What is going on with measures of programming language popularity? - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/30/what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-measures-of-programming-language-popularity/amp/ <comment><USER2> The article omits the Redmonk ranking [1], which is imho much better than TIOBE. The Redmonk approach uses github and stackexchange as complementary data sources, and shows a two dimensional main result.

The top 20 in the Redmonk ranking are

      1 JavaScript
      2 Java
      3 Python
      4 PHP
      5 C#
      6 C++
      7 CSS
      8 Ruby
      9 C
      9 Objective-C
      11 Swift
      12 Scala
      12 Shell
      14 Go
      14 R
      16 TypeScript
      17 PowerShell
      18 Perl
      19 Haskell
      20 Lua

Considering how different languages occupy different niches, the relative ranking withing niches seems reasonable. And ranking across niches scales according to size of the niche.

Client-side web scripting is a huge niche, hence javascript is in the top spot. General purpose desktop/server applications are another huge niche, served by Java, C#, C++, C, Scala, Go (in that order). And so on.

It seems pretty sane, and the results have been stable enough to interpret the rise of upcoming languages and see the resilience of top contenders.

[1] [https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2018/08/10/language- rankings-6-1...](https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2018/08/10/language- rankings-6-18/)

<comment><USER3> Pretty sure I wrote this already at some point, but as a 9 year user who has not really starred anything in the last 8 years I still find this methodology flawed. Probably not as flawed as the other two, ok. Also there are some ecosystems where people don't just really use stackexchange, so those are also way off. Could be huge, could be nil.

<comment><USER4> Also, StackExchange doesn't measure popularity, but popularity AND difficulty. All else equal, the harder language will have more SO activity.

<comment><USER5> I'm not convinced that SE activity measures difficulty. But it certainly is affected by much more than just popularity. I could imagine it measuring the total API surface, as you can ask more questions about larger subjects.

It's certainly a deeply flawed measure, but then pure search engine hits like TIOBE are likely much worse.

<comment><USER4> To be clear, I don't think it measures difficulty, but difficulty is necessarily a driver of the metric. A complex language is going to generate more questions than a small, intuitive language.

<comment><USER6> Specifically, complexity will generate more questions than difficulty.

<comment><USER4> No, it can't by definition. Complexity is a type of difficulty. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The TIOBE index is hot garbage, and always has been.

Even so, this article is also pretty bad. Nowhere does the author define what he means by "popularity", which is one of the key problems all of these popularity contests suffer.

If we say "Language X is more popular than language Y?" What does that _mean?_ Answers could be any of:

* Total extant corpus of X is larger than Y.

* Number of people who know X is larger than Y.

* Amount of open source code in X is greater than Y.

* Number of people currently writing X (how much?) is greater than Y.

* Number of people who want to be writing X is greater than Y.

* Number of jobs available for writing X is greater than Y.

* Number of people talking about X is greater than Y.

These are all _wildly_ different metrics but all have reasonable claims to represent "popularity" and/or are what some of these rankings claim to show.

To do anything useful, you really need to know what problem the reader is trying to solve and pick a metric that helps that problem. Is the reader trying to decide what language to learn to find a job today? To get ahead of the curve and be an expert in five years? To discover a new exciting language? To choose a language to use for a large, conservative project? A small ambitious one?

<comment><USER8> This is a false aggregate: [https://blog.shortbar.com/false- aggregates-571745b2d483](https://blog.shortbar.com/false- aggregates-571745b2d483)

If I'm writing a game I care about what's most popular with games. If I'm writing an enterprise reservation system, I care about that.

These languages really live in completely different universes and I think it's time we acknowledge that. The one-size-fits-all survey of this sort feels like a holdover of a time when software development was far more homogeneous.

It's yet another example of how the entire profession is getting more specialized. You used to be a "programmer". Now you're a data engineer, ops engineer, front-end engineer, back-end/full-stack engineer, ios/android/react, system/OS programmer, etc. These are becoming entirely different jobs with little crossover between them, just like family law vs. criminal law vs. estate law vs. corporate law.

[https://blog.shortbar.com/the-end-of-the-country- developer-7...](https://blog.shortbar.com/the-end-of-the-country- developer-7b9a184d4cf1)

<comment><USER9> > You used to be a "programmer". Now you're a data engineer, ops engineer, > front-end engineer, back-end/full-stack engineer, ios/android/react, > system/OS programmer, etc.

I still wonder when there's actually going to be official training in these specialties, that counts as credentials when seeking employment. As far as I know (and I could be wrong), traditional education tends to be somewhat general.

Which specialty you're qualified for seems to have more to do with what job you happened to hold when the specialization split began, rather than something you deliberately decided to study.

(Okay, I'll admit that there are training courses in all manner of things, but they don't seem like a formal course of study you can actually put on a resume.)

<comment><USER10> You can totally do a MOOC in any of those things and put it on your CV

<comment><USER11> Which tends to be a signal for being unqualified

<comment><USER10> What would you consider to be "official" enough then? All EdX MOOCs are backed by real institutions, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What's going on is that there are many equally-valid definitions of "popularity". Do you mean number of developers who's heard of a language? Who _uses_ a language? Who _likes_ a language? Or do you mean a language that's most widely deployed, for some definition of deployed?

The question you need to ask is what decision is going to be impacted as the result of knowing the "popularity" of some language. The answer to that question will guide you towards the right metric you should be looking at.

<comment><USER13> Indeed! Keep-up-with-the-Jonesism sends people into circles of craziness and self-fulfilling prophecies.

<comment><USER14> From [https://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3141310154691952@naggum...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com) "if you aren't using today's fad language in the very latest version of the IDE, you'll be left behind. aaaugh! but it's good that some people run like they are scared out of their wits. if they suddenly disappear over the edge of a cliff, a good number of people will notice in time and _not_ follow them. those are the ones that matter."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't really understand how you can measure popularity without doing a census-like survey, reaching out to every developer possible in a coordinated effort.

Awhile back, I took a statistics class that explained how polling everyone by calling everyone with a phone landline resulted in a misrepresented sample.

The reason: not everyone has a phone landline. And those with phone landlines had a tendency to belong to specific demographics.

So...if you survey everyone using Github, and not every developer uses Github, are you not prone to the same fallacy?

<comment><USER16> One example off the top of my head are the billions of lines of Cobol code that are certainly not on GitHub :) .

I'm not sure if Cobol programmers use StackExchange (I guess they do).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> How about available jobs? I suspect a lot of people are trying to determine which language to invest their time in learning.

Another relevant measure would be ALL jobs, not just available. Some people may not care if a million people are using language X if they're not getting paid for it.

<comment><USER18> Then, in the web sphere you'd have to focus on PHP (in Germany). But then again, looking at the details, you will realize that those job offers ask for developers who are fluent in: php, JavaScript, css, mysql, Photoshop (!), wordpress (!), etc. Reads like a job offer from the beginning of 2000.

But the sheer numbers cannot be ignored: Java / c# >> php >> Python >> Ruby/Rails >>>> Clojure... (Just one example)

Now you'd have to go into the details again to answer the question if you'd want to work at the problem set that is described in the job offer (how sophisticated, what kind of domain, how challenging,...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _TIOBE measures the sheer quantity of search engine hits. PYPL measures how > often language tutorials are Googled._

Popularity by who searches for language help like Java or C/C++ is mostly because those are more difficult languages with bigger, historical sprawl and frameworks.

Just using searching for popularity is skewed because people search more so for things they don't know, than ones they do, and harder languages will probably be more searched. Same with tutorials, it only shows what people are learning. However it is somewhat valid in that even languages you use daily you end up searching for solutions and information on docs, community, etc.

The github and repo stats probably give a bigger picture of popularity combined with searching and surveys.

Side note: Personally I think everyone should learn C/C++ and maybe a functional language or a dynamic language like Python in addition to their main languages. Learning C/C++ and building in it is closer to the metal, has memory management and every language you learn after is less difficult. I do love C++ for game development but it helps with learning all other languages as well as all other languages difficulty is downhill from it, and is especially great for memory management, stack/heap understanding, value/reference understanding and C/C++ is empowering in the power/speed of the platforms. To this day still most apps are built with C/C++ under the hood whether directly, exported to or in a virtual machine that is built in it. For highly performant apps/code/systems C/C++ still are king.

<comment><USER20> C++: it feels so good when the beating stops

Maybe object Pascal or rust for the less masochistic?

I'm ok with C if need be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> My day job mostly involves C code, which lives in a company repository; I only rarely search for C specific stuff. Hobby projects - work on OSS in C++/Python, or learning Rust - must result in an order of magnitude more of my language-specific searching and public committing, even though it represents a small fraction of my programming time.

