Adults learn language to fluency nearly as well as children: study - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@chacon/mit-scientists-prove-adults-learn-language-to-fluency-nearly-as-well-as-children-1de888d1d45f <comment><USER2> This got plenty of upvotes and the comments in here are mostly personal anecdotes. I'd like to point out a couple of things:

1\. The author is the CEO of an online language learning company. That's a strong indication that the article might be biased.

2\. This whole "study" is based on data gathered through a "viral Facebook quiz" in which people provided self-assestments of their own skills and learning process. Facebook is not a controlled lab environment, and people are subject to all kind of biases and thus terrible at self-assessment. This whole thing screams "amateurish" and I would not trust it.

3\. Results are apparently so ambiguous and controversial that, as the author states,

> a number of journalists have misinterpreted this paper badly, resulting in a > lot of articles falsely stating things as embarrassing and misleading as > "Becoming fluent in another language as an adult might be impossible", when > in fact the opposite is shown.

This whole thing smells funny. Think I'll pass, thanks.

<comment><USER3> The number of Swedes who self report being fluent in English is absolutely nuts. When hired a lot of them have problems talking about anything other than situations you'd encounter as a tourist.

Sure, they are _pretty_ good, and can manage, but I find calling it fluent silly.

Maybe I have a very high expectation of what 'fluent' means, but when a person can't explain anything more advanced than what they did over the weekend I start to worry about them coming away from meetings with a full understanding of what was said.

<comment><USER4> I consider myself fluent, but I rarely talk outside of what happened on the weekend. For some reason it's harder to think outside the box when using a foreign language. I however understand 99% of what would be said on a meeting. Understanding is much easier than explaining.

<comment><USER5> To add on to what you said - understanding is a subset of fluency. You also need to be able to adequately explain/communicate your thinking in order to be considered fluent. This requires a sound "theory of mind for language" in order to be able to figure out when someone is misunderstanding you, and avoiding potentially confusing diction choices, which a lot of non-fluent speakers struggle with.

<comment><USER4> Then it comes to definition of fluent. To me 90% of Swedes are fluent. What you're talking about is "native", in my book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have been teaching languages for years and the bottom line is the vast majority of adults don't put in the hours.

1 hour a day is seen as a really dedicated adult language learner. If you only did activities that involve languages for 1 hour a day as a kid you would almost certainly flunk school and be way behind your peers.

Adults can simply run away into their native language when things get too frustrating. Kids have no where to run to, there is no choice to not learn and no choice to give up.

<comment><USER7> I'm reminded of how mathematicians do their best work in their 20s. Many assume this is because of brain decline in later years. I bet it's mostly to do with responsibilities and life getting in the way.

<comment><USER8> Erdős didn't let responsibilities get in the way. [https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s)

<comment><USER9> > Erdős never married and had no children

<comment><USER10> OP is probably thinking of Euler, who according to a contemporary often worked: "with a child on his knees, a cat on his back "

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have started to ponder a hypothesis that this thing applies to almost any learning. People claim that it is easier for kids to learn, but for most of the things kids learn, they use much more time than any middle aged could in practice. Like, "ooh, look, my nephew learned backflip on a trampoline so quickly and easily, I would never learn that". Yep, he just spent _hours_ a day on the thing for the last couple of months. You do the same and I bet backflip is not that hard.

<comment><USER12> The optimism in this thread is nice, but where are the success stories which would support your hypothesis?

To overturn "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" proverb you need to show that a 30 year old can achieve similar level of mastery in 5 years of intensive study/deliberate practice as a 10 year old.

You are not going to become an olympic gymnast if you start practicing backflips at 30.

Take 100 kids and immerse them in a language at 10 and they all will be fluent by 15.

Take 100 30 year olds and not all of them will be fluent by 35. I know of many such examples, adults living in foreign countries in total immersion, speaking the foreign language as their main language and still not passing for a native.

My hypothesis: You can get decent in many fields of learning as a 30 year old with dedication but not great.

The field near and dear to my heart - chess is just one of many fields where late greatness is lacking.

There are NO chess grandmasters who learned the game at 25. The few late starting outliers started in their late teens.

Talented kids become GMs at age 13-15 these days after 5-7 years of study.

In fact there are very few people reaching master level who start with tabula rasa at age 20+ and not for lack of trying.

Grandmaster is not an super exclusive title: there are 1600+ of them in the world.

My hypothesis is that reaching the innate mastery in many fields requires a crucial effort in your teen years.

So far I can't find many late starters.

One such outlier Joseph Conrad started writing in English in his mid 20s.

Still he did learn English earlier than that. Per wikipedia - "Shakespeare brought him into the orbit of English literature." and that was at an age of 10 or so

<comment><USER13> I learned Japanese to fluency from zero starting at age 26. I don't know if these qualify as "greatness" but I have read books in Japanese, headed meetings in Japanese, written blog posts in Japanese, presented in Japanese. I even have occasional dreams in Japanese.

I think the "learn early" meme is spread by people who do not have the time/energy to put into late life learning, but who are happier feeling that _even if they did, it would be impossible anyway_. It's a defeatist attitude, but I suppose it must be comforting. I personally can't stand it though.

<comment><USER12> Your is a good positive example of starting relatively late and achieving proficiency by immersion and hard study.

However, I know of counter examples of hard working friends who are totally immersed in the foreign language and working in the foreign country and still nowhere near native levels.

Again my hypothesis is not that it is impossible to achieve proficiency in some skill at a later age, but that it is harder by some unknown factor.

Put 100 foreign kids age 12 in Japanese schools and they will all learn good Japanese by age 18. Plus they will pass for a native speaker.

Put 100 foreign adults aged 32 in a Japanese workplace and they will learn some Japanese by age 38. Most will not pass for a native speaker. Yes a few outliers will get good like you did.

I posit that the second group will have a much tougher time learning and will advance less than the first group.

The study in OP did nothing to overturn my hypothesis.

If you start learning English at age 18 you can achieve high level of reading comprehension at 28 but you will still have problems with accent (unless you can hire a specialized speech coach like Arnold did).

<comment><USER14> > Put 100 foreign kids age 12 in Japanese schools and they will all learn good > Japanese by age 18. Plus they will pass for a native speaker.

Ummmm, I know people that moved to New Zealand younger than 12 that just don't sound native. Many people retain accent issues, although usually end up with a normal spread of proficiencies at grammar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Adults won't get the same treatment like children.

If a non-native child lives in foreign language environment use wrong pronunciation/grammar, he would be corrected by friends and teachers. But adults won't get that feedback often.

Example, one of my colleague is non-native. He speak almost perfect pronunciation/grammar, yet he has some minor quirks time to time. I won't correct him because his language skill is more than adequate for the job and we are engineers, not the language teacher.

If I correct every minor quirks of him, he got a feedback, so in long term, his language will be improved further. But why do we have to do that when it has been more than enough already?

Another example, I'm not a English native. So my writing still contains grammatical errors. But as my language skills are improving, I rarely got a feedback these days for my writing become good enough.

Sometimes, I got a hint of feedback like : "Wow, I didn't notice that you are non-native.". People say that because they noticed unnatural writing of mine. I guess that's a polite way of saying "You failed."

<comment><USER16> I hope you don't find this too patronising, but I thought I'd offer you some feedback:

> Adults won't get the same treatment like children.

I'd render this as "Adults don't get the same treatment as children".

> He speak

Should be "He speaks"

> we are engineers, not the language teacher

This should probably be "not language teachers", but the whole phrase doesn't make a great deal of sense. I'd probably say "not copywriters".

> If I correct every minor quirks of him, he got a feedback

"If I corrected every minor quirk, he'd get feedback"

Generally "got a feedback" should always be "get feedback" \- the tense of get was wrong, and feedback isn't countable, so it doesn't take an article.

<comment><USER15> Thanks. Articles and plurals are the last things for me to master since my native tongue, Japanese, doesn't have such concepts. It's not like I'm thinking in Japanese when I write English, But the native tongue still affect my thinking somehow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I learned Japanese as a 16 year old when I was a rotary student. I learned as a baby would, never had to unlearn poor pronunciation gathered in American schools since I only heard it in Japan, going there without knowing anything. Most people can't tell I'm not native on the phone.

But, I did find myself worried at that age about making mistakes, so I was hesitant to speak often and focused on the writing. I think that meant I lost opportunities to speak with people and accelerate my learning through rapid feedback.

When I was 25 I lived in Brazil. My Portuguese pronunciation is not as good as it turns out but at that point I didn't care about making mistakes. Now, I'm much more interested in attempting to communicate, even when I make mistakes.

I think each era in life has a different set of circumstances that can hold you back and help when learning languages.

I'm glad to see that it doesn't appear that we are at a cognitive disadvantage to learn later in life, since I love learning languages. I hope someday my family can live in Barcelona and we can all learn Catalan together.

<comment><USER18> I know reading Japanese isn't easy, but the pronunciation part is pretty regular and easy enough for an English speaker right? I don't think I've heard much Japanese that I just went "nope...could never say that" like I do with Russian, Mandarin, Finnish...etc.

