Ask HN: Is it okay to work as only developer for a startup directly after study? - <AUTHOR> Hi guys,
I'm stuck in a decision and I want to know how you're thinking about it: At the moment I'm 26, finishing my bachelor's degree in computer science (till the end of next month). On a sunny day in this summer I drank a beer together with a friend and got introduced to someone with a startup idea. Month later now, I've developed a lot for the startup, mostly using my loved MEAN stack and got a very acceptable equity deal.
And: I now got asked to work as first employee as (at the moment and for the next year only) developer for the startup company. I really like to, as I love startup culture, have a strong interest in newest technologies, new thoughts and experimenting with ideas. But I've never worked for any development company yet, having no experience with agile teaming (doing agile as one developer seems a big difference from doing it as team to me!), being responsible for a product or whatever... As I have low costs for my daily life (hey, I'm student right now!), even a big less income than working for an existing company wouldn't matter to me.
Would being the only programmer for a startup be negative for my experience? Would it be better (for my CV e.g.) to gain experience from an existing (bigger) company?
So there are 2 possibilities for me at the moment, as I need a job for the beginning of the next year: Apply to another, existing company first or accept the offer and start developing for the startup.
Could you give me some advise what to do? Perhaps someone has experienced similar. <comment><USER2> Do it. Of course, I am assuming that since you are young, you have comparatively (for comparison, look at a generation older, not your peers) lesser liabilities, (eg: little or no financial liabilities, perhaps little or no family commitments in terms of time and money). So your ability to take risks is much greater.

It's not like you can't join a startup if what I assumed is not true, it just is harder.

The advantage of joining a startup early in your career is you will learn more than just technology. You'll learn to appreciate the entire process of building something that someone is willing to pay money for (...and also to support it).

As for your CV, working at the startup is seen as a huge positive at most places -- especially 'Big companies' that were once a startup. Note however, though I said most and not all.

</comment><comment><USER3> of course, its just a job. imo teams of 2 are way more fun and productive though. teams of 2 are also less stressful :D. cheers

</comment><comment><USER4> Do it, you'll regret it if you don't give it a shot. You're young enough that a couple of years doing something you love is not going to have any impact on your career if it doesn't work out.

Best case, the startup is really successful and you help build a team of people and an agile process that works for your company.

Worst case scenario, you do it for a year or two and then walk into another job with 1-2 years experience and get a really good salary.

Just the fact that you are aware of agile approaches puts you at an advantage. Find a process that works for you as one developer and then as more people come on board use their experience to adjust it so that it works for more than one person.

There isn't one agile approach that just works, everyone modifies what they are doing to make it work for their team and their company.

It will look good on your CV. As the only developer/technical person you are going to get a huge amount of experience.

My first job after uni was in a very small 4 man company, it didn't do me any harm. Agile hadn't even been invented when I started work... so get off my lawn!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your answer! Yeah, I'm young and it shouldn't be a problem to find any other job in 1-2 years. Agile is no must, it's just something I'm interested in (and I don't even know if I'm doing it right!). My fear is just to enter a company in 1-2 years with an old-fashioned developing waterfall workflow model, where I'm the total newbie that want's to have a good salary even not having any practise in such a way of developing death old products with death old technologies (but in real: I'd really really like NOT to enter such a company if there is any other job out there :-D)</comment></comment>


International Longest Tweet Contest - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ksplice.com/2010/03/longest-tweet/

<comment><USER2> Fun Facts: Ben and Alyssa make appearances in _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_ , and in Sussman's supercool symbolic programming class: <http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/gjs/6.945/>

"Alyssa P Hacker" is a pun on "A Lisp Hacker". She has a friend named Imelda Macros.

<comment><USER3> Alyssa P. Hacker NEVER answer a question.. she only ask trcky ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel like I should point out that Unicode is not being used correctly in the article. A better understanding of Unicode encodings might help in the competition. <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html>

<comment><USER5> At first I thought you were right, but reading the article more closely I think it's OK. It's talking about the relationship between the ISO/IEC 10646 and Unicode. There's more information available about that in the Unicode standard here:

<http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.0.0/appC.pdf>

See section C.3 for the differences between the UTF-8 encodings. The key paragraph is:

"The definition of UTF-8 in Annex D of ISO/IEC 10646:2003 also allows for the use of five- and six-byte sequences to encode characters that are outside the range of the Unicode character set; those five- and six-byte sequences are illegal for the use of UTF-8 as an encoding form of Unicode characters. ISO/IEC 10646 does not allow mapping of surrogate code positions, known as RC- elements in that standard; that restriction is identical to the restriction for the Unicode definition of UTF-8."

That's where the extra characters come from, as the UTF-8 encoding used by twitter is apparently not checking to see if the characters are valid Unicode characters, as required by Unicode UTF-8. This is the extra restriction referred to in the passage above that is imposed by the Unicode version of UTF-8 but not the ISO version. As quoted in the article, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8#Description> says that the ISO version of UTF-8 can encode 31 bits. I couldn't find a source for the encoding of ISO UTF-8.

The other part I wasn't sure about at first was where the 1,112,064 possible characters figure came from. It turns out that's the 17 Unicode planes of 65,536 characters each, less the range from 0xD000 to 0xDFFF reserved for surrogate pairs.

In other words:

1+0x10ffff-(0xdfff-0xd800+1) = 1 112 064

<comment><USER4> Thanks, that helps!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if this was inspired by my Tweet Compressor project:

<http://tweetcompressor.com/>

It got a lot of attention on Reddit last week (20k visitors).</comment>


Tech Companies with the Biggest Cash Piles - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/08/22/big-money-the-companies-with-the-biggest-cash-piles-in-tech/?

<comment><USER2> Would be interesting to see an analysis of cash piles in technology companies vs other sectors.</comment>


Own My IP Launches to Ease the IP Transfer Process - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/10/03/own-my-ip-launches-to-request-and-assign-copyright-for-creative-work/ <comment><USER2> Great news to see a UK company tackle the issue of copyright transfer in Europe. We launched Kunvay earlier this summer in the US as the first startup to tackle this exact problem. We hope more and more people learn more about how to safely navigate IP at work and in their everyday lives.</comment>


Snip-single line code snippet manager on menubar - <AUTHOR> https://snip.netlify.com <comment><USER2> This is awesome, i need this</comment>


How to Study – A Brief Guide - <AUTHOR> https://cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/howtostudy.html <comment><AUTHOR> Also see discussions on HN from 2018 ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16202123](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16202123)) and 2017 ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14088786](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14088786))</comment>


No Tuition, but You Pay a Percentage of Your Income if You Find a Job - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/business/dealbook/education-student-loans-lambda-schools.html <comment><USER2> Australia has a system that, while different, has similar perks to this. We have a government loan system called HELP (formerly HECS).

Basically students can get a zero interest government loan (rises with inflation), and only need to pay it off once they make above a certain threshold ($51,957 according to the official website[1]). The payments are deducted as a percentage of your income, with the payments increasing with your wage.

This has a number of benefits:

1\. Students whose degrees don't work out for them (i.e. can't find meaningful employment) aren't stuck with rising interest on their debts.

2\. Allows poorer students to go to uni without parental support (I am currently a student and support myself entirely)

3\. Reduces pressure on graduates to find a job just to pay off their debts. They can take their time to find a good job in their industry, rather than working lower-paying, unrelated work to pay off their loans.

My degree at UNSW in Australia will cost about $27k AUD (~$19k USD) and I'm unsure about the costs of others in my country. Under the HELP system, Australians are allowed a fair go at an education, and can take their future into their own hands (rather than relying on their parents).

[1] [https://www.studyassist.gov.au/paying-back-your-loan/loan- re...](https://www.studyassist.gov.au/paying-back-your-loan/loan-repayment)

<comment><USER3> Is it stepped at all? Do you owe nothing before 50k and then once you cross that threshold you now owe money? That would seem to incentivise staying below that threshold for a percentage of borrowers.

I also have difficulty seeing the first benefit you list as being a benefit. I don't have a problem with people pursuing degrees in fields that aren't big money makers, but I also don't know that the government should be in the business of incentivising people to study in these fields.

On the other hand, there is societal benefit to these fields being pursued in general. And the market economy may not adequately pay for the benefits it receives. As a society we wouldn't want everyone to major in poetry, though.

<comment><USER4> > I also don't know that the government should be in the business of > incentivising people to study in these fields

That's interesting. So do you want government to only fund the vocational courses and allow the rich class to be the torch bearer in research, art, and culture because only they can afford it?

<comment><USER5> I'd think taxpayer money should be spent in ways that create measurable benefit to both the individual and the economy as a whole.

I'm not seeing the downside of only the rich being able to understand how Post-Impressionists like Suerat were different from Impressionists like Renoir.

<comment><USER4> > I'm not seeing the downside of only the rich being able to understand how > Post-Impressionists like Suerat were different from Impressionists like > Renoir.

You are picking the edge case here. Art and culture are much more then just rich class's pretense.

As far as wasting money is concerned, spending it just to create more replaceable cogs for capitalistic profit seeker is also a wasteful exercise. Why not ask the Industry to invest in producing those cogs and let government think the long term by focusing on things which cannot be measured in next quarter.

Why Government should subsidize the Industry?

<comment><USER5> > things which cannot be measured in next quarter.

