Show HN: Get Paid to Build Your Next Side Project - <AUTHOR> https://www.demandrush.com <comment><USER3> Photoshop license costs $348 a year. If 1000 people get together and put $400 each, you'll get $400000. That money could be used to leverage a Gimp to be more Photoshop-users friendly. Then you don't have to keep with the subscription model. You have a great piece of open source software available for everyone to use as long as they want. You can do another round to get more features added.

This solves the issue that you get with subscription based services, which is that if you stop paying every month/year you loose access to the tool to do your work.

Instead of building yet another SaaS wouldn't be smarter for users to gather and pay for a software libre solution?

<comment><USER4> $400k pays for 3 people.. maybe a couple of more if you hire from a cheaper country.

If all GIMP needed was a few more developers to be competitive against PS, that would have happened by now.

You're seriously underestimating the amount of work GIMP needs to do.. and/or the amount of work that already goes into GIMP.

<comment><USER5> This reminds me of the joke about the economist who refuses to pick up the $20 bill on the ground because surely someone else would have already picked it up.

<comment><USER6> Yes, people love to laugh at this mythical economist, but seriously, when's the last time you saw a legit $20 bill just lying on the ground? I've never seen this even once in my life. Perhaps this mythical economist is the one having the last laugh.

<comment><USER7> > Yes, people love to laugh at this mythical economist, but seriously, when's > the last time you saw a legit $20 bill just lying on the ground?

1996 (±2 years) in an arcade, actually.

<comment><USER8> I found a $10 two years ago in a field.

It was really ragged, so much so that the bank wouldn't take it. So I still have it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > GET PAID TO BUILD YOUR NEXT PROJECT

> Choose a problem below to get started.

Get paid to build _my_ next project or _your_ next project?

This is clearly a two-sided platform, but the messaging seems conflated: the headline speaks to builders and the instructions speak to end customers.

<comment><USER10> It appears to me that this is a tool to identify a market / need that is not being met.

There are people who simply want a product/service, no desire for ownership. They post what they'd be will to pay for it, as a customer, and you decide if it is worth your time to build it.

Anyone? Am I understanding this correctly?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right!

<comment><USER11> First, I think this is a great idea. People have problems they think might be solved / automated. But I agree it definitely needs some language clarity.

Businesses: have a problem you need solved with software? Post your problem!

Programmers: looking for a challenging project with identified customers? Apply to solve a problem!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _Industry-specific deep learning interviews and walkthroughs_

> _1 customer paying $5 /mo_

Sounds about right.

<comment><USER13> Every single one of the projects that are on this site right now are super underpaid...

It's sad that even the highest bidding project is $500/mo.

<comment><USER14> I don't think that's the bid to build it. The site's premise seems to be that _multiple_ people would commit to being customers of a new app/service - pre- validating the market, in other words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think this has the potential to introduce an interesting auction model. People might want to join in, but not at the initial price point. What if everyone proposed wanting in on project stated their maximum price point, and the winning application to solve would get the price they bid at for everyone above that level. In other words

customers_offering_prices = [1,1,4,15,30,30,40,80,100,150,175,10000]

winning_applicant_price = 40

winning_applicant_revenue = [40,40,40,40,40,40].sum

The last 6 customers receive the product and they all pay 40. Essentially a modified Vickrey auction. Everyone has an incentive to bid exactly what the product is worth to them.

Edit: >Everyone has an incentive to bid exactly what the product is worth to them.

Actually not true if applicants see the bids. In my example, the the best applicant would want to bid 10000 because that would maximize revenue, but exclude everyone before that. Customers would adjust their bidding as a result. But applicants should know much they can expect to receive if they win so they can bid correctly.

<comment><USER16> Is that fair though? If something is only worth 5 to me and 40 to you, and the cost of development is 45 - neither of us along can afford the feature, but if we put aside out different contributions the total is enough to make both of us happy, or neither of are. Your model both of use get nothing when we both could be happy on a different model.

<comment><USER17> It is equitable, but it is not efficient. At least this is better than a Vickrey auction though, where you would only get paid $5.01 and spend $45 (net loss) rather than see the bids and do nothing. (Or see the bids and lose, but get paid $40 rather than $5.01)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wish there was a way to ask people for clarification.

> [https://www.demandrush.com/problems/fantasy-scifi- > subscripti...](https://www.demandrush.com/problems/fantasy-scifi- > subscription)

> I'd love a Netflix-style platform, website or app that, where I'd have a > selection of high quality books to choose from.

Amazon has a 'unlimited book rental' subscription model (I know not _all_ books are in there).

"What systems has this person already looked at, and why were they rejected?"

That probably needs to be a base question.

</comment><comment><USER19> This looks like such a cool idea, but already you see that the problems presented seem to be seriously underestimating how complicated what they're trying to do is. For example, detecting specific text in an image? 10 minutes in OpenCV. Detecting any text at all in any format in an image? I don't even know where to start. Maybe 10 minutes in OpenCV if they constrain the kind of text, otherwise ML? It feels like an unboundedly complicated problem.

