Sublime Text 2.0 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.sublimetext.com/blog/articles/sublime-text-2-0-released <comment><USER2> Hm, Am I the only one who spends hours in vim each day with ~15 lines in my .vimrc and almost zero plugins?

At some point I think I realized that no matter how feature-rich my editor was, the main thing stopping me from writing good and fast code was _thinking_, not configuring my text editor.

<comment><USER3> I continue to be haunted by something a good artist friend used to say: "Don't obsess over your tools. They are not the goal".

This would ring in the back of my head as I spent many hours configuring my editor / shell / terminal setup. It felt like a guilty pleasure.

It dawned on me however, that what had drawn me to programming in the first place was a _sublime_ text editor (TextMate), and that my business is in fact tool-building. My love for computing tools and the experience of using them reflects in the kind of software I build for clients.

On top of this, evaluating and obsessing over hacker's tools isn't confined to picking between models at the hardware store. I have pored over (and patched, however minor) bash, vim, tmux, rxvt-unicode, and many other programs that I use every day.

These things may well be rationalizations, so here's a simpler justification: the time I invest into my tools have made my experience of sitting down in front of a computer incredibly enjoyable. I once lived computer free for three years because I detested the uninspiring (and frustrating) experience of Microsoft Word and Windows 98. If that was what computing was, I wanted nothing to do with it.

<comment><USER4> I've once watched a group of sculptors argue about the merits of various drills for a whole evening. So yes, artists also obsess over their tools just like we do over ours.

<comment><USER5> Well, the poster said a "good artist" told him that. Even so, perhaps your group were good artists but misguided on just this one issue. Another anecdote, I saw a thing on ice sculptors; there were two really amazing artists and they were arguing about which one used better tools. One artist used an angle grinder exclusively for almost everything and the other used hand chisels exclusively for detail. It doesn't seem like the tool matters that much as long as it is fits a certain percentage of needs.

<comment><USER4> I don't think these were thinking that a particular tool is necessary for creating good art, either. It is more about the fact that any craftsman becomes quite attached to _their particular tools_.

This is the root cause of the endless Vi vs. Emacs debates as well.

<comment><USER6> Fair, though the question is less, "Do we need good tools?" than "What makes a great tool?" VIm and Emacs both make great tools.

But nobody comes to VIm knowing how to use it intuitively. Its features make the investment worthwhile. Same with Sublime Text 2. There are features that instantly save time (the tiny thumbnail of your entire file makes traversal a breeze for me) and others than take a while to get used to (ctrl-P).

The question shouldn't be, "Should I waste time looking at ANY tools?" especially in the ironic context of, "I've used two decades of my life learning VIm and now it ROCKS." It's, "What does this tool have that makes it worth using?" That answer for me so far is speed, flexibility, and features, like the two above. I'd hoped to see more on those topics here.

When I want to use VIm, I do. When I want to use JEdit, I do. As the previous fellow replying says, you don't simply use hammers. Figure out where this tool -- which is a very good one -- fits. Its best feature might be its untimed trial period. Give it a shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Serendipitous, as I'm planning on doing a lightning talk on ST2 tonight.

Editors seem to raise a lot of religious issues, and not to totally discount the distinctions that can be made between them, but I think it's more important to know your editor well than to worry about "the best editor." (If such a thing exists.) As Hunt & Thomas say in _The Pragmatic Programmer_ : "use a single editor well."[1] You'll be most productive if you learn your editor from head to toe, than if you half-assedly know several. That takes some effort and conscious practice, sitting down and memorizing key combinations and the like. And a cursory glance at any editor might leave you unimpressed until you've gotten somewhat fluent with its features.

Just a couple of suggestions if you do use ST2:

\+ get package control: [http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/package_control/installati...](http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/package_control/installation)

\+ For rails, a couple of nice packages are RubyTest and SimpleRailsNav

\+ Learn the multi-edit commands

\+ Familiarize yourself with cmd-P/ctrl-P (osx/win)

\+ Keyboard shortcuts: WIN: <https://gist.github.com/1925069> OSX: <https://gist.github.com/1207002>, or look at Default (OS).sublime-keymap

[1] I would amend that to add "and also know vim at least a little" for stuff like sshing in to servers and whatnot.

<comment><USER8> >>As Hunt & Thomas say in The Pragmatic Programmer: "use a single editor well."[1] You'll be most productive if you learn your editor from head to toe, than if you half-assedly know several.

If this advice is to be taken seriously the only editors you can learn is vim and Emacs.

Shiny editors like Sublime Text come and go every 2-3 years. And putting effort learning them, only brings you back to your statement: "You'll be most productive if you learn your editor from head to toe, than if you half-assedly know several."

<comment><USER9> Sublime Text definitely runs that risk by not being open. Look at Textmate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can I just say I love the pricing model. It's paid software, with an unenforced 'trial period'. Relying on coders who use a text editor all day and appreciate good software and want to compensate someone for their good software. +1 humans.

<comment><USER11> I agree. It would be great to see some revenue numbers, if it's really successful (which I think it is), it would be a nice model for other developers or software companies.

<comment><USER12> I'm fairly sure he's made really quite a large chunk of dollar out of it already. Especially after he started forcing people to pay up if they wanted the very latest builds. That was a stroke of genius.

<comment><USER13> Really? I was using the dev builds without paying (bought my license yesterday).

<comment><USER14> Nightly would be the very latest, I think.

That is, it's not like, say, Chrome release where it's Dev -> Beta -> Stable. It is (was?) more like Nightly -> Dev -> Beta/Stable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> An absolutely joyful piece of software. I love it so much, I bought it right away. Plus, where else can you experience such a pleasant multiplatform situation? Great Job!

<comment><USER16> I like it too. The main problem I have with it—and Textmate—is the lack of an emacs-like Follow-mode: [http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Fol...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Follow- Mode.html) . It's 2012, I'm using a 27" monitor, and yet I can't find this feature, or one like it, in anything other than emacs, which has a learning curve far too steep for my pretty simple needs.

At one point, the Textmate website mentioned that a follow-mode-like feature was in the works, but 1) I can't find that mention anymore, and 2) even if it is, I'd rather not wait forever for it.

<comment><USER17> > The main problem I have with it—and Textmate—is the lack of an emacs-like > Follow-mode: > [http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Fol...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Fol..). > .

I believe this plugin does what you want: <https://github.com/atbell/SublimeSynchroScroll>

<comment><USER16> Beautiful! Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been really tempted to fork and contribute to MacVim and steal some of the nicer visual things ST2 is doing. Namely,

      1) rounded corners on selection boxes
      2) nice glowing, fading cursor
      3) smooth scrolling with a feeling of velocity/inertia
      4) the minimap

I tried the Vim plugin, but so many of the motions that I use daily were missing I had to jump ship. But I'd _love_ it for MacVim to have the same level of visual and UI polish that ST2 does--it really sets a high bar.

<comment><USER19> I think that we are entirely different types of developers (and that is fine, this is in no way meant as as being negative on the way you work), but I couldn't care less about the first 3 points you mention. They don't add anything to my productivity.

I do wonder though, if visual attraction is such an issue to you, why in the first place do you use Vim?

<comment><USER18> I use Vim because I'm faster in it than anything else, hands down.

But I do think there's probably some vague psychological argument to be made about the elegance and simplicity of your tools mirroring a state of mind conducive to elegance and simplicity in your programming. It's why people are into tools like WriteRoom.

Plus, I feel like the smooth scrolling feature actually does help you preserve an awareness of where you are when you're browsing a file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As an Intellij user (and Emacs way before that) I'm trying to give this a chance, but I see no way to click-navigate through source code. Am I missing something? I tried installing SublimeCodeIntel, and that lets me (occasionally) navigate to symbols in the current file. But I don't seem to be able to click through to symbols defined in other files/classes. Am I missing something fundamental, or is this strictly the domain of the IDEs?

<comment><USER21> Why do you want to use your mouse while coding?

<comment><USER22> Because when browsing code it's faster to click on a method name than to navigate to it with the keyboard.

<comment><USER23> Even in Visual Studio that's not true, at least not for me. Just move the cursor to the symbol in question, hit the menu key and select the 'Go to definition' or whatever menu item. Or better yet, map it to something like Ctrl+] which I usually do.

<comment><USER24> I thought F12 was mapped to 'go to definition' by default? in any case, not hard to set up something like you suggest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I just tried Sublime 2 and I must admit I don't "get it." It seems like a basic editor with several features which Notepad++ already had.

Specifically for programming I cannot see why you would use this as opposed to something like Visual Studio with its context aware auto-complete (massive productivity increase).

But then again I also don't get why someone would use Vim or Emacs when you have GUI based tools available (even freely). Even for non-Windows programming Eclipse exists and has a decent (if slow) context aware auto-complete for many languages.

The only justification I've ever heard for people's continued use of tools like this boil down to either "I know the shortcut keys" or "I don't have to use the mouse."

Which to me is odd within its self as very little of my programming efficiency is lost mousing around, and a lot more lost having to jump around code blocks because auto-complete didn't magically know what an object's members were...

<comment><USER26> I used sublime text and my interns all use visual studio. I love both, but I can give a few points:

* No CTRL+D duplicate line in VS

* Can't use middle-mouse in VS to select multiple columns

* Can't place your cursor in many multiple locations at once in VS

* You can use ALT+DRAG to select columns in VS but there's no way to put a carat at the end of each of a bunch of lines of varying sizes

* CTRL+J to append the next line to the current one, removing all whitespace. I feel as if this has saved me a year of life.