So, for me, searching is mainly related to the learning about a language, not so much using a language. This makes me wonder if the integral over time of search volumes might be a useful measure of language use?

</comment><comment><USER22> Article underestimates how much iOS app legacy Objective-C code there is; even Apple is a far ways off from replacing it all with Swift.

<comment><USER23> I think you meant "underestimate".

<comment><USER22> Good catch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As a Rubyist I'm pleased with the Github ranking, but how much of that is tilted by Github being a Ruby platform initially colonized by Rubyists?

<comment><USER25> And GitHub rankings don't factor in things like the fact that java programmers may be under represented, because they tend to be older with enough experience and contacts to get work - without needing to show a GitHub project (plus if they have kids, they just don't have the time)

<comment><USER26> I'm in my 30's and one of the younger people in my department. I work in Engineering. I don't use Github I do not know anyone personally who uses it. I think it is probably a generational thing.

Search engine result as well I'd be suspicious of. If I am searching a programming language it is something I don't use very often thus why I am looking up the information. The languages I use the most often I have stack of books on my desk rarely need to look anything up with a search engine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't put a lot of stock into TIOBE and similar lists because I'm not really sure how that information helps. It seems to me that these lists are measuring ubiquity rather than popularity, which I define as being well-liked. I guess there is value in that, but I'm far more interested in seeing a ranked list of well-liked languages and the reasoning behind those opinions. Slant isn't perfect, but it offers me the sort of pros vs. cons lists that I find much more valuable when selecting a language.

Job prospects/salary is another ranking I'm interested in. For example, I know I can get a JavaScript job on any corner, but is that ubiquity going to cost me in salary? Can I earn more by mastering something like Rust, Elixir, or Erlang?

</comment><comment><USER28> I used to do a language popularity thing, langpop.

One of the takeaways is that there are _different_ metrics and none of them is perfect.

So I grabbed what I could, combined them, and even had a JS thing where you could weight them differently.

Stuff I looked at: raw search, source code, books, job advertisements.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've used the language popularity indexes to show MBA's that my preferred tool chain isn't some weird obscure thing that I just discovered on the Internet. The numbers were good enough for that purpose, and of course they didn't question the underlying methodology. Perhaps the more useful message for them is that there are in fact more than one or two popular languages, and that they are not all commercial products.

</comment><comment><USER30> The big problem is all the major indexes are driven by search engine measures, and those themselves are highly sensitive to any change in the underlying search engine methodology itself. So a small change in Google's ranking algorithm will see a language move up or down dozens of places.

I would tend to focus more on job ads personally because those are at least linked to "real intent" to use a language for something tangible. You don't put it in an ad because something is controversial or had a lot of news lately etc. which can all lead to things being Googled a lot or getting a spurt of search activity.

Github's index is nice in that it is based on actual code, but then it's also heavily biased by what is open source and therefore doesn't fully reflect industry use of languages (which is why I think it deviates from other indexes to put Javascript and Python a bit higher, and less emphasis on say Java and C#).

</comment><comment><USER31> There is an excellent book on such things that I highly recommend: _How to lie with statistics_

Problems like this are part of why we have sayings like:

Measure twice, cut once.

GIGO (Garbage in, garbage out)

Some saying about measuring to extreme precision, then "cutting with an axe."

<comment><USER32> > Measure twice, cut once.

I always thought that had to do with carpentry and woodworking, not statistics.

<comment><USER31> Same problem space to my mind: applying math to the real world in some meaningful, useful fashion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Instead of popularity indices, I'd like to see the percentage that a language+framework takes in applications of a certain type, such as desktop applications, client-side web applications, server applications, data crunching, embedded, etc. That way you can spot trends or find alternative languages for a certain task.

Another interesting metric would be the number of open source libraries for the language that have had commits within the last 3 months and whose major semantic version is 1.0 or higher (or some other way to weed out unfinished libraries), sortable by license.

</comment><comment><USER34> As Mark Twain eloquently put it...there are lies, damned lies and statistics.

</comment><comment><USER35> JavaScript Is ambiguous these days. How much percentage of the JavaScript popularity is from the backend language Nodejs and how much of it from the client side(html, react, angular, etc)?

<comment><USER32> Why the distinction? It's the same language.

<comment><USER35> i guess it depends on what you are looking for?

in the frontend world, it really is only Javascript, so I don't think we need a popularity contest there. and it's in use by practically all the websites in the world as a dynamic renderer.

but when comparing a language like Java, PHP, Node, Python, I really don't want to see the results of frontend Javascript skewing the results. otherwise, one would just assume Javascript is the most popular backend language, but that is not the case, as stated in the article.

article states that one of the rankings had Java as #1 and Javascript as #8. but on the other, JS was overwhelmingly #1 (because it combined both frontend and backend).

you need distinction because frontend and backend are like apples and oranges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Tiobe's faulty ranking method isn't even reliable. Three years ago Apache Groovy was in the top 20, but six months ago it wasn't even in the top 50. Now it's supposedly rising rapidly again. And this isn't the first time this has happened with Groovy -- it was also in the top 20 in Oct 2013 but three months later out of the top 50. I suspect Tiobe's rankings are being gamed somehow.

</comment><comment><USER37> Github ranking by open pull request to me feels the best approach if what you are interested in is trends of language adoption.

Measuring total corpus would be measuring past popularity and may miss trends. Search metrics on the other hand may actually overrate newer languages which may be searched more compared to more mature languages. Opened pull requests sounds like a better metric overall.

</comment><comment><USER38> I have absolutely no doubts that the _most used_ language is JavaScript - considering nearly every website in existence relies on it.

So it's really just a question of methodology. When TIOBE says popularity they must not be talking about usage rates, or if they are perhaps they are specifically sampling some subset of enterprise?

<comment><USER39> > I have absolutely no doubts that the most used language is JavaScript - > considering nearly every website in existence relies on it.

If you count by total lines of code running in production, then the most likely winner is probably C or COBOL (decent chance your paycheck relies on large COBOL applications working correctly). If you count it by lines of code times number of running instances, then I'm really hard-pressed to pick any other language of C because of its sheer prevalence in things such as cars. If you count by number of programmers, I'm not sure what the winner ends up being.

Even crufty old languages like FORTRAN or COBOL have surprisingly wide usage. Sure, they may be completely absent in user-facing applications, but it's easy to forget that such applications are only a small portion of applications. JS itself would probably end up somewhere in the bottom half of the top 10 in most metrics of "top languages," as it has very little presence outside of user-facing applications.

<comment><USER40> > If you count by total lines of code running in production, then the most > likely winner is probably C or COBOL

By lines of production, it's definitely Javascript. COBOL doesn't come close. What was a lot of developer time in the 80s is dwarfed by the number of people around the world working on websites alone (much less this Node.js silliness).

More Javascript is written every day than is produced in C, all year due to lower barriers to entry, lower cost to fail, easier to debug, less (possible) side effects, and number of developers.

> it has very little presence outside of user-facing applications.

That's where most code ends up getting written. SMH

<comment><USER39> Your first mistake is assuming that COBOL code was written in the 80s and untouched since then. People are still adding to COBOL code even today, and the language itself is still evolving (the newest COBOL spec was in 2014).

> That's where most code ends up getting written.

That's where most of the easy code to find and count gets written. But there is much more code that's outside of user-facing applications. Operating systems and drivers are relatively small, but have a much higher fraction of utilization since you're always using them. Embedded code is massive--not just the obvious things such as your car or airplanes, but also things like the microcontroller in your disk drive, the bluetooth controller for your headphones, your refrigerator, your microwave. There's the business applications: billing, payroll, corporate intranet, not to mention things such as scheduling the automated builds and tests or the management of releases for all of those applications. It's easy to forget that all of that stuff exists if you never work on it, and it's especially easy to think that it can't be that large.

If you avoid double-counting libraries (which is how I interpret the first number), then applications become a lot smaller because so much of applications is hooking together libraries. This is particularly true of non- app-y JS. By contrast, a lot of the business backend application logic (particularly for things such as payroll) is essentially 100% custom- implemented, so a much smaller fraction of it is common libraries. On pretty much any other metric of code use, though, such applications become far smaller in importance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> "The data doesn't match my personal preconceptions, so the methodology must be broken" Uhm yeah, nah.

</comment><comment><USER42> The Stack Overflow developer survey is another data set that I trust.

[https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018#technology](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018#technology)

</comment><comment><USER43> Nor is github a perfect indicator. Some languages promote their own open- source repository hubs, such as [https://gitlab.common- lisp.net](https://gitlab.common-lisp.net).

</comment><comment><USER44> I dont think these measurements are any good or true reflection of a languages usage in the industry, some languages go totally under the radar, like clojure/clojurescript.</comment>


Astronomers Turn To Omniscopes For Low Cost Observation - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24075/

<comment><USER2> There is a trade-off in resorting to interferometry - your resolution goes way up, but your field of view goes way down. For certain kinds of science, you are still better off with a nice big dish.

