What to do about sun.misc.Unsafe - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GDm_cAxYInmoHMor-AkStzWvwE9pw6tnz_CebJQxuUE/edit?pli=1

<comment><USER2> I'm very disappointed with Oracle's decision to remove Unsafe. What are they trying to accomplish? They aren't serving anyone by removing it. Who benefits from its removal? What actual user of the JVM or customer of Oracle has ever said "I really like this 10x performance increase from this library that uses Unsafe, but I can't sleep at night thinking my program could seg-fault at any time if something went wrong! Please get rid of Unsafe Oracle! I promise to buy 10x more hardware from you to make up for the difference!"

Java's "write once run anywhere at all costs" philosophy, combined with "be safe at all costs", have kept the JVM locked into server-side Linux applications for a long time, while C# has continued to expand in areas like the mobile space. If it weren't for Java being propped up by Google, Java would hardly exist in the mobile world at all.

C# + the CLR has world class native code integration and escape hatches to drop to unsafe code when performance matters. Java's native integration is absolutely terrible, but at least it had Unsafe, which provided a pragmatic tool for achieving excellent performance on the JVM in a number of scenarios.

Now, look at this comment from an Oracle employee: [http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/openjfx- dev/2015-Apri...](http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/openjfx- dev/2015-April/017028.html)

"Let me be blunt -- sun.misc.Unsafe must die in a fire. It is -- wait for it -- Unsafe. It must go..."

That's some very strong language backed by a simple, ridiculous reason; it's "unsafe". I honestly hope this Oracle employee's ideas die in a fire because they are out of touch with the needs of actual Java programmers, but my hope for that is slim at this point.

<comment><USER3> Did it occur to you at anytime that they might have a replacement for unsafe in the works? I don't get why you think it's so unreasonable for them to replace something they consider "unsafe" with alternate solutions that do they same thing but in a proper and supported manner.

BTW, Java will also get that "world class native code integration" with Project Panama.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This would be a terrible move and will retard the uptake of Java 9. Why not leave it as it is or just repackage it until replacements snake their way through the JSR process and then users can migrate their source.

Java will never bridge the performance gap with C/C++/etc. until it plays nice with modern architectures where being memory cache friendly is vital for performance. Unsafe has been shown to allow orders of magnitude speed improvements for certain tasks.

While I am on the subject could someone explain the point of Jigsaw? It will deliver nothing to current users and why bother with a cutdown Java on small devices these days when the cheapest phone has more power than desktops of 10 years ago? It seems to have consumed enormous resources and caused delays while Java is slipping further behind C# and other modern languages.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps they have something in mind to replace unsafe? Project Valhalla seems to address a lot of the reasons why people use unsafe.

[http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/jvmls2014taylorrose-2...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/jvmls2014taylorrose-2265209.pdf) (Page 40)

There is also PackedObject from IBM. It's an experimental feature in their J9 JVM and it allows improved serialization and I/O of Java objects by allowing direct access to native/off heap data.

[https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/ajax/dow...](https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/ajax/download/c577ef63-62aa-496a-a586-9703a762f306/3e254fbb-82d7-4678-95e5-1f6751e896d8/IBM%20Java%20PackedObjects.pdf)

With the introduction of Valhalla, PackedObject and other technologies I think we'll see the performance gap decrease quite a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this doc editable ? someone deleted the contents :-( Better to pdf it.

<comment><USER6> Or just change permission to "anyone with link can...">View</comment></comment>


Microsoft Throws its Weight Behind Ghost - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/design-startups/e103e33a0fa8 <comment><USER2>
        O'Nolan, a former WordPress project lead himself , opines
        that WordPress has grown up and is no longer really about
        blogs anymore. It's become a full-fledged content
        management system, burdened with a lot of unnecessary
        complexity for those that are just looking to manage a
        blog.

WP is nothing close to a full-fledged content management system, and if it's burdened by anything, it's all the leftover cruft from the days when it _was_ just about blogging.

I use WP every day and I'm really grateful it exists. But from my perspective, the problem is not "WP is so great at content management we need to develop something just about blogging". The problem is "Lots of people have cleverly managed to hack WP into running as a general purpose CMS because there's such a wealth of support, knowledge and extensability surrounding it".

I'be be much more interested in a new modern, flexible CMS built for that purpose from the ground up than I am about a new blogging software.

<comment><USER3> Serious question: Have you used Wordpress before? For what it lacks out-of- the-box 9 times out of 10 exists in the form of a plugin (sometimes multiple plugins). I don't see what Wordpress lacks personally other than a coherent file structure and clean codebase...

 _I 'be be much more interested in a new modern, flexible CMS built for that purpose from the ground up than I am about a new blogging software._

Sounds like you're talking about Drupal here or ExpressionEngine which are both great and well-written content management systems. Wordpress serves many purposes, clean code doesn't matter so much at the end of the day unless you're a code purist who thinks languages and conventions matter if the end product works and is usable.

<comment><USER4> >clean code doesn't matter so much at the end of the day unless you're a code purist

Or you're unlucky enough to have to build a theme/site around wordpress

<comment><USER5> We build hundreds per year. Is it a huge pain in the ass to maintain a theme with 65 plugins that's 3 releases behind? Of course! But hey, that's part of the job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the end, who cares. I'm intrigued by Ghost. I signed up for access ... but I have also been intrigued by the many alternatives to WP out there - Octopress, Squarespace, Kirby, on and on. That's because I'm a hacker. But ... in the end WP is to this space as Excel is the spreadsheets. Its just too good. Has so much to offer. As long as we're talking about presenting html/css/js in a browser for non-dynamic sites, WP pretty much does everything. Its just lost its shiny|new status. Bloat? An easy and convenient insult. Truth is Excel has capabilities I will never use ... but it pleases me to know they are there if/when I need them. What gets lost in the argument that WP is so big, so capable that its not a blog engine anymore but rather a cms, is that it is entirely capable of powering _just your blog_ with a whole bunch of features you won't use. But when you decide to do "X", you can pretty much guarantee you'll find a quality option/extension to handle it. Its interesting to the likes of folks on HN (and I count myself among this crowd) to find new and exciting ways to do things, but if the outcome is the same ... IOW - what is truly different. It can't just be "how", but "why" and "what".

<comment><USER7> My biggest complaint about Wordpress when I first had to mess around with the codebase last year is that it is an exercise in masochism. We've moved to much better tools for HTML templating in the last 10 years, yet WordPress in 2013 is stuck with the most awkward approach I've ever dealt with.

<comment><USER6> "Most awkward"? Really? Its not _nice_ and it definitely carries around some baggage that is a direct result of its evolutionary history, but there is always a way to get what you need. I won't defend its beauty. But i guess my questions to any WP vs. X questions would be - 1. Do you know what you need tomorrow? 2. Are you interested in _getting it done_ or in the elegance of the solution.

<comment><USER8> Why can't you get it done and have an elegant solution? WordPress kinda forces you away from elegant solutions, but other CMSs don't...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TL;DR: a small team at Microsoft (modern.ie) have a site old-ie compatibility scanner that they've written in node and want to integrate into a CMS. This probably isn't a larger strategy or play at Microsoft. It might be a sign of internal change among developers there, which might change their business strategy at some point in the future, but they're definitely don't seem to be "throwing their weight around" just yet.

They already have far larger investments in plenty of other CMSes:

* Sharepoint (the goose that lays the golden eggs),

* Umbraco (which IIRC runs asp.net, iis.net, windowsazure.com, and possibly [parts of] technet and msdn),

* Orchard (which is theirs, albeit through the OuterCurve foundation, which is one of MS' OSS outreaches),

* MCMS (which is horribly old & expensive, but still out there and in use),

* A bunch of internal CMSes, and other stuff that they developed themselves to tie in with backend systems (eg CRM)

Hell, they did more with Oxite before abandoning that than they're planning with Ghost.

Maybe MS as a company want to get more into node, but that doesn't really seem in line with their larger strategy (even though they definitely are starting to embrace OSS more, particularly on the web teams) - so it's probably just likely that one team wanted somewhere that they could test out the library they've written.

<comment><AUTHOR> the plugin wasn't what got them contributor status. The $50K they paid was. Given that accounts for fully 1/4th of the total amount raised.... I'd say its not such a pittance as a plugin.

<comment><USER9> Aah, I didn't see that in the article - I can find a kickstarter post referencing them as a partner, but didn't find anything talking about a 50k figure.

I guess that figure does represent a significant investment (their contributions to other CMSes aside), particularly at the current early stage of Ghost's development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been thinking about what should replace Wordpress in the CMS space (as opposed to blogging). There are a lot of aspects of Wordpress that make it great, and a lot of things that make it absolutely terrible. I think part of its problem is that it seems intended to be a platform that non-developers can maintain themselves, while presenting features that really require a developer. As a result, it is not a suitable environment either for non-coders or coders.

I'd love to see a platform that is easily deployed on shared hosting (written in php, using mysql) but that lends itself better to version control and switching environments. It should keep configuration in plain text instead of in the database, and it should allow easy definition of node types in addition to the standards (post, page, comment, etc.). These should also be defined in plain text instead of in the database (I'm looking at you, Drupal). Meanwhile, theming should be just as easy as with Wordpress.

Anyway, it's good to see others trying to enter the blogging platform space and compete with Wordpress, but I really want to see a truly good CMS come along.

<comment><USER7> Why PHP and MySQL?