Those five alone are extremely useful when writing JavaScript and HTML.

* The autocomplete in VS does not "learn" like the sublime text one does.

* No good incremental search in VS (might have changed on the very newest version?)

* CTRL+B opens the current HTML page being edited in my browser on sublime text. There's probably an equivalent in VS though

* highlighting a string of text highlights all similar ones in sublime text. In VS for C# it sorta does this if the string of text is a token

* The ability to sort and shuffle lines in sublime text can be useful at times, though this is usually when preparing data and not when writing code.

<comment><USER27> I use ST2 and have been learning about using multiple cursors, but I wonder what kind of things are you doing where that comes in handy? So far I haven't had a chance to use it, especially since there already is a shortcut for commenting things out.

<comment><USER28> Example: Take some log text, where all you're interested in is the messages, and you don't want hostname/date/time/etc cruft.

1\. Ctrl+A Select all the lines

2\. Ctrl+Shift+L to split into multiple cursors, 1 per line

3\. Home/Ctrl+Shift+arrows/etc to select stuff to copy/delete

I find it easier than constructing a regex to pass to find/replace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've reverted back to Vim (not really ST2's fault, just that it doesn't run in a terminal and I've gotten addicted to split-panes in iTerm), but ST2's a solid editor. Definitely worth your $60.

PS: If it got even a basic terminal...

EDIT2: ST2 does have split panes, I just can't run a terminal in them.

<comment><USER30> I'm just curious about why you need to run it in a terminal?

I have a linux machine at work and use a MacBook for remote work. When I'm remote I just run Sublime locally on my Mac and set up an sshfs mount to my workstation for the source files. Works like a charm.

Note - not at all saying you're doing it wrong :-) just curious if you'd tried this kind of setup and why it didn't work for you?

<comment><USER29> It's mainly to keep everything (where everything == files, REPL, docs, etc.) in a single window, which I can then throw full-screen and have absolutely nothing but my work in front of me. I'm sure one could use ST2 (or any other GUI app) on Linux with a tiling WM like xmonad and achieve a similar workflow, but there doesn't seem to be a way to achieve this on OSX that doesn't involve ugly/unstable hacks.

<comment><USER31> You know, in theory it'd be possible to do that within Sublime but I'm not sure if that's veering towards the emacs approach of ALL THE THINGS. I'd have to try it but I think you can probably use PyQt to grab WebKit and make a package to display HTML docs within Sublime

<comment><USER29> The "all the things" approach is a large part of what keeps me away from Emacs[1]. I'd much rather use a single-purpose editor (like ST2 or Vim) alongside other similarly-focused tools, or a well-done IDE that's focused on it's environment. Emacs tries too hard to be everything at once (why do I want an editor that's a file manager, IRC client, organizer, and Tetris?).

[1] The other is it's absolute refusal to "fit in" on whatever platform it's on. Fits with the kitchen-sink approach: why interop with [program X] when you can just build it in?

<comment><USER32> > why do I want an editor that's a file manager, IRC client, organizer, and > Tetris?

Although I don't want my editor to do all those things, for me the reason emacs wins is because it invites you to learn the (not unpleasant, genuine programming) language in which it is written and then do whatever you want with it. Even if you basically want to keep it simple having that power to hand is nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> As a Textmate'r, I have to say using ST for the last few months has been a pleasure.

There is one thing that ST doesn't do as well though: pasting blocks of code while retaining the formatting/indentation. i.e. if I copy a loop and try and paste it into another function/whatever and the cursor isn't on the same column, the indentation gets messed up.

It's a minor quibble and far from a deal-breaker, but it is a bit of a shock when it happens.

<comment><USER34> It sounds like Paste and Indent is what you're after: Command+Shift+V, or some users prefer to just bind this to Command+V, a la TextMate.

<comment><USER33> I love you

edit: if anyone is curious,

Preferences > Key Bindings > Default [edit: should use User as noted below]

ctrl+f paste, and change

        { "keys": ["super+v"], "command": "paste" },
        { "keys": ["super+shift+v"], "command": "paste_and_indent" },

to

        { "keys": ["super+shift+v"], "command": "paste" },
        { "keys": ["super+v"], "command": "paste_and_indent" },

<comment><USER35> Even better, put that in Preferences, Key Bindings, User.

Using the user file has two advantages:

First, you avoid mishaps when some future version makes changes to the default bindings file.

Second, you can quickly check what are your non-default settings.

<comment><USER33> Duly noted. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Based on the great reviews of ST2, I switched from vim to ST2 (with vintage mode) a few months ago. It seems good... but it hasn't lived up to the reviews for me.

I'm guessing I'm missing some of the functionality. Is there a tutorial anywhere to show me what I'm missing?

How have you learned about ST2 features (rather than just repeating your old editing habits in a new program)?

<comment><USER37> I learned ST2 from my coworkers, who were all using it. Now I'm learning vim much the same way. I've switched to vim fulltime from ST2, and here are the features of ST2 that I miss:

1\. Multiple cursors. This is the only reason I ever use ST2 now. They're sort of like vim's visual block mode, except on steroids. For example, if you have multiple cursors, you can start typing and each cursor will behave as in insert point. Each cursor can also move independently, which means you can do things like moving word-wise or line-wise over lines which are not heterogeneous. Using Cmd + D, you can add selections, and then they're multiple cursors. This ends up replacing things like find-replace for me, because it's so fast and easy.

I should make a video of me using multiple cursors, because I feel I'm not explaining it well at all.

2\. Cmd+p/goto-anything. Suppose I want to go to the getUser method of the auth class. All I have to do is hit Cmd + p, then type "Au@getUser". As I type, a window appears with filenames, so first I type, "Au", and then seeing that "Auth.php" is at the top, I type an @, which tells ST2 I'm now looking for a method, it then starts searching for methods within Auth.php.

Now, with vim I use Cmd-T, but that only gets me to the file, and it's kind of a bitch to get it working. It also has a thing to navigate methods, but I have to use something called tags, which means a) I have to figure out what the hell that is and b) I have to fiddle with getting it all setup. All that time could be spent programming. Mmmm, programming. I understand ctrlp makes some of this better, but I haven't tried it yet.

3\. Better platform integration. With vim, there's a bunch of weird shit I have to do to get the clipboard working properly (including recompiling vim o_O), and the mouse seems janky. I mostly never use the mouse anyway, but the clipboard issues are annoying.

4\. Python API vs vimscript. I wrote a couple of small plugins for ST2, which was nice and easy, because everybody knows python, and the API is modern and well thought out. With vim, I feel like it's a whole different matter, starting with learning a new programming language.

<comment><USER38> >It also has a thing to navigate methods, but I have to use something called tags, which means a) I have to figure out what the hell that is

Well. I'm not exactly old, but seeing someone say that about tags has made me feel rather ancient.

There are better ways to navigate code than tags. For Emacs, for example, my setup uses Rope to navigate Python code.

<comment><USER37> It doesn't seem like the main issue is age as much as that most people will be coming to VIM from either IDEs or editors that had built-in code-navigation features, so moving to something like vim involves the extra overhead of learning things like tags or rope even.

<comment><USER38> There's definitely an age-gap here.

People who grew up coding C had to learn to use ctags, whereas, people who start out in interpreted languages are much less likely to encounter such.

>involves the extra overhead of learning things like tags or rope even.

Rope has no learning overhead. It works the same as any IDE. You use the functionality it provides like "go-to definition" or refactoring.

Tags are just a file you generate using a command and the editor uses it to provide a "go-to definition" faculty.

<comment><USER37> It's funny, I grew up writing C++, but in an IDE. You're probably right that older people may have started programming before IDEs were commonplace (?). I've actually never liked using IDEs for interpreted languages, but have always used them for compiled languages.

I'm talking specifically about tags, because it's the tool I'd need to use to get goto-anything functionality in vim using command-t or ctrlp.

Whenever there's a debate about something like ST2 or an IDE vs vim/emacs, the argument is always "well you can do all that stuff with vim, just install x, y and z plugins", and I was making the point that with ST2, the out-of-the-box goto-anything functionality is really excellent. I love vim, and can't see myself ever going back on that, but I certainly appreciated with ST2 that the baked-in, absolutely-zero-effort-required goto-anything functionality was really excellent.

<comment><USER38> >Whenever there's a debate about something like ST2 or an IDE vs vim/emacs, the argument is always "well you can do all that stuff with vim, just install x, y and z plugins",

That might be true for vim, but it isn't for Emacs. Most of what you need is built-in, with the occasional plugin only coming in when you want hardcore IDE functionality or something uber language specific. It supports virtually every language, VCS, use-case, etc. out of the box though.

Has it ever occurred to you that people who've been programming for decades have a _reason_ for putting forth the advantages of editors like Emacs and vim?

<comment><USER37> > Has it ever occurred to you that people who've been programming for decades > have a reason for putting forth the advantages of editors like Emacs and > vim?

Of course--I stated clearly that I'm a vim user and that I love it, and couldn't see myself going back. But I still appreciate the out of the box functionality and ease-of-use of ST2.

<comment><USER38> You should try Emacs if you like out of the box functionality and ease-of-use. It's modeless like most other editors (unlike vim).

You can bolt vi/vim on top of it if you really want the modal editing though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> As a die-hard Vim'er I like this more every time I look at it.