(Disclaimer: I work for the largest sub-millimetre dish in the world)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Original paper here: <http://arxiv.org/abs/0909.0001></comment>


Why the film industry needs disrupting - <AUTHOR> http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/6-things-the-film-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about.php/all/1 <comment><USER2> > 6\. Tricky Hollywood Accounting

To film _Matrix Reloaded_, they built a fake freeway on the Alameda naval base in San Francisco. I drove on it (as an extra in the movie); it was really really cool. The company originally thought of keeping this set around for a while to use in driving scenes for other film projects, but they ended up destroying it instead. Why? Because the film was likely to be profitable! A film set that's only used for _one_ movie and then destroyed can obviously be deducted (as a necessary expense) from the profits of that movie, whereas a film set that's reused for several films can't. So this "tricky accounting" can have the effect of artificially inflating production costs (as well as distribution costs).

<comment><USER3> Ok, so I get that a film studio would be willing to charge expenses like Lucas' promotion of Return of the Jedi 3D to their accounts, because its an investment for future gross profits (but the 'investment' doesn't cost anything, because if they didn't make that 'investment' the money would go to paying net-profit-share actors instead).

But how is it advantageous to them to completely _waste_ money on destroying the freeway? The only way I can see this benefiting them is that lie in their accounting and write down the freeway expense as much more than it actually cost.

<comment><USER2> Suppose you use the same freeway set for exactly two films: (1) the big expensive sequel _Matrix Reloaded_ (2) some cheap indie zombie film (being on an _entirely empty freeway_ in the middle of the day is kind of creepy all by itself) ...and then the set has to be destroyed - a storm knocks it down or the land owners decide they want the space back for some other use.

One rational accounting method would be to split the cost evenly between films (or perhaps you could divide it based on how many hours/days of filming was done in that location.) But film #1 (a) made a profit, (b) owes percentages of the profit to people who made the first film. Film #2 lost money and was made by people with less negotiating power than Keanu Reeves, so having it lose _more_ money doesn't benefit the studio. Given this simple case, you'd want to allocate as much of the expense as possible to the first film, leading to court battles over exactly how the cost should be allocated. Was this set used for _more hours_ for film #1? Was it _more crucial to the plot_ for that film?

And okay, that might still be manageable. But what doesn't work is to leave the number of films to be shot there _open-ended_. If the freeway set stays up, the lawyers representing Keanu Reeves can reasonably argue that you _intend_ to make _one hundred_ films there, so the _Matrix Reloaded_ production should only get dinged for 1% of the cost rather than all of it or half of it.

<comment><USER4> I thought they could make films lose arbitrary amounts of money by charging whatever they want to their captive distribution arms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, just wow.

Unfortunately I want to the other article, the one that I cannot get anyone in the 'movie biz' to fess up to. That is _what would it be like if it were perfect?_ Would there be a mandatory licensing fee for scripts? Would there be non-discriminatory rights for theatres? What?

Someone needs to sit down and _design_ a way to disrupt Hollywood. That requires three things, production disruption (how movies get made), distribution disruption (how they get distributed), and consumption disruption (how they get consumed).

The good news is you might have an ally here in the form of NetFlix or Amazon. They can handle distribution and consumption, which is to say they can 'sell' views via their networks. You might also get some traction with 'Fathom Events' which rents out digital theatre projectors for pay per view events.

You don't yet have a way of disrupting production.

To do that you probably need to re-create the old 'studio' model where you have a staff of production people and actors. A couple of sound stages with solid green-screen technology, and your own 'pocket' CGI capability for putting together scenes. That is your 'back lot' equivalent.

More importantly you need a disruptive business model. That is because as it stands bankers and other sources of capital understand exactly who gets rich and who gets screwed in the movie industry, in your new model they won't know and they thus they won't be able to understand how much (or how little) risk there is to their capital. And you will need a lot of capital to make movies or 'serials' (Think of them as sporadic TV shows where the episodes don't necessarily come out every Tuesday at 8PM)

This is going to take some strategic planning and understanding exactly what things _really_ cost. I worked on this sort of project to understand how the periodical publishing market was to be disrupted (and to identify business opportunities in the disrupted market) and its painful. There was no source of 'how much do editors make?', 'journalists?', 'folks who run printing presses'? 'folks to drive vans to drop off papers/magazines?' You really need to open up a business from the inside, and dissect it to understand how it works, where the money goes, and what the leverage is of each of the individual pieces. But understand that doing this sort of dissection gives you to knowledge of _how to disrupt_ and that means the person sharing it with you, if they aren't already committed to joining the revolution, is writing their own death sentence. Ouch!

The best you can hope for is to approach the problem like the CIA trying to infiltrate an enemy government. Develop assets, interview people who are fired or leave, do forensic accounting on suppliers and contractors and unions. Not easy, you are a threat, the people who have the power know you are a threat and they will do things to slow you down or stop you.

So take the current players and develop a parallel track. It will be hard, and it will be expensive, and it will be beset with issues the entrenched folks throw at you. But you do need a solid strategic plan and good backing.

</comment><comment><USER6> While I do believe the film industry needs "disrupting", I do not believe this was the point of the article, nor does it make any good arguments to back up a thesis of "disruption".

"6. Tricky Hollywood Accounting" - this is purely a contract negotiation issue, and it is is no way a hollywood-specific problem - in all lines of businesses you will find companies which try to setup "royalty fee" or similar buyer-controlled expenses to dry up profit to ensure as little is paid out as possible to the seller. A good negotiation team will prevent this, both in Hollywood and elsewhere.

"5. Extorting Theaters" - this is bullshit for 95% of theatres. The large movie theatre chains in North America have leverage over the studios, as while there is a large number of movies available at any given time, there are only a relatively small (fixed) number of theatre screens. The price and revenue split of a film in a theatre is based on supply and demand; movie theatres do not cut the exact same deal with studios for every single film, instead they negotiate based on the expected results of the film. In the cases where movie theatres don't think the film will do well, the studios basically get screwed into subsidizing the movie theatre to show the film. In cases where the movie is expected to do very well, the theatres end up giving up more for the right to have it on their screen. I'm sure small independent theatres are a different story, but in all businesses small players have less negotiation power, and therefore get worse deals.

"4. Fake Reviews" - this is just the work of dishonest marketers - I don't understand how it is a reason to justify disrupting the movie business.

"3. Copyright Bullshit" - this is a US specific problem, not a film business wide problem, as copyright laws change by country. It could also be viewed as a good thing for producers in the film business, as they can profit off their films longer.

"2. Strangling Consumer choice" - again, its a contract issue and has much in common with 6, Extorting Theaters, and the resulting supply and demand struggle. Theaters don't want to pay as high a price for a film if its available in other channels, as that means attendance/viewership will be lower. Same with TV stations, Pay-per-view, and so on. Therefore, if studios want to be able to actually pay for the film they produced, they have to be very careful as to where and in what order they show their content.

"1. Stealing Scripts" - This is just not a film business problem. People steal ideas everywhere, all the time. Stealing ideas is easy, creating a good product is hard.

(Edited after my morning coffee to clarify submitter's thesis versus articles thesis)

<comment><USER7> >1\. Stealing Scripts" - This is just not a film business problem. People steal ideas everywhere, all the time. Stealing ideas is easy, creating a good product is hard.

It sounds as if you're trying to justify this approach as well as the others listed. We all know this but the reason it happens is because the writer needs a studio to finance the film. This the most reprehensible of all those listed because it punishes creativity.

<comment><USER6> Not trying to justify anything, but rather suggesting pretty much all the issues outlined are issues in every major industry, and hence highlighting them as being specific and unusual to the film business is incorrect and unhelpful.

An idea for a movie is a very different thing from a finished script, similar to an idea for a new business is very different than the execution of the new business.

If we applied the "you owe me money because I had the movie idea first" logic to the tech world, facebook owes friendster money because they stole friendster's idea.

<comment><USER7> I can't speak for every situation and whether there was a finished script. I may be an idealist but, from a standpoint of morality, any business that abuses the power they have is severely lacking.

There are differences between Facebook and Friendster and I've always felt uncomfortable with the way Zuckerberg behaved in the early days of Facebook. I will argue that Zuckerberg's vision was greater that than just the Winklevoss' original idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sad to hear that these schemes are used to broadly in business. But not just the business but also from a human side I ve often been left disappointed.

I had my bubble as 12 yr old burst about the innoncence of TV / Media when I was with my parents at some Restaurant that had a big playground. There was a TV shooting in that playground for some Fundraiser of a Down Syndrom Suffering Child.

