Ask HN: Do you program in multiple languages in a day? - <AUTHOR> Which ones? Opinions about productivity? <comment><USER2> Go, Ruby, Bash, javascript, coffeescript

\- I try not to work with 2 languages at the same time

\- Try not to carry paradigms over wrt var names, module functions, deployment options

\- Keep a single editor (vim) for all of them

\- I might need a few minutes to 'warm up', specially when dealing with go- routines, threads or a magical change in syntax (ex: from Javascript to Coffeescript)

\- Warm up gets harder if I don't touch certain language for a while. Ex: Focusing on a single language for 1 - 2 days makes me extremely comfortable with language X, but harder to switch to language Y

</comment><comment><USER3> I would be surprised if anyone said they only used one language. Even in the olden times my typical day had Fortran, Python, Bash, and [La]TeX, + sometimes C. And the variations on these, including various libraries that amount to mini-languages in their own right. (This list doesn't include special purpose languages for job submission, etc.) Later, I added HTML, javascript, CSS, and SQL. Now I'm trying to add Clojure and Julia. Of course the cognitive burden has an effect on productivity, but I think we do this because we find that using languages well suited to the task gives us a net win.

EDIT: I see at least one example of someone who claims to use only javascript. I don't even see how this is possible. Not even a shell language? How do you deploy your javascript?

<comment><USER4> > one example of someone who claims to use only javascript. I don't even see > how this is possible. How do you deploy your javascript?

Perhaps they hand it off to the next person in the work chain? Most larger IT shops divide up their development and deployment staff along technology and language lines - it makes recruitment easier for the managers who only need to rattle off a list of languages in their job ads, and managers can better control their staff by withholding access to technologies perceived as desirable to work on.

Perhaps you ask this question because you work in the new-fangled _full-stack_ area where one person does everything. IMO the "DevOps" doctrine is a huge step backwards for business integrity. The doctrine for IT shops previously was to keep separate the people with access to the data and those with access to the code, hence "Development" and "Operations" were two separate areas. Creating "DevOps" people who can change both the data and the code in the name of _full-stack_ processes opens the door up to large-scale fraud by workers of their employers' data and even cash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Definitely C# and JavaScript every day. The current state of one of my projects doesn't need a lot of new SQL work right now, but that's been a temporary lull while I reworked the UI. It's not uncommon to be doing all three in one day.

I would say I'm "equally productive" in all three, in the sense that I am comfortable in all of them, produce about the same quality of work for each, and rarely get blocked on problems because of something I don't know in the language. The volume of work in each is not the same, as they obviously are necessary for different things and at different times.

On a pure volume basis, I have a number of side projects that are 100% JavaScript (i.e. Node backend), so JavaScript is definitely the language I use the most. But in terms of expressiveness, I find C# to be the friendlier language over the long term, as my programming style has grown towards exploiting static checking for refactoring. Increasingly, I find myself prototyping things in JS, then translating portions to C#.

I would ultimately like to replace C# in my workflow, though. It's difficult, as I don't like the Java tool ecosystem. I like progressively enhanceable tools, stuff that one can do a very simple Hello World in without requiring a package manager or project template initializer, and add components to as you require more complexity in your projects. That's absolutely tied to how I learn new languages by running side projects in them. I hate having things in my project directory that I don't understand and thus can't stand the modern trend of starting a beginner's tutorial with a language's own, custom package manager's "init" command.

It depends on the language, but it's usually the same project: either Tetris or a text adventure that eventually gets upgraded to be a MUD. I find it to be a great way to learn languages: you get the basics of data structures and control flow right up front, then you jump right into either graphics or networking. Tetris was how I first learned C# (coming from Java), and MUDs were how I first learned Racket and Node.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't as much as I used to, but for a stretch I was going between Ruby and Objective-C daily. It was a lot to keep up with, and I ended up with a lot of ObjC lines missing semicolons and Ruby strings prefixed with "@".

If I had to do it over again (alright, when), I'd try to segment the work better. I was writing a service in Ruby (Sinatra) and consuming it from ObjC. I should have planned better upfront so I wouldn't be hopping so frequently. Like, I don't know, spec out my API instead of just writing it.

</comment><comment><USER7> As I am typing this I realize how times have changed: I use Javascript, but only on the server. And then I am currently writing firmware in C++.

I find I typically mistype things 3 or 4 times per day, like var instead of int for variables, bracket positioning or === which has gone from looking completely weird to now looking correct, leaving me feeling that my comparisons in C++ are sloppy. I usually catch it immediately and if there is a productivity cost, it's so small that I don't notice it myself.

</comment><comment><USER8> Since a year ago upto a few months before, my day was split in half while working on two projects. The first half had me working in C, bash and HTML/CSS, Javascript for an embedded project and the latter half was Java (Android), HTML/CSS and Javascript for a mobile/web project.

Nowadays, (moved on to another company) the first half is in Scala (Play), HTML/CSS and Javascript for a web project and the second half in Java (Android) for a mobile project.

It has been not been that difficult to manage switching between languages unless the programming paradigm changes (Java <-> Scala), but even that you get used to. The major goal is, in my opinion, to become so proficient with the language(s) that you're working with, that it becomes second nature to transform your thoughts to source code. Very much similar to learning a second natural language. It's not really necessary to learn the ins and outs of each language that you work with, but at least the stuff that would be required.

Some problems that I had,

* Realizing it takes time to get used to the context switch.

* Using different editors. I was doing C and bash coding in vi, but working and modifying Linux source in KDevelop, mostly due to changes in coding style like tabs vs spaces. Java(Android) coding was in Eclipse and HTML/CSS/Javascript was in Sublime Text.

* If you go off one lanugage for a couple of days, it takes some time to get back into it. Doing at least a few things daily keeps one in the flow.

* Static compilation helps a lot when we make mistakes after a context switch. Javascript and Bash proved to be a major pain for this (I did try out JsHint for Sublime, but it slowed the system down, so I went back to looking at errors in browser console).

</comment><comment><USER9> Most of the core stuff I work on is in C++, but I regularly transition over to Python for automation tasks, data processing, testing, etc. As much as I like C++, Python is much better for manipulating data IMO - the cost of the mental context switch is way outweighed by how well the language lends itself to certain tasks.

</comment><comment><USER10> I go between python, javascript, and c++ most weeks (not on the same project). I'm doing a little rust on the side just to learn it, same with haskell. I had a project in ocaml recently, but that probably won't happen again for a while.

I find the biggest hassle working with multiple languages is trying to keep the libraries and data structure interfaces straight (i.e. push, extend, unshift, push_back, cons, :, ::, ...). Once I get into the language mindset the syntax itself doesn't seem to be much of a problem.

I think I'm probably the most productive in python, mostly due to the huge ecosystem. I'm happiest when solving problems in haskell though, and increasingly I like rust (really hoping for higher-kinded types, which would put it in the running for my favorite).

</comment><comment><USER11> Python, C, C++, some Lua, and a bit of Perl and Tcl. I find that I'm most productive in Python or Lua. C and C++ slow me down quite a bit, partly due to the languages themselves and partly due to fighting with our internal build system (and the long build times associated with that).

At my previous job I got to use Racket quite a bit, and I was about as productive there as I am in Python.

I'm a proponent of using the most appropriate language(s) for a particular project, but sometimes the powers that be will demand something particular (around here, they usually want C++ or Perl). We've got a static analysis project slated to start next year, and I'm hoping to talk them into letting me use OCaml. We'll see...

</comment><comment><USER12> Every day is pretty much a mix of Dylan ([http://opendylan.org/](http://opendylan.org/)), some Python, some JavaScript and either C or C++. Occasionally shell scripts.

My productivity in any of them is usually pretty decent, but it depends more on what I'm doing. In Dylan, I'm often hacking on the compiler or the runtime, so that's harder and slower going than doing some web services in Python, or Javascript for some visualization / UI. C++ varies from fairly easy work to modifying the standard C++ library to add instrumentation hooks, so again, the productivity varies.

</comment><comment><USER13> Web developers do it daily if we assume that html, css and javascript is also programming. As for me, I do html, css, javascript, php, python, objective-c. Not all days are the same but these ones overlaps very often.

<comment><USER14> HTML and CSS are markup languages. So they are a different "language", but are not considered to be programming languages.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, as I said, if we assume. Still a lot of web developers write javascript besides backend programming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nimrod (for cpu heavy things), Moonscript (for lapis), Livescript (for web), and occasionally python and javascript, which used to be my main languages.

I'm now only using python for simple scripts. The one thing that kept me away from python (among few others) is modifying functions do not return values, which makes code unnecessary verbose and wastes my time in debugging since I always forget about that. I'm hoping someone will create a "coffeescript" for python since the python ecosystem has pretty much everything from web to machine learning.

</comment><comment><USER16> Professionally: Java, Perl, Javascript, PHP On the side: Python, OCaml

Productivity: Java feels more solid than the scripting languages, but is extremely verbose. Python is the easiest dynamic language I've worked with, it strikes a good balance between speed of development and consistency. Codebases in dynamic languages don't scale too well, though especially when your refactoring tools are "sed" and "mv". OCaml is exceptional in terms of error- checking at compile time, readability, speed and small LOCs.

</comment><comment><USER17> Coming from an agency background to more application focussed it's not unusual to cover most, if not all of the following in a single day; C#, html, css, javascript (client), sql.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think many will say _Javascript and something else_.