I'm all for long-term investments, but can these ever be measured? If not, it will take more than your claims to convince me that it's worth investing in.

There are other ways to appreciate art and culture, such as visiting museums, reading books, watching documentaries or other youtube videos on these topics, etc. These are all free or much cheaper than a course in a college. You haven't demonstrated how an academic setting is better and worth the cost.

Govt doesn't need to subsidise industry. I'd be fine if these loans are issued by private investors, as with Lambda school.

> capitalistic profit seeker is also a wasteful exercise

No, their benefit can be measured in GDP. Imperfect, sure, but 100x better than your hand-waving claims. No personal offence intended.

<comment><USER6> >There are other ways to appreciate art and culture, such as visiting museums, reading books, watching documentaries or other youtube videos on these topics, etc. These are all free or much cheaper than a course in a college. You haven't demonstrated how an academic setting is better and worth the cost.

Academics is necessary to teach people how to create, understand and appreciate Art and Culture. People writing books (not necessarily, but most probably) have a degree in Language and Literature, people creating documentaries have a degree in Film-making etc. If you think these skills can be obtained from reading books, watching videos on YouTube etc, then the same thing can be said about STEM fields as well.

<comment><USER5> > Academics is necessary to teach people how to [...] understand and > appreciate Art and Culture.

Any evidence in favor of that claim?

> If you think these skills can be obtained from reading books

I didn't say that nobody should study these fields; just that they needn't do so on taxpayer money.

<comment><USER6> Here is the OECD report [http://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/arts.htm](http://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/arts.htm) which stresses the importance of Arts in education and benefits of arts to students (even students of non-arts subjects). They also conclude that "The arts have been in existence since the earliest humans, are parts of all cultures, and are a major domain of human experience, just like science, technology, mathematics, and humanities. In that respect, they are important in their own rights for education."

Some Universities have Arts appreciation course for non-arts students who are interested in knowing, understanding and appreciating Art.

>just that they needn't do so on taxpayer money

May I know the rationale behind this? If I understand correctly, what you're trying to say is that letting people study these subjects on taxpayers money is a waste of public money, which I think is not true. There are people with Academic arts background who have contributed to the society. Even (for the sake of argument) if these are not economically rewarding areas of study, is it justified that the whole field of arts which has been there almost since the beginning of mankind to be not funded by the government just because the system under which we currently live doesn't find it profitable? Is it justified to deny access to an entire group of people who are interested to study Arts but they can't because they don't have the money to pursue it?.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for a reasonable disagreement, unlike the other respondent to my post.

I was saying that govt should perhaps not give subsidised loans to individuals (as in the Australian example) to study things like art because:

\- the subsidised loan program needs to have a positive measurable ROI for it to continue. Otherwise, the next govt may bring it to an end, because there are hundreds of projects competing for government resources.

\- in a world where poverty still exists, programs that are more bang for the buck may have the maximum positive impact on people. I live in India where millions are poor. Some amount of money should definitely be spent on arts / culture, but probably 100x more should be spent on pulling people out of poverty, and the way to do that is to identify high ROI investments in people.

\- there are already other venues than Australian-type student loans for govts to subsidise arts / culture-type education, like university grants.

\- I'm not sure about the ethics of giving a loan to a student for a course that may not pay back financially, but the loan will with the student for life, even if payment is delayed till his income increases. If arts are considered important to society, is it ethical to burden a student with the loan?

It was just a thought. I'm not adamant about it. I'm happy to see that we've had a good exchange of views, which is supposed to be the purpose of a forum like this.

Thanks for sending the link to the OECD report. I'll read it when I'm free to learn more about this topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How is this different from income-based repayment of federal student loans? While there are different programs, the general idea is that you pay 10% of your "discretionary" income for 20 years with the guarantee that your payments aren't higher than the 10-year payoff rate.

The article doesn't really have information on the Purdue system other than saying that it might cost high-earning students 250% of the price of their education. Of course, a 30-year loan at 6% will have the borrower repaying 216% of the original amount and around $24k/year so it would only cross 10% for people earning a quarter million a year (and it doesn't generally seem bad for people earning a quarter million to pay more back).

The big issue is for universities is how they would handle marriage. For federal IBR, I believe you have to file your taxes separately. That isn't a big issue in 2018 due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which meant that the tax brackets for "married filing separately" are the same as "single" up to $300,000 in individual income. However, in 2017 "married filing separately" had higher taxes starting at $76k.

The federal government has a big hole in their IBR calculations in that it doesn't consider the fact that spousal income can change what another spouse might earn. But it's the federal government and they can afford to lose a bunch of money.

How would a private university with a much more limited budget handle this? Would they be happy with someone deciding to leave the job market because they married a high-earning spouse? Would they require payments based on household income?

Likewise, the article really doesn't answer how a university is going to do this. With the Lambda school, it's easy: VC. Lambda has quite low costs (their programs aren't 4 years), they only teach high-earning fields, and they have a 2-year payoff window. It's easy for them to say that their students average $70k/year and 17% of that for two years is $23,800. Likewise, the two-year payoff period means that things like marriage and leaving the job market aren't as likely.

While universities have a bunch of money, can they essentially float tuition for a decade or two? Probably not. If they could, they could have just offered loans themselves rather than having the federal government lend to students.

Plus, while the cost of university is terrible, most students don't graduate with a mountain of debt - more like a hill of debt. $22,000 is a lot of money, but a middle-income job can tackle $22,000 in debt. That's well below the cost of the average car sold in the US. More importantly, 10% of your income would likely be quite a bit more than the regular payments on a $22,000 loan. Are universities just going to use income sharing agreements to replace grants? Will students be graduating with $22,000 in loans plus an income sharing agreement to cover what the university scholarships/grants?

Generally speaking, universities in the US price themselves as, "how much can you afford to pay?" If you are receiving need-based aid and get a merit scholarship, usually your price goes up because that merit scholarship means you can afford to pay more. Is the income sharing agreement going to mean that students can afford to pay more? "I know that you can't afford more than $X today, but this agreement ensures that you pay $X and then Y% of your income after graduation." Is that the future?

One of the things that makes education financing so difficult is that steps taken to reduce student hardship can simply increase prices. If you give every university student a $10,000/year grant, every university knows that they can raise their prices by $10,000/year. The students (and families) were paying the price before given their means. If the government gives them an extra $10,000, the university knows they can ask for it with little to no options for the student. Universities can capture most or all of programs designed to help students afford them (rather than helping the students).

<comment><USER8> > The big issue is for universities is how they would handle marriage.

I don't see why this is an issue at all. If the college claims that "finding the high-income person you will marry" is one of the reasons to attend that college, then they should please return to the 1950s (or earlier!). If they DON'T, then the repayment should be based on the individual's income, regardless of their spouse's income.

Does this mean that a college risks getting paid very little by a graduate who ends up becoming a stay-at-home spouse? Sure, but that's part of the risk. A 4-year college wishing to introduce such a program can always take a less- than-complete approach and still charge some minimal tuition up front (presumably in exchange for a smaller slice of "lifetime" earnings).

<comment><USER9> I've heard professors argue that college as a physical location is only useful for meeting people, and the learning itself was not even relevant. I don't think this is a 1950s outlook.

<comment><USER10> If I understand correctly, at least at elite universities, that's about meeting _contacts_ , not so much about meeting _spouses_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You know, it's funny, there's a lot of comments saying something along the lines of "college isn't just to get a job".

Which is really funny, since that's absolutely the _primary_ reason why college educations are pushed. E.g. "if you don't go to college you'll end up working at McDonald's"

Plus, I have yet to see the evidence that colleges provide this virtuous yet intangible quality of non-economically beneficial "wholesome" education.

<comment><USER12> I have never found the argument that "college isn't about getting a job" convincing. Yes, it's important to be well rounded and expand your horizons and all the other platitudes that people say. But I'm not paying tuition to be "well rounded", I'm going to college as an investment in my own human capital. I can read an interesting book in the evening to be "well rounded".

<comment><USER13> Perhaps some people are paying tuition to such intangible benefits, just you (and I) aren't. Many people in such situations likely repudiate the whole concept of "human capital" (and maybe with good reason).

<comment><USER12> That does seem like buying a car factory because you like the new car smell, in a way. Maybe it's the bias of my own experiences, but I can't imagine what rational person faced with the realities of the world would spend tens of thousands of dollars (and $1 million+ over thier lifetime potentially) and years of thier lives in pursuit of what is essientially a curiosity or hobby (unless they are already very well off).

If one does have such an intense interest in some topic, getting a "real degree" at college would offer them a lifetime of spare money and time to pursue it. You can't do much painting working 80 hours at McDonald's only to not be able to afford paint. It just doesn't make sense to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hey, co-founder of Lambda School here.

Yes, some countries have similar structures, where you pay after a certain threshold. The difference is:

1\. In those structures the school gets paid no matter what, the taxpayer just swallows the cost. With Lambda School we will literally go out of business if a large percentage of our students don't get jobs. That causes a lot of stuff. For example, we have an entire sales team dedicated to bringing companies in to hire students, and there are 2-3 that come in every day to hire students.

2\. Our minimum is much higher than government minimums ($50k in the US).

3\. We only collect a percentage of income if you're hired in field (using the skills you learned)

4\. If you don't get a job within 5 years the agreement simply goes away and you owe nothing.Happy to answer any questions, though I'll be in and out.