I just remember standing next to the camera who was having a cigarette break a bit on the side from the family, and he said (more or less, I was 12) to his colleage " Ok, just one final shot of the spastic running into the parents open arms. Always a classic shot to raise money".

</comment><comment><USER9> Originality would be a big one for me, these big studios tend to make very safe bets on stories that the know will have broad appeal, meaning we see the same stuff again and again.

The other one is 3D, not sure what the situation is like in America but the sooner that the 3D and 2D ticket prices become about the same the better. Feels like so many movies that either don't need 3D or 3D really hurts the movie are in 3D just to make more per ticket. I find myself seeking out the non 3D sessions for a lot of films.

</comment><comment><USER10> How can a cartel be disrupted? While this article makes me angry (especially as a consumer, where the limiting of choice has a definite impact) I don't see a way for anyone to 'disrupt' this behavior.

Tech- and entrepreneurial-minded folk like to look for disruption opportunities and while they may exist in theory, these are industries supported by mind-boggling displays of corruption. In this case, you couldn't touch any of the six points on that list without offering a billion dollars in campaign contributions to Congress yourself.

It makes me extremely sad about that state of affairs.

<comment><USER11> Find a substitute product. Or just stop buying this one and wait.

There are lots of arthouse and Indy films, for example.

<comment><USER12> And foreign films. I've seen great flicks from China, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, and Sweden.

Almost everything that comes out of Hollywood is slavishly derivative anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, the most important item is not on this list: Hollywood doeant have a frigging clue about what makes a film successfull (except some obvious metrics, like big names, that anyone can think about), they're completely divorced from the audxience reality. There are many movies that become blockbusters to the great suprise of producers and vice versa, despite the many preview audience screenings, market research, etc. I don't know of any other industry that shares this characteristic.

With top-notch video camears as low as $2-3K now, I'm forever expecting a DIY movie explosion, which never happens. People explain this as "it' difficult to shoot,edit, etc. a movie" which is true but I think the much bigger factor is the stronghold these companies have on distribution.

<comment><USER14> Popular music has a similar dynamic. The studio model is to grab a bunch of likely artists, get them in front of the public and see which ones get traction.

Restaurants are similar. Only about 50% will get traction and survive. That is a well studied business with a replicable model and still it's a crap shoot.

You might even extend it to HN style startups. Lots of expertise in choosing, funding, and guiding, but you still can't say with confidence which will succeed.

<comment><USER15> _Popular music has a similar dynamic. The studio model is to grab a bunch of likely artists, get them in front of the public and see which ones get traction._

This has been changing in recent years and is becoming less and less true as more companies start to import the Japanese pop music model.

In Japan, for the past 30 or so years, they've churned out cookie-cutter idols in a machine-like fashion. They don't pick a person who'd make a good idol -- they design an idol that would appeal to their target demographic, and then they find a person to, effectively, act out the role. Musical talent is largely irrelevant: if they can't sing, just pile on the Autotune and vocal filters, or even use a vocal double. And after a few years, when their idol isn't cool anymore, ditch the old idol and find a new one.

The idols are so fake and inhuman that when AKB48, as a publicity stunt, announced an "idol" that was later revealed to be a computer-rendering instead of a "real" person, it didn't really seem any less real than the current idols, and surprised hardly anyone.

The companies that do this have very high success rates: when they put millions of dollars into marketing an idol, their idol becomes popular. And then they make billions. Why have a guessing game of whether your band will match the demographic when you can _design_ a band to do so?

This model has already existed in the West with boy/girl bands and such. Disney is probably the biggest company trying to pull this model off today, with machine-created "stars" like Miley Cyrus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> >1\. Stealing Scripts Could be coincidence. The universe of possible scrips is limited and dependent on historical context. Now think about how many writers send their scripts to Hollywood. Of course there's going to be some overlap.

And this is not exclusive to the film industry in any way.

</comment><comment><USER17> Reminds me of a story about Mario Puzzo:

When he signed the contract for The Godfather to be made into a movie the royalties he'd receive were to come from the net income of the movie, not the gross. Due to the accounting practices described in the article the film hardly made any money on paper (it grossed a lot but had exaggerated expenses). Already wealthy, Puzzo bet his royalties (a fraction of what he expected) on a roulette spin and walked away. The moral is to always get a percentage of the gross, not the net.

</comment><comment><USER18> In addition to #4.

I don't know about IMDB's relations with releasing companies but the ratings for many movies behave strangely. When a movie is released the rating is very often around 8 fading to 6 in several weeks when more people vote. It's odd that the first batch of people usually likes the film and the rest don't.

<comment><USER19> It might just be that people who think they'll like the movie tend to go see it sooner and post reviews sooner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really like the way Kevin Smith is doing stuff. I only wish he'd come to Israel with his movie.

As he is way better at explaining it then me, check out his blog for his way of distributing a movie:

<http://silentbobspeaks.com/>

</comment><comment><USER21> For reference, the Indie film movement is focused on disruption, it's a fascinating time for experimentation.

An example: <http://www.sellingyourfilm.com> (The PDF version is free)

</comment><comment><USER22> What percentage of movies actually turn a profit (real profit, not paper profit) after all of the costs are taken into account?

</comment><comment><USER23> The criticism of film copyright seems very short sighted to me. Are people that cheap that they resent paying a few bucks for a great movie? Copyright protection means producers can take much higher risks in the films they choose to make, because even if something has a bad run at the box office, it's still got decades of potential profitability ahead of it. Why _should_ you get to watch On The Waterfront for free?

<comment><USER24> The point of copyright is to compensate advances in the arts and sciences. Artists should not be compensated eternally for a single piece of artwork.

<comment><USER23> Compensate advances in the arts and sciences? What does that even mean?

Anyway I didn't say artists should not be compensated eternally for a single piece of work. Although in fact that's quite a strange way to put it. They made the work, copyright means they have control over it. Why should YOU be 'compensated' for somebody else's hard work? ie. get it for free

The point however is that having lengthy copyright terms, eg. 100 years, means producers will finance riskier and therefore better films more willingly. If they only had say 20 years of royalties income to count on, the result would be lowest-common-denominator movies being the only ones that get made.

I don't understand why someone would care more about being able to get 20, 30 year old movies for free than they would about paying a few £s (or watching some adverts) to see an old classic. It's like complaining you have to pay to get into the Louvre.

<comment><USER24> "copyright means they have control over it"

No, copyright means that they are entitled to be the only seller of the work, for a limited time, to ensure their livelihood. It does not mean that they have control over it. Notably, there are strong consumer rights, such as the right of first sale, which limit the ability of the copyright holder to restrict buyers from reselling the work. There are also exceptions to copyright, known as "fair use" exceptions, which permit copyright to be waived in certain situations.

Copyright used to be short. 28 years. It was anticipated that it would get shorter and shorter, as methods of distribution improved. It is not intended to ensure profits.

The big studios keep gross profit from leaking into net profit by cooking their books. Most of the blockbusters of the past 50 years haven't turned a net profit; they've been carefully rigged so that they appear to be in the red, to keep as much money in the studio as possible. They don't have _any_ qualms about financing bad movies. (Pluto Nash is my favorite example.)

"It's like complaining you have to pay to get into the Louvre."

Most of the artwork in the Louvre can be viewed for free, online. Copies of artwork hosted in the Louvre are quite cheap, and you could make your own for free. Your payment goes towards upkeep of the museum, not towards the artists who created the artwork hosted there.

Can you draw Mickey Mouse? I bet you can. Most people have him etched into their memory, because he's so ubiquitous. Mickey is a character that, over the past century, has become a cornerstone of American culture, in TV and film. I'm sure that you know Mickey quite well. But, according to current copyright and trademark law, you _don't own him_. Nobody does except for Disney. So you can't have him, despite having grown up with him and having known him your entire life. You _can't have_ a piece of culture. Do you really think that's okay?

<comment><USER23> I think you took a couple of my comments differently from what I meant. The Louvre has an admission fee which is absolutely trivial considering the treasurs within; it makes no sense to quibble over it, not matter what the money goes to. Likewise having to watch TV adverts or spend a few pounds to see a masterpiece like On The Waterfront, is not something worth complaining about. Secondly, the issue was not that big studios are willing to make bad movies, it's that currently they're also willing to make riskier, less formulaic movies too. That could easily change if movies had little shelf life for future profits.