Working in any web stack, you are likely to use Javascript (almost) on a daily basis. And much less likely to use Javascript or Javascript-based technology on the back end.

I think I would also add SQL, for the "not no-SQL" backing store. This is a funny beast: a programming language which (arguably) has not originally been intended to be used as a programming language, but often is.

(I use C# for the middle tier, but it could be anything depending on the stack.)

<comment><USER19> Oh yeah. Java and JS right here. Probably a common choice. Or "choice".

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Recently, I have been splitting time between Clojurescript, Python and HTML/CSS. I am not sure if its actually true, but I certainly feel more productive in Clojurescript. I think its because, when paired with the right IDE, you can move a lot of code, really quickly.

At home, I experiment with IBM 370/390 assembly. However, since I have yet to figure out how to run anything even using an emulator, I think it would be more counter-productive than productive.

</comment><comment><USER21> PHP, JavaScript, Java

Setting up a Java project takes excruciatingly long but after that, it's worth it. Having code logically organized saves time in the long run. PHP and JavaScript give you short term productivity gains but after a while, there is a feeling of being lost in the woods.

I have to say that since I've started working on AngularJS apps though, JavaScript seems much more pleasant.

</comment><comment><USER22> PHP for normal work stuff and then Ruby for custom Rails apps which speed up my workflow (in fact, I once used a Rails app to output the PHP code for me to paste, was a glorious day).

I developed my dev skills more in RoR than PHP, so tend to feel more at home there, so switching isn't as natural as it could be (partly because it's mainly flat PHP, MVC feels more intuitive).

<comment><USER23> You might find Yii useful. It's a PHP framework that behaves a lot like RoR in terms of generators and site function (MVC)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Go and bash. Occasional Python, C, C++, and Javascript.

Python and bash are the most productive, but quickly become troublesome as program size grows, at which point I switch to Go. C and C++ are necessary to interact with system, third-party libraries, and extreme performance on occasion. Javascript is just an unfortunate necessity for the web.

</comment><comment><USER25> A single day might span Objective-C, C, Swift, Dart, Python, JavaScript, and even PHP... usually just a pick of two of those. I do think it's more productive to be heavily immersed in no more than one or two day-to-day because otherwise I start to confuse APIs/syntax from one with another.

</comment><comment><USER26> I regularly work on Ruby/Java/Javascript/css/sql, backend: mysql - C#/javascript/css/sql backend:oracle,sql-server.Switching between languages isn't issue but when i switch between ORM's and Patterns, I have to read about certain things I am trying to achieve.

</comment><comment><USER27> C# (GUI with WinForms)

SQL and PL/SQL

Java (server-side stuff that uses the db)

Perl (server-side stuff that doesn't use the db)

Unix shell script (ksh93; server-side stuff that mostly just calls other things)

They're each suited for different things, and I think my productivity is better than if I tried to do everything in a single language.

</comment><comment><USER28> Usually Javascript (Node), but also Java. However I'm most productive in Python, for all and everything, from whipping up a small Flask REST service to doing some data crunching using Pandas. Unfortunately for me, where I work Node is the language of choice.

</comment><comment><USER29> Swift, Objective C, PHP

\- Most of my time is spent on Objective C, Swift and PHP for side projects.

\- Sometimes I use Objective C in Swift, PHP in Objective C, not super annoying as the IDE marks these as errors

\- Productivity is not awesome but its a cost that I have to pay to work on more than one language.

</comment><comment><USER30> I regularly switch between C#, Python/Django, some bash, and some straight up SQL. I'm fairly comfortable with them all - so the productivity is pretty much the same as switching between multiple projects in the same language.

</comment><comment><USER31> I sometimes go between C#, C++, Java and php / Javascript. Much like being multilingual in the language you speak it just takes a little practice. It does hurt trying to remember the special features of each.

</comment><comment><USER32> Yes, mostly PHP and JavaScript, with Python on separate products. Python is much more productive, front-end JavaScript is very easy to debug. PHP is a nightmare that can be mitigated with a lot discipline.

</comment><comment><USER33> ActionScript - (Client ) Application C# - Unity - (Client ) Application Java - (Server) google cloude JavaScript - the host.

if I stack with C# Stile it's OK but if I do same Objective C or PHP. it's .... ;-(

</comment><comment><USER34> Today it was Ruby, Go and JavaScript. I feel productiv in all of them. Sometimes some C, Shell and Python. Python is becoming a pain, because i use it so rarely, that i have to look up everything.

</comment><comment><USER35> VBScript (classic ASP), SQL, C#, Javascript, Powershell

Most productive when working in the SQL/C#/JS parts of our stack and then need a warm-up period whenever I delve into the VBScript areas.

</comment><comment><USER36> Ruby, Java, Javascript, HTML, CSS, occasionally C#, VB.Net, PHP, Python, Scala.

I'm much more productive in Ruby or even C#, just able to get more done and happier developing in those languages too.

</comment><comment><USER37> Python, JavaScript (backend and frontend web dev respectively). I like to focus on one for a chunk of time (before lunch / after lunch), but sometimes that isn't possible.

</comment><comment><USER38> Yes, mostly Python on the backend, JavaScript on the frontend, and some shell scripting (Bash).

At home, I dabble in m68k (Amiga) assembly and C.

On the bus, Racket (don't ask me why).

</comment><comment><USER39> Java and Python. I also have to do javascript in most of my projects but that's almost a given for this day and age.

Go/Node in my free time(hobby projects).

</comment><comment><USER40> C++, Python and a bit of Prolog. All running on ROS, so also some message definitions and a bunch of bash to make our lives easier

</comment><comment><USER41> Python, Ruby, Javascript, PHP (HTML, CSS) in a typical day.

Then some Clojure exercises lately, but I'm not actually building anything. Yet.

</comment><comment><USER42> Not counting Javascript, I flip between Ruby & Golang pretty regularly, and before Golang it would have been Ruby & C.

</comment><comment><USER43> PHP, C#, VB.NET, Python, JavaScript, Microsoft SQL, MySQL, HTML, CSS. Switching between them doesn't slow me down.

<comment><USER44> Programming in HTML and CSS sounds awesome.

<comment><USER43> Touche.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I often go between PHP and Javascript (Node + Angular). :) I used to juggle a bit more than that too!

</comment><comment><USER46> Anyone doing frontend web development will have at least three: html, css, and javascript.

More experienced developers will add a preprocessor for each of those: slim (or haml, jade, erb, etc.), scss (or less, sass, etc.), and coffeescript. You're writing in the preprocessor, but debugging in the language it compiles to, so we're at at least six.

Now if you're programming a webapp with an actual backend, you'll need to use some middleware:either Ruby on Rails (my personal favorite), Python's django, Cake PHP (or whatever the cool kids on PHP are using these days), C#'s .NET, or Perl's dancer. The reason Node.js was a big deal was that it let you save a language here: you could re-use your javascript skills on the backend. The framework is so dramatically different, though, that I'd still count it as another language.

Now we're at seven.

Presumably you'll be interacting with some kind of API that uses either JSON or XML, so we'll call it eight.

Maybe your ORM (object-relational mapper) isn't quite robust enough to handle a query you need to make to your database, so you have to dip a bit into SQL (or Mongo, Redis, or whatever popular database you happen to be liking right now). You could potentially skirt this by using a service like Firebase that will let you keep your javascript and json skills for your database, but I'm still counting this as nine.

If you're just an app developer, and you either work on some kind of team that has other people that like to do this next part, or you're rich and can afford heroku, then you can stop here. Otherwise we've got a few more.

To deploy your app you've got to know how to log into your server and install your app dependencies, so you've got to learn bash (and a lot of other _nix tools, like ssh, scp, tmux, and vim, but those aren 't really _languages _). Ten, easy.

One of the things you have to install is a web server like Apache or nginx. The config files of these things are a language unto themselves: they're both _kind of* XML-ey, but not really. I'm counting this as eleven even though it's usually something people just pick up by changing variables of, and nobody's actually writing in the stuff.

So a minimum of eleven. Personally, I also take notes in Markdown, jump between projects that are using different preprocessors and backends, and get myself into more trouble than I should on the server side. On a given day I think it's fair to say this could hit twenty.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I almost always won the "who knows the most programming languages" dick-swinging contests in high school and college.

<comment><USER47> I thought we were talking about "programming" languages only.

<comment><USER48> For purposes of this conversation, css should certainly be considered a programming language. It might not have all of the standard logical conventions of programming languages (although you can now write FizzBuzz in css...), but being good at css requires a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of css rules, behavior, and interactions.

I'm shit at css, but I do just enough of it to have a serious respect for the people who know it well, and I wouldn't refuse to call what they do programming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Just JavaScript, day and night, client and server... No need for other stuff except for CSS.

<comment><USER50> That's like being the Soylent of programmers. Try a banana every once in a while at least!

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Rails, Laravel, vanilla PHP, daily.

If I had it my way, it would just be Rails. Much more productive.

</comment><comment><USER52> Ruby, Swift, Objective-C and CoffeeScript. But usually separated between projects.

</comment><comment><USER53> Ruby and Erlang, these days. Plus a bit of other things like SQL and Javascript.

</comment><comment><USER54> regularly switch between C, C++, Java and Objective-C

necessary for cross platform development

C++ for the win. its annoying apple and google break the universality of C/C++ by forcing you to use tools built on top of C/C++ :P

</comment><comment><USER55> PHP/Ruby/JS, previously, PHP/JS/Python/C/C++

</comment><comment><USER56> Python, Javascript and SQL pretty regularly with some BASH here and there

</comment><comment><USER57> Scala, with a regular smattering of SQL and Haskell for side projects.