JavaScript, since it is the only thing that runs in the browser, is a much better choice since the barrier to building and maintaining a site isn't too far from the reach of a novice because only one Turing complete language is required.

With respect to MySQL. Given what WordPress does today and all the other options out there, is WordPress still the best tool for the job?

Why not Postgres or MariaDB? Or how about NoSQL options? Is there an option which would permit development to be just as easy, but that avoids the security complexity of a database exposed to code injections because it execute arbitrary code snippets?

<comment><USER11> Exactly, a new CMS should drop sequel and move to mongo or a similar document store. Being able to arbitrarily add fields to a page, enabled by a store like mongo seems like a no brainer for a CMS.

<comment><USER12> MongoDB is definitely not a no-brainer - what actual benefit is there to being able to 'arbitrarily add fields to a page'? The whole application layer has to support an arbitrary schema anyways, which is bound to be a security and config nightmare.

<comment><USER13> Look at the mysql schema of a Drupal system. Either you support arbitrary fields at the database level, or you write a ton of extra code (which will have bugs) and piles of support tables on top of your relational database. It's a waste of time and effort and adds unnecessary complexity.

<comment><USER12> I still don't think the correct solution is to just give up on the relational model and store a bunch of denormalized documents. Just because Drupal has technical debt (which is not surprising to me) doesn't mean it's impossible to model a CMS in a relational way. Can you point me to a particular part of Drupal which is well suited to the Mongo document model over relational, versus simply 'well it's relational now and they cocked it up'?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Blogs are way too simple to reinvent every few years. Wordpress is fine. Can't we move on to something more complicated than Blogs and Crud apps?

<comment><USER15> It's just the turn of the wheel. Should Ghost succeed, odds are quite good that in about seven years, you'll be reading about how old and crufty Ghost is, held back by it's aging Node.js platform, and how some new hotness or other is coming along to give you _just_ blogging (or whatever).

To a first approximation, every web project starts life as a "clean, simple X without all that cruft". It is the destiny of most projects to follow that with A: failure or B: becoming the next pile of sludge to inspire a "clean, simple X".

<comment><USER14> This is where statically typed code bases really shine IMHO. I've seen >10 year old Java code bases that are maintainable because of all the automated re-factoring that can be done to clean up naming inconsistencies and deprecate various mistakes. With dynamic languages cruft and little mistakes just keep building up till people give up trying to maintain it and want to start over.

<comment><USER16> Automated refactoring came from dynamic languages. Just because the popular ones lack it doesn't mean it's not done. Smalltalk's refactoring browser works very well.

<comment><USER7> I'm curious how easy it is to build automatic refactoring tools on top of a dynamic language that was not designed to support it, versus a static language that was. I reckon that the formalism enforced by static typing would provide enough vigor to greatly increase the chances that you can bolt on automatic refactoring as an afterthought. My impression is that the SmallTalk designers adopted some automatic refactoring early on because they developed their tools alongside the language and by doing so, the language informed the tools and vice versa.

<comment><USER16> Smalltalk wasn't designed to support it, it's decades older than the concept of automated refactoring. It is much easier to do in static languages, and doing so in dynamic languages requires code analysis at runtime. As it's always runtime in Smalltalk this fits naturally, it wouldn't be so in Ruby or Python where you're working on text files rather than a runtime.

<comment><USER7> Cool. Thanks for the clarification. Language design is something that I'm increasingly taking an interest in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why are we still writing in mark down? Fair enough, as a techie, it's just assumed you will learn another "language" and be productive. But a creative writer shouldn't have to think "how many #'s do I need to press? what's the shortcode for italics?" They just want to be free to create. But they also want to see their masterpiece coming to life in all it's glory.

We've mastered the "Word editor" and it gives immediate feedback without reaching for a reference manual, why would we (inclusive: all writers) take a step backwards?

<comment><USER18> One benefit is that it's portable: your text will be rendered properly with the correct formatting anywhere markdown is supported (github, forum comments, blog post, etc). It essentially frees you from having to worry about layout and visual styling, which shouldn't interfere with the writing process.

<comment><USER19> There's no markdown _standard_ (although I think some implementers were talking about it) beyond the original implementation, some implementations may not even support that I believe _hacker news supports a subset_. It is portable in the sense that you get(probably browser portable) simple html after running it through a probably open source markdown implementation as opposed to complex word formatting formats like odf or docx.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm really excited for Ghost for the simple reason that it's written in Node. That means if this really takes off there will be pluggable modules that can do anything that you'd like without adding to the code base. I think it would make a lot of sense if the core team doesn't add much to the initial code base and rather iterates on the UI right and works on growing the community because that is what is going to make the project take off.

Really smart move by Microsoft, if for no other reason than tons of people are going to be saying "wait, whut, where do I install this?" soon and if deployment is first class to Azure at least they'll have a lot of new people in the door.

Also I think there's plenty of room for evolution in blogging. There are so many places that we create content now whether it be audio, photos, video or microblogging and there isn't a widely used way of curating your online self at all of these mediums. My personal website is on Syte ([https://github.com/rigoneri/syte](https://github.com/rigoneri/syte)) for this very reason that it displays my social network content next to my blog posts in a way that is more coherent than just a widget.

</comment><comment><USER21> "Compared to WordPress's bulky editor and aging PHP code base, the difference is striking."

Well established product versus something that has not been around awhile. It has nothing to do with the language the code was written in, it is a product with a past versus a new product that has learned from preceding projects.

</comment><comment><USER22> "an ease to writing that makes it pleasant to compose text formatted for the web...Compared to WordPress's bulky editor and aging PHP code base, the difference is striking."

I don't know anything about WordPress's bulky editor, but how does the code base have any relevance to front end usability?

<comment><USER23> Was thinking the same. I can see what they might be getting at if you compare Wordpress + mods vs clean Ghost. I doubt once considered fully featured that Ghost would be so much more efficient as to make it a key point of differentiation, for the average small blogger anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I backed Ghost on Kickstarter and I really like the idea of an ultra simple platform. I have had blogs for years on Tumblr and Blogger, but I'd certainly be open to using Nolan's work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Same. Looking forward to getting beta access in a couple of weeks. I built a little solar powered raspberry pi node box that'd certainly benefit from a little node-based blog :-D

<comment><USER25> I'm looking forward to getting the BETA as well. I have been e-stalking this project :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This already exists today: no need for funding, no need for self hosting, Microsoft is not involved in any way, beautiful typography, local storage for writing, nice profiles, stories ranking, a responsive design, made by a designer who writes code. An export to Jekyll feature is coming soon, so you can take the markdown documents to any other platform or just make a blog out of it.

Give it a try: [http://markdawn.com/](http://markdawn.com/)

<comment><USER27> Excuse me, but what exactly is this supposed to be? I took about 5 minutes to figure out the UI, there are bugs with logging back in after (accidentally) logging out, and it throws what I write in some kind of global timeline thing?

EDIT Not to mention the fact that I WANT to self-host!

<comment><USER26> It isn't ready for a "show HN". Global timeline is there for getting exposure. It looks intimidating now, but it shouldn't. Thanks for trying it!

Self-hosting and updating an entire web app is not very realistic these days, but exporting in a ready to deploy site is a feature I'm thinking about. It isn't implemented yet.

I don't want this to have a private mode, everything is public. You can't guarantee privacy these days. My target is more towards what Medium and Svtble are doing, than WordPress.

<comment><USER27> >Self-hosting and updating an entire web app is not very realistic these days, but exporting in a ready to deploy site is a feature I'm thinking about. It isn't implemented yet.

Ah, now I get it. That _would_ be a nice feature.

>I don't want this to have a private mode, everything is public.

Is there a preview functionality? If not, that would be an important feature.

>You can't guarantee privacy these days

That's true, but you can still give users a little privacy if you want to. I personally wouldn't want to write on that platform without a drafts/preview folder, but that might just be me.

<comment><USER26> Not sure if you're still interested in the project. But there's an update:

1\. Export was implemented. You get a nice ZIP archive with all your .md documents.

2\. Regarding preview/drafts — there's one draft which is saved locally on the user machine. You start writing and it's saved automatically.

3\. There's a new modern design and profile activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> What happens when the blogs that inevitably grow bigger than a platform need to turn into a community and something more? Surely just a blogging platform will not suffice.

How many people actually use Wordpress for just a blog, anyway? This is all reminiscent of the early blogging platforms that did one thing well but in reality most people need more than that one thing if it's something more than an area to post personal musings.

<comment><USER29> if all you need is a place to post personal musings, Jekyll is really al you need. the missing piece then is just a good WYSIWYG markdown editor.

<comment><USER8> Maybe.

I've been using a host of static site generators for about a year now, and for the less serious blog they seem to get in the way. I'd prefer to have everything online, accessible from any computer with an internet connection. Posting quick, little thoughts is not something Jekyll or other static site generators do well.

For the more serious blog, which has infrequent and longer posts, I really like the static site generator, because it lets me keep everything together and easily deal with it locally.

<comment><USER30> This weekend I've been playing with Kirby. It's a static site generator powered by PHP that runs on Markdown powered text files _but_ it also has an optional control panel for editing posts if you need that.

<comment><USER8> I looked at Kirby. My problem is I don't really want to pay for it. Were I to pay, I'd probably go with Statamic, which is similar to Kirby, but looks nicer.

Mostly I don't want to pay because I like the idea of open source, and having the ability to submit a fix if I find a bug appeals to me. And partially because I'm cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wordpress is plug and play on almost any webhost out there (some even have installers for it). Ghost is node.js which is barely supported by webhosting companies (you will most likely need a VPS or some specific node.js HaaS, at least).

