Problems with MacBook butterfly switch keyboards - <AUTHOR> https://theoutline.com/post/2402/the-new-macbook-keyboard-is-ruining-my-life <comment><USER2> My work gave me one of the 2016 15" MBPs as my main computer, and the keyboard is horrible.

My V key double-presses about half the time, and the rest of the keys are really hard to press down all the way. Some of the keys make a weird metal rattle when I press them.

Typing on that wretched keyboard for more than an hour or so literally bruises my fingers.

Since I do most of my day-to-day work at a dock with an external keyboard, I'm debating whether it's bad enough that I need to fight with IT and be the one special snowflake with a PC instead. But it's bad enough that I'm seriously considering it.

The more I write about this keyboard, the angrier I get. >:(

And also seriously, fuck the touchbar. Who the hell decided that programmers don't need a functional ESC key or permanent function keys? And who the hell decided that I should have to fumble around and mash my already-bruised finger against a tiny glass icon to change my volume level? Just so Skype can show buttons that mimic the buttons already on the screen?

The user experience of the touchbar is objectively worse and adds no value. Most apps don't even use it, and the ones that do don't use it for anything interesting. And before long I'm sure it'll be playing advertisements at me.

<comment><USER3> My biggest beaf with the TouchBar: volume takes two clicks! Instead of an up down and mute button, I get mute and volume which then opens a slider to the left of the click. So instead of just clicking once to lower volume I have to click, move my finger and slide. It would be so easy to allow custom button to add back on (and maybe there is that I haven't been able to find?)

I also accidentally 'touch my pinky finger when typing my password (numbers) and it registers as touch even though I'm not applying downward force. In Chrome thank god I could remove the refresh button, would accidentally refresh login pages all the time.

<comment><USER4> A couple things: you don't have to click volume and then move to the slider, you can just touch the volume button and begin sliding immediately and it will adjust relative to how you slide. Also, if you go into System Preferences—>Keyboard, you can customize the keys, including adding a dedicated mute button.

<comment><USER5> When users have to fiddle with settings to do the things they could do before without fiddling, what have you achieved? Apple used to be the UX good guys, now they are the devil in disguise.

<comment><USER6> >>Apple used to be the UX good guys

Apple had one person who was good at UX. And that guy is dead for years now. His product pipeline can't be milked further to make more money.

From here onwards its just your usual managers running the show.

<comment><USER7> Don Norman may be over 80, but not dead I think ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Based on the title I assumed that this person was going to be complaining about joint damage due to the low key travel. This keyboard on my 12" MacBook is so bad that between having to get the top case replaced to fix broken keys (when as stated in the article, careful blowing didn't work and trying to replace the keys caused them to break) and my fingers feeing like they have aged many years from the poor ergonomics of no key travel (something I am extremely pissed about) I have mostly just stopped using a laptop: even when using this computer it is now docked at my home with an external monitor and a real keyboard. You have to understand that I am someone who hates desktop computers and has been using the 11" MacBook Air since the moment it came out as a replacement to an HP Mini... I love small computers, but this one is trash. I have it on my todo list to move back to my now-repaired 11" Air, but the thought of having to do that much data movement is demoralizing, particularly as I have grown accustomed to the high-resolution screen. I am not sure what to do as I just can't understand how Apple thinks these keyboards are reasonable... it just seems so obvious that this is dumb.

<comment><USER9> Your story resonated with me because I had the same experiences with a 12" MacBook.

While I can't really use you as an example, since you kind of need a Mac for a lot of the work you do specifically, I've heard the same complaints about Apple hardware from other long-time Mac users that _don't_ actually need to have a Mac.

I am curious how many of those of us that don't need macOS day to day have voted with their wallet away from Apple's pro line, and what they switched to. I still use a mid-2014 MacBook Pro at work, but at home when it was time to upgrade I took the same path you did and went for the 12" MacBook. It sucked in every way.

Now I'm the owner of a Dell XPS, the supposed most Mac-like PC, and I'm simply stuck with another set of problems: it's developed a great amount of coil whine, thermal management is spotty to say the least, and the sound card drivers have to be reinstalled every few reboots else it will not detect when I have plugged or unplugged headphones, which has me carrying around a USB DAC. When I _need_ macOS, I'm still running High Sierra on a quad-core Mac Mini server from 2011.

The sad thing is that I don't think there is a good option at this point. All of the "alternatives" to the MacBook contain their own faults.

<comment><USER10> Also migrated to a Dell XPS 15 as new Macs stopped exciting me.

No coil whine in mine, but it was hell finding just the right bios version so sleep would work. And if you don't use a specific Intel you driver version you get screen flicker. Le sigh.

<comment><USER11> Hey, but at least your computer is exciting now, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The new MBPs are such a mixed bag for me.. I got one at work, while I still use a 2012 MBP, and I go back and forth on some things....

1) New keyboard took a while to get used to, and it does seem like they are a little finicky. After a while, I've gotten used to the feel of it and actually prefer it for the most part. The arrow keys are really hard to use, though..

I do hate that it is such an expensive/involved thing to replace the keyboard.

2) The enlarged trackpad is kinda nice sometimes, but really hard to use other times.. The way I rest my hands on my laptop when I'm using it while sitting back or lying down always results in mis-clicks and other problems with the new trackpad. I'd rather have the smaller-sized one, but I realize others may not have the same problems I do.

3) TouchID is really handy, but the TouchBar is an unfortunate gimmick. I keep trying to find good uses for it, but it mostly ends up being kinda useless - anything I can do with it, I could do before with less work. I hope it goes away, or at least becomes an optional thing in the future.

Overall, while it is nice to have a laptop that is smaller/lighter, the way Apple is sacrificing all sorts of other stuff (performance, repairability) to minimize size/weight sometimes feels wrong for what it supposed to be a professional series laptop.

<comment><USER13> Use BetterTouchTool for the Touch Bar.

It allows you to customise it for each application and assign your own buttons based on menu items, scripts etc. For development it is amazing. I have dedicated buttons for Build, Run, Debug, Stop, Step Into and Step Over. For terminal I can adjust terminal profiles with one button.

Also blame Intel more than Apple for performance issues.

<comment><USER14> > For development it is amazing. I have dedicated buttons for Build, Run, > Debug, Stop, Step Into and Step Over

I have these in IntelliJ as standard key combos (some being Fn keys). All of these I can touch type. I can't see how this would be improved by having to look down at the mini-screen at the top of the keyboard.

<comment><USER13> You can use it for things wouldn't normally remember or that require arcane key commands.

Two buttons I use are to Expand/Collapse All Code Folds.

<comment><USER15> I think the main point is that you could just map those to function keys.

I think I've only seen one main use that works well with the bar, and that's scrubbing through video or audio.

<comment><USER16> But you have to remember what the function keys do, so you are ignoring the primary point of the touch bar.

<comment><USER17> If it's something you use so infrequently why not have it on the screen in a toolbar instead, so you still don't have to remember which key it is, and you don't need to move your gaze away from what you were already looking at.

The touchbar has used, but from what I can tell, all those uses are better solved by existing non touchbar techniques already.

Toolbars for infrequently user functions you won't remember the shortcut for (better because they hold more and don't require you to change the screen you're looking at, and you can keep your hands on the touchpad/mouse as before).

Fn keys (or combo keys) for frequently used shortcuts that you would remember as they ass tactile feedback and are much more conducive to touch typing.

The trackpad for actual scrubbing like functions.

Where I can see the touchbar being useful are infrequently used global functions, but I believe these are the ones Apple explicitly prevents developers from building (and unsurprisingly the inbuilt global ones from Apple are the most popular feature of the touchbar, such as volume controls and music playback controls).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I too have found this keyboard it to be a disaster. I made the mistake of buying two MacBooks as soon as the first 12" model was released, one for me and one for my wife, and my wife's keyboard had so many problems we took it in to Apple. All they could do was offered to swap out the keyboard for a mere $400. My wife refused, and the problem mysteriously solved itself.

Meanwhile, mine "works", but the short key travel makes touch typing next to impossible even after two years of use. I have just purchased an inexpensive windows computer from a Lenovo and I'm trying to get accustomed to Windows 10 so I have a workable keyboard. This is a big deal because I am deep into Apples ecosystem and lock-in.

I do not want to switch but I type all day and I can't bear to buy another Macintosh because the keywords have all gone this way. I am however considering purchasing a new old stock MacBook Air.

<comment><USER19> Where's a good place to find new old stock MacBooks?

<comment><USER20> I've always had good results with Apple's refurbished devices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have the 2016 MBP, and have been using it extensively in third world conditions this year. The keyboard has been so good that I didn't even notice it. What I do notice is having to limit myself to the 15 inch display vs the two 40" 4k displays I have at home. The machine supports four, and I would buy a third 4k display (This time UHD) if I could figure out a desk arrangement that supports all three and still keep the MBP in easy reach.

I love my MBP. The flash storage was a little more expensive than I wanted, and I'm going to wait an extra year to upgrade.

Anyway. this isn't a product story- the keyboard is fine.

This is a service story-- Apple should have fixed his right the first time.

PS- Touch Bar is great.

<comment><USER22> Yep, I have the 2013 15" rMBP and the 2016 15" rMBP.

Much prefer the keyboard on the 2016 model.

Just two gripes:

\- keyboard is noisy as hell, very noticeable in conference calls

\- trackpad is way too big, it's hard to find a resting position. six months in i still accidentally touch it when not meaning to.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I like the touchbar, but yeah was a little disappointed in how loud the keyboard and even the trackpad, coming from a 2015 MBP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We had a candidate come in for interviews, and one of them was a video- conference programming session with a remote interviewer. We set them up with a Macbook (running Windows/Bootcamp) for live-coding.