And to answer your question, I'm perfectly okay with not owning Mickey Mouse. I find it hard to believe anyone would get genuinely concerned over that. (In fact if Disney did not aggressively market and control their intellectual property, probably nobody would even remember Mickey Mouse by now.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 1 reason why the film industry needs disrupting : Internet</comment>


Facebook Reports Third Quarter 2018 Results - <AUTHOR> https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2018/Facebook-Reports-Third-Quarter-2018-Results/default.aspx <comment><USER2> Pre:

\- options pricing in move of almost 10%

\- going in the stock is down about SalesForce's entire market cap

Numbers:

\- 3Q Ad revenue $13.54B

\- 3Q Daily Active Users 1.49B

\- 3Q EPS $1.76, Est. $1.47

\- 3Q Rev. $13.73B, Est. $13.80B

\- 3Q Monthly Active Users 2.27B

\- North America DAU was relativly flat

\- European DAU down

\- operating margin is lowering, not too out of line but lowest we've seen, watch this...

\- Capex was up 90% compared to last Q2 to $3.4B

Notes:

\- 2 Billion+ people used atleast one service once a day

\- 2.6 Billion people used facebook atleast once a month

\- big after hours trading in terms of volume, not much in terms of price moves, straddle sellers won this one

Questions:

\- Will we hear from Sheryl Sandberg? Has anyone had a larger fall from grace due to recent large tech company backlash?

\- After hours trading suggests that Wall Street is happy with facebook at its current valuation, meaning they'll have to find some large growth to join the big boys Google, Apple, Microsoft and Apple

\- FB Said they would have hit their numbers except for currency issues. watch to see if they start seriously hedging expenses and earnings, swap or open market?

\- Have now lost the founders of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus. Was bound to happen at some point but still is a lot of knowledge lost. This effect will probably play out over the next 2-8 quarters and not immediately.

\- What is FB doing with US mid terms coming up? Last election they really failed, and that's being polite. What will Mark let us know about their plans for the US elections?

<comment> cbm-vic-20 > What will Mark let us know about their plans for the US elections?

The fact that this is even a question is frightening.

<comment><USER3> They have a war room up to watch the current US elections. Same war room for the Brazilian elections.

[1][https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/technology/facebook- elect...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/technology/facebook-election-war- room.html) [2][https://gizmodo.com/hey-howd-that-facebook-war-room-fare- dur...](https://gizmodo.com/hey-howd-that-facebook-war-room-fare-during- brazils-el-1830089528)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> More detail here: [https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2018/Q3...](https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2018/Q3/Q3-2018-Earnings- Presentation.pdf)

edit: Massive increase in headcount too: Headcount – Headcount was 33,606 as of September 30, 2018, an increase of 45% year-over-year.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It was swinging a lot after hours. The results look pretty good. For a growing company 20 p/e is pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER5> My question is at what point does Facebook realize that publically displaying people's likes and tagged ins and such is a terrible idea and just stop doing it? And providing real privacy options?

<comment><USER6> When it stops making them a ton of money. So, probably never.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What are it's DAU/MAU numbers for the US and Western Europe?

<comment><USER8> [https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2018/Q3...](https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2018/Q3/Q3-2018-Earnings- Presentation.pdf)

Flat from last quarter</comment></comment>


Camera Lucida - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_lucida <comment><USER2> "Tim's Vermeer is a documentary film, directed by Teller, produced by his stage partner Penn Jillette and Farley Ziegler,[2] about inventor Tim Jenison's efforts[3] to duplicate[4] the painting techniques of Johannes Vermeer, in order to test his theory that Vermeer painted with the help of optical devices."

I figure this might be of interest to anyone looking at the Camera Lucida.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim%27s_Vermeer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim%27s_Vermeer)

<comment><USER3> its a fascinating doc. I don't know if I believe that it is how Vermeer but it is still interesting to watch. One should add that Tim Jennison is the founder of NewTek (Video Toaster, Lightwave 3D, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I got one of these off Kickstarter semi-recently: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pgarcia/neolucida- xl/de...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pgarcia/neolucida- xl/description)

It works pretty well! Certainly helpful for an artistic novice like myself.

<comment><USER5> I also got their original one a few years back! works surprisingly well for an almost medieval invention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My mum had one from the 1940s, I used it briefly. "its tracing" -kid moved on. Didn't think about the actual purpose of this, or how it figured into history of art (which is what she was a lecturer in) until much later.

</comment><comment><USER7> They are fun! I am no artist, but with one I can make a semi-competent drawing, sometimes: [https://www.rosshartshorn.net/stuffrossthinksabout/xmas_trip...](https://www.rosshartshorn.net/stuffrossthinksabout/xmas_trip_2016/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've used this camera lucida Android app, works nicely (no relation, just a user) :

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.petales.fi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.petales.fino)

</comment><comment><USER9> You can also buy these devices on Amazon: [https://www.amazon.com/NeoLucida- XL-Even-Easier-Trace/dp/B07...](https://www.amazon.com/NeoLucida-XL-Even- Easier-Trace/dp/B0798T25KK/)</comment>


Ask HN: Checkout my CS open learning website - <AUTHOR>

I have organized computer science videos from open courseware and a couple of other sources, as structured courses. Each topic page also uses Disqus to let people leave comments and ask questions.
I have several courses (currently 11) such as Algorithms, SICP, Machine Learning, Data Structures, etc.
I am working on creating timelines for existing videos, and will also add new courses in time to come.
The website is hosted at http://www.adaptivelearningonline.net
What features can I add, which will help people in the learning process?
If you are aware of video courses which are not included, please point me to them as well. <comment><USER2> <http://www.adaptivelearningonline.net> \-- clickable link.

I would really work on the design. It looks very immature and I would immediately dismiss it as a fake site or wouldn't invest much time in it. It just looks like a bunch of exported Word documents.

Also, use UL's and LI's for the list of topics rather than tables.

You could easily re-set everything back up as a Wordpress site and get some great themes for free (or very inexpensively) and it would immediately add a lot more features.

Its a good idea though, and I do appreciate the work to bring all those videos together.

<comment><USER3> The content looks awesome. Really nice work, I appreciate having all the videos together in one place.

I agree with the poster above that the design could use a bit of work. It would be a shame for all the content to be dismissed because the site layout feels like one big advertising trap.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words and suggestions. I totally agree about the bad design. Actually this is my improved design :-)

I will continue to work on the design and make it better...

<comment><USER3> You may want to check out Envato for a template to get you started. ThemeForest.net looks to have some nice stuff that's reasonably priced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice idea.

A few features that might be neat: \- let people rate courses \- have groupings of courses (the newbie section, the system/compiler/database section, the OOP section, the algorithm section, etc) \- tag courses with their programming languages/topics/levels, etc \- search by keyword (could be offset by having tags)

I like the logo and really like that you have free ebook links on some of the courses.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice suggestions. Thanks. I especially like the suggestion to group courses.

My logo is actually from Seth Godin's ebook on Tribes.

I plan to add more free book links. Would like to request HN readers to suggest some.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Agree that the design could use some work but the idea is great. I like the links to books, maybe add links to other online resources. I also like the idea of discussion. It would be nice if 'study groups' could be formed around the various subjects.

FYI - There's a similar site here - <http://academicearth.org/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Study groups is a wonderful idea. I have thought about this, but could not figure out, what I can add to a study group, which does not already exist in a mailing list. Can you give some suggestions please?</comment></comment>


Environmental apocalypse predictions have failed for half a century - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/environmental-apocalypse-predictions-have-failed-for-half-a-century <comment><AUTHOR> This says nothing about future predictions.

Only that these past predictions have failed.</comment>


Ask HN: Register Delaware C corp electronically? - <AUTHOR> Clerky say that they can register Delaware C corps electronically, however on the site corp.delaware.gov, I can only find some pdfs to mail in, and those pdfs don't seem to render correctly.<p>From the Clerky site: "In order to ensure reliability, we electronically file your certificate of incorporation with the Delaware Secretary of State. We typically return the filed certificate of incorporation to you within 2-3 business days." <comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure that isn't available to the general public, unfortunately.</comment>


Is healthcare.gov really 500 million lines? - <AUTHOR> http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/alright-what-s-up-with-that

<comment><USER2> On a project I worked on, the government had this idea that we should put an inference engine (essentially an AI) into our software (which ran on a military radio). The idea was that it would be able to process XML-coded regulatory instructions and be able to develop a spectrum-use strategy that followed the appropriate regulations. It added unfathomable complexity, along with a Prolog interpreter, to what was otherwise a tractable system.

My guess is that the "500 million lines," to the extent it isn't pure fiction, is not actual program logic. Rather, it's data files capturing the legal and regulatory distinctions between the 50 states, all the different providers, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> When I do front-end web code, I get 300-500 lines of code a day on a day when I sit back and think to myself: "Wow I really hit that hard today", and other days where I have to prep graphics, correspond with co-workers, or produce mockups I end up writing considerably less code.

I am aware that writing templates, or using LESS or SCSS can let you _generate_ more lines in output from a much smaller input, but they can't be counting the final output as what will have to be re-written.