Will this not be a huge barrier to achieve the same traction Wordpress has?

</comment><comment><USER32> I actually think that if a project like Ghost becomes really popular it is almost guaranteed to end up with a full scale plugin system and therefore become a type of operating system despite what the founder thinks about that.

I think we do need something with an updated stack that has capabilities somewhat like WordPress. Here is an idea that I started on a while back. (Obviously not very pretty and needs a lot of refinement.) [http://vimeo.com/43784316](http://vimeo.com/43784316)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you can believe it, this story was originally pitched to ReadWrite. They rejected it and instead ran 10 stories about the new iPhone that day. The following link is a pic of the analytics stats on this article from today. Thanks guys, over 9000 thanks to you :-)

[http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5511/9769041391_c52d600437_o.p...](http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5511/9769041391_c52d600437_o.png)

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm curious how many folks have issues with WordPress from a pure user / author perspective so outside of how the code is written or a site is installed Also what are your thoughts on how responsive Automattic are to user feedback for publishers?

<comment><USER8> I've found that since WordPress switched to the current sidebar navigation over the old one (the four main headings, of which _Write_ was first, iirc) it's a pain to write blog posts.

I'm also not a fan of the large number of additional options available for posts. I'd rather have zero options, just write text and hit post. I understand why it has all of the options, but I'm partial to simpler systems that do one thing really well, as opposed to big systems (like WP) that do lots of things acceptably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why ghost? Not PHP & MySQL. Why MS + ghost? Services in Azure. Node is already there.

</comment><comment><USER35> Great, but why can't we download it yet?

<comment><USER36> Because they promised early beta access to Kickstarter backers. The lowest tier of rewarded backers gets access within the next week, and the codebase will be open to everyone some indeterminate short amount of time after that. I'd be surprised if it the delay was more than a month or so.

<comment><USER27> That is good to hear because this one looks pretty great and I was downright annoyed when I found out it were not out yet.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: JSPerf – Create, Share and Benchmark JavaScript Snippets - <AUTHOR> http://jsperf.hasharray.pw/ <comment><AUTHOR> Before anyone asks why not just use jsperf.com, it has been down for over a year now and Mathias have indicated that he doesn't want to bother with it.

Implementation wise, this is built with Jekyll coupled with a bot "@Postbot" on GitHub, which is to be released soon (TM).

Also on a local branch is a benchmark runner which uses Sauce Labs and generates samples using their browser matrix. Not yet decided If i'll run with that or just let users do the sampling.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note: Empty, nonsense submissions will just be deleted.</comment>


Ask HN: Does my website properly represent me (through the eyes of an employer)? - <AUTHOR>

I just completely changed the layout of my website and tried to revamp it a little. I added some jQuery and made it nice and simple (I like simple).
If you were an employer, what would my site "tell" you about me? Does it look good on my part for having a nice (or ugly, please tell me) website that I took the time to create? Do employers usually look for more in terms of representation and community involvement (see my "Online" section)?
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'm still an undergrad enrolled in a COOP/Internship program (Computer Engineering), so while this isn't super important (not "in" the job market) I would like to have a head start.
Website: http://maxmackie.com
That's the URL up there. Thanks for your help. <comment><USER2> Assorted comments:

Introduction (above photo): try to fit some "do" words ("free thinker"..."reading"..."fan of"...). I figured you'd want mail to [max] at domain, which seemed unlikely. Why not set up a max at maxmackie address as well? If nothing else, Google Apps makes this cheap.

"Projects": link to institum is broken

"Resume": where is the PDF you talk about?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. I fixed the link (didn't notice that) and seeing as I'm still in the works of a pdf version of my resume, I said so on the site.

What do you mean by "do" words?

Also, I'm thinking of also setting up a mailserver on maxmackie.com so that won't be a problem in the future.

<comment><USER2> "Do" words: "created", "made", "wrote", "organized". You only need a Tux t-shirt to call yourself a Linux fan...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodie#United_Kingdom>

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, that's amazing. I didn't even know they had a negative connotation in the UK. I'll try and get a better picture up there in the time being.

Thanks for your tip!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Zzzz ... more cowbell!</comment>


In Japan, Geocities lives on - <AUTHOR> http://geocities.yahoo.co.jp

<comment><USER2> Huh. I wonder what kept it alive over there.

<comment><USER3> This does it for me.

[http://www.geocities.jp/lledoece/nanaca- crash.html](http://www.geocities.jp/lledoece/nanaca-crash.html)</comment></comment>


Prank leaves Justin Bieber facing tour of North Korea - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10506482.stm

<comment><USER2> Nice Kim Jong-il photo caption in article:

"It is not known if Kim Jong-il is a fan of Justin Bieber's music"</comment>


Objective-C is a Piece of Shit - <AUTHOR> http://www.emadibrahim.com/2013/02/21/objective-c-is-a-piece-of-shit/ <comment><USER2> Two of the three examples are pure C and the other one is needlessly verbose (and also invalid, but that's neither here nor there). Here's a more concise version:

      CIContext *context = [CIContext contextWithOptions:
          @{ kCIContextUseSoftwareRenderer : @YES }];
      CIImage *ciImage = [[CIImage alloc] initWithCGImage: cgImage];

      CIFilter *hueAdjustFilter = [CIFilter filterWithName:@"CIHueAdjust"];
      [hueAdjustFilter setValuesForKeysWithDictionary: @{ @"something" : @(3.0 * M_PI),
                                                          @"inputImpage" : ciImage }];
      CIFilter *colorControlsFilter = [CIFilter filterWithName:@"CIColorControls"];
      [hueAdjustFilter setValuesForKeysWithDictionary: @{ @"something" : @1.3,
                                                          @"somethingElse" : @0.3,
                                                          @"inputImage" : ciImage }];

      ciImage = [colorControlsFilter valueForKey:@"outputImage"];
      [context createCGImage: ciImage fromExtent: [ciImage extent]];

Unsurprisingly, concise code doing a simple task is about the same length in both languages.

<comment><USER3> I have to say, concise doesn't necessarily imply "idiomatic" or "expressive". I have to take your word for that example being concise, because that looks like jumble code to me (specially with the weird indentation and long method names that plague the library.)

<comment><USER2> > _I have to take your word for that example being concise, because that looks > like jumble code to me_

Well, it was off-the-cuff and written in a browser window to match the other guy's code, so it's probably not the prettiest thing I've ever written, but I don't think it's that bad. But I'm going to guess that you don't do a lot of Cocoa programming. If that's the case, I suppose we can headline this story "Person has minor difficulty reading code in language he doesn't know well."

I know I had trouble reading Objective-C before I learned it. It looks a lot different from other things.

> _weird indentation_

It doesn't look that weird to me, but of course "weird" is a matter of what you're used to. There are some stylistic things that are more or less "enforced" about Objective-C, but indentation isn't one of them. If you prefer something different, you can indent it differently in your code. It doesn't make a bit of difference.

> _long method names that plague the library_

I understand how you feel, but I'm pretty well convinced that descriptive method names are not necessarily a bad thing. One of the benefits of Objective-C is that once you know the language and your standard framework, it's usually exceptionally easy open up somebody else's codebase (or my own 10 months later…) and follow what's happening. In another language you'll need to jump around to definitions to see what arguments do, while in Objective-C it's always right there. And if you do know the codebase, skimming over the long method names isn't really a problem in practice.

What's next, we're going to complain that somebody's repo is "plagued with unit tests"?

<comment><USER3> I wasn't criticizing your code, per-se.

I did fair bit of Smalltalk development back in school, so I know exactly where Obj-C/Cocoa naming conventions and 'message' syntax comes from. The problem is this: that naming convention doesn't make any sense in a statically typed language. It made sense in Smalltalk because the parameters sent to a message could be anything. It was a convention to avoid common erros. In Obj-C, on the other hand, it doesn't make any sense. Sure, it might sound like saying "message withBananaParameter: banana andCoconutParameter: coconut" is clearer and 'self documenting', but it's a waste of your time typing it (even when you use autocomplete) and the compiler parsing it. Let alone people reading your code in the future.

The indentation is arguable. I don't know whether that's the standard or not, but I dislike the fact that you are pushing stuff to the right, basically forcing yourself to break the parameter list a lot because you get closer to the "right margin". It looks like that indentation convention was specifically invented to make long parameters list _harder to read_ (ironically, considering long parameter lists are an artifact of Smalltalk-like message/parameter convention.)

I've programmed in a bunch of languages and platforms over the yeas, and only three languages always keep bugging me when reading them: Obj-C (specially Cocoa code), Perl and very complex Javascript. There's something about them that just feels off.

<comment><USER4> Since Obj-C messaging supports duck typing, I'm not sure I understand the argument you're making against the syntax.

<comment><USER2> I believe dguaraglia is talking about the types of arguments, which are often included in the method name. So you get things like [guy eatFood:food withHand:hand usingEatingStyle:eatingStyle]. Overall, it lends itself to exceptionally long lines of code, such that Objective-C message sends are often broken into multiple lines with lots of info on the right side of the window. For example, instead of:

      NSWindow *window = [[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect:(NSRect)contentRect styleMask:(NSUInteger)windowStyle backing:(NSBackingStoreType)bufferingType defer:(BOOL)deferCreation screen:(NSScreen *)screen];

people will often write write:

      NSWindow *window = [[NSWindow alloc] initWithContentRect: desiredRect
                                                     styleMask: windowStyle
                                                       backing: NSBackingStoreBuffered
                                                         defer: YES
                                                        screen: [NSScreen mainScreen]];

The length of the selector requires us to choose how we're going to write this line of code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The first thing you need to learn is the difference between Objective-C and C.