</comment><comment><USER58> It's often a combination of Bash, Java, Groovy and JavaScript.

</comment><comment><USER59> PHP, Javascript(does angularjs count?), Markup(html, css)

</comment><comment><USER60> Javascript (Node + Angular), Objective-C, Java (Android)

</comment><comment><USER61> Javascript, Objective-C, Java, Ruby

</comment><comment><USER62> C++, Qml, bash at work.

JavaScript, Python at home.

</comment><comment><USER63> c for firmware development, java for android and python for prototyping and automation.

</comment><comment><USER64> Perl by day, Python by night.

</comment><comment><USER65> VBA,

SQL,

Golang,

Bash

(sadly in this order of frequency)

<comment><USER20> For what do you use so much VBA on a daily basis? My only experience with it was writing Excel macros back when I worked with data.

<comment><USER65> Pretty much what you say. Automating data maniplation/transformation, and also providing a simpler way for non-tech employees to enter data into Excel (Open Excel shhet -> Form pops up -> there is one Textfield in a form -> enter value -> value is placed where is should be placed in the sheet)

It's not necessatily on a daily basis, but mostly it's VBA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Web tier: PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS

App tier: Java

Backend: Oracle

<3 my job

</comment><comment><USER67> PHP, JS, HTML, CSS

</comment><comment><USER68> python and javascript, most days.

</comment><comment><USER69> php, javascript, html, sql

</comment><comment><USER70> Productivity depends on your previous experience and the domain you're in.

Sometimes Im way more productive in Bash than in Python, sometimes its other way around, and sometimes Im most productive in Java.

You cant do web development with Bash so I guess me or anyone else would be infinietley more inproductive trying to use that for web dev.

Similary just some stuff you cant do in your favourite language.

Choose wisely and you'll be productive.

<comment><USER71> > You cant do web development with Bash

Well, actually... [http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/BashShellCgi.html](http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/BashShellCgi.html)

<comment><USER70> Well yeah, I knew that, but seriously.

If you gonna go that road, then use netcat echo and loops for a web server too.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple on medical tech hiring spree - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/us-apple-hiring-insight-idUSBREA4409020140505 <comment><USER2> From 4 years working leading teams in an electronic medical software shop, I urge consumers to not assume that vendors will be good stewards of personal data. forget the boilerplate and assurance that data will only be used in an anonymous way.

1\. Never admit to social drinking or smoking. It goes on your permanent record, even at just a mom and pop style clinic with paper records.

2\. Above all, never admit to recreational use of marijuana. Maybe that's an obvious statement in some parts of the world, but living in Austin, it's eye- opening to see how minor drug use is something to be proud of.

To preemptively address concerns about HIPAA laws, etc, being adequate protection and that this comment is pure paranoia, two things:

1\. Snowden. Enough said.

2\. I'm personally aware of a massive DB of client data solely given to the QA department for purposes of debugging a particularly nasty bug mysteriously vanishing from the lockdown where it was supposedly safely stored. There are insiders keenly aware of how profitable it is to acquire and sell medical data...

In summary, you can no longer assume confidentially between health providers/monitors and patient interactions, to the detriment of all involved.

EDIT:

In order to provide some actionable information instead of just warnings:

When I left the industry 6 years ago, it was still binding for a patient to explicitly say that certain information must be kept confidential and not shared with any party besides the physician handling the interaction. By all means, if you have experience with 10 years of using crank, it's highly relevant to provide that info to your HC provider. You just may want to get assurances that the information will be kept strictly confidential. Good luck -- the doctors and staff legitimately want to help; it's just the data miners that want to extract much profit from you as possible.

<comment><USER3> Sadly, this is the most cynical view, that while valid, I have no choice but to fight against to see medical progress. I also work in this area and after a decade as a publishing neuroscientist where we were bound by HIPAA rules and my universities were liable if there was a breach.

 _I_ care greatly, and so my company does, about ensuring anonymity and learning from the data as much as possible, if participants continue to share. We assume anonymity before we touch one bit of data. And users always have the option of using our products without sharing anything at all.

<comment><USER4> To add another datapoint: I work for a large medical device manufacturer. We often need patient databases for debugging problems in the field. Although everyone who gets access to the raw data is HIPAA trained periodically (if your training expires, so do your data access credentials) we have implemented a "download database" feature that scrubs all patient identifying data before it's transmitted over the line.

Sure, there may be some edge cases where we need that ID stuff (haven't come across it in the years we've been doing this), but the point is that we take patient confidentiality very seriously (and the business takes being dinged for a HIPAA violation just as seriously).

It may sound fluffy and Pollyanna-like, but it's hard to be successful in this field without genuinely caring about the patient at the other end of your software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just like we have blood donors perhaps we should think about trying to promote the idea of data donors.

The value of continues streams of health data for the advance of medicine cannot be underrated.

<comment><USER6> Sorry a bit of self promotion. We started a similar concept in 2009 and we launched our mHealth app in 2010 [0]. AFAIK we were the first or one of the first to do it.

We are collaborating with some amazing researchers, but we have run into a few bureaucratic issues. Some of the institutions we have worked with or been trying to work with, are keep pushing for IP ownership which makes the process more challenging at times.

[0] [http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/10/asthmamd-helps-asthma- suffe...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/10/asthmamd-helps-asthma-sufferers- gathers-aggregate-research-data/)

edit: typos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wonder if Jobs was involved in this stuff before he died. One of the reasons that pancreatic cancer is so serious is that it tends not to manifest itself until it's too late to treat.

This fact, and the scope for devices that provide early warnings about serious health issues but that integrate well into the user's life (something Apple have traditionally been good at), is something he'd likely have been thinking about.

(Disclaimer: Totally uninformed speculation)

<comment><USER8> Not particular relevant, but Jobs had a particularly early diagnosis (edit: and one of the few treatable forms of pancreatic cancer) but ignored his doctors recommendations for almost a year. It is very likely this cost him his life.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_issues](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Health_issues)

(I doubt this is related to the business initiative, it's probably the fragmented market and fat margins in medical devices)

<comment><USER9> He was literally killed by fruit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if ads are reaching saturation, now the next major online money- making shift will be geared towards the healthcare sector. The healthcare sector seems largely unexplored in most app ecosystems.

</comment><comment><USER11> Just not sure how many people care that much about their health/fitness, to want to buy a device to monitor it constantly. I can see it as a possible/likely feature of an iWatch, but is that really such a compelling reason to buy one, regardless of how superior the interface / features are?

<comment><USER5> Monitoring constantly in the background is exactly what people want, in fact its what society want and your doctor want, it's what humanity want.

The number of applications for this kind of data is infinite.

The concept of data donors will be a reality very soon.

<comment><USER12> It certainly isn't what your doctor wants.

The stock objection to constant mass monitoring is that many people are living with the symptoms of serious diseases without the actual disease. Doctors are concerned there will be so many false leads it would lead to a sort of cried wolf situation, where when someone finally is actually ill they won't believe it.

That concern clearly isn't baseless, but it's also short term thinking.

<comment><USER13> Wouldn't a constant stream of data allow for more realistic baseline measurements to be set?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is he wearing a black shirt and bluejeans on purpose?

</comment><comment><USER15> Healthcare is a place where there should be competition and openness that will make these devices cheap for everyone. Apple is known for the high premiums and ruthless lock-ins. Plus, they have a huge stash of cash to lobby the FDA and other regulators. At least that's was the case under Jobs' leadership, otherwise I think this is rather worrying.

<comment><USER16> Apple is also known for bringing technologies that other companies couldn't to the mass market. Maybe they are worth a premium for this reason. The healthcare industry has never been known for its budget friendliness...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I retain ownership over an app I developed while employed? - <AUTHOR>

As part of my employee contract, they own all inventions developed while I'm employed. I would like to present the boss with a document to be signed to make sure I keep all ownership. How should I go about doing this? <comment><USER2> An employment agreement is often an opening bid in a negotiation, but developers think of it as a "sign or no deal" thing and thereby miss an opportunity to ask for reasonable changes. I've routinely struck out parts of employment agreements that were overly broad (by crossing them out and initialing), and have only once had that even questioned. It also sends a signal that you're paying attention.

I'm in California, and have dealt mostly with startups. YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm in a similar situation where I'm about to start a job that has a broad noncompete. Broad to the point that they even own work I do in my spare time. I don't need the work that bad (I'm currently freelance) so I'm requesting they reword it.

The thing that really kills me about broad noncompetes like this is employers take it from protecting their business to over reaching and stealing their employees work. Personally, the best developers I know are hackers who execute on their own ideas with at least part of their spare time.

I'm perfectly okay with signing the part about not approaching their clients and not using trade secrets for my benefit. But the idea that I should turn over all IP created outside of the 40hr/week I'm being paid for is wrong.

As far as your situation, you may be screwing yourself by taking it to your boss at all. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you live in California, check out the California Labor Code Section 2870 - <http://law.onecle.com/california/labor/2870.html>

I'm not sure about other states

</comment><comment><USER5> Where do you live/work? I've heard from several lawyer friends and friends in similar situations that those broad non-compete clauses are effectively invalid in California.</comment>


Ask HN: What do lightly-colored comments mean? - <AUTHOR> Most comments are black text, but some have hard-to-read grey text, why is this? <comment><USER2> It means they've been downvoted.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought so, but at the same time I've seen some of these comments that have very high positive scores?

and how do you downvote something, anyway?