The candidate hit the Power button, located where DEL used to be. Laptop goes to sleep (candidate said it shut down but it probably just went to sleep). He gets it back up but then it needs a login etc., so he had to go find us non- remote staff to log back in, join VPN etc. Took about 5 minutes out of the interview, partly due to confusion + logging back into the things.

I can't for the life of me understand why so many vendors have put this button on the keyboard. It was so simple and sensible to have it somewhere else.

Edited: Macbook running Windows, probably just went to sleep but disruptive nonetheless, combination of hardware+software to blame.

<comment><USER25> Nothing about this makes much sense - regardless of which generation macbook you're using hitting the power button accidentally will not turn it off (you can try it right now). Did your interviewee keep pressing on it for like 10 seconds?

<comment><USER26> Indeed, I'm not even sure that aside from intentionally editing the PowerManagement.plist that you can do this. On my Macbook Air, you have to hold in the power button for a short period to produce the Sleep/Restert/Shutdown pop-up, and the default is cancel, I believe. Apple's own page on the matter says it requires a 1.5 second hold to produce. [0]

I appreciate your over-all sentiment that when the default behavior for power buttons was to take action, but my expectation now is that bumping the power button should ask you what to do, not do something. I'm still surprised that many Windows based laptops have a default action mapped to the power button regardless of the placement of the button, as interrupting the state of the machine just seems like something you'd want a confirmation on - aside from a few outlier "oh crap no one can see this" moments, I'm not sure why you'd need the quick bump to initiate shutdown or any action from the power button at all. Even in the above situation, a shutdown is far slower most times than just a hard shutdown.

Edit: Seeing your follow up, I feel that you should really update your original post to mention that it was running Windows via Bootcamp. macOS and Windows respond very differently to a power button press, and Windows' default is to take a sleep, hibernate, or shutdown action, and at least on our Server 2016 images, the default behavior is to initiate a shutdown. This isn't OS X behavior, it's Windows behavior.

[0] [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT201236#sleep](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236#sleep)

<comment><USER24> Thanks. Updated, and probably this thread is off-topic enough that I should just delete it.

In my head I had not distinguished between "shutdown" and "sleep", nor decide that the hardware was less to blame than the software. Those details matter, sorry for any confusion.

<comment><USER27> Go tap the power button on a Macbook keyboard. It doesn't do anything. Hold the power button and it prompts.

It's a tad unbelievable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have Dell XPS 13. When keyboard broke (probably my fault), technician come to my house next day and replaced it in front of me. For free, as part of basic warranty. I was on holiday in other country...

<comment><USER29> Dell doesn't produce the most beautiful laptops, but at least every component isn't soldered to your "logic board".

It comes at a cost of larger and heavier laptops, but the XPS 13 Developer Edition I write this on is small, runs Linux, and has a beautiful display and a real keyboard I don't absolutely hate. Even Linus likes it.

I am slowly turning back towards Dell for almost all my main computing accessories (laptop/monitor).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This, so much. Plus, call me clumsy, but the number of times I have accidentally triggered one of the magic bar buttons is beyond count. In everyday use, it often feels like my computer just randomly mutes system audio or locks the display (I had to get rid of the Siri button, it's incredibly annoying).

All of that besides the fact that you cannot really use VIM any more because the ESC button is gone...

<comment><USER31> The most annoying thing about Siri is that another key press does not close that window again. It's the first thin I removed from the touch bar.

The number of times I actually wanted to change the terminal colors or open a man page with the touchbar is exactly zero. I press them often enough by accident that I am annoyed.

The touchbar is a solution looking for a problem. Can't find one. If you want reconfigurable keys, why not put a small display in each of them? That would at least be a possible benefit without these fundamental drawbacks.

<comment><USER32> "Can't find one. If you want reconfigurable keys, why not put a small display in each of them?"

Good idea. The whole trend toward touch interfaces is really annoying. Something tactile is much better if you see it a lot. Same in cars. Operating a car heater through touch is much more difficult and requires more attention than old fashioned dials.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I actually really like my 2017 MBP's keyboard. There isn't much key travel, but the keys do have a very satisfying "click." I prefer it over older apple keyboards. Keys do have issues weekly or so, but that's resolved by hitting the key a bunch; it's an inconvenience, but certainly not a dealbreaker.

<comment><USER34> > Keys do have issues weekly or so, but that's resolved by hitting the key a > bunch

I've been considering moving to a 12 MacBook but hearing stuff like this scares me

<comment><USER8> Yeah. I'm just shocked by how much people are willing to just deal with as if it is normal or something. I have a friend who recently told me they are surprised as how much I hate my 12" MacBook as they are loving theirs... and then a little later they tell me that the O key on their keyboard doesn't work half the time and just... I just don't even... wtf. I swear all the people who love these new computers must just have extremely low standards or something: you shouldn't have to mess around with your computer every week to fix some stupid keyboard issue that wouldn't exist if the laptop was a mere millimeter thicker.

<comment><USER35> I have two Macbooks from 2015 and none hat any key issues whatsoever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Even Gruber is worried:

[https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/17/johnston- macboo...](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/17/johnston-macbook- keyboard)

</comment><comment><USER37> I quite enjoy typing on the new keyboard (2017 MBP), and have not had any issues.

My only minor criticism would be that the up and down arrows are a little tricky to hit quickly without looking, but it's really minor for me.

Overall, in my experience, this was a solid upgrade on the previous keyboard (which I had to use a few days ago to prepare my old MBP to be sold).

<comment><USER38> Yeah, these up and down arrows are a bit of a disappointment. I have a Dell XPS which has the same half-height keys for up and down. I hit the wrong one all the time. Guess I should enable system-wide vim or emacs bindings or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> When I got my first MacBookPro in 2009 I was sold instantly.

Not because of the specs, I had given up a Dell costing a quarter of the price with higher resolution display, more memory, a nicer keyboard and faster CPU.

I was sold because, unlike any of the other Windows & Linux computers I owned at the time, it did not make me angry when I used it.

I miss _that_ MacBookPro.

</comment><comment><USER40> There was literally nothing wrong with the MBP2013 keyboard. This endless pursuit of making anorexic electronics by Apple will only continue inventing faults like these - there's simply a limit to how thin these things can go and maintain durability, and that's what we're seeing here.

Jobs never would have let this nonsense happen. He'd have pressed the key and thrown the machine at whomever invented this "butterfly" switch.

</comment><comment><USER41> I have a 15" 2016 model and I'm close to throwing it out of my office window.

My b and n keys acted up randomly. B would hit twice on each press and n would miss keystrokes sometimes. Cleaned it with air, massaged the keys, removed caps and cleaned etc. Other keys started following. Apple here in Turkey does not have the same support you guys in US seem to enjoy.

They gave me a 15 day repair window, no offer of replacements etc. I simply can't live without it for 15 days so I'm still using this piece of shit broken laptop.

I'd buy a replacement and send this one to repair only to sell it but then I'd still need to buy a MBP because of macOS.

One of these days I'm gonna pull thr plug and go all linux.

</comment><comment><USER42> Well, I'm glad it's not just me. I had my top case replaced a month ago after my 'w' key started sticking down off and on. I could swear I felt one of the keys on my new case stick once, but it hasn't happend again.

I usually don't buy Apple Care, but as I look at the 1 year mark approach, I'm thinking I may need to suck it up and buy it if the alternative is a $400-700 top case replacement ever few months on my dime until Apple decides to issue an extended warranty. Even if they do issue one, with my last laptop, I had to fight them to replace my main board a second time with the GPU failures because they tried to claim that since they repaired it once, it was impossible that the issue could happen a second time even though all of their diagnostic tests showed that it indeed had.

On the plus side, ever time they replace the keyboard, you get a brand new battery and new USB-C connectors (which I'm also paranoid are going to have longevity issues).

<comment><USER43> > Even if they do issue one, with my last laptop, I had to fight them to > replace my main board a second time with the GPU failures because they tried > to claim that since they repaired it once, it was impossible that the issue > could happen a second time even though all of their diagnostic tests showed > that it indeed had.

Been there, done that. Even to fix once. "Well, it fails that specific diagnostic and there's a bulletin about it, but we don't think that's the issue", even though I could repeatedly make it kernel panic due to a GPU fault merely by browsing a page in Safari (and the console spewed forth the same errors).

I know people claim Apple has uniformly excellent service and I'd agree that for the most part, they do, but there's also polarizingly bad service, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I replaced my broken MBP 2013 to 2017. The keyboard is really horrible!! The 2013 KB was wonderful and I can't find any other laptop with same great KB.

With the new MBP, after one month of purchase, the display is down. I went to Apple Store, and they told me 3 days for repair but I never get any email/tel contacts after a week and their online status remained "repairing". Until I call them back, they told me they contacted and I didn't pick up their phone.

Now after 2 months, I found a video quality issue on their FaceTime camera (with sunlight, same issue): [https://imgur.com/a/AQTOw](https://imgur.com/a/AQTOw)

Has anyone with the same experience?

</comment><comment><USER45> I despise my new Macbook's touchbar. I can't get to the volume button without stopping what I'm doing for 4-5 seconds to find the key, then press multiple buttons, I can't use the function keys, and it generally adds no value.

<comment><USER46> Just use the buttons on your wired headphones which are equally compatible with your iPhone and Mac... oh, wait.

<comment><USER47> Great shitpost, too bad none wired headphones like the crowd favourites qc35 and others have volume keys too. Its sad to think that you cannot get out of your bubble and realise that this is not objectively a bad design choice, but some of us actually enjoy and applaude it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It sounds like there's real, serious problems with it, but nothing in the article comes close to justifying the hyperbolic title.