The second thing you need to learn is the difference between a language and an API.

</comment><comment><USER6> Objective-C is a very verbose language. However, the author seems to be intentionally not using any of the features that Apple has built into LLVM that makes it more concise particularly the "dot syntax" which gives Objective-C the ability to call methods and set properties much like C# or Java does.

Additionally, 90% of the code shown here is old C APIs. You will never hear a Cocoa developer defend those. They're particularly frustrating to work with, but have nothing to do with Objective-C the language.

<comment><USER2> You couldn't use dot syntax here AFAIK, as these aren't declared properties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have to admit, most of these seem like the author has little understanding of Cocoa or Objective-C. The first example is fairly verbose, though that's pretty typical of Cocoa in some cases. The second example is just plain strange considering one could just as easily do "NSDictionary *dict = @{ key: value, ... };" (which is backwards since it's just syntactic sugar for another method of creating an immutable dictionary) and spare themselves the direct use of Core Foundation types. The third example isn't even Obj-C and more or less cements my opinion that the author hasn't got a clue what he or she is talking about.

So, overall, this just comes across as hyperbolic and silly. It's cute and I'm sure the author felt smart by making this an image (why is it an image?), but it's mostly devoid of substance.

</comment><comment><USER8> Two of the examples aren't even Objective-C...

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, first of all most of that code is straight C. Anybody can create a simple package to make 5 lines 1 line if you only want it to do one thing.

Weak sauce. This is just a marketing attempt.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Brilliant," thought Ender, "Eibrahim was able to distill Drama without using Sexism or Rails. He might even be able to submit a 'white' paper to a Ruby conference!"

</comment><comment><USER11> Be positive! Say "C# is much better than Objective-C (with examples)"!

<comment><USER12> Haha, but this title is much more funny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here is a more modern example of objective-c... Though, this seems more a critique of the APIs?

<http://i.imgur.com/XVtUuWH.png>

<comment><USER13> Objective C is on the left, C# on the right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Objective-C now has syntax for dictionary literals. Use it.

</comment><comment><USER15> 500\. cache -

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.e...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.emadibrahim.com%2F2013%2F02%2F21%2Fobjective- c-is-a-piece-of-shit%2F&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en- US:official&client=firefox-a)

</comment><comment><USER16> The post is pretty much just an image. It's slow on the cache and throwing a 500 error.

Here's a mirror of the image that is the body of the post:

<http://i.imgur.com/DAgq7To.jpg>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here... wow... people are calling me an idiot on twitter <https://twitter.com/0xSina/status/304657083435991041> and my blog server is crashing... easy people, I am not making fun of your mother, it's just a programming language...

I am all about learning new languages. I love c#, python, ruby and javascript... But objective-c has to be one of the most verbose language out there and is syntacticly fugly...

When I programmed in python after 15 years of .net/c-type languages, I picked it up in 1 day. It was simple and beautiful. The same for ruby... But obj-c, after 2 weeks of using it, I find myself hating it more and more every day...

chill out people...

PS: the image on my blog s from <http://xamarin.com/how-it-works>

<comment><USER7> The problem people have with this is not that you're complaining about Obj-C's verbosity -- this is a well-known complaint and something anyone using it will probably agree with. The problem is that you've just displayed a fundamental lack of understanding of 1) the difference between Obj-C and Cocoa (seems the Xamarin folks are just as guilty here, which is odd), 2) the difference between Obj-C and C, and 3) the difference between Cocoa, Core Foundation, and other frameworks. In reality, only one of your examples is Objective-C while the rest are C, and you didn't even handle the Objective-C or C cases as well as you could have, so it does make you look like an idiot. Either way, you learn from it and the 'net will forget you within an hour, so it's not a huge issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> They are NOT MY EXAMPLES man... It's a screenshot from <http://xamarin.com/how-it-works> and YES I have TOTAL LACK of understanding of obj-c... My entire experience with it is less than 4 weeks. But so is my experience with python - which I instantly loved.

<comment><USER7> Chill out, manbrodude. Just learn from your mistake. It's not like you're being crucified, just being called out for perpetuating something stupid and being misinformed. If you're concerned about your appearance, maybe pull the post, but a better thing to spend your time on would be learning how to use Obj-C so you don't write terrible code like the Xamarin folks. Live and learn, as it were.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am chill :)... Mastering/learning obj-c is on my todo list. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you used literals, the obj-c examples would be way less verbose.

</comment><comment><USER18> Since you decided to use emotional language in your title, I'll fire back: you're an idiot.

Yes, if you deliberately set out to write bad code (CFDictionaryCreate instead of @{}? Come _on_.) then you can make a language look really bad. This should surprise nobody.

I'm afraid that, while you may have attempted to make ObjC look bad, you simply managed to make yourself look bad.

</comment><comment><USER19> > Internal Server Error

So is your web server.

</comment><comment><USER20> The title made me LOL so bad

</comment><comment><USER21> Same lines of code if you NSAttributedString (iOS6) instead of plain Core Text C API for second example.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you like HN's new button style? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> What new button style?

What has changed?

The only button I ever see is the add comment button. Did that change?

<comment><AUTHOR> the add comment button style has changed. At least on Chrome.

<comment><USER3> You're observing the effects of this: [https://blog.chromium.org/2020/03/updates-to-form- controls-a...](https://blog.chromium.org/2020/03/updates-to-form-controls-and- focus.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Which button has changed?

</comment><comment><USER5> Huh? Waddya talkin' about?</comment>


The Boy Who Loved Transit - <AUTHOR> http://blog.longreads.com/2015/05/05/the-boy-who-loved-transit/

<comment><USER2> This is fascinating, wonderful, and tragic story, brilliantly told.

Would it would make sense to treat crimes in which there is no victim differently from others?

</comment><comment><USER3> I hope the world changes soon, so that those of us who are different do not suffer from these conditions.</comment>


Milwaukee protocol (treating rabies without the vaccine) - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee_protocol

<comment><USER2> Until I heard about this (previously), I had no idea that the rabies survival rate was 0. That's seriously insane.</comment>


Antarctica: McMurdo research station is looking for a Systemadministrator - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/16/looking_for_sysadmin_work_like_travel_dont_mind_cold_have_we_got_the_job_for_you/ <comment><USER2> If you're really curious about what goes on down there, you should read the works of Nick Johnson, author of the "Big Dead Place" blog and a subsequent book.

[http://feralhouse.com/big-dead-place/](http://feralhouse.com/big-dead-place/)

The blog is off line (might be on archive.org), and Johnson sadly took his own life in 2012.

[http://feralhouse.com/nick-johnson-rip/](http://feralhouse.com/nick-johnson- rip/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is kinda awesome. I'd be tempted if I didn't already have a great new job. Being from Chicago, how bad an Antarctica really be?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you run into problems with your linux machines, you can grab the next penguin for help.

There's probably no reliable internet connection in Antarctica and delivering spare parts takes months. I'm pretty sure it's a nearly impossible job for most system administrators.

<comment><USER4> All internet is via satellite. There's the commercial links that are mostly for bulk data. Most email is over a set of multiplexed satellite phones.</comment></comment></comment>


MongooseIM 2.1.0beta1 what happens when you give your team freedom - <AUTHOR> https://www.erlang-solutions.com/blog/mongooseim-2-1-0beta1-what-happens-when-you-give-your-team-freedom.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone!

We are proud of this first beta before 2.1.0.

It contains very useful stuff:

* Push notifs:

      * XEP-0357, and a very new standalone open source push notification server, MongoosePush

      * Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service)

* Full text search for MAM (Message Archive Management, XEP-0313)

* Continuous Load Testing

* Pipelining for faster reconnections

* Erlang distribution over TLS

Plus contributions by @astro, @aszlig!

The "MongooseIM Platform" welcomes a new server-side component: MongoosePush. It is in Elixir, it is open source.

Still a very strong focus on code quality and performance, mobile features, and this time a new component (Push) in Elixir!</comment>


Towards Near-Imperceptible Steganographic Text - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.06679 <comment><USER2> Near imperceptible? 99% secure is 100% insecure.

<comment><USER3> I bet you don't have a lock on your front door either. Besides you need incremental increases to ever be able to reach 100% security. If you shoot every single idea down because it's not 100% secure you will not get anywhere.

<comment><USER4> This is what is frustrating about the cryptographic community. People should not be discouraged to try new algos and techniques otherwise how is anyone new that isn't already 'in the club' to gain knowledge? Of course new developments need to be audited and peer-reviewed but this sort of immediate dismissal is not constructive.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is one discontinued product that you miss? - <AUTHOR>

What product(s) that are discontinued do you miss the most? (ex : Google feed reader, Diggit, etc) <comment><USER2> FoxBase +/Mac - before MS got their mitts on this was sooo versatile and fun. Even at 1mb.

ClarisWorks/AppleWorks - Before Apple got their mitts on it again.

Print Shop Deluxe Mac 68k - Remember when it could export AI/EPS?

Kooka - that project died with KDE 3(along with many other mature ones), still waiting for another as-friendly scan/OCR solution for Linux.

AfterDark screensavers - Loved staring at those screensavers..