<comment><USER20> It's also not clear how it will be used later. It could be used to crop/remove watermarks or copyright messages, and I wouldn't develop it if that's its purpose.

<comment><USER21> Captcha solving is expensive for spammers.

<comment><USER22> I can assure you it is not. It's about $0.001 per solved captcha with 97% accuracy rate and refunds on failed ones, from the service provider I know of.

I've even written one, it's not complicated and not expensive.

<comment><USER23> It is still the same rate. 2.2 ish for new recaptcha, too.

<comment><USER22> Yeah I was able to beat that "Robot check" checkbox by Google using some fuzzy bezier curves and random mouse movements/scrolling to simulate a real user's behavior.

Unfortunately Google has some other metrics to detect bots (such as no cookies showing they've seen you before, etc), so it wasn't 100% reliable.

<comment><USER23> you don't need 100% reliability, that's the good side :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Love it! I'd specifically highlighted this concept in the thread for Oppslist ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14469317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14469317)): maybe there's an opportunity here to handle both sides of the market, both soliciting ideas and driving work to the ideas?

Still not sure how you handle avoiding imposters: for things like the accounting solution that's on the top of the site I think there is huge potential for abuse in either direction (either devs phishing for data or companies refusing to pay for solutions). Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER25> Does anything like this exist for putting bounties on small scripts / extensions?

I just posted these questions yesterday, in the hope of finding solutions to a couple common annoyances I have with Google search:

[https://superuser.com/questions/1218986/keyboard-shortcut- to...](https://superuser.com/questions/1218986/keyboard-shortcut-to-toggle- between-google-search-type-tabs-images-maps-etc)

[https://superuser.com/questions/1218989/how-to-maintain- orde...](https://superuser.com/questions/1218989/how-to-maintain-order-of-the- google-search-type-links-images-maps-etc-rath)

I don't want the overhead of "hiring a freelancer" to do the work. But I'd definitely pay a bounty if someone came in with the answer / script / extension / app that solved the problem.

<comment><USER26> I'm curious: In your mind, what is the difference between 'hiring a freelancer' and 'paying a bounty to someone who comes with the answer'?

I'd suggest to you odesk.com, but that is a site for hiring freelancers. Although I've seen it used many times for 'here's what I want, deliver it and the money is yours' rather than a .. 'work for me at X/hr and I'll direct you' kind of thing.

<comment><USER25> \- I don't want to own the resulting code. Open Source delivery, or a link to someone else's extension that accomplishes the goal.

\- Payment on the order of $10 for some simple script, not $300+. They can make up the difference via multiple bounties, selling to multiple people, etc.

\- Public question that can be found by others with the same problem (who can upvote or add to the bounty), as well as people who are able to deliver the solution. Stack Exchange, but with payment.

\- I don't want anything to do with reading resumes, selecting the worker, scheduling, payments, etc. This is what I think of when I hear "freelance".

<comment><USER27> I understand what you're getting at, but the price is an issue.

I do something similar: I write very small programs for embedded systems: simple timers, sequencers, alarms, etc. for around $100. In some cases, we're talking 15 minutes of work, tops.

If I could charge just $30 and instead sell it to multiple people, I would, but the odds of that happening are so slim, I have to have a $100 minimum. The problem is that even for well-defined problems, what people need tends to be so different that the best you can do is have a common framework for similar problems. The code itself is rarely even close to identical

<comment><USER25> I definitely understand the price issue. It might not be a lucrative or attractive business for existing freelancers.

BUT... people already do this stuff for free. Create free Chrome Extensions to make some tweak on a website. Spend hours crafting a script for an answer on Stack Overflow, only to get fake internet points.

I asked the questions above on SuperUser, a website that theoretically does exactly what I'm asking. Someone will probably eventually post a solution, someday. It just takes too long. The site doesn't get enough traffic because no one is getting paid to do the work.

<comment><USER28> The thing is, the motivation is different when it's fake internet points than when it's actual money. The relationship between the people is different, too. The way it works now, the relationship is a cordial, friendly, familiar relationship (even though the people don't actually know each other in many cases). Throw money into the deal, even the paltry $10, and now it becomes a business relationship, with all that entails.

<comment><USER25> Maybe. I think if a site like GitHub or Stack Overflow added bounties they'd do it in a way that kept the spectrum more on the relationship side, rather than the employee/employer. And the bounty is an extra perk.

<comment><USER29> Stackoverflow does have a bounty system . you can only pay with your fake points though , allowing ppl to pay with real cash is ripe for abuse.Their points economy is very carefully built, just like any successful in game economy, hyperinflation is major problem is a problem all of them have to worry about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Subscribe to news without paying $30/month per website"

I don't think there is a legal way of actually doing this.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, that one isn't a programming task at all. It's a business problem, and not one that's likely to be solved anytime soon.