Of course I'm just monolingual and don't know anything :)

<comment><USER19> There's actually a few significant barriers that don't block communication but make you sound weird. The biggest one is the pitch accent. Japanese accent rises and falls on two levels (high and low) and this changes the meaning of the word. Natives will usually figure out what you're saying but it's an important part of the language that English speakers struggle with.

Then there's also a few sounds that don't quite match normal English. "r" is more like a sound between "l" and "d". "f" is between "f" and "h". "t" tends to be a bit more of a solid sound than usual English. All in all as a current learner I've been surprised at how many hurdles there have been.

<comment><USER20> This is a big problem with a lot of Japanese language learning material written for English speakers. There seems to be this false notion that pitch accent is not important enough to teach Japanese learners, so it's not learned until much later. As a result for a lot of people who are at the intermediate level, pitch accent is the main distinguishing factor between sounding native and sounding like a foreigner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I always wondered if the difference relied in some inherent neural difference that came with age, or how we approached learning languages.

I picked up 3, and then added a 4th language by accident (parents needed a secret language for adult conversations. To their horror, one day I started speaking to them in that language...), but I _learned_ none of them. Hard not to pick up a language when you are immersed by it, and you don't see kids running around with language books, but rather getting actively taught and spoken to in a specific language.

But immersion can be harder as an adult too. People might not be as patient with you, and especially if you know English, people will just switch to it on the first hint of a struggle, making immersion hard to attain.

But this article doesn't clarify that.

<comment><USER22> > I picked up 3, and then added a 4th language by accident (parents needed a > secret language for adult conversations. To their horror, one day I started > speaking to them in that language...)

Wait, you can't leave us hanging. Please tell us more about this or point us to a blog or something. I love that story.

<comment><USER21> No blog unfortunately, but I remember when I let it slip - I corrected them about something they were saying about a family member, in Russian. Though, Russian was all around us, so you would even get to use it at shops, at school, etc. No longer taught as a language, because English aligned better with the country's priorities for the future, but still pervasive.

A year or so after, Harry Potter wasn't out in my native language, so I switched to the Russian copy, and I was able to read fairly comfortably. The joys of immersion :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I suspect, but cannot prove, that if an adult who already speaks one language then replicated the child language-learning process by spending a decade utterly immersed in that new language, surrounded by people who wanted very much to communicate with that adult, and were willing to spend 16 hours a day in that adult's company talking to that adult and trying to communicate...

Well, I'd expect that adult to be fluent a lot faster than children manage, and to demonstrate language-learning efforts significantly better than children seem to do. Adults who already speak a language fluently should in many ways be better at learning a language than a child.

<comment><USER24> A counterexample to this claim is the experience of families moving internationally. It's always the children who pick up the local language faster.

<comment><USER23> I disagree that that is a counter-example, but my disagreement is based entirely on supposition.

I would hazard that in those cases, the adults still operate in their own languages as much as they can. The children spend many hours a day in situations where they cannot do so, or where the consequences of language inability are not short-term catastrophic. Schooling, for example. I suspect that in those situations, the adults find ways to continue to operate in their own language, out of necessity; they don't have the luxury of spending several hours a day fumbling their way through basic grammar. Those adults need to work, so they will work where they can continue to use their own language, or at least get by with hand-signals and a hundred words. Often, people moving internationally group together with other immigrants, continuing to operate in their own language and culture. They simply avoid learning.

<comment><USER25> As an immigrant, that's very accurate. Also for adults no one wants to speak with you for a long time if you aren't already proficient at least on B2 level. It's a visible nuisance for native speakers. Thus adults aren't really immersed. Most of my (and over immigrant) language knowledge is very transactional and limit to shopping and my direct work duties. Surely there are exceptions - some are nearly native level proficient, overs are barely can express basic needs.

<comment><USER26> From what I keep hearing from other people transitioning between language contexts, that second sentence is what seems to make this the most asymmetrical—put another way, the environment _refuses_ to immerse you as an adult in the same way a child would learn. You won't get the same inputs, you won't get the same idioms; you might get more of a sanitized or limited version.

This is something that I think happens not just with language, but with other traits—personality, skills, etc. A lot of these things _can_ be more mutable than "expected" purely based on what a "self" can withstand, but the expectation itself causes friction and inertia from both directions: the person has to adjust their self-expectations, but also the social environment has to add energy and information to make those changes happen in a way that's integrated with the world. For anything that isn't adequately compartmentalized, sometimes there is no effective framework available; if the people around you already think they know you, either by broad categorization or by previous experience, you have an uphill battle. Children are more socially recognized as mutable, so both adults and child peers are more likely to put in the energy, and they're also placed in roles where experimentation is safe.

<comment><USER25> Definitely true, again adult interactions are transactional - why bother with idioms, better downgrade to simplified version which can be surely understood. As for kids that true on any language, we known and expect that kids language subset more narrow than adult's that's why we repeat the same phrase multiple times with different wording.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I used to meet with an endless stream of immigrants, legal and not. One thing I noticed was that the ones who used the equivalent of "Immersion" learning (that is, they simply did not associate with people who spoke your own language) were by far The most positions learners. I witnessed a few people from Poland end up with almost no Polish accent, even though they came to the USA in middle age.

A few years later, I ended up dating a Polish woman who did not know English. I learned become close to conversational within a few weeks, because (sorry, but it is relevant to the story) she was gorgeous.

It turned out that the oldest of motivations proved surprisingly effective for me.

<comment><USER27> I'm Brazilian but I've had people think I'm American since I've lost most of my accent. It's funny though that when I'm tired my accent shows up.

I do the immersion thing without even calling it so. My view is that if I'm living in another country, I should integrate and learn the culture. I stopped associating with Brazilians who were only interested in staying within a Brazilian bubble doing Brazilian things. Might as well just go back to Brazil if that's what you want to do.

<comment><USER28> Just wanted to echo this. Moved from Russia to Atlanta, and did not go out of my way to do the whole immigrant community thing (unlike what a lot of my parents and their friends did). 9 years later, living on West Coast now, and I definitely attribute my proficiency in English to not joining the Russian expat community. Meanwhile, there are people I personally know who were BORN in the US in one of those communities, and they barely speak more than just the very basics, despite their community not being an isolated one at all.

P.S. still have an accent, but it has been getting much better, and almost no one manages to guess where it comes from correctly. Heavy majority of the guesses go in the direction of Scandinavian countries :)

<comment> barry-cotter > Meanwhile, there are people I personally know who were BORN in the US in one > of those communities, and they barely speak more than just the very basics, > despite their community not being an isolated one at all.

Really? Outside of communities that educate their children in their own language second generation children everywhere generally end up fluent speakers of the language of instruction, even in communities where their home language speakers are a plurality or majority of a school population. You do see Indian and Chinese kids in Silicon Valley with accents intermediate between FOB and more general Californian but they speak English perfectly.

<comment><USER22> Yes, really. I grew up in a Mexican neighborhood and can give you the names of people whose families have been here for generations and barely speak any English. Same with the Russian communities in Chicago and Long Island.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've long suspected this to be the case. For context, my parents were immigrants to Scandinavia from southeast Asia. I'm an immigrant to two other European countries.

My parents know all the restaurant related stuff. Food, money, business, smalltalk. Unsurprisingly.

They have an accent as well. I guess that's because at some point people stop being corrected on the exact sound they are making.

Now I happen to be taking mandarin lessons at the moment. My teacher is very particular about the exact shape your mouth and tongue should be making. She's the first language teacher I've had who's done that.

Likewise with other language learning issues. When you're an adult, nobody corrects your grammar once it's good enough to be understood. Or worse, they just use you to practice English.

Also there are great examples of late learners. The three Danish Princesses, Alexandra, Mary and Marie, from Australia, HK, and France. They all went on intensive courses in Danish which is a weird, weird language. They're pretty good at it.

Also I came across a French guy who sang in perfect Vietnamese on TV once. Don't recall the name.

Aside from that I've heard stories about diplomats who've gotten quite good.

<comment><USER30> > My teacher is very particular about the exact shape your mouth and tongue > should be making. She's the first language teacher I've had who's done that.

Isn't that mainly because you're learning Mandarin where tone actually matters? In English you can pronounce can ad anything between "can" "ken" "keen" and a few others depending where you're from. I don't believe that's still valid in Chinese.

<comment><USER31> You are describing different vowels and not tones. Different vowels are pronounced by changing the shape of the mouth; tones are produced by the laryngeal muscles, like when you hum a tune.

<comment><USER30> That's cool, thanks. I learned something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have always been under the impression that the only reason children learn languages faster than adults is because they don't worry so much about how they would be perceived if they said the wrong thing, pronounced something wrongly etc. The adults egos hinders theme

In fact, I always thought adults would learn languages quicker than children if they where given the exact same circumstances because of their greater knowledge.

<comment><USER28> >I have always been under the impression that the only reason children learn languages faster than adults is because they don't worry so much about how they would be perceived if they said the wrong thing, pronounced something wrongly etc.

To piggyback on this, as someone learning a language as an adult, one thing that frustrated me the most was the inverse of the phenomenon you described - adults trying to be too polite and not correcting me when I made some mistakes, as long as they could understand what I meant. As soon as I had made close friends and made it explicitly clear to them, that I would really appreciate them pointing out my mistakes, that's when my biggest learning leaps occurred.