</comment><comment><USER49> Apples obsession with thin is taking liberties and no matter what they say, I know a significant number of MBP users who are sticking with older laptops - just like the genius in the article.

<comment><USER50> The previous generation MacBook Pros are still sold new on the Apple Store. Scroll down a bit: [https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook- pro/15-inch](https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/15-inch)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I had keys go bad twice on my 2017 MBP, but both times I've managed to "massage" them back to life by pressing down hard and wiggling the keys around.

My previous laptop, the original 2012 MBP Retina, lasted 5 years. I have my doubts this one is built as robustly...

That said I actually enjoy typing on this keyboard. The short travel and sharp, stable clickiness has lowered my typing error rate and makes it _feel_ like I'm typing faster. I was never a good typist though.

</comment><comment><USER52> Don't worry everyone! Apple's going to fix this in the next version by replacing the keyboard with a touch screen!

<comment><USER29> Don't give them ideas. Just... don't. The all new Electro Tactile Keyboard. It is the most amazing typing experience you have ever had on a keyboard.

3 years later everyone is wandering around with claws for hands, having forgotten what real keyboards do for human to computer interaction.

<comment><USER53> Ahem, this isn't a new idea for them: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks)

<comment><USER29> Of course. If I think of it some one else did 10 years ago ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> > Though Apple employees receive significant yearly discounts on computers, > and this was the first significant redesign of the MacBook Pro's body in > eight years, he had chosen not to buy one of the new ones, even a year > later. (The author, referring to a Genius' 2015 MBP)

Umm. I earn modestly good money developing software and my 2010 MBP is starting to show its age. How much does he think an Apple Store employee makes? How much DOES an Apple Genius in NYC make?

<comment><USER55> FYI, OP is a woman: [https://twitter.com/caseyjohnston](https://twitter.com/caseyjohnston)

<comment><USER54> Thanks for pointing that out! Usually aiming for non-gendered language, but sometimes assumptions get the better of me!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> It's rare seeing an ad get through ublock and hosts filters.

<comment><USER57> Yes, but I didn't find that ad "out of place" or annoying. So I do not mind!

<comment><USER23> I had the same feeling, I don't mind ads if they are done well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> > "Hold on," I said. "If a single piece of dust lays the whole computer out, > don't you think that's kind of a problem?"

> ...

> The Genius shrugged empathetically. He cast around and pointed to a nearby > pre-2015 MacBook Pro with relatively thicker keys. "I have one of those," he > said apologetically.

Wow. That's got to be the worst tech-support I have ever heard of.

<comment><USER27> What do you expect him to say? He's not an Apple engineer. He didn't design the keyboard. He's a blue-shirt working customer service at an Apple store.

<comment><USER58> I expect him to say something along the lines of, "I don't know, let me see what I can find out and I'll get back to you."

Imagine your lawn mower broke, and took it to a repair shop. You complain it doesn't switch on. The repair guy says maybe there is a piece of grass that got inside, and that's why it's not working. You say that sounds like a really bad design if a lawn mower can't handle a piece of grass. He says, "Oh, well I use some other model."

How is that even remotely helpful?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> This is what happens when you hyper-optimize for a single dimension in a many- dimensional optimization problem. In this case it's "thin and light."

MacBook Pros have been thin and light enough for nearly a decade. If I want tiny I have a smart phone that I can pull out of my pocket. I want a laptop to be a portable "real computer" with a lot of power, durability, and good ergonomics. Long battery life is also important. I'd be very happy with a thicker Pro with more CPU, more RAM, and a big battery.

The latest Macs are such a disaster I'm currently thinking about how I can extricate myself from the platform and go back to either Windows or Linux. The OS is fine but the hardware has gone bozo. My latest Mac was a refurbished older model which I consider to be superior in many ways to the newer ones.

</comment><comment><USER60> I might sound like the black sheep here - but I really enjoy typing on the new MacBook keyboard, even when switching from my DAS ultimate on my desktop and back - I truly enjoy it and make far less mistakes while typing faster.

What I do think is completely useless is he touchbar, nice idea but no real use.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm struggling as well since i have migrated from my 2015 macbook pro. The new keyboards are not well suited for writing more than a few occassional sentences. I make more typing mistakes and am slower than before. Worst keyboard since my whole life. Apple needs to improve this.

</comment><comment><USER62> I am a developer spending 10+ hours a day on my old macbook pro (2015 model). It is without doubt the best pc I've ever had. And I am treating it with even more care now.

I really don't want the new model as replacement, for more reasons. I don't expect Apple to recover from the loss of Steve Jobs, at least not in terms of quality. I see they are trying to remain a financial success.

Which laptop will be an improvement compared to the one I have now? I don't want Windows, but a Linux distro would be great if the OS happened be as robust as OSX in all respects. I tried Arch, Ubuntu flavours, etc.. none of them compare in many ways. I actually never had a touchpad on any other laptop that behaved as smooth as the mbp one for example.

</comment><comment><USER63> I love the keyboard on new MacBooks. I'd like to have a keyboard like that for my desktop PC actually. I like how low travel it is, allowing me to type super fast with minimal effort, also it is nice to touch and makes nice sounds when typing.

<comment><USER64> I also love the 12" MB keyboards. And the new MBP keyboards are even better. I treat my 2016 12" MB like shit, throw it in my bag without a case, eat in its general area, and I've never had an issue with dust messing up the kb. But I believe that there's a design flaw here that apple should fix. But the keyboards are great from every other angle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> It constantly amazes me how a product which is so widely criticized by the dev community, ends up selling so well. Really shows how Apple dropped the ball from making a system which became the de-facto developer laptop (whether I like that it did or not is a different question), right upto this clunky mess which is a far cry from their earlier versions

I still maintain that the 2012 rMBP, which were the last Macbooks that came out under Jobs IIRC, were the most stable developer-focussed iteration of the MBP. No heating issues, a sexy screen, stable non-glitchy non-hanging OS, and a wonderful experience overall!

<comment><USER66> Are thy selling well? Apple's market share is not growing. I got a 2012 MBP and the money to buy a new one. What I see is not convincing me I get value for money. Apple used to know that basics matter but recently they are innovating on the margin. That only gets you so far onto the ice...

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> This autumn I finally needed to buy a new laptop and spent some time testing and figuring out which keyboard I like the most. The funny thing was that the only seriously decent laptop keyboard is in a model that has a limited release and will probably sell out in the coming weeks: The ThinkPad 25th anniversary edition.

How can it be that to get a seriously good keyboard for programming, I need to get a novelty laptop and get it fast until it sells out. If you have a chance to test it somewhere and can take a hit with a FHD panel, this is definitely a fast and robust laptop.

<comment><USER29> I think FHD is a feature. Even on a 15" laptop it is around 140ppi, thats... a lot. And FHD saves on battery life significantly on anything not Apple. I specifically ordered a Precision 7520 this week with an anti-glare FHD with no mic or webcam because 140+ PPI is a good balance for me and it extends battery life significantly.

96 ppi is the old standard. 140ppi generally gives a very nice and crisp screen. The 220 or so on most MBP retina is nice, but probably overkill starting around 180ppi in my estimation.

<comment><USER68> Agreed, and I'm happy that I'm not the only person with this view on display density. I can deal with HiDPI displays if it allows me to to a 1:2 integer scale without losing too much real estate, but any scaling between there loses small pixel details. As someone who appreciates sharp bitmap fonts and pixel graphics, the retina MBP is a big irritation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Complete opposite is new Surface Book or however it is called. Keyboard travels just fine, it has touch screen, long life... I am writing this on Mac, I have several more, but since passing of Steve Jobs, things are just not right.

Anyhow, looking at new Microsoft machine, with great graphics card and every feature I would want (sd card, thank you!), couldn't help but think about how things have changed.

Oh and biggie, it has Esc key! Can you imagine that :)

<comment><USER69> Ha ha ha, truth hurts so much :) How Apple dares not be cool :)

I am in the same boat, I am just not as messed up as you downvoters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Once bash on windows gets sufficiently close to my needs and I am able to swap alt with ctrl, I will little resistance for going from OS X to windows.

<comment><USER71> linux as daily driver is _honestly_ good, from the bottom of my heart (I recommend xfce)

<comment><USER70> Also if any Linux laptop can give me 8 plus hours of productive battery life I am also switching. I had problems with an old one where closing laptop lid drained all the battery so I constantly had to worry about the on state of my laptop

<comment> mickael-kerjean It's already here. I got between 13h (normal workload) to 25h (no internet and Emacs only) on the Lenovo x270 with arch and i3wm

<comment><USER70> Great thanks good to know. Do you have any issues with sleep or closing lid draining battery ?

<comment> mickael-kerjean No issues here. Only issues I got is related to the fingerprint scanner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> r-s Have a 2017 MPB I got for work, I pretty much only run it in closed clamshell mode. If I need to actually be type something, I will pull out a $500 acer laptop from 5 years ago running linux because it is much nicer to type on.

If I actually paid for the machine I would be pretty mad. The keyboard misses clicks and the lack of the escape key still bothers me.

</comment><comment><USER72> So glad someone called this out. A single key on my MBP broke and Apple wanted $500 to "fix" it, even with AppleCare.

Fuck that.

<comment><USER73> Wait you had paid for Apple Care and yet they wanted $500? Why is Apple so sacred with so many people?

<comment><USER74> Because this isn't the typical experience for most?

I've had nothing but good things to say about Apple's repair policies. If it's in warranty, wander into an Apple Store, explain the issue, come back an hour or two later for your free fix or replacement.

Done and done. I've also heard horror stories, but they're a pretty big company. I'm not surprised it's a mixed bag. I can say that there are almost no companies that have a store a couple blocks from me that I can walk into and get free same day repair service for some devices.