<comment><USER32> Yup, kinda like the massive undertaking Steve Jobs did to make iTunes a reality (getting the content from competing Music Corps.). An 'iNews' seems as much of a Herculean job of convincing competing news outlet to lay out their content piecemeal alongside their competitors content... tough sell!

But I do like the idea and would also gladly pay for it!

<comment><USER31> Ironically, Apple has something along the lines of what you're describing. It's just not available outside of iOS.

[https://www.apple.com/news/](https://www.apple.com/news/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Copyright 2017 DemandRush" \- I'm always surprised when I see these types of statements on US based websites.

In Europe, this would make no sense. A website is not a legal entity, so it can not be a copyright holder.

Does the statement make more sense in the US, or is it just a common misconception among people who build websites?

The terms page says "Welcome to DemandRush, a website and online service of Grafly, Inc". So I would expect the real copyright holder is Grafly Inc?

<comment><USER34> IANAL etc. but I do think it's a common misunderstanding / wishful thinking in the US (where I'm from). In the US you can just "be a company" if you want (with no liability protection), that's between you and the tax man... but if you want to give the operation a name other than your own, you have to register that name (they call it "DBA" for "Doing Business As")[0].

But at least as far back as the early 90's it's been common to put "(c) MyCoolDomainName.com" on a web site, and I'm pretty sure most people mean "copyright ME until/unless I get around to making a business out of this, and if I do then copyright whatever business ends up owning the domain name." And I would assume, though again IANAL, that's not quite what it really means.

Unlike, say, Germany, the US has no requirement for anything like an "Impressum" for a web site. Nor could it, really, due to the constitution. (But I Am also Not A Supreme Court Justice so my interpretation of the constitution may be less sticky than others'.)

[0]: [https://www.sba.gov/starting-business/choose-register- your-b...](https://www.sba.gov/starting-business/choose-register-your- business/register-your-business-name)

<comment><USER35> Copyright is an automatic right however, so AFAICT it makes no difference legally if you claim it or not or under what moniker. At best it serves as a reminder to the reader.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I would strongly suggest that there be an option to list existing solutions. A sustainable model means identifying real needs, not duplicating products that people are merely ignorant of.

<comment><USER37> excellent suggestion. OP, please include this feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I find it a little funny how unrealistic people can be when evaluating the cost of their problem. Take this one for example: "We have hundreds of images uploaded to our app each day. The issue is some of these images have text that we want cropped out." \-- willing to pay? $75/month. Baller!

Chances are this is a problem for a data-mining / ai-training platform that wants to create a better image set. They are charging clients tens of thousands of dollars, and yet willing to pay $100/month to improve the data. lol

<comment><USER39> On the other hand, it can also go the other way. Non-technical customers don't actually care how hard something is to build, as long as it solves their problem. So it often surprises engineers how a 1 day script can make lots of money for them.

Freelancers often make the same mistake--charging by what it costs to them, plus a little bit more. You should charge how much value it brings to the customer, not how much it costs you to make. Easy to say, hard to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> For reference, the site CoFundOS.org (which is now something TOTALLY unrelated) used to be a bounty service just like this where people all added their pledge to fund the start of some new project if someone came along and accepted the task. Not sure if there's any reference available anymore. They focused on Open Source, whereas DemandRush seems to focus on services, many of which could qualify as SaaSS even, see [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who- does-that-server-really-s...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that- server-really-serve)

Anyway, the big issues here are those all bounty-type sites face (which seems, for some reason, to be the thing everyone keeps trying over and over and keeps thinking is a new idea). See for reference, [https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/market- research/history/software...](https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/market- research/history/software#bounties)

<comment><USER40> Too late to edit, but it might be worth adding that while CoFundOS got a good handful of projects listed and handfuls of people pledging, my memory is that none of the projects ever amounted to anything.

There's a lot of reasons why this sort of approach may seem promising but never really take off. It's also possible (though I'm skeptical) that it just takes a certain amount of design, promotion, and right-place-right-time…

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I love the idea and initiative!

My only concern is that this is a little "race to bottom"; most if not all the entries are along the lines of "I already have X but I'm paying too much!"

I guess this is great for solo entrepeneur/developers, hell, if I know for certain I had 100 people waiting to pay me $50/m for X, I would definately consider building it :)

<comment><USER42> So would everyone else on the site. Thus the problem.

<comment><USER41> Right, once you build X for group of folks, then the next submission will be "I need a cheaper version of X" \-- where X is _your_ app! :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> A few of these can be solved with a comment.

"Need to see revision history for View-Only Google Docs" \- Don't use a shared Google Doc as the agent of record. Email it to each other as an agreed contract.

"Can't find good replacement for expensive accounting/bookkeeper service" Have you tried literally anything else? You're paying $500/month for this solution, have considered just getting an accountant and emailing him spreadsheets?

"Monthly subscription for science fiction and fantasy books" "Subscribe to news without paying $30/month per website" \- Existing solutions already exist and require a supply chain and distribution rights negotiation more than they do a developer to slap it into a webapp.

