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Request: Open source the Hacker News front-end code

6 points by kevinSuttle 12y ago

Open sourcing the front-end code of Hacker News on GitHub would be fantastic, and an interesting experiment given the target audience.

smt88 12y ago
(The following assumes "front-end" actually means the Arc source code that runs the back-end. The front-end is HTML/CSS/JS and therefore already open source.) I'd personally rather it stay closed. This is a mostly a simple site, except for the spam-prevention logic. Even that logic probably wouldn't be that interesting, because it'll mostly be against generic techniques (which are well-studied) and specific techniques (which aren't applicable to my own projects). If the spam-prevention code were removed before publishing, what would be left is an incredibly simple "comment/post/list" type of site, which are just thin interfaces between browsers and databases (or should be...) It would be interesting to see an Arc code base, but there are similar languages with more active communities to look at, if I want to scratch that itch. So the upside is pretty small for me, and the downside is that it would give spammers a list of all the chinks in the armor. That could ruin the site.
- mkeedlinger 12y ago
  I was gonna write a reply arguing against your comment, saying something along the lines of "why NOT open source it?", but your last point changed my mind. I guess no point open sourcing it, especially when there's the potential for an adverse effect.
- maxdeviant 12y ago
  There is a HN clone (https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/blob/master/lib/news.arc https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/blob/master/lib/news.a...) written in Anarki, which is a community fork of Arc.
ashraful 12y ago
There are older versions of the site that's open source, if I remember correctly. The current one isn't open source to keep the rules of detecting spam, banning users, etc. a secret. I tried finding the link to the older codes, this is the best I could do: https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki http://arclanguage.org/ http://arclanguage.org/

6 points by kevinSuttle 12y ago

Open sourcing the front-end code of Hacker News on GitHub would be fantastic, and an interesting experiment given the target audience.

smt88 12y ago

(The following assumes "front-end" actually means the Arc source code that runs the back-end. The front-end is HTML/CSS/JS and therefore already open source.) I'd personally rather it stay closed. This is a mostly a simple site, except for the spam-prevention logic. Even that logic probably wouldn't be that interesting, because it'll mostly be against generic techniques (which are well-studied) and specific techniques (which aren't applicable to my own projects). If the spam-prevention code were removed before publishing, what would be left is an incredibly simple "comment/post/list" type of site, which are just thin interfaces between browsers and databases (or should be...) It would be interesting to see an Arc code base, but there are similar languages with more active communities to look at, if I want to scratch that itch. So the upside is pretty small for me, and the downside is that it would give spammers a list of all the chinks in the armor. That could ruin the site.

mkeedlinger 12y ago
I was gonna write a reply arguing against your comment, saying something along the lines of "why NOT open source it?", but your last point changed my mind. I guess no point open sourcing it, especially when there's the potential for an adverse effect.
maxdeviant 12y ago
There is a HN clone (https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/blob/master/lib/news.arc https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/blob/master/lib/news.a...) written in Anarki, which is a community fork of Arc.

ashraful 12y ago

There are older versions of the site that's open source, if I remember correctly. The current one isn't open source to keep the rules of detecting spam, banning users, etc. a secret. I tried finding the link to the older codes, this is the best I could do: https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki http://arclanguage.org/ http://arclanguage.org/