HN Explorer

15 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 61.9 ms ] thread
jetskindo
I'll gladly admit that I didn't get it.
sjs382
https://gist.github.com/maxrice/2776900#gistcomment-1200768

"Here is the list without Delaware" almost made me spit-take.

mahouse
Not from the US, what's the joke?
ashmud
Possibilities:

N-1/+1 joke, since Delaware was the first (by date of ratification) state.

Discussion around incomplete sets (do you include "military" states or other non-"50 state" territories?).

Ad hominem attack on removed entity (claiming entity is unimportant).

_lce0
Haha I love when spontaneously some joke takes off, even if the joke doesn't make much sense

;)

krapp
I'm surprised PHP doesn't already have US_state_name_to_abbreviation() and US_state_abbreviation_to_name() baked in already. This is a language that supports[0] Swatch Internet time[1]. Literally, a "time" format made up as a gimmick to advertise one specific brand of wristwatch from the late 1990s.

I hope someone on Hacker News who contributes to the PHP core can attempt to correct this discrepancy.

[0]http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.idate.php

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time

JshWright
I suspect it would be US_state_name_to_abbreviation() and USStateAbbr2Name() in order to meet PHP's consistency requirements.
wdmeldon
When I developed in PHP, I could never understand why they didn't just reach a compromise that made everyone happy. Like uS_state_nameToAbbreviation() and uSStateAbbr_to_name()

I call it camel_Snake.

krylon
Great, now I have tea all over my desk.

Although it was totally worth it. ;-)

toxican
That went from "Oh cool, I'll bookmark that" to "hey waaait a minute" real quick.
vlucas
I made the website http://devdata.io for this exact reason. You can get an array/list/object of US state names and abbreviations (and lots of other datasets) in any language supported (currently JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, C#, and Lua).
ashmud
Suggestions, based on what we also have/use.

Datasets: Languages (human), SMS Carriers

Language: SQL

pavel_lishin
Completely lost it at

    <?php
    $THE_UNITED_STATES  = file_get_contents('states_temp.php');
    eval($THE_UNITED_STATES);
    ?>
_temp.php, evals, temporary variable names... I'm getting flashbacks.
krapp
file_get_contents should make an http request to its own server for maximum awesomeness...

assuming the php file just echoes its own source code,which is entirely doable.