What I'm still missing in vintage-mode is search/replace (mostly ':s' and ':%s') and block visual mode (^V in vim). The latter habit I could probably break, but the search/replace stuff gets me all the time.

Is there perhaps a plugin/workaround already to get Vim-style search/replace or do I have to hold out for another version?

<comment><USER40> Maybe take a look at VintageEx: <https://github.com/SublimeText/VintageEx> I'm not sure if search/replace is included but if not you could open an issue and maybe someone adds it. :)

<comment><USER39> Thanks man, that does indeed add working search/replace!

Giving Sublime a whirl now. If nothing else it's going to be an interesting discovery of which Vim features I really use in my daily workflow.

Edit: Sadly bumped right into the next issue. It seems in addition to the lack of Vim's visual-block-mode the native multi-select (Ctrl-Shift-L) doesn't work in vintage either. No multi-line editing at all is a bit of a showstopper.

Anyway, there's always a next version, I'm not giving up hope. :)

<comment><USER40> I'm not that much into Vi(m) but a visual mode is available in Vintage mode? Press ESC, v.

<comment><USER41> I think he's referring to the "column" visual mode, that allows you to make a rectangular selection and delete/insert/replace it.

<comment><USER39> Yes, in particular the "bulk edit actions" (not sure if they have a proper name) that you can do in Vim in either visual mode.

E.g. make visual selection, shift-I = prepend text to all selected lines. This is the same functionality as sublime multi-line editing. The problem is that _neither_ seems to work in vintage-mode (or I'm just too dense to figure out how).

Edit: Nevermind, it works now after I started over with a fresh config. Apparently I had something bad stuck in there from earlier experiments. Thanks for the replies!

<comment><USER42> Maybe I'm not understanding exactly what you're missing, but I do believe sublime can do what you want.

* Search/replace: ctrl-f will do find (and you can use a reg-ex, case insensitive, etc, based on the little toggles to the left of the find bar. Then hit "Find all" on the right, and everything in that file will be highlighted and you'll have multiple cursors. So from there, just type what you want to replace all the words with, or really do whatever you want with your multiple cursors.

* "bulk edit actions": Works just fine for me in vintage mode. Highlight each line you want (or repeatedly press ctrl-l to add a line to your selection), hit ctrl-shift-l to get multiple cursors, and then do what you want from there. Example:

You're in vintage/command mode. Highlight three lines. Hit ctrl-l to flesh out the top and bottom lines (so the whole line is in the selection, and not just where you started and ended your mouse drag). Hit ctrl-shift-l for multiple cursors. Now you have three separate cursors, each in command mode. So you can hit "I", and you will go into insert mode three times simultaneously with three cursors at the beginning of three lines. Type "blah", and it will appear at the beginning of each of the three lines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Amazing editor. Switching been OSX and Windows frequently, ST2 became my choice of a universal tool. Especially useful when augmented by plugins for better autocomplete: I use SublimeClang for C++/ObjC coding, and <https://github.com/alienhard/SublimeAllAutocomplete> for js/html/css to enable ST's autocomplete across all opened files, not just current one. Only wish it would support virtual space, multiple cursors/vertical blocks seem awkward without it.

</comment><comment><USER44> Now that it's official, I hope that the documentation gets the attention it needs. Congrats!

<comment><USER45> I'm trying to improve this by writing an ebook about Sublime Text 2. If you're interested, here is the first chapter:

<http://cl.ly/0N0X1j401o22353m2V2V>

<comment><USER46> Yes, please. I am very interested in this. I feel as though I've only scratched the surface of what ST2 can do even though I've been using it for the last year and experimented with writing my own plugins.

I'd also love to see a "cheat-sheet" for shortcut keys.

<comment><USER45> To be honest, my ebook is on initial stage, but I'm actively working on it. If you want to track its progress, here's its repository on GitHub: <https://github.com/elomarns/sublime-coding>

Anyway you can find a great cheat sheet on the links below:

PC: <https://gist.github.com/1736542>

Mac: <https://gist.github.com/1839777>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> ST2 is a fantastic program! I was a die-hard Komodo user for years, but ST2 is much easier (and faster!) to use and extend.

For anyone looking to try out ST2 with SFTP, I've written a plugin to import server settings from FileZilla[1], makes it much quicker to get up and running. Should be in ST2's Package Control any day now.

[1] <https://github.com/doublerebel/filezilla_import>

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm an avid user of Sublime Text 2, and I was really hoping that they would clean up their API before they made a stable release: [http://sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/112486-api-better- use-...](http://sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/112486-api-better-use-of- context-managers/) [http://sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/112485-api-better- use-...](http://sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/112485-api-better-use-of- python-properties/)

With the need to maintain backwards compatibility with a stable version 2.0, that's not going to happen now. :(

</comment><comment><USER49> I was an active user of Notepad++, but ever since I started using Sublime text, I never turned back to NP++ (or any other editors). Totally love the Sublime experience.

<comment><USER50> I've been using Notepad++ as my log-viewing problem for a while and I periodically use it to edit a bit, but when I tried out Sublime I didn't see anything to make me drop Notepad++. It did the same things equally well, but not much more from what I noticed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> i really hoped that he would get a fix in for customizable/better matching brackets indicators before release :( those underlines are just impossible to see, and the alternative plugins that do this are not as good as SynWeb component-based editors or NP++ (scintilla)

[http://sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/19331-better-or- custom...](http://sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/19331-better-or-customizable- match_brackets-style/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Congrats to jps. A serious piece of software, and a development style that we can all aspire to.

Allow me to recommend the SublimeLinter plugin. Its name should be self explanatory.

<https://github.com/SublimeLinter/SublimeLinter>

Also, for those asking about discovering functionality, have a browse of the default key binding definition files, it is enlightening.

</comment><comment><USER52> For me, for "serious" programming, I use a full-fledged IDE which has stuff like code linking, quick project search (with ST2 I have to switch to the terminal), built-in documentation, refactoring support... So paying $60 for a text editor, when there are many good free options out there (even outside of Linux) is too much.

<comment><USER53> I don't know how to use ST2, but the people I know who use it do project search from within the editor. It looks pretty snappy, about on par with the analogous feature in IntelliJ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Every TextMate user at my office switched to Sublime Text 2 six months ago and hasn't looked back. Great product

</comment><comment><USER55> Pretty season's Vim user here. This editor looks awesome, and I would love to give it a whirl, but I feel like I can't switch without these plugins. I'm sure they exist, if someone could point me to one that would be excellent.

\+ Syntastic [<https://github.com/scrooloose/syntastic/>] eclipse-like real- time linter. Gives me compile errors and warnings.

\+ Tag bar [<http://majutsushi.github.com/tagbar/>] navigate tags in the code

\+ Not as essential, but EasyMotion is pretty awesome [<https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-easymotion>]

<comment><USER56> Linting (there are other plugins but this is what I use) <https://github.com/SublimeLinter/SublimeLinter>

CTags <https://github.com/SublimeText/CTags>

Similar to EasyMotion <https://bitbucket.org/sublimator/volcanoes>

More plugins <http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/community>

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> (on OS X) ST2 cannot render RTL (Right-To-Left) text properly and the developer said in the forums that it won't be until ST3

although less mature editors like TextEdit or <http://vicoapp.com> or <http://chocolatapp.com> (beta) and <http://activestate.com/komodo> (IDE) don't have any problems with bidi and rtl texts

other OS X editors that could't show bidi and rtl texts:

TextMate 1 (<http://macromates.com>)

MacVim 7.4-64 (<http://code.google.com/p/macvim>)

</comment><comment><USER58> The animated screen shots in this blog post and on the front page are quite nicely done. Looks like a series of images being moved and swapped through a canvas area.

Anyone know of libraries that can automate the creation of these kind of animations?

</comment><comment><USER59> For Go hackers, here is Using Sublime Text 2 with GoSublime:

[http://mue.tideland.biz/2012/06/using-sublime-text-2-with- go...](http://mue.tideland.biz/2012/06/using-sublime-text-2-with- gosublime.html)

</comment><comment><USER45> Finally!

Sublime Text 2 is really a wonderful piece of software. I can't live without multiple cursors anymore. Of course it can improve (anything can), but in my opinion is the best text editor available.

</comment><comment><USER60> Awesome work guys. I have been using the beta since the early days and I think this is the only cross platform editor which works really well.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is great news. Truly staggering amount of effort for a small gap in build numbers (if you were using the last beta). Love the release and the editor. Worth every penny.

The only additional package I use is the Dark Soda Theme, is there any others that people would recommend for Rails development? The default editor seems to provide a lot. I tried SublimeCodeIntel but it kept crashing.

<comment><USER62> I would recommend the ruby test plugin which is really great: <https://github.com/maltize/sublime-text-2-ruby-tests>

and Rails Nav: <https://github.com/noklesta/SublimeRailsNav> which gives you a pretty neat way navigating your app. Much like the common vi plugins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Interesting, but no preference panels for OS X? How is one supposed to change settings if they're in a language the user doesn't know well?

Apparently, there's some sort of binding thing going on, which I overlooked and now can't find a way to examine/redo? Additionally, some prefs are plists, some are python, and some look like they might be Textmate preferences.

<comment><USER64> Everything is in text files. This is awesome if you want to move your config to a different machine (or _gasp_ OS).

Give it a try. It is not as bad as it looks on first sight. You'll get used to it and probably appreciate it a bit in no time.

<comment><USER63> I think I'd change editors before I changed to a different OS. These days, pretty much everything can be done from one machine.