<comment><USER15> It might be cynical but it seems you are moving from a bad system to another bad one.

In the current system, students are the customers, in your new systems, students are the products.

How will you ensure that your private interest are aligned with individuals, and society needs ? You are currently avoiding that issue by targeting high demand/high paying jobs but on a larger scale those issue will arise

<comment><USER14> How are students the products now? We only get paid when they are successful, that doesn't mean they're not the customer.

The service we provide is helping them into a good job, so of course hiring companies are stakeholders, but companies are the customers.

<comment><USER15> The university has an incentive to value your early salary _above all else_. This may be dangerous (hence my question). The article clearly shows some potential issues by pointing to several very useful but not very well paid profession (eg: nurses) who will have trouble finding lessons in this model.

Closer to our trade you might see stuff like :

\- We don't offer design lessons because backend developers earn more than designers, so go study Rust, it's so hot right now !

\- Marketing ? Heck no, salaries are only soaring later in your career, we can't get break even with that

\- Your idea of a quantum computing course seems interesting but we don't believe there is a big enough market for people in that field at the moment, it's more of a research subject right now (weather that's true or false is up to the reader to decide).

\- ...

Since the university is exclusively paid by your future salary, every second that you spend in class must be immediately translated in extra $$$ in you first compensation package. If your goal is to make as much money as soon as you get out of school, your incentive are aligned. Otherwise they are not, and that can be dangerous. Steve Jobs is a notorious example of someone who took some lessons that did not seem really useful not so high profile at the time, and only later proved to be critical in his success.

At a much smaller scale, 7 years after graduating, I am rediscovering some skill/knowledge I acquired at uni that did not seem to matter a lot when I started working (and that definitely were not taken into account in my first job interviews). I believe they makes me a better/more productive engineer. I fear that under that new system I might have never learned them in favour of something hotter and more marketable.

<comment><USER16> It's not dangerous, not nearly to the extent you're making it out to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Good. This does exactly what Nasim Taleb argues and forces the college to have "skin in the game." Education needs this sort of revamp badly. Government meddling with student loan guarantees caused the price inflation, more government meddling won't solve the problem. The system needs a reboot, and this sounds like exactly what it needs. Don't pay unless you make over 50k, awesome. Payback lasts 2-3 years, awesome! I'm sure there are nitty gritty details, but this sounds like the model we need.

As far as less profitable majors or high risk individuals, they can remain in the traditional system and pay up front. You don't have to totally scrap everything else. If you truly want to study Russian literature that's fine, stay in a traditional system, but don't force the rest of us to accept it just because you want to be a special butterfly edge case. We should not be catering to those types. Eliminate guaranteed federal loans and the price of those majors would come way down anyways. If you truly want to preserve some niche program, some strategic investments on the schools part could set up something that returns enough money to allow a handfull of true scholars who do well but are too poor to pay up front still attend and get their niche major.

You may even see the emergence of a school that has radical teaching methods that turn high risk students into earners. Probably a system you can't even fathom yet which involves some level of psychology and counseling along with your education to get you to the finish line.

<comment><USER18> This "special butterfly edge case" == anyone who wants to specialize in the humanities attitude will probably lead to a bleak future. Life does not begin and end with technics nor economics.

Supporting the continued interest in the historical, artistic, cultural, literary and philosophical development of mankind and likewise supporting the preservation of these fields shouldn't be seen as 'catering to those types'. If you'd like to live in a world devoid of art, culture, and history, but efficient, logical, and completely determined to the apex, be my guest; it sounds like tons of fun.

If these systems are to be adopted nationwide they'll have to figure out a reasonable way to fund studying the humanities for more than just 'a handfull[sic] of true scholars'. Traditions and whole fields of disciplines don't live and die off the progress of a few geniuses--they are worldwide human endeavors sustained by a complex of economic, political, and pedagogical interests. Maybe that means this sort of model is only fit for 'trades', but eliminating support for the humanities wholesale wouldn't work.

<comment><USER19> An Income Sharing Agreement (with a max tuition much higher than $30K) would be great for high-risk fields like the arts and humanities.

A percentage of earnings from a single George Lucas or JK Rowling would finance the school while the vast majority of students would pay nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So this is converting education funding from "debt" to "equity", by demanding a chunk of the salary of its graduates.

It's not completely unheard of; airline pilots often have a similar this arrangement because their training is so expensive. However this is the dark side of a "human capital" approach - the educational capital exists in one person's head, but the _return on capital_ is partly owned by someone else.

It does however share risk back to the educational institution, which has become a problem of people being left stranded by imcomplete courses or worthless degree-mills.

> Critics of such programs have argued they are a form of indentured > servitude. The percentage of income that Lambda takes — 17 percent — is > high, and has even been described as predatory. And Purdue's program is even > more aggressive: It is a loan-like arrangement that could charge high- > earning students 250 percent of the cost of their education.

Hmm.

</comment><comment><USER21> > At Lambda, students pay nothing upfront. But they are required to pay 17 > percent of their salary to Lambda for two years if they get a job that pays > more than $50,000.

This appears to create a cliff:

If you make $50000 a year, you keep $50000 a year.

If you make $51000 a year, you pay 17% ($8670) and you keep $42330. That extra dollar cost you a ton of money.

It really ought to be a marginal rate like tax brackets.

<comment><USER22> There is a cliff, as a person with an ISA with a similar program (Holberton School), there's really no disincentive to seek a high paying job. The ISA doesn't expire, if I'm making below the threshold then it just gets deferred until I make above the threshold.

<comment><USER23> At Lambda School, the ISA does expire after 5 years of not meeting the income threshold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We're asking the wrong questions. A full semester at my local community college is under $1000. Extrapolating to four years of undergrad education, that's $8,000 total.

WHY do we need this never ending whirlpool of sophisticated financial schemes to take care of this problem?

<comment><USER25> This might be the case for small community colleges but public universities are closer to $400 and $500 per credit hour. See [0] for an example.

[0] [https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/tables/?state=...](https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/tables/?state=TX&degree=Undergraduate&type=Public)

<comment><USER26> That data shows that most 4-year public colleges in Texas are less than $300/hour, with some less than $100/hour. The average is $238/hour. (From [https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/tables/?state=...](https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/compare/tables/?state=TX&degree=Undergraduate&type=Public&level=4-year%20or%20High))

Most people tend to discount the cheap, unknown schools. But they're accredited, which means they provide a vetted curriculum and their degree satisfies prerequisites for higher degrees at other accredited institutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> While interesting, this is not a new approach.

I graduated from App Academy in San Francisco over 5 years ago, paid a percentage of my income for 6 months in my first engineering job, and after roles at Stripe and Bain Consulting, have never looked back.

<comment><USER28> Out of curiosity, does Bain hire a lot of web developers?

<comment><USER27> Great question! I asked myself the same thing initially. Bain now has a design and development lab to help solve problems using software. We add human driven design and development to the traditional Bain toolkit. Its an interesting role to say the least!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Congrats to Lambda School on finding a way to get companies to pay for employee training.

<comment><USER14> :) basically

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Another sounds too good to be true because of just that. there are only the feel good details in the article and not the nitty gritty that is needed to even make it plausible.

so, with regards to not paying it back if they don't land a job. how long are they held to that commitment? do we also look to see if they have another means of support? five years, ten, twenty?

with regards to not paying up front, perhaps if we cross that one taboo. not every degree is worth its cost and many not worth having money risked to obtain them.

but the big reason education is expensive is because government is free with loaning the money but not putting restrictions on what colleges can charge per course hour nor what those hours encompass. treat it like medicare/medicaid where the government sets the rates per course credit and you can guarantee colleges will fall over themselves to get that government money and loans

<comment><USER14> > so, with regards to not paying it back if they don't land a job. how long > are they held to that commitment?

The agreement lasts up ton5 years. If you haven't paid back at the end of 5 years it goes away and you owe nothing.

You can also pay upfront, but most students don't have enough cash to do so.

<comment><USER31> it's also possibly cheaper to pay up front -- 20k vs up to 30k if you pay on the installment plan afterwards.

<comment><USER14> Yes it likely is cheaper to pay upfront

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is replacing student debt with student equity.

Here's some thought on debt and equity: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theorem)

AKA the "capital structure irrelevance principle."

My thoughts for some reason wandered that way, but I was actually going to address another issue: as long as it's expensive to go to college, you can't win. There's no free lunch. If college were cheap, you could spend a few years improving your future earnings. If it's fairly priced, you can't. It's as if everyone will be trapped by efficiency, though I haven't quite fleshed this out in my mind.

Of course college is not the only thing there is, but it's a fairly big aspiration for a fairly large chunk of the population.

<comment><USER33> Where do you see "equity"? This is replacing a student loan, with a no barrier of entry, no approval needed, student loan.

If the housing market is any example of what happens when entry is eased (low % rates, etc), we are looking at student loans being a lot higher than they are now.

<comment><USER34> The "school" is "buying equity" in the student (which may or may not end up being worth something).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Congratulations on the round Austen and team!

One thing I have always thought about when it comes to incentives in this model is that you have an incentive to only take in students that are likely to finish the degree and get a high paying job. This could lead to pattern matching people from backgrounds that are likely to do well due to demographics. How do you think about this and do you have any systems in place for minorities?