<comment><USER44> "Email it to each other as an agreed contract." \- But this makes it super hard to find the particular version and to be on the same page. This really leads to multiple versions of the same document and thus it is easy to lose work and information; common to work on an outdated version; difficult to know who did what and when; hard to track comments and versions.

Just signed up with our solution on demandrush: Tuiqo, simple document versioning - [https://tuiqo.com](https://tuiqo.com). We just graduated from YC Startup School Founders track.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I actually need the first item listed there (InDinero replacement), but I signed up and am sort of confused?

I would very likely pay for this feature, but I'm not willing to commit to much unless it works. I would pay a nominal amount to "kickstart" it I guess, and have the option to sign up later.

But it's a fairly nasty problem - porting your books a proprietary platform to QuickBooks seems full of traps.

<comment><USER46> I just signed up to 'solve this problem' as it's something I'm currently working on.

Is there a particular reason why you're looking for an InDinero replacement?

<comment><USER45> In short, service quality has gone down. I feel like for the amount I'm paying, I could get a lot more value somewhere else. The problem is that it's very expensive and risky to switch accounting packages.

When we started with them, we paid about $400, and they did payroll, accounting, and taxes, plus Stripe integration for a DE C corp. We had a monthly meeting with a bookkeeper. We'd get responses to all requests within a day or two.

Now, we pay 3x that (our revenue has grown) they've eliminated payroll, they've outsourced our bookkeeping to somewhere else, and often don't respond for many days. They delay filing taxes until Sept always. I don't really feel like they understand our business particularly well.

They've quoted me nearly double to switch to accrual accounting, and I suspect it's even more expensive than that. I can't really use it for management purposes or cashflow forecasting, which are my two biggest pain points.

I'd rather be on Xero or QB which are industry standard. I could then work with experts who could help solve specific problems (accrual accounting, revenue recognition, etc) on an industry standard platform.

I'm not interested in moving to another bookkeeping software however, unless it's QB or Xero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is such a great idea. And you nailed the marketing and message.

It's like a democratized efficient tender process driven by the market. Brilliant and beautiful! I really feel you shall be able to capture a lot of value and create alot of value from this. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER48> This looks like an idea/market validator posing as a job listing market. Brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER49> This reminds me of what assembly was doing where people would list startup / app ideas then teams would form and build the idea and I think a few businesses came out of that.

<comment><USER50> Shame that they had to shut down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Super cool idea, but there's a ton of potential for misunderstanding. Example:

User: "I want {A}."

Winning developer: builds {a}

User: "This is useless to me. I wanted {A}, not {a}"

Developer: "But you never said you were case-sensitive!"

It can easily go the other way, with the user saying "Well i said {a}, but I meant {A}. {a} is useless to me." Who pays when nobody is clearly in the wrong about some ambiguity? The FAQ hints at an "initial 3 month subscription." Am I missing more info on the process?

</comment><comment><USER52> First I absolutely love the idea, and even more the execution, of this site.

Several questions about where could this go post 1-day HN buzz:

1\. How are existing solutions being presented to the ignorant "wannabuy"?

2\. How is this list sorted?

3\. How are duplicates managed?

4\. Where is the "discussion" required to even minimally spec the ideas and bring them to a buildable form?

</comment><comment><USER53> >Monthly subscription for science fiction and fantasy books

Isn't that the public library?

<comment><USER54> I think that the curation aspect of it is also a big thing. Think of this as a "loot crate" for but for books.

I think the service should also have _two_ services. One is for great sci-fi fantasy books of all time-- obviously that's going to be cheaper. The more expensive service would be for books that have come out in the last 2 years.

For myself, I often look at the winner & nominees for the Hugo and the Nebula for the last two years: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel#Winn...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel#Winners_and_nominees) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Award_for_Best_Novel#Wi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Award_for_Best_Novel#Winners_and_nominees)

Keep in mind that media mail is like, $2.60? If I was making this service, I would want to ship 3 books quarterly, rather than 1 book monthly.

There ought to be economies of scale by buying hundreds of books from a publisher. What do book retailers pay for books anyway? One benefit is that you also won't be returning books, like brick-and-mortar bookstores do.

An additional awesome feature would be if it connected to your GoodReads account and never sent you duplicates.

<comment><USER55> > I think that the curation aspect of it is also a big thing.

The librarians at my public library are great at making suggestions. They also have themed book displays that they rotate every week (eg. physical fitness one week, high fantasy another etc.)

<comment><USER53> I agree curation is value-add. A good librarian is probably as good as it gets.

Also, the internets are filled with curated lists. Book lists have come up here on HN a number of times [1][2][3], even Sci-fi specific[4].

But I get it, push button services are very appealing, and can save a lot of time. Just click subscribe and get a constant supply of books you'll love at a reasonable price. It's a business model that can work surprising well[5].

