trapper

Find out what the problem is first. A stand-up desk may make it worse.

Look up Montessori.

It's such a shame they don't offer encrypted sql databases like adobe air, it would make life so much easier for many applications.

What? Anyone who understands the evidence for evolution should accept the theory, because it's just that compelling. If there is another explanation for all of the data & experimental confirmations then let us know, I'm sure you've got a paper in Nature awaiting.

Of all the true geniuses I have met none are "on the internet", or if they are, are passive observers. They tend to be too busy doing amazing things than writing about it. I have no doubt that each would be a "superstar blogger" if they so decided to, but I highly doubt it's ever going to happen.

In private, they share in confidence with people they trust and organizations that they work with who treat such knowledge as competitive advantage.

The thing is, once you are at the top of your field, what incentive is there to share if you are still making personal breakthroughs on a regular basis? I don't see any.

That's a pretty big claim to be implying - that TS has less exits than YC and are second string. Do you have the numbers in front of you, or was it a guess? I've heard otherwise, so wonder where you get your information from.

Performance under extreme pressure is by definition what sorts out he great from the average in other disciplines: sports, music, performing etc.

If you haven't experienced sport (or similar) at the highest levels you probably won't get how much a few insane minutes can enhance your mastery. It really is a whole new level, where everyone is competing at their peak and you have to greatly improve your level or fail miserably.

This type of pressure & competitiveness just doesn't happen in most business environments, so the degree of pressure to lift your game isn't there.

They would be pretty rare on youtube I expect, the sensei's i have encountered have always been pretty secretive. I would suggest just starting up (they love helping beginners) and going to the first grading to see what it's like.

Eclipse + java6 would make a marked difference, agreed.

>Not the easiests of problems though. Do you know what statistics you would apply?

There are many ways. Off the top of my head:

- to focus on speed of development you could use a practice or warm-up

> provide each with a practice in another language

> provide a sample solution in pseudocode in both functional and imperative style

- To focus on speed of problem solving you could use topcoder data + research of participants programming language backgrounds.

The important thing is that if the effect is large it's easy to spot. According to some, the difference is an order of magnitude. If that's true, it will be trivial to spot.

One impossible study:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1016762

I refer you to:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1016762

What's wrong with that as evidence for lisps superiority?

This is what statistics are for, and is exactly the same situation that many other disciplines find themselves in where treatment a influences treatment b.

This is a testable hypothesis due to the number of popular open source projects around we can draw from.

If the effect size is large (i.e. the magnitude of difference between the means of lisp vs non-lisp programmers) the size of problem should be irrelevant.

Many thousands of programmers spend hours each week in pissing matches online. Why is it none of them feel like truly putting their money where their mouth is?

Now that is interesting. I personally agree with the hypothesis that lisp is a step forward, but often wonder why it's an anecdotal argument than one that is data backed.

This paper although makes me think they compared programmers not languages, as the imperative language programmers didn't have any functional experience. It would be interesting to see a comparison between programmers of roughly equal competency.

It's computer science not computer woo. I'm asking for evidence not anecdote :)

Surely, there has to be at least some evidence in it's 50 years? Especially given the claimed huge effect size.

That's the same explanation psychics give. If the effect size is large (as is claimed), it should be an extremely simple study. So why has no one done it?

Why don't the lispers organize a RAD competition between lisp and all-comers, surely if lisp is that much more productive you would see the top ten places being lisp dialects.

Would you agree?

Surely if lisp makes a programmer N times more efficient then it would be easy to study scientifically. Have there been any studies comparing productivity?

Why is it that in RAD application competitions, "mainstream" languages often win?

Also, if it were truly n times better the library disparity wouldn't exist; libraries should be n times faster to make or duplicate.

I'm asking for evidence here: how can something be so much better and have such a paucity of evidence for it's efficacy? If there really is such scientific evidence for lisps effectiveness I would love to read it & and distribute it to my colleagues in charge of large development teams.

The last time I was employed I got frustrated with this having deployed 5 applications to customers in a few months on my own, and simply negotiated a contracting role. We came up with a fixed price for each job, bugs included, and I tried to make as much per hour as possible. My hourly rate ended up being >250$/hr, and the application is still in production now 7 years after deploying.

The other comments are correct; if you aren't willing to take any risk, then you don't deserve the benefits. If you think you are good, put your money where your mouth is :)

I'd like to know, does anyone actually do all these "productivity" methods? I've never known anyone who tries all the things you read on blogs and sticks with it for very long.

Agreed. We had the same problem with flash charts, it was like the most requested feature so we just ripped them out and replaced with a server side generated chart.

As soon as you need to embed an image of the chart in a pdf you may run into issues with these libraries.

blueprint by lombardi is pretty good

https://blueprint.lombardi.com/

If this were true we would see a reduction in visit times, costs per visit, patients per doctor, patients per nurse, medical errors etc. Instead we see the opposite.

The point of the research is that none of these benefits are supported by the data we have available. Individual anecdotes are the exact opposite of what we should be thinking about after reading this paper.

I don't follow. If you mean url to talk to a sports scientist you will probably need to just call into your local sports institute/academy and have a chat.

Let's not continue this here. If you are really interested, go talk to any local sports scientist involved in professional or olympic level sport and ask them their expert opinion.

Or, put your email on your profile and I'll fill you in privately.

It's a common anecdote. Where do you think fish out of water comes from? You may be skeptical about the biking but it's a fact, I work with these people :)

In an ideal world height is directly related to strength obviously. Weightlifters spend 5-10+ years training, are genetically gifted for strength, maxed-out muscular potential. Swimmers aren't what I would call ideal candidates for this!

Also, read graph D. Swimmers are typically taller and have less cross sectional area than other athletes, which shows in their poor non-water fitness assessments (read the lit if you are interested). Gymnasts are shorter (170ish+-10) and have more cross sectional area for their size. I've worked with many sub elite gymnasts who went almost directly into national rankings in many sports (e.g. cycling, weightlifting, football, american football, track and field disciplines).

Influence of sports background on leg muscle coordination in vertical jumps:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12712802?ordinalpos=1&...

The book "sports talent" has some interesting tidbits for you as well.

Anyway, this has gone on long enough - let's agree to disagree :)

Anyway, let's agree to disagree.

http://puredanger.com/tech/2009/11/18/closures-after-all/

Did you even read the attached article? This is not an isolated case, as I mentioned with the olympic swimmers who were unable to ride a bike.

I'm not sure where you get your info from about "tall" people are stronger, perhaps you should tell that to the international weightlifting federation or the powerlifting federation. I'm sure they would be interested. Also, the UFC should just throw out all the smaller guys, and just select purely on height. :)