(copied this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18856135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18856135))

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd like to congratulate the brain trust at silicon valley for inventing public education and taxes

<comment><USER37> Except it's not.

"Public education and taxes" (1) means everyone pays into the system and then people can enroll without any additional payment (or maybe with diminished additional payment).

You could also have publicly insured student loans (2), where the student pays tuition with a loan and then if they later default on the loan then the public eats the cost.

But this system (3) is neither. In this system, you get your degree and then you start paying for it when your income is enough to afford it. Importantly, if you never attain that level of income, the _University_ eats the cost.

System 2 can lead to ever-ballooning college costs concurrent with gluts of worthless degrees, because universities are incentivized to enroll as many students as they can at as high a tuition rate as they can - they always get paid.

In system 3, the university only gets paid if the student's degree turns out to be marketable. It (hopefully) keeps costs down in a way the (1 & 2) cannot. On the other hand, this could be terrible news for departments that issue degrees in literature, anthropology, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I'm of the class of 2009, graduating at a time when even entry-level office jobs seemed out of reach. I was an Econ major at a top US liberal arts school, with two summer analyst (finance) positions under my belt. But even with all that, the only full time job I was able to get was a book-keeping position that paid $12.50/hr.

If you don't have job-ready skills (e.g., Quickbooks expertise at a small business), your prospects are limited to big corporations that hire on the basis of a regular recruiting schedule, provide training, onboarding etc. And those firms ghosted completely that year.

I'm not from a rich family, so I would have much preferred to have done school in a short-term program like this that was incentivized to help me hit the ground running when it came to job-ready skills.

That said, what is to stop Lambda-like firms to crop up everywhere, like bootcamps did, and promise 6-figure salaries that will never materialize? The VC money required to finance such schools is certainly out there, but are the jobs?

</comment><comment><USER39> This seems like a good way to focus universities on degrees and skills that are in demand in the work place. There is growing criticism that many academic programs lack rigour and aren't meaningfully related to the job market. Tying the success of the institution directly to the success of the students seems to be the ideal solution to that.

</comment><comment><USER40> >> What if there were a way to eliminate student debt?

The obvious answer would be "free higher education", like in most EU countries and I believe many non-EU countries, have, and like many US institutions offered in the past.

Unfortunately what is being proposed is insted baptising debt by another name, so that it doesn't _sound_ like debt.

</comment><comment><USER41> I thought this was going to be a bit more radical, like a market for students that companies would pay into. I could see something where you could take "aptitude" tests that would get you tuition funding from a company if you showed some signal that you could be useful to them, but I guess that's basically just a scholarship... Also they can't force you to work for them once you are done, so that's a problem. One thing It would be useful for though would be to strongly signal when there is a LACK of demand in a specific area. It might save some people a lot of heart ache and money getting a "useless" degree.

</comment><comment><USER42> This isn't new, we do this in the UK and it's still rubbish (but arguably better than having a $200k student loan balloon from interest while you're pouring coffee). Someone correct me if I missed something.

<comment><USER14> The school doesn't get paid if the student doesn't get a job. Pretty different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's jarring as an English speaker to see this North American usage of the word "tuition", as a fee rather than a service. It took a couple of seconds to parse the title.

<comment><USER37> Yes. It used to be called a "tuition fee". but people are lazy and don't know where their words come from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I like the concept that the mining industry has developed. Its calle NSR ( net smelter return). A company will loan money to another miner that has a deposit but lacks money. The miner will use the money to build the mine and when they send their ore to the smelter, will pay back a percentage of the value of that ore to the company that loaned the money. Replace miner with student. Company issuing the NSR with teachers.

</comment><comment><USER45> Why not just let the market do what it wants? That's how we got Lamda School in the first place. That way there could be income-sharing schools like Lamda School for trades that make financial sense. For degrees that don't make financial sense, students could pay for them upfront, as many already do.

The government never _had_ to be involved with financing higher education to begin with.

<comment><USER21> > The government never had to be involved with financing higher education to > begin with.

The government needed to become involved to make education affordable to students without wealthy parents. If the market was going to take care of that by itself, it would have happened before the government got involved.

<comment><USER45> Affordability has gotten worse since the government started giving loans. The non-wealthy students still have to pay their tuition.

I think you might mean accessibility. Government loans do expand access, but so does the private income sharing model. There are market-based ways to serve the poor education, and arguably where it does it's more affordable, and incentivized to lift them out of poverty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> App Academy was the first company to do this, many years ago. [https://twitter.com/appacademyio/status/1082723232782868481](https://twitter.com/appacademyio/status/1082723232782868481)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is an interesting idea and generates a lot of questions.

How does this change the dynamic of 'going back to school' for an alternative degree? If the domain I initially studied starts hurting economically and I have to get a different degree, do I still owe the school for my initial degree if I get a job that meets the income threshold off my second degree? How do we determine which degree netted me my current job? (assuming I get the new degree and a job within the N year period during which I owe the initial institution a percentile of my income).

Am I able to 'pay out' at any time? Or, if I get a better paying job, does the institutions paycheck increase if I'm still in the payback time interval? Do I simply need to pay the pay cap?

Should I be comfortable with the notion that my institution is x% responsible for my wage-earnings and overall economic worth? Are there situations in which this isn't the case?

Does this change promote student assessments that are better or worse for the edification of the next generation? As the article states, would schools be tempted not to bother with 'high-risk' students? What does it mean to put a label like 'high-risk' on a student? What does it mean to treat a human being like an investment? Does this reduce interest in students to purely economic terms (a big part of how universities already conceive of their students today, but _reputation_ to some degree still factors in)? Would such a model further exacerbate the gap between the wealthy and poor—would wealthy kids, who grow up in environments that promote study and make them 'low-risk' investments (likely to succeed) have an unfair advantage over kids growing up in poor households?

This also seems to imply that one's learning is the majority of what factors into one's getting a job. What about all the additional work it takes to get a job (networking, etc.) Will these institutions assist in these areas as well?

What of the notion of scholarship? Is it absent in this model?

Does this model actually work for _all_ disciplines? Arguably, it creates a very tight coupling between the 'value' of an education and wage- earnings/income. What of those pursuits that seem to be valuable, in a different light and aren't (today) usually high-income generators ,e.g. the study of history, literature, and cultures, for instance. What will happen to those disciplines under this model? Is this a model that's more appropriate for trades and not all areas of education?

Seems like a very good change, potentially, but it will probably a lot of effects if its adopted nationwide, on both an economic and cultural level.

</comment><comment><USER47> Quebec (Canada) has a system like that, it's called free higher education, and you pay with a fraction of your salary called "income tax" (it's actually 2k$ per session, not completely free)

<comment><USER48> But some of that income tax gets lost in the education system. It would be much efficient to just pay back to the school you went to. Then there's no chance of it getting spent at levels above the school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> IMO a great idea and could flip the table on ivy league schools and other institutions that favor political connections over an individuals potential.

</comment><comment><USER50> So basically you just described income tax

<comment><USER37> Except the school only gets the money of people who attend the school.

And the school is not incentivized to sell worthless degrees because it won't get paid when it does.

<comment><USER50> Hmm well given how essentially all salaried jobs require a degree today it's hard to see education as being an optional purchase for most people. Maybe 30 years ago but not today.

Hard to say what's worthless or not - jobs change all the time. Few if anyone would study something like Latin or philosophy if money were an incentive.

Also the idea of human knowledge being locked away for only those who can afford it seems cruel to me

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> So you get an education for free, then pay back into the system after you're in the workforce? Congratulations, silicon valley, you've just re-invented public education!

Imagine what our public universities could look like with solid funding increases (which would be a fraction of that 17% that this group wants to take). They could be both free and amazing.

<comment><USER52> "Imagine what our public universities could look like with solid funding increases"

The reason we're having this conversation in the first place is precisely the "funding increases" they've been experiencing. If this isn't enough "funding increase" for them: [https://rpreschern.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/college- tuiti...](https://rpreschern.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/college-tuition- inflation-is-outrageous.png) then I'd have to suggest "funding" is not their problem. What they'd look like with "solid funding increases" is pretty much what you're seeing right now.

<comment><USER53> Thank you for posting this. As in healthcare, the problem isn't so much the inability to pay as it is that costs spiraling out of control for no added value.

Prices tend to do this is a supply constricted market when demand is artificially boosted by government subsidies.</comment></comment></comment>


A simple Go package to fetch lyrics from Wikia - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mamal72/golyrics <comment><AUTHOR> This is a simple scrapper package to fetch lyrics data from the Wikia website. It's my first Go package and I'm sure there are a lot of ways to improve it. Suggestions, issues or PRs are welcomed!</comment>


Ask YC: C++ - <AUTHOR> Folks,
 I am a Pythonista, and need to learn C++ in a hurry. I have almost negligible familiarity with the language. In a months time I want to be able to hack basic apps in the Symbian C++ environment.
I am looking for suggestions for good books for C, C++, STL and Symbian. Please let me know what you think is the best course of action. Also any advice from your experience is appreciated.
PS: What do you think of C++ as a language? <comment><USER2> C++ feels like a Japanese sportbike for small projects: your code will run crazy fast and it's easy to kill yourself if you're not good enough at it.