The vast majority require me to mail my device into some unknown depot and be without it for a much longer period of time.

<comment><USER72> They consider the broken key to be "accidental damage" which puts the user at fault. Therefore, no warranty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> The best kind of controversial Apple design is one that people grumble about because it's ahead of its time, but which ultimately replaces one way of doing things with another that's better for most use cases. See: ditching floppies and adopting USB on the first iMac.

The worst kind of controversial Apple design is one that people grumble about because it's aesthetically pleasing but actually makes the product less user- friendly. See: the hockey-puck mouse on the first iMac.

Regarding that second kind, sometimes Apple recognizes their mistake and, in a future iteration, completely replaces the bad design with a better one. More recently, they seem too infatuated with their initial design decisions and just keep putting band-aids on fundamentally flawed implementations. The butterfly keyboard mentioned in TFA is on its third(!) revision, and it's still clearly flawed. Another example: Apple "fixed" the impossible-to-tell- in-the-dark-which-way-you're holding-it Apple TV remote by putting a single tactile ring around one button, rather than just designing an ergonomic remote that makes it tougher for you to accidentally engage the touchpad and cancel out of the movie you're watching.

So why might Apple underestimate the severity of bad design decisions?

Apple's direction with the Mac lineup as of late is a great example of "success hides problems." [1] Supposedly, the 2016 MacBook Pros sold very well, despite a number of bad design choices that put form over function:

\- The keyboard design as described in TFA

\- The touch bar (only available on the high end models). The designer must have really hated those useless, ugly fkeys. But instead of putting the touch bar above the fkeys, they eliminated them. The touch bar is not a substitute, unless all you used the fkeys for was changing volume, etc.

\- Eliminated all other ports in favor of USB-C, which while great in theory is in fact a highly fragmented incompatible ecosystem of poor quality peripherals and cables that don't give the user any visual indicator as to whether they work together. [2]

IMHO, many if not most of these MacBook Pro customers are buying not because of these bad design decisions but in spite of them. Computers are amazing because they're fun and powerful general purpose machines. These machines may meet some subset of people's needs better than the old ones did. But in exchange for that, they've stopped (or soon will stop) meeting the needs of many, many more.

Somebody once said "design is how it works." If you live in a sterile white world where there's no dust and you never plug anything into your laptop, maybe this product works for you. The rest of us don't have that luxury.

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?q=success+hides+problems](https://www.google.com/search?q=success+hides+problems)

[2] [https://marco.org/2017/10/14/impossible-dream-of- usb-c](https://marco.org/2017/10/14/impossible-dream-of-usb-c)

<comment><USER76> I understand what you are getting at, but in reality not everyone has issues with the new design, and I'm as yet unclear whether it's a vocal minority who do, or a more widespread thing.

Personally, I really like my new 15" Pro. I'm in favour of anything which can make it thinner and lighter, to a point, as I like to be able to carry it around easily, while still having a large screen. The design looks beautiful.

In regard to the specific points you raised:

\- I prefer the keyboard to the old one. It feels satisfying to type on in my opinion. The only thing I would change is the noise of the keys, it's hard to type quietly.

\- The touch bar isn't perfect but I think it's a worthwhile effort, as most people (me included, and I'm a developer) rarely use the function keys for anything aside from the media functions you mention, mainly because it's hard to remember what they'll do and having shortcuts visible there is a good idea.

However, the lack of tactile feedback and visibility in sunlight is an issue. I'd rather they'd gone with distinct keys with e-ink displays or similar, but like I say, to me the Fn keys are no great loss (I've been remapping escape to caps lock for years anyway!)

\- I find the new port set up much more flexible and have had no problems using my old USB devices with adapters or via a hub. I did find the article about USB-C interesting though - hopefully the industry can sort this out in due time.

I don't make these points to say you're wrong, but just to show that not everyone agrees that all these design choices are bad.

<comment><USER77> I'm on Windows, so there's that.

I constantly (multiple times a day) use F1 (help, least used), F3 (search again, next match), F4 (both for the famous close window shortcut and to get to the explorer address bar), F5 (reload in browser, run in other apps), F9 (toggle breakpoint in VS), F10 (step over in VS), F11 (step into in VS).

Occasionally F8, F12.

Couldn't live without those, I guess, and I can find all of those blindly.

<comment><USER76> Ahh yes, function key use is much more prevalent in Windows for whatever reason. On the Mac most of those shortcuts have always been Cmd+letter instead (e.g. Cmd-R = refresh, Cmd-W = close window, Cmd-Q = close app, Cmd-F = find), so perhaps that is why Apple see the Fn keys as expendable.

On the debug thing, having the debug controls on the Touch Bar with XCode (available from any app) is one of the few actually definitely useful things about it. Spotify integration could be, except they decided not to show song name or anything else useful on there.

<comment><USER17> Wouldn't having the debug controls on Fn keys like on VS on Windows be even more useful since you get tactile feedback as well?

The major advantage of the touchpad that I can see is for someone who is new to the app, since it increases discoverability if shortcut keys. However this problem was already solved using toolbars. There may be a few apps where the screen real estate may be too expensive to lose to toolbars, but I can't really think of any where simply fading the toolbars in isn't a better solution. Maybe 4ak video editing is a better option?

I'd also imagine controls where scrubbing is better might benefit from the touchbar, but again, that's probably better handled by the touchpad which is far more ergonomically accessible than the touchbar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Have the same problem recently with the W-key, it types twice sometimes, most noticeably, it will close two tabs instead of one. When I smack it, it fixes it for a while, I think. The f-key is also giving me trouble, it's shallower and sounds different, sometimes it will just fall out.

</comment><comment><USER79> If you own a Macbook or Macbook Pro with the new slim keyboard, do yourself a favor and buy an Uppercase keyboard protector [1].

I got dust under mine last year, had to get the Apple repair under warranty, and then bought this $12.95 insurance. It's been working great ever since. If I pull the cover off, the keyboard looks brand new.

The only negative is that it leaves key impressions on the screen when you close the laptop (due to the the cover touching the glass), but these are easily cleaned off with water/alcohol once every 2 weeks.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/UPPERCASE-GhostCover-Keyboard- Protect...](https://www.amazon.com/UPPERCASE-GhostCover-Keyboard-Protector- Function/dp/B01N20RZXB/)

<comment><USER80> I absolutely hate these. They make laptop keyboards feel even mushier than normal and have the aesthetics of plastic-on-living-room-furniture. The fact that this is now a good idea (a requirement even!) for a premium laptop is unacceptable.

I love Apple, I really do. The magsafe connector sold me on my first Macbook in 2009 and I've been buying Apple laptops ever since. However when the new MacBook Pros were announced the first thing I did was buy a fully specced, refurbished "last gen" Macbook pro because the butterfly keyboard is a bridge too far for me in terms of typing feel. Apparently it's a bridge too far in reliability as well. This might be my last Macbook.

<comment><USER79> Disagree here. This protector is paper thin and doesn't change the key typing feel at all. Every keyboard I've ever owned gets dirt, grime, crumbs, etc under them, and this keeps it brand new without needing to clean the keyboard.

Secondly, I liken this to getting a silicon case for your phone. You don't have to get one, but the second you drop your phone, you will be thankful you had it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> I have a 2015 MacBook and also use a HHKB Pro 2 Type S; both wildly different keyboards.

I think the MacBook keyboard is wonderful, though I prefer my HHKB. It requires a different method of hitting the keys, but I have no problem going between the two, or to any of the other keyboards I use.

I recall when Apple first came out with the thin aluminum keyboards that it took me some time to adjust from what I was using at the time, a Microsoft Ergo something or other with huge key travel and vague key actuation feel.

If you get pain while using any keyboard you should look into how you're using it, and why you're getting that pain.

</comment><comment><USER82> about 8 months into my experience with my 15" MBP 2016 I had the underbar- hyphen key stop working altogether. They replaced the key for me in the apple store without charging me. Glad I have apple care, I'm sure other keys will follow. Currently my right shift key is starting to get sticky feeling which was the precursor to the "-" key failing on me. I'm not impressed with the build quality considering the high cost of this machine $4000.

</comment><comment><USER83> I had the most bizarre issue with my 2017 MacBook Pro keyboard: the left shift key stopped working intermittently. Thinking it was a piece of dust, I took off the key cover and tried to clean it out. Nothing worked. I finally made a Genius appointment for the day after High Sierra was released. I updated to High Sierra that morning and, suddenly, my shift key was in perfect working order again.

</comment><comment><USER84> My keyboard is currently double adding 'b' when I click on the B key. Very annoying and leads to variable name bugs when I don't catch it.

I just received my MacBook Pro back from service 2 weeks ago (I had popping/cracking noises coming from the hinge / case when opening the computer or when heating up or down). I don't remember this B issue happening before :(

</comment><comment><USER85> I have a 13" MBP with butterfly keys for my job (desk) which work perfectly fine, and a 12" 2017 MB with butterfly keys which jam all the time, because I use it in messier environments. I have to blow canned air through the keyboard every two days to unjam some of the keys.

</comment><comment><USER86> I have been using one for over two years. The first month I had enough problems I thought that the keyboard was definitely broken. Since then I've had minimal to no problems. Certain typing styles certainly could make the keyboard unusable.

</comment><comment><USER87> I love the new MBP keyboard.

I have it connected to an external monitor most of the time, but I relish any chance I get to work away from the office - just for the opportunity to use the built-in keyboard.

<comment><USER88> I prefer the trackpad over a mouse and don't mind the keyboard. Thus, I've positioned my monitor directly over my laptop screen, stacking it on top of books if necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Regardless of the issues with the keyboard, I've given it a try and I just really can't enjoy typing on it, especially coming from a keyboard with tactile switches.