<comment><USER33> This. The more polite/reserved the culture the harder it is to learn by example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I moved with my family from Romania to Germany 3 years ago. My kids now speak German fluently. They speak it to each other and Romanian to us. Their Romanian grammar is starting to deteriorate and they are using German rules and mot-a-mot translations when speaking Romanian. Myself on the other hand, can barely speak any German. I understand quite a bit, but I don't have the confidence to speak it. My kids had to speak German at school and KG and they didn't care about making mistakes. I could use English anywhere, actually at my workplace English is the official language. And if I am not convinced that what I am going to say is correct, I just switch to English. I learned English in my early teens (10-15) by watching cartoons, HBO, and the Discovery Channel without subtitles, and by playing videogames and using the computer in a time when Romanian was not available as an interface language. Today pretty much every operating system and app is available in Romanian, but I still use them in English. They just sound / look weird otherwise.

<comment><USER20> > Today pretty much every operating system and app is available in Romanian, > but I still use them in English. They just sound / look weird otherwise.

A native German speaker once told me the same thing. For example, the word for "File" is properly translated and is perfectly understandable to German speakers, but it looks unnatural. He and many peers his age never used computers or phones in German because being computer literate was synonymous with being English literate. Many of the localization features we have now in modern operating systems didn't exist until five or ten years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I can only attest to anecdote but both my mother and wife switched in adulthood to a primary language that they had not previously known, and became utterly fluent (larger than normal vocabulary, both written and spoken). One adopted the local accent, the other never did.

I learned German informally (by speaking it continuously at home with said wife) as an adult and am typically considered fluent BUT: A> accent is atrocious and B> any fluency is rich and deep within a few domains; outside those domains I flounder like an experienced beginner (which is what I consider myself).

There are varying degrees of "fluency" but I certainly know plenty of people whom I would consider fluent in a language they learned as an adult. Articles that claim that it's impossible have always puzzled me.

<comment><USER36> _any fluency is rich and deep within a few domains; outside those domains I flounder like an experienced beginner (which is what I consider myself)._

It probably wouldn't be unreasonable to think of many native speakers of English in similar terms with regards to English fluency.

There is so much knowledge out there now that you basically can no longer be a Renaissance Man. We all know a lot about some things and next to nothing about others.

<comment><USER35> That's definitely true but in the case of my mother and (former) wife they are a pretty wide scope. Think of their knowledge as a continent with a shallow continental shelf.

My German is more like a Hawaiian island :-) -- very expressive for discussions around the house, politics, earth moving equipment and farm animals (the latter two due to childrearing). I am fine going out to the shops for groceries and calling to complain when the TV cable went out. But at parties I can only talk about so much; discussions of religion, negotiating contracts and the usual business day are utterly beyond me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This article focuses on grammar, and the conclusions there seem plausible to me. But a related claim is that it's much harder to lose a foreign _accent_ when speaking if exposed to the language past age 13 or so, and there I'm leaning toward thinking that this is true.

In reading and writing, I'm much better in English than in French. I bet I could pass for a native writer in the former (or fail to do so primarily because my spelling is TOO accurate ;-). But when speaking, I have a pretty obvious accent in English, despite spending years being immersed in it, and working on my pronunciation.

My spoken French, by virtue of starting a few years earlier (and being mercilessly drilled on pronunciation), is better, despite never having reached as high a level of immersion, and having lost quite a bit of my vocabulary.

<comment><USER38> With respect to pronunciation, I think it's a trait different than language learning(grammar, vocabulary) itself. For example, I learnt Japanese(not fluent) when I was 25, and people in class were surprised at how good my pronunciation was. Same with when I learnt German(limited proficiency) 3 yrs ago. Recently. I taught myself to sing a few French songs. When people listen to me sing, they get surprised that I don't speak french.

Perhaps I have an advantage in this area, as I grew up speaking three different unrelated languages, introducing me to wider range of phonetic sounds very early in life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is it just me or does there seem to be some strange societal stigma around adult education/learning?

<comment><USER40> It's not just you. Adults get used to being competent and have stupid counterproductive identity issues around learning.

I put it like this:

9 year old who has been learning a skill (say how to draw or play a musical instrument) for one year says, "hey, I've learned a lot over a year and I'm not great yet, but I'm just 9 and have years to keep improving"

49 year old who has been learning same skill for one year: "I've made progress, but it's been a whole year and I still just draw/sound like a little kid"

In my own teaching, adults who put in the same amount of time and energy as kids generally progress as fast or faster.

(I was going to add that adults generally don't put in the time and energy, but then I remembered that lots of kids fail to do that as well)

<comment><USER41> > Adults get used to being competent and have stupid counterproductive > identity issues around learning.

Learning to put my ego aside was one of the many great lessons I've learned from training Jiu Jitsu as an adult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Raising a toddler has demonstrated to me how much bullshit the idea of "kids are language sponges" is. My kid is like an ESL speaker: he doesn't understand grammar, he often will swallow sentences when he lacks the vocabulary to complete them, and he regularly mixes up word order and so on. He's been learning full-time in an immersion environment for several years. I'm pretty sure an adult that received this kind of immersive education would have been a much better English speaker by now.

</comment><comment><USER43> Does anybody have a link to the quiz?

<comment><USER44> I think it's one of the two quizzes here: [http://www.gameswithwords.org/quizzes](http://www.gameswithwords.org/quizzes)

Edit: It's the "Which English" quiz, as per this article: [http://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define- critica...](http://news.mit.edu/2018/cognitive-scientists-define-critical- period-learning-language-0501)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This has been known for a long time and it causes a painful amount of eye- rolling among cognitive linguists.

When you carefully track the amount of time participants spend practicing the language, children don't perform better.

Kids are forced to speak the native language at school and get ~1 hour a day of grammar lessons. Just because a kid can explain a biological process doesn't mean they are "innately" better at grasping scientific concepts than adults. It just means we were working while they were in biology class.

Some of the "learn a language young" hype is driven by MRI studies that show kids who learn young process the second language in a different area of the brain than adults. But processing "centers" aren't in the same place from person to person, they float around.

For english speakers there is no economic benefit to learning a second language either. So (as long as you are a native english speaker) don't spend any additional resources teaching your kids a second language.

<comment><USER31> According to the abstract of the paper [1] summarised in the linked article, "Children learn language more easily than adults, though when and why this ability declines have been obscure ... [the evidence supports] the existence of a sharply-defined critical period for language acquisition." The paper was published in a leading cognitive science journal, and your claim that it is well-known among linguists that children are no better at language acquisition after controlling for learning time is not consistent with what I remember from my undergraduate linguistics studies. Can you provide a citation or clarify your claim?

[1] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001002771...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027718300994)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Having read the article, this isn't even a test of language fluency -- it's a test of logic.

Imagine a university professor lecturing in an impenetrable accent, using the occasional idiom that probably made sense in another language.

Would they be able to pass a multiple-choice logic test written in English?

Are they "nearly as fluent" as a native speaker?

</comment><comment><USER47> "Fluent" is a strange term: it basically means "flowing", like verbal diarrhoea, perhaps. Does verbal diarrhoea need to be understandable? Does the one who spouts it need to understand anything anyone else says?

I'm not just being pedantic: it really is important to define exactly what you're interested in. I've met lots of people who speak English in a strange, foreign way, and quite slowly, but who are easier to understand than 99% of native speakers. And there are also lots of ways you can parameterise how well someone understands a language: you might find someone who has a good understanding of sociology jargon spoken by a US academic but couldn't understand someone from Northern England who wants to know what time it is.

</comment><comment><USER48> Studies were supposed to be about science and the scientific process and even there we now have reproducibility crisis and a whole string of dubious and discredited studies.

We are being overwhelmed by a culture of heavily funded think tanks, industry groups, sundry organizations and interest groups pushing completely motivated and self serving studies and being unquestioningly magnified by the press.

It's time to be extremely skeptical and closely examine the funding, motivation and organizations funding studies and research especially in scientific communities. The alternative is perpetuating toxic unscientific narratives backed by anecdotes and 'intuitive sense' of some.

</comment><comment><USER49> A lot of it depends on the framework used to teach the language, as well as what works for the student as an individual. If those two happen to match, then magic happens. But it also takes a lot of hard work and drilling as an adult.

</comment><comment><USER50> > _However, looking more closely at the data for the students who started > learning after the age of 20, there are a lot of late learners who > outperformed many native English speakers._

Anyone who has been around expats and their children in a foreign country knows this is anecdotally false. Not only do kids pick it up faster, they're immersed in it in a way that adults just really can't be. Within the first year it's clear as day.

It feels like this study is saying "we proved people on a motorcycle and people on a pogo stick can each travel 100 miles"

</comment><comment><USER51> Much-needed Outline.com link: [https://outline.com/AqBm6M](https://outline.com/AqBm6M)

Outline seems to have doubled-up some of the images, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER52> One thing to be aware of is the individual ability when it comes to acquiring language skills varies, a lot!

The same applies to any skill really. We all know self taught programmers who are great. We all know top school programmers who suck.