When your project grows beyond a certain size, C++ starts to feel like early soviet ballistic rockets: plenty fast, but a nightmare to maintain while on the ground, take forever to prepare to launch and can explode at any moment while in flight.

I used to _love_ it, up until I bought a Pentium-III 800Mz with 512MB of RAM somewhere around 2001.

<comment><USER3> Your analogies win my heart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > PS: What do you think of C++ as a language?

I hate C++, although I'm using it right now since python lacks libraries I need (<http://www.cgal.org/>).

But I hate C++/STL/Boost far less than I hate C++. The STL and Boost make C++ feel almost like statically typed python, (while occasionally driving you mad with pages full of template errors).

An example (g is a graph):

      list<Edge> to_remove;
      BOOST_FOREACH( Vertex v, vertices(g)){
        if (degree(v,g) > 2){ //Try to remove some ambiguity
          BOOST_FOREACH(Edge e, out_edges(v,g)) {
          ...Do some euclidean geometry...
          if (...Geometric constraint not satisfied...){
             to_remove.push_back(e);
             }
          }
        }
      }

      BOOST_FOREACH(Edge e, to_remove){
        remove_edge(e,g);
      }

This is almost a direct translation of what I'd write in python (if python had graphs as a data structure), except of course that to_remove is a list _of edges_.

Some people insist on programming C++ like it is c. I.e., they will build an _array_ (hoping it's big enough, sometimes they will even error check if it's not), cast the edges to int's, keep track of how many array members represent edges and how many do not. If you do that, your life will suck.

<comment><USER5> """This is almost a direct translation of what I'd write in python"""

Except that the C++ version can be highly concurrent and 100 times faster :-)

I'm exaggerating a bit here of course, but in many cases C++ can certainly be a better choice. Even though it is MUCH more verbose.

S.

<comment><USER6> You are going to have a hard time making a case for a situation where C++ is better than C + Python.

<comment><USER4> One situation I ran into recently: computational geometry.

It's not usually just an inner loop that needs to be carefully optimized, often there various levels of calculation that need to be done.

I'd actually much prefer to use Ocaml for that use case, but libraries made the choice of C++ for me. (C++ is also good to have on the resume.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> First:

Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara E. Moo

       -Great book aimed at absolute beginners written
        by top of the line experts.  Koenig worked at
        AT&T and was a major player in the C++ standards
        committee.

Second:

Effective C++ by Scott Meyers

        -This book is spectacular and will take you from
         beginner to the next level.  It is very well
         written and an easy read.  More Effective C++
         and Effective STL are also good.

Reference:

The C++ Programming Language Bjarne Stroupstrup

        -This should be your reference book.

If you want some Guru level references I can list a couple more advanced books if your interested...

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok. This sounds like a plan. Thx

<comment><USER8> Yup. It's a very good plan. The key is _Accelerated C++_. Just lock yourself in a room with a computer and a coffee machine and get through that book. It's short, well written, and contains examples throughout that you should be typing in as you progress through the book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you would like to do something significant within a months' time, learning C++ by reading a book is the worst possible course of action.

Start by following along with some basic C++ tutorials. Once you're comfy enough, start implementing your own small applications. (Write a program to accept a sentence from the user and print it out. Then write a function that takes two strings and returns true if the two strings are anagrams. Keep thinking up small apps.)

It is my opinion that you must avoid learning STL and Boost if you want to be productive within a month. Both libraries have enough quirks that it takes a significant amount of time and experience to use them correctly. For example, you don't need the std::vector or std::list containers. Simply allocate a sufficiently large array to hold your items, then allocate a larger array when the first one fills up. A std::map container (a dictionary) is also not needed if you're tracking a small number of items. Simply loop through all items until you find the one you're looking for.

Basically, start actually writing code as quickly as possible. If you feel like you're burning too much time trying to understand one tutorial, move on to another one. But make sure at the end of each day that you can look back and say, "I wrote a lot of apps today and I feel like I learned a lot."

Most importantly, don't be afraid to throw your old code away once you have a better understanding of how best to solve the problem. Implementing components as quickly as possible is the key to productivity. Rewriting your old code is the key to not making a mess.

Contact me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you have any questions along the way. I'd be happy to help. I'm a self-taught graphics programmer, so I can relate to how scary C++ can seem at first. Try to implement each application in the simplest possible way.

<comment><USER10> I have to disagree with your advice to avoid vector and map.

If you're used to python, you probably have a very list- and dict-centric method of programming, and you are probably not very familiar with explicit memory management. vector and map are pretty simple and correspond closely to the python list and dict classes.

In fact, I would recommend that new c++ programmers used to scripting languages avoid using "new" entirely. With vectors and maps this shouldn't be too hard.

<comment><USER9> It would be both counterproductive and a premature optimization to learn C++ by first learning the STL containers. The only container that the C++ newcomer needs to learn is the dynamically allocated array. The statement "vector and map are pretty simple" just isn't true. STL and Boost have a lot of subtleties:

1) It is important to write STL code in the correct style. STL containers should be typedef'd before they are used and an iterator shouldn't be used directly to access an item (otherwise debugging becomes more difficult and your code becomes harder to read). For example,

      typedef std::list< Puppy > PuppyContainer;

      PuppyContainer puppies;
      for( PuppyContainer::iterator it = puppies.begin(); it != puppies.end(); ++it )
      {
         Puppy* puppy = *it;
         // do something with your puppy
      }

... rather than ...

      std::list< Puppy > PuppyContainer;
      for( std::list< Puppy >::iterator it = puppies.begin(); it != puppies.end(); ++it )
      {
         // do something with *it
      }

2) STL frequently allocates memory. Those allocations are also hidden from you, so it is easy to misunderstand the true cost of frequently using STL containers. Even a simple operation like acquiring an iterator can cause an allocation.

I work at a game company. In their game's code base, the pervasiveness of STL has been attributed to _millions_ of micro-allocations every _frame_ of their game. (A micro-allocation is an allocation of under 128 bytes.) The result is hopelessly fragmented memory, which means that:

\- A relatively small 10MB allocation can cause a crash even when there is clearly more than 10MB free memory.

\- A lot of code runs slowly because almost none of the code can take advantage of the CPU cache.

3) Using STL can add code complexity and make your code harder to read. Which of these is easier for a newcomer to understand?

      for( size_t i = 0; i < _numPuppies; ++i )
        if( _puppies[ i ].ID() == finding )
        {
          /* do something with that puppy */
          break;
        }

... or ...

      PuppyContainer::iterator it = _puppies.find( finding );
      if( it != _puppies.end() )
      {
        Puppy* puppy = it->second;
        /* do something with that puppy */
      }

The second example isn't intuitively easy to write unless you're already familiar with std::map.

Check out my Radix Sort example. I could have used a couple std::vectors, but the result is equivalent and simple: [http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/315/programming/exaples/radix_sor...](http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/315/programming/exaples/radix_sort_example.cpp)

4) It takes a _lot_ of time to learn every facet of the C++ language. And the more you learn, the more other people can't read what you write because of your advanced knowledge. (Try understanding boost/bind.hpp.)

5) Most importantly, most design problems are architectural and not structural. As long as your code works and is reasonably clean and well- commented, it is good and safe code. It is more important to master a subset of C++ than to have a working knowledge of the entire language.

<comment><USER4> Gotta disagree with you on some of this.

On point 1, I see nothing wrong with this:

      list<Puppy> cutelittlepuppies;
      ...
      BOOST_FOREACH(Puppy p, cutelittlepuppies){
          p.pet();
      }

Use typedefs for more complex templates. My rule of thumb: if it's faster to read and understand the template than to find the typedef, don't use a typedef.

As for the allocations (point 2), not usually a big deal outside of games. The added safety is worth the performance hit.

<comment><USER9> Boost is nice, but it would require too much time for the original poster to set it up and to learn how to use it. He's almost completely new to C++ and would like to be productive within a month. Realistically, there about 22 work days per month. Since setting up Boost for the first time is an all-day affair, that alone is almost 5% of his time. Would that time investment really provide more than a 5% return?

Not only that, but using Boost results in non-portable code. Boost could be the reason that your game cannot be ported to the PS3 or to the XBox 360 platforms. (Both STL and Boost can also consume a lot of precious memory on those platforms.)

Also, there is still a huge market outside of games where it isn't necessarily a good idea to use STL and Boost. Embedded systems, flight simulators, so on. How do you know that STL and Boost compile to equivalent code when your compiler isn't GCC or Visual Studio?

So Boost limits your options and it is debatable whether its productivity return is greater than its cost. In that light, why is it a good idea to train yourself to depend on it?

If you take a job at a company where Boost is not an option, you will:

\- be forced to not use any code in your personal library that references Boost.

\- be forced to expand all of the BOOST_FOREACH() statements into for( std::list< Puppy >::iterator ... ). (Also, you left off the std:: on "std::list". I'd like to mention that "using namespace std" is a bad idea.) Because of that, typedef'ing each STL container before using it is a good idea. As for finding the definition of the typedef, the definition should almost always be within the same class that uses it. If you install Visual Assist you can use the "Go To Definition" feature (Alt-G) to warp directly to the typedef's definition.

