-YouTube? These classes are interactive. Most of them involve are weekly quizes, midterm and final exams and automatically graded programming assignments. There are deadlines for all of these, and if your performance is good enough, you get a certificate with a grade. And they're all free and massive (coursera has millions of students).

I haven't heard about the online Illinois courses before, sorry. Were they free? Were they truly massive? Were they offered to anyone, even to highschool students or unemployed bartenders in Uganda?

And even if these courses aren't truly innovating, the point is they're making MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) popular and available to millions of people.

I'm a highschool student from Greece. In the last year, I've learned AI, ML, NLP (although my performance wasn't good enough to get a certificate from this class), SaaS and Algorithms through MOOCs. All these from some of the world's best professors. I even was a community TA in the second offering of the SaaS class because of my performance in the first offering. Coursera (I've only taken one udacity class, and edX is new) is changing my life.

Please answer honestly: Could I do these things 2 years ago?

In this sense, education is changing.