If Symbol#to_proc is so great, I'd like to see how it can elegantly express something that can't be hidden behind a simple library function. In any decent language the programmer would write "sum(1,100)". Even if the function's implementation in Python/Java/C++/Smalltalk/Lisp/etc required a few more characters, it wouldn't be a meaningful difference. Does Symbol#to_proc add any real power to Ruby or beyond enabling such linguistic brain teasers?
Yes, a library function might be similar, but you would have to write it. s#t_p is already there, so even if it's not as clear, it's all you need.
Did you even read his article? The whole point was "Symbol#to_proc is a litmus test for how you view programming languages. I like it. What do you think of it?"
The article does not claim that (1..100).inject(&:+) is great. It claims that it is a totemic example of Ruby code.
There is nothing that technique X can do that technique Y cannot do given that X and Y are both Turing Equivalent. Of course you can write a library function to sum numbers. Do you also need a library function for the product of numbers?
If so, you now know of a salient difference between the two approaches. One needs a function for each thing you want to do, the other gives you some pieces you combine in different ways to do what you want. Is one better than the other? That's up to you to decide, you are the programmer. Ruby lets you write your program either way.
Now, Symbol#to_proc doesn't, in my opinion, add what I would call power. That's because you can always use a block or a lambda wherever you would use a symbol. But I may not have written the article well: the powerful and dangerous feature in Ruby is not Symbol#to_proc, it's Open Classes. Symbol#to_proc is an example of something you can do with an Open Class. Something else you can do with an Open Class is Hash#to_proc. Something else is Object#andand, a low-rent version of the Maybe Monad in Haskell.
I consider Open Classes to be powerful and dangerous. Am I advocating them? Of course not, it is up to you to decide whether they are a good idea or not. What I find interesting about them is that Rubyists are pushing the language in new directions with them, like Symbol#to_proc. The idea of a language growing from the fringe is also powerful and dangerous. The fringe is an uneducated, seething mass.
At least for me, Google is the Google of personal information.
Xobni makes Outlook search less painful, but my Outlook only has my boring work emails. Gmail and Google Docs (and Facebook) is where I keep my personal information.
Also, don't forget that Google has desktop search, which goes even farther than Xobni in searching Outlook as well as all the documents on your hard drive.
I think that it's impossible to state firmly (especially in a forum called hacker news :) ) that George Bush Jr beat either Gore or Kerry. This is because electronic voting machines were used to count many of the votes.
Electronic voting machines leave no paper trail which means the results are unverifiable.
Slide is on MySpace too, and they probably make more money there than on Facebook. It's easy for us YC news hackers to forget about MySpace because we probably all use Facebook but MySpace is where most users are.
Let's also not forget that all other social networks are going to open up, creating a massive opportunity for Slide that probably far exceeds what Slide makes on Facebook. $500 mil may not be such a high valuation when you think about it.
Bandwidth from a company like Alpha Red works out to about 3 cents/gigabyte if you buy it in 50 megabit per second chunks, or 6 cents/gigabyte if you buy it in 4tb per month chunks.
S3 is 18 cents/gigabyte.
Megabit per second is cheaper if you can keep it at 50% utilization, so baseline bandwidth is actually quite cheap. You'd be crazy to be that bandwidth intensive and pay 18 cents/gig for all your traffic. It adds up quickly.
I'm not saying it qualifies as a CDN - I'm pretty sure it wouldn't - just that it's more complex than simply putting stuff up on S3, and based on the info in the article, the above is my guess as to what they're doing. You don't get 1/4 of a penny per hour of flv by building a worldwide network of servers.
Well, perhaps if you were as big as Google you could. I don't know enough about the economics of scale. But you'd have to be doing some serious volume at the local internet exchanges.
By the way, I was kind of thinking out loud because I'm in the same position:
Bandwidth is averaging above 1mb per person (and growing - the new games are bigger than Stunt Pilot and people play more the more we have), which is probably quite a bit less than justin.tv, but still costly. I definitely won't leave the US for bandwidth, but I'll probably end up with a mixture of baseline servers, gigabyte per month servers and a mirror of static content ready on S3 (as well as a static version of the site), just in case too many of my servers go down at once or we get a massive traffic spike.
Maybe then I'll get a story on TC about how I've created a "CDN", and hey, I wouldn't email them saying remove the story, it's innaccurate. :)