If you have a knack for it, age won't be much of an issue. If you don't, it'll be hard regardless. Children don't have a choice in the matter so they all learn. Once you have a choice, most will opt out of struggling to improve their language skills to remove accents, etc.

</comment><comment><USER40> The trouble is the near-impossibility of controlled studies. Has there EVER BEEN a study where adults not only had immersion but went through the child's experience of having some parent-figures and teachers care for all their needs while constantly correcting and helping them with every bit of language and reading picture books or otherwise engaging with the most basic nouns and verbs (perhaps otherwise playing and engaging with mainly peers who are going through the exact same process) over about 2-3 years before being expected to grasp any really abstract concepts???

I'm pretty damn certain that I could go anywhere in the world and learn all the names for stuff in a house and basic actions and syntax in any language if I got to role-play as an 18-month-old 24-hours a day for a year, and I could go on to have 4-year-old near-native ability (even in pronunciation) in just 2-3 years and on and on.

Except there's no way I could ever get that experience and unlikely I would ever commit to it anyway. The only people who could ever even approach this are already outliers in massive ways.

But it's always seemed to me that people are crazily overconfident about what we know about child vs adult learning.

<comment><USER53> I live in Japan and speak Japanese reasonably well ( _not_ native level by any stretch of the imagination, but I can have casual conversations in virtually any normal context). I know a lot of expats who live near me and just can't seem to learn Japanese. One of the biggest things I noticed they had in common was a desire to avoid being treated like a child. My level is like that of an 8 or 10 year old (though I lack fluency is some normal grammar which most children have no trouble with). I'm very comfortable _acting_ like an 8 or 10 year old. When I go to the doctor for example, I don't expect to understand what he's saying. The "explain it to me like I'm five" thing is my ordinary lifestyle. But I find that some people just can't accept the step down. If they are 30 years old, they want to go out with native speakers and interact as a 30 year old. Then they get frustrated and humiliated when they can't understand what's going on. They want to watch the news on TV and get frustrated when they can't understand any of it. They refuse to watch things (like cartoons) that they _can_ understand, because it is too childish. It's a bit of a blocker, I think.

Admittedly, though, it's frustrating that people always have to make an effort with you. If you go out with a group of native speakers to a bar for an evening, there's a good chance that the only conversation you understand is when someone makes a special effort to speak to you. There is nobody in your peer group that has the same communication level as you, so you can get really lonely. I always had the strategy of coming up with one-liner jokes. Just sit back and listen and listen and listen until you finally understand something and then think of a quick funny, but irrelevant thing to insert in the conversation. It's doubly funny because everybody thinks you have no idea what's going on. But that was my thing for years -- I never said anything meaningful in a conversation in a group. Just like a kid...

But all that aside, it's actually pretty easy to show that adults can learn languages as fast as children. Children acquire about 3 "word families" per day on average from the age of 1.5 up to 15 (and continue as long as they continue formal education). A "word family" is a bit like a piece of vocabulary, but includes all the inflections and combination words (so if you know "police" and "station", then you also know "police station" \-- it's not counted as a new piece of vocabulary). This works out to about 1000 word families a year (although the rate is _very_ variable between the ages of 1.5 and 5 -- the average child ending up with 5000 word families by the age of 5).

That kind of stuff is very well understood. You _can_ learn faster than that as an adult. It's not even very hard. The trick is understanding that it's going to take up to 5 years to speak like a 5 year old. Most people forget what it's like to be 5 and how crappy your language skills are. They think, "Oh these 5 year olds can play easily together and jabber on constantly" \-- but put them in an adult environment and the vast majority will clam up or be just as frustrated as we are.

<comment><USER54> I have a three year old daughter who is very verbal, but every now and then she wants to tell me something and she just can't figure out the words to say it. She will get really frustrated and say "I can't talk!" and gets upset.

I don't know if adults are used to that sort of frustration in their daily lives, where you just can't communicate the thoughts you have. I can't imagine how hard that must be.

<comment><USER55> It is, for what it's worth, one of the most common reasons I hear from Chinese friends of mine who move back to China after living in the USA. They like a lot of things about the USA but expressing their full intellectual range is a constant and often unsuccessful struggle even for the ones who speak English fairly well, and they feel like they're not able to live up to their potential as a result.

Having lived in China a bit to immerse myself for language learning, I can totally get that. It is very humbling to hear something in a conversation, have complex thoughts about it, and be completely unable to respond with any nuance or subtlety or precision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The Mormon church has a program where young people out of high school go out and preach the religion in countries outside the US. They don't know what country they will go to until they are told, a bit before they start, so many can't prepare before they go.

They are sent to a language school where in a matter of weeks they are speaking the new language they will need to communicate. They are not fluent but they are good enough to be understood. They will then go on their mission and many of them will be fluent by the time they return to the US, about 2 years.

How is it done? The bottom line is that they have to put in the time and they also need to speak the new language 100% of the time. They can't fall back on their native language when things get difficult so they need to fight through any difficulties. Learning a new language takes time and lots of effort.

Here's a link to an NPR story: [https://www.npr.org/2014/06/07/319805068/lessons-from-the- la...](https://www.npr.org/2014/06/07/319805068/lessons-from-the-language- boot-camp-for-mormon-missionaries)

</comment><comment><USER57> Funnily, when this research was discussed before here on HN (with the "wrong" reporting TFA criticizes), many people commented to the tune of "but of course, it's only reasonable that adults can't never hope to learn a foreign language at a very high level".

</comment><comment><USER58> Does this really apply to, say, tonal languages? I'm trying to learn Vietnamese and I feel like there is a sensitivity to the tones that really needs to be there early on. Another factor, I'm sure, is that my ears just aren't as good as they were when I was young.

</comment><comment><USER59> I agree with mrzool that sound methodology is as important as the results themselves, if not more. As for becoming fluent as an adult, I learned my first words of french at age 30 and became close to fluent after 6 years in France, but never lost a bit of an accent...

</comment><comment><USER60> Here's the original paper: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/l3atbc- public/pub_pdfs/JK_Hartshorn...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/l3atbc- public/pub_pdfs/JK_Hartshorne_JB_Tenenbaum_S_Pinker_2018.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER61> This is so true. The only recipe for learning language is the amount of time required. The rest is almost irrelevant. And knowing at least two languages, finding a time to learn new one close to impossible.

There is one thing in the article I disagree with: they suggest that there are no hard and easy languages. It is certainly false, for example, the huge difference between languages with an alphabet and without. In the first case, you just learn the alphabet and rules on how to read, and you can read the literature quite early. Latter wouldn't allow you to do that unless you learn almost all of the commonly used words. So learning Mandarin, Japanese, other similar languages is way harder than learning Korean or Vietnamese, while they are very similar by nature (there are even similar words in them).

<comment><USER62> >So learning Mandarin, Japanese, other similar languages is way harder than learning Korean or Vietnamese, while they are very similar by nature (there are even similar words in them).

This is a comically wrong statement. Those four languages are not similar at all -- they are four languages from four different families, they could hardly be more different! Even the loanwords that they have are often hardly recognizable, much less than with languages that are actually very close (say, English and Romanian).

<comment><USER61> If you listen the real speech you can recognize the similar words between them quite often. I admit my mistake of claiming they are similar, but they do share a common traits, words. Nevertheless from all those both Chinese and Japanese are like 10x harder than the rest, telling from my own experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> There is no such thing as being able to "learn [a] language to fluency." That's a contradiction in terms. If you've only learned a language, not acquired it, you are _by definition_ not fluent. The entirety of this Medium post is sketchy.

Look at the graphs based on age of first exposure (AoFE). There is a clear stratification based on AoFE here.

And yet the author concludes that "[m]any late learners become native-like." Why? The linchpin of his argument is that some non-native English speakers scored better on a quiz than some native English speakers.

But wait a second. That's mistaking error and fault (or competence and production). It also assumes the quiz works across English dialects, or that it actually measures fluency. But the author even says: "This test is not about fluency, it's about highly pedantic grammatical accuracy."

And even if we construe all those factors in favor of the point the author is trying to make, the _top quartile_ of late learners will _still_ never reach the competence of those who started before age 10 (except, potentially, briefly while the latter is still a kid).

Most troubling is the anti-intellectual dismissal of "some magic change in brain plasticity." Changes in neuroplasticity with age are well-established. The change is, in fact, so stark that people worried for a long time that we completely lost brain plasticity in adulthood. Even a cursory reading of an overview of neuroplasticity is sufficient to understand how wrong-headed the author is: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity)

At the end of the day, the test doesn't measure fluency, it measures the ability to answer questions about the prescriptive grammar and writing style. Even so, it largely supports the LAD hypothesis, with clear stratification based on the age one begins learning a language. The author of this blog post misunderstands the applicable linguistics and dismisses established neuroscience out of hand. His opinion should be given no weight.

<comment><USER64> What definition of fluency do you use? I can't seem to find any agreement on a definition in the Wikipedia article on language fluency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Many comments here get fluency and the lack of an accent (pronunciation) mixed up. Although pronounciation and general entonation is part of being fluent in a language, the message is still the most important factor in fluency and the only one being evaluated by the quiz in the study.