From where I sit, I can work with 6 different OS'es (yeah, it's a jungle) all from the comfort of OS X.

I get that this is a programmer's editor and so maybe a certain amount of "roughness" in design is appropriate. But I'd rather spend my time customizing my own apps than trying to figure out how to change one setting in my editor.

I can also understand if ST just isn't there yet as far as preferences go. Each OS or flavor thereof has it's own convoluted methods of writing that piece of the UI, but it's an important piece as far as OS X goes. Without it, ST will always feel like an incomplete product (in the half-baked sense, not the future development sense).

Sorry, but first impressions matter. Up against BBEdit and even old Textmate, ST seems to only have one thing going for it (the visual navigator) and that's not nearly enough to make me even more than momentarily interested.

This looks and feels very much like an alpha product or charitably, even a beta. But it definitely doesn't feel like something that should be a version 2 and charging $60 for the privilege of using it.

<comment><USER37> You clearly have a different focus than the author of the software, and its fans. ST2's proponents are more concerned with awesome editing power than having a preferences pane.

That being said, this is not the first time I've heard this line of criticism.

<comment><USER65> True. Even while I love ST2, have purchased a license, and swayed my boss on the subject, it remains, if nothing else, surprising that there isn't a Preferences / Control Panel / Options style option, even as a plugin / package.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> For those interested, here's a way to get a block cursor when in Vi(ntage) mode. It can now be installed via package control (instructions have recommended that way to install for awhile, but I could never find it).

<https://github.com/netpro2k/SublimeBlockCursor>

<comment><USER67> I modified this a while back to work in normal mode, for anyone who's interested.

<https://gist.github.com/2996448>

It was the one feature in Sublime that was missing for me, and the one I needed most at the time (cataracts suck).

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Sublime Text is really awesome! It's remarkable work, especially since there is just one developer working on it: ST2 works very well on all 3 platforms, it's very fast and has a lot of cool features. :)

I just hope that it keeps getting new features, the thing I'm really really missing is a terminal that runs in a ST2 tab.

<comment><USER68> Install the SublimeREPL plugin from Package Control. Works like a charm!

<comment><USER40> Yeah, I've been using that one for some days already. It's really nice but not what I really want. :)

For example I can't hit tab to auto complete. I'm also missing all the zsh awesomeness, so a real terminal running in some tab would be the best solution!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The Multi-select feature is a game-changer

<comment><USER69> Yes. The multi-select feature is really nice, but it is nothing that cannot be added to vim: <http://shelr.tv/records/4fef105a966080237e00005e>

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Am I missing something or is this essentially a donation based model? Are there missing features in the "evaluation version"? I don't mean to sound like a troll or anything but why would I pay for this if I have the option to use the full product for free? (besides possibly feeling guilty)

<comment><USER71> I believe licensing restrictions require its purchase for commercial purposes.

Edit: Strike that. Nothing in their EULA expresses this. It simply seems like an open-ended "trial period." So, yes, it appears they're sticking to the guilt model, but unlike WinRAR, won't bug you about it.

<comment><USER72> >unlike WinRAR, won't bug you about it.

They do bug you (albeit less frequently). As mentioned in another post here, they ask you to pay occasionally when you try to save.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Anyone see this Editor released that's on GitHub:

[http://ec2-174-129-28-157.compute-1.amazonaws.com/2012/06/25...](http://ec2-174-129-28-157.compute-1.amazonaws.com/2012/06/25/brackets- open-source-code-editor/)

the inline parsing of CSS & javascript seems like a huge productivity gain.

</comment><comment><USER74> I would use Vim for one reason than anything else. It is for the commands vit, vat, cat, cit and the like that can select matching tags. In HTML editing this has been my best friend and no other editor comes even close to this feature.

</comment><comment><USER75> Personally, the only thing that prevents me from using Sublime Text is the lack of proper Xdebug support. There is a plugin, but it felt clunky. Being on Windows, it's a relief to use something as nice as this editor.

</comment><comment><USER76> Make sure to check out this packages search/list: <http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/community>

You can also Command+Shift+P and "Discover packages"

</comment><comment><USER77> I think I'll finally switch from Emacs to ST2. I have this massive .emacs config just to make it behave like ST2 does by default. Not to mention turing complete settings can get crazy. Well done ST!

</comment><comment><USER78> Updating from within sublime text, I get a 500 Internal Server Error in the release note window (being served up by a pretty old version of nginx). Still able to update though.

</comment><comment><USER79> I use vim. As a software craftsman I want my hammer to be Open Source.

( just see what happened when TextMate got stagnated, there must be other examples )

It's my hammer, it must be open source if possible.

</comment><comment><USER80> I've been super impressed by the steady pace shown by the developer in improving and tweaking the many beta releases. Top quality product and I was glad to buy it.

</comment><comment><USER81> I tried it, on my Ubuntu 64 bit. Everything is fine, except that sometimes it's really slow expanding a directory on the left sidebar. This drives me crazy.

</comment><comment><USER82> Special kudos to author because it is really cross platform and actually works well on all of them. There are not many products that are like that.

</comment><comment><USER83> After installing the stable 2.0 release, I just tried to update and I got this: <http://d.pr/i/Rc0w>

</comment><comment><USER84> I've purchased a copy. Been looking for something to replace N++. This seems like a great alternative. Happy to support other professionals.

</comment><comment><USER85> This is one of the best programming editors I've ever used. I like the idea of using same editor (and interface) on Mac, Windows and Linux.

</comment><comment><USER86> My go-to editor all grown up. Feel a tear coming.

</comment><comment><USER87> Great news!, this is turning out to be one of the best text editors for Windows, Mac and Linux. Congratulations!.

</comment><comment><USER88> Question: I'm an Emacs user, and haven't checked out ST or ST2. Is it comparable in terms of flexibility++?

<comment><USER64> It is great! It really is! Give it a shot just to see what we Emacsens are missing.

But if you're like me... Well, Emacs is a way of life and it does a whole lot more than just editing text. I would love to have smooth scrolling and multiple cursors and slick animations and a cursor that can be off-screen. But at the end of the day, I prefer magit and org-mode and keyboard-only navigation and macros and so on. It still is awesome though. Do give it a try!

Maybe in a few decades it will have accumulated enough awesomeness to compare to our beloved Emacs.

<comment><USER89> I dont know about multiple cursors., but I use scrolling all the time

      (global-set-key "\M-n" "\C-u1\C-v")
      (global-set-key "\M-p" "\C-u1\M-v")

<comment><USER90> Ha - been looking for an easy way to do this for a bit. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Congratulations for making editor that is genuine pleasure to use. I bought it of course a while ago.

</comment><comment><USER91> For users with a Retina MBP: this version of Sublime Text supports Retina graphics on OS X Lion.

</comment><comment><USER83> Wow, each time I refresh the HN homepage, the upvote count on this post keeps increasing.

<comment><USER92> dude, consider setting procrastination.

It will send you back to work after the forth refresh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> This is my favourite editor. It's a mix between a simple notepad and a powerful IDE.

</comment><comment><USER94> We crashed their site I think.

<comment><USER95> His site I think :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> I know most of the people using ST2 are apple or linux users.

It's good for a windows user?

<comment><USER97> It's a pleasure to work with on Windows.. not to mention probably the most aesthetically pleasing text editor you can find.

<comment><USER64> Oh yes, sir. So much yes!

Incidentally, why is it that so much software on Windows is "under-designed"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> Sumblime team, why did you reset my preferences on update? Annoying.

<comment><USER99> Did you have them saved under "Default" or "User"? If the former, SL2 overwrites these when you upgrade.

<comment><USER98> oops

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> Can it be used without purchasing it like in the RC versions?

<comment><USER101> Nothings changed regarding to evaluation "Sublime Text 2 may be downloaded and evaluated for free, however a license must be purchased for continued use. There is currently no enforced time limit for the evaluation.".

<comment><USER102> I'd be really interested to hear about how well this model works for them. I know that I, for one, am a paying customer because being able to use it for a month or so for free really got me hooked.

<comment><USER67> I used it for free for a long time (longer than I care to admit) but by the time I did pay, I was so in love I would have happily spent 2x on it.

<comment><USER64> Funny, I bought it more or less right away and ended up using Emacs instead. I still don't feel bad about it though. It is a worthy tool in my belt and I love to support it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> I'd like to use Sublime Text if it had vi bindings.

<comment><USER103> I checked and it does support vi bindings, including ex commands.

Enable Vintage and then install VintageEx from <https://github.com/SublimeText/VintageEx>

Very simple - and brilliant!

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> been using it for the past few months, simply amazing and joyful. props for the great work!

</comment><comment><USER105> Amazing work!</comment>


Something to smile about: A 5,000-mile walk across Asia, guided by Google Maps - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/something-to-smile-about-5000-mile-walk.html <comment><AUTHOR> Smiletrek.org: Very cool use of technology to enhance a very human adventure.</comment>


The Centripetal Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2008/10/the_centripetal.php

<comment><USER2> I find this article confusing. The first example given to support a "web is dominated by big players" is the recent failure of bloglines and migration to Google Reader. But RSS feeds are all about centrifugal force! The vast majority of my feeds are full of links to all sorts of random destinations on the web that I wouldn't have found out about otherwise.