<comment><USER2> Points on comments are not shown, so how do you come to say:

> _I 've seen some of these comments that have very high positive scores?_

Ah, I've just realised that you can see points on your own comments, so I'm guessing one of your comments has gone grey, and yet it has lots of points - yes? Otherwise I'm very confused about what you think you've seen. I've looked through your comments and none appear to me to be greyed out. Can you point me at a comment that's greyed out and yet has a "very high positive score" ??

And downvoting a comment requires a minimum level of karma, I think it's 501 points. Also, you can't downvote a comment that is a direct reply to you.</comment></comment></comment>


"No one at Google is Returning Our Calls" - <AUTHOR> http://digitstodollars.com/2013/12/27/no-one-at-google-is-returning-our-calls/ <comment><USER2> Android is more and more like the mobile equivalent of desktop Windows. Now they have the huge pirate market in China too.

When this happened to Microsoft, certain strategy-oriented parts of the company were happy to see Windows spread everywhere as quickly as possible and deal with piracy later, whereas others were more concerned with the bottom line and how to extract revenue immediately. Google will have to deal with the same political questions.

It's funny how Android even has its own versions of OS/2 in the form of BlackBerry 10 and Jolla's Sailfish -- that is, competing operating systems that proclaim to be technically more advanced while offering reasonable app- level compatibility with the dominant system. (I suspect that BB10 and Sailfish will share OS/2's fate in a few years. Too little user benefit against the high cost of lacking access to the dominant vendor's services.)

<comment><USER3> Its worst than that. A least with Windows on PC clones, you have control over the hardware and can update to your hearts content. Android makers often change the interface and can interfere with you from getting updates.

<comment><USER2> That's probably something that the PC clone vendors of the early Windows era (1990-95) would have loved to do, but they just didn't have the software competence.

Developing a new shell for Windows was technically possible, but must have seemed like an outlandish prospect to companies like Compaq or Dell. ("Where are we going to hire a bunch of C developers who know GUIs and can do a better job at this than Microsoft? Forget about it.")

Some companies did go there -- for instance, HP had an advanced Windows shell called NewWave [0], but I don't think they ever built PCs specifically for it.

Today, the situation is very different. The executives at any old phone maker will look at Android and say: "That's just Java, isn't it? We have plenty of people who know Java. Hell, there's a school down the road where they train 100 Java developers every year. Let's do it! We can be a software company too, just like Apple!"

And of course we know how _that_ turns out. But it will take a long time until the executives at all those LGs and HTCs will recognize that their organization sucks at software, because it's not a software organization at its core. (Nokia spent tens of billions of dollars on Symbian and MeeGo until they finally got this lesson, and they ended up selling the phones to a software company.)

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_NewWave](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_NewWave)

<comment><USER4> Isn't Microsoft also more restrictive when it comes to what parts of Windows OEMs are allowed to customize?

It's one thing to swap out PROGMAN.EXE, as HP did with NewWave. But you're not allowed to interfere with the ability to run Windows Update.

<comment><USER5> That's just the bargain Google struck with carriers and OEMs. They have the reins on Google services, but allowing OS customization was a concession to get third parties to adopt Android as the de facto iOS competitor. And OEMs and carriers love to push their own customizations to build revenue streams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The solution of course is for Google to charge a small fee, say $50k/yr to each OEM who wants to use Android on their devices (if the OEM can't handle that fee, then they have no hope of handling the huge manufacturing, support, carrier fees and other costs involved with launching a product).

This fee will guarantee them a warm body with a heartbeat on the other end of a dedicated number who will be their "relationship manager" who can run things down internally and manage bringing new OEMs on.

In reality, the RM would probably service 4-5 "accounts" at a time and these 4 accounts or OEMs would completely cover the cost of this employee or

Of course having 20 or 30 RMs banging against the Android team to get info and support OEMs doesn't scale, so for every 3 or 4 RMs you hire additional staff on the Android dev side to handle that relationship. And _that_ does scale.

It's not a money maker for Google, but it covers support costs without turning support to OEMs into a cost center.

<comment><USER7> This would certainly be a solution for OEMs in this situation, but I wonder how much of G would even consider this a problem? Another way to ask this: how long will G neglect the needs of this market before we conclude that G doesn't consider this a market worth noticing?

It seems possible that a third party could provide many of the services OEMs require, but I suspect that organization would need to be either very skilled or somewhat well-connected to the relevant dev groups at G, or else it would find itself in this same exact situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How did Microsoft manage a zillion OEMs who had to have audited numbers and get invoiced, and Google can't manage a simple compatibility test and license agreement?

Never mind third tier phone OEMs, this is really hurting Google in tablets, where you don't need carrier retail channels.

<comment><USER9> Microsoft - Bill Gates - from day one believed they were in the business of selling a product to a customer, providing support to that customer, and they wanted that customer to stay with them forever. For the first 15+ years of Microsoft's existence, they had no monopoly position, and had to always be hustling for customers.

Google being a search engine, from day one never had to nor intended to provide support to any users. By dominating search usage (they owned search by what, five years in?), it guaranteed they'd own the search ad business by default (and of course they hooked up an excellent approach courtesy of goto.com), with that combination in place there would never be market incentive to provide good customer service to their ad customers and partners (and once that behavior was encoded into the company's DNA, they approached everything a similar way).

Sometimes Google seems more like a hobby farm (that happens to have a golden goose) than a properly run business.

<comment><USER10> Nobody at Google returns any calls from anybody, it's a core part of their DNA.

<comment><USER11> If only there were a term for being so impressed with yourselves that you felt you could just ignore the little people. Maybe "focused on Q1 revenue goals"? Seems long, though. I'd be happy if I could get it down to three syllables.

<comment><USER12> > If only there were a term for being so impressed with yourselves that you > felt you could just ignore the little people.

It nothing to do with people being "little" in Google's eyes. It's about them being _numerous_. According to Wikipedia, Google has 46,421 employees. Here's the reported number of users of various Google products normalized to "per Googler":

        Gmail:    9,155
        Drive:      215
        Chrome:  16,156
        Maps:     4,308
        G+:       6,462
        Android: 19,387 activations (18 per day)
        Docs:       107 businesses

Imagine you had your own B2B business. Just you, no other employees. You have 107 businesses using your product. How much time would you be able to give each of them?

Say you open up a little hand-crafted artisanal phone business. Just you. You've sold 19,387 phones in the past few years, and you sell 18 more every day. How much time would you have for support for each of those?

You make software. Just a little hobby on the side you do by yourself. You have more than 32,296 active users of it. You're still cranking away on it, adding new features. How much time do you also have to answer the phone when one of those people has a problem? Keep in mind, none of them have paid you anything.

Let's say Google decided to drop _everything_ : no development, no new features, no new products, no vacation, no HR, no facilities, no security, no R&D, no training, no nothing. Instead, every single employee from Larry Page on down devotes their full time to tech support. Users are pretty sharp so they rarely have problems: they only need to call for help once per year. If all every Googler did was get on the phone and help people, they'd still only be able to give each person 4.82 minutes.

<comment><USER13> What if Google spent some of the billions of dollars in cash it is sitting on and accumulating hiring a support workforce?

<comment><USER14> How would such an "investment" increase Google's bottom line? Are you sure it would not be a mere expense?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That was unexpected. Why would Google be so ignorant of Android China? China seems like such an obvious part of the mobile big picture that I can only assume "big" things.

In no particular order:

• Google's decision to leave China [1]

• Political interference to protect a Chinese mobile OS [2]

• Some sort of license restriction that doesn't effect Google services over the web but kicks in for mobile (completely a wild guess here)

• Political interference to keep Samsung out (so implausible I don't even believe it, but for the sake of discussion...) [3]

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/01/furious-google- th...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/01/furious-google-throws-down- gauntlet-to-china-over-censorship/)

[2] maybe [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/08/28/why-htc-is-making- a-m...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/08/28/why-htc-is-making-a-mobile- operating-system/)

[3] [http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prCN24344613](http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prCN24344613)

<comment><USER16> Other ideas (all pure speculation):

* A desire to protect Google's relationship with the big-name phone manufacturers: maybe the big players have hinted that Google getting too helpful to the small Chinese firms would tend to cool them on Android

* Concern that the Chinese manufacturers might accept Google's technical help, then refuse to implement all of the G-suite or otherwise violate the terms of the certification. With Google's weakened position in China it might not be able to get effective redress

* A specific form of the above: concern that Chinese-brand phones will contain trapdoors to allow clandestine Chinese government access to your Gmail etc. Google can't prevent this from happening on Chinese phones with "unofficial" G-suite access, but at least it can disclaim responsibility, never having certified the device

<comment><USER17> * A perennial inability to support paying customers.

Don't attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's not just them. Google doesn't talk to anybody.

<comment><USER19> Apart from Matt Cutts responding personally on HN, people trying desperately to sell you Adwords, and press releases; they may as well be a black hole.

<comment><USER20> Another option is to post a ranting and crying video to Youtube to get special treatment.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs) (Warning: Strong language)

<comment><USER21> Wait... did that work?