Whole slew of Commodore/Amiga, etc games... Playing them on an emulator just isnt the same.

</comment><comment><USER3> Google Reader, for me and my friends it was the perfect combination of information sharing and social commenting.

<comment><USER4> [http://Newsblur.com](http://Newsblur.com) and if it ever shuts down you can just run your own instance @ [https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur](https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur) ;-)

<comment><USER5> Definitely! I signed up only a few days after Reader shutdown, became a paying customer and haven't looked back since. It gets better and better all the time, especially the mobile apps.

Samuel posts on here too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pudding Pops:

[http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/27800000/Jell-O- Puddi...](http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/27800000/Jell-O-Pudding-Pops- whatever-happened-to-27859740-309-339.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER7> DabbleDB

</comment><comment><USER8> wordstar</comment>


Is the Web heading toward redirect hell? - <AUTHOR> http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/09/22/is-the-web-heading-toward-redirect-hell/

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, as long as the result arrives quickly, many users won't know or care. As request/response time goes down via faster processing/faster networking, there will be more room for more redirects, if desired. It is a problem, and it may be a hell, but if users accept it, it will happen.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can use a Chrome extension, "Chrome URL Expander", to always see the underlying links. I've always assumed the underlying expansion services never resolve a URL more than once, but don't know for sure.</comment>


Study contradicts common practice of tailgating at traffic lights - <AUTHOR> https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2017/11/trafficlighttailgating.html <comment><AUTHOR> I heard about this study on the podcast Curiosity Daily[0] and found it interesting as I was sure that keeping the small distance possible from the next car would be better to cross the stop light faster. Anyway, I always find this kind of "daily life science" amusing, as sometimes they can be applied in real situations (like this one), or just to satisfy our curiosity about things.

[0][https://curiositydaily.com/censoring-information- backfires-s...](https://curiositydaily.com/censoring-information-backfires- social-medias-mental-health-benefits-and-tailgating-myths/)

</comment><comment><USER2> In a city with a lot of traffic, more space between cars stopped at the light means that the line of cars may be more likely to be blocking the previous intersection.

<comment><USER3> Or blocking a turn lane. My thoughts exactly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Might work best when drivers are not staring at their smartphone while waiting.</comment>


About security updates and repository "lockdown" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hagander.net/archives/212-About-security-updates-and-repository-lockdown.html?ref=twitter <comment><USER2> I've been impressed by the humility displayed in the announcements about this lockdown. There is no marketing BS or developer know-it-all here.

<comment><USER3> Yeah exactly, although its being met with slightly noisy press coverage which is counterproductive past a certain point. Ideally the time spent on this blog post shouldnt have been needed.

I guess there's still a positive to the weirdly over the top press coverage - and that is that more people are in a position to adopt these patches as they're released.

Full marks either way to the PostgreSQL project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While it is certainly logical to withhold access to this information, it stands to reason that in case this information is released to the public through other means then it would be very troublesome for them.

</comment><comment><USER5> This blog post implies that the vulnerability can be affected by your environment. Hopefully that means it's related to authentication somehow, and not some encoding or escaping flaw in queries themselves.

</comment><comment><USER6> > We are not going to permanently hide any information, or try to obfuscate > the contents of security patches ( _cough_ unlike some other players in the > field)

what is it referring to?

</comment><comment><USER7> Yeah, let's announce to the world REALLY LOUD that now is the time for blackhats to either hack into our servers or bribe some our developers to give them source code.

Genius!

In other words, the issue is that these guys are too stupid to make the git repository used in the build infrastructure be configurable (so they could build packages from a separate private one...), and also too stupid to at least lie claiming the servers went down instead of announcing their stupidity.

Hopefully the database is written by a different set of people than the ones doing system administration.</comment>


Police Brutality Bonds: How Wall Street Profits from Police Violence - <AUTHOR> https://charleshamiltonhouston.org/research/police-brutality-bonds-wall-street-profits-police-violence/ <comment><USER2> "Okay this state had to pay a total of $200 million to the families of people who successfully sued for wrongful death."

What's the solution? If the state can't afford $200 million, and it can't raise taxes without legislature or voters, it has to either (a) borrow $200 million or (b) cut spending for something else by $200 million.

If you borrow $200 million, whoever's lending you $200 million will want some interest. If you make some sort of law that you can't charge interest for money you loan to states to make these payments, nobody will want to lend money to states in this situation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wall street would profit from police restraint too. Wall street's just really good at profiting from things. Let's not distract from the issue.

</comment><comment><USER4> Had to jump through two useless posts to get to the actual pdf report here. [https://acrecampaigns.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/04/PoliceB...](https://acrecampaigns.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/04/PoliceBrutalityBonds-Jun2018.pdf)

This should just link to the pdf directly.

<comment><USER5> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wanted to ask people. I've no idea about politics, and don't want to take thread off topic.... but:

Is fear a major reason for violent police actions?

If I was repeatedly afraid someone might shoot, or I'd come to expect this, I'm sure I would begin to lash out irrationally

I'm not remotely defending anything, and as I say, I don't understand

In almost all the countries I've lived in people are simply not allowed to carry weapons, and so similarly police are equally 'unweaponized'

So again, apologies, but wanted to express the thought:

The root cause of the violence is maybe the fear

And _a_ root cause of that is maybe the prevalence of weapons creating a _potential_ for violence

If I were to guess (from my complete lack of experience and evidence based on the media!! So my guess is fairly invalid), but still, my guess is that this fear undercurrent would also destroy society, not just police relations; it would also lead to pockets with cycles of poverty and brokenness

Again apologies for making suggestions in a place where I don't have experience to comment. But let me still ask: is this suggestion reasonable, or even helpful?

<comment><USER3> Yes, the proportion of people killed by police broadly matches the rate at which people who look like them commit violent crimes in their area. This doesn't excuse police misbehavior and brutality, but is a simple observation.

[https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2019/the-truth-behind- racial-d...](https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2019/the-truth-behind-racial- disparities-in-fatal-police-shootings/)

[https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/16/1903856116](https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/07/16/1903856116)

> Our data show that the rate of crime by each racial group correlates with > the likelihood of citizens from that racial group being shot. If you live in > a county that has a lot of white people committing crimes, white people are > more likely to be shot. If you live in a county that has a lot of black > people committing crimes, black people are more likely to be shot. It is the > best predictor we have of fatal police shootings."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If enough protests go on for long enough, there will be a much worse recession. Hard to profit off of that

<comment><USER8> The richest before will still be the richest after the recession. The profit will come later.

Also, they're making profit right now. Someone's producing all that cool military tech that's going to be demonstrated in short order.

Not sure how true it is but I saw a reddit comment that the stingrays are already deployed and predator drones are flying above Washington.</comment></comment>


Voters say "yes" to city-run broadband in Colorado - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/voters-reject-cable-lobby-misinformation-campaign-against-muni-broadband/ <comment><USER2> Whenever this happens - and it happens a lot - Comcast & Co just goes up a level to the state legislature and has them outlaw municipal broadband:

[https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/08/28/15404/how-big- tel...](https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/08/28/15404/how-big-telecom- smothers-city-run-broadband)

Can't they just do the same thing in Colorado?

<comment><AUTHOR> Theoretically, yes. In fact, Senate Bill 152, passed in 2005, already outlaws municipal broadband. From the article:

 _Colorado has a state law requiring municipalities to hold referendums before they can provide cable, telecom, or broadband service. Yesterday, voters in Eagle County and Boulder County authorized their local governments to build broadband networks, "bringing the total number of Colorado counties that have rejected the state law to 31—nearly half of the state's 64 counties," Motherboard wrote today._

As far as I know, there have been attempts to make it impossible for a community to opt-out, but nothing's been successful yet. In fact, most recently, it looks like the tide has been turning in favor of repealing the ban state-wide (which wouldn't be surprising considering the 31 counties that have already opted out). Here's a bit more info:

[https://co-wa.org/2017/01/26/senate-bill-152-primer/](https://co- wa.org/2017/01/26/senate-bill-152-primer/)

<comment><USER3> What a sad, sad world we live in where a corporation can come in and use legislation to be obviously anti-competitive. What would the world do if comcast or a group of content owners tried to sue netflix out of existence because their business model threatened the incumbents? There'd be pandemonium.

<comment><USER4> > What a sad, sad world we live in where a corporation can come in and use > legislation to be obviously anti-competitive.

If we actually had reasonable competition among local broadband (e.g. everyone in the country had a choice of at least 2-3 reasonable options, and DSL does not count as "reasonable" anymore), then I'd actually call the introduction of a government-backed option "anti-competitive", because how can any private ISP compete with that? A government-run ISP gives itself inherent anti-competitive boosts that it doesn't give anyone else.

However, in the world we have, where many people don't have enough reasonable choices to allow for actual competition among ISPs, municipal broadband seems like a perfectly reasonable response. In which case, rather than attempting to quash it, I'd rather see communities lay the fiber and then allow private ISPs to be the ones to light it up and provide bandwidth from the nearest meet-me room.

<comment><USER5> You can't simultaneously advocate for superior free-market solutions and then complain when the government outcompetes the private sector.

<comment><USER4> I can when the government gives itself advantages that it doesn't give the private sector, like subsidies, taxes (paid whether you use the service or not), and regulatory exceptions.

<comment><USER6> > subsidies, […] regulatory exceptions

Amazon just had a big contest on subsidies and the only exceptional thing about it was how brazen they were about it. Regulatory exceptions often are part of such deals.