For instance, many people who are native English speakers have terrible accents (ie Texan, Scouse, Scottish, etc etc) that make it hard for other native English speakers to understand, even though they're nearly 100% "fluent English speakers". In fact this applies to many if not all languages.

As a curiosity, two of the most lyric works of literature ever written in the English language - Lolita and Heart of Darkness - were written by Vladmir Nabokov and Joseph Conrad, one Russian and the other a Polish immigrant to the US that had terrible foreign English accents.

<comment><USER66> Fluency is a matter of comprehension just as much as production. English is a global language spoken with a wide range of accents. Users of English who can only understand a narrow range of accents (Americans, I'm looking at you!) simply lack fluency in anything other than their local dialect.

<comment><USER67> >Users of English who can only understand a narrow range of accents (Americans, I'm looking at you!)

Is this based on your anecdotal observations, or is this opinion based on something concrete? Because as an American who knows many other Americans, my anecdotal experience is that we can understand English accents from people all over the world.

This of course varies from person to person, but software engineers I've worked with are accustomed to speaking with people with accents.

<comment> barry-cotter I have seen an Italian interpreting between a Georgian (US) and a Scot (probably Glaswegian) with all speaking English.

<comment><USER68> I'm from Georgia, USA, living in Singapore, and I regularly translate English- to-English among colleagues who are Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Thai, Aussie, American, British, etc. I think exposure to many English accents and dialects certainly helps regional comprehension even though it's the same language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> This is interesting because it addresses "second language", not just another foreign language.Learning a third language is much easier than the second one.

<comment><USER70> >Learning a third language is much easier than the second one. //

I didn't find this.

First language, English; second, French; third, Russian. Fourth, BSL; fifth, German.

I don't think French helped at all with Russian, but maybe I'm wrong (I don't know any Russian any more). What probably would have helped is doing Russian if I'd already done German in the way I was taught that, ie strong on grammar. Russian was taught with a heavy focus on declensions (that's the language's fault I think) but prior to that I didn't even know there was such a thing as a "case" as I was taught English [and French as far as I'd gone at that point] grammar through use and not in a structured way.

My main problem learning German was that I could only think of BSL signs (or occasionally French words) when I needed to think of a German word.

Do you have a source for your claim or is it just an assumed fact?

<comment><USER71> My primary language is English. As a teenager and into my 20s, I learned German. As an adult, I learned French, then Attic Greek, then Latin, then a bit of Hebrew. I started with some Mandarin, but I didn't go far in that. Now I am learning Swedish.

I have found that my ability to learn a given language has been almost entirely independent of any of the other languages I've learned. At least that is my perception of things.

I learned German really well -- that is my most proficient besides English. I don't especially feel like learning German helped me much with learning any of the other ones or now while I learn Swedish.

Edit: Nor do I think that learning multiple languages has hurt my ability to learn more, for whatever that is worth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I wonder how much of the adult language learning research is like the research on physical fitness. There's decades of research about the precipitous decline in fitness and strength that comes with age. More recent research shows that the decline had more to do with decades of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle than physical decline. Yes, a fit 60 year old is less fit than a fit 30 year old, but still may be quite fit. Probably the decline in ability to learn languages is real but may not be nearly as pronounced as some studies show.

</comment><comment><USER73> "Scott Chacon is CEO of the online language learning company Chatterbug."

Closed the tab.

</comment><comment><USER74> Perhaps it's worth noting that this is from 2018

</comment><comment><USER75> To me, this doesn't sound so surprising - Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory theorizes that we have an unlimited memory capacity. I think the primary issue comes from time and practice. With a child, even when they don't "want to", they're forced to practice by parents and adults. With adults, however, if we don't want to do something, we don't and others are frowned upon if we insist they do it anyway.

<comment><USER76> >Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory theorizes that we have an unlimited memory capacity

How is a memory stored on a neuron or series of neurons?

And, given that, why would the amount of memory not be capped by number of neurons and synapses?

<comment><USER77> Maybe the amount of neurons grows as their "usage percentage" reaches a certain threshold, making the memory capacity unlimited.

<comment><USER70> Surely we've done enough brain experimentation to know that "people who do more learning have more neurons" is false?

<comment><USER76> Well, haven't there been findings that London cab drivers have higher-volume hippocampuses because they use them more in orientation[0] and that meditation increases white/gray matter[1]?

0: [https://www.wired.com/2011/12/london-taxi-driver- memory/](https://www.wired.com/2011/12/london-taxi-driver-memory/)

1: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004979/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004979/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I would love a link to the quiz.

One of the interesting things is how _bad_ most "native" English speakers are at English.

</comment><comment><USER79> Good news for me

</comment><comment><USER24> The "every hiker climbed a hill" question is silly. The sentence is ambiguous between a surface scope reading and a reading with a specific indefinite. The first reading is compatible with every hiker climbing the same hill, and the second reading is true only if this is the case. So even if one of these readings is obviously more accessible than the other (which is not clear to me) there is still no obvious sense in which either picture is the "right" answer.

<comment><USER80> I think the idea is that, if you know English well, you will immediately contrast it with "every hiker climbed _the_ hill", and realize there was a very likely reason the speaker didn't say that instead: there was probably more than one hill, and/or that the speaker could not be confident that there was only one.

<comment><USER24> I guess, but I'm a native English speaker and I don't find myself particularly tempted to make that inference in the absence of any kind of context. There are surely far better tests for "a" vs "the" than examples like that.

It's also _not_ in general a correct use of "the" to say something like "We all climbed the hill" in an area where there's more than one hill, even if you all climbed the same hill.

<comment><USER80> > I'm a native English speaker and I don't find myself particularly tempted to > make that inference

Perhaps your mathematical/technical background is overriding? :-)

> It's also not in general a correct use of "the" to say something like "We > all climbed the hill" in an area where there's more than one hill, even if > you all climbed the same hill.

Seems entirely context dependent... and this example doesn't say "we". I don't know about you, but if I was talking about a bunch of hikers (myself _not_ included) and they all climbed the same hill, I would _not_ say they climbed "a" hill. Yes, I might not get charged with perjury on a legal thing, but it'd still be quite misleading...

<comment><USER24> >Seems entirely context dependent...

Yes, indeed, and there is no context in the question.

>but if I was talking about a bunch of hikers (myself not included) and they all climbed the same hill, I would not say they climbed "a" hill.

I don't think this is right in the multi-hill scenario:

        The hikers went to Yosemite. Every hiker climbed the hill.

That sounds pretty weird.

<comment><USER81> A ntive English speaker would say "The hikers went to Yosemite. Everyone climbed some hill." where "some" has a commo English meaning, not the common math-English meaning of existential quantification.

<comment><USER70> >Everyone climbed some hill. //

That sounds awful to my en-gb ears. "They climbed some hill" sounds like a weird way to say "a little of a hill, but not the whole thing".

"They all climbed hills" or "Everyone climbed one of the hills" if people didn't climb more than one hill each.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Children learn phonetics much better though. For an adult an accent is darn near impossible to fully overcome, even if they speak for hours a day. For a child it goes away in a few months.</comment>


Steve Blank's Customer Development Model - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/category/customer-development-manifesto/

<comment><USER2> We're actually actively pursuing the model described in his book. So far, I can say that it's already prevented us from wasting what would have been 3 months creating an application that we wouldn't have been able to sell.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This series of posts kicks ass when it comes to genuine truthiness of startups, venture capital, and the way businesses work. Great stuff by Steve Blank as usual.

</comment><comment><USER3> These posts are a summary-level intro to Steve's book [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0976470705?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0976470705?ie=UTF8&tag=timofitz-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0976470705)

<comment><USER4> It's unethical for you to use your affiliate link without telling us.

I bought my copy of Steve Blank's book through cafepress.com, and it was $10 cheaper: $29.99 instead of Amazon's $39.99. Get it for cheaper here: <http://www.cafepress.com/kandsranch.58024175>

<comment><USER3> I was unaware the cafepress version was $10 cheaper (I overpaid!). This book is worth it at any price, via any link :)</comment></comment></comment>


Phusion Passenger Docker - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/phusion/passenger-docker <comment><USER2> Does anybody know of any Chef/Puppet/Ansible/Salt like service for Docker containers? Yes, I understand that Dockers are easily reproducible and you throw them away and replace them after updating its configuration.

However, there has to be something to manage the docker containers themselves - I imagine after 10 or so container sitting on a vm, it could get unruly to manage by hand.

Also, I've listened to speakers that mention long lasting services (like a database) should be handled differently in Dockerland - however, nobody I've listened to has spoken extensively about it.

<comment><USER3> This is an area where there's a lot of growth in tools/services/approaches.

A couple to start you off with are Fig[1] (acquired last year by Docker themselves) and Shipyard[2].

[1] [http://www.fig.sh/](http://www.fig.sh/) [2] [http://shipyard- project.com/](http://shipyard-project.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would this work on AWS EC2 Instances?

Amazon runs it's own variation of Linux which is different from the base image of this docker i.e. Ubuntu 14.04 LTS ?

<comment><USER5> Yes, as long as your kernel is new enough to support Docker (and that of 14.04 is) then your Docker container will run on it, no matter what the base image is.