As for wikipedia... encyclopedias are not the key feature of a bookstore. Wikipedia may have the lock on answering "What is X?" on the web -- but the web is (obviously?) about far more than that.</comment>


Mapping the US nuclear war plan for 1956 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/05/09/mapping-us-nuclear-war-plan-1956/ <comment><USER2> I still don't understand how a major nuclear accident didn't happen (at minimum), or really, a full nuclear exchange, given the game theoretic and technical challenges of having multiple nuclear arsenals on hair trigger alert for decades.

Given that many US weapons weren't even one-point safe until the 80s, and I doubt Soviet weapons were better, and there were a fair number of routine accidents with those weapons, there must have been some undisclosed policy of secretly keeping the weapons even less ready than has ever been reported, or we've been unbelievably lucky. (If I could have been completely certain it would remain secret, deploying primarily inert weapons (just replace the HEU with lower enriched uranium, or for plutonium weapons, even just screwing up the lensing) would have been very tempting. If you believe in MAD, then really only deterrence has any value; the retaliatory value in reality could be forgone.)

It would also account for why weapons were never used intentionally post WW2 -- if you knew your arsenal actually was disabled, you'd bluster even more but never use it.

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised that out of 50-60K USSR warheads no warhead got lost/stolen/sold during 199x. It is like different kind of Russians were manning it :)

<comment><USER4> There was a serious undercover US effort to prevent this. For example, half a ton of highly enriched, weapon-grade Uranium was transported from Kazakhstan [1][2] in 199x; US also helped to prevent proliferation of weapon-grade Plutonium from the former test site [3]. There is also a non-confirmed suggestion that actual nuclear weapons become unusable if abandoned [4].

[1]: [http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB491/](http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB491/)

[2]: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/09...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/09/20/AR2009092002881.html)

[3]: [http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Plutonium%20Mounta...](http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Plutonium%20Mountain- Web.pdf)

[4]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4hh0h7/does_mod...](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4hh0h7/does_modern_nuclear_weapons_really_demand_active/)

edit: formatting, one more link

<comment><USER5> There are many more documented efforts: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280486/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280486/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> First off, this is a great piece of work.

There's a number of questions that were raised in this work that the author mentions, and I'll list them here:

\- What was the rationale for picking targets? \- Why does it appear that U.S. planners went for such amazing overkill?

The year provides a clue, and an important context: In the 50s, the strategy was "Massive Retaliation". WWII ended 11 years prior. The Soviets had a massive army in Eastern Europe, and the Korean War had ended only 3 years earlier, confirming many people's fears that the Soviets were willing to implement Communism by force. Given that the Western Powers had no hope of conventionally halting a Soviet attack on Europe, the plan called for an immediate escalation to nuclear weapons; which were the only credible threat to Soviet ground forces at that time.

The other important context is that while this is a full target list, it isn't a /plan/. And that was because there wasn't a plan yet. Air Force targets overlapped Navy ones, and early doctrine called for simply attacking everything should hostilities begin. This was changed in 1961 with the Single Integrated Operations Plan, which for the first time was a single plan with no only a target list, but different escalation options, assignments to various services for who struck what and when, and a much clearer rationale. It was a vast improvement over the "simply hit everything vital" days of Massive Retalitation.

On the subject of overkill, it's also useful to point out that it was not expected that all warheads would reach their targets. the ICBM was in it's infancy, and SLBMs (submarine launched) did not yet exist. The B-52 had only just entered service; the mainstay of SAC rode on the B-47. Nuclear Weapons were large, sometimes unreliable, unwieldy things. In many ways, the target list was wishful thinking.

Some good reading: If you read only one, read this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_Plan)

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

<comment><USER7> > _the Korean War had ended only 3 years earlier, confirming many people 's > fears that the Soviets were willing to implement Communism by force_

Can you elaborate? Wouldn't the Korean War confirm _the West_ was willing to stop Communism by force, even against the will of the majority of the people in the target country? (Of course, both things can be simultaneously true).

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure how to reply to that.

Without deconstructing this too far, I would say that the Korean War began with North Korea invading South Korea. A U.N. resolution followed which authorized the use of force to respond.

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

My best understanding is how I described it.

<comment><USER7> I'm surprised anything I said was controversial.

The Korean War was the _outcome_ of previous events -- it cannot be seen in isolation. How do you suppose the Koreans, as a people, saw the division of Korea imposed by both the US and the Soviet Union on them? What was the charismatic leader in the South that would have unified _all_ of Korea in general elections? Say free elections were held -- true, non fraudulent elections -- and a communist government won... what do you suppose the US would have done?

What about this, from the same Wikipedia article you linked to?

> _Appointed as military governor, General Hodge directly controlled South > Korea as head of the United States Army Military Government in Korea > (USAMGIK 1945–48) [...] The USAMGIK refused to recognize the provisional > government of the short-lived People 's Republic of Korea (PRK) because it > suspected it was communist._

The US and Western powers were totally unwilling to let Korea fall to communist hands, whether it was by force or otherwise, and were willing to use force to prevent it. What I'm saying is hardly controversial and was the US foreign policy for much of the Cold War.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra For some reason they weren't planning on bombing Severodvinsk (submarine building town), which I definitely would if I was them.

Also they weren't planning on bombing Tyumen (the oil capital). Probably wasn't as important then. Still tt's funny how you can have several thousands dots and miss some essential ones.

<comment><USER8> Funny how oil wasn't important not too long ago

<comment><USER9> Oil was still quite important. One random example:

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

For another example, a large part of the motivation behind Japan's attack in December 1941 was the US embargo on oil exports to Japan. (The embargo in turn was motivated by Japan's rampage in China; I don't mean to imply Japan was in any way justified here, just that this was a major reason.)

As for why this particular target isn't included, I'd guess that either the lists are incomplete, it was just missed by the planners, or perhaps oil production wasn't considered to be worth targeting because the war would be over so quickly.

<comment><USER10> And many critical parts of the German military ran on synthetic fuel derived from coal: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel#History)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how hard it would be to add these targets to the game DEFCON. At least on my Mac Steam install, there is a main.dat resource file (really just a RAR) that contains citites.dat TSV data. Latitude, longitude and a mystery boolean value. I wonder if the mystery bool indicates that the location can launch missiles? Either way, I think every city in the list is a potential target, probably weighted by population.

</comment><comment><USER11> What was the format of the dataset?

Did they have exact latitudes and longitudes, or just names of the places?

<comment> iso-8859-1 According to the screenshot, they are coordinate pairs.</comment></comment>


Http://richg42.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/the-truth-on-opengl-driver-quality.html - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Link is in the wrong field.</comment>


Equifax statement regarding extent of security incident announced Sep 7 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/33185/000119312518154706/d583804dex991.htm <comment><USER2> Wow, this document is extremely short. The disaster is very palpable in this format.

> names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some > instances, driver's license numbers of 143 million U.S. consumers (since > updated)

OK, so who is going to be the grown-up in this situation?

It's obvious now that these numbers can no longer be treated as secret or, in most cases, as identifying instruments.

Who will lead the effort to deprecate them and migrate all of the documents and accounts which rely on them?

Why is it so difficult to imagine a coherent, sober response from government and mega-corporate entities which have until now, been using SSNs as identifying data?

<comment><USER3> Need a totally new way of verifying identity now. The old way was already broken, but now it's totally destroyed.

<comment><USER4> And yet we still use it with no end in sight. The only reason your identity isn't yet stolen and financial history ruined is likely literally that they haven't gotten to you yet.

What incentives are there for Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, Innovis, etc who profit from this system existing to make it better?

Who in the government will go after them, or even better, come up with something which will render them obsolete?

<comment><USER5> They profit from this system and also profit from breaches.

All of them have been making money hand over fist on this, thanks to their exclusive ability to monitor and lock/unlock their own credit reports.

Even if you aren't paying these companies directly, you're paying a company paying them for credit reporting to watch for identity theft.

Calling it a perverse incentive is an understatement. Only the US Government could have stepped in and made it unprofitable, but it appears as there will be no significant punishment for Equifax, and instead as a result of this the Congress made it harder to file a Class Action Lawsuit against companies like Equifax, so the next time you won't even have that option...

<comment><USER6> Some states by law require that there be no charge for credit report locking/unlocking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I saw an apparently authentic local post on Facebook from a woman who received a call from someone in law enforcement. She had apparently missed a jury summons, and the official was trying to help her sort out the mess. He asked her about her address (turned out to be an older address) and knew her occupation, told her to meet him somewhere.

Something seemed odd to her, called the police and established that no one by that name worked for them, may have dodged a kidnapping attempt.

To make an incoherent and possibly bogus story short: this felt to me like a possible outcome from the Equifax data breach. Random stranger knows your (previous) address, knows what you do for a living, knows your phone number. There could be even worse outcomes than identity theft from this.

<comment><USER7> A more more direct anecdote: I just got a replacement social security card by mail. All it took to do it online was information from my credit report.

Thanks to this breach, the only defense against someone getting my social security card fraudulently is that it has to be mailed to my current address.

<comment><USER8> You can put a credit freeze on you file in major credit bureaus - this way their website would not be able to verify answers on security questions and deny login.

Brian Krebs did a good article on the process placing a freeze on your file [1]

[1] [https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/06/how-i-learned-to-stop- wo...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/06/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and- embrace-the-security-freeze/)

<comment><USER7> Good point, hadn't occurred to me to correlate that idea with the SSA's system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just have to add that in circumstances like this a corporate death penalty seems appropriate. Equifax is an entity that you are not able to be removed from in any way. When you look at the financial and security ramifications of the breach and what was released and the response, seems appropriate. The kicker is that Equifax also offers credit monitoring for fraud prevention as a product to line their coffers.