</comment><comment><USER90> I like the feel of the new keyboard, though I have two issues with it: 1. sometimes buttons do lock up. i'm unsure whether this is the same issue as in the article, but by pressing them harder they typically start working again. 2. the keyboard is much louder than the one on my prior MacBook pro. I feel very self-conscious whenever i type anywhere public. Maybe this is just me being self-conscious..

<comment><USER8> I have also noticed that the new keyboard is much louder, which would be tolerable if it were higher quality, but it isn't: it is simply inferior technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> Just read it and after about 4 months my B needs extra presses to work. Jinxed myself.

</comment><comment><USER92> Am I the only one who would prefer the old style keys but keep the Touch ID?

</comment><comment><USER93> Try ThinkPad + Linux. Amazing environment for programming, $1,000+ cheaper than MBP, nice keyboards, better specs for the price, including several years of at-home next-day repair service.

<comment><USER94> I've found the "cheaper" part is situational. When I bought my Macbook Air, the comparable Thinkpad (X1 Carbon) was the same price, when I specced them the same.

<comment><USER93> I'm not sure about the X1. The T460 was much cheaper than a MBP with significantly better support and specs (except for the screen, which didn't matter to me, since I don't edit photos or video seriously).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> I just realized that they don't even sell the old form factor any more. They kept it around for a while, but now it's gone.

Where can I get an old-style MBP?

</comment><comment><USER96> if you are a halfways professional and care about your fingers never type on _any_ laptop keyboard unless you absolutely have to.

</comment><comment><USER97> What, you don't like hunting-and-pecking your function row?

<comment><USER98> That's not at all what the article is about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> I wonder if at some point we'll see lawsuits over these horrible keyboards from people with repetitive stress injuries. I sure hope so. This problem was foreseen and could have been avoided but Apple refused. Now it's turned into a multiplicity of problems. Personally I'm done with Apple's shitty products.</comment>


Show HN: A Twitter bot that sends you random abuse - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/yourself_bot <comment><USER2> With the amount of tweets you're sending per day, you're going to inevitably end up saying the same things over and over to the same people every day.

I don't expect this to be very popular.

I mean this has only been running for a couple of days and you're already re- cycling the same tweets.

Also this is like 2-3 lines of code and a text file. It's not really "Show HN" worthy and should be removed IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I was actually with you on the last paragraph about this not being HN worthy, until I noticed that the service that this is based on (foaas) was posted here and was pretty popular. But maybe you're right

<comment><USER2> It's certainly possible that you did something interesting or clever to build this, but nobody here has any way of knowing anything about what you did.

All you did was link to a twitter page.

If you want to show off some clever coding, you should write up a blog post about what you did and submit that, otherwise all you've got is something that can post tweets, which can be replicated by almost any programmer in about 10-15 minutes.

Anyway, not trying to come down on you, just help you better match what you're submitting with what the community is looking for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of [https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Bowerick_Wowbagger](https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Bowerick_Wowbagger) =)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks</comment></comment>


Do you lack soft skills? So, have you tried learning it? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I'm still working on developing my soft skills, after decades of focused attention on them. (I've gotten a lot out of transactional psychology in particular: I always used to turn people off by talking too much or too little, so the lending model of social interaction in Games People Play increased my ability to maintain friendly casual relationships by orders of magnitude.)</comment>


Facebook Hit with Patent Suit Over Data Compression Tech - <AUTHOR> https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/facebook-hit-with-patent-suit-over-data-compression-tech <comment><USER2> According to this website that searches case data, there seems to be 97 patent cases at the moment involving Realtime Data LLC as the plaintiff.

[https://dockets.justia.com/search?query=Realtime+Data+LLC](https://dockets.justia.com/search?query=Realtime+Data+LLC)

Looks like another patent troll.

EDIT: Here's their website: [http://www.realtimedata.net/](http://www.realtimedata.net/)

They either have the worst website ever in terms of explaining and selling their products or its a big fake patent troll who has to at least look like they're not squatting on a patent.</comment>


User account creation re-imagined [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.stefankendall.com/2013/02/user-account-creation-re-imagined.html

<comment><USER2> "Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required."

I had a small chuckle--I hope that's not the future of signup pages.

Here's a description of the video, for those on their phones or flash-impaired devices:

When requiring an account, have only two fields, username and password. Auto- generate both randomly and show them both in plain text. If the user changes the password, save that -- it's their new password. They can enter it on another device. Likewise, if they change the username, save that change.

If they change both username and password to an existing and valid combo, consider that switching users, and I suppose you perform a logout and log in with the new credentials. (This is where it gets a little muddy, in my opinion.)

<comment><USER3> <http://www.imgur.com/njew43E.png>

:-(

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand how this helps the user.

You're assigning a username and password to them. Are they going to take the action to change it to something they will remember? If not, how will they retrieve it when they forget? How is any of this an improvement?

</comment><comment><USER5> This fails the "don't make me think" test. You're taking something that needs no explanation ( a registration form ) and making its functionality entirely unobvious.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like this idea. It make s alot of sense in the 'app' world, where one doesn't want to type much, where they just want to 'check it out', and where they don't constantly log in anyway. No email address needed either.

</comment><comment><USER7> Please, please, PLEASE don't store user's passwords in plaintext on the backend...

<comment><USER8> That's what I thought too. I guess it wont be hard though to just put asterisks there and store it in md5/sha1. On the other hand allowing the user to change password without knowing the old one it's another security risk, so this is not probably for every app or it needs some work to get done right.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can only change the password for the current user. If someone gets access to your phone, they can change your password, so this doesn't work for, say, a bank.

If the physical security of the phone is your security, however, this seems like a reasonable level of trust.

There are many apps, like mine, that have non-sensitive data that just needs an account for persistence or extra-app activity.

You could adjust this to require the current password instead of showing it, but in my case that's an unnecessary level of effort. You could still get by with two input fields, I think.</comment></comment></comment>


ThemBid.com - Make Companies Bid For Your Business - <AUTHOR> http://franticindustries.com/blog/2007/04/26/thembidcom-make-companies-bid-for-your-business/ <comment><USER2> While i think the principle is great, the key to building successful marketplaces is in building liquidity. Seeding the site with a restricted type of service e.g. automotive repair while asking many people in that sector to come and bid for business would have been a sensible way to seed it.

Thats very important to make this idea work.</comment>


Ask HN: how to visualize a mailing list as a threaded conversatoin? - <AUTHOR>

I liked the threaded conversation style of Hacker News and Reddit, especially the online interfaces for them. Google Groups, however, isn't as nice. I would like to not migrate off of Google Groups if possible. I'd rather consume a website or service that visualizes Google Groups. The emails are there, anyway. Any suggestions?
Reference mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/coderdojonyc
I have threaded conversation disabled for the time being -- figured it would be a better way to track conversations, but it hasn't been really. <comment><USER2> The algorithm you end up with for a particular message format is going to be very dependent on the meta data you have attached to each message. Given that "It depends..." disclaimer, I would start here:

[http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html](http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html)

With respect to GG in particular, you can't really "rethread" an unthreaded medium via message metadata, but you may be able to do so via "replied to message data" in the form of quoting.

I would go about parsing messages to extract quoted text, then I would use the quoted text to determine the "parent" message to which is being replied to. 98% of the time, there will only be one parent, but you need to make sure that your data format allows more than one parent in the case that someone has replied to two messages at once via cut and paste quoting.

In such a case, determining quoting is going to be far more challenging and computationally intensive. You'll have to figure out a few heuristics, such as maybe limiting the search space to "only search messages posted between the post time of the current reply and the last message a user posted to a particular original ancestor message."

You may also try to figure out the replying style of each user to figure out what text in their message is likely to be quoted. i.e. Are they a top replier, a bottom replier or an inline replier. Labeling each user according to their reply style could speed up the identification of the parent message(s) much more quickly.</comment>


HTML5Sites – curated gallery of sites about HTML5 - <AUTHOR> https://html5sit.es/

<comment><AUTHOR> Curated by @anselm_urban</comment>


Jeremy Hammond's Sentencing Statement - <AUTHOR> http://www.sparrowmedia.net/2013/11/jeremy-hammond-sentence/

<comment><AUTHOR> Full original title (doesn't fit in 80 characters):

"Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison, Jeremy Hammond Uses Allocution to Give Consequential Statement Highlighting Global Criminal Exploits by FBI Handlers"</comment>


19 days to build a 57-storey tower - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-3cca82c0-af80-4c3a-8a79-84fda5015115 <comment><USER3> Here is a great short documentary about a similar "pre-fab" approach to building a new tall building in London:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5RgRboBE2Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5RgRboBE2Y)

I think it took longer than 19 days, but they had more limited space and time to work each day, and (almost certainly) more stringent standards for safety and quality.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, he's like a Chinese version of Elon Musk (if Elon Musk believed in uniforms, company anthem, and tight social controls over his employees)!

I don't know that I agree with all of his thinking that the BBC article outlined, e.g. the very strict and intrusive control over employees' lives, but he definitely is creative and unusual, and he _thinks big_.

Perhaps a "green" tower that accommodates 800 apartments and thousands of offices and other businesses is the way to go; occupies a small physical footprint but delivers a huge amount of useful space in a country where cities are already congested and space is at a premium.

The BBC website by the way is quite interesting. I am not sure I would like all websites to look like that, but it's a creative take on interspersing multimedia with text, and the layering of the second image over the first is brilliant. Awesome!

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty cool but I hope they don't overlook the importance of aesthetics. It's worth spending extra time and money to make a building look unique and fitting for the location it is in. A city filled with identical mass-produced skyscrapers will not be pleasant once the novelty wears off.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have been following the 'sky city' stuff for a while and it really does read like a fraud. The original attempt to build it wasn't some "missing paperwork" it was a pretty clear that the building would fall over if he built it, and some folks in the structural engineering community made that point to the government and BSB could not show how their assertions were incorrect. I've not seen the complaint but it was related to the wind loading and torque requirements on lower sections.