> taxes (paid whether you use the service or not)

Monopolists call that "bundling". For example co-financing internet service by requiring you also pay for phone service.

The main difference is that a public service doesn't need to have profit maximizing as its primary goal.

<comment><USER7> _Monopolists call that "bundling". For example co-financing internet service by requiring you also pay for phone service._

No. Bundling means the product I want becomes more expensive, and therefore less competitive. Taxes means I have to pay for the product in any case, removing any competitive pressure.

 _The main difference is that a public service doesn 't need to have profit maximizing as its primary goal._

Neither does a company, that's a myth. Plus, non-profits and coops exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Keep your powder dry, Coloradians. COMCAST is like some non-giving up cable guy who simply won't let citizens determine their own fate when there is oodles of money to be made from them instead. Prepare for them to come back through the rear door, bribing the legislature and congress to enact laws that restrict the practice just approved.

<comment><USER9> Maybe it's just me, but the right thing for Comcast to do is try to provide a better product. Competition is healthy, legislation is illness.

<comment><USER10> You can't "compete" with a municipal service. How many competing options do you have for your water or sewer or trash pickup? It's a reasonable argument that broadband should be provided municipally. But cloaking it in the guise of "competition" is disingenuous.

<comment><USER11> > You can't "compete" with a municipal service.

Sure you can.

The inherent costs to provide services is similar, but Comcast can amortize costs over a larger customer base. If Comcast is at all competent (a huge if!) then they should have overall lower costs, even taking (probably reduced) profits into account.

Customer service needs to be provided, a mailing center to send out hardware, a billing system, technicians and installers need to be trained and dispatched, payroll for all said employees, and all the other costs of running a business that should, in theory, scale to Comcast's advantage.

And of course Comcast can offer quicker upgrades in service. By bringing resources to bear, they should be able to iterate on technology faster than a municipal provider can.

Comcast also has the advantages of bundling services, another way to recoup costs and compete vs the municipal provided service.

A well ran national company with should be able to put up one heck of a good free market fight going up against a municipality. The real question becomes, is Comcast able to put up that fight?

<comment><USER12> Municipal services usually don't have to turn a profit, since they can make up the shortfall with tax revenue. You're missing that crucial point. You can't effectively compete against someone who can operate at a loss in perpetuity.

I don't know what the specifics are in this case, but if they allow the municipal service to be funded by tax revenue, then it's incredibly unfair.

<comment><USER11> > Municipal services usually don't have to turn a profit, since they can make > up the shortfall with tax revenue. You're missing that crucial point. You > can't effectively compete against someone who can operate at a loss in > perpetuity.

This is more of a problem of how things look like they are funded.

Customers still pay the same price, but instead of $60 for Internet service, it may be $50 for Internet and $10 somewhere else. Or of course the city can tax the heck out of one subgroup of people and redistribute the funds.

I'd actually be OK-ish with a law saying that municipal broadband has to be self funded after initial rollout, I imagine that would maintain sufficient competition.

<comment><USER12> > _Customers still pay the same price, but instead of $60 for Internet > service, it may be $50 for Internet and $10 somewhere else. Or of course the > city can tax the heck out of one subgroup of people and redistribute the > funds._

No, in your scenario, customers pay $50, and EVERYONE pays $10, including those who use a private competitor.

The customers of a private competitor that also gets $60 of revenue per customer, would actually be paying $70. $60 for their own service, and $10 to subsidize the municipal service.

And even if you have some magic source of tax revenue that is not the citizens (or heavily tax some subgroup as you suggest), the municipal service is still charging $10 less to get the same revenue as the private service.

<comment><USER11> > No, in your scenario, customers pay $50, and EVERYONE pays $10, including > those who use a private competitor.

That is why I proposed the municipal broadband system be self funding, preventing any market distortion.

I admit I wasn't clear about it, and you are correct that in a scenario of anything other than 100% of the population switching over to the municipal provider, a subsidy effect does occur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm failing to think of a single reason why it would ever be legally acceptable for a government to ban municipal broadband. I understand the whole corporate shill stuff, I'm speaking literally from the arguments FOR the ban...how is it justified at all?

<comment><USER14> I'm playing Devil's advocate here, but if you believe in a strong free-market with a minimal state then you could argue that the government should not be providing a service that private individuals could provide. Now I think most people are more pragmatic and say "whatever get's the job done," but that's the reason why some people are against many municipal services, including broadband.

<comment><USER15> As someone else pointed out in the comments, then why not have the city put the fiber in the ground, but let private ISPs run the network devices and ISP stuff (ie: a bit similar to TekSavvy in Canada which uses other ISP's infrastructure - I assume they use more than just the fiber though)

<comment><USER16> The real free market maniacs, don't want the government involved _at all_ , in anything, in any way whatsoever. Private streets, private pipes, private prisons, private judiciary system, private police...

While I think pipes owned by the people and leased to private ISPs is a very interesting solution, I don't think it would fly with the zero-government crowd.

<comment><USER17> >I don't think it would fly with the zero-government crow

what I don't understand about these people is that they must recognise that comcast essentially functions the same way the dreaded government does. They are just as large, they are just as organised and powerful. But in contrast to the government there is not even a democratic check and balance, and an explicit profit motive.

I would assume someone who likes the 'market' part in 'free market' recognises that a single giant corporate entity is not very market like at all

<comment><USER16> They basically believe the single-giant-corporate-entity exists _only_ because of government. If government disappeared, all markets would become competitive, single-giants would vanish completely, there would always be choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm pretty proud of my hometown for passing this measure! Longmont, a town 30 miles south of Fort Collins, passed something similar a couple years ago, and it sounds like it's been pretty successful so far[1], so I'm excited to see where this goes.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15570559#up_15573817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15570559#up_15573817)

<comment> FLUX-YOU Do you happen to know where they hire people for working on this? Are they city or state employees, or are they using a bunch of contractors?

Edit: Hmm, looks like Fort Collins will use contractors for installs and hire 10 to 38 people over five years (p. 39 - Personnel Requirements): [https://www.fcgov.com/broadband/pdf/7.27.17%20Broadband%20Bu...](https://www.fcgov.com/broadband/pdf/7.27.17%20Broadband%20Business%20Plan.pdf)

However, this is excluding developers for things like customer portals. Maybe that will get contracted out as well.

Seems light to run an ISP, even for FC's size.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good find! I was curious too, and that does seem pretty small. I wonder how many people NextLight employs and contracts out in Longmont?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love to see cities exert their power. In some ways we've acquiesced to a powerful central government, whether it be federal or state, but its local governments that should be powerful. After all, they have the best handle on the needs and desires of their citizens.

<comment> white-flame I think the better way to state it is flipped around:

Citizens have a more direct effect on local governments than they do state or federal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This passed in Boulder county as well, pretty overwhelmingly.

<comment><USER20> The Fort Collins vote was to allow the city the option to take out $150M in municipal bonds for city-wide fiber installation. This was pretty much the last voter hurdle before the city moves forward.

Boulder is still in an earlier phase -- the vote was to allow the city to start the planning process. Greeley also voted in favor of something similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I hear a lot of people being dissatisfied with Comcast. What is it that makes them so hard to compete with that people have to resort to city-run networks?

<comment><USER22> I don't really see why having the city run its own Internet service should be considered a resort. Getting the profit motive as far away from basic utilities like Internet transit as possible seems like a win, because you don't want an undifferentiated bit pipe to have to continue to make more and more money over time.

<comment><USER23> My city has a pretty sweet hybrid of this. We have a local company that provides electricity/cable/internet which received grants from the city to get off the ground. But it's now self-sufficient while still remaining cheaper than Comcast, with gigabit speeds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> See also:

Kushnick, B., $300 Billion Broadband Scandal [2009] [http://www.teletruth.org/docs/broadbandscandalfree.pdf](http://www.teletruth.org/docs/broadbandscandalfree.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER25> I lived in a city with muni owned cable and broadband. It was amazing. Great service and reasonably priced. Even offering gig internet. I miss those days now where Spectrum is one of my only options.

</comment><comment> user-on1 how to encourage other cities to do the same? can colorado guide the rest of the cities and states to through similar initiatives?

<comment><USER26> If your town / city is less than 10k people simply going to city council open forum meetings (most places host those monthly or quarterly, some even weekly) and constantly hounding representatives about it being a problem with a straightforward solution (taxpayer funded public telecom operation in the city).

Probably the #1 problem is the ignorance of how bad the telecom monopoly is in the US, that there even are alternatives, and that this is the problem domain government needs to approach in the same way they approach electric access or roads.

<comment><USER27> > Probably the #1 problem is the ignorance of how bad the telecom monopoly is > in the US, that there even are alternatives, and that this is the problem > domain government needs to approach in the same way they approach electric > access or roads.

amusingly, boulder county, which passed this same thing, tried for years to get out of maintaining my neighborhood's roads. (and our electric service is privately provided.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cannot heap enough scorn on Comcast. It just seems _SO WRONG_ that they have so much influence and continue to kill any competition.

</comment><comment><USER29> So I'm all for this effort but there are a lot of opinions in this thread that are (IMHO) too simplistic and ignore history.

1\. Building more than one version of given infrastructure is often called an "overbuild" and it tends to be bad. Like you don't have two different electric, gas or water companies running a whole set of wires, poles, pipes or whatever to your house. The capex cost of any such network is massive so paying that cost 2, 3 or 4 times for the same number of customers is clearly going to more costly for consumers overall.