If you're forced to use C++, I assert that you can be more productive, portable, efficient, and reliable by avoiding Boost and most of STL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is the book I learned Symbian/C++ on: [http://www.amazon.com/Developing-60-Applications- Developers-...](http://www.amazon.com/Developing-60-Applications-Developers- Developer/dp/0321227220/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208352191&sr=8-1)

It's a bit out of date and it focuses on Nokia's application framework (Series 60). It should be enough to get you writing basic applications though. If you're going to stick with Symbian, don't worry about C or STL. They don't use them.

I assume you're going to be using the more recent Symbian 9. Unfortunately, I don't have any books to recommend for this version. You'll need to rely on the Nokia/Symbian docs for Symbian 9 specific features like Platform Security.

Since you're new to C++, I'd recommend following Symbian's naming conventions religiously. They were very helpful when I was a C++ noob just starting out.

I haven't worked on Symbian in about a year, but if you have any questions, drop me a line (email's in the profile). I'll see what I can do.

<comment><USER11> Also, NewLC.com is a big community around Symbian development. They're a pretty good resource for tutorials and questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "C++ Primer", by Stanley Lippman, Addison Wesley

That's probably the best introduction book. It's super-long, but after you've worked with C++ for a while you'll understand why. "The C++ Programming Language" has been mentioned here a couple of times, and it's invaluable to have as a reference later in your C++ career, but is almost impenetrable as a book for learning the language.

<comment><USER13> Actually, Lippman's "Essential C++" is probably more what you're looking for. It's designed to get you up and running in a short amount of time (~300 pages vs ~900 pages ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Download a copy of Bruce Eckel's Thinking in C++. He's superb at bringing to light the quirks of each language he writes about.

<http://www.mindview.net/Books/DownloadSites>

</comment><comment><USER15> Symbian C++ is a different beast. It is heavily design pattern oriented, so it is a good idea to ger comfortable with things like active objects,publish and subscribe, client-server, factory, singleton, etc, etc...

Obviously, get the SDK, demo apps and start experimenting with it, as you would do with any other technology.

Do you mind if I ask why you need to hack in Symbian C++?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response. Need to develop a mobile app for a client. PyS60 apps get really heavy because the interpreter needs to be added with the app.

<comment><USER16> How about embedding Lua and writing most of your app in that? That's what game developers usually do when they get fed up with C++. Lua is much lighter than Python and intended for embedding in C/C++ apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmmm...

Don't know enough about the Symbian environment yet. Maybe..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I also had to learn C++ fast, and "Accelerated C++", by Andrew Koenig and Barbara E. Moo was great. The book assumes you are a programmer, it's not dumbed down and most importantly it's only around 300 pages. In the time contraints I had (a month) I couldn't afford to deal with Lippman's C++ Primer or Stroustrup bible (both reknowned books, but over 900 pages). You don't even need to finish Accelerated C++ to start coding in C++. <http://www.acceleratedcpp.com/>

For STL, I recommend Josuttis's "The C++ Standard Library". It's a STL reference book, very complete and easy to browse. There are also brief examples on own to use the classes and templates. <http://www.josuttis.com/libbook/>

</comment><comment><USER18> i see a lot of people bashing c++ here, and rightly so, i guess. its evolution was too heavily influenced by backward compatibility and pleasing too many masters, in my opinion. i still like to program with it anyway, because i use my own restricted subset.

if you're in a hurry, maybe you should learn just plain old C, which is a lot simpler, and then sort of quickly rush through classes and other stuff specific to C++.

i'm kind of in the same boat. i'm teaching myself ruby, so i can eventually become an RoR programmer, and join all you hacker news types in the web 2.0 world. before that, i taught myself objective-c, so i could do cocoa programming on the mac. there's some surprising similarities between ruby and obj-c that i wasn't expecting.

</comment><comment><USER19> I recommend Herb Sutter's classic Guru of the Week articles: <http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/> There's a lot of usually-uselss arcane stuff in there, but also a lot of valuable information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

<comment><USER20> Just a little tip: you don't need to explicitly thank everyone who responds to your question. News.YCers aren't very tolerant of comments that don't add anything to the discussion, that's why you're getting downvoted. Your thanks are implied.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I suggest Deitel's C++: How to Program as a good introduction to the language. If you read a chapter a night and do several of the exercises, you could get through the book in under a month.

Personally, I think C++ is a great language. Many people don't think as highly as I do of it, instead preferring some of the more dynamic typing languages, but you have a lot of power at your disposal once you manage to wrap your head around it.

I got started with C++ because I come from a financial background, and most financial apps in the real world are written using C++.

Why do you have to learn the language within a month?

<comment><AUTHOR> Client in a hurry. This account is important to us. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Effective STL Programming by Meyers is probably your best bet for comprehension and fluency.

Stroustrop is surprisingly good as a walkthrough of the language itself.

Modern C++ Design by Alexander Alexendrescu is the best advanced book.

</comment><comment><USER22> C++ FAQ is like an instant cafe for the language, give it a shot! <http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/>

</comment><comment><USER23> I love C++

There are so many crooks and nannies, pitfalls and gotchas in the language that most people either give up, or they take the time to learn to do things the "right" way. I fall into the latter group.

However, I absolutely _despise_ the C/C++ compile/link model. And I hate STL errors, or any sort of error that arise from the incorrect use of templates. And header files need to die.

I learnt most of the C++ I know from tutorials on the Web.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you're a fluent Pythonista then I say just dive right in. You could spend a month learning syntax and STL stuff, but a good programmer can pick up a language as they go. See something you don't get? Google-it. You'll be banging out code in no time.

Oh, and a Safari account will go a long way to help you quickly find relevant GOOD material (not just script-kiddie posts).

</comment><comment><USER25> > I am looking for suggestions for good books for C, C++, STL and Symbian.

Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara E. Moo is a very good book on C++, IMO. It's concise, it doesn't teach you everything but the 80% you will need most of the time and it introduces the STL right from the beginning.

<comment><USER26> I was just going to recommend that book. Gets you in the door, which if you've done any coding before, is all you will probably need.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Although it hardly counts as introductory material, I really like a book called Expect C Programming, by Peter van der Linden. The author worked on Sun's C compiler, and has a lot of valuable insights into C. Basically, the book consists of a large list of "these are the things about C which will bite you." For example (please don't just Google for the answer): when is an array in C not equivalent to a pointer?

The book contains a chapter on C++; plenty for a C programmer to get started. Unlike sources like the C++ FAQ, I don't believe it makes sense to treat C++ as a language separate from C, and I don't think a C++ programmer without a gut understanding of the semantics of C is a good C++ programmer.

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't think you can become a proficient C++ coder in one month unless you're really, really smart and unusual. Maybe not even then.

Although, it depends on what you mean by "Hack basic apps", doesn't it?

If you're working on existing apps then you'll need to know the same subset of the language that the original programmers knew. If you're going to write apps from scratch you might do very well by starting only with the Symbian programmers documentation, if it's good. Beyond that, just learn C and use C++ as a "Better C".

If you can avoid using classes and templates you can start quicker.

</comment><comment><USER5> """PS: What do you think of C++ as a language?"""

I love to write UNIX tools and network servers in C++. But for projects that don't need the raw speed I simply use Python or Java. You will be 10x more productive in those languages.

One more thing: C++ becomes really nice when you add the right libraries to it. The STL is extremely limited but now with Boost 1.35 things get really interesting.

Check out <http://www.boost.org> if you are serious about C++.

(Won't help much on Symbian I think, but that platform is terrrrrible anyway.)

</comment><comment><USER29> Don't read a book, write code. There are lots of open source projects that use C++, maybe try to get involved.

Or just give yourself challenges. Rewrite some non-trivial code you did in Python to use C++, for example, and ask experienced C++ people to comment.

Also, as others have said, use Boost and STL if you value your sanity.

In practical terms, I'd rather use C+Python or C+Ruby than C++. I template in a high-level language and move the stuff in tight loops or otherwise performance-critical sections into C.

</comment><comment><USER30> I'd also recommend The C++ Standard Library: A Tutorial and Reference [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search- alias%3Daps&...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=standard+template+library&x=0&y=0) for STL usage.

</comment><comment><USER31> Josuttis' "The C++ Standard Library" is the most heavily thumbed through C++ book at work.

</comment><comment><USER32> C++ is on my list of 'languages I was forced to learn but would not have chosen to'

1\. Languages I chose to learn: BASIC, Assembly Language, C, LISP, Perl, Javascript, Ruby

2\. Languages I was forced to learn: C++, Modula-2

3\. Languages I have actively avoided: Tcl, Java

<comment><AUTHOR> Language you should have learnt: Python :) (In good spirit)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> i hate c++. i think i hate it because i was raised as a computer engineer on c, and the only substantial c++ i've really done is visual with MFC/wxwidgets/activex/opengl, which are all bitches to work with, imo.

as for books, i suggest these two: "the c++ programming language" by stroustrup; and "effective c++" by meyers

<comment><USER5> """the c++ programming language"""

It's a great _reference_ but I would never recommend it to someone to learn C++. It's too big with too many boring details that you will probably never run into.

<comment><USER34> I think it's invaluable for everyone. As your understanding of the language improves, so does your retention of ideas from the book. Stroustrup precisely lays out what he thinks are good C++ practices throughout the book; might as well expose yourself to them now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> on the flip side, I have a question for kashif, any recommendations for learning Python really really fast?

<comment><USER36> It might sound like a cop-out, but the official tutorial. It's short, it's clear, and it covers more ground than it seems to.