It will be interesting to watch this 'mini' tower and see how it holds up prior to trying something more dramatic.

But structural engineering aside, being able to rapidly assemble a building of significant capacity and a small foot print is a worth while capability to have. It doesn't lend itself to variety (and like an air craft carrier would probably require grid co-ordinates in the hallways to make navigation inside the building possible) but by shortening the time to erect, you eliminate a huge variability in cost which is the time on site/equipment use. Over half of the Bay bridge's cost overruns were associated with storage, inactive equipment and staff, and material cost bids expiring. So being able to do all of the erection in even a straight shot of two or three months would improve the economics tremendously.

</comment><comment><USER7> Now solve the REAL challenge: how to get one built at 16th and Mission.

<comment><USER8> Now that is some wishful thinking. Honestly though, I would love to see more towers in SF. As someone who rents a house build in the 50s, it would be worth it for the seismic safety alone. I'm pretty sure the house I live in has NO insulation, single pane glass, and is framed with 2x4s...

SF needs some bigger, better housing and office buildings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Content aside, the article employs some really cool scrolling effects too.

</comment><comment><USER10> China seems to be winning at capitalism.

</comment><comment><USER11> This really is amazing, but do we really need to keep building super-dense areas?

I don't mean to say this isn't awesome: it is.

But we have lots of unused surface, and generally, building horizontally has lots of advantages: more sunlights for citizens, more room for parks, less congestion/traffic.

I've noticed that places were people live more relaxed and happy lives tend to have less tall buildings, while places with more stressful inhabitants tend to be those with larger tower. More traffic, less green/sun and plenty of other factors are usually strongly related to both.

</comment><comment><USER12> The description of these buildings reminds me of the 'lifeboat city' eco-doom- meme that was floating around for a while seemingly inspired by Lovelock's idea of 'lifeboat islands' or geographic areas that will weather the coming catastrophe well enough to continue supporting a sustainable society.

While I don't agree with really any of the above doomsaying or wild speculation I am somewhat fond of the idea of packing up the modern anthropic world into self contained bubbles.

This shouldn't, however, be a license to run rampant across the newly freed land with industry or to simply stack these habitats as tightly as possible to increase density. The opposite should be true, provide a clean, comfortable, and efficient location for people to live and do business while freeing up the rest of the land for enjoyment and recreation or sustainable food production.

<comment><USER13> Pruit-Igoe is the poster child for the theory of apartment towers in the park meets reality.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe)

<comment><USER14> American reality, so with a healthy dose of classism, racism, and general political failure.

"Residents cite a lack of maintenance almost from the very beginning, including the regular breakdown of elevators, as being a primary cause of the deterioration of the project. Local authorities cited a lack of funding to pay for the workforce necessary for proper upkeep of the buildings. ... The project's parking and recreation facilities were inadequate; playgrounds were added only after tenants petitioned for their installation. ... Housing projects of similar architectural design were successful in New York, but St. Louis's fragmented political culture and declining urban core contributed to the project's failure."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Amazing story, but reminds me of the buildings in Manna by Marshall Brain.

</comment><comment><USER16> <zenophobia>*story</zenophobia>

</comment><comment><USER17> The Soviets built these type of buildings at the same speed in the 60s: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel%C3%A1k](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panel%C3%A1k) Amazing, doing it higher than 20 floors though.

<comment><USER18> I am unfamiliar with the paneláky, but I would be surprised if they were built at a comparable speed. While I am aware of large building _shells_ which have been constructed on this sort of timescale, they still required many months/years of fit-out afterwards (plumbing, electricity, fine interior finishing). what is unique about what Broad Group is doing is that they are assembling fully fitted-out modules, which are essentially ready for move-in the day after construction is complete. The only historical analogues I'm aware of are things like Moshe Safde's Habitat 67[1] and some Japanese "metabolist" buildings.[2] But those have been architectural experiments without any real financial viability. What Broad Group is doing is unique in that they are making it commercially viable at scale.

1: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67)

2: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism_%28architecture%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism_%28architecture%29)

<comment><USER19> In the article they mentioned the issue of leaks.I read about it in another piece about an American pre-fab building, where it has been a huge problem.

What do you think about that issue ? how can it be solved ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> it takes 19 days to build, and the next 100 years to fill it with occupants.

</comment><comment><USER21> One quote comes to mind

-I'm from the future, learn Chinese.

</comment><comment><USER22> For some reason I don't feel compelled to spend time in such a building...

<comment><USER23> I live in India and had a maid who was incredibly quick to clean the house. She would come in, do her thing and be out in 15 minutes.

For other maids, the same cleaning up would take at least an hour.

I was convinced she wasn't doing a good job. All past experience with other maids had shown me that it takes at least one hour to clean the house.

One day, I decided to follow up after she'd done her cleaning. I went over every thing she'd cleaned and checked them for any dirt or grime.

Nothing.

So I decided to follow her as she cleaned. I trailed her like a ghost, carefully noting her every move.

She was cleaning everything _very_ thoroughly. She did not leave a single stone unturned.

My suspicions were only because everyone else was being inefficient.

Lesson learned: don't mistake inefficiency for quality.

<comment><USER24> What is her Caste?

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Early on in the article I wondered about how steel was going to be CO2-efficient, given the amount of coal involved in its production; but then I see it's as a replacement for concrete, which is much worse.

<comment><USER26> Steel fabrication does not _necessarily_ require coking coal.

[1] [http://www.thespec.com/news-story/4190319-u-s-steel- natural-...](http://www.thespec.com/news-story/4190319-u-s-steel-natural-gas- process-will-soon-replace-coke/)

[2] [https://coalactionnetworkaotearoa.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/c...](https://coalactionnetworkaotearoa.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/can- we-make-steel-without-coal/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am fascinated by their construction technique, which is nothing but perfection of management. I was eagerly waiting to see the proposed 220 story, 850 m tall building construction in seven months since 2012, but that plan was halted due to continuous rejection by the authorities and the engineering communities.

I am not a civil engineer, so I can't criticize their construction method. But I wonder if it is traditional civil engineering community's prejudice, or fear of being swept away by any revolutionary technology that keeps them opposing this sort of construction technique?

<comment><USER13> Development projects stall for many reasons among them are modifications of the developer's _pro forma_ that reduce the viability of a project - <USER2> rates go up, the cost of construction goes up, rents go down, local occupancy rates dip, etc. etc. The technology has the potential for some small incremental change to the real-estate development process, but it doesn't alter the underlying market forces where a housing shortage of 3000 dwellings is identified and twelve developers each throw up a "coming in 2017" signboard on some piece of land for an 1800 dwelling project. It's not enough to be out front of the pack with construction, what really matters is business intelligence.

Which is a round about way of suggesting that despite bureaucracy and resistance from entrenched traditions, that real-estate development ideas are much like startups: most run out of money and are worth zero. Unlike startups, the upper bound on profit is low, but their potential persists owing to the real nature of real property - land doesn't go anywhere.

<comment><USER19> Can't these kinds of buildings change the dynamic in real-estate ?

For example , in israel, where the land is usually bought from the state, sometimes groups of private people gather together to build an apartment complex and save a bit of money.But that's a long(and maybe risky) project, so people rarely do so.

But let's say it was a short process - a group gathers, gives the funds , and in month they enter their apartments. I could see this becoming more common, because you can have decent savings .

And assuming that happens - now it's people buying their own land(and build higher structures on it), won't that change the pricing dynamic on land, and the political pressures on the state which sells such land ?

<comment><USER13> Real-estate markets are markets. They seek equilibrium. When a building is delivered, supply increases, demand goes down and a new equilibrium is established. Groups of people who would build apartments have the option of moving in to existing apartments without the impedance of land entitlement, large project financing, or construction timelines. Speed to market presents less risk to developers except when everyone else can get to market just as fast. Then the risk that someone else delivers and the market becomes over- supplied comes back.

<comment><USER19> How can it be that there's a risk of over-supply if times gets short and feedback loops between buyers/contractors/sellers become much faster ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sometimes I think IT industry is moving slow, because it's so much harder to multiply the efforts with more human power. IT is so much quality over quantity that effects like this would not happen easily.

Although there is no mention of the planning involved in the construction of the building, I think the result is astonishing.

<comment><USER29> > IT is so much quality over quantity that effects like this would not happen > easily.

I hope you are joking.

<comment><USER28> I'm so not joking. 100 developers might equal = 10 experienced developers these days. You can't just "put more force into the project and make it for 10 days", because actually the people that you want to hire might be not that easy to find.

<comment><USER30> Agreed, but I feel the renaissance of the 'Learn xyz in 24hrs' books in the form of 'Check how Joe Bloggs made xyz in 3 weeks' articles.

<comment><USER31> So you judge a field by the sophists that come to exploit it?

<comment><USER30> The commenter above stated we have better quality in IT and that is the only thing that I reflected on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> 19 days to -assemble- a 57 storey tower. Four and a half months constructing the modules for assembly.

> Broad Sustainable Building spent four and a half months fabricating the > building's 2,736 modules before construction began. The first 20 floors were > completed last year, and the remaining 37 were built from 31 January to 17 > February this year, Xiao said.

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/30/chinese- constru...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/30/chinese-construction- firm-erects-57-storey-skyscraper-in-19-days)

<comment><USER13> Normally the time it takes to turn clay into brick or timber into lumber is not considered as part of the time of construction. The first order consideration is typically time on site because that's where the owner begins to have liability related to construction activity.