1 - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13117521](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13117521)

2 - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11229312](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11229312)

3 - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12556160](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12556160)

4 - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9056319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9056319)

5 - [https://www.dollarshaveclub.com/](https://www.dollarshaveclub.com/)

<comment><USER55> In that case, something that works with your local public library's catalog might be just the thing (and indeed something I've wanted for a while). You set up a reading list and it orders/puts on hold whatever books or movies you want one after another. You return one, the next one is ready to go. If the library doesn't have it, it will request an Inter-Library Loan for you.

Unfortunately my local public library doesn't expose any sort of API to allow this sort of thing. Only way to do it seems to be by writing a screen scraper.

<comment><USER54> I think the path to take would be to add this feature into the library CMS systems out there. Sell it to libraries as an add-on plugin as a way to drive engagement with the library.

<comment><USER55> The problem with that is there is a large variety of CMSes out there. It may not be cost-effective to write plugins for every CMS. Some of them may not not have documented plugin APIs or may not have the ability to have plugins at all. Libraries may not necessarily have the budget to buy plugins or, depending on their CMS licensing agreement, might not be allowed to install 3rd party plugins.

It might still be a cool little system to build though. I might try pitching it as a new (volunteer) project to my local library and see what they say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Interesting concept, if the balance can get figured out right (making sure customers or devs aren't getting screwed).

There should also be a discussion section.

For example, I see: >Can't find good replacement for expensive accounting/bookkeeper service

I'd love to recommend Bench.co (use it and love it) and avoid someone wasting their time. It's much more affordable than 500/mo.

I do love the concept though. @OP: I'll share this with the [https://turtle.ai/](https://turtle.ai/) developer community and see if there is any interest.

</comment><comment><USER57> These customers/RFPs are way below market rate for software development. Given the reality of working with clients, these proposals are likely to result in developers taking a bath.

<comment><USER12> This isn't developing a product and giving it to a client. This is for developers to see clients saying "I would pay $X/mo for _Y_ ," developers to build it and then be able to charge those clients for it.

Anyone who's pre-launched a SaaS knows you're lucky to get 50% of people who _said_ they would buy to actually buy. People lie all the time. But this is a good gauge. Think an app that does _Y_ is worth $50/mo but there's a dozen people saying they'll pay $100/mo for it? Great! A dozen people saying they'll pay $10/mo for it? Not so great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> > Identify location of text in an image ...for... $75

This is what my doctor charges for a flu vaccination.

I guess I've chosen the wrong profession.

<comment><USER59> You don't pay your doctor $75 for sticking a needle in your arm, you pay him for his knowledge not to stick the needle in the wrong place.

Looks like we've got full circle considering this same logic was applied to devs for ages.

<comment><USER58> Except that for doctors the circle somehow doesn't close upon itself.

Youtube is full of videos showing how to inject oneself.

Writing a text-detection script can be done perhaps with some help from Google/Stackoverflow, but requires still some intellectual effort depending on requirements.

<comment><USER28> And when you screw up and stick it in the wrong place?

<comment><USER60> Just have them put "LolToad69 Said It Would Work" on your tombstone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I guess I get it (maybe ?):

There are already many, many marketplaces for tech development of all shapes and forms.

For this one I guess it's:

Hey, people who want some tech developed: If you can formulate your problem as an interesting side project you will (1) be likely to find someone actually willing & able to do it cheaply; (2) you are likely to be able to aggregate your buying power with another buyer; (3) you pay a subscription so it isn't a large up-front cost.

and;

Hey, tech developers who like to do interesting side-projects: Here's a bunch of interesting side projects that you might have done them anyway, except here you will (might) get paid to do them!

One way to look at it is in comparison to kickstarter. In kickstarter, a producer runs the campaign by championing an idea and setting a funding model and the consumer can choose to buy in by providing dollars. Here, the consumer champions the idea and sets the price, the funding model is a subscription, and producers can choose to buy in by providing work... and also more consumers can buy in by subscribing with dollars.

I guess for this market to work, it has be be more efficient at satisfying the demand for X-aaS development than existing markets, though I don't know how it might be.

</comment><comment><USER54> For "Automated time tracking from Google Apps/Slack":

Toggl is a great service, works in the web or as a desktop app, and has slack integration: [https://toggl.com/slack-time-tracking](https://toggl.com/slack- time-tracking)

</comment><comment><USER62> I like the idea, but I find the site a bit confusing. What is a "pre- subscription"? Are people paying their suggested monthly fee up front? It says that the site makes money from the first three months, so when you sign up are you already subscribing to a nonexistent service?

And as for "solving", what if they fail? Is it no commitment? Is any of the funding up front, or is it just built on the promise of possible future subscriptions?

I think the idea could work, but directing the balance between both sides is going to be the problem, a lot of the "buyers" are wanting to pay an amount that will work at scale (like $5/mo) but not really if someone is trying to bootstrap a solution.

</comment><comment><USER63> Same idea than Opps List with a different perspective: [https://www.oppslist.com/](https://www.oppslist.com/)

The idea is good but it's difficult to use because you can't reach the people.

</comment><comment><USER42> Isn't this exactly how Freelancer/odesk/whatever work now?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. The big difference is you own the products you build here, and charge a monthly fee for access (for up to X customers). It's a bit like kickstarting a SaaS business.