2\. Utilities, which aren't duplicated, are heavily regulated to avoid monopolistic behaviour as this is the only rational choice. I believe in the US this is Title II for telecommunications at least (which covers landline service). The FCC under the Obama administration did follow through with a promise to apply Title II to ISPs as well, something Comcat, TWC and the like were deadset against as it would obviously impact profits.

The real problem here is that Internet at this point is really the fourth utility and it should be legislated and regulated as such but Comcat et al don't just want to be "dumb pipes".

This factors into the whole net neutrality argument too. Imagine PG&E said that you could only use electricity for Whirlpool branded washers and dryers or if you used anything else the electricity would cost you more. Well, that kind of discrimination is what US ISPs want to be able to do (sadly) and we've already seen this with, say, Verizon throttling Netflix traffic.

3\. ISPs have unfortunately been much better at framing these public debates than the other side. For example, in the aforementioned net neutrality debates, ISPs framed this as the likes of Netflix pushing data onto their network for free and they argued they should get paid for that.

The reality is of course that Netflix doesn't push anything. Consumers are pulling data from Netflix. ISPs are getting paid for this too... by the consumers. The ISPs are simply trying to double-dip and get paid at both ends. What's more, stiffling services like Netflix has nothing to do with any notion of fairness. It's just a backhanded way of cable companies propping up their declining TV businesses.

4\. Various other models have been tried around the world to solve the overbuild problem. In Australia, for example, the government has tried a strategy where a single entity would own the wires and ISPs could rent those lines to provide services to consumers. To make this work, the entity owning the wires has to charge the same price to everyone, no matter how big or small.

Unfortunately, for a bunch of complicated reasons to NBN (so-called "next generation" broadband network) is going to end up only guaranteeing 12Mbps to each household... in 2017 for probably A$60-70B for a country of ~24M.

5\. Building any sort of netowrk like this is what I like to call a national hyperlocal business and the entrenched players are very good at it. To give some examples:

\- Getting access to poles varies from city to city and can be hugely complicated;

\- Digging trenches can be just as complicated and you might have to deal with a bunch of different stuff in the ground (eg one area has a ton of limestone in the soil).

\- Existing buildings once had single-vendor agreements that prohibited new players from providing service there. At one point these were ruled illegal. They've since been replaced by exclusive marketing agreements where, say, a condo building will only ever tell you about one provider.

\- Once you've built past a lot of houses it still requires a lot of efforts to connect a new house (we're talking hours). There is a huge manpower component in this. To be already connected to an existing provider is a huge advantage to that existing provider.

6\. No discussion of cable companies in the US is complete without touching on the issue of franchise agreements. A franchise agreement is where a cable company agreed to build in a given city and to alleviate the expense they were offered a number of benefits. These could be exclusive rights, ownership of the poles and so on. But to provide TV service, the company usually ended up paying the town. These sums could be significant to the budgets of the towns or counties in which they applied. These fees also discouraged the municipality from being friendly to any newcomer as any such newcomer may mean a budget hit.

Disclaimer: I used to work on Google Fiber.

<comment><USER30> Thanks for this. I needed some sanity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Glad to see that my vote counted!

<comment><USER32> it was really close

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Lest we forget iProvo:

[http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=56288307&itype=CMSI...](http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=56288307&itype=CMSID)

</comment><comment><USER34> Boulder had much less fanfare, but much greater techie population also passed this. Its at the point where cities that don't provide great internet will start to see people go live in other communities. The boulder vote was something like 3:1 in favor, as Comcast knew better then to go massively negative.

Unfortunately, Boulder city has been trying to go municipal with energy as well, which appears to be failing badly, and that's taking most of their time.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't understand why there is no competition. There must be other people wanting to trying their hand at starting a fibre ISP. Yeah it's expensive, but if there is money to be made there should be people willing to invest. Is there something else preventing competition in the US?

<comment><USER36> There is no money to be made.

You won't be able to build a network in more than a few cities at first because anything else would cost astronomical amounts of money.

That means that the current monopolist in those cities can afford to lower prices, making your investment unprofitable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Good idea at this stage - but it would also be very dangerous.

In Canada, in my youth - the entire telelphone network was socialized - it was a byzantine mess.

 _You had to buy your telephone from the government_ (i.e. Bell, state owned).

In Saskatchewan, it's still the same.

Imagine if the networks were run like the DMV.

Even worse - with massive, bloated government subsidies and 'guaranteed revenue stream' through taxation - they can make it impossible to compete.

Pay workers way above market wages (the 'change collectors' on the Toronto Subway often earn more than $100K a year, even though the jobs should not even exist anymore).

So it's probably a good idea right now maybe to force some innovation in the sector ...

But is there any evidence that American wireless carriers are operating in an oligarchic manner?

Here in Canada - we pay through the roof for wireless service due to very powerfully entrenched entities - we envy the US rates, which are relatively competitive.

Anyhow - it's maybe a good move but it needs to be watched both for successful opportunities (if it works well it could be a shake up), but also for creeping and bloated bureaucracy.

<comment><USER38> I've always been annoyed at this "imagine if X was like the DMV" libertarian argument. Anecdotally, I've never really had this mythical terrible experience at DMVs in the states I've lived in, and (further anecdotally) the experience has always been better in states with higher taxes.

The free market is one way of efficiently incorporating user preferences. Responsive democratic government is another. It might be slower to adapt, but it compensates by having less perverse incentives.

<comment><USER37> It's not a mythical argument, and it's not libertarian, it's just a reality.

It's also rather obvious how byzantine most operational aspects of government are:

Ex: The DMV is the entity that would not send me an email or SMS to inform me about specific events at least when I lived in Cali. Even though every other company on planet earth can do that.

Ex: The Government of Ontario issues three different kinds of ID. The 'Health Care' ID cannot be used as valid ID anywhere else, only within health. There are huge bureaucracies dedicated to each form of ID. Why not issue one ID, and all of the agencies can use that? Answer: unions and job protectionism. I personally know the former CEO of 'Services Ontario' \- he has no interest in increasing quality of service - there is absolutely zero incentive for him. Moreover - the Unions would make it quite impossible. Why would he even consider automating tasks when it reduces headcount? The union will put up a stink and it could get him fired. Moreover, he loses budget and power. So the incentives are completely upside down for most government agencies.

Ex: The TTC (Toronto Public Transit) pays many of it's staff quite a lot. Toronto really needs Subway extensions, which are massively expensive to the point we can't afford them = yet we are still paying people to collect change - as I mentioned above, some of them earn over $100K.

Ex: try visiting stats Canada right now:

[https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/start](https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/start)

try making sense of that mess - there's tons and tons of data, most of it poorly organized, de-facto unsearchable. Very poorly presented when it is. Moreover - it's 2017 and up until a month ago NONE of the data was available via API (!!!). Just one month ago, they made _some_ of it available. Of course, most of the data is not useful, they're not collecting some of the most relevant information that we need - specifically demographic information by postal code etc..

Can you imagine if Google quality engineers were responsible for the search and presentation of that data?

Ex: the Ontario Police (OPP) made a deal with the government such that they had to be the 'highest paid police' in the Province. So a local village, called 'Shelburne' Ontario, with 2 cops, for some reason of local dispute, decide to pay their 2 guys massively over the regular wage for a cop. Guess what: OPP unions take the government to task for insanely high wages. Meanwhile, there are budget cuts everywhere.

Ex: The Toronto Community housing rakes in $200-400 million dollars a year from city taxpayers - and almost 50% of that is spent on _overhead_ and administration! So $100-100M just on _staffing_ and other things. You do realize if this were a charity, it would be considered 'corrupt'? Moreover, the idea that governments should be building homes? Why are they doing that? If we are interested in having low income people live in specific area (one might ask the question why?) - then why wouldn't we just literally subsidize housing for them? Let them live where they please in that area and they will pay landlords/developer just as any other person. Government managers who so inefficiently spend 50% of their charitable budgets on overhead are somehow going to be able to hire contracts and manage building more efficiently than the private sector? No.

Ex: Parole officers in corrections Canada us FAX MACHINES when individuals need to request their various forms of leave. Why? 'Paper Trail'. So they say (And its not due to signatures). But they can't grasp using email, or some kind of portal for this. Because why should they?

What reason do these agencies have to change? Regular voters cannot really vote on these specific things - mostly we don't know they are happening.

If there is no reason for a system to change - or system incentives are set up to create more workers and less efficiency - well - that's what will happen.

It's all just bureaucracy absurdism.

Governments are needed for regulation, and they might need to operate specific things (i.e. roads, the power lines but not power plants, wireless spectrum, military) and of course Health is always a special case.

Teaching is one of those areas public schools can do well - because it's almost impossible to screw up: put a well educated, decent person in a room in front of a class with teaching plans and books and you have a school. It's not like the school can go 500% over budget. And there aren't really many ways to improve on it, as I don't believe that competitive bonuses actually improve teaching quality that much.

But otherwise, no. It's mostly just a massive form of distribution of surpluses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I did not understand why Comcast and the other ISPs oppose these initiatives. After the city loses a ton of money running their own ISP, Comcast (or the ISP of your choice) will always be ready to pick up the pieces.

<comment><USER40> Only it doesn't always work out like that. In Chattanooga the local provider displaced Comcast as the largest ISP and they are making good money.

Also competition is bad. People might get ideas...