I'm not mathematician, but let's say 500 lines of usable code is a good day, that means for this project that would require one million days worth of 'hitting it hard' and not doing any graphics work, correspondence, or any extraneous tasks - JUST code writing.

The timeline for this project was what, 3 years? So in order for 1 million human-days of writing code to take place in 3 years (1095 days), that would require what, 913 monkeys bashing away at keyboards non-stop for 8 hours a day? I mean it _is_ feasible, but that's a gargantuan undertaking and I can't see how something so large could possibly be designed to run an application with so few features.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm in the video game industry working on AAA console titles, and the last game I worked on sits right around a million lines for the runtime executable, and maybe another 1-2 million for all the supporting toolchains.

I worked on a game once that was about 4 million lines, and it had continuously evolved for about a decade at that point.

If the 500 million line comment is true, it probably counts all the lines in all the supporting documentation, xml configuration files (which could be huge), etc.

I'd bet my life's savings that it's not actually half a billion lines of executable code.

</comment><comment><USER5> Foursquare had about 1.2M lines of code about a year ago (the last time I counted). And that's counting everything: code, tests, HTML & CSS, 3 mobile clients, various toolchain/support projects.

500M seems impossible.

EDIT: It occurs to me that I'm only counting code we wrote ourselves. We, unsurprisingly, use a bunch of open source libraries & third party tools. If you counted up all the lines of code in all those things maybe you get to 500M? Maybe?

</comment><comment><USER6> I recall that at least some of the site's code is generated, which can sometimes result in code many times longer than equivalent hand-written code. Still, why would they could the lines of codegen and not the original code?

In any case, the figure seems outrageous. If it is that long, I think the site is doomed, and will have to be rewritten from the top.

</comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps it was written in the esoteric programming language Whitespace? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_%28programming_lang...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_%28programming_language%29)

</comment><comment><USER8> No freaking way. 500 people can't write 1 million lines of code in 7 months. Maybe if you counted some kind of ORM generated code but even that seems ridiculous. Even 500 MB of code doesn't make any sense.

</comment><comment><USER9> For comparison, the Linux kernel sits at about 15 million.

</comment><comment><USER10> There's probably 490 million lines of comments explaining all the quid pro quos needed to get the thing built.

<comment><USER7> The quote was "According to one specialist, the Web site contains about 500 million lines of software code." So I would highly doubt that "software code" would also include comments.

<comment><USER6> Why would you think that? Most executable code includes lots of comments, unless it's been preprocessed.

Still, I agree the figure is outrageous.

<comment><USER7> I don't usually count comments to as lines of code. I didn't realize that some people did. Perhaps I'm just unusual in how I count them. It seems there's some ambiguity however so it's very possible that they were counting comments after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I doubt it.

</comment><comment><USER12> One way to get to that number is to count all the code that interfaces with Healthcare.gov. For example, we know that Healthcare.gov interfaces with Social Security, IRS, and Homeland Security databases. I suspect, but have not seen it documented, that it could also be interfacing with one or many databases in each of the 36 states it covers as the federal exchange. Add up the complexity of all these systems and SWAG the number of lines of code.

Another way to get there could be metaprogramming. If you have a Java code writing C code writing web pages [1], you'll get progressively larger number of lines of code depending on where you take the count.

Another way could be needless, but legally mandated, duplication. For example since insurance is state-regulated, what if the law mandates data isolation per state--so there are 36 separate data stores: one for each state. That would give you 36 times as many "lines of code" if you were extremely literal in adding it all up.

These are all silly of course. But everything surrounding PPACA seems like it has to be silly, so why not this?

[1] I don't actually believe this is the stack.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you convince management to test before building a feature? - <AUTHOR> I believe that it's almost always better to build  and release something basic and iterate on the feedback you get from your customers than to work on something for a longer time and only release it when it feels "done".  My previous assumption has been that this is basic product development orthodoxy. In my case, I was heavily influenced by Eric Ries' Lean Startup book.
This week, I've learned that management has been planning a major new feature that would take 6-9 months to build, but don't have any indication that they've tested the idea or want to do a minimum viable product.
I don't see this as a problem just yet, more of an opportunity to initiate discussions about building MVPs. The strange problem I have (and perhaps I've had a charmed career so far), is that I've rarely had to actually make the case to a skeptic that the Lean Startup approach is better.
When talking to management, what have been the most convincing things you've shown them about why this is a good practice to follow? <comment><USER2> Don't assume the management hasn't done their homework, fair to ask questions but be careful not to sound accusatory saying why not do X instead of Y.

Not knowing if you work at a startup or a larger company it is hard to judge part of this. But if you are at a startup with a mature product there are valid reasons to not do an MVP feature release. The Lean Startup philosophy isn't right for everything, but it is a good start for new businesses/products overall, just not all. For a mature product or a product in a regulated industry (finance, healthcare, aerospace etc) the rules change and the maturity of each new feature has to be different. For example, in healthcare, you can't go to the FDA with a product and expect to keep iterating on features quickly, the product must be complete before submittal, and each new feature must be reviewed to see if a whole new submission is required or if an abbreviated submission can be used. Either way it is another cycle which takes months at best.

At this point, the management may have done enough research or market testing to justify the development time. Or alternatively they are taking a calculated bet and are pushing the product a specific direction intentionally. The larger the organization the less likely they are going to do an MVP because releasing small features and incrementing on it can be harder to sell to clients when you have a mature product and the clients have specific expectations.

Also, sometimes you have to build out a set of functionality that takes longer before a client can see it. Doesn't mean you won't necessarily have lots of smaller incremental milestones internally, but for feature release it might take 9 months. The more you make it into regulated work too, like aerospace, financial, healthcare etc the more likely this is to happen. Even during the development time, they may be presenting early demonstrations to clients just not releasing the feature for usage.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think a large part of this depends on how long you've been with the company and what the team dynamics currently are. If you're new, this may be seen as you trying to "make your mark" and the management may feel challenged. If you're an established, trusted member of the team, then present a data driven cost/benefit analysis that will support your case. Present it in their language - management may be persuaded that an MVP carries lower risk and the potential for quicker reward.

</comment><comment><USER4> As a VP, my advice would be to start off by understanding the management team. What drives them? Numbers, aspiration, risk, other factors?

Assuming the management team cares most about the finances and risk, outline what the costs and the risk factors of their approach vs the lean startup methodology. Present it to them as an option. But let them decide while positioning the lean startup as the less risky option.

I've always presented lean methodologies over long periods of development by highlighting the amount of engineering and project management resources it involves. Not to mention 6-9 months down the line, you might have wasted your time building something that your customers didn't want/need.

</comment><comment><USER5> First of all, is this a place where there is significant uncertainty about the feature? Lean Startup-like approaches work best under conditions of uncertainty with unproven ideas. The easiest way to get someone's hackles up is to ignore work or testing that's already been done. Sometimes people have already validated an idea and the next chunk you can learn from _is_ going to take some time.

Once I know that they've actually just been sitting around a table writing for an imaginary user, I have three options I've used: If the feature is clearly segment-able, I pitch it as delivering value sooner, rather than "testing". "We can build the whole feature in the same amount of time, but start making money in one month instead of 9" is a compelling proposal. And then once I've shipped part of it, I go back with the outcome of that and say, "based on what we've learned, we could improve the outcome by making these changes..." It is almost never the case that we make it through a 9 month project, because we've learned so much by then and we prioritized the most valuable parts up front, but I often don't say "MVP" at all. Frame it in terms of what it delivers to the business, not the users.

Second, which is useful if you don't have the power to actually structure product development, is the JAQing off approach: "How are we going to know if the project is a success? What are we measuring? That's an interesting design decision: how has that been received by customers?" The goal is to reveal the extreme uncertainty we are operating under and make the easiest solution the one where they adopt a learning mindset and iterative development. I had a CEO who used this to great effect: he never told people they _had_ to build things iteratively, but he showed up to about one out of every four product reviews and if you wanted to be able to answer his questions most easily you just fell into that pattern. (His questions were always, "what are we trying to achieve?", "how will we measure if we succeeded?", "what evidence do we already have that this is worth investing in?" and "have you actually tried this with the intended user? What was the response?")

Alternatively, I just build user testing into the product development cycle/plan. You can have a 9 month project and still be learning along the way. Developers have to build some part first after all; it might as well be a part that you can learn from. Instead of getting management buy-in you get team buy-in, which is often easier because a series of small achievements feels good and iterative development is SWE orthodoxy. For this approach, I'd use user testing, internal customers or even just Monday demos of the current state of the feature to the team building it. If engineering already has a feature-flag framework it makes this much easier; if not, adopting the technical tools to make testing easier can also lead to more testing.</comment>


Surface Dogged by Low Sales, High Returns - <AUTHOR> http://winsupersite.com/mobile-devices/isuppli-surface-dogged-low-sales-high-returns

<comment><USER2> We demo'd a surface at work, and these were my takeaways:

1) The UI is _incredibly_ confusing. It, again, feels like it's just a windows machine with some goofy /thing/ bolted to the top of it. It reminds me of windows media center.