Versus with contracting/freelancing, you get paid 1x and the product is owned by the customer you work for.

<comment><USER64> But who makes all of the minute feature decisions? E.g. one of the projects wants a bookkeeping service. That's a pretty vague description. Especially if they want to tie it into their other systems.

If I get final say in what goes in, then it seems very likely they wouldn't be on board with this (especially not after going through a project). If they get final say, then this is just contract work.

The other issue is liability. In the bookkeeping example again, who is liable in case of a data breach? If there is payroll info or client info in said service, who is responsible for compliance? They couldn't pay me $500,000 a month to get me to take on that kind of responsibility, much less $500.

I know I'm harping on one example, but a lot of projects would have similar issues come up.

I guess my point is that sometimes I don't actually want ownership of a project like that.

> you get paid 1x

That really depends on a lot of factors. From what I've seen on the site, it's more like the other way around is true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is a great start! There is a huge demand for more opportunities like this. Entrepreneurs and businesses are so tired of building yet another useless app, out of sheer lack of problems to solve. But, with a site like this, you can find problems that are actually problems. The site just needs more customers and more problems.

</comment><comment><USER65> It's interesting how there are more comments and votes here in HN post than the projects posted and voted on the app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. Right now we're making sure only vetted projects go up - eg we chat with each person to confirm it's real problem and they'd pay.

<comment><USER65> Interesting. I think it would be good to have just 'upvotes' so you can tell general interest with the idea. Its always good to know for creators whether there is interest from other users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> The title is misleading. In none of the listed projects do you "get paid". I often do "glue things together with APIs" types of projects (you could argue that all software is basically that) using modern cloud services which make it relatively easy. But doing anything takes several days and therefore costs a couple thousand dollars - the activation energy for a project. I'll always do the projects where a client is willing to pay that activation energy before doing something which is "speculative".

Having said that, I think the idea of doing something like "Upwork" but with client aggregation and monthly pricing is a great idea - but still speculative, so a great idea for somebody else to pursue.

</comment><comment><USER67> A few of these can be solved other ways or need more deets. The Google doc one for instance really just should go to am esigner. Or if this is a more light weight internal thing then Google docs needs mutable git like tags.

To me this is almost begging for a s/o style comment section.

</comment><comment><USER68> For the top two requests, Bench exists for book keeping and Blendle for news

</comment><comment><USER69> So this is similar to crowdfunding except that we can ask what we want to be built ?

What I'm willing to pay for but cant easily develop myself is to add features from OSX to linux. Not too many, I'd start with:

\- a graphical browser like Finder where I could color tag files.

\- UI/UX: do something about easier configuration of the trackpad. Even when I installed linux on Macbook the trackpad does not work the same or does not have all the tapping actions instead of clicking. I cant even drag files/links to file-browser-sidebar/dock or such things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Add to [https://www.demandrush.com](https://www.demandrush.com)!

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> >> Identify location of text in image. We have hundreds of images uploaded to our app each day. The issue is some of these images have text that we want cropped out.

There you go [1] originally from [2]

[1] [https://github.com/AKSHAYUBHAT/CTPN/blob/master/demo.ipynb](https://github.com/AKSHAYUBHAT/CTPN/blob/master/demo.ipynb)

[2] [https://github.com/tianzhi0549/CTPN](https://github.com/tianzhi0549/CTPN)

</comment><comment><USER71> Nice idea. A bit simplistic in its current form, though.

One thing that would be _really_ nice would be some kind of discussion thread for each topic. What does the customer _really_ need? If there are ten interested customers, do they want the same thing? Which alternatives were considered? Which tradeoffs would be acceptable?

Also, IMHO, it would be cool if the site could handle the mundane details of hosting and billing. But I guess that there are probably other sites that do that kind of thing already?

</comment><comment><USER72> Just not enough money...

</comment><comment><USER73> Adblocker for podcasts - <USER2>

<comment><USER74> In this specific case, they might be "attacking" the wrong side of the equation. For example, KQED offers a pledge-free stream for donors, because they know the subscriber and are the origin of the content (or at least a gateway to it, for upstream NPR content). I think it would be absolutely magical if I could get an ad-free feed from the podcasts I donate to already.

That said, there is _no way_ that ads in podcasts inflict $15/mo worth of suffering upon me. The "skip ahead 30 seconds" button is absolutely perfect for not hearing _yet another_ Squarespace ad

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Cool seed for a community! Seems to lack a place for discussion about submitted ideas, so I'll follow others' lead and discuss here.

The "industry specific deep learning" project is similar to something I'm working on right now. Though I'm not planning to charge for it.

To any folks here interested in this: Are you looking for a tool to get started in ML or for a resource to apply existing ML knowledge to a specific (possibly new) domain?

</comment><comment><USER76> Damn, this was literally a project I started working on.

Although, I had a slightly different way of going about it and different way to charge, I love the idea!

Gratz to OP. I'll definitely be submitting, and maybe I'll still come out with mine at some point.