<comment><USER6> The corporate death penalty here would not fix the problem. The data are already exposed.

Equifax market cap is currently $13.5B. Corporate death penalty would hurt owners of that stock, maybe funds in your own 401K account. Thousands of people would lose their jobs.

Would it have a preventive effect? Maybe but doubtful. There are too many systems with too much data that are too old and too interconnected to think that it's even possible to secure them all. If it wasn't Equifax it would have been someone else, eventually. Most of what Equifax exposed was probably already exposed in other leaks anyway.

Better solution should be developing new, secure methods of proving identity, where leaks don't matter because it's not possible to leak anything of value. All the old ways are now forever broken.

<comment><USER10> Power is part of the problem. Blowing up companies will have the effect of diffusing power.

That they've managed to schmear consequences of that explosion across society is a pretty circular reason for not damaging them.

<comment><USER6> OK, say Equifax is blown up.

How does that get us any farther with the fundamental problem of how to prove identity when all the old schemes have been rendered useless?

There's a revenge or punishment piece that maybe is necessary and appropriate, but it doesn't solve any of the real problems we now face.

<comment><USER11> Maybe the other credit reporting agencies and other companies would take security seriously. Sometimes breaches happen. Sometimes it's clearly negligence.

And just because it's too late now doesn't mean the law can't be adjusted to prevent it from happening in the future. If you don't learn from mistakes, that's dumb. And obviously companies can't be trusted to do it themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Don't forget, if you want to change your social security number, here's the process[1]:

1\. Prove you meet the conditions for changing it (you must show proof of identify _theft_ and how it disadvantages you)

2\. Show up at an office, in person, with original documentation.

Sounds like a great startup idea: make fixing 143M citizens' identities as easy as ordering a pizza. Or create the Uber for people who will stand in line for you at the Social Security office.

[1]: [https://faq.ssa.gov/link/portal/34011/34019/Article/3789/Can...](https://faq.ssa.gov/link/portal/34011/34019/Article/3789/Can- I-change-my-Social-Security-number)

<comment><USER13> Cool idea. YMMV with this, though. The government accidentally assigned me someone else's SSN (had the same first/last name as me and was born in the same hospital) and it took about 2 years to rectify.

<comment><USER14> How did you find out?

<comment><USER13> The other person was able to use his/my SSN to "mistakenly" withdraw a large amount of money from my bank account. That was what first tipped me off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Serious question: at what point does it not matter that your identity has been stolen simply because everyrone's has been stolen? I mean, we're approaching that point, right? The size and scope of this breach basically encompasses the entire adult population of the US, does it not?

<comment><USER6> We're certainly at the point where there's no reason to believe that your data has not been exposed. Whether it's been used to commit fraud is another matter. The odds are in your favor by sheer numbers but who knows for how long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It has been _eight months_ since the data breach was announced (nine since it was discovered). This is the first time we are getting a full reckoning of what data was accessed. (We knew it was ~150 million SSN's, but we didn't what else it included--e.g. address history, income, debt, etc.) I'll admit, Equifax actually exceeded my expectations in this regard, I was skeptical that they would be able to create a document like this at all. Still, the impact of the data breach was magnified by the fact that they have so little oversight over their own systems that reconciling records took more than half a year.

Any time there's a privacy issue nowadays, I like to play "What if GDPR?" GPDR would have required this document be filed to the relevant authority in _three days_ (Article 33). And the work to compile this document would have mostly been front-loaded by complying with the documentation requirements in Article 30. I don't think GDPR would have made a direct impact on preventing the breach (other than maybe causing someone to look at the towering pile of paperwork and consider thinking of the data as a liability), but affected users would have been much better prepared to know how they might have been affected and how to respond.

<comment><USER17> In three days (where possible). Equifax would have said it was not possible. The benefit of GDPR is that you could request that they delete any data they have on you. I also believe they wouldn't be able to collect this personal information in the first place since you don't have a business relationship with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Can EU citizens request that equifax purge them from their systems? If so I wonder what would happen if you deleted yourself?</comment>


WannaCrypt wallets balance online - <AUTHOR> https://whitesunset.github.io/wannacrypt_balance/ <comment><USER2> If I've got the exchange rates and number crunching right, a little over $58k USD. For some reason I'd expected this to be higher, though I haven't figured out why yet.

What I'm curious of is whether this much money is worth the effort put into it? I'm not sure how to begin quantifying the dev and operational costs of WannaCrypt's masters.</comment>


Apple approves Dogecoin iOS app - <AUTHOR> http://www.mydoge.co <comment><USER2> From the page:

>MYĐOGE is read-only. It can be used to monitor your Dogecoin at a glance, watch the markets or read about Dogecoin.

So it can't be used for transfers. It still doesn't look like Apple is approving apps that send *coins

</comment><comment><USER3> Dogecoin is an example how your story about your product could make it or break it. Dogecoin is not yet another digital currency and this has nothing to do with it's technology.

<comment><USER4> I'd also say it demonstrates the importance of identifying a niche. Nobody cares about generic AltCoin #842012.

Positioning themselves as a tipping currency was a smart move. The internet has badly needed a way to reward people with very small amounts of money for years. That's one of the things I really like about doge, personally.

<comment><USER5> The thing I don't understand, though... why not just use bitcoin to do it?

It was BTC that found a way "to send really small amounts of money through the internet". No need to invent a niche.

To me it looks like the ones using dogecoin don't want to think of it as money, but just some other form of internet points like karma.

<comment><USER6> I agree, let me give you 0.0000005 BTC. Or I could give you 100 DOGE.

<comment><USER7> So it's because it looks better? You could always say "here, have 500 Satoshis".

[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi)

<comment><USER8> Here's 5400 Satoshi, actually. There's a dust limit to prevent micro cent spamming.

<comment><USER9> Just to be clear, Doge tipping is mostly not happening on the blockchain. These transactions are only transacting on the chain when people cash in or out of a tipbot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if this is the typical left doesn't know what the right does in regards to Apple's "personalized" cryptocurrency policy, so someone approved it without realizing the top executives don't want it there, and they might request for a ban later - or Apple has an incredibly inconsistent policy regarding cryptocurrencies. Neither one makes much sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> What seems to be consistant is that they don't actually care about cryptocurrencies. They care about not copping the blame when third party payment platforms cause problems for their users.

If there was some sort of security hole in a bitcoin iOS app that caused the owner to loose money, Apple will recieve some of the blame and negative press. Apple disallowing these apps is their way of mitigating that damage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why is this news? There's been other Dodgecoin apps in the App Store for a while now.

I've been using this one personally to track my wallet balance: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/doge-tracker-dogecoin- price/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/doge-tracker-dogecoin- price/id785007290?mt=8)

Infact I think the one I've been using is probably better designed, although it isn't free.

<comment> k-mcgrady It's news because yesterday there was a story about them removing a Bitcoin app.

<comment><USER12> They removed the Bitcoin app because you can send coins with it.

This dogecoin app is "read-only" for your dogecoin accounts.

<comment> k-mcgrady I know. Obviously a lot of people didn't get that (too busy grabbing their pitchforks) which is why this story has probably made it to the front page today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It doesn't seem to be a wallet app, just for checking balance.

</comment><comment><USER14> These handheld devices will someday become so close to us that it will be difficult to tell where the device ends and where the human begins. Someday large segments of the population are going to gladly submit some control of their mind to 3rd parties who know which programs and products are good for you, and which you are unauthorized to use.

I'll decide what I want to run and what not to run on MY computer, thanks. I guess it comes down to whether you want to be a pet in a safe walled garden with a pre-programmed experience, or a free agent out there with terrors to freeze your soul and delights to satiate your every desire.

<comment><USER15>
      > Someday large segments of the population are going to
      > gladly submit some control of their mind to 3rd parties
      > who know which programs and products are good for you, and
      > which you are unauthorized to use.

This is already in place and has nothing to do with technology. Just observe carefully all the stuff people get offended about, or call racist, or call sexist—usually there is little to no thinking involved, just conditioned response, sometimes reaching absurdity (like insisting that black person from UK should be called african-american). My impression is that in these cases people don't really have moral compass or deep understanding why something is right and something is wrong—this all was "outsourced" somewhere and all left are just learned reponses to stimuli, with extremely crude pattern recognition. And yes, to some degree this applies to those inceasingly speaking about walled-gardens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> so here in my hand I have a $100 bill. How do I turn it into Dogecoin??

<comment><USER17> Well, if you literally mean cash in hand, you're going to have to do a bit of work. Much like with other crypto coins, you can sometimes find a local person who will do an in-person exchange[1]. Otherwise, you can use something like the dogemarket subreddit[2] to do an exchange using Paypal, Google Wallet, etc. Another option is to link a bank account to a service like Vault of Satoshi[3] and make a USD/Doge trade there.

[1] [http://www.dogesnearme.com/](http://www.dogesnearme.com/)

[2] [http://www.reddit.com/r/dogemarket](http://www.reddit.com/r/dogemarket)

[3] [https://www.vaultofsatoshi.com/](https://www.vaultofsatoshi.com/)

<comment><USER18> Curious as to why you didn't jut say "you can directly buy Dogecoin for $100 USD on a website called Vault of Satoshi." Instead, you opened up your longwinded response with "doing a bit of work" and other mumbo jumbo, leaving the direct answer as a marginal note at the end (just "another option" in your words.)