2) At least the one we got was really heavy. Heavier than a macbook air, which is a "real" computer.

3) We all-too-frequently seemed to get dumped back into a standard windows desktop with a startbutton and everything...which would be great, if it functioned that way. All I wanted to do was create a PPTP connection on the thing, but absolutely couldn't figure out how to make that happen.

\--

I am fairly far from an apple fan, but the reason that the iPad has been so successful is that apple designed it from the beginning to be a new device with new UI paradigms.

Android did the same.

Microsoft, at least from the experience I got with surface, absolutely did not, which is sad, because they're easily poised to be able to dominate tablets.

The "holy shit" dream scenario that I have, and I think it's shared by a lot of tablet users, is a tablet as a detachable auxiliary monitor that I can dock applications into.

If I drag, for example, a browser window over to my surface monitor, that surface monitor should be able to get picked up and go with me, and then I should be able to dock that back into my desktop and go back to working there.

<comment><USER3> A couple of notes to your points ...

2.) There are two Surface models, one is the Surface RT (which this article is talking about) and the other is the yet to be released Surface Pro.

The Surface RT is slightly heaving than the latest generate iPad.

The Surface Pro is supposed to be 2 lbs., which is lighter than the smallest Macbook Air and with the exception of form factor, it is every bit a real computer as is the Macbook Air.

3.) There is no start button in Windows 8 or Windows RT, so I don't know what device you were demo'ing.

<comment><USER4> I appreciate your reasoned post about the Surface: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5146663> A couple clarifications to highlight how the jury is still out on this device and its long-term impact on the market.

 _> 2.) The Surface RT is slightly heaving than the latest generate iPad... The Surface Pro is supposed to be 2 lbs.,_

I had the Surface RT (with touch keyboard) in one hand and my MacBook Air in the other hand. The MacBook Air felt lighter. I did the same thing with a Surface Pro I wasn't supposed to see on a different occasion; the MacBook Air still felt lighter. It could be the Surface Pro I saw was a hardware prototype.

Weight doesn't seem like the Surface's major advantage.

 _> 3) There is no start button in Windows 8 or Windows RT_

You're right that there isn't a start menu in desktop mode (unless someone installs the popular apps that put it back). However, there is a hardware start button on the surface RT I saw... and I did hit it quite often when holding it in landscape. Somehow my hand just wanted to hold the device in the middle from below (perhaps because it's easier to balance? Torsion is heavy?) and got tired much quicker when holding on one side.

<comment><USER5> The weight of the Surface RT and Surface are lighter than the Macbook Air 11 inch by .88 pounds and .38 pounds respectively. The Surface was engineered to equally distribute the weight so that it even feels lighter than it actually is.

<comment><USER6> How heavy is the pro keyboard attachment? More than .38 lbs?

<comment><USER7> About that. A Surface Pro with the Type Cover should be both thinner and lighter than the smallest MacBook Air. Exactly how many hundredths of a pound lighter isn't yet known since no review units were sent out and the Surface Pro website says "under 2 pounds" for the device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have a Surface RT. It was a gift. I also have an iPad, that I paid for. I use both quite often.

Is it a good device ? Yes, I think so. Would I recommend the current Surface RT ? No, not yet anyway.

Here are my key issues:

a.) The app store has to get better. I know it has a full featured browser (spare the IE jokes), so there isn't a need for as many apps as a traditional tablet, but I still think the RT's usage is set up for touch as often as possible and using IE10 in desktop mode just don't cut it for touch usage.

b.)It can stand to be a bit cheaper (at least bundle in the keyboard for $50.00)

c.) MS needs to get their act together because the built in apps are very bare bones and in fact are at times worse than the apps they replaced (i.e. Xbox Music vs Zune)

d.)in terms of hardware, the only real issues I have would be the screen (quality is great, but I think the next iteration should bump up the resolution); and the cameras which are god awful.

All in all, despite the criticism, I like the direction Microsoft has taken with Windows 8 and the Surface line. In typical Microsoft fashion, it would have helped if the different divisions had got their act together, so they could have released a more refined, coherent product.

It always baffles me when I see incredulous posts on Hacker News that can't seem to grasp the benefits of a device like the Surface RT or the Pro. I think devices similar to the Surface Pro are the future of mass computing.

<comment><USER8> How do you find office on RT? It's unusable for me. Too slow.

Fortunately it's not my machine :)

<comment><USER9> Have you already installed the Office RTM update? It's a bit better after the update.

<comment><USER10> That update is particularly hard to find - you have to dig several windows deep into the control panel in desktop mode ... it's one of those inexplicable things that just dumbfounds me - they leave a pre-release version of Office on the tablets and then almost guarantee nobody will install the proper version by making the update UI impossible to find.

<comment><USER11> seriously? you can just type windows update (search will open for you) then select it to install - i don't know how it's too complicated. Especially since most people use windows already.

<comment><USER10> No, typing Windows Update gets you to the updates for the tablet, which do not include Office. To update Office you go through the control panel see -

[http://winsupersite.com/article/windows8/microsoft- surface-u...](http://winsupersite.com/article/windows8/microsoft-surface- upgrade-final-office-2013-rt-144650)

Perhaps it has changed, but this is how it was 3 weeks ago when I updated the tablet I had.

<comment><USER8> This is what I experienced as well.

I've updated it now - it's still a dog, even compared to my 5 year old ThinkPad...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a Surface RT. Unfortunately I couldn't return it because it was outside the return window and Microsoft's return policy was rather unforgiving. Too late now.

I actually like the thing.

Pros: \- The Type Cover is awesome. It's not bad typing on it and the keys are spaced enough where you don't feel cramped. The track pad works well with this too. \- There are enough built in apps to get stuff done that most people need to do (calendar, email, document creation, and web browsing). \- Hardware wise it is heavy but solidly built. It really looks nice and the kickstand isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Cons: \- Someone mentioned that the aspect ratio of the screen makes it difficult to read documents sometimes. \- Windows 8 has a steep learning curve. You won't be able to pick it up and immediately be productive with it like you would an iPad. However once you get used to the gestures you will be comfortable on any Windows 8 device. \- For some reason (and this was true with my Windows Phone 7 HTC Arrive) apps take a long time to download data from the internet. You'll frequently be waiting on an app to connect to the internet to use things like the People Hub to see status updates. \- Apps. This is a big one. There are few big name apps on there. Was hoping for Spotify, Facebook, and Twitter individual apps. \- The name. They dropped the ball on a simple product naming strategy.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've seen a handful of Surfaces around town, but I live in Seattle and every Microsoft employee got one for free.

It's a nice device in theory: the build quality is significantly higher than your average PC, but the lack of apps is, I think, a killer. Almost _no one_ understands the difference between Windows and Windows RT, nor understands that this means you won't be able to run Steam, PrintShop Pro, that crappy VB6 app that IT built when Clinton was President, or any other app that's run on Windows for the past 20+ years.

Plus, the other thing that boggles my mind is that it is _not_ a laptop. You literally cannot use it on your lap with either of the keyboard covers. It is either an overly long tablet, or a desktop machine.

edit: I'm impressed therobot24 can get their Surface to balance properly on their legs. I tried this out and couldn't make it happen in a way that I thought would be safe. Maybe I underestimated the strength of the magnets between the keyboard and device.

<comment><USER11> I disagree with the 2nd part - I use the surface on my lap all the time - rather 90% of my usage is in bed or on the couch/recliner, each time with the kickstand out and using the type keyboard. I don't see why it didn't work for you, the only problem I can even think of is that sometimes i'm laying down and because i'm looking under my glasses I have trouble reading the screen.

<comment><USER14> Do you sit with your legs together so you can support the device with two points of contact, or do you manage to balance the whole thing on one thigh? The problem with the kickstand/keyboard setup is that the keyboard isn't rigidly attached to the screen. You can use force on the palm rests of a laptop to support it in a wide variety of positions that seems really awkward with the Surface.

<comment><USER11> legs together, or it's on my chest while i'm lying down.

i kind of like that it isn't rigidly attached because my blanket or legs for that matter aren't exactly an even surface and instead of the device losing balance the keyboard leans a bit left or right.