This is thanks to Linux' relentless binary API backwards compatibility. The only thing your container interacts with is the kernel, and the API of the kernel never changes, so it'll run on any Linux operating system that's new enough to run Docker at all (and is 64-bit).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd love to have one of these, but for OpenResty and luvit. Lua, in other words.

</comment><comment><USER7> I remember playing with this image back in July. It's pretty handy, and pretty easy to get up and running. What's changed about it recently that it's getting publicity again?

<comment><USER8> You can consult the changelog for the history of changes. Various improvements have been contributed by the community. Things are more polished and bugs have been fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As I see this it's yet another attempt to use containers for virtualization.

I'm sorry if I am completely missing the point of this effort.

<comment><USER10> I think you are, see:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8971353](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8971353)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Generally it's best to have one role (some would say one process but that isn't always pragmatic) per container. This approach advocates having multiple roles within the same container (e.g. app, db).

I can appreciate the benefits of the underlying phusion-baseimage for addressing some common pitfalls and hurdles, but this layer on top takes things too far in my opinion. Ok, you have the option to customise it, but that comes across as an optional extra rather than an advised approach.

<comment><USER8> This is false. This image does NOT advocate multiple roles in the same container. Passenger-docker does NOT come with a database.

It provides the option to have memcached and Redis inside the container, but it is optional and not installed by default. You have to explicitly enable them.

Passenger-docker only handles a single role: the app. Depending on your viewpoint, caching may or may not be considered to be a logical part of the app. This is why we provide the option. But again, disabled by default because we go for lightweight by default.

<comment><USER3> I didn't say that it came with a database, I said that it advocates multiple roles per container - skim down the list of what's included and you see multiple languages, web server, app server, aux services and tools. First impressions are that this image is one-size-fits-all (Whilst I can perceive a distinction myself, I can understand why others in this thread have taken this to be an attempt at emulating a VM).

I take your point that there _may_ be situations where it's pragmatic to have memcached/Redis in the same container as your app, and that they are disabled by default, but I still feel the balance of the README is wrong as it doesn't sound any kind of warning that you probably don't want to do that in most cases.

I'd suggest the README could be improved to better communicate the intended use cases of the images.

<comment><USER8> > and you see multiple languages

But they're not all included in the same image. We have 8 variants, 6 of which only contain a single language. There is 1 which contains everything, and there's 1 which contains nothing and is meant for customization.

> web server, app server

The web server and the app server are the same thing. Passenger is an Nginx module.

> aux services and tools.

Only the minimum possible to allow regular administration, inspection and debugging.

> First impressions are that this image is one-size-fits-all

But it is not. That's why we have 8 variants. Early in development we've explicitly made this a many-sizes-fit-all thing.

> and that they are disabled by default, but I still feel the balance of the > README is wrong as it doesn't sound any kind of warning that you probably > don't want to do that in most cases.

Fair enough, though I disagree. I'd rather assume the user knows what he's doing. If he chose to enable Redis then there's probably a good reason for that.

<comment><USER3> I realise all this now. So do you - more so than most people as you're intimately familiar with the image.

I'm explaining the impression that it gives, rightly or wrongly, to those not as intimately familiar with it as you; those less familiar with Docker who may read through the README and come away thinking that it's ok to mix roles without appreciating the unwritten use cases you actually had in mind; those newer to Docker who have a Node app and a Ruby app and think "hey, this passenger-full image looks convenient, I'll use that" without appreciating the implications.

> It's even better than that: Redis and Memcached aren't even INSTALLED by > default. Thus, no warning is needed. If you don't explicitly choose to use > them, you do not pay any price.

Doesn't say that in the README, just says they're disabled. The fact they're not installed doesn't impact on the impression that's given.

<comment><USER8> Yes I was wrong about that last point, sorry about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Using this Docker image doesn't give you one of the big benefits of Docker: being able to package your application in a light-weight way. This image creates an entire init system inside of Docker! May as well just use a virtual machine at that point.

       * Ruby: https://registry.hub.docker.com/_/ruby/
       * Python: https://registry.hub.docker.com/_/python/
       * Node: https://registry.hub.docker.com/_/node/
       * Meteor: https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/danieldent/meteor/

What's special about those? You get an ONBUILD version too. You can package up your app along with Python/Ruby/Node/Meteor.

And the other dependencies (i.e. database) have Docker images of their own that you can use.

Nice and composable, reproducible infrastructure.

This phusion-passenger-all-in-one monstrosity puts us back in the pre-Docker days.

<comment><USER8> I am the author of passenger-docker. It is not true that this image is like creating a virtual machine, or that it is not lightweight. The image is very- much in line with the Docker philosophy, as I've described in this blog post: [http://blog.phusion.nl/2015/01/20/baseimage-docker-fat- conta...](http://blog.phusion.nl/2015/01/20/baseimage-docker-fat-containers- treating-containers-vms/)

You talked about "an entire init system", but this init system is a lightweight, stripped down variant written especially for Docker. The entire thing is just a few hundred lines Python script. You may be thinking that an init system is not necessary in Docker, but that is not true, as I've explained in "Docker and the PID 1 zombie reaping problem": [http://blog.phusion.nl/2015/01/20/docker-and-the- pid-1-zombi...](http://blog.phusion.nl/2015/01/20/docker-and-the-pid-1-zombie- reaping-problem/)

With passenger-docker, you only create an image with your web app in it, plus an app server to run that web app. Nothing more. The database is still external. Memcached and Redis are not installed unless you explicitly enable them. The image is lightweight as you can expect from Ruby, Python and Node.js apps.

In fact, we've explicitly split the image 8 variants, each variant containing only the minimum possible: [https://github.com/phusion/passenger- docker#image_variants](https://github.com/phusion/passenger- docker#image_variants)

Passenger-docker is very much in line with the idea of composable, reproducible infrastructure. Nothing in passenger-docker violates those principles.

<comment><USER2> Hey FooBarWidget,

I just wanted to thank you for all your hard work and for putting this out there for people to get up and running with Docker.

Of the videos I've watched on deploying Ruby on Rails apps with Docker, this container always gets a shoutout as an easy way to get started.

<comment><USER8> Cool, I'm glad you appreciate it and good to know it's featured in videos. Can you tell me which videos? I'm not aware of anything like that.

<comment><USER2> Here's one!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVN7aTqr550](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVN7aTqr550)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Short - The reading list for busy people. - <AUTHOR> http://shortapp.co

<comment><AUTHOR> Short is a reading app that filters only Short articles for you. So when you have time, don't waste it and read on Short to keep up with your ever growing reading list. Short imports articles from Read-It-Later Apps like Pocket, Instapaper and more, you can choose articles filtered by minutes to match the time you want to spend reading.</comment>


Solar storms expected to shake Earth in 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://www.frontsidebus.net/2011/09/01/nasa-warns-solar-storms-expected-to-shake-earth-in-2013/

<comment><USER2> Since we are all wired and connected, this would wreak havoc to our overall communication systems and power grids. Solar storms cycle from Max to Min intensities every 11 years - the last "big" one recorded in 1859 -> burning down telegraph lines and transformers. Imagine what would happen today ('shudder'). I also understand that solar flares and the impending energy clouds take a few hours to reach earth's atmosphere. Couldn't we just 'turn' things off/down within that time window to prevent electrical overloads? I guess the problem is detected/predicting them early enough - just like hurricanes and tornadoes...</comment>


Ask HN: What are some tips for handling a late invoices - <AUTHOR>

I've been working with a startup for several months.  Initially things were going well, but an investor backed out at the last minute a couple months ago. At that point they stopped paying contractors and are 60 days overdue on invoices for several people (including me).
They are still paying the employees and they still have a bunch of work that they want me to do. I don't mind helping out and am willing to "loan" them some money if they start paying me for future work. The COO and controller have been ignoring my emails and calls about payment.
Unfortunately I did not put any clauses on my invoices about due dates or late payment fees.
Has anyone had success in working through this type of situation or is it best to just write them off and walk away? <comment><USER2> I had a payment that went months and months late for a couple of thousand dollars. At this point, the company had pivoted and I was no longer doing work for them.

I found out who the right person was, and pinged them every two weeks. Very politely, just "Hi, noticed this invoice wasn't paid. Please remit payment" etc. I think what finally caused them to send me my money was the Christmas gift I sent them (chocolates).

Enough about me. Let's talk about your situation.

Who wants you to continue to work? Talk to them and say something like "I'd love to continue to work, but I have late invoices, and I can't do any additional work until you are caught up." Ask this person to be your internal advocate. Ask them what you should do. Whatever you do, stop working (all the better if you are in the middle of something), and start looking for something else.

If they (COO, controller) approach you with a payment plan, that's fine, but make sure they offer a chunk up front (at least 25%) and stick to the plan, otherwise stop working.

Make sure the checks clear (banks can call to make sure this is the case) before starting again.

Don't loan them money. Don't work for free. Don't believe anything they say that doesn't come with a check.

Do change your contract to have a late payment fee for future clients, but right now you're just trying to stop the bleeding.

Once they have paid what they owe you, feel free to work for them again, but don't let them get 60 days overdue. At about 35 days I start getting real nervous.