By analogy we as outsiders don't count dressing in the dressing room against the 90 minutes of a futbol match despite the Laws of the Game requiring uniforms, boots and shinguards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > "The biggest problem we face in the world right now isn't terrorism or world > war. It's climate change," he says.

I really like seeing this quote from a Chinese business man.

<comment><USER34> There's more, but a small personal anecdote: I have a boss with similar, if somewhat more relaxed, thinking. "Why stay in the Shangri-La when a [200 Yuan per night] Motel 168 or HomeInn is perfectly clean, safe and more convenient." or "Have a laptop and a standing desk if you like, it saves more than having you unhappy or leave." or "50 Yuan per day travel bonus, enjoy the local food." It is not penny pinching (the opposite, he'll spend where it is needed), it is a true conviction that things should be done differently (from the status quo).

When it encroaches on personal things such as the size of a family (below, from the article's Zhang Yue) I do not like it - work is work and life is life - but there is a deep dislike of the way things are done by the moneyed by a lot of business people (and women are far more represented in this grouping than in large companies operating in China, including multinationals or traditional government backed companies) than a lot of people outside China are aware of.

Further quotes:

> "Don't buy things you only use once, such as newspapers."

> "Grow your own vegetables."

> "Most importantly, have only one child, to allow the population of the world > to return to a level it can bear."

> Another company handbook urges staff to brush their teeth twice a day, and > to share cars.

> His hair is greying. Dyeing your hair is bad for the environment, he says.

> I have to set an example. My staff imitate me, and they then influence those > around them. That's how we influence society."

<comment><USER35> Great quotes, the "only one child" quote is only meant for certain countries i guess. In Germany we have a problem with the population growing older and older because young people get less and less kids. That taxes the health care system and skews politics towards the old among other things.

<comment><USER36> Fortunately Germany has high net migration, and the world's population is not shrinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The new World Trade Center took 8 years and is the most expensive building in the world:

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/may/11/one- world...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/may/11/one-world-trade- centre-build-time-lapse-video)

Everything done is the U.S. takes more time and costs a lot more money.

Consider, for example, that China has constructed 10,000 miles of high-speed rail in about a decade. We still have 0.0 miles. Yeah, yeah, we don't need 10k but we need more than 0.

Airports, subways, cities, and I imagine roads are being constructed at an incredible pace. This Bill Gates blog gets the point across: [http://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Concrete-in- China](http://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Concrete-in-China)

This is all good for China but the U.S. looks like it will quickly be passed as the largest economy. That may have some repercussions.

<comment><USER38> I live in the DC area and frequently visit Beijing.

The DC Metro is currently building the Silver Line, an extension out to Dulles airport and a bit beyond. The first segment of the extension, with five stations, was completed last year after five years of construction. The remainder is planned to be complete in 2019 or 2020... assuming there aren't any more delays.

In a similar amount of time, the Beijing subway went from a sad little system with three lines to the second largest system in the world today, with 18 lines and 7 more under construction currently.

Now, Beijing is a substantially larger city, but it's still vastly disproportionate. The contrast between the two metro systems is just shocking.

I don't know what the hell we're doing in the US, but whatever it is, we're doing it wrong. Safety and quality differences aren't adequate to explain it by a long shot.

<comment><USER39> What slows down development in the U.S. is accommodating competing interests in a democratic society. My parents, who live in the area, were among the people who strongly opposed the overland route and wanted a tunnel through Tysons, which would have cost another billion dollars and jeopardized federal funding. That tunnel fight took up a lot of time. There are environmentalists who care a lot more about the impact on the environment than the economic or convenience benefits of the new line. There are folks who remember when Fairfax County was a pretty sleepy place and strongly objected to any line at all. In the U.S. we try to reconcile competing interests as much as possible. In China, pro-development officials steamroll over everyone else.

Not to mention, the GDP per capita in the Tysons area is about 8x that of Beijing. We spend a lot more on safety because we have a lot to lose.

I'm a pro-development kind of guy, but the Chinese model of unelected technocrats dictating what gets built isn't the right answer. We should be looking to Western Europe, where development like public transit gets done because there is widespread public support to push things through the democratic process.

<comment><USER40> > I'm a pro-development kind of guy, but the Chinese model of unelected > technocrats dictating what gets built isn't the right answer. We should be > looking to Western Europe, where development like public transit gets done > because there is widespread public support to push things through the > democratic process.

Except in our history the major projects that got built were built in exactly this way. Robert Moses[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses)] is perhaps the most famous example of this, but we've had many others. The technocrats get either a public official, or a private multi-billionaire and make their vision happen, and damn the consequences.

I'm not familiar with the history of urban development in Europe, but I would not be surprised to see similar figures behind the first few systems before the benefits were obvious to everyone else.

Democracy is really good at forcing the system to take, or pretend to take, competing needs into account, but end of the day in basically every system "he who has the gold makes the rules".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Yet Another DDoS device – The connected mattress ;) - <AUTHOR> https://www.eightsleep.com/buy-mattress/ <comment><USER2> I like the irony! Ehehe. I personally know the Eight team, and it's nice to see them launch a smart mattress.

I think that their smart cover works quite well. They spent a few months refining the experience and debugging the software, and I recently (re)tried it and the experience was flawless.

From my understanding, the smart mattress uses the same exact technology, so unlike other smart mattresses on the market today, this is a battle tested solution.

I don't want to sound too nice and condescending to them, given that I know them. I can only suggest to take a look at it, and read some user reviews. Whether you're going to buy it or not, I'm happy to see a connected device finally built with some good engineering principles in mind.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words Simone, when you put so much effort on something, this type of support is everything you need to keep going :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why does Hacker News throttle ec2? - <AUTHOR>

I'm trying to write a script to scrape data from Hacker News on my ec2 instance but I seem to consistently be throttled at around 5k/s

    [ec2-user@ip-**-***-**-** ~]$ curl https://news.ycombinator.com/ > /dev/null
      % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                     Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
    100 22237    0 22237    0     0   5195      0 --:--:--  0:00:04 --:--:--  5242
 Can anyone else verify if this is happening to them or shed any light on this? <comment><USER2> I think PG wants people to use <http://www.hnsearch.com/api>

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't seem like that api has an easy way to just get a page be it's post id, which is what I'm trying to do</comment></comment>


A Programming Language (1962) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://brudgers.com/arefaq/arefaq-public-docs/apl.pdf

<comment><USER2> Ken Iverson spoke at a local ACM chapter meeting, circa 1971 or '72, and advised one of my pals not to spend a lot of time on this book. The implemented language had deviated from "Iverson Notation", and he recommended that we look at e.g. Gilman and Rose instead.</comment>


Copious Data, the "Killer App" for Functional Programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/presentations/big-data-functional-programming <comment><USER2> Plenty of non-functional programming languages have permitted processing of large amounts of data for decades.</comment>


Ask HN: Why not LegalZoom? - <AUTHOR>

A lot of tech entrepreneurs are saying that you shouldn't use legalzoom to incorporate. What are the reasons for this? Is there room in the market for an alternative that can make both founders and investors happy? Or is this a problem that is inherent to any online incorporation service? <comment><USER2> The simple answer is incorporation is not a commodity; every company has different needs depending on their founder/investor structure - therefore it's not something you can (or would want) to automate easily.

The more drawn out answer is the older legal mistakes get, the more expensive, frustrating and dangerous they become to fix. A simple mistake in your articles of incorporation can cause serious pain down the road, even potentially derailing your company all together.

Therefore for most "serious" entrepreneurs, it's much cheaper in the long term to just get incorporation done right from the get go. So is it really worth it to take that risk to save $1000?

All that being said - I'm not a lawyer - but I've been told by my lawyer that if you're a sole entrepreneur without any partners or investors, the legal side of incorporation is pretty straightforward, and you could probably get away with using a discount automated service provider. Things get complex once you have partners, shareholder agreements, employee options, investors, and so fourth.

<comment><USER3> Thats interesting. I've heard that pg has recommended using the YC legal documents. That statement would seem to contradict what you've said, no?

<comment><USER4> The YC legal documents are drafted by YC-approved attorneys specifically for allowing them to structure the companies in the way that YC prefers.

This means that their boilerplate is geared for having seed investors with an easy ability to add on larger investors later on.

In short, their boilerplate documents fit the way that they do business, and as such, is probably not a horrible way to go if you're going to do business with YC. If you're not going to do business with YC, then there are a million other things you have to account for. Even if you ARE going to do business with YC, you _still_ might want to change the documents in play to fit your environment best. As I understand it, there's enough experience there to be able to guide you as to whether or not their boilerplate fits your exact needs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Startups are generally better structured as C-corps rather than S-corps due to the likelihood of of pursuing outside investors and retaining earnings to fuel growth.

Therefore, they tend to have radically different needs than the type of small business Legal Zoom targets with its services</comment>


NewLisp - <AUTHOR> http://www.newlisp.org/ <comment><USER3> From a Lisp POV, the only thing wrong with NewLisp is the name.

It flouts McCarthy's wish that no language be called just Lisp. Well, okay, it's not literally called Lisp; it has the "New" in front. On the surface, it seems to be sticking to the letter of the wish. Does it conform to the _spirit_ , though? Is a common English adjective enough? Is "New" a sufficient qualifier?

The mere prefixing of "New" looks like it's claiming to be a new version of something that is just Lisp, unqualified. A "New Lisp" is plausibly something that was "Lisp" before, and was then enhanced to create a new version derived from "Lisp". Lots of projects get rewritten, or otherwise revampd and called "New Whatever". But NewLisp certainly has no such lineage.

One historic dialect was called NIL which stood for "New Implementation of Lisp". But it went by the name NIL, with the acronym just being an explanation for that name (as far as I can tell).