Edit: the most challenging part would be going to a bank to deposit the physical Franklin, if the end user didn't have a fiat in an account already.

<comment><USER17> The options are listed in order of increasing difficulty. Vault of Satoshi requires verification of users, which means sending them personal information and waiting for it to be processed. Once you've jumped through all the hoops, it's easy. Finding someone to meet you at the coffee shop and exchange the $100 in person is potentially the quickest and easiest, assuming such persons exist in your area. The PayPal/Wallet option is somewhere in the middle.

All that having been said, _I'm_ a bit curious why you felt the need to bitch about someone giving a detailed answer. I wonder at the intellect that labels four sentences as long-winded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That design looks familiar [http://liber.io/](http://liber.io/)

<comment><USER20> [http://www.blacktie.co/2013/12/flatty-app-landing- page/](http://www.blacktie.co/2013/12/flatty-app-landing-page/)

<comment><USER21> All site templates are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, he didn't include BlackTie.co credit

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Misleading title.

<comment><USER23> No it's not; it's a Dogecoin app, in the app store, so the title is accurate.

Sure, it may need a clarification that it's a read-only app, but still.

<comment><USER24> Just because something is accurate doesn't mean it's not misleading. That it may need clarification would seem to be an indicator that it is in fact misleading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I want to add my wallet without using the scanner.

</comment><comment><USER26> Yet apple bans the bitcoin apps. Such travesty.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wow. Much Cool! Sigh. Big Crash. But there in spirit.

</comment><comment><USER28> I know it is not appropriate on HN but I can't resist: AUEHAUEHUAHEUAHEUHEUAHEUAHUEHAUEHUAHEUH WOW Apple! Such Apple... Many Apples...

</comment><comment><USER29> So wise.

</comment><comment><USER30> so wow. nice

</comment><comment><USER31> The reason why this is worthy news is that you made it so. Hence, think twice unless you are Dogecoin lover, and if you are, mission accomplished. Many times things come from behind and win, watch the moon closely this time.

</comment><comment><USER32> Icons/UI details could use a lot of work in this. Actually the website is much better designed than the actual app.</comment>


Misinterpreting Copyright - <AUTHOR> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html

<comment><USER2> I do take slight issue with articles on copyright theory that go back into the history of copyright but make little or no note of the atoms to bits transition. It's possible, of course, that the author doesn't feel that anything has changed and that he's preaching fundamentals. But when one looks at how easily an author's work, in digital form, can proliferate beyond the remotest semblance of control, through social networks that have absolutely no semblance to the small-world form they used to have - lending a book to my physical neighbour, vs. upping an mp3 to an international, ananymous filesharing community. The copy you lend never comes back, and it's easier than ever before to record - you're not manually copying (or even photocopying) the book or sheet music

Frankly the way media is handled, produced, distributed, consumed is totally different. There's no question that old systems that used to regulate that flow are totally inappropriate. But this is still far too new for anyone to legitimately claim to know what the solution is. The scientist in me calls for some experimentation.

Nobody in the debate denies the existence of some sort of equilibrium between protection of an author's interests and levels/quality of production (this is different to the balance which Stallman firmly denies the conceptualvalidity/constitutionality of). Let's tweak and test protective measures and see where the new equilibrium falls. It may be that there's a vast amount of elasticity in this new world and that the creator segment can tolerate vast reductions in the protections society offers them and their publishers. Or we might see them scale back creation immensely.

I go so far as to propose two possible ways to perceive the piracy 'pandemic' which the creative segment has been subject to for the past few decades.

The first is as society's response to the shifted equilibrium - the release of tensions built up by wildly inappropriate and restrictive copyright practices that have taken away too much of people's freedom;It might thus be a sign that copyright practices have to be relaxed for equilibrium to be restored.

The second is that it could be viewed by policymakers as precisely the sort of experiment that I ealier advocated we try. What happens when we weaken the copyright protections surrounding the output of publishers - does society suffer? This is precisely what has happened (without any relaxation from the lawmakers). Does it perhaps point to a sustainable future with reduced copyright protection?

I realise that experimentating in law is difficult - law is a signal as much as a framework and tweaking/screwing with it on a regular basis will in itself be a destabilising influence to a system that we'd like to see come to a new, stable equilibrium so that we can observe the effect. Ideally we'd use different parameters in parallel universes; an approximate might be different countries with different systems but the globalisation of distribution networks means that these are no longer isolated systems, so that's out of the window too. The experiment has to be conducted worldwide, simultaneously; WIPO perhaps needs more power to override sovereignty.

So what about different parameters for different media forms, as Stallman suggests (though perhaps not with the same intent as mine - I want to do it for experimentation, he suggests it might be necessary to tailor protection parameters for different media forms - as if a media form has an inherent level of protection demand).

</comment><comment><USER3> Stallman says that the inherent tension in copyrights is between the consumer and publisher, and that the consumer clearly takes precedence. You could just as easily, however, say it's a tension between the short and long-term benefits for the consumer; on the one hand, copyright weakens the rights of the consumer, but on the other hand it guarantees they will continue to have quality media to consume.

I don't claim to know where the balance lies between these two considerations, but I do know that there has to be a balance, even if we are solely concerned for the consumer's well-being.

<comment><USER4> > Stallman says that the inherent tension in copyrights is between the > consumer and publisher, ....

Actually, I don't think he said that at all. He said that, in passing laws related to copyright, the government is, ideally, acting entirely to maximize the benefit to the public. He says that copyright exists in order to encourage authors to produce more works, because that should benefit the public.

> I don't claim to know where the balance lies between these two > considerations, but I do know that there has to be a balance, ....

Stallman doesn't agree with you. He specifically states that the idea that copyright should balance the rights of various parties, is a bad one. Read the section titled, The first error: "striking a balance". It ends: "Since the idea of 'striking a balance' between publishers and readers denies the readers the primacy they are entitled to, we must reject it."

<comment><USER3> You're right, I put that badly. He says that the copyright issue is _treated_ as a tension between consumer and publisher, and that this is a problem. I don't agree with this characterization.

I think the publishers are absolutely concerned with their bottom line when they complain about lost sales. I also think that there's enough substance to their slippery slope argument (given time, they'll lose so many sales they'll become insolvent) that it's wrong to dismiss it out of hand. Publishers aren't faceless entities intent on trading our freedoms for money, any more than a person who downloads a DVD screener is a hardened criminal. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous, and makes it that much harder to have a real conversation about the future of media.

<comment><USER5> To see the difference between "for the benefit of publishers" and "for the benefit of consumers who read what the publishers create" you just have to ask which applies to retroactive copyright term extension.

That to me is the act of an entity that is "intent on trading our freedoms for money".

I'd say that similar is true of any rich industry that lobbies for laws to protect their outmoded business models. Isn't a tax on imported sugar a minor loss in freedom that results in a major increase in money for certain groups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Should be required reading for all our representatives. Or, maybe even for all our citizens :)

</comment><comment><USER7> good thing copyright was invented. human beings made little to no progress before it. without the incentive to copyright no one ever invented anything.

<comment><USER8> Please keep your intellectual property straight. Creative works are COPYRIGHTED. Useful inventions are PATENTED. Names associated with goods and services are TRADEMARKED.

(Or perhaps there is a missing </sarcasm>? I didn't see it...)

<comment><USER7> irrelevant, intellectual property is in the same league as dry water.</comment></comment></comment>


Made more money as a contractor than as a freelance developer. Help! - <AUTHOR> I've been trying to find some work on the side in order to build up my savings and achieve my dream of buying a home for me and my wife, so we can start our family. I'm a full-time senior software engineer, 8+ years of experience, proficient in both backend and frontend development.
Unfortunately, my adventures through sites like Freelancer.com, Gun.io, and UpWork have been hard: most developers win projects with rates like $7/hr or $10/hr. That's pretty much impossible to beat, specially for someone living in the US.
As a matter of fact, since I haven't been able to find quality dev freelance work, I've been making some money as a contractor. I'm pretty good assembling furniture, plumbing, painting, stuff like that and my wife suggested that I used NextDoor to offer services. My rate is $30/hr and my nights are full (I think people who work like my schedule?).
How do you guys find good projects to work with? Is there a secret circle somewhere or something? Like a Freemasonry of software development? <comment><USER2> 1\. Stay away from those websites

2\. Identify your specialties and craft a pitch for how you can use them to generate value for a company. Ideally these specialties will result in measurable value. Examples: saving money on AWS costs; generating sales leads; optimizing marketing funnels.

3\. Focus on "push, not pull." Find companies who could benefit from your specialties, and reach out to them directly. Set up phone calls, video chats, and face to face meetings. Learn to sell yourself as a product.

4\. If you're a senior developer, you should have a fairly extensive network of people who know your work quality, all working at different companies. Reach out to these people first.

5\. Charge by the day, week or month. Do not charge by the hour. Start with your market-rate salary for a year, divide it by 50, and then multiply it by 1.5-2.0 to get your weekly rate. [EDIT: Just realized you have a full time job, so this might not be possible. In that case you're going to struggle to compete against full time consultants, unless you're working primarily on piecemeal work. The real money is in full time consulting, not moonlighting by the hour.]

6\. Focus on companies that either have VC funding or revenue, and preferably 3+ full time employees working at market-rate salaries. They will not flinch at your price.

7\. Increase your rates with each new contract.