<comment><USER22> Since the name of the channel she is talking about in the video is different from the channel the video is on, probably not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Slighlty OT: Anybody knows why installing an OS on mobile hardware cannot be just like installing Windows in the old days? First installing the base system and then drivers for 'non-standard' hardware components. Why do need hardware manufacturers and OS vendors to talk?

Getting the G-Suite seems to be a problem now but there are already some alternatives for each of the G-Suite's apps and I'd welcome any newcomer to this stage-so I wouldn't consider the G-Suite as the main problem with Android.

<comment><USER24> It is possible. For example Ubuntu is installable on some phones.

It is like Linux 15 years ago, there are a few good drivers and one has to check compatibility charts.

Other problem is hardware detection. OS on PC can detect what hardware is installed. On mobile you need hardware map. There is no way to have universal installer for all mobile phones.

<comment><USER25> Why do you _need_ the map, except - it was the way it has always been done in mobile?

<comment><USER26> There is no plug-and-play, you need to know if the hardware is there or not. If you poke something and you are on the wrong board, if could free/reboot/brick/whatever.

It is an ARM thing. The good news is, that there is a map and a single kernel can run on multiple boards. It is a recent development, before that, you needed a separately built kernel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Let's prioritize... Help out a large OEM with some level of gravitas and reliability or 10's to 100's of bargain-bin-targeting mom & pop shops that are unwilling to put their balls on the line to get up to speed on making globally-commercial products. Then you have the morass of cheap China tainting your platform. Google loves Samsung because they understand, slightly, how to balance silly, shiny shit with passable hardware. Imagine the backlash when millions of consumers think "terrible piece of crap" when someone says, "Google-compliant, Android-based device."

AND THEN those same OEM's will come back and tar Google (again) for their failures. I wouldn't rush out to prop up everybody with a cousin that knows a bad batch parts fence in Shenzen. Let the creme rise to the top first.

<comment><USER28> So I wrote the original post, and I'm always a bit afraid to wade into the comments, but I wanted to respond to this one.

Your point is that Google is prioritizing correctly. That they are just going after the big OEMs first and then the guys I'm talking about are too small to bother with. About right?

I didn't hammer the point in this post, because I've made it a few other places, but all of these OEMs collectively are bigger than any other single OEM. Collectively, this group produces between one half and two thirds of the world's phones. Most are very small, but many are now huge. Google seems to be focussing on just one or two. I think with a small amount of effort they could tap into the whole audience. It wouldn't require building a huge support structure. And the numbers are huge.

<comment><USER27> Thanks for the wading and additional, nuance-providing details. It would still seem that they would first focus on a single tier of support focusing around their favorite few largest OEMs to set the guide for the others. I'm not saying top 20% of devices, but something along the lines of focusing on the an 80-20 principal. Then, if you see a star being born that will disrupt your top picks, bring them in. Market dominance can be sustained that way. Those OEMs aren't going to be making iOS or Lumias. "It's not nice, it's Google." (TM)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Can anyone explain how I can just install the G-suite on Cyanogenmod then? Is it blessed by Google? Or does it recognise that my phone is appropriately blessed via the bootloader?

<comment><USER20> It's not blessed by Google. In fact they sent a C&D to CM over it.

[http://gizmodo.com/5367420/google-threatens-cyanogen- android...](http://gizmodo.com/5367420/google-threatens-cyanogen-android- hacker-with-cease+and+desist)

The site(s) you're downloading it from are committing copyright violations and are subject to a DMCA takedown.

<comment><USER30> > The site(s) you're downloading it from are committing copyright violations > and are subject to a DMCA takedown.

Yes, that is technically true. But in practice, it's not like Google just haven't noticed yet and are likely to take them down any day now: the current situation (cyanogenmod ships without gapps, but google won't prevent goo.im hosting them or cyanogenmod linking to goo.im) was worked out in 2009 after that C&D, and Google seems to have been fine with it for the last 4 years - they even let goo.im have an app in the play store - even if, officially, they still reserve their right to assert their copyright in the future.

(The wording of the license for gapps now specifies that the licence is scoped to the device[1], so an end-user who installs gapps (e.g. from goo.im) on cyanogenmod is not committing copyright infringement if their phone came with gapps (i.e. not kindles etc.))

[1] "..licensed to handset manufacturers shipping devices", [http://source.android.com/faqs.html](http://source.android.com/faqs.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> this "Google offers the Android codebase for free download, but this is only part of the software needed to make a phone viable"

is simply false. You have everything needed for a "phone" and even for a "smartphone", you simply miss google services that might (West in particular) or might not (East in particular) be perceived as a must have by consumer.

See for example all the android-based phone that ship with alternative markets, maps and similar services.

<comment><USER8> Nobody, not even Oppo with their CyanogenMod-based Android, is selling an Android product in developed-world markets without Google Play and the rest of Google's app suite.

The real alternative is expensive: Build your own ecosystem, as Amazon has.

<comment><USER32> You seem to have come up with the refutation to your claim, but then ignored it anyway. The Kindle Fire [1] does run Android and does not have the Play Store - it has the Amazon app store instead.

1: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle_Fire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindle_Fire)

<comment><USER33> He said "The real alternative is expensive: Build your own ecosystem, as Amazon has."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I feel like this author just doesn't know what he's talking about and is just ranting on google because AOSP != google experience. He makes no mention of Open Handset Alliance [http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/](http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/). This would be the first place to start.

<comment><USER28> I'm the author. And I do know what I'm talking about. OHA doesn't even begin to solve the problem at hand. The subjects of my piece have access to AOSP, and could join OHA if they wanted to, but the fact is that those are not enough to support their products. These OEMs sell into incredibly competitive environments, and many of their customers want the full Google Experience and G-Suite. They'd be willing to pay something for it. My argument is just that it is in Google's best interests to become more engaged with this community. Nothing to do with how I feel about AOSP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Weird, they're taking RapGenius's calls: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6964169](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6964169)

</comment><comment><USER36> Author didn't say specifically what kind of requests Google didn't respond to. It could easily be the case that given EOM's device isn't good enough to pass Compatibility Test, and instead of fixing the issue EOM would contact Google saying "our phone doesnt really need this feature that your test requires, but you still give us keys to GSuite." Of course Google won't respond to such inquiry.

</comment><comment><USER37> Why not offer a link to the Gapps download with instructions for installing them like CyanogenMod does? It wouldn't be that hard to streamline this for novices on first booting their phone and therefore bypass Google's bureaucracy.

</comment><comment><USER38> A thought. Is Google interested in seeing more android devices sold, or more nexus android devices sold?</comment>


Tbd.vc – early stage tech investments - <AUTHOR> http://tbd.vc/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi. OP here. Learned some stuff, while founding and funding Mister Spex and several other startups in Berlin in the last 8 years. I'd like to invest my returns into other software and e-commerce entrepreneurs.</comment>


Google now offering ISP services but only to the KS City Area? Is this Legit? - <AUTHOR> http://fiber.google.com/about/

<comment><USER2> I must be misinterpreting your question, because I'm pretty sure Google has already begun its fiber rollout, and that they have already hooked up users into their system. I thought this was pretty well known knowledge in this community, so I must be misunderstanding your question.

<comment><AUTHOR> I apologize, I've been deployed for the last 9 months, so this was all news to me, if it was discussed before 9 months, then I'm really sorry for being out of the loop for so long lol.

<comment><USER2> No worries, I didn't mean to come across as pretentious. Answer to your question: yes, Google has become an ISP but only in this geographic area.</comment></comment></comment>


What I Learned about My iPhone After Switching to the Google Pixel - <AUTHOR> https://www.subtraction.com/2016/12/14/switching-to-the-google-pixel/ <comment><USER2> The author should have used WhatsApp, which is the iMessage equivalent for Android :) . Works on the desktop too. Or Facebook messenger if he didn't want to tie it in to a number.

I also disagree about the notification system, but YMMV.

To me, Android's problems are others, it's resource heavy and has all sorts of phone-specific problems, each brand bringing its own set of strengths and weaknesses (and yet I own an Android phone).</comment>


Loudness war - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war <comment><USER2> The 20,000 Hz podcast provided a full history of this, discussing various samples along the way:

[https://www.20k.org/episodes/loudnesswars](https://www.20k.org/episodes/loudnesswars)

It's pretty standard for that podcast, which features lots of stories about sound and sound engineering. There's another interesting article on creating the most silent possible room, and how eerie it feels to be in it. [https://www.20k.org/episodes/silence](https://www.20k.org/episodes/silence)

Another on how restaurants got louder and louder over time, that deep bass sound that's taken over film, another on scientific experiments trying to measure if the Stradivarius is as great a violin as everyone insists, another on the tangled history of the iconic Price is Right theme song... so many really.

Great podcast, lots of range given the topic.

<comment><USER3> This sounds interesting and I will listen to it, but for a podcast about sound engineering, I really resent that their website doesn't provide an option to download the bare mp3/m4a. I had to use Inspector.

No subscribe via RSS option either, only Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. This is becoming depressingly common.

<comment><USER4> It does, but it's buried in the player.

Download: In the player click "share" and then click the "down arrow" icon.

RSS feed: In the player click "subscribe" and then click the RSS icon (it's the first one)

<comment><USER3> Thank you. Wow. Why the heck would you put the download link in the Share menu?!?

<comment><USER5> This is a standard iOS pattern. Agreed that it's all but intuitive but that's how iOS is these days.

<comment><USER6> And, to complete the circle, the iOS way is the audio engineers like. Even these days, audio engineers are tied to Apple - definitely macOS, but increasingly iOS as well.