If you walk away, make sure to continue to ping them for back invoices. It may not turn up anything, but you never can be sure, and it only takes a moment of your day.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like great advice. It's hard to keep a good perspective when you are in the thick of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A few tricks:

1.) If they agree to a date when they will pay you, call them that day and "remind" them and get verbal confirmation that they will pay on that day. Ask that a reference number/receipt be emailed to you as soon as they payment has gone through. Call back later (or the next day if they don't pickup) to confirm that they kept to their agreement.

2.) Call them up and have a chat about the upcoming work and let them know that it's in danger of not being completed because you can't start it without payment for the past work. Stay professional and tell them from a strictly business point of view, you cant afford to lose any more money on their job. You'd _LOVE_ to help them, but you just can't and you'll have to find work elsewhere and most likely won't be availible.

3.) If they screen your calls and hide behind receptionists or sub-ordinates, let the sub-ordinates know why you are calling. "Can you pass on a message for me? I am calling regarding invoice #780 for $7,400 which is now 55 days overdue." This always felt unprofessional for me, but it got results. I usually saved this tactic for "customers" (really they're thieves if they're not paying) that I don't mind losing, but I actually never did have anyone leave or complain about me doing this.

</comment><comment><USER4> y, stop work . . . and express to them that you're looking forward to working on the next phase of the project but you need to get your invoices caught up and outline specifics on what increment you will be invoicing and let them tell you how fast they will pay your invoice . . . since you're having problems with them I'd recommend invoicing at least weekly if you're doing hourly consulting . . . if it's fixed fee I'd break it up in to week long milestones . . . so you aren't giving them too much time without invoicing/getting paid. Good luck . . . invoice often and don't offer free work/lines of credit/loans to them . . .

</comment><comment><USER5> Stop doing work unless they pay immediately.

Offer a small-ish discount for paying within the next 7 days.

Always always ALWAYS take a deposit up front before you start any work.

</comment><comment><USER6> Controllers stop taking calls when they the numbers make it pointless to take them.</comment>


Is there an application that Makes the Paypal API easier to install? - <AUTHOR>

Looking to integrate payments into a website, but I'm a little worried about security.  If there's a Saas company that makes paypal pro integration very easy, I'd love to hear about them. <comment><USER2> Will Braintree work for you?

<http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Not for this current project - need to use paypal API, but that's something I'll highly consider for my side project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Since Authorize.net came out with their own .NET SDK, I've considered making <http://sharpauthorize.com> support multiple gateways including paypal. Any interest?</comment>


Show HN: Highlight, annotate, bookmark and organize online research - <AUTHOR> https://readermode.io/premium <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone

I'm officially launching a new product line for my microstartup: __Reader Mode Premium __\- a powerful online reading toolkit that lets you read, highlight, annotate, bookmark and research better, without distractions.

\- Fully cuztomizable distraction-free reader

\- Unlimited cloud storage

\- Read-it-later mode

\- Research mode

\- Organization folders

\- Automatic citation generator

and a lot more tools!

Check it out here: [https://readermode.io/premium](https://readermode.io/premium)

Any support and feedback would be greatly appreciated!

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks very cool! I started building something a while ago in a similar area but never pushed it very far. Auto scroll wasn't working for me in Firefox in the Demo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah really that's amazing! It took me awhile as well to push it till this far! And oh thank you for pointing it out, will check! :))</comment></comment>


I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid <comment><USER4> I used to be a liberal. Then I realized that I cannot trust everyone who cries foul. I haven't turned conservative either. But I don't hold liberal views as correct by default anymore.

The problem with today's liberals is that they think political correctness is more important than factual data. Any rational argument requires dealing with cold hard facts, however brutal and hurtful they might be. There is no place for emotions in objective observation, exploration, research.

For more info on this perspective watch this video: Why So Many Americans Don't Want Social Justice and Don't Trust Scientists [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86dzTFJbkc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86dzTFJbkc)

TL;DR: Political correctness...aka too many pussies in the real world.

<comment><USER5> It's crazy how far left liberalism has been pushed these past few years. Just as crazy as how far right conservatism has moved over the past couple decades. This extreme polarization is very worrying. It's not stable, and it's going to lead to serious problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> Meh. It's always been there. It's just that the internet has allowed us to see it better.

Also, this definition of 'far' left or right (at least here in the states) is not all that far, historically speaking. Far right would be a return to religious law, banning of contraception, a return to a theocracy, etc. There are countries like that, and we view them as nuts and places you dont want to live in. Far left would be a total communist state (I think) and we all know those are equally as bad. Yet, people do live, love, have families, die, fight for, and defend those countries. Something else must be going on, right?

Again, there is a trap of viewing politics as a 1-D continuum. Granted this is better than a 1-D binary, but politics has as many dimensions as there are people, if not more. We all have opinions, or have the idea that our ideas are not important.

What is most important is that we VOTE. If we think these people are too far right or left, the best way to do something about that is to VOTE and participate in your community.

[https://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup](https://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup)

[http://www.civiced.org/resources/curriculum/lesson- plans/456...](http://www.civiced.org/resources/curriculum/lesson- plans/456-how-can-citizens-participate)

[https://www.gop.com/get-involved/](https://www.gop.com/get-involved/)

[https://www.democrats.org/projects](https://www.democrats.org/projects)

and many more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum, > uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a > system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the > perceived correctness of ideas.

I don't understand this. If ideas are judged in a vacuum, then by definition, their perceived correctness is not influenced by race and gender. If those ideas _are_ perceived differently based on race or gender, then they're not being judged in a vacuum. Or am I missing something here?

<comment><USER7> The _belief_ that ideas can be judged in a vacuum is a very different thing than ideas actually being judged in a vacuum.

Ideas are not judged in a vacuum - humans are rubbish at doing that. We allow various factors to influence how we evaluate ideas, even when those factors have nothing to do with the idea itself. Race and gender being very obvious ones.

Example: In a meeting, a woman comes up with an idea. Everyone ignores her. Thirty seconds later, a man says the exact same thing, and suddenly everyone is in awe about how amazing this idea is.

And yes, that does happen. A lot.

However, most of us _believe_ that we aren't doing this. We believe that we're evaluating ideas on merit alone, and are therefore completely blind to the fact that we're not. Humans are rubbish at being objective, but very good at fooling ourselves into believing that we are.

The only way to approach evaluating ideas on merit is to be aware of one's own biases, one's own point of view, various power imbalances, systemic discrimination, and all that stuff. Once you're aware of what you're actually doing, you can try to factor that into how you evaluate ideas.

<comment><USER6> I guess that makes more sense, though I'd argue that not having the necessary information to make those biases _could_ result in ideas actually being judged in a vacuum (how can you be biased against someone if your subconscious is incapable of knowing whether that someone is subject to its biases?). This is part of the reason why the "hacker" subculture (if the Jargon File is anything to go by) claims itself to be more egalitarian than other STEM-oriented subcultures; since a lot of collaboration is entirely text-based, it doesn't invoke gender/racial biases (or at least does so far less often).

Basically, in the scenario you've described, if the "meeting" is instead a discussion on, say, an IRC channel, then as long as the participants are anonymous, there shouldn't be any reason for bias to occur (and even when they _aren 't_ anonymous, I'd hypothesize that - due to the lack of stimuli reinforcing those biases, like visual confirmation of race or gender - <USER2> will be significantly diminished).

<comment><USER7> > not having the necessary information to make those biases could result in > ideas actually being judged in a vacuum

Potentially, yes. It certainly can happen, but it can also go horribly wrong for a whole variety of reasons.

In online discussions, people's ideas tend to be judged based on how well the person proposing them conforms to the norms of the group. Which is part of the reason most online communities tend to develop a kind of hive mind - <USER3> who sticks around shares the same opinions as the group, because the group chases off anyone who dissents, either by making the environment unwelcoming, or outright harassing people.

It's part of the reason the hacker subculture isn't as egalitarian as it likes to believe. Even if everyone's anonymous (or at least using a pseudonym), it's still composed almost entirely of nerdy, reasonably well off straight white guys, mostly from the US. The reason for that is a reflection of external social forces which don't exactly exist inside hacker subculture, but strongly influenced who was able to participate in it. That creates an extremely homogenous group, which is reflected in the way hacker culture developed.

It's not deliberate, but it can feel like a hostile environment to outsiders. Which can make outsiders avoid it like the plague. Since there are no outsiders, members of the group never hear their perspective, nor do they ever realize that there's a problem, because they assume that they're being egalitarian.

That's not universal, and it's much less common in groups that have _always_ been diverse from the very beginning. If you have a group with significant numbers of women, for example, they will tend to object (much more loudly than in real life) when someone says something sexist. The group culture that develops tends to be one that does not tolerate sexism.

In that kind of environment, you tend to be able to have discussions where everyone is listened to, and their ideas judged on merit, for precisely the reasons you suggest. It's all text based, and there's no stimuli to re-enforce your biases that you carried with you from the outside world.

However, that can only be done if you don't allow the group's culture to become a reflection of the outside world's culture. Which is what happens if you just ignore it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I always find it interesting, that the US seems to be all about conservatives (republicans) and liberals (democrats).