<comment><USER3> Nice advice, though my experience doesn't resonate with #5. I always priced by the hour, but charged by the minute. Tools like Harvest made this easy. If there was a chance to reduce billable time spent by changing the spec a bit, I'd let clients know. Clients seemed to really appreciated this, and I was making enough to buy a house in California, a couple hours away from SF.

<comment><USER2> How complex are the projects you're working on? Do you work on multiple projects for different clients within the same day? I personally look for greenfield projects of at least a month in duration, and commit my full attention to them for that time. I treat the project like a temporary full time job.

I've never tried charging by the hour, but my intuition is it could lead to micromanagement from clients, and also create stress/overhead for me in accounting for each hour. I also worry it would make clients uncomfortable to know I'm constantly context switching into different projects throughout the day.

What if I spend an hour of the day researching a solution? Does the client need to know the details of all 8 hours of my day? I prefer to keep a "work log" spreadsheet, with a row for each day explaining at a high level what I accomplished, and also keep in daily communication with the client to make sure we are on the same page.

How much information do you give your clients as to what you did each hour? Have you ever tried billing in larger blocks? If so, how did that method differ from charging hourly?

<comment><USER4> I bill by the hour too.

It's the only sane way to do it, and contra to your intuition it stops micromanagement and makes clients respectful of your time. Clients don't know or care about context switching for other clients, they care about the quality of the work provided, so take care of that and you'll be ok. It's not like you'll be constantly switching anyway. Usually I'll work all day or all half a day on one specific thing anyway.

In terms of accounting for each hour, there are software tools to help with that.

Just click when you're working and click when you stop and the software tallies up the time.

I don't provide clients with hourly breakdowns of everything I worked on, I just send a bill at the end of the month that includes total hours worked that month.

Regular video calls and email, plus delivered results are sufficient proof of work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well... as a general rule, I'd say "don't use sites like Freelancer.com, Upwork, etc. Seek out clients directly." And I'd definitely say that if you meant to make a full-time living as a freelancer. But since you're doing it on the side, you have limited time to do the kind of sales / marketing / promotion stuff you'd probably need to do in order to directly source clients.

On possibility might be to befriend as many other locals who do freelance work as you can, and try to work out an arrangement to take on subcontract work / handle overflow work / etc.

Anyway, if you haven't tried yet, you might find it worthwhile to ping as many former co-workers and other connections as you can (this is where LinkedIn is really handy) and let them know that you're available and looking for freelance work. Or if you can spare the time, visit as many networking events as you can (technical meetups, "business mixers" ran by things like the Chamber of Commerce, "lead swap" meetups, etc., etc., etc.) and network like mad.

You could also try a direct mail campaign targeting local businesses. Maybe put together a bundle of software + services using Open Source software and your skills, and target, say, I dunno, every car wash in your town, or every bar/restaurant, or every medical office. Whatever makes sense given your history / skills / experience / domain knowledge / etc.

<comment><USER6> > Well... as a general rule, I'd say "don't use sites like Freelancer.com, > Upwork, etc. Seek out clients directly."

Totally agreed. Those websites are mostly for cheap developers from third world or developing countries. Somebody living in a first world country like US/UK won't be able to make a decent living there as you are competing with people from countries where 1/10 of your rate is considered very good salary. You need to get a proper clients by meeting companies face to face and offering them consultancy services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My general advice from these previous comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15910781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15910781)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15921156](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15921156)

In a nutshell: Find a niche. Solve business problems rather technical ones. Don't call yourself a freelance developer. Prefer 'consultant' (as trite as that might sound it conveys the notion that you're a problem solver rather than someone who turns someone else's ideas and concepts into computer code).

Network and build long-term relations. Forego freelance sites and try to avoid recruiters as well. Rather do both marketing and sales yourself and on your own terms. This can still mean hiring someone to do it for you but you have to set the rules and principles.

(Freemasonry seems to come up a lot on Hacker News recently :-) I can assure you that Freemasonry doesn't provide you with business opportunities. There's no secret inner circle of software consultants either that you need to be part of in order to be successful. For the most part it's just consistent networking and relationship-building.)

</comment><comment><USER8> There is no secret. Successful freelancing doesn't (typically) happen from behind your computer, you need to get out and talk to people that already know & trust you or, if there aren't enough of those, you need to build that network. I've been freelancing successfully for almost 4 years and all of my clients and projects have come in via someone that already knew me IRL.

I suppose you could be successful without that if you had a well-known brand as a developer (e.g. famous for leading some OSS project or something), but most of us are not in that situation.

I'm guessing the fact that you're using these online platforms to find jobs is because you're doing this part-time and thus don't have the time to go out and network as much. That may be so, but know that it severely impacts your ability to differentiate yourself. When you advertise on those sites, you are basically saying "I am a commodity".

</comment><comment><USER9> Start teaching and/or blogging.

I know there are 1000s of programmers teaching same basic stuff but it seems to make you stand out.

I say this because long time ago, I worked with Pentaho, a BI tool. Wrote couple of posts about using it, mostly for document for myself. I still get a few emails a year to do some consulting for Pentaho though some of it might be just recruiter spam.

On other hand, my PHP posts have not send me any legit looking emails regarding PHP consulting. But that might be because my PHP posts are pretty basic and don't show up in search results.

</comment><comment><USER10> Avoid sites like freelancer.com. You can try the following:

* Go to meet ups. There are hiring managers that attend that are looking for full time or part time talent.

* Craigslist gig's section is good, since people like local developers that who like to meet etc.

* Find a niche area, blog about it, put some sample code on GitHub

</comment><comment><USER11> Hi there - I'm the CEO of Gun.io. Shoot me an email at teja[at]gun.io. Our average rates on platform are 10x higher than that. In fact, that's why we started the business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Message sent. Thanks for the attention, I really appreciate it.

<comment><USER12> Depending on how good you are on the thing you're applying for you can get jobs as much as $60/hour (only tested upwork). You also have to apply some country filtering, don't hope to get paid $30/hour by some Pakistan company. Higher than that is really difficult.

But there is other coin too, once tried to hire some `solr` experts ($100/hour rate) whom after I asked about some extension development went out of touch (1 agency & 2 contractors). So it can suck on client side too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> y, don't use the online sites at least not the upwork style ones, it's a race to the bottom and usually the clients have unrealistic expectations.

Your best projects are going to come through your network. So start talking to friends and contacts about providing development services, websites, web applications etc. Almost everyone knows someone who needs a website or web application.

I wouldn't really recommend going the chamber of commerce route or business after hours. Most businesses you meet there are typically interested in simple inexpensive websites. If you do go this route I would recommend trying to offer building websites for small businesses for a monthly fee. Instead of charging them $750 to $1000 for a basic site. Offer them a site for monthly fee starting at $99/mo for the most basic site. You provide basic design, setup the site, provide hosting and once monthly content updates. Have tiered pricing where new pages/features increase their monthly fee. It's a lot of leg work to build up but can bring in some nice recurring revenue.

Since you are trying to make extra money to save and aren't depending on this work you should specialize in something like web applications (rails/laravel) or react projects where you can charge a high hourly rate to make it worth your time. And is more interesting work than websites.

Since you are a contractor you probably have more flexibility to build your own projects(review your contract on IP of projects outside of work).

Give this a listen, start in the archives, episode 1. StartUpsForTheRestOfUs.com you can follow Rob from drop shipping beach towels, to selling Drip for $XXM.

This isn't a fast option to make revenue but you can build it up to something in the future that can make life a lot easier.

Good luck

</comment><comment><USER14> How about a full time job? With that much experience you should be able to get one that pays well. If there are no full time positions for your skill set in the area, there are companies that hire remote workers. Search for the "Who's Hiring?" post that comes out every month or get in touch with a recruiter.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a full-time job, as I mentioned in the post: full-time software engineer, 8+ years of experience. I earn 120k/y. Unfortunately, with my wife's college debt + my own + rent and, well, life, it's been hard to save real money for our down payment on a house.

<comment><USER15> I wonder if adding more keyboard work is a good idea when you already have a full time job writing software. If you end up burning yourself out you will be in a much worse financial situation.

$120K is quite a lot, four times the median wage in the US, you may be better off working on lowering your outgoings rather than increasing income.

<comment><USER16> Depending on where he/she lives it's not. I've been there. Full time jobs are not paying enough. It all depends on your personal situation. Some developers I worked with used to live with parents and they thought their salary was great, I couldn't do that so I found I couldn't save anything.

<comment><USER15> Possibly, but even in San Francisco the median wage is $78K.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd read some of the material on here as well: [https://doubleyourfreelancing.com/](https://doubleyourfreelancing.com/)

I can't say it will solve your problems, but there is definitely some good advice there.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't know about any secret circles (would appreciate an invite if there is one), but you could try the HN freelancer thread, submitted by the account 'whoishiring (the February one will be up next week). I have had good results through there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't know about this thread, thanks.

<comment><USER19> It gets posted on the first of the month every month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm in a similar situation. 4 whole months with no work. I've sent 100s of applications and done dozens or interviews. I have 8-9 years of experience and 3 of those in React and Node. I've got an impressive resume and experience at 4 other starts ups, and even at a big game developer.

Are these the early signs of a slow down in the tech industry. I've also considered ICOs to be a big red flag as well.

<comment><USER21> If you're doing React, you should look at a tech shop. It's a smaller one, but we've done work with [http://g2i.co/](http://g2i.co/)</comment></comment>