I'm a big fan of Dive Into Python too, but I'd recommend that for developing good python techniques, rather than getting quickly up to speed.

<comment><USER34> Actually, I started out with Dive Into Python, because it was showing me _this is how to do it in Python_. I can already program in several languages (and paradigms), so I wanted to know what the idiomatic Python way is.

By doing that, I absorbed some of the important languages concepts and capabilities. I find that I learn best by example; show me what a correct solution looks like, and I'll figure out why it's correct, and hopefully generalize that to the whole language.

Once I started doing some Python programming, I jumped to mostly using the online library and language documentation.

Disclaimer: I still haven't used Python extensively, but I feel comfortable when I use it.</comment></comment></comment>


The fallacy of fairness - <AUTHOR> http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/02/09/the_fallacy_of_fairness <comment><USER2> I think Thomas Sowell (the author) is one of the smartest guys out there but he's wrong here. He's arguing that we, as a society, can never make things completely fair so liberal's endless social agenda to make things fair is a waste.

But that's a straw man because the debate is about where the line is. Even the most rabid liberal would agree there is a point where the playing field becomes as level as we can make it. The questions are "Where is that point?" and "Will [whatever program that's being discussed] have any meaningful impact?"

Attacking the word fairness doesn't really answer either of those questions. Meaning his argument only appeals to those who agree with him and think we've already done as much as we can.

<comment><USER3> He is arguing that policies that promote fairness should accept that equality of opportunity will not result in equality of outcome. He often writes about ways we can further equalize opportunity, such as giving parents vouchers that can be redeemed at public or private schools. The essays are about two different definitions of fairness not about whether or not the world is fair enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article unfortunately muddled 'equality of opportunity' fairness with 'equality of outcome' fairness, which are two very different things.

When Sowell complains that any disparity in outcomes is inappropriately being attacked as unfair, I'm 100% behind him. When Sowell argues that equality of opportunity can never perfectly be achieved due to factors we have no control over, I'm also 100% behind him. But that doesn't mean we should reject all programs designed to improve equality of opportunity - instead, they should be carefully evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a 4 part essay, the rest are here: [http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/author/thomas_sowe...](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/author/thomas_sowell/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for this. Sowell's intentions are much clearer - and equality of outcome separated from equality of opportunity - when the four essays are read together.

<comment><USER3> I've taken to using the realclearpolitics rss feeds b/c you can subscribe by writer rather than source. I get my news by following about a dozen or so writers who are syndicated all over the place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found that a sure way to get downmodded on reddit, etc. is to ask someone who used the word "fair" to define it in the context used.

"A flat tax is a fair tax." Great, why does having a zero second derivative make a tax fair? That so few feel any need to answer such a question worries me.

<comment><USER6> I've found that pretty much any conceivable tax curve can be considered "fair" for some definition of the word. The disturbing thing is, most of those definitions are really not that ridiculous if you make the case for them well enough.

IMO the flat tax has such great appeal because it's pretty idiot proof to explain, not because people really think it's fair - under most money -> utility mappings it's extremely regressive, and I think even its proponents realize this, but it doesn't bother them because of the idea that regressive tax structure is a net win even for the poor by keeping money in the hands of the people that can do the most efficient things with it.

But even getting into that debate involves thinking, which people do precious little of when it comes to politics...the notion that "fair" can be achieved with a simple one-sentence statement is so appealing that it's hard to make headway in the argument.

<comment><USER7> _it doesn't bother [flat tax proponents] because of the idea that regressive tax structure is a net win even for the poor by keeping money in the hands of the people that can do the most efficient things with it._

Also worth noting is that fact that flat tax proponents are usually the people in whose hands this money will be kept :)

<comment><USER8> Of course, the idea is that it won't be kept in those hands for too long--or rather, the same money won't stay in those hands for long.

Hey, somebody has to buy those yachts!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> economics will forever be burdened with idiotic politics until people get it through their heads that ethics is SEPARATE.

people like Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman seem eternally trying to hammer this point across to people in their essays and interviews. economics tells you that if you do A, B will happen. this is a value free statement. it could be cake or nazis. there are millions of permutations of the following idiocy: "B is efficient! therefore B is good!". libertarians are often equally as guilty of this as others I'm sad to say. I see this as another manifestation of trying to create a magic system that removes human judgment from the equation of governing human affairs. If we can just use X to judge things it will remove corruption! X can be: religious rules, mathematical models (the idea of 'utility' hides value judgments behind math), even an AI. In this case we simply have 'economic efficiency'. I'm sure there's more examples. we will never get anything done until we start seeing these types of things as engineering problems rather than moral ones.

</comment><comment><USER10> "As you know, fairness is a concept that was invented so that children and idiots could participate in arguments." - Scott Adams (<http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/fairtaxes/>)

</comment><comment><USER11> Fairness is an abstraction, just like circles and triangles are abstractions. They are no less real. We can always aspire to fairness to guide our lives just like mathematics is used to explain the physical world.</comment>


Ask HN: Chess players here? - <AUTHOR>

Following the enthusiasm for the Anand - Carlsen match, I'm wondering how many of you are chess players.<p>I personally have a FIDE rating of 1930, but haven't played in competition in a while. <comment><USER2> Former chess player. I played competitively up until about age 17. My national rating (Canada) peaked at ~2200 (probably putting me around (2000-2100 in FIDE terms), but didn't play in enough FIDE-rated tournaments.

Once I started studying engineering, I had neither the time nor energy to stay competitive enough to keep going. I'm early 30's now. The only chess I play now is with the occasional stranger at the public library or to surprise someone giving a chess exhibition with one of those giant chess boards ;)

What blows my mind now is that I used to have better concentration abilities as a youngster (12 to 17 years old) than I do now. I was notorious for playing marathon games and getting into time trouble (imagine flagging after 6 hours of play!). Now I can't fathom sitting for 30 minutes to decide on a single move. That being said, I would say it has transferred over to other parts of my life. My wife will be the first to tell you that I love to analyze (and over-analyze) decisions and will hold off on making them until I'm very sure about things.

</comment><comment><USER3> I suck at chess but I recommend a holiday in Indonesia. People don't drink alcohol much but socialise by playing chess. I ended playing chess nearly every day. I didn't win at all. The coffee is also awesome.

[http://www.shunya.net/Pictures/Indonesia/Yogyakarta/Chess.jp...](http://www.shunya.net/Pictures/Indonesia/Yogyakarta/Chess.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a chess newbie but I think the best/most simple chess website to play at is [http://www.lichess.org](http://www.lichess.org)

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm unrated and without a particular talent for the game, but I've always enjoyed it. I managed one draw and one win (out of dozens of matches) against someone supposedly rated >1800 (not sure if FIDE or US) ... 20 years ago. I haven't even had a game in over a year so I'm not really a "player" if I ever was. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> I like chess but i suck at it.I would like to have sparing partner(tutorial,book recommendation will do it too), someone who can teach me how to think like a chess player precisely explaining why at any given moment you would move a piece instead of another. To me there are so many options that it would take hours to make a sure move.

</comment><comment><USER7> I play chess, but not very often anymore. In my peak I drew an IM during a simul on ICC, but probably was only rated 1800-1900. I stopped studying it and took up the violin because I got tired of sitting by myself for hours. With music I can at least play with others, and my wife can enjoy it!

</comment><comment><USER8> I play every once in a while, but I've never studied or practiced enough to go beyond around 1200. I have trouble forcing myself to spend more than about 3 seconds per move. I also don't think about playing while its my opponent's turn. That's probably not ideal.

</comment><comment><USER9> I used to think I was ok at it but then:

* I've never beaten my dad in a game in 20 years * I took up the offer from a guy in a NY park and got my ass royally whooped (not to mention the 20 dollars heh)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm a sloppy 5-minute speed chess player, for whatever that's worth.

</comment><comment><USER11> FIDE Master here. Rated 2317 according to the latest FIDE ratings.

</comment><comment><USER12> i was not interested in chess and it was really hard for me to get interested until i followed this guy's videos: [http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork](http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork)

Just watching it got me excited and I picked up the basics and was having fun learning the game.

<comment><USER13> You might also enjoy [http://www.youtube.com/user/kingscrusher](http://www.youtube.com/user/kingscrusher)

He comments on professional matches, but the part of his feed that I enjoy are the 1/3/5 minute time control games he plays. He is very good at articulating his thoughts during the game, and I find that much more engaging that listening to analysis of alternate lines that's more common in commentated chess matches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yes; i suck. Haven't played a tournament since the mid 2000's.

</comment><comment><USER15> I play slow (correspondence) chess at redhotpawn.com. Great site!

</comment><comment><USER16> I play yahoo's online chess once and a while.

</comment><comment><USER17> I play chess, but terribly and not rated...

</comment><comment><USER18> \- I play chess</comment>


SSF, a network tool with new features, performance and security in mind - <AUTHOR> https://securesocketfunneling.github.io/ssf/

<comment><USER3> Definitely looks interesting, but difficult to trust based on how it's been pseudo-anonymously dumped onto github in one commit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the interest you've shown for this project.

About the yet-single push : the project was not initially meant to be OpenSourced. Next commits will be more frequent, with more details.