<comment><USER77> Can you switch it up to a specific niche? For example "Get paid to build your next video game"

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Surprisingly there's one in here that I'm already starting to work on. That at least confirms to me that I'm not THE sole person who wants this service. Applied. I'm interested to see how this process works.

</comment><comment><USER79> Can only one person "apply" to solve it?

I'm thinking of the kickstarter problem: vaporware.

If, over 6 months, 5 people apply to solve a problem, who gets the subscribers?

The first one, I hope not.

Each subscriber chooses?

P.s. Very interesting idea. Something in this direction will be useful.

<comment><USER80> From the FAQ:

> Q: I submitted a problem - what happens next?

> A: Over the next 14 days, developers will be able to apply to solve your > problem. You'll get a list of applications and a recommendation of who to > choose.

So, I guess the answer is "subscriber chooses, and if there are multiple subscribers, they (or the one that paid the most) make(s) an agreement."

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> shouldn't it be " Get paid to build someone else's project"?

</comment><comment><USER82> This is pretty cool! I found myself reading through all of the entries I can see and even cook up some solutions on the spot. However, how do you make a profit off of it? Do you take a cut of the end cost?

</comment><comment><USER83> Blocked by my work's filter under the category "malware".

<comment><USER84> Same, tells me it's the security certificate.

Your connection is not private. NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> I think you might need to vet some of those customers for ethics. Some of the things being asked for are inherently illegal.

On the other hand, it seems there is a ton of money to be made on the site!

</comment><comment><USER86> This is a great idea. I'm curious to see how it evolves.

<comment><AUTHOR> Same here!

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Just thinking, but it could be cool to add a comment feature, in order to discuss publicly about implementation details, constraints and quick solutions.

<comment><AUTHOR> On the way!

<comment><USER87> Awesome !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> The site is down right now for me. Is this like Patreon but for open source projects? If so, I would love that.

<comment><USER89> It's reverse patreon.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. Over $1k MRR of opportunities up in last few hours. Looking forward to see these products built!

<comment><USER14> The amount of dev needed to get that $1k MRR is probably in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. I wouldn't get too excited yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> You're dangling 100 dollars for problems that is solved could be million dollar solutions. Come on.

</comment><comment><USER91> Service that allows me to get paid for my next side project [451+ customers, each paying $XX per month]

</comment><comment><USER92> What about intellectual property? Can the kind sponsors of a side project get to claim the result?

<comment><AUTHOR> No - the developer/startup that builds each project owns the product they build. Good question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> The devil is in the details. The items are so open ended that they could just about anything...

</comment><comment><USER94> This is a really good idea! You need to force ppl to upload some graphics, though.

</comment><comment><USER95> I would be curious what the business plan for this site looked like.

</comment><comment><USER96> Feature request: RSS feed, so I can see when new projects are added

<comment><AUTHOR> Try this [https://www.demandrush.com/alerts](https://www.demandrush.com/alerts)

<comment><USER96> This wants to send me email, which I then have to aggregate myself whenever I want to look at that type of information. An RSS feed would be much more beneficial since I could subscribe to it, let the aggregator take care of it and when I want to look at that type of data I'll see a global view of those feeds over time.

<comment><USER29> Not a exactly a solution... you can use iftt or zapier kind of services to easily convert the email to rss

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> Love the idea, especially for quick and interesting side projects.

</comment><comment><USER98> You missed a great chance by not putting a newsletter onto it.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.demandrush.com/alerts](https://www.demandrush.com/alerts)

<comment><USER98> clearly not prominently enough placed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> I can't access the site.

https error: NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID

</comment><comment><USER100> Very cool! Will be watching this to see how it evolves.

</comment><comment><USER101> why is there no search feature on this site? perhaps they should start a bounty for that first before submitting to HN .. smh

<comment><AUTHOR> not enough problems yet for search. hopefully soon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> Awesome. Great idea, nice execution.

</comment><comment><USER103> How is this different from Upwork?

<comment><USER104> Submitted projects, if developed, could be, potentially, for many customers. Also, the developers is who owns the software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> I wish these weren't all subscription-based, because this could work for the exact thing I want:

I will pay $100 - $500 for an Arq Backup[1] clone on Linux, with the same UI polish as Arq for macOS or Windows, optional encryption, deduplication and supporting all the same backup locations, including:

* AWS S3/Glacier

* GCP Nearline/Coldline

* Backblaze B2

* Dropbox

* SFTP

* NAS

* Google Drive

If you're absolutely going to force monthly subscription pricing down my throat, I guess I'll pay up to $20/month. I want this badly.

I know about rclone, Duplicity, Duplicati, that awesome rsync/cron workflow you have, etc. _I want Arq_ (or something just like it). Arq works _flawlessly_ \- it is absolutely superlative when it comes to backups on Windows and macOS.

