

How to get on the front page of Hacker News (in 7 lines of Python) - tomasien
http://tommy.authpad.com/how-to-get-on-the-front-page-of-hacker-news

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danjaouen
This is bad Python:

\- "isgoodtime" is a magic variable that changes depending on when it is
imported. It should therefore be either a function or method on an object.

\- "if isgoodtime == True" should be "if isgoodtime:" (although this would
probably change to "if isgoodtime():"

\- words in functions should be separated by underscores, e.g., is_good_time,
to_great_content

~~~
tomasien
Oh my god it's TERRIBLE Python, it's just a joke. Theoretically I have
"written" is good time in another file and imported it here, checking to see
if datetime.datetime(datetime.now()) is in a good time, but I just wanted to
write it so it was understandable as a joke.

Also, I'm just terrible at writing code. See previous post on
tommy.authpad.com

~~~
danjaouen
Yeah, I know. As a Python guy with a minor case of OCD, I sometimes feel
compelled to critique code, even when I know the code was written in jest.

Sorry for being a pedant :)

~~~
tomasien
You're a gentleman and a scholar, keep fighting the good fight.

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bitJericho
Funnily enough, I usually don't even look at the front page. My feed reader
picks up all articles on hacker news. For me, you're best off not posting on
the weekends cuz my reader fills up and sometimes I just dump it, but more
often then not, if you post it here, I'll at least see the title! For me, it's
more important to choose an interesting and relevent title. That said, I'm
probably not a typical use case.

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michaelhoffman
I don't understand the "good time" aspect. Are you saying that people are more
likely to read at those times? Aren't they more likely to post at those times
as well?

~~~
tomasien
So that's what I originally thought, but you have to think of it in terms of
pickup ratio more than anything, and that's higher with higher traffic overall
since it means more people on "new".

It's a bit counter intuitive. Reminds me of learning to count cards in
blackjack: if there are more high cards, doesn't that mean the dealer ALSO is
more likely to get high cards?

~~~
michaelhoffman
Do you have any evidence of this or is it just your supposition?

People used to think the same thing about posting on Ask MetaFilter, and when
people actually looked at real data, they determined that the number of people
interacting with a post was roughly the same no matter when it was posted,
because of the phenomenon I mentioned—in a community where everyone can post,
times where the audience is bigger also mean bigger competition for attention.