About your concerns regarding trust: that's one of the strongest motivation for developing and OpenSourcing this project. Pre-built binaries can be tested against your own build. A lot of work was done to make the build a really straightforward process. Most of the complexity of building and linking third- party libraries (e.g OpenSSL or Boost) is contained (local to the project) and automated.

By the way, SSF-Cmake scripts are really useful, and could be used by anyone, in any project.

More details : [http://securesocketfunneling.github.io/ssf/#how-to-build- lin...](http://securesocketfunneling.github.io/ssf/#how-to-build-linux)

The cryptographic part is entirely based on OpenSSL (latest version), and depends on sources only. SSF only supports latest TLS-1.2 and default cipher suite is DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (RSA based authentication, perfect forward secrecy enabled, AES 256 based symmetric cipher in Galois Counter Mode). The RSA key sizes depends on you.

More details : [http://securesocketfunneling.github.io/ssf/#security- feature...](http://securesocketfunneling.github.io/ssf/#security-features)

Not being famous does not necessarily means being suspicious. We are open to any suggestion regarding the project, build-system or trust issues.

<comment><USER4> Could you be more specific on who "we" is (anonymous user created 3 hours ago)? Rather than asserting trust is gained from simply open sourcing the project.

<comment><AUTHOR> The code is OpenSource so that anyone can review it. IMHO, that's one of the best way to gain trust.

But since you asked, "we" are two Belgian C++ enthusiasts happy to contribute to OpenSource community that gave us so much.

We have been working on this project for a couple of years and we are very excited to release it.

<comment><USER3> Open source is definitely important part. The "trust" I was referring to was deliberately ambiguous. There's not just leap of faith that potential users have to make to ensure that there are no deliberate backdoors or flaws in this software - there's also trust that this project will be cared and maintained for over time: bugs will be acknowledged (and even fixed :) ), builds for new platforms will work, security issues will be dealt with...

I'm not suggesting that bugs won't be fixed or there are backdoors, and this is definitely a really interesting project. However there's just very little to convince me that I should trust this project for anything more than a throw-away experiment right now.

"the project was not initially meant to be OpenSourced"

Sounds like an interesting backstory - what's the motivation to open source it so?

"Not being famous does not necessarily means being suspicious."

It's not being famous that matters here. Publishing software anonymously is unusual (I'm sure there are exceptions here, however they're definitely exceptions). Whenever I read of a new web service or software I generally dig into who is behind it and why they're doing it. Code on its own does not convince you to use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are eager to receive reviews and improvements. We have been working on this project for a while and we have no intention to stop now. A motivation for opensourcing it was to get feedbacks and even contributors from community. Every contribution (bug reports, feature requests) will help us to improve the software and that's exactly what we are looking for at this point. We know that trust is a long term process and we invite you to follow the project and give us any feedback that could help us to make the software better.

We are currently planning and working on new features. Right now, we are focusing on making the networking part even more modular and extendible (e.g. a transport layer based on UDP rather than TCP). Moreover, an other goal we would like to reach is to make the global framework simpler so that contributors could add to SSF their own features quickly and easily.

<comment><USER5> Haven't tested, but does SSF support handshake obfuscation? You know, some FW has very intelligent traffic pattern fuzzing capabilities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently, SSF only supports standard TLS 1.2 handshake but the new networking design will allow to add new protocols easily. The tunnel implementation (currently TLS over TCP) will be modifiable without impacting the higher networking layers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks great. Do you have any benchmarks that compare transfer speeds compared to SSH ?

What is the canonical replacement to `tar czf - /some/folder | ssh user@host "tar xvf -C /some/folder -"` ?

Key management could use a bit of doc, how do you generate all these keys ? It would be nice to have a ssf-keygen tool.

Looking forward to see this gaining more traction.

<comment><USER7> It doesn't look like there is a replacement for that - it does however come with a socks-server, appears to support both v4 and v5[1].

I wonder if there's still any real need to support both (but perhaps v5 layers on top of v4, so it makes sense to implement them in layers, and little overhead to provide both?). They have a howto-section on manually forwarding dns - but socks5 really should be enough for most applications.

While a general forwarding tool will always be able to forward dns, from a security and usability standpoint, it would seem just providing socks5 (and 5 only) might be better.

As for piping - as I mentioned it looks like there's no support built in - <USER2> it should be possible to make a wrapper. Would need something on the other end though - like a netcat that takes an output filename, and then spawns another listener and redirects to a file or something.

I'd be interested in if there's any real performance differences between openssh socks5/forwarding and this project. Especially since they build on the same primitives.

[1] [https://github.com/securesocketfunneling/ssf/tree/master/src...](https://github.com/securesocketfunneling/ssf/tree/master/src/services/socks)

<comment><AUTHOR> SSF supports SOCKS v4, v4a and v5 (only main SOCKS features that were implemented in SSH). All these versions are necessary for supporting as many web browsers as possible. Old browsers using SOCKS v4 would need to use UDP forwarding for DNS resolving (to avoid leaking DNS request locally). As you mentioned, there is a "how to" section on the website: [https://securesocketfunneling.github.io/ssf/#how-to- browse-p...](https://securesocketfunneling.github.io/ssf/#how-to-browse- privately)

For a simple comparison between SSH and SSF performances, you can take a look at the website ([https://securesocketfunneling.github.io/ssf/#performances](https://securesocketfunneling.github.io/ssf/#performances))

Thanks for digging into the code

<comment><USER7> Which web browsers that aren't horribly outdated, doesn't support socks5?

<comment><AUTHOR> Older versions of Internet Explorer did not support SOCKS5 and Chrome uses SOCKS4 by default (although you can manually specify --proxy- server="socks5://" to force SOCKS5)

<comment><USER7> Actually, after some google-ing, I'm not sure _any_ version of IE support socks5?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> By the way, we just fixed a build system bug after an issue was reported. If you had any trouble building, please git pull and try again

</comment><comment><USER8> How is this different from stunnel?

<comment><AUTHOR> stunnel is an interesting software but it does not provide the same features. For the main part, it doesn't seem to multiplex connections.</comment></comment>


Nobody wants a used electric vehicle in China, unless it's a Tesla - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1710285/the-fledgling-market-for-used-evs-in-china-is-all-about-tesla/ <comment><USER2> A Tesla's residual value—basically the future value of a car after a certain amount of use—at one year is more than 70% of its original price, far higher than the value of any Chinese EV model at the same mark, according to an August report from a Chinese automobile industry group studying leasing and resales.

"Except for a Tesla, we won't take any other pure battery car," a Beijing- based second-hand dealer told auto blog gasgoo in August.

<comment><USER2> Ma said Tesla stands out in the second-hand market for this very reason, because it has developed a clear standard for pricing and inspecting its used cars, which are often still covered by warranties (link in Chinese).</comment></comment>


Why Do We Care About Luxury Brands?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/why-do-we-care-about-luxury-brands/

<comment><USER2> The fascinating thing with the luxury watch companies is, once these were serious tools. I think that's a Rolex Submariner in the article, well once upon a time, if you were a diver, that was just a part of your gear, like your depth gauge. The Royal Navy even issued Rolexes to enlisted men. It was never meant to be a status symbol. If you were an airline pilot, you got a Rolex GMT Master with your epaulettes.

The radical shift in markets came about because the Swiss traditional watchmakers couldn't compete with mass-produced Japanese quartz (despite the quartz movement being invented in Switzerland). But with the exception of those encrusted with bling, expensive watches all need to have provenance to be sellable. Rolex with their Submariner, Omega with their Speedmaster (still NASA's standard-issue watch, BTW), and so on. That's what authenticity is here - a link to the past - selling traditional values to people who've grown up in a society where everything is disposable.

But don't ever wear a Panerai.</comment>


Hacking low-cost Chinese pianos into something special - <AUTHOR> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008563635_piano27m.html

<comment><USER2> _Ninety-five percent of pianos are sold to people who don't play_

Sad but very believable, and I find it interesting to hear from a piano maker. I've seen several (fairly rich) people buy a piano to learn it but then drop out after a month, or outright buy it just for the chic aspect. I can't help but feel a little tinge when I see a beautiful grand sitting unused in a living room, when the kids at school have to do with a decaying, out of tune upright.

<comment><USER3> Okay, that goes on the list of _fun things I might do if I had a spare million dollars_ : Donate a top-notch grand piano to a local school in exchange for the right to play it occasionally.

<comment><USER4> or buy 5 of this guy's pianos for the same money and donate to 5 schools ;)

<comment><USER3> Who says this guy isn't top-notch? I bookmarked him. I intend for my future- millionaire fantasy self to be very frugal!

<comment><USER4> don't count your generosity until its hatched ;). Its good to dream. Its better to actualize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The decent Chinese pianos already import the strings and soundboards from abroad (or purchase them from manufacturers in-country). A lot of the equipment has an undeservedly poor reputation: the low end of the market is about $2000 USD not $10,000 USD. Perhaps shipping internationally is really driving those costs up.

Regardless, it's great news if people who don't play keep purchasing instruments - it increases the size of the market and drives down the costs for people who do play but don't have money, like me.

</comment><comment><USER6> You can refactor pianos. Nice.

I think the most important thing he brings is the personal attention. Something like a piano is going to have a lot of variance in mass production, especially with cheap parts. Just having an expert look it over and set it up is worth his price. Adding higher quality parts is just a nice bonus.</comment>