In Germany it seems to be more of a conservatives (CDU) and socialists (SPD) "battle". Interestingly I had the feeling the liberals (FDP) are more on the side of the conservatives (most of the time in german history FDP and CDU worked together). So when I read about US politics it feels like they are only debating on details. Like socialism isn't even an option.

<comment><USER9> Keep in mind that the word liberal has different meanings in the political context on both sides of the atlantic ocean.

Although it is always a question of one's own standpoint. Where I (a somewhat social-democratic german) stand, both CDU and SPD look like parties of the right today. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I suspect that the situations the author describes have more to do with office politics than personal politics, and have little or nothing to do with the students. Academia is a notoriously feudal environment; once someone has made enemies in their department, any transgression, however minor, is used as a tool to strip them of power or, in the extreme, get them fired. It's no different today than it has been historically, it's just that the particular choice of teapot for the tempest has changed through the years.

</comment><comment><USER11> The whole don't-hurt-my feelings culture is odd and a problem, but so is the general employment situation and overall structure.

</comment><comment><USER12> Very sad indeed.

</comment><comment><USER13> As a self-proclaimed renegade, disruptive thinker, and stubbornly practiced argumentative individual with an English Literature degree, I think this write-up hits on several valid points. The framing of discourse is important, and actually quite relevant to notions of technological / software innovation as well. Placating feelings is akin to me like being a drug dealer. Pandering for profit is a real, viable business model.

Freemium gaming is one element. Aggregating and slanting news for a specific demographic is another. Giving a voice to ignorance in the case of vaccination discussion is yet another. I could go on and on, because these things are real, visible, and frankly horrible deviations from intellectual and societal progress.

This is why trolling has become such a bloodsport and, quite frankly, one of the counter-balances to the trend. In a primal sense, trolling online is akin to purposefully challenging a person's worldview through their feelings, using drastic / hyperbolic / inflammatory rhetoric. People like Mark Twain and Hunter S. Thompson were masters, and I've studied them extensively.

For those who think this article might be a non-starter, fine, go bury your head in the sand a little deeper. It will only be a matter of time before a co-worker, an underling, or a family member exhibits this contagious mental rot and throws you for a loop. After all, if you don't feel that it's a problem, then it's not a problem, right?

<comment><USER14> >In a primal sense, trolling online is akin to purposefully challenging a person's worldview through their feelings, using drastic / hyperbolic / inflammatory rhetoric.

No, The definition of trolling is attempting to get a reaction out of people by any means possible. Trolls aren't interested in having an actual conversation, educating, or changing anyone's view, in fact they thrive off of the opposite.

<comment><USER15> Is it trolling if you pick your targets ideologically and say what you mean? We need a new word, because trolling does seem to capture the method and the spirit, but not the goals.

<comment><USER16> _Is it trolling if you pick your targets ideologically and say what you mean?_

Depends very much on your intended and hoped for outcome for doing this? A genuine discussion and a meeting of minds or to laugh at the ignorant sheeple? If you find that you're getting more of the latter than the former, do you double down or change your approach?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Unimpressive; the worst he has is that someone made a groundless complaint that was handled perfectly well in 2009, and he worries that someone will make another one one day (though it seems kind of telling that they haven't..?) and it will go differently.

Why not get someone who's _actually been harmed_ by this change in culture to write about that?

<comment><USER18> I think the deeper point isn't just that it will go differently now, but that he has had to adjust his material and teaching style in fear of that bad reaction ruining his career. He points to a few examples of professors who were fired because of a single student's complaint and where universities have removed activities in deference to this outspoken social justice. The shame is that the discussions which should challenge and enrich a student's mind are now being silenced and therein lies to the harm.

<comment><USER7> So the university being paranoid about being sued is the students' fault?

> being silenced

Nobody is being silenced by the students. What the students want is for professors to stop being assholes towards anyone that's not just like them, and are (correctly) pointing out various kinds of systemic bias, subjective opinions masquerading as objectivity, and instances where you have material that is disturbing or emotionally difficult for absolutely no good reason other than "it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you either".

When confronted with that, this professor's response is basically denial, writing off these complaints as irrelevant, trivial, or "pandering" (ignorant of how much society in general panders to his own perspective).

So, given that bringing this up directly will result in either being ignored, or being belittled or insulted, and the conversation shut down immediately... students don't actually have any choice but to complain.

At that point, the university overreacts because they're paranoid about being sued. Which is part of a larger cultural issue that has nothing at all to do with the students.

Funny that student activism that happened decades ago is considered a good thing (now), but activism by today's students is considered to be some kind of scary monster that threatens the whole of society...</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to just be a back end developer? - <AUTHOR>

I've been learning and writing backend code(python, flask, Django...) dedicatedly for about 2 years. I learned most of these stuff by myself and has not yet applied for a developer job.
I'm shocked when I see a lot of jobs asking for full-stack developers. It seems to me that it's hard enough to be good at one technology(takes me 2 years already and still so much to learn). I've looked into javascript, css(bootstrap) and such and found great obstacles with these technologies. No doubt I would have to further devote years of effort to learn these as well.
Can I just be a backend developer? What would be my advantages over full-stack developers? <comment><USER2> It depends on what type of frontend work you want to do.

The advanced stuff (like JS frontend frameworks) all seem to have a deep learning curve, but normal HTML5 + JS isn't that difficult (with tools like bootstrap, etc.)

If you've been building stuff in Django and Flask for 2 years, you've already done some frontend work with Jinja2, etc.

I guess this is why developers justify charging USD+70 per hour, as the amount of skill it takes to master so many technologies warrants a high pay-rate.

<comment><USER3> For now, just learn the basics (simple html, simple DOM manipulation, simple jQuery, simple CSS, simple Javascript).

Those fancy frameworks are all going to be obsolete in 2 years anyway (i.e. angular 1.0). Besides, you need to know the basics in order to use the fancy frameworks CORRECTLY.

Unfortunately, most employers want you to be an expert already in whatever tools they are using. I know people will object and say they hire for talent and not resume keywords, but that hasn't been my experience as a candidate.

The reason employers want full-stack instead of back-end is that it cuts down on the communication overhead. You can do it all yourself, rather than handing off the front-end bit to other people. I'd rather hand off tricky front-end work to someone who knows it better.

My experience is mostly back-end, but recently I've been doing some simple front-end work. It makes more sense to have separate back-end and front-end specialists, but that isn't the way things are done anymore.

I wrote a video poker practice game in Javascript/jQuery/PHP/C++. It works, and my father is playing it, and he likes it. It isn't fancy modern web style, but it runs and gets the job done. (Javascript/jQuery on the client, with simple CSS. PHP with a shell_exec to C++ to do the calculation of the optimal strategy. The client does an AJAX call to get the next hand.)

Try writing something like minesweeper or a sudoku game in Javascript/CSS for practice.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. The problem for me is that writing the same front-end stuff that takes an expert an hour can take me half a day googling and debugging. And it's not fun at all for me.

And frameworks do expire quickly. Therefore it's hard to be determined to devote time to learn any of them seriously. And plain old DOM manipulation and CSS clearly cannot beat the development speed of modern frameworks.

<comment><USER3> That's my issue with studying new things to further my career. There are SO MANY things. What should I pick? Also, most HR and headhunters say "Only on- the-job experience counts. If you learned it on your own, we don't value it."

After a few weeks, you'd get better at it. Unfortunately, employers want someone who's already an expert. They aren't comfortable letting someone learn on the job, even if searching for their purple squirrel means the position is open for longer.

I got something done in a couple of hours with the "old-fashined" style, when it probably would have taken me weeks to learn a framework for a simple task.

For a personal project, the plain style is fine.

Most of these MVC frameworks are poorly documented and poorly written. I've used several that I didn't like. I wouldn't use an MVC framework for my own projects.

To find a job, they expect you to already be an expert in whatever they are using. The only way to expand your skillset seems to be: Pick something you want to learn, and use it for a project at work, even if it isn't the right choice for your current employer's needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many projects are small, and even big projects tend to be split into many smaller projects. In those cases, it is vital that everyone on the team can do anyone elses job if they have to. You tend to get one role most of the time, but you need to be able to understand the whole project.

I would recommend looking into "old fashioned", established companies who do their own development. I've worked with banks a few times, and they seem to often still do the "database department", "back end department" and "front end department" thing. I'm sure there are other areas too, but that's the only one I've had experience with.

</comment><comment><USER5> In smaller companies, my experience is that you'd be at a distinct disadvantage compared to most full-stack developers. At larger orgs, however, there's plenty of room for specialization - depending on the size, "backend developer" may even be far too broad of a term.

That said, while the front-end can seem scary, it's alright once you dive in. With 2 years of experience as a Python developer, I wouldn't expect you to have too much trouble picking up Javascript and HTML/CSS.

</comment><comment><USER6> Firstly, yes! Typically what you're seeing are smaller companies where everyone on the team needs to be able to contribute and review everyone elses work. That's not to say that's all that's out there.

We have whole swaths of teams that just do backend development.

Basically, get in to a larger organisation that allows you to specialize a little more. Or go work for a company that just sells backend infrastructure / middleware :-)

</comment><comment><USER7> Guess depends on the language, I'm doing Java backend dev since almost 15 years and loving it. I'm developing front-end but only for my own side projects</comment>