<comment><USER7> Pro Tools is a large part of the industry market and that's multi-platform.

What do you mean by "audio engineers are tied to apple"?

<comment><USER8> Not sure if it's still the case but for many years Apple's Core Audio was a big draw for people running audio software due to it's stability, performance and compatibility with various devices. I've used Windows with ASIO drivers for many years and always found it a bit buggy with occasional random drop- outs that can only be fixed by reinstalling the drivers. Pulse Audio on Linux can be even more of a nightmare to get working with your equipment, but I've heard it's improving recently.

<comment><USER7> That's a good point. In my experience in studios (from around 5 years ago) windows is just about as prevalent as OS X at this point. I'm sure whatever niche you're in does affect this however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Loudness War is, thankfully, starting to taper off - largely because of YouTube ( [https://productionadvice.co.uk/youtube- loudness/](https://productionadvice.co.uk/youtube-loudness/) ) and Spotify ( [https://artists.spotify.com/faq/mastering-and- loudness#what-...](https://artists.spotify.com/faq/mastering-and- loudness#what-is-loudness-normalization-and-why-is-it-used) )

Since YT and Spotify are some of the predominant ways people listen to music these days, and they normalize loudness, music producers are starting to go back to more normal masters, thankfully.

<comment><USER10> I've always been curious about Spotify's approach on this, because truth be told the service on good quality speakers does sound rather good.

I'm very pleased by everything I just read in this link — they really think of the user first, and favor music quality and the general experience. It's exactly how I did/do it myself, manually.

Awesome, really awesome to learn that the loudness war is finally coming to a close.

<comment><USER11> I don't know how normalization is done, but I do know that Spotify are very professional when it comes to audio quality. They do double-blind testing with setups by audio engineers to evaluate end-to-end quality when evaluating changes.

<comment><USER10> The double-blind scientific approach to audio testing ("ABX") has long been a major point of contention between "objectivists" and "subjectivists"[1]. This has been a godsend for the marketing marketing of some snake-oil companies in audiophile circles.

Really glad to know Spotify is on the side of science, here.

[1]: This blog has got to be the most interesting I ever read on whatever topic it touches, including the objective vs subjective debate: [http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/subjective-vs- objective-...](http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/05/subjective-vs-objective- debate.html)

<comment><USER12> Do you mean double-blind testing benefits snake-oil companies? If so, may you expound on that? To my understanding, double-blind tests are meant to avoid un/conscious bias during testing.

<comment><USER10> No, on the contrary! Sorry for my ambiguous writing. Indeed double-blind is the only way to go.

What I meant is that there is a sizeable chunk of the audiophile industry (a certain press, electronics brands, stores and even studios themselves) that conveniently avoids any and all scientific testing, and promotes typical snake-oil "features" and "specs". Quite sadly for their abused customers.

One of the worst trends in my opinion was faking technical format quality by using different masters on each — with the shitty master on CD/MP3 and the good one, more dynamic, on DVD/SACD/vinyl etc. The latter always sounded better simply because it wasn't the same source!

In such matters, I guess we can trust Spotify based on their claims, and anecdotally I tend to believe them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Where I was born it used to be dead silence at night till about a decade ago.

Then the buses started announcing station names outloud. As the announcement is loud and the bus windows are open, I get woken up from it almost every night.

Next street lights started to beep for blind people. While this is a great idea, in practice the level of sound they set makes sense for the day (when the street at busy), but for the night it is way too strong, going into people houses. I got used to sleep with a constant weak beeping sound.

Then the e-scooters came, and created three sources of new noise during the night. One when someone touches them ("stealing alert!"), one when someone is looking for them ("location beep") and the last when the van of the company comes to pick them up around 3-4 am.

 _sigh_ , I'm moving to a cabin in the desert.

<comment><USER14> Speaking of lights, are there no laws in the US about how bright headlights can be? At the risk of being too dramatic, I have had cars behind mine with their lights so bright I thought they had their high beams on.

<comment><USER15> That's the idiocy in general of modern car design.

A bright-blue headlight of a modern car will actually make everything surrounding the headlights darker. A light which is slightly dimmer and more shifted towards red works much better for your peripheral vision. If you drive in rural areas the difference is very apparent.

Not only that, but street lights seem to be doing that as well.

Cross-walks here are now illuminated along the path with a strong shaped light. But the light is so bright that during night they just blind the observer: the pedestrian looks like ghost in a black background. IMHO this is even more dangerous, I frequently cannot see past the crosswalk, so a pedestrian which is passing behind it is risking much more than before. Go figure.

There are a couple of intersections which I pass frequently where the green light is too bright already during day. During the night, as soon as you get the green light you get blinded, which is _awesome_ since the light is guarding a cross-walk in this case as well. By night you cannot see pedestrians when you have the green.

<comment><USER16> The police are the biggest offenders when it comes to unnecessarily blinding drivers at night.

The construction companies (who have to pay their own insurance premiums and generally avoid unnecessarily risking injury to people by blinding drivers) have long since toned down the lights they used (there was a short time period where they all had super bright lights because LEDs were new and cool so why not have a 1000W flasher), switched to the non-glaring light plants that use the canvas bags.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> While I despise the loudness war and the loss of dynamic range, it's worth recognizing that where and how people listen to music has changed drastically in the last 20 years.

Moreso than ever in the past, people listen to music in public or otherwise noisy environments. (worse yet) They listen with generally low quality headphones/earbuds.

Basically, if the music isn't compressed, they won't hear most of it.

Of course, this plus the crappy earbuds and the noisy surroundings means they listen at higher volumes and suffer more hearing damage, which leads to less human sensitivity to sound levels (and more desire for compressed, high volume music).

It's very rare for most of us to get to sit in a good room with a good system and listen without interference... but it's really, really nice to do when you can.

<comment><USER18> I don't see why this needs to be done at the track mastering level though. If audio device manufacturers know their users are primarily going to be listening in noisy environments with cheap headphones they can compress the track at playtime.

<comment><USER19> As a person studying music production, this can't be done easily without having to mix and then master again. Certainly there could be varying edits of a track, though this is already common practice. The music you hear o the radio, or even Spotify, will usually be mastered differently than what you'll hear on a CD or DVD

<comment><USER20> It'd be cool if there was something akin to Dolby Atmos where you don't deliver a master, but rather individual tracks and associated metadata, such that it can then be mastered on the fly depending on the output equipment.

Many games let you specify the audio output, and then adjusts the mixing accordingly. This would be something similar I guess, but the mixing is probably best done at the streaming provider, to save bandwidth and other resources. (For static content like music it only really has to be done once per output type.)

I'd like something like this, I have a vastly different sound setup at home than on the go, but listen to mostly the same tracks. Most sound pretty good on my home setup, but on the go I often find myself adjusting volume up and down between tracks, despite things like normalization being on.

<comment><USER21> I think this is one of the things driving the vinyl resurgence. Albums that release on vinyl tend to less alteration to the dynamic range... Ymmv I've not listened to everything out there :-]

<comment><USER22> The real reason for that is because of the physical limitations of the medium. You have to be very careful when mastering for vinyl that you aren't knocking the stylus out of the groove by making things too loud (especially sudden changes are dangerous). Even for less proactively mastered stuff, if a master is received too loud, the factory will reduce the volume before pressing so that it is playable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Ian Shepherd -- mentioned in the article as the founder of "Dynamic Range Day" \-- is one of the great warriors in this battle. He's an extremely knowledgeable mastering engineer (among the darker arts in audio), and has really done a lot to help turn the tide on massively over-compressed audio.

But I came here, actually, to put in a plug for a plug(in). He worked with some folks to create a VST called "Loundness Penalty." You throw that on your master channel, and it will tell you what the various streaming services will do to your audio (for example, by how many dB Spotify, Apple Music, You Tube, and so forth will turn your audio up or down based on the integrated LUFS reading).

Even more impressive is a plugin he worked on called "Perception" that can avoid the inevitable psychoacoustic bias (to which we are all naturally subject) of thinking that because this track with this effect chain is louder than without it (or with another effect chain) it must be "better."

These are commercial products, available from an outfit called MeterPlugs ([https://www.meterplugs.com/](https://www.meterplugs.com/)).

I should say that I've never met Ian, and have no connection to this company. I do work with audio in a professional context, however.

I should also say that I really think the tide is finally turning on all of this. I don't know that the "loudness wars" are absolutely in the rear-view mirror, but I think there's a lot more awareness of the issue. And I also think that fly-by-night mastering engineers who proceed to crush the hell out of your tracks with limiters and whatnot don't get as many repeat customers as they once did. And there's better metering in general for getting a track to have proper dynamics without having the listener feel the constant need to turn the volume up and down.

<comment><USER24> I run a recording label that publishes Drum&Bass music (RuffAndTuffRecordings.Com), (Drum & Bass music currently is known as one of the loudest engineered music genres put out on the block right now). I went the other way in terms of our releases... Our music is only as loud as it needs to be. If a listener wants it louder, they can simply turn up the volume.

Going to nights where these super-compressed tracks are often played at unimaginable volume levels, You must wear ear plugs, otherwise you're guaranteed to go deaf.

When music is compressed, dynamic range is lost, and the actual elements in each track like bass and ambient sounds are limited in how they can create a mood in a track. These loud tracks are impressive in terms of grabbing attention, but over time they create fatigue for listeners, and people tend to not want to listen to additional music after a few loud tracks.