Change the arrogant name, and you will not hear another criticism from Lisp programmers. Make it LutzLisp or whatever. It doesn't matter what it is if it is called LutzLisp; it's not that type of thing that's claiming to be a new, improved version of Lisp.

Breaking, or skirting a sacrosanct rule is now how you play along in the broad Lisp family.

<comment><USER4> Well, okay, it's not literally called Lisp; it has the "Common" in front. On the surface, it seems to be sticking to the letter of the wish. Does it conform to the spirit, though? Is a common English adjective enough? Is "Common" a sufficient qualifier?

Yes. Yes it is.

("new" is more common than "common", but not incredibly so: [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=common%2Cnew&y...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=common%2Cnew&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccommon%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cnew%3B%2Cc0))

<comment><USER3> I've never seen a rewrite or next generation of any program or function called "common". But new is common: ntalkd -- new talkd; nvi -- new vi; nftw -- new version of the ftw POSIX function (file tree walk); ncurses -- new curses; ncal -- new cal program; nawk -- new awk, ...

Basically Lutz calling his project NewLisp is a form of trolling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Paul Graham on newLISP, 12 years ago: [http://lambda-the- ultimate.org/node/257#comment-1889](http://lambda-the- ultimate.org/node/257#comment-1889)

With hindsight, turns out that none of newLISP, Goo or Arc set the world on fire.

<comment><USER6> I genuinely would love to see apps written in lisp. It's all Javascript nowadays, with about 5-8 frameworks dominating this sad landscape.

Imagine how refreshing it'd be to see Lisp driving webapps, front and back- end.

Not even saying that should be the one size fits all, I'm saying, anything else...

<comment> village-idiot I've personally worked on a Lisp backend, it was probably worse than most of the JS sites you lament about.

Of course, it's probably not Lisp's fault that that project was a mess, but the ultimate level of flexibility that CL provided let bad ideas worm their way down to the compilation level, making it really hard to work your way back out.

Honestly, you've never felt tech debt pain like unwinding reader macros.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which is why the rule of thumb with any sort of macro is: use minimally and tastfully, and do not write one until there is a proven need.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you want to use a Lisp for scripting, embedding it into an application and having great interoperability with C then you also have Guile Scheme ([https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/](https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/)) as an option. I don't have comparative benchmarks but I've never had any issues with its performance.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wish every programming language homepage had a small code example. I know this is a LISP-like language and I can expect it to look like any other LISP. But I still appreciate getting a glimpse of the language without having to hunt through documentation for a tutorial.

A small code example can tell you way more than a language description. An example is the PL equivalent of the picture is worth a thousand words adage.

Additionally, it is not a given that a LISP will use S-expressions. It could use M-expressions, or even G-expressions (form a LISP like language I helped develop that nobody has ever heard of).

Go, Rust, Ruby, Python all have examples on their homepage. Oddly, Swift does not.

<comment><USER9> Did you work on Ginger? I'd love to see what that looked like :)

<comment><USER8> Yup, it was Ginger. The syntax was like a mix of Python and Scheme.

       define fib (n)
         if (= n 0) 0
         elsif: (= n 1) 1
         else: (+ (fib (- n 1)) (fib (- n 2)))

       println (fib 20)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The slew of differences dont seem very "designed", meaning some corner of the world won't end if life wasn't that way. They seem more like a consequence of "my pet lisp interpreter as I began implementing it". I know that smell 'cos I've been through it myself and subsequently redesigned and reimplemented things.

<comment><USER11> Exactly. After playing with different Lisp dialects for well over a decade I've come to the conclusion that Common Lisp's decisions are, generally, reasonably well-thought-out and not often terrible. I've not found a Lisp better-suited for the name.

I'd love to see a new version of Common Lisp fixing some of the decisions which _were_ terrible, but I don't see that happening.

<comment><USER12> Why not, by the way? I've always wondered why the CL community hasn't come up with a new, improved standard for such a long time. Other old languages like Fortran and Ada are continuously updated. Why not CommonLisp?

<comment><USER13> As a lisp noob, I found many of common lisp's function names to be extremely arcane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Including Bayes in the standard library is cool, but newLISP must be one of the slowest LISP interpreters out there.

Its certainly useable - usually on par with Python... But picolisp, Gambit, SBCL are more on par with D or Rebol.

So when newLISP claims to be great for embedding, I feel cautious.

<comment><USER15> For me Picolisp is a very nice Lisp implementation; easy to understand, enthused founder who has been at it since the 80s. Which is amazing in it's own right. And a solid community. Won't go away any time soon. Gambit is the same age, but I find the source code far harder to read. That's a matter of taste I guess.

<comment><USER14> F-Expressions are awesome fun.

Gambit internals does kind of look like black magic half the time, but the author implemented environments because I asked [0], which is very cool.

The more experimental lisps, the better we can make the future. I love how the lispish community views PLT, and always tries out someone's new idea. (Bayes integration in newLISP is cool. LFE is also cool.)

[0] [https://github.com/gambit/gambit/issues/204](https://github.com/gambit/gambit/issues/204)

<comment><USER16> Ditto on Fexprs, and PicoLisp!

Xtlang in Extempore is a whole lot of fun [1].

Echolisp has amazing built-ins and runs in the browser [2].

Gambit is great to get C code out of.

I like LFE, but I have to learn more OTP/BEAM to really use it.

Wasp Lisp is a lot of fun for me, and for playing with distributed programs.

[1] [http://extempore.moso.com.au/](http://extempore.moso.com.au/)

[2] [http://www.echolalie.org/echolisp/](http://www.echolalie.org/echolisp/)

<comment><USER14> Hadn't heard of Wasp [0] before. Looking forward to trying it out!

[0] [https://github.com/swdunlop/WaspVM](https://github.com/swdunlop/WaspVM)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In NewLisp's memory management model, I didn't understand if one-reference- only limits what the programmer can do. [http://www.newlisp.org/MemoryManagement.html](http://www.newlisp.org/MemoryManagement.html)

Does it mean it's impossible for more than one variable to refer to a variable already referenced? If yes, is this a problem in practice? If no, is this the way of the future?

<comment> david-given A brief skim of the document suggests:

\- single-reference-only for expressions (so, static object lifetime); deletion is delayed until a stack slot gets reused, allowing return values

\- assignment to variables or values passed into functions are done by copy

\- EXCEPT certain types are passed into functions by reference as an optimisation

So, basically, values are owned by either the stack or a variable. Assignment to a stack cell destroys what was there before. To keep a stacked value, it needs to be copied into a variable.

That all seems pretty intelligent, and I might steal the idea; except that I don't see any mention of how cyclic data structures or mutable data structures are implemented. Does anyone know how these are handled?

<comment><USER18> For mutable structures you use the "context" concept, which is also used to build a form of OOP.

For cyclic data structures, I'm not sure. I think one can pass a function, a list or a context to a function that expects a list. This it might do the trick.

<comment> david-given From Wikipedia:

> Sharing of sub-objects among objects, cyclic structures, or multiple > variables pointing to the same object are not supported in newLISP.

Dang.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ah, Newlisp -- the Isagenix of programming languages. Sooner or later, every general-programming community will have to deal with a deployment of Newlispoids eager to convince you how great the language is and that _finally_ , programming is fun again. As if programmers hadn't enjoyed themselves much more using "old" Lisps that embraced advanced features like lexical scoping and hygienic macros.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's interesting. I'm not a fan of dynamic scoping, but it's okay. ORO looks no worse than Rust's borrowing, so that's not a worry, aside from cyclical datastructures.

</comment><comment><USER20> > newLISP is LISP reborn as a scripting language: pragmatic and casual, simple > to learn without requiring you to know advanced computer science concepts.

How is this different from LISP?

<comment><USER21> If you play with the examples it becomes more apparent, but you can use it alongside gnu-utils like grep with pipes on the command line easier than a lot of traditional lisps that have a slower startup (ex: Clojure). Kind of like Perl.

<comment><USER22> There are ways around the slow startup of Clojure such as

[http://leiningen.org/grench.html](http://leiningen.org/grench.html)

<comment><USER23> From that website:

> Grenchman lets you run Clojure code quickly. By connecting to a running > nREPL server you _avoid JVM startup time_ , streamlining your development > workflow.

It's irritating to see the same claim repeated again and again. It's _not_ JVM startup time, it's _Clojure startup time_. Whether it's because JVM is ill- suited for the kind of code Clojure uses or for other reasons I don't know, but JVM itself starts up 100x faster than Clojure on JVM.

Moreover, a daemon running in the background is a just a workaround. To use it you need to write your app in a certain way so that reloading works, and you still need to start the daemon at some point.

I've been working with Clojure for a few months full-time and it was kind of ok, however, for command line utilities, almost anything is better than Clojure. Python, JS with Node, Racket, Ruby, GNU Smalltalk, even Io - <USER2> these start up much faster than Clojure. ClojureScript with Node would be an option, but then ClojureScript (and Node). In short: if you need to write a cmd line utility program you should avoid Clojure as much as possible.

<comment><USER24> I don't agree. Planck ([https://github.com/mfikes/planck](https://github.com/mfikes/planck)) is quick and great for command line utilities written in ClojureScript. It runs on macOS' built-in JavaScriptCore. There's also an alpha version that runs on Ubuntu.

Please check the Planck User Guide's section on Scripts [http://planck- repl.org/scripts.html](http://planck-repl.org/scripts.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It would be interesting to see some speed benchmarks.

<comment><USER26> Speed of development or speed of execution? :)

I don't think anybody anywhere has ever chosen a Lisp language because it's fast.

<comment><USER27> Actually I know of a couple projects that have played with using CL as an intermediate language because of the performance they got compiling with SBCL.</comment></comment></comment>