<comment><USER14> Whenever I use my laptop not on a desk, I balance it on one knee (I don't like sitting with my legs pressed together), which seems hard to do with the Surface. I also balance it on a couch armrest or a pillow in bed. The rigid base let's me use my hands on the keyboard to steady the device even when it's balancing with only one point of contact at the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I returned the Surface I bought. I hardly ever return things.

I thought the screen too tall when web surfing in portrait mode. And I had an overall "meh" feel towards the hardware that I knew would have me leaving it in the drawer, collecting dust.

\--

Sent from my iPad

<comment><USER16> Genuine question:

Did you get the iPad before or after the Surface?

For the life of me I can't understand why someone would want both products. (And, between the two of them, I'd personally choose the iPad.)

<comment><USER17> > _"For the life of me I can't understand why someone would want both > products"_

You've never met a gadget-hound?

<comment><USER16> I'm not saying those people don't exist -- I just don't know why they do. :)

<comment><USER18> I'm not in that demographic, but it's easy for me to imagine a techie who just likes to be the person in the room who has an informed opinion when the subject of available tablets comes up. For devices that have decent return policies or retain their resale value, there's minimal risk other than one's time investment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Its hard to push the envelope. I'm impressed that Microsoft didn't push out a 'me too' product, I wasn't impressed with their ability to 'step outside their comfort zone.'

That said, the amount of experimentation that is going on these days reminds me of the early personal computer days and I find that a lot of fun. Its too bad Microsoft didn't hit one out of the park[1] but they've got room to continue.

[1] Baseball metaphor for scoring a home run, also reading the Palm story and how they went from 'juggernaut' to 'irrelevant' in 36 months was pretty sobering.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was working out what tablet to get- the Surface was up there, but in the end I went with an Asus Transformer tablet. It has it's own infuriating features (incredibly slow IO performance, for one) but I do feel like Android will be a full OS before Windows 8 is a mobile one.

</comment><comment><USER21> The Pro version is what I think a lot of people are waiting for. The app market is still to small for the locked down arm version to be useful. Obviously the market is getting better but it still has a long way to go.

<comment><USER22> I don't think the $900 tablet that makes you pay for 64 GB of storage, but only allows you to use 23 GB is really what people are waiting for.

<comment><USER23> So put a 64gb SD card in there for 50 bucks. It's not an Apple product.

<comment><USER24> With the keyboard the Surface Pro is already more expensive than the cheapest Macbook Air.

<comment><USER23> And they both have their strengths and weaknesses. What's your point? Or is this just blind hatred for a device that hasn't even launched yet?

<comment><USER14> Is it really hard to believe that rational people can see the Surface Pro as a severely compromised device just based on the specifications? Surface Pro enthusiasts are psyched about the Ivy Bridge CPU and real Windows 8, while detractors are skeptical about the severe compromises in the design: 33% heavier than an iPad with half the battery life and a small screen and pathetic keyboard/trackpad story relative to a real ultrabook.

The enthusiasts could be right, it could end up being a "no compromises" hit of a device. But my money is with the detractors. I think it makes too many compromises relative to a real tablet and a real ultrabook to be a successful device that convinces people to consolidate both.

<comment><USER23> A lot of people wrote off the iPad, and thrn 7" tablets based purely on specifications, and look how they turned out.

There is an awful lot of negativity around the Surface Pro from some people, and its pretty obvious a lot of it is purely because its a Microsoft product. I think we should at least wait until the damn thing has launched before we we come to any conclusions about it.

<comment><USER14> > A lot of people wrote off the iPad

There was a lot of negativity about the iPad, and people were wrong. It turned out that multi-touch was a total game changer for the tablet form factor, and people didn't see it coming.

> There is an awful lot of negativity around the Surface Pro from some people, > and its pretty obvious a lot of it is purely because its a Microsoft > product.

I don't think it's "obvious" at all. Microsoft is launching a 2 pound tablet with 4-5 hour battery life at a $900 price point. You don't have to dislike Microsoft to think that the "but you can run Visual Studio on it!" angle is just going to go over peoples' heads and the market will pass on the device.

Especially considering the lack of "game changer" as existed in the iPad. Is the weight reduction from 3-3.5 pounds as with the previous Windows tablets to 2 pounds (at the cost of battery life and a real keyboard) going to be that game changer? I think you have to really be rooting for MS to think that is the case.

<comment><USER23> If you don't think full Windows 8 with full Office on a tablet in that form factor isn't a potential game changer for enterprise, you're insane.

> There was a lot of negativity about the iPad, but people were wrong.

Exactly. So just like with the iPad, don't you think we should wait until people actually use this potentially game changing device to find out if it is a flop or a game changer?

The reason why I say its obvious that many people are dismissing this device because its from Microsoft is that I've seen a lot of comments that say "Its Microsoft, and Microdoft always [insert sterotype here]". Im not saying everyone is doing that, but there's certainly a big element of it.

<comment><USER14> > If you don't think full Windows 8 with full Office on a tablet in that form > factor isn't a potential game changer for enterprise, you're insane.

I think full Office in a tablet form factor is potentially a game changer, but that's exactly what Surface RT offers and look how well it's selling.

I don't think full Windows in a tablet form factor is otherwise attractive. Aside from a small niche of people, nobody wants to run non-touch optimized legacy Windows apps on a 10" screen. Microsoft has been peddling the stylus/tablet shtick for almost a decade now and it just hasn't been taking off. It's not something people want.

Microsoft made a huge mistake by releasing two different versions of Surface. They should have put all their eggs in the "Office on a tablet" basket, and released Surface RT with a high-res screen and Clovertrail processor at the $500-$600 price point, with a perfect, fully touch-optimized copy of Office ready to go. By sandbagging Surface RT they released on product without features people want (high-res screen, fast performance), and one product with features nobody wants (aside from a few nerds who think they're going to run CAD apps, nobody needs Ivy Bridge on a tablet).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Perhaps they shipped them with only 23 gigs of free space knowing they would be returned long before anyone could use up that space.

</comment><comment><USER26> I will not be getting a surface. I took a borrowed one home to show my wife, she hated it. She wanted the interface switched around since she's left handed, charms on the left and swipe right for more pages, I couldn't figure out how to do it, but I didn't look that hard.

I'm also forbidden from installing Windows 8 on her laptop and the games machine.

Personally I don't like how I need to be connected to the cloud all the time to do anything.

</comment><comment><USER27> How many MS products sell well in their first edition? Besides Kinect? I remember when Honeycomb was first out and all anyone could talk about was channel stuffing and how there wasn't a tablet market, there was an iPad market. A bit lower on that sites newsfeed is a note that the iPad dropped below 50% in the quarter they launched two new tablets.

<comment><USER28> > How many MS products sell well in their first edition?

Not very many MS products sell well regardless of version number. Outside of Office and Windows MS struggles, and the only consumer success they have had has been with the XBox. Their other initiatives -- Zune, Windows Phone, Kin, etc. -- have all struggled despite sustained efforts from Redmond.

Microsoft has entered a field that already has established players -- Apple and Samsung -- who are on the 3rd+ generation of their devices, and who have greatly refined them over time. Microsoft has put out a device that is first- gen. This is woefully insufficient to make a dent, long-term or short.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the Surface* tablets will eventually suffer a fate similar to the Zune. I also don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that Microsoft has shown that it cannot compete in the consumer space.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: PR – How does it work... - ben-gy

Hey there HN!
I've been running a startup (http://subservice.co) for a little while now and we've worked out what we need to do to take it to the next level.
I've sought some advice, and copied other press article's writing styles, and come up with this press release - http://d.pr/f/gQ5t.
But I'm certain I can still make it way better. Do you know of any good resources or friendly publicists that could help me out?
Thanks in advance! <comment><AUTHOR> Don't waste your time with press releases.

Use free services like HARO to connect directly with relevant journalists.

Here is an explanation on how to do it properly to get press: [http://www.brightjourney.com/q/get-pr-publicity- startup#a-52...](http://www.brightjourney.com/q/get-pr-publicity- startup#a-52116)

<comment> ben-gy Fantastic, thanks so much :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Ben, this is a very well written PR (even if you copied the style) and I think you should go ahead and publish it (I personally feels most of the Press releases are not worth it but yours looks to be something which can be published).

Can you check at fiverr.com and oDesk.com, I know there are some really good people there (you need to some searching though) who can make it better, I had done some PR work myself (syndication) so feel free to contact me via [http://www.inboundio.com/contact_us](http://www.inboundio.com/contact_us) if you need any help or guidance.

</comment><comment><USER3> I interpreted the PR in the title as Pull Request.

<comment> ben-gy Ha! Apologies :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> this is a classic [http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/80121/How-To-Get- Media-...](http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/80121/How-To-Get-Media- Coverage-For-Your-Startup-A-Complete-Guide.aspx)

<comment> ben-gy Wow - what a resource - cheers!</comment></comment>