There is a high price to pay for continuing down the path of loudness with music.

The main driver for ending the race in music should be doing whats right, music should have dynamic range as the main focal points of audio engineering. Until that gets sorted out, bring your ear plugs.

<comment><USER23> I think your point about "listener fatigue" is important, because that's a big part of this. It's not just about the way a squashed track won't sound as good or as interesting (though it won't, of course).

And yeah, that's a famously "loud" genre. What drives me insane is going to, say, a mostly acoustic live show and having the person behind the desk mix it as if it's Drum & Bass. I never ever go to a show without earplugs, because you just never know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Daft Punk's _Random Access Memories_ is mentioned in the article, and it really does have good dynamic range .. for the 2010's

But compared to an album like Spies 1988 _Music of Espionage_ which has a dynamic range that used the most of the CD format (especially track 3 - "Interlude" \-- listen for the drum hits at 0:39 after the organ chords), it just isn't (technically) comparable.

I have stopped buying older CDs off Amazon, switching to Discogs so that I can be sure to get an original pressing - made before it had been "remastered".

<comment><USER26> I wonder if more dynamic music is actually worse for developing tinnitus and so on when listening on headphones. As the perceived loudness is lower for dynamic music, people turn it up to compensate. This means that the peaks in real terms are actually louder than the equivalent super-compressed stuff while achieving the same listening level.

<comment><USER25> I dunno - I'd want to consult an audiologist or ENT doctor (otolaryngologist) before answering. But my uneducated opinion is that dynamic music gives the ear time to recover from the loud sections (given normal listening levels), while the compressed-to-all-hell music does not, since it's a constant high level sound.

My tinnitus came from being around jets & equipment in the military, concerts (Rush's Presto tour in 1990 was super loud), and competitive shooting. I double-up on my hearing protection these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> My spouse's father is a well known (Grammy nominated) mastering engineer.

He hated the loudness wars. It was, often times, bands and labels insisting that the albums be "louder" than whatever other comparable album they were trying to emulate, and thus it just escalated with no real sense until it just got ridiculous.

<comment><USER28> Eventually this gets us to here: [https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Disaster_Area](https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Disaster_Area)

<comment><USER29> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq_cmaFSD4k&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq_cmaFSD4k&feature=youtu.be)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "ReplayGain is a proposed standard published by David Robinson in 2001 to measure the perceived loudness of audio in computer audio formats such as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis. It allows media players to normalize loudness for individual tracks or albums. This avoids the common problem of having to manually adjust volume levels between tracks when playing audio files from albums that have been mastered at different loudness levels."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReplayGain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReplayGain)

<comment><USER31> This doesn't solve the problem that "louder" tracks typically have substantially reduced dynamic range Such tracks are often irreversibly worse than those with less compressed range.

<comment><USER32> Of course not, it's a stick. If widely adopted, it eliminates the incentive for the extra compression in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Watching without headphones feels impossible nowadays. The talking volume is low, but the music is top whack. So you need to keep turning the volume down each time there is music otherwise it is embarrassingly/annoyingly loud.

<comment><USER34> I think you're talking about TV/Movies, but the article is talking about music.

Most home audio receivers have user-configurable dynamic range compression, which compensates for the "quiet voice, loud music" problem. You can often also boost only the center channel, which helps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is a consistent bugbear of mine, and I think a big factor in the resurgence of vinyl. I find it frustrating I can take a recording from a format with limited dynamic range and stereo separation, which is incredibly vulnerable to environmental contamination and vibration, where the playback device adds its own bundle of mechanical noise and unusual non-linear responses... and yet if I have a good pressing it will sound better than a "digital remaster" CD which has none of these inherent issues, because the digital copy has been compressed and limited to the point where it's fatiguing to listen to.

That said, I've bought a few modern albums which have been _really_ nicely mastered; they've got that rich, deep '70s LP sound but available on a FLAC download without all the surface noise and rumble.

Also that section on the '60s loudness war underplays quite how LOUD some of those old mono 45s are... I typically set things up so my peaks are at -12dB when recording, and I have the odd mid-1960s single which will be pegged right up against the red if I don't adjust the levels. No wonder there were some pressings that were notorious for throwing the stylus out of the groove when people started chasing ultra-low tracking weights in the early '70s.

<comment><USER36> Depends how recently the vinyl was pressed :P

Dnb vinyl was very popular for a long time (still has its fans), and it was very much part of the loudness war. There are a couple of producers who were part of my record collection that I sometimes actually would not play because I couldn't be bothered dealing with the ridiculous over-mastered loudness in the track compared to what I was trying to mix them into.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "Rage Against The Machine" exemplifies the victory in this war: they made clipping integral to the music. I wonder if they're still waiting for the world to get the joke.

<comment><USER38> Clipping individual parts doesn't sound the same as clipping in mastering. If you clip a single harmonic tone (in the musical sense, i.e. a fundamental + partials at integer multiples of its frequency) you only get harmonic distortion. All new partials generated are still integer multiple of the fundamental. The timbre changes but it doesn't sound dissonant.

When you clip a more complex waveform, you can generate new partials with non- integer multiples of the fundamental frequencies, which sound dissonant. If it's simple enough (e.g. a guitar chord), the dissonance will be small enough that it still sounds musical, but if you clip something complex (e.g. an entire mixed-down track), it will just sound like noise.

See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermodulation)

Clipping of individual parts is integral to RATM's music, but I don't think clipping of the whole thing at once is. See their entries in the Dynamic Range Database:

[http://dr.loudness- war.info/album/list?artist=rage+against+t...](http://dr.loudness- war.info/album/list?artist=rage+against+the+machine&album=)

I haven't actually heard the SACD release of Evil Empire, but with those numbers I'd be surprised if it was noticeably clipped in mastering. (Note that vinyl mastering can increase the DR measurement without audible changes in sound, see: [http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Myths_(Vinyl)#Eff...](http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Myths_\(Vinyl\)#Effect_of_vinyl_mastering_on_dynamic_range) , so I'm much less confident about the vinyl releases with similar numbers.)

<comment><USER39> Pretty funny to listen to one of the lowest-rated albums in that database in terms of dynamic range, Gray Data by Five Star Hotel: [https://open.spotify.com/album/6Q8hkb14PqvyLVEdmWXiD9?si=H5w...](https://open.spotify.com/album/6Q8hkb14PqvyLVEdmWXiD9?si=H5w4inY6SUWgMcQ3SsLOzQ)

Makes RATM sound like easy listening. Which I suppose it is these days anyway.

<comment><USER40> ...my go-to-album when the perils of excessive dynamic range is to be avoided (cough) is Neil Young's 'Weld' live album.

It basically has two states: 'on' and 'off'.

However, it DOES serve an artistic purpose.

If you get a decent pressing of Motörhead's 'No Sleep 'til Hammersmith', though, you'd be surprised at the dynamic range actually offered, contrary to popular (mis)conceptions about the Motörhead sound... :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> [http://dr.loudness-war.info/](http://dr.loudness-war.info/)

<comment><USER42> Sorting I noticed there were 2 that got "00 00 00" ratings. One basically sounded like white noise and the other lived up to my hopes and had me laughing [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prXY- ZQdKJg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prXY-ZQdKJg)

Unfortunate the site doesn't have a graph of loudness vs time.

<comment><USER41> That's actually amazing music, though will blow your speakers at 1% volume ;)

<comment><USER40> Somewhere on the shelf I have the Erich Kunzel/Cincinnati Pops performance of the 1812 overture.

They used real cannons, and the recording & mastering engineers did their best to reproduce them faithfully. It is one of very few albums I have with a prominent warning sticker on the album which is there for a good reason, not for bragging rights - it basically says that unless you are quite conservative with the volume knob, your speakers will die once the cannons do their thing.

<comment><USER41> Interesting. The cannons would be so loud that, if they're at 0db, the rest of the orchestra would be waaay down there without substantial dynamic range compression. You'd have to crank the amplifier waaay up to listen to the orchestra at seemingly normal volume...

<comment><USER40> -Obviously there must be some DR compression, however the recording goes to great lengths to ensure Tchaikovsky's intent is preserved - that the cannons drown out the orchestra and is more or less a physical experience.

Your comment has prompted me to do something I've been thinking of doing since I got that album - open it in Aucacity and see what the DR actually is - during the 1812 crescendo, it peaks at -0.02dB[FS]; RMS is -24dB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's an interesting thing. When you participate in this war as a creator of recorded music, as I do, you're sacrificing dynamic range so that your track fits in with everyone else's. For some types of music, it's a trade-off worth making, for others, not so much. Getting _close_ to what the pros do is pretty straightforward if you have experience and a real mastering tool. Those tools are getting smart about analyzing your track and building an eq/compressor/limiter/maximizer stack that rocks, but the gods of top-40, for example, can make real magic happen when it comes to loud-but-not-distorted.

<comment><USER44> I say this with all due respect, but your copy of Ozone is getting you nowhere near what the pros do. Not even the same planet.

<comment><USER23> All he said is that the "tools are getting smart[er]," and he's right.

I still can't bring myself to hit "Mastering Assistant" (still less, "Mix Assistant" in Neutron) and call it a day. But honestly, it's pretty spooky how good these tools are getting. I'm particularly impressed by the way it figures out where to set dynamic EQ points on problematic frequencies. I haven't played with Gullfoss yet, but the pros I talk to say it's even spookier.