I use an Ubuntu workstation as my daily driver at home and I have a MacBook Pro. Through very careful configuration I have gradually made Ubuntu about as enjoyable to use as macOS (with the exception of 1Password, which has to run under Wine). But I don't want to use the command line, or handle an API myself, or keep track of cron. Duplicati was the closest thing to what I'm looking for, but it's cludgey and started not working for me recently.

I know polished UI isn't exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Linux. But if you're the kind of person who makes "Ask HN: What is your pain point?" posts or who is looking for a problem to solve, _this is a burning problem I am willing to throw money at._

 _EDIT_ : I'm adding a bunch of HN comments to demonstrate the interest I've seen for this.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

____________

1\. [https://www.arqbackup.com/](https://www.arqbackup.com/)

2\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14403321](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14403321)

3\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11742226](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11742226)

4\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9185632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9185632)

5\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5718015](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5718015)

6\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13360604](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13360604)

7\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13011339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13011339)

<comment><USER106> Do you really need it to support all of these different backends? I bet this would more likely come to exist if the authors knew they could focus on a subset of these.

<comment><USER29> As a developer if I knew you would need to support a ton of backends i will spend significant time building a abstraction layer which is backends agnostic and a framework to add backends easily. It would then be much easier to add new ones, even if I don't want to support them immediately

Alternatively i would add support for one or two services directly, rewrite many times and come to the above model and add support slowly.

Knowing you would need all of the backends would help immensely in the initial design

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Cool idea, but it seems like some of these are beyond the realm of a "side project". Like the News Aggregator one ([https://www.demandrush.com/problems/news-aggregator- paywall](https://www.demandrush.com/problems/news-aggregator-paywall)). That one you couldn't really do without getting a lot of license deals with content providers. That already puts it out of the league of what most are able to do as hobby projects.

</comment><comment><USER107> Love the concept, just submitted my side project now waiting for response Thumbs Up</comment>


The C Conference - <AUTHOR> http://cconf.github.com/

<comment><USER2> One technology development which makes this increasingly relevant are the prevalence of Arduino (Raspberry Pi, etc) - embedded platforms that take care of a lot of the hardware heavy lifting for you.

But there is a gap between what the Arduino libraries let you do and the capabilities of the hardware itself. And it is for these things, projects of increasing sophistication, which require some C and assembly, for which there is value in wider dissemination of expertise.

Incidentally, I (a few months ago) created an "NYC C and Assembly Enthusiasts" meetup group, which seems to be in a similar vein. I have not yet hosted any meetups, but since C Conference Enthusiasts seem to be on this thread, please send me a note!

</comment><comment><USER3> You should not use the signature design of someone else's book if you have no affiliation with them: come up with your own branding.

<comment><USER4> Meh. I thought it was clever. K&R is a little like the bible; nobody's going to think this guy was involved with it.

<comment><USER3> _sigh_ I did... :( Now, thanks to the over-the-top "nobody's going to think that" comment, we get to have an argument over whether I'm stupid instead of looking at similar situations (such as the many people who do that to my brand, and the real confusion I can demonstrate among both my user base and the people I network with, many of whom are not so technical as you, I, or even my users), the problems with accepting that specific excuse at face value (as I have found it equally used by people running real money-related scams in addition to people with good intentions), the potential for damage to the brand for the people we admire who built it (Kernighan is still alive, and it seems pretty evident that he is paying homage to this with the cover of his new book, D is for Digital), or any of the interesting moral questions behind the sentiment (for a humorous example of where this can go, see the episode "I'm Not That Guy" of How I Met Your Mother).

<comment><USER4> Uh, what? I don't think you're stupid.

<comment><USER3> I am not certain how to reconcile this comment of yours with your earlier flat dismissal.

<comment><USER5> 'Stupid' and 'ignorant' or 'naïve' are not the same thing.

<comment><USER4> Uh... what? I don't think he's ignorant or naive. Jiminy. You can disagree with an idea casually around here, right?

<comment><USER6> no we are very serious business

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Embedded development is another important niche for C. (There are already many embedded conferences, of course.)

A track on testing C projects would be good. For example, check out Unity (<http://throwtheswitch.org/white-papers/unity-intro.html>), CMock (<http://throwtheswitch.org/white-papers/cmock-intro.html>), and greatest (<https://github.com/silentbicycle/greatest>). (disclosure: I'm involved with all three.)

</comment><comment><USER8> Pick a date and a location. Contact the venue and make a tentative booking. Then, only then, spread the word publicly. Right now, no one can help because no date or format is set.

Here's a tip: use cvent.com to post a RFP (request for proposal). It's a great way to contat tens of venues/hotels with only a few clicks, and never have to talk to anyone on the phone to get pricing for various locations, rooms and sizes. A geek's paradise :-)

Or you can do like I did for the Startup Conference: start small (the first conference was officially half a day but I crammed 6 hours of content, crazy). See that people loved it, and grow from there. You'll learn as you go.

<comment><USER9> I think your suggestions are really useful, but on the other hand, I think for something as broad as C, an initial test with a measuring stick is required before figuring out the specifics. I mean, with C, you could go in such diverse directions