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Government running commercial enterprises. Now that's a recipe for success! [http://munibroadbandfailures.com/](http://munibroadbandfailures.com/)

<comment><USER42> You should avoid citing that page; it's not credible. A specific instance that I know of is Sebewaing Light and Power in Michigan. They built out a publicly owned fiber network that now has over 500 of 1700 residents as customers as of June and will break even in 2018, earlier than expected, whereas your site claims there are only 150 customers. That site was created by Taxpayers Protection Alliance which a Koch front group.

<comment><USER41> "That site was created by Taxpayers Protection Alliance which a Koch front group." So what? Ad hominem fallacy?

When the municipal broadbands fail taxpayers are on the hook for million dollars bail outs. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2014/09/30/munic...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2014/09/30/municipal- broadband-a-bad-deal-for-taxpayers/#2911b734125f)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Knowing so little about the situation in Colorado, why can't they just allow more competition in the city, instead of running it themselves?

<comment><USER44> (I live in Boulder County, which passed something similar.)

As far as I know, competition is allowed, it just doesn't exist. The market has failed to provide us with broadband options. This vote is not actually for the government to run it themselves, it's just to override a state-level ban on municipal broadband. The next step will be for Comcast to lobby against municipalities actually setting up competing broadband offerings. A few steps after that and Comcast might actually start responding as if they are competing in an actual market, for instance by improving their services and/or lowering their prices. If they clean up their act enough, they might even get to keep their monopoly. But their reputation is already so bad that it seems somewhat unlikely at this point.

<comment><USER20> The Boulder vote was to override the ban, but the Fort Collins vote was to allow the city to grab $150M in bonds for fiber deployment. FoCo already voted to override the ban a few years ago.

<comment><USER44> Ah! Sorry, I didn't realize that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Yay maybe people will start learning elsewhere that giant corporations' best interests aren't their customers.

<comment><USER46> I'm surprised certain groups haven't started labeling/marketing this as socialism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> We had this in Burlington, VT and now we're selling it off because the city could not run it effectively (massive debt). Be careful — government is usually not a great runner of a customer-service focused business. Further, do you really want government (municipal) or otherwise being your ISP? Having access to all of your traffic lines?

<comment><USER48> All of your points are valid, but let me counter argue.

 _Be careful — government is usually not a great runner of a customer-service focused business._

Maybe, maybe not, but we _know_ Comcast and TWC aren't a great runner of customer-service focused business.

 _Further, do you really want government (municipal) or otherwise being your ISP? Having access to all of your traffic lines?_

No, but I'm assuming they already have access without a warrant now.

<comment><USER47> So, you chose the red herrings of the worst possible ISPs. There are great commercial ISPs too. What's more important is competition, which again is limited by government (government decides who gets access to build-out lines).

I agree, federal government does have the resources to spy, and uses them very effectively. Why make it that much easier for our local governments to do that as well.

<comment><USER49> > There are great commercial ISPs too.

Sure, if you're lucky enough to live in an area with "actual" competition, which is the crux of the entire issue.

The vast, vast majority of us are stuck with 1 or 2 (if we're lucky) options, both relatively shitty, with one being markedly inferior, and both absurdly overpriced for the connection you get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Good! Internet access is a utility now.

No one should have to buy something they depend on from Comcast.

</comment><comment><USER51> It's another evidence that broadband is an utility like telephony or electricity

</comment><comment><USER52> F u comcast.

Sorry had to let it out.

</comment><comment><USER53> Wow they exchanged one monopoly for another monopoly that can use force. Genius voter population over there.

<comment><USER54> >another monopoly

Comcast won't cease to exist. Other ISPs can form.

>that can use force

When was the last time your water/electric/gas company "used force" against public interest?

<comment><USER55> > When was the last time your water/electric/gas company "used force" against > public interest?

Everyday.

Think of it this way, people that don't want to use the service can't opt out for the tax loss incurred by the state running it.

<comment><USER54> I don't know about your local utilities, but mine are only government regulated, not subsidized.

<comment><USER55> Utilities have a considerable tax participation in municipal and state level governments. The infrastructure was definitely built with taxation, and there is a virtual monopoly of it.

Im not making an opinion about it being the best system or not, because i haven't looked at this topic at all, but its delusional to think there is no force in this application.

Just googling shows that for example, Florida has a mandate to be on the grid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> What are the odds that the city will run an ISP better than, say, the DMV?

<comment><USER57> In my observations, problems at the DMV are usually because of the public, not the DMV. People show up to register a car without a title, have missing paperwork to get a license plate, and are generally unprepared.

The DMV spells out what you need online, but people show up and need every little thing explained to them. I'm at the counter for 5 minutes, pay my fees, and walk out the door.

Why was this other goof-ball at the window for 25 minutes? 99% of the time, because they did something wrong.

<comment><USER58> No need for heavy stats here, but let's look at popular opinion of the DMV. If there is broad variance in the amount of time it takes to tackle simple issues (such as paying a fine), then I'd suggest someone look at the process, the operations, or both. A "human behavior be damned" perspective isn't going to help anyone.

<comment><USER59> > let's look at popular opinion of the DMV

Let's look at popular opinion of Comcast!

In all seriousness, we are exiting (I hope) a time of anti-government fervor where no matter what the government did (unless it's the police and military) it was by default assumed to be done poorly. I no longer think this is the case, and there is a ton of stuff that our government does extremely well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Has any city / company tried to build such a network since docsis 3.1 became available? Google seems to have basically given up. This will likely be a disaster for any city that tries, Comcast will just undercut them with higher speeds than any consumer will notice a difference. And taxpayers will be left with a huge bill.

<comment><USER61> DOCSIS 3.1 is impressive, but it's really the HFC infrastructure that even remotely threatens a FTTx build.

The comments far and wide (except as Ajit sees fit to hide) show a new carrier could not even be competitive at DOCSIS 3.1 levels, and still win.

Comcast has found such impressive execration that the "speed wars" only matter a little bit. It's just that Comcast has neglected their networks for so long that even at the most basic level, i.e. speeds, they regularly fail the previous administration's metric for "high speed internet" at peak times -- you know, the times when people actually use their internet.</comment></comment>


Golang web app sample with MongoDB and VueJS2 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/malisit/munhasir <comment><USER2> The readme might deserve some love. A one-liner is not that helpful... :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right. It'll be taken care of soon. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Language War PHP vs Ruby On Rails - <AUTHOR> http://innoppl.com/php-vs-ruby-on-rails/

<comment><USER2> interesting. Here's what I think.

Code Structure: "ROR has clear code structure compared to that of PHP." That pretty much depends on who's doing the programming, PHP code can be really clean and readable or really hideous depending on the programmer and software design. So I think this point is mute.

Testing: As far as testing goes PHPUnit is top notch and easy which you forget to mention.

Application Performance: In the end PHP is faster and more easily scalable.</comment>


I've been using my iPhone X for nearly a month, and I've decided I hate it - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-x-negative-review-2017-11 <comment><USER2> Underwhelming feedback so far for what should've been Apple's defining epic</comment>


Could Apple Use Intel For ARM Chips Instead Of Samsung? - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/10/22/could-apple-use-intel-for-arm-chips-instead-of-samsung/

<comment><USER2> Unlikely. Intel makes $120 on a 120mm2 Core i3 chip. They would make less than $20 for a similar size ARM chip that they would sell to Apple. That's 6x less revenue, and probably 30x less raw profit. Intel doesn't have a cost structure in their company that would support that type of revenue and profit.

Plus, it would be like admitting ARM is the future, which is the main reason why they will not do it. I'm not saying they would be right on this, just that this is how they will think.</comment>


With deceased donor's uterus, woman gives birth to healthy baby - <AUTHOR> https://www.local10.com/health/with-deceased-donors-uterus-woman-gives-birth-to-healthy-baby <comment><USER2> Cool, but I always wondered - is the child 'biologically' speaking belonging to woman who had the uterus transplanted in her body or to the woman who was the original owner of the uterus?

For example, I understand uterus has ovaries attached and ovaries have/produce eggs. But the DNA of uterus and ovaries is that of the donor.

Therefore, sure, woman who gave birth to the baby can technically, legally and socially be called the mother but biologically, if we were to take DNA from baby, would the uterus recipient DNA show up or that of donor?</comment>


Create a Modern logo in Adobe Photoshop - <AUTHOR> http://crappypixel.com/create-a-modern-logo-in-adobe-photoshop In this tutorial you will learn how to create a modern logo in Photoshop. <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everybody. The tutorial is for the newbies, and is only meant to be used for the web. Anyways, thank you for your constructive comments, will promise to keep that in mind when I`ll create another tut.

Regards, Chris

</comment><comment><USER2> Please, please use a vector based editor instead. Inkscape, illustrator, etc.

<comment><USER3> Photoshop's vector tools are advanced enough that it's fine for creating professional logos if that's the only tool you have access to

That said, this is not a helpful tutorial.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How will automation affect the field of programming? - <AUTHOR>

What are some trends you observe that could contribute to the commoditisation / deskilling of the average developer ?<p>Is it even possible ? <comment><USER2> Frameworks and libraries contribute to "deskilling", because they mean that the developer has to write less of the application. But they don't totally de- skill the profession, because somebody has to write the framework or library, and somebody else has to learn how to use it.

The whole history of computer programming since at least the creation of FORTRAN can be regarded as this process going on. But it actually hasn't lead to the commoditisation of programming (except perhaps web programming and business apps). Instead, programmers have become much more productive. This means that many more jobs become economically viable, and so there are many more programmer jobs available.</comment>