7 ms·

PG has remarkably good instincts about feature choices.

abstractbill 18y ago
Funnily enough, when I wrote my own reddit clone (back when every Lisper was doing it), I also reduced the choices from two to one. But I did the opposite - I removed the up-arrow and only had the down-arrow. Maybe I have remarkably bad instincts ;-)
- raganwald 18y ago
  Upmodded for candour, not because I think you were wrong. In fact, I think you simulated most corporate environments: peopel are silent when they agree but argue when they disagree :-)
0_o 18y ago
why does PG leave out the search feature on HN?
- sdfx 18y ago
  maybe because it's not so hard to use "site:..." on google.
  - cstejerean 18y ago
    Using site: on google is a terrible alternative to search on YC. Google's ranking algorithms might work for the web at large but it doesn't work so well for searching HN. SearchYC does a pretty good job at searching YCombinator and I would like for such a feature to be integrated into this site, but I'm guessing PG has better things to do with his time.
    - silentbicycle 18y ago
      Also, searching via google doesn't always work well because there are redundant copies of most comments on both the relevant post and the commenter's thread page.
  - silentbicycle 18y ago
    I still think a "Search" link at the bottom of the front page (or a note in the FAQ) would be good, whether it points to searchyc.com, "google site:news.ycombinator.com", etc. People probably only need to be told how to search once, but searching for how to search is a catch-22.
  - rob 18y ago
    That's absolutely horrible, since Google indexes individual replies here and often times you end up clicking 10 links that all belong to one post.
vlad 18y ago
I don't think PG wrote this app the way it is today. He used iterative development and listened to suggestions from his users. Even on days he did not make changes, he might have thought certain things were fine. Over time, different pains became apparent.

Funnily enough, when I wrote my own reddit clone (back when every Lisper was doing it), I also reduced the choices from two to one. But I did the opposite - I removed the up-arrow and only had the down-arrow. Maybe I have remarkably bad instincts ;-)

raganwald 18y ago
Upmodded for candour, not because I think you were wrong. In fact, I think you simulated most corporate environments: peopel are silent when they agree but argue when they disagree :-)

0_o 18y ago

why does PG leave out the search feature on HN?

sdfx 18y ago
maybe because it's not so hard to use "site:..." on google.
- cstejerean 18y ago
  Using site: on google is a terrible alternative to search on YC. Google's ranking algorithms might work for the web at large but it doesn't work so well for searching HN. SearchYC does a pretty good job at searching YCombinator and I would like for such a feature to be integrated into this site, but I'm guessing PG has better things to do with his time.
  - silentbicycle 18y ago
    Also, searching via google doesn't always work well because there are redundant copies of most comments on both the relevant post and the commenter's thread page.
- silentbicycle 18y ago
  I still think a "Search" link at the bottom of the front page (or a note in the FAQ) would be good, whether it points to searchyc.com, "google site:news.ycombinator.com", etc. People probably only need to be told how to search once, but searching for how to search is a catch-22.
- rob 18y ago
  That's absolutely horrible, since Google indexes individual replies here and often times you end up clicking 10 links that all belong to one post.

vlad 18y ago

I don't think PG wrote this app the way it is today. He used iterative development and listened to suggestions from his users. Even on days he did not make changes, he might have thought certain things were fine. Over time, different pains became apparent.