Of course, what you may mean is that there's no substitute for a $50,000 Neve console, a treated, isolated room, monitors that cost considerably more than your car, and an engineer with twenty years of experience. Sure.

But honestly, it is reasonable to wonder whether this is a bit like when we used to say, "Well, a computer will never beat a human at chess."

It's also not true that no professional mastering engineers use Ozone. Most big shops at least have it lying around (if only for that limiter, which many pros emphatically do use). It's also sometimes the right tool for the job. And there are a few serious pros for whom it's their main tool. Not many, granted. But interface aside, it's not clear that when it comes to "clean" processing, that FabFilter's stuff (which is very widely used) is any better.

<comment><USER43> Thanks for mentioning those other plugins. I'm not serious about mastering (it's about the tune!), but now I'm curious, and the FabFilter mastering bundle may have to go on the wish list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> _The loudness war (or loudness race) refers to the trend of increasing audio levels in recorded music, which reduces audio fidelity, and according to many critics, listener enjoyment._

</comment><comment><USER46> WHY does this happen? Does loud music sell better than silent music? Nobody here, not even Wikipedia, mentions the reason WHY it happens.

<comment><USER47> From the History section of the Wikipedia page:

Jukeboxes became popular in the 1940s and were often set to a predetermined level by the owner, so any record that was mastered louder than the others would stand out. Similarly, starting in the 1950s, producers would request louder 7-inch singles so that songs would stand out when auditioned by program directors for radio stations.[1] In particular, many Motown records pushed the limits of how loud records could be made; according to one of their engineers, they were "notorious for cutting some of the hottest 45s in the industry."[3] In the 1960s and 1970s, compilation albums of hits by multiple different artists became popular, and if artists and producers found their song was quieter than others on the compilation, they would insist that their song be remastered to be competitive.

<comment><USER48> And if we go further back we find that there was a sort of brightness war in orchestra tuning going on a long time ago. Think they standardised on 440 Hz by now?

<comment><USER49> I remember watching a video by a music theorist on YouTube (12Tone) where he mentioned that laws were made to define what Concert A would be - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzznBt8tVnI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzznBt8tVnI)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Noisia (dnb producers) are notorious for this...

I had a couple of Noisia records that sounded ridiculously louder than all my other music. I guess it's part of the "authentic" vinyl mixing experience to have to manually adjust a turntable trim mid-mix to avoid it sounding ridiculous.

<comment><USER50> You can say a lot about Noisia, but their mixes always sound perfectly clean (if you can even say that about neurofunk). Not like Metallica's Death Magnetic album for example, for which the compression artifacts really hamper the listening experience.

<comment><USER36> True. Also their electro was also very colourful and vibrant sounding stuff. It's just annoying when you're in the middle of a mix, you don't check how the total mix sounds in your headphones, bring in the Noisia track and the other track is almost drowned out :D Of course a good DJ knows his music and will be ready to make adjustments, but it would be cool if the loudness war wasn't a thing

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> A very detailed article about dynamic range and the Loudness War: [https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/dynamic-range- loud...](https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/dynamic-range-loudness-war)

</comment><comment><USER52> One thing the article doesn't mention is mastering for listening environment context: Classical music that takes full advantage of dynamic range is very easy to listen to in a quiet room; but difficult to listen to in a car or airplane. This is because the quiet (delicate) parts get drowned out by road / air noise.

Anyway, this is one of the concepts that is forgotten when people discuss music in 5.1: Part of the point is that a 5.1 mix can be a "living room" mix, where the engineer can make an uncompromised mix, and leave the compromises for listening in a car, or with crappy headphones, in the stereo mix.

</comment><comment><USER53> On Netflix, I found a trick to have the full dynamic range of sound: You have to keep the volume to a minimum in the netflix player, and to compensate, have the volume at maximum in your computer. I am very sensitive to the respect of the dynamic range, this is very important in order to have pleasure listening. It is the same problem with photos and video games : In an "HDR" treated image, the sky is much to dark, leading to a non realistic image.

<comment><USER54> Wait, are you saying that Netflix alters the dynamic range of its source content? That would be awful unless used as a clearly labeled option.

I always felt that Netflix' audio quality was rather poor and lacked punch as well as dynamic range in a proper home cinema setup, but assumed it was due to their codec or streaming technology choice. However now that you mention it, it might as well be deliberate to optimize for subpar watching environments (laptop speakers, soundbars, etc.) - indeed it sounds as if their content was mastered for TV rather than cinema.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I always loved this piece on this topic: [http://ozzgod.com/dynamicrange/death.html](http://ozzgod.com/dynamicrange/death.html), which has been moving around the internet (my old link was dead, and even it was a copy of the original) for as long as I can remember.

</comment><comment><USER56> Reminds me of compiling ACCGain to normalize tracks from Apple store in Amarok: [https://jonasfj.dk/2007/08/volume-normalization-with- amarok/](https://jonasfj.dk/2007/08/volume-normalization-with-amarok/)

These days I just use Spotify :)

</comment><comment><USER57> Reminds me of "DJ Double R The Loudness King" aka Rick Rubin, probably one of the most famous producers these days/the last 20-30 years: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rubin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rubin)

</comment><comment><USER58> I think there's another type of 'loudness war' going on with how we communicate. One of my peeves in particular the catastrophication of minor insults as 'hate', as I feel it's diluting our concern over the actual atrocities that happen on the other end of the spectrum.

</comment><comment><USER59> At burning man and etc the last few years it's really seemed like some of the music makers are just trying to see what the speakers can do.</comment>


Show HN: Real Time UV Index API for Apps/Bots/AI developers - <AUTHOR> https://quickpages.co/p/uvindexapi <comment><USER2> Looks nice. I think "We know you was looking for" has a typo.

<comment><USER3> Noticed that, is this a real API?</comment></comment>


I Code to Procrastinate When I Should be Growing My Startup - <AUTHOR> http://blog.yumhacker.com/post/75911911404/i-code-to-procrastinate-when-i-should-be-growing-my

<comment><USER2> OK, even I am getting buzzed at how these blatant self-advertisment-wrapped- in-a-cutesy-blog don't even take the time to write a proper blog post with at least 1 nugget of interesting information.

Frank note to author: This is not the way to grow your startup. Hacker news visits are fun for getting a few comments, but they are useless in growing your startup. Even more frank note to author: the startup idea isn't quite appealing or even original.

<comment><USER3> This comment is really bad. There's nothing constructive here. All you said is "that's not good enough". But you have no idea where OP is in their development as a writer.

Maybe this is where they're at, in which case publishing it is GREAT and getting a couple good responses on HN is great, because that _actual feedback_ is going to help them improve as a writer more than just leaving a note in their draft folder. And the way you get good at writing, like with everything else, is putting your shitty stuff out there. No one is born shooting diamonds.

But your post is no better than silence. And it's probably worse than silence because you we're mean in the process

I suspect you gleefully think you're being constructive, which makes it OK that you're being mean, but I think you're doing the exact opposite, which is the worst kind of contribution.

<comment><USER2> Sorry you don't like my post. I don't get how my post is "mean", i did not insult anyone other than offering my honest (but harsh) opinion. Your comment on the other hand is completely useless to both of us. Other than giving you a perverse feeling of self-rigteousness, what else does your comment offer?

(If you meant to offend/shame me, you failed at it)

<comment><USER3> I didn't mean to offend or shame you. If I was right and it was a kind of meanness then you'll hear it many more times throughout your life and you might some day decide it's a pattern you want to pay attention to. If I was wrong then you won't, and this comment will disappear into the wind and that will be that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a similar issue with reading and writing (instead of doing more pertinent things). My current self assessment is that I'm adept at these things and they give me quick psychological rewards for delivering some kind of result/output. The tasks that are really important, require learning, or have a lot of ambiguity have long, big reward cycles, which I think make us averse to them by nature.

<comment><USER5> I think it's the immediate reward aspect of coding that draws me in. The more important tasks don't necessarily give a tangible result right away. With code, I can fix a bug and have something to point to and say 'success!'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel your pain, that is me too most of the time. That said I'm the only technical person around to fix these things, so I often can't step back and spend time sorting out the big things, or even figuring out how to prioritize things in the most efficient way. I think a big part of the problem, for me, is that it's hard to switch between the focus of coding and other things like people management and creative thinking about marketing. Personally, my solution is to get a good project manager involved. Someone who has technical aptitude so they understand the issues, but also able to gauge and manage the priorities of the people and everything else that matter. That way it simplifies your time management around coding and that type of problem solving.

<comment><USER5> It really is hard to switch between different modes of thinking. I think that is why it's important to carve out chunks of time where you can really dig in and focus on getting stuff done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Its after 2PM here and I was just saying to my lab-mate that I might as well head home since I haven't done anything useful yet today, but instead I opened up HN and found this!

</comment><comment><USER8> I get that too. I think another reason is that I've been programming for so long that I have that defined as work in my head. I am good at it and I can make visible progress when programming. Taking meetings, doing marketing and similar tasks are much harder to quantify and thus I can do an entire day of that kind of work and still feel guilty about not having done anything.

<comment><USER5> This is exactly how I feel. It's nice to see I am not the only one who struggles with that guilt!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> At least coding is improving the product. There's plenty of advice on what the critical path to success is - that isn't.

<comment><USER5> That is very true. Improving your product is a big part of growth. The trick is to not waste time working on code that doesn't matter.</comment></comment>