What are some of the most disliked programming languages? - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/10/31/disliked-programming-languages/?cb=1 <comment><USER2> I dislike R. As in, design and performance wise. But an alternative often doesn't exist. So i am kind of saddened to see it so "liked".

You can best be sure as hell I wouldn't be listing it as something I hate on any of my applications/resume though :P Try getting away from it in my field. Not least because of the err...positive over-zealousness...of the R community. I used to joke that the main difference between R/Hadley (no offense Hadley) and Jesus was that some of Jesus' followers admit he might have made some mistakes.

Also git. Look, i like it. I use it almost every day, but I'll be damned if i trust anything that says its universally loved/not loathed.

I feel there's another dimension to this data not being captured/expressed, but I'm genuinely struggling to verbalise what it would be...

<comment><USER3> > But an alternative often doesn't exist.

Python, Julia, Matlab, Java, Scala don't exist for doing what? Are there specific R libraries and functions that aren't reproduced in other languages?

<comment><USER2> Aside from the libraries issues...

Understand I'm talking about in the context of my workplaces and experiences, which, also in my experience, are a significant number of employers hiring data science-type jobs.

An alternative doesn't exist in the sense that we've been battling for years to get things that are more open and aren't SAS/Matlab/SPSS.

Finally we're at the stage where something is finally getting semi-approved and installed reliably and the doors are opening...and its...R.

Python is becoming more common. Admittedly. And kudos to anaconda for its non- admin requiring install. But in some ways even installing that is a bit "naughty".

But Julia, Java, Scala, C?

No no. Those are programming languages. Software companies get those. Maybe a handful of guys in IT if they need it for some reason, but many are still working in places where most IT/security staff can't tell the difference between R and RStudio. Github is blocked by the firewall and security :P

So the idea of options...maybe in another 10 years :P Until then, we take what we can get...

<comment><USER4> Julia seems similar to python, and even runs fine on Jupyter. I think [https://data-sorcery.org/](https://data-sorcery.org/) (incanter) might be good JVM environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm no statistician, but if languages are new and upcoming, thus still have a standing chance at being fast-growing at all, on Stack Overflow, would they also be languages that aren't yet so established in corporate culture (for being new) that they aren't forced onto people, so that people gravitate more voluntarily to them, so that they are more prone to liking them, so that (finally) they're bound to be less disliked? I mean, I read it, and I went like: "duh".

<comment><USER6> This is probably why Stroustrup famously remarked "there are two kinds of language: the kind people bitch about, and the kind nobody uses."

<comment><USER7> It is easy to repeat platitudes, but the data doesn't really show it. Take the ten most popular languages: Java - slightly negative, Javascript - positive, Python - positive, C# - slightly negative, PHP - negative, C++ - neutral, C - neutral, R - very positive, bash - positive, Swift - positive.

The interesting correlation here is that languages that are on their way out seem to be more disliked (Perl, Delphi, etc.). There are multiple possible explanations, e.g.: their usage is shrinking because they are disliked; or people dislike them because they are not 'sexy' anymore.

<comment><USER8> You have to discount the age factor. Newer languages will always be growing compared to older languages, and early adopters are advocates rather than people criticizing their new chosen tool. To properly criticize something you first need to become intimately familiar with it.

<comment><USER9> Oddly, this does not apply to C++ which has been steadily growing and growing in features, yet gets criticized for being "too complicated".

Of course, you can get by knowing only the bits you need, and Stroustrup makes the excellent points in his hopl-almost-final PDF that newer languages are easier to "get into" because they haven't had years of having new features bolted on, hence they appear "simpler". A few decades down the line and they'll be in the same position.

<comment><USER6> I want to agree, but C is even older than C++ and is definitely not in the same position. Ultimately, each language is different and the way they grow is different. C++ has just never been all that conservative about admitting new features. Their primary concern seems to have been the effect on the runtime performance of the binary, not whether the feature makes sense or mixes well with the existing features, or the effect on compilation time.

<comment><USER9> This is very true. As I sit here waiting for my compilation to finish, I am reminded of the "speed" of compilation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems that the survey methodology here maps more to some mix of familiarity and popularity, rather than liking or disliking. They're basing the results on the technologies people indicate as being interested in working with (that's a like) and those they're not interested in working with (that's a dislike).

People are going to "like" the technologies they know and are familiar with. They're going to dislike popular languages that they may otherwise receive numerous offers about. Relatively uncommon languages are going to receive only popular votes since there's no incentive to dislike them. E.g. nobody's getting spammed with recruiters seeking R expertise. This explains why unpopular language also seem very well liked. When considered as a ratio, there's almost nobody disliking them and a handful of people liking them.

I think javascript's position here is the most clear example of the problems with methodology. I think it's safe to say that most consider javascript a flawed and undesirable language (compare to a hypothetical alternative), but at the same time there are a zillion javascript developers who are willing to work with javascript. So the raw number of people willing to work with it for a paycheck outweighs the dislike of the language itself.

Compare this to something like C#. My first thought (before considering the above) is that its lack of popularity was a cultural issue. It's maintained by Microsoft and is probably seen by many as a more corporate and established (in a somehow negative way) language. But then scroll down to their "tag rivalries" section and the real issue becomes clear. The people who most "dislike" C# are visual basic developers!

<comment><USER11> They should have asked "what technologies are you familiar with that you wouldn't want to work with?".

</comment></comment><comment> photon-torpedo Note that the data for "(dis) liked language" comes from answers to "language I would (not) like to work with" given by developers on the job market. I think those answers don't reflect so much the developers' sentiment towards the language, but their expectations about future job prospects in that language.

<comment><USER12> Not only that, but also languages you dislike enough to tell everyone who reads your CV you won't work with them, like ACow_Adonis said. I know many people who avoid R as much as they can, but would rather work with it than be unemployed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So perl is the most disliked, and bash is one of the most liked languages? Most of people have at least some experience with bash, so they don't mind it, but perl looks scary to them. And they probably never really used any of the two, otherwise they'd notice that almost all of ugly things in perl are taken from bash.

IMHO these stats have little to do with the language itself, and say much more about the current fashion and job niches.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's funny to see Perl on the top of that list. I was a Perl hater for so long that I don't even remember how it started. It probably has to do with the extensive use of symbols (=~, -s, -d, s/ ...) that makes code quite unreadable and the fact that it sometimes feels more like a shell or a UNIX tool than a proper language.

Recently I wrote a program in Perl after more than 20 years and I actually found it quite enjoyable. It's so easy to write scripts with option parsing that do file processing. You can even make them very readable as long as you sprinkle it with some comments alongside the tersest statements :)

But I guess if I had to write or maintain bigger projects in Perl the nightmare would begin.

<comment><USER13> Not really, because "unreadable" is a very subjective metric. When you spend some time with a syntax your brain learns to parse it quickly and effortlessly. Perl's use of $%@ prefixes to mark the type of variable actually makes it easier to understand, once you get used to the syntax.

<comment><USER14> 100% agree. Another factor is that Perl is highly correlated with heavy usage of regular expressions. Those are easy to write but often pretty hard to read whatever the enclosing language (and author) :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love perl, but probably only because I am already well versed in it. can do a lot with it and it still is the best option for some things.

I wish perl 6 had a larger community, it actually looks very cool.

<comment><USER16> I do lots of data munging and loading with Perl. There's nothing that comes close to the productivity that Perl enables me to have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was surprised to see Ruby attracting much dislike. I had the impression that it was a language explicitly designed to be used by human programers to express ideas, although with poor runtime performance. What could be the reason?

<comment><USER18> Poor performance, and Ruby likes magic. Magic methods and macros scare off a huge audience of programmers in the mainstream world. Rubyists tend to wholeheartedly embrace them, however.

<comment><USER19> Magic is exactly why I stayed away from Ruby. You have to learn some for every environment but Ruby was too much for me. Perhaps because I first saw it with RoR - which adds even more magic.

<comment><USER20> Both above and above one's parent comment is about rails, not about ruby. It's understandable that most people got familiarized with ruby because of the popularity of rails, but confusing between the two?

<comment><USER18> I've written Ruby, not Rails. In fact, most of my Ruby work hasn't had anything to do with the technologies associated with the web, they've been desktop GUI applications and server applications (like dealing with ActiveDirectory). I'm not confusing anything, I'm speaking from experience.

The Ruby community likes things that think for you, and insert methods unexpectedly, change the meaning of semantics, and all sorts of other magic designed to think for the programmer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm (pleasantly) surprised that C++ isn't nearly as hated as I expected it to be. I never considered C++ to be a bad language in my experience.

I'm surprised that C# and Java are higher than C++.

Perl being #1 isn't a terrible surprise. But I think its no small secret that Perl is usually the ugliest, but most practical... language for a huge number of jobs. No one likes using Perl, but damn is it useful in a lot of situations.

Matlab would be that language I dislike (despite it being low on the list).

<comment><USER22> I am surprised with c# vs java as well, but they are close.

I code c++, javascript and java these days, and i greatly miss my c# days.

Say what you will about microsoft, but i consider C# and the default development environment in vs superior compared to what's available for other languages. That with Resharper back in the day was the bomb.

<comment><USER23> Heck, still is. C# is a nice, pragmatic, practical language, and the VS/Resharper combination can't be beat anywhere, period. I love how lazy it lets me be.

<comment><USER22> Funny enough, I developed libraries mostly, in both for server use (nhibernate/castle), and for client side use (windows phone), and i can say pretty confidently that development environment for windows phone 8 was far superior to what android had, too. Android was a platform for years while wp8 was really new.

Microsoft knows how to create developer tools, and languages.

<comment><USER24> It's an ugly secret that WP in many regards was the best platform out there. If it was about 90's desktop operating systems it would be BeOS out of the options Windows 98, MacOS 8 or BeOS.

But it was not only late to market but also Microsoft's PHB's managed it pretty ugly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What do people have against delphi? I thought it was a nice fast language with a decent UI builder for native(ish) apps. I've never used delphi as it is but I've got fond memories of pascal. I didn't realize it was even used enough anymore to have people dislike it.

<comment><USER26> I have to use it at work (for legacy reasons) and it's the worst IDE ever.

Prepare yourself for random crashes, Auto completion and code Navigation not working, and if you debug 64bit values of local variables sometimes are not accessible.

Also the bar with the open files doesnt Scroll and isnt resizeable. Tidious as fuck if you have more than 3 files open.

And it doesn't even have proper syntax highlighting! You have to install some shady chinese plugin if you want it. Ffs!

And don't get me started about the Pascal language it uses... There is absolutely no actual help on the Internet. Forget StackOverflow, some old German forums is all there is.

And it forces you to have some kind of Header section in the file were you declare fields and Methods that you want to implement. If you want to quickly rename or change some parameter you have to Scroll All the way up...

 _rant off_

<comment><USER27> I have to step in here to correct a few completely false statements.

> And don't get me started about the Pascal language it uses... There is > absolutely no actual help on the Internet. Forget StackOverflow, some old > German forums is all there is.

> And it forces you to have some kind of Header section in the file were you > declare fields and Methods that you want to implement. If you want to > quickly rename or change some parameter you have to Scroll All the way up...

There is /plenty/ of help online and SO. In fact, for some topics (eg raw WinAPI programming) you will often find /more/ help, articles, or blogs using Delphi than in other languages, including C++.

As for a header: yes, you define a class and its methods, and implement it, separately. I'm guessing you're not used to languages where this is the norm? That's quite ok, but don't knock it :) FWIW, just turn on "Sync Prototypes" and when you modify a method, the declaration for it changes too, and vice versa.

[http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Tokyo/en/Code_Edito...](http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Tokyo/en/Code_Editor#Synchronizing_Prototypes)

There are also other IDE features, such as a shortcut to autocreate methods you declare (Ctrl+Shift+C, "class completion".) Type a new method in the interface, press it, it exists. Use Ctrl+Shift+Up or Down to move between the interface and implementation of the method(s), too. If you are scrolling, that is a more efficient way to navigate ;) Or you could use the shortcuts in the editor toolbar, listing methods/classes etc etc, if you prefer mouse interaction.

If you're a keyboard user vs mouse, mainly, check out some of the keyboard shortcuts: [http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Tokyo/en/Default_Ke...](http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Tokyo/en/Default_Keyboard_Shortcuts#Code_Editor_Keyboard_Shortcuts)

I have no idea what you mean re "proper" syntax highlighting. It does indeed highlight. The main thing I know of that GExperts modifies here is changing the colour of block keywords as it indents, and Delphi does that through a block indicator line in the editor, instead.

<comment><USER26> The problem is that the shortcuts don't work (as expected) half of the time for some reasons... So I stopped relying on them.

As "proper" syntax highligtting I mean things such as highlighting every occurrance of a clicked variable, and maybe some color. The default prints "begin" and "end" blue and adds some lines to control structures... wow. ._. I'm using CNPack for that now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > One tag that stands out is the functional language Clojure; almost nobody > expresses dislike for it, but it's still among the most rapidly shrinking

<comment><USER29> Is it fair to correlate a single qa site usage even a massively popular one with popularity.

By that definition if error messages improve it will be deemed to "shrink".

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm really surprised to see Ruby so high on the list. I have limited experience with it myself, but I had the impression it was a generally well- liked language.

<comment><USER31> I'm one of the new generation of devs to have come into the startup world in Melbourne after Ruby stole its heart, and damn is it a mess and a maintenance nightmare. So many production bugs due to nil pointers, missing methods, etc, and a woeful time to be had if you want to start doing large scale refactors and clean up tech debt. Makes me sad that when faced with Java the generation before me escaped towards Smalltalk and Perl rather than towards ML and Haskell.

Thankfully we seem to slowly be turning it around though. If only on the front end, that is - with Typescript, Elm, Flow, Reason, etc. In Melbourne the Rubyists seem to be running towards Elixir hoping it will save them, but having worked on a number of Elixir code bases it seems that while solving some problems it leaves many still standing. :(

<comment><USER32> None of the points you made are specific to ruby. Any language can have technical debt, dangling pointers and so on. I think you might have had the misfortune of running into mismanaged code bases.

<comment><USER31> > Any language can have technical debt, dangling pointers and so on

Any language can have tech debt, but I want access to tools in order to help me refactor my way out of that. Working with Ruby feels like building on a foundation of sand with mashed potatoes. It requires a huge amount of discipline to maintain a good enough test suite to combat code rot, and even then, a sufficiently paranoid test suite becomes a hindrance to change (not arguing against tests, just how much extra testing a dynamic lang requires of you if you want to have confidence). You have to refactor incredibly slowly, one small change at a time.

Dangling pointers are not an issue in languages like Haskell, and ML. We've had these around for decades. Thankfully most newer languages are banishing them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> R is a great tool but terrible programming language. There is some basic fundamentals how programming language should work which R just disregards for the sake of being different.

Okey indexes start at 1, I can get past that.

Variables are initialized with "a <\- 1" okey well for each to their own.

Return requires you to wrap values with "()" so "return x" doesn't work but "return(x)" does. Umm.

You should never iterate over a dataframe except when you have to and then there's a plethora of different ways to do it. Some are better, some are worse. But isn't it nice that everyone can invent their own way of doing it? Right?

Those are what I can come up with from the top of my head. But overall the feeling I get when I code R is that it's this mystic arcane magic that requires completely new way of thinking compared to other programming languages. And it's very frustrating.

Python is better but I have my issues with it too. Mainly the fact that debugging in Python is such a pain the ass and typelessness makes reading of other people's code a nightmare at times. Also libraries like numpy, pandas and matplotlib are very convoluted with kinda bad documentation. Maybe a good IDE would solve it with Intellisense and RStudio like capabilities (again where R shines). I've tried Spyder/Rodeo/Pycharm but none of them were as simple and user-friendly as RStudio when doing data-stuff.

EDIT: Anecdote: I did some programming with a statistician who is a R-guru and he wrote terrible code in Python. Would he coded better if he had learned a different language than R? Maybe. In my opinion probably yes.

<comment><USER34> Sounds you like have a very OO background. I'd strongly encourage you to learn more about functional programming (FP). I personally believe it's a very good fit for the types of programming you commonly encounter in data science, and it leads to elegant and readable code.

I've written a bit of an intro at [http://r4ds.had.co.nz/iteration.html#for- loops-vs.functional...](http://r4ds.had.co.nz/iteration.html#for-loops- vs.functionals)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This has already been discussed yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15592960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15592960)

</comment><comment><USER36> I begin to find the constant bashing of Perl amusing. Such a great language, people just use it and it gets stuff done. I have no explanation as to why people hate it, other than because most people just don't understand Perl.

<comment><USER37> I've used Perl since 1991. I've spent more than 80% of my career writing and maintaining Perl. I get paid large amounts of money to come in and help people sort out their Perl projects.

... it's not a great language; it's a clusterfuck of "cleverness" which lets "clever" people implement horrifying glass cathedrals that shatter as soon as you open the door.

(And there is some selection bias here, I'll admit - the people who control their Perl programmers and enforce simple, readable code don't need contractors to rescue things. It's generally only the hideous fractals of fuckery I get to see.)

<comment><USER36> > ... it's not a great language;

Yes it is.

> it's a clusterfuck of "cleverness" which lets "clever" people implement > horrifying glass cathedrals that shatter as soon as you open the door.

It is clever, so are most other languages. It lets do people do horrible stuff, as well as wonderful stuff, same as in most other languages.

The Perl code from other programmers that I usually come across is mostly using established popular CPAN modules and/or frameworks that encapsulate the "clever" parts. I think you are right in that you mostly get to see Perl code that does need help, rather than the better maintained Perl code that does exist as well.

<comment><USER38> I agree it is a great language, but you need to have discipline and a coding standard to avoid the pitfalls of TIMTOWTDI

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I assume the higher than (I) expected dislike for C# is because of the Microsoft ecosystem, not the language itself. It will be interesting to see whether that remains so over the next few years as .NET Core and VS Code mature.

<comment><USER40> Indeed. I've used a lot of languages and C# is one of the best to work with. It's easy mode for practically any task you can imagine. Maybe it has to do with the employers who want to use C#, I can imagine more of a predominance of enterprisey hell holes making dumb line of business apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> please don't hate Perl, it is great for one-liners from command line ;)

though I do wish the move towards Python in VLSI industry had occurred lot earlier

</comment><comment><USER42> No MUMPS? No RPG?

</comment><comment><USER43> I clicked on this just to see if perl is on top :D

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm surprised that JavaScript not disliked by more people given that it's probably the #1 language that developers are essentially forced to learn (often against their will). I guess it's a testament to how good it is/has become.

</comment><comment><USER45> Interestingly, but somewhat unsurprising, most disliked languages are "medieval" languages according to: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2___qaG_9Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2___qaG_9Q)

;-)

</comment><comment><USER46> I like the network plot. In it I recognize how some stacks are growing and shrinking in popularity: ML/AI, JavaScript are growing. PHP Is losing to Node. MS and Oracle JEE down, Java Spring moving on... I definitely need to polish my Kotlin

</comment><comment><USER47> Lisp? Did I miss a mention of it?

<comment><USER21> Its right there under "Javascript". Lol.

Since Javascript is one of the few languages that first properly implemented clotures, and are functional to boot. A big joke in LISP circles was that Javascript is more similar to Scheme (one LISP dialect) than it is to Java.

<comment><USER48> Wow so many wrong in one comment. Javascript is not the first language implemented closures. Javascript is close to scheme ... compared to C, Eiffel, Algol, Haskell? Semantically null statement. Javascript is not named Javascript because it is supposed to be close to Java; no one thinks Javascript is close to Java, so comparison is misguided.

<comment><USER21> [http://www.crockford.com/javascript/javascript.html](http://www.crockford.com/javascript/javascript.html)

Don't blame me. Blame Douglas Crockford. And I think Mr. Crockford knows more about early Javascript history than you do.

[http://www.crockford.com/javascript/little.html](http://www.crockford.com/javascript/little.html)

<comment><USER48> The link you gave explains my 3rd point. It doesn't mention Javascript being the first closure implementation. And it says Javascript is closer to Scheme compared to C and Java; which is _exactly_ what I suggested above (which didn't support your original argument).

<comment><USER21> Dude, its an offhanded joke comment. I'll accept the downvotes if you don't find the humor funny. But please, don't bring forth this aggressive discussion style to YCombinator.

This ain't Reddit. YCombinator is supposed to be a way more mature environment.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>-----

I'll play "serious business discussions" on issues that actually matter or are of technical importance. But there's no need to be this aggressive on this humorous issue.

<comment><USER48> Never intended to be aggressive. But I want to emphasize that your joke comment included misinformation, and I cannot find any reason not to point out misinformation. You're not downvoted for the joke, you're downvoted for writing misinformation without explicitly stating it is so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Microsoft despite all their efforts clearly takes the lead on disliked technologies. Poor guys.

Given the typical "developers use Macs" mantra you see echoed everywhere, it's interesting to see OSX so clearly disliked too though.

<comment><USER50> I think the issue with OSX is the perceived decrease in quality over the past few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Whichever one the legacy code is written in.

I'm surprised nobody said that yet.

</comment><comment><USER52> Chip (ASIC, SoC, FPGA) designers kind of all hate verilog and VHDL, but the alternatives, sadly, aren't gaining much traction yet.

</comment><comment><USER53> Short version: Perl, Delphi, and VBA are the most disliked languages.

<comment><USER19> Perl is like Crack. Feels so good to use it and it solves the narrow problem so fast. But when you have to go back to it you feel so dirty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> HolyC ?</comment>


California Senate Rejects License Plate Privacy Shield Bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/california-senate-committee-rejects-license-plate-privacy-shield-bill <comment><USER2>
      "The bill ... received aye votes from Sens. Nancy Skinner and Scott Wiener, both Democrats representing the Bay Area."

That's a funny, partisan spin to throw at the fact that of the 18 fatal "No" votes, _17 were from Democrats_. They only mention the _two_ (of the _twenty- seven_ ) Democrats that voted Aye.</comment>


Robots are not very good at picking strawberries yet - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/03/20/592857197/robots-are-trying-to-pick-strawberries-so-far-theyre-not-very-good-at-it <comment><USER2> Agrobot has a better strawberry picking robot in test. [1] Abundant Robotics has an apple picking robot in test. Not yet in production. Getting close, though.

Robotic weeding is now commercially available. Vision systems target the weeds, skipping the wanted plants. The weed is hit with an overdose of fertilizer, a laser, or just a powered hammer. Deere and Siemens both have machines for this.

It's coming soon. A cell phone has enough compute power for this.

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/video/agrobot-automates-the-work-of- berr...](https://www.wsj.com/video/agrobot-automates-the-work-of-berry- harvesting/D07A91E8-C453-4652-8ECE-2229FB862F6E.html)

<comment><USER3> Does Agrobot do well in standard fields? It looks like the testbed is a very fancy raised bed system.

Is the Abundant Robotics robot faster now?

<comment><USER4> Strawberries are typically grown in somewhat raised beds, even if it's not as fancy as the pictures I'm seeing with the Agrobot. This is what a typically strawberry field around Plant City, FL looks like:

[https://www.adrianasbestrecipes.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/...](https://www.adrianasbestrecipes.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/04/Strawberry-Field.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Certainly! I lived in Plant City for about 3 years.

That's still a nice design - many are just mounded earth.

<comment><USER4> Ah, apologies then. You probably know more about it than I do. I just show up for the Strawberry Festival every year!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> m-i-l Rather that developing robots that fit into existing strawberry farms which are designed to make it easier for humans to harvest, they should be developing new types of strawberry farms which are designed to make it easier for robots to harvest. That could be combined with the indoor farm model too to bring other benefits, such as allowing all-year-round harvests, potentially bringing the food closer to the consumer, possibly assisting pest control, etc.

But yes, I've often thought strawberry harvesting would be a really interesting (and challenging) AI and robotics problem to work on.

<comment><USER5> >existing strawberry farms which are designed to make it easier for humans to harvest //

All the farms I've seen in the UK have just been fields, making harvesting very arduous work (that farms near where I grew up imported Eastern European labourers for).

What's the design you're talking of here?

<comment><USER6> A large proportion of strawberries are now produced in polytunnels using the matted bed or table top system. The former allows strawberries to be picked from a seated position from a wheeled trolley; the latter raises the strawberries to about chest height. Gross yields can be slightly lower and there's a significant capital cost for table top production, but it can work out cheaper overall due to easier organic pest control, higher quality and reduced husbandry and picking costs. We're likely to see a considerable shift towards table top production as brexit starts to bite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Automation on farms would be a necessary move, its back-breaking work that you don't get to experience that is totally different from the u-pick experiences, they grow bushes very small (at about 1/8th the size of bushes you see in movies) with lots of fruits so that the bushes mature very early and need minimal space, all of which make picking it up very tiring, generally speaking the only people picking with me are either very nice "immigrants" or people I wouldnt want to walk home in the night with.

I once did it for some quick cash during my pre-highschool yrs, I quit very fast cos it makes much more sense just to wait tables for the same amount of money.

</comment><comment><USER8> I find it amazing that with all the progress around us every day, people still think there is an impossible line automation can't cross, and that their job is safe.

Even as a programmer, I imagine a lot of coding work being at the minimum offset by automation.

<comment><USER9> > _I find it amazing that with all the progress around us every day, people > still think there is an impossible line automation can't cross, and that > their job is safe._

Why don't have any contracts signed with nature on infinite progress. Or that any desired progress will be timely.

We might never be able to pass some local maxima.

Or we might go extinct, or go back to barbarism after a few good wars of famines, before we get to solve some problems.

Or it might take 50 or 100 years in the future to do so.

We still don't have personal robot (with bodies) assistants, flying cars, space colonies, or general AI -- all things that were considered (by experts nonetheless) "just around the corner" in the 60s.

And don't get me started on mass market holographic storage and memsistors...

<comment><USER10> _We still don 't have personal robot (with bodies) assistants..._

The vision of a having a robot assistant just shows the lack of imagination that people in the 1960s who were making these predictions. They couldn't see further than a mechanised version of what they already had. On the face of it a robot is a replacement for a physical person, but the reality is that the physical person bit is what's unnecessary. Automation of processes is largely about removing as much of the 'physical' bit as possible. What was needed was to distill the tasks down to the absolute minimum and then automate that, and that's what we've got now. We automated the physical side of posting a letter and now we have email. We automated filing by using databases instead. Scheduling meetings is now done using shared calendars.

Automation of jobs is not about making a machine that does the job of a person. It's about removing the person and building systems to replace the processes that person did.

We do have robot assistants. They just don't look like robots.

<comment><USER9> > _The vision of a having a robot assistant just shows the lack of imagination > that people in the 1960s who were making these predictions. They couldn 't > see further than a mechanised version of what they already had._

I'm not so sure. A robot assistant would be very much desired by thousands, as a general replacement for another human (e.g. domestic server, personal trainer, bud to play tennis with, arbitrary help around the house, and don't get my started on sexbots).

>* Automation of processes is largely about removing as much of the 'physical' bit as possible.*

That might be so, but humans are not factories, and a nice general help anthropomorphic robot would still be very much appreciated. The same way general AI is the holy grail considered to 10000 dedicated processors that can play chess or translate for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _" You could afford to give people a day off, you know. Afternoons off, holidays off. If you have machines behind you."_

One of the major issues I have with discussions around automation is that they always look at it from either the point of economics or the point of technology.

Those are important perspectives but we tend to look back in history to determine what will happen in the future.

If technology keeps progressing and economics keep making it cheaper and cheaper to do more then the real question is where does that really leave humans. Our advances as a species is by the invention of new technologies which has allowed us to store more and more knowledge/information/data from trial and error in the past while at the same time allowed us to spend less and less time on surviving. In other words, human ingenuity and advances are based on the technology.

What many seem to forget is that once AI learn to pick strawberries it has learned a lot of other things too which can be applied to other industries/tasks and it's instantly applicable (no need to retrain workforce). In other words each step forward isn't isolated to the area that the AI is learning about it allows for the advance of technology in a number of areas.

And so here is the problem.

Human progress has historically followed the progress of technology which was fine as long as it made many things easier. Human ingenuity helped us keep adapting and venture into new areas. But what we are increasingly facing is technological ingenuity.

A good example of that is: [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6368815...](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6368815224174231553)

In other words, the one thing we had over technology doesn't even seem to be out of it's reach cause while technology is progressing we aren't.

<comment><USER12> Where does it leave humans? In about the same position as horses when the internal combustion engine started to become popular. Seriously. [1] [http://www.cowboyway.com/What/HorsePopulation.htm](http://www.cowboyway.com/What/HorsePopulation.htm)

<comment><USER11> Exactly. Horses met their mechancial limits in competition with technology just as humans will meet their intellectual limits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The issue seems to be that fruit is often obscured by leaves/plant matter - why not use ultrasound or something to help locate the strawberries?

<comment><USER14> I can't really tell from the video, but they would, in addition to knowing a strawberry was behind a leaf, need to know if they were ripe or not --so they would have to push leaves out of the way to tell visually via color if they were ripe; unless there are other signals that could be used. Basically, "presence" is not equal to "ready for picking".

<comment><USER15> > so they would have to push leaves out of the way to tell visually via color > if they were ripe

That's also what people do, seems to work OK (I grew up in Florida and did lots of u-pick strawberries).

<comment><USER14> Agreed. But since the article mentions the current system not being able to detect strawberries behind leaves, they'd have to adapt it to one, detect a strawberry behind foliage, two determine readiness for picking.

So, yes, moving leaves and color works for people, but is that also the best method for an automated mechanical system?

<comment><USER16> Don't know about best, but it could work. I'd easily imagine some horribly spider like appendage expertly pushing leaves aside and sticking a little camera in there, probing for them little berries.

<comment><USER17> Or blow some air on the plants, rustling the leaves, sensors picking up any red between the green then going in to pick the strawberry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _" Hey, it could happen! Put a man on the moon, didn't we?"_

I think it's funny cause as a ML engineer I can totally understand why it's in many ways easier to get people to the moon and back than to solve dynamic leaf occlusion and object segmentation at scale.

<comment><USER19> In other news, we don't actually have the technology anymore to put a man on the Moon. Hence why we are having to redevelop it all over again.

<comment><USER18> Having grown up around Johnson Space Center and the decommissioned Saturn V on display, I think this is more of a "technically true" misnomer. It's true in the same way we don't have the technology to build a 69 Camaro anymore because we dismantled it and have no desire to, not because we have lost the technical capability.

<comment><USER19> The difference between the technology to build a 69 Camaro and a vehicle to take us to the Moon (heh, among many) is that the technology to build the Camaro has steadily evolved into the technology we use to build cars today, whereas we literally stopped making Moon transfer vehicles about 50 years ago and literally haven't made anything since that is capable of doing it again.

<comment><USER20> It's not the the technology hasn't advanced. There's been a lot of improvements in aerospace manufacturing techniques and materials since then. It's just the cost vs interest isn't there.

In the case of the US the space shuttle program was the big disaster. Keeping them operational consumed so much of NASA's budget that they couldn't afford to develop a heavy lift vehicle. That and the bloated US military industrial pork complex can't make anything on time and on budget.

<comment><USER21> > It's not the the technology hasn't advanced. There's been a lot of > improvements in aerospace manufacturing techniques and materials since then. > It's just the cost vs interest isn't there.

Isn't that a distinction without difference?

We have the technology to solve world hunger, it's just the cost vs interest isn't there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > "You could afford to give people a day off, you know. Afternoons off, > holidays off. If you have machines behind you."

What total bullshit. No advance in mechanisation has ever resulted in this happening. What happens is that the workers get the days off, but it's not holidays, it's being unemployed.

<comment><USER23> >No advance in mechanisation has ever resulted in this happening.

Can you point to some source of this information? I'm asking because when I look at the data I see that for example industrial revolution was correlated with: 1\. Reduced length of a work-day. 2\. Increased lifetime expectancy as well as overall quality of life. 3\. Elimination of child labor.

And all of this happening while general population was growing.

I just wonder why this could be different?

<comment><USER24> The 40 hour week was not a gift of tech. It was a hard fought labor struggle. And, if you haven't noticed, we haven't moved that needle again after introducing computers.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight- hour_day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why not just probe around the plants and look for red against the green and brown backdrop

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure that's the very first thing that came to their mind...

<comment><USER26> Why do you think someone can't solve fundamental domain problems by thinking about it for 10 seconds? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Article did not mention whether the autonomous berry picker crushed a strawberry by accident for the first time.

<comment><USER28> It indeed was not clear about the specific problems. It basically implied that it shouldn't pick all strawberries, just a subset, probably the most ripe. But it didn't describe well what the bot keeps getting wrong.

I suspect people use tactile feedback in addition to sight, but that is difficult for bots to get right because it requires lots of contact sensors, lots of processing, and lots of coordination with vision to tune well (at our current stage of AI). But it does sound like it's getting incrementally better such that the bots' time will eventually come. I wonder if a spectragram could reduce the need for tactile sampling? That's something a bot has up on humans.</comment></comment>


Election Cybersecurity Progress Report: Will the U.S. be ready for 2020? [video] - <AUTHOR> https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9917-election_cybersecurity_progress_report <comment><USER2> No chance in hell. Frankly I don't believe anyone who says otherwise, and I question if the insecurity of our elections isn't at least partly by someone's design.

<comment><USER3> > at least partly by someone's design

By design, yes, by intent, probably not. For eample, the federal government is, like many very large organizations, absolutely awful at writing contracts for things outside of their area of expertise. See the ACA marketplace website fiasco, for example; while I haven't personally read the contracts, the word on the street is they were written in such a way that there wasn't a responsible party for making sure that the thing actually _worked_ \- i.e. that different vendors systems interoperated well (then again, maybe that's just urban legend, I'm not a bureaucrat in DC).

Add on top of that the extensive layers of red tape to even become a vendor for the government, and add on top of THAT the fact that elections in the US are heavily decentralized, so you've got many different governments with many different systems with many different requirements, all of whom have substantial roadblocks set up and lack the expertise to properly audit vendors, and it's practically guaranteed to not be pulled off well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This talk was insightful, pointing out a lot of details and new information.

Did you know that only 27000 votes being different (in the right states) in 2016 could have changed the election result?

<comment><USER5> > Did you know that only 27000 votes being different (in the right states) in > 2016 could have changed the election result?

Apparently the Democrat candidate didn't know that in 2016. They campaigned in California even had a few rallies there but forgot about Wisconsin. Some might argue the Russians hacked her agenda to divert her plane away :-)

One a serious note, it seems candidates knowing the fact, and using their resources wisely, means they would stop their effort in a state once they can be reasonably sure they'd get enough votes. So in general, I imagine it might not be that uncommon to see small differences.

Another way to put it, a small spread in one state could be a random coin flip. But a lot of random coin flips (multiple states) landing on heads, starts to look less random.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone have any recommendations on how an interested technologist can contribute towards solutions to these problems?

</comment><comment><USER7> This guy seems like he is genuinely trying to discover what occurred. But where is the evidence that Russia was responsible for the DNC hacks? Metadata analysis seems to indicate someone inside of the DNC was responsible for the leaks. [https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/guccifer-2-...](https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/guccifer-2-returns- to-the-east-coast/#more-2554)

</comment><comment><USER8> E Coli Report: Will Burger King be sanitary in 2019?

GAO Report: Will EPA Executives be accountable in 2019?

Consumer Report: Will Toyota vehicles be safe in 2019?

I guess if you say anything often enough and loud enough, it's true.

<comment><USER8> The world and [insert field] is just in the last several years waking up to the reality of cybersecurity. Few people or sectors are prepared and yes that needs to be addressed. The title and operating assumption deserve this retort. A previous reply points out the lack of evidence that the DNC was 'hacked' by 'Russia' and not a disaffected member of the party. I'm trying to stick to the topic of cybersecurity, though I fear the OP is not. I suppose the matrix of opinion editorials and propaganda fit somewhere in the scope of security, so I'll leave it there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Betteridge's Law of Headlines says no.</comment>


There's an Automation Crisis Underway, It's Just Mostly Invisible - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/the-trickle-down-disaster-of-automation-1838974516 <comment><USER2> Here's the key takeaway: "automation increases the likelihood that workers will be driven away from their previous jobs at the companies—whether they're fired, or moved to less rewarding tasks, or quit—and causes a long-term loss of wages for the employee."

This is similar to my own thoughts on automation - it doesn't have to directly destroy a single job to lead to huge adverse impacts on our modern economics systems. Automation just has to be available and capitalism will take care of the rest over time.

<comment><USER3> > This is similar to my own thoughts on automation - it doesn't have to > directly destroy a single job to lead to huge adverse impacts on our modern > economics systems. Automation just has to be available and capitalism will > take care of the rest over time.

I'd argue automation doesn't lead to adverse impacts, capitalism does. Automation leads to greater output from the same labor input, which is good. Capitalism that is not mitigated in these effects leads to the more than 100% of the net benefit of those gains going to capital owners or those on combination with workers skilled in automation-related fields, while a net detriment is received by workers whose prior function, or a substitute for that function, was automated. But that's true of _every_ change under capitalism that shifts demand from one kind of labor to another (but is felt most broadly detrimentally when the labor benefitting is of a type where skill is more concentrated.)

The problem isn't automation, it is distributional infelicities in capitalism which must be mitigated by reducing (but not erasing) the concentrated benefits so as to allow broadly-shared benefits instead of broad harms.</comment></comment>


Wikimedia Foundation Raises $20 Million From 1 Million+ Donors - B-Scan http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/02/wikimedia-foundation-raises-20-million-from-1-million-donors/

<comment><AUTHOR> "Funds raised in this campaign will be used to .... provide legal defence for the projects .... "

It depresses me that an institution such as Wikipedia which relatively speaking achieves so much with so little money will have to spend what I expect is a none trivial amount of its limited funds on legal defence.

<comment><USER2> It's not actually that much. Most of it goes on technical: namely, servers and developers. I think they currently have two people in legal, and something like 50 in technical (development, ops etc.).

I'm an OTRS volunteer - that is someone who answers email sent to the Foundation. A lot of the potential legal issues get resolved amicably by volunteers before ever hitting the legal department.

An aside - one thing I've learned dealing with people making legal threats to Wikipedia: it's astounding how even some of the biggest multinational companies on the planet are completely clueless about copyright law.

<comment><USER3> And thank you for doing that work!

FYI, there are three FT legal now. There also are a number of legal interns at any given time. I worked with one of them in 2011 on making Commons a little more robust against potential lawsuits.

<http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff#Legal>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can I start the inevitable thread: "OMG why don't they use Google Ads. It disturbs me that someone else is achieving such a high audience share, and is so beloved by its users, and is not answering to a VC or advertiser. This threatens my worldview, so as a valued member of the startuphackerseoblogging community, I am going to suggest, _nay_ , insist they change business models."

<comment><USER4> For the scale on which wikipedia operates, it is dangerous to the dissemination of knowledge for them to have a business model. I for one applaud wikimedia for not going that route. Furthermore, the quality of the content and the alignment of the motives would be greatly changed, and they would lose the credibility that they have built since the project began. It's certainly not a perfect source, but for better or worse, it has made an enormous impact to the way research is done.

They create a much greater value for the world by remaining disentangled from corporate reins. Open source will always be a 'bad business model' if you want to call it a business model in the first place.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, that's also their explanation for focusing on diffuse small donors. It's not _really_ strictly the case that Wikipedia is going to go offline if they don't raise enough money--- for one thing, their actual core servers/admins/bandwidth budget is much lower than the overall Foundation budget (which includes a number of ambitious research/outreach/etc. initiatives), and for another thing, companies like Google have offered to donate bandwidth and servers. For a while they accepted some South Korean servers/bandwidth in a Yahoo datacenter, but generally they prefer to remain independent as Plan A.

<comment><USER3> This is correct. It's an encyclopedia with few personalization features, so well over 90% of HTTP requests are served directly from cache.

It may not be easy to explain this in a banner ad, but the money is really going to different efforts that are trying to expand / entrench / defend Wikipedia in its adolescent phase.

Like: making operations run more smoothly, on more continents, and not require the constant intervention of a few wizards; enabling a virtualization framework which so more volunteers can work with ops or do wilder experiments (the "labs" project); inroads into academia; improving automated testing; expanding our ability to host multimedia; the GUI editor and usability projects; or the Wikipedia Zero project, where we try to get the site delivered to mobile devices in the developing world for free.

<comment><USER5> I do like some of those, especially the technical improvements to things like the editor interface, but as a long-time Wikipedian I confess I'm a little bit skeptical of some of the larger ambitions. I think Wikipedia's competitive advantage basically is writing an online, unencumbered encyclopedia, and providing useful data export so others can reuse and adapt it.

When it gets into things like the Foundation itself improving education in the third world, there are a lot of complexities where I don't think it really has a competitive advantage over many of the other charities who have been working on that problem for a long time. So if _I_ had my say (which I don't), I'd focus more on making the data more easily exportable in various forms so third parties can take on those missions, rather than Wikimedia itself becoming some kind of global NGO working to bring knowledge to the developing world (a mission that seems uncomfortably missionary / "white man's burden" ish to me in the first place).

The situation has improved recently, but for years there was a bunch of hiring and spending on ambitious projects, but what I see as a _core_ function of Wikipedia, the database dumps, which give the free-as-in-freedom practical effect (free licensing isn't that useful if you can't get the data) languished in a pretty poor state (with no full-history dump for a long time), which seems like misplaced priorities. Even today the dumps aren't all that user- friendly, even for technically inclined researchers, let alone less technically inclined adapters/remixers/reusers, and as far as I can tell, improving data export isn't one of the top Foundation priorities.

<comment><USER3> I'm with you all the way on that one.

But as you know, MediaWiki's brand of wikitext is famously impossible to work with.

So, while it may not seem that way, really, the most important thing we're doing is redoing the parser and all the parsing infrastructure so it can export in forms that people can actually do something with. So if someone else wants to make the ultimate Wikipedia mobile app we won't have to be involved. Our official reason for redoing the parser is to make the GUI editor more possible, but IMO exporting is going to be the bigger application.

In the meantime though, I still think the WMF has a role to play, particularly in making content available on mobile. Only this year, they finally got some of that straightened out (previously there was an inadequate Ruby on Rails proxy that was serving m.wikipedia.org).

As a technologist, it's easy for me to point fingers, and say that some of the more ambitious stuff isn't warranted, or is too "soft", and we should focus on other stuff. But I have to say, my mind was completely changed by seeing how the academic outreach program worked out brilliantly. It will one day seem weird to have done a research paper that was reviewed and read by only one person.

(Similarly, the people who work on that stuff have no idea what the "tech side" of the foundation are doing, in detail. Like if they ask when are they going to be able to upload more than 100MB long videos, it's hard to explain to them that we're undergoing a painful transition from NFS file storage to a media abstraction layer with a Python-powered distributed-hash-table + object storage server, and we're also making sure our new chunked uploading protocol works.)

Anyway, it's a non-profit. These institutions are far from ideal and sometimes end up doing strange things for reasons which don't make sense outside the institutional context. The same things happen all the time at for-profits, but you don't get to debate it as much. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if they even noticed a bump in donations after they spoke out against SOPA (with the reddit donation thread and all)</comment>


The lives of elevators - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_paumgarten?printable=true

<comment><USER2> This is a long article, but interesting. Basically, guy gets stuck in elevator for 41 hours and it ends up ruining his life.

here's the time lapse of the 41 hours on security camera

[http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/04/21/080421_elev...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/04/21/080421_elevators)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm. I submitted this yesterday. I thought the dupe preventer was better than this...

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=164592>

Edit: Oh, I see, this one uses the "print" link. I wonder how this can be prevented in the future.

</comment><comment><USER4> Highly recommended reading (mentioned in passing in the article): Colson Whitehead's "The Intuitionist", a magic realist novel about a black female elevator inspector. No, really!</comment>


Are You Sure? - <AUTHOR> http://prog21.dadgum.com/205.html

<comment><USER2> All of the ideas suggested as alternatives are mind-blowingly unintuitive. Can you imagine an entire OS running on obscure gestures like that?

The reason the "are you sure" model has survived for so long is that it is basically perfect. A trash icon clearly signals that that is how you delete a file. The problem of accidental deletions is avoided by the confirmation dialog.

This strikes me as reinventing the wheel but badly, change for the sake of creating the illusion of progress. Yes, it's good to reconsider old dogmas. But it is usually better to start with something that is actually a problem before trying to fix it.

<comment><USER3> _> But it is usually better to start with something that is actually a problem before trying to fix it._

While I agree that the proposed solutions are worse than what we currently have, there is indeed a problem. From the article:

 _| But for everyone else the little prompt quickly becomes part of a two- button sequence that finds its way into your muscle memory._

The problem is that on some systems, these questions pop up way too often. That makes them annoying without actually providing protection in the worst case (due to muscle memory).

For example, if an action can be easily undone, there's no need to ask for confirmation.

More generally, I believe the real problem is to decide properly when to ask and when not to ask.</comment></comment>


US Marines testing ball shaped "Bot" for beach landings - <AUTHOR> http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/02/marines-are-building-robotic-war-balls/105258/

<comment><USER2> Reminds one a bit of The Great Panjandrum [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum) "At first all went well. Panjandrum rolled into the sea and began to head for the shore...Then a clamp gave: first one, then two more rockets broke free..."</comment>


Show HN: Bitcoin.Dance - <AUTHOR> http://bitcoin.dance/ <comment><USER2> So, it displays a bitcoin address of a charitable organization, and how much has been donated to the organization through it?

(Where the current organization changes over time)

Do I understand this correctly?

<comment><AUTHOR> And something cool happens on the page every time the address payed ;). Any amount will trigger it.</comment></comment>


Time Warner Cable alleges that Netflix discriminates against its customers - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/01/16/time-warner-cable-vs-netflix/

<comment><USER2> So basically, Time Warner wants Netflix to pay for the excessive bandwidth necessary to deliver low-compression movies, rather than letting Netflix put a content edge on their network, despite Netflix's offer to do so.

And _Netflix_ is the one that's the problem here?</comment>


Show HN: HTTP Prompt – an interactive HTTP command line client - <AUTHOR> http://http-prompt.com <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. HTTP Prompt is a command line tool that boosts HTTPie with autocomplete and interactivity. Any feedback is appreciated!</comment>


Google+ Is Outpacing Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/google-plus-is-outpacing-twitter-2013-5

<comment><USER3> I know the numbers are inflated due to tie-in with other Google services, but I'm very optimistic about Google+ long term.

I got my invite in the first wave and pretty much immediately ditched the service. I just didn't see why I'd use it. I am a light Facebook user and I don't Tweet.

Recently I decided to give G+ another try and I love what I am seeing. First of all, the site is a pleasure to use and the mobile app is by far best in class. Second, I think G+ is absolutely the best social network for those who are interested in following people outside of their friends. Celebrities on Facebook have something to sell, and on Twitter there's not enough room, but on G+ I get long, interesting posts from famous people around the world.

I only have a few friends on G+ but I am starting to check it more and more and I can say without a doubt that if it ever hits critical mass I'll be the first to drop Facebook. Google simply has the latecomer's advantage, they got to watch Facebook stumble and build around those obstacles at their own pace.

Also, Google+ sign-in is a great developer product. The deep-linking concept is a very interesting implementation of sharing for mobile apps that borrows from Android's intent system.

<comment><USER4> Google+ will be a fine replacement for Facebook when everybody gets the signal that FB has entered it's Newscorp-era Myspace phase. But there's another possibility: Facebook may end up leaving such a bad taste in people's mouths that it will be replaced by _nothing_. Both G+ and FB may fade away as the world collectively says "fuck this".

You might say I'm a dreamer.

<comment><USER5> It makes sense that G+ could outlive Facebook if only because it's so tightly integrated with a suite of products that are so widely used, where Facebook's primary external integration is through apps that aren't essential to the day- in-day out...at least not yet.

I think Facebook has become to tightly woven into peoples' lives, though, that it's going to live on for quite some time. It all really depends on where the kids decide to go, methinks..

<comment><USER6> > It all really depends on where the kids decide to go, methinks..

And as of late, the kids have been ditching Facebook because it's not cool anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This has been explained before. Google+ numbers can be misleading because they're tied to other services. The article mentions this:

"The reasons behind Google Plus's growth -- it now can boast 359 million active users, up 33 percent from 269 million users at the end of June 2012, according to GlobalWebIndex -- are complex and tied to Google's effort to build a connecting layer across all its services, including search, YouTube, maps and other products. Log into one, and you've logged into the lot."

<comment><USER8> And Twitter's numbers are extraordinarily misleading, because so many of their accounts are fake, and so many people just sign up but never really use the service.

<comment><USER9> The numbers you see externally are the same as the ones used internally to reason about growth, and a great deal of care has been taken to keep them accurate. Fake accounts are culled, and inactives or likely spammers aren't counted in the numbers.

<comment><USER8> Fake accounts are culled? Apparently not very well.

To take one simple example, half of Bieber's followers are fake. I'd be willing to bet that between 1/3 and 1/2 of all followers on public accounts are fake.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/22104058>

Then on top of this, I'd like to see how many Twitter users post a few Tweets and then give up. It's not hard to calculate that data just by sampling a large number of users from the API. I'd argue it's an extreme portion of the supposedly active user base.

Mostly Twitter is shallow (as in limited use and interaction) consumption platform, with relatively few highly active producers.

<comment><USER5> I think he meant that fake accounts were culled from the count, not in general.

<comment><USER10> Semi-correct. Falsely identifying real users as spammers when computing metrics isn't a big deal, but it is a big deal if you are suspending accounts. Twitter does remove spammy accounts, but it's a slippery slope and I'm glad they remain cautious when it comes to suspending users.

<comment><USER5> Makes sense. Thanks for the correction!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A lot of skeptics here (as usual!)

Well I use both Google+ and Facebook every day and to me Google+ seems VERY active with a lot of high quality content as well.

I can't really say if it is more active than Twitter (which is also very active of course) but it certainly doesn't seem like "a ghost town" as some people try to claim.

<comment> k-mcgrady I think Google+ has more active focussed communities of people using it (photographers, geeks) whereas Twitter has a wider variety of content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What you mean is: Millions of people activated G+ so they can use Youtube and other Google services without Google getting in their face every 2 seconds to activate g+

<comment><USER4> So you're saying they're discovered a way to spend money maintaining a huge community that nobody actually uses!

Quick, give that CEO another bonus!

<comment><USER13> To say that "nobody uses" G+ is ridiculous. I don't even have that many people in my circles and I see a pretty non-stop stream of activity flowing through. _Somebody_ is darn sure using it.

Is G+ as active as Twitter? Hell, I don't know, but it's definitely - <USER2> another commenter here just said - not a "ghost town".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a bit of a open secret. I think many in tech think Google+ is a ghost town, and so the joke goes, the only people that use it are Google employees.

However, when I was looking around for 3D printer communities, I was surprised that there was a vibrant one on G+. While one data point is not evidence, it is an example that runs counter to the current prevailing tech wisdom that nothing happens on G+.

I think while G+ may not replace FB, the interface is great, and we may find social networks have other uses for groups besides what we do on FB.

</comment><comment><USER6> As of late, I've been seeing more and more people active on G+. It's been quite a surprise, but I think the network is starting to pick up steam.

</comment><comment><USER15> Define "outpace"

In terms of sharing popularity, printing out a webpage is 100X more popular than Google+: [http://karmcity.com/post/49275229257/the-value-of-share- butt...](http://karmcity.com/post/49275229257/the-value-of-share-buttons)

</comment><comment><USER16> Facebook's where I go for social stuff. Twitter's largely replaced RSS. Google+ has two uses:

# It's where my Androids upload to

# It's where I get tech news - Linus, Greg KH, O'Reilly, etc. all post on G+

I tend to hope G+ doesn't become as popular as Facebook with the general public, because right now it's got a really good signal:noise ratio and I'd hate to see it drown in Farmville updates and cat photos..

<comment><USER17> Just group people in circles and read the one you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why doesn't Google just provide a tool to import a user's full Facebook data into Google+ with a single click?

They could even do it without the user's consent for people using Chrome or Android, or they could pay people to do so (it might cost them 10 billions, but it would be quite a good "company" to "acquire").

Without doing that, or having some killer feature, there's no way that they will take off.

<comment><USER19> Facebook has a long history of disabling that sort of system.

<comment><USER18> Uh? That's impossible to do.

Facebook already provides a way to download all your data, so Google just needs to write software that uses it and uploads it into Google+.

Alternatively, they can just automatically scrape the Facebook website via HTTP directly from the user's machine (using a modified Chrome, modified Android, desktop tool or Android app).

<comment><USER20> Scoble was banned from Facebook because he was scraping contact info. I'm fairly certain it's a violation of their Terms of Service.

Given that that's unlawful access of a computer system (and kind of a dick move,) I don't think Google wants to go down that route.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If I was to badmouth Google after reading the article, and especially their tactic of tying-in the experience, and using youtube and google ranking to induce people to open and use a google plus account, I'd say they are leveraging their existing monopolies to acquire another monopoly in a separated industry.

Naysayers would say that's an emotional response, but I would then let monopoly be defined by known indexes such as the HI and leave the conclusion to arithmetic instead of emotions. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index>

I haven't done the calculation, but we may find interesting results - and I say that while I think google + is being turned into a nice product, with useless cruft being removed little by little, and some polish added. IMHO only the legality of their tactic is troubling - the product is becoming good.

But would it have if they hadn't played dirty?

I guess it's legal if you are not getting caught.

</comment><comment><USER22> I love it, I use Twitter, I used Facebook. Circles just does it for me.

I care about these people today, I want to follow circle XYZ, I want to share this to Mates, Nerds, Android, etc.

The Photo Albums is amazing and linked up with Instant Upload from my phone at full res when charging on a WiFi.

I really like Google+ and wish it had come out before Twitter/Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER23> Well, i hope so. I still don't get the value of twitter, it always seemed to me as overrated. Why 140 characters? External services for photo upload? I still don't get it..

How is [1] better then [2]?!

[1] <http://www.imagebanana.com/view/okt9mdpq/obamatwitter.png> [2] <http://www.imagebanana.com/view/ma3vuvby/obamagooglep.png>

I hope i don't start a religious war now, just saying although i have a twitter account i never really got to use it...

edit: changed screenshots to english versions

<comment><USER24> > I still don't get the value of twitter

"Talk directly to semi-famous people" is one of the chief value propositions.

Suppose you are a fan of some public figure - say, an actor or a politician who has more than thousands of fan - snd you want to ask that person a question or give them a compliment.

If they're on twitter, there is a pretty good chance you could get through and have that person actually _read_ what you have to say. If you're sufficiently witty and relevant it might even turn into a conversation. There is no other medium for which your chance of getting through is that large, and part of the reason _why_ this is true is due to that 140-character limit.

Consider the unread messages in your email inbox. Any single email you open _might_ turn out to be a quick topical one-liner, carefully edited to make a single point clearly and say nothing extraneous...but it's much more likely to be rambling and poorly edited. In the worst case, it could take an hour to read and understand a single email. So sorting through email (or any other non-bounded message stream) is daunting and best delegated to somebody else if you get too much of it.

The fact that tweets have to be so short forces tweeters to think carefully about what they want to say and to make their point quickly. If the message is a compliment or comment, it has to be an _efficient_ one. If it's a question, it's an _efficient_ question - you don't have to skim past a page of introductions and compliments and caveats to find it. And if the text is ugly or pointless or hateful, you can "block" the sender after you see a mere 140 characters of what he has to say.

So that's one use case - talking directly to people who otherwise would be protected by a circle of PR flacks. You can currently do that more effectively on twitter than most other services.

Even when talking to non-famous people, the 140-character limit imposes discipline that can make conversations more fun and efficient, but it only makes sense if some critical mass of the sort of people you like to talk to and hear from are already on the service, so it might not make sense _for you_ yet. That's essentially a bootstrapping problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If google+ was doing so well, Google Corp wouldn't be scared shitless to talk about engagement.

Google+ is honestly more of a rebranding of google than a new service. It is Google relabeling parts of popular products like Gmail and calling it Google+.

</comment><comment><USER26> ... that has no active users.

</comment><comment><USER27> The only feature of Google+ that is really interesting to me is hangouts. That is a social thing that I use at work almost every day, but it doesn't really fit the traditional social network model, and it doesn't help Google make advertising money.

<comment><USER28> Sounds to me like it's a prime candidate for some of Google's famed "spring cleaning" in the coming years...

<comment><USER29> That would be fine, and Google should still be lauded. Hangout started a whole cottage industry, and also nudged existing video chat vendors to adopt Hangout like functionality. If Google shut down Hangout, I would miss how reliable and high-quality it is compared to Skype, but there are a couple good alternatives now.

<comment><USER30> Can you link to a few that you've found useful?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Comical headline.

</comment><comment><USER32> not surprising when you converted all YouTubes profiles to G+ Profiles this month</comment>


3 lessons I learned from my bootstrapped startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.seancoleman.net/post/2638561375/3-lessons-from-a-bootstrapped-startup

<comment><AUTHOR> I finally got Disqus commenting working on my blog :)</comment>


In Defense of the Scientific Paper - <AUTHOR> http://matt-welsh.blogspot.se/2012/07/in-defense-of-scientific-paper.html

<comment><USER2> adunk? Dr. Dunkels?</comment>


Make the Jump from Coding Course to Job Offer - <AUTHOR> http://coursetohire.com/?p=94 <comment><AUTHOR> There are mixed feelings about coding courses. Sure, they might be great for learning syntax, but they don't really help you get a job. Per the title, I want to help people go from free online coding courses to landing a job in tech.

<comment><USER2> Not to mention how much utter crap there is out there in tutorials-land. There are some great courses available, but for example, I would _never_ hire a person if their coding education came from tutorialspoint-dot-com. It seems everybody learning a language they hadn't seen before feels this need to spew out courses and tutorials re-iterating what they were learning while they were learning it, but then give up before they actually reach a point of being at an authoritative level, and then failing for whatever reason to remove their unfinished garbage from the Internet where it muddies the puddle.

To be fair, I only started one tutorial from tutorialspoint, but I gave up on it because there were so many glaring errors that you could get through that course and still not be able to make a real world program that does what you hope it would do.

Look at Lisp, for example. There are dozens of _unfinished_ tutorials out there. Usually a person taking the tutorial doesn't know it is unfinished until they get half way through and notice the details getting sparser every page, and then suddenly drop off a cliff, leaving you with lots of chapter headers, but no content. Then look at the Quantum Lisp tutorials and courses to see just how bad it gets. I think after the glow of being "the guy with the course" wears off, the incentive for finishing their work drops off, and everyone is left in a lurch. You might have noticed, this is a pet peeve of mine. Friedburg University's adaptive training is an example of code training done right.

Get your education where you can get it. But there still needs to be some real-world way to prove to yourself that you've actually learned enough to turn it into a career move.

None of the online "tutorials" (which are more like loose language descriptions) I've seen will get you there, and only a precious few I've seen present actual real-world cases that would get you to the point that you could pass an actual coding interview.</comment></comment>