What concerns me most is how Facebook may use Parse as a way to consolidate their place in the mobile app space. Just as they've done in the past with their SDK, what if Facebook decides to block access to apps that compete with for example, their messenger, Instagram etc?
Did anyone else find this article to be meandering waffle that has no bearing to anything else on HN? I fear the airplane toilet incident has inspired a host of chemists to start posting on hacker news, creating a subculture.
And yes, I'm totally expecting someone to point to the HN posting guidelines that state that anything that may be of interest to geeks is appropriate...
I won't point you to the HN posting guidelines since you obviously know where to find them but with 11 karma I think you should work a bit harder to show by example rather than by voicing your dissent what you feel HN should be like.
To be fair, the comment was downvoted, which I accept, but if you disagree with something it's perfectly valid to voice that disagreement. If Karma is a measure of the validity of an opinion, HN becomes a meritocracy.
Here's the deal. You don't have to agree with the community that this is proper for this community. However, you also don't have to participate. You could just as easily not read the article and move on. Or upon discovering you don't think it's a good article, stop reading in the middle and move on. The time spent on complaining could be put to better use, like advancing the state of text mining systems and creating yourself an automatic curator that finds you only articles you like.
I for one like that these articles get through. This particular one won't get me into chemistry, but it was a fun read, and now I know something I didn't know before. But there are other articles that have been "tangential" that opened new doors for me. Sometimes I don't know there is something out there, and others tell me about it, e.g. through this site. That is useful to me. Pure pull is not the way to expand my knowledge.
And if you're doubtful about how tangential information can be door opening... here is a story about this week: I am currently ramping up on a research project about clock synchronization and security for it. A lot of synchronization systems rely on GPS and this is shown to be spoofable, so we're examining security for those clocks, particularly in geographically dispersed systems. Some guy I was chatting with at happy hour does research in remote sensing in the ionosphere, and was telling me about certain characteristics that the ionosphere imparts to signals from satellites. I had no idea of this, but together we worked out an interesting collaboration on a "tangential" bit of work - using the electron density on the transmission path to help authenticate signals. Probably it's good that I did curiosity and learning about off-topic stuff, rather than say "ooh, cool, I'm do some security stuff" and move on.
Voicing disagreement that a particular submission does not belong on the site is boring. It adds no value, and becomes noise. In this case, we care more about the general discussion than an individual's desire to voice disagreement.
Just make sure the UI is nice and clean, and it works. 2 million downloads is a good vanity metric to sell on. Selling price is anyone's guess. Just make up a number and don't make it public. Tell it to each buyer individually and test their reactions. That way you can gauge what other's perception of pricing for it.
Aha, I see. Well, I have no idea how could you do that.
But about selling it, consider an option that you contact some marketing agencies to get you a company which will buy/sponsor/brand the app. And to marketing agency offer a percent from contract you make with the client they find.
Not quite the same, but a few years ago I met an HCI professor who had started his career as a male nurse and had worked his way up through the academic system.
A massive limitation of Parse.com is with their Javascript SDK - you have to expose your app keys to the client and the SDK doesn't work at all on any version of IE unless you have SSL enabled.
1) There are Access Control Lists which should help with that. Also, note that Parse gives you a Javascript key which is separate from your master key. Though I'm a longtime Parse user, I have not spent much time with the JS SDK on the client (as opposed to Cloud Code, where no keys are exposed), so I can't really say that this just "solves the problem."
2) Wouldn't any similarly-situated Javascript library face the same problems, with Access Control Lists probably being the most practical solution?
3) Moreover, with any mobile backend, you must assume that the keys that ship within the code of your native app will be public. So you should be using Access Control Lists if you're using the iOS SDK, for example.
