Even if it is an old post, I have to say that Yaron Minsky is a good source for learning OCaml. I learned a good deal of it trying to figure out how his Planets gravity simulation worked, and then porting the algorithm to javascript. Here is his program:
Occasional reposts are OK. You may have seen it before, but I haven't. In the 18+ months since the last time it was posted, here are some things that have happened:
* new people have joined the site who haven't seen it.
* people who previously had no interest in ML became interested
* people have gained experience and insight which gives a new light to the video, perhaps having new things to say.
* the ability to comment on the older posts has been removed
The last one is probably the best argument against redundancy haters: HN expires the ability to comment on links after a time. So even if I wanted to not repost, I could no longer discuss this video, as the original thread is closed. Further, even if the comment period did not expire, there is no comment notification system on HN, making it very difficult to keep up with older threads that get new comments
The other points are however equally valid - reposting occasionally is fine. I'm sure you don't tell your friends "we discussed the time bob did $silly 3 months ago, we don't need to tell it again", particularly when there are new people around hearing the story for the first time. The best part about when it does come up again on HN - you don't have to participate, you can just ignore the redundant post if you don't care. Just because it is there, does not mean you have to read and comment on it!
Actually, when I did accidentally reposted something, I was redirected to the original HN post, and automatically upvoted it. This happened several times. Not sure, maybe there is some time threshold...
EDIT: Apparently there is :) as it was mentioned here.
HN does not allow the same URL to be submitted during a certain window of time. After that window has expired, it can be reposted. This is a feature, not a bug.
I think it's actually a bit more random than that. Sometime in the last few years on HN I seem to recall reading that it was a function of whether the URL posted is in some cache or not. If that's true, then recently accessed article can't be reposted.
If that's true, then I think we can take it to mean pg really doesn't care about reposts.
Whether the HN culture as a whole dislikes reposts is another matter (in my experience it does not) but it does take one argument away from the people who think reposts are contrary to what we do around here.
I remember writing in the description to the same effect that it was old, and may have been posted before. Although it served the purpose to bring it to other people's notice, you have have found it repetitive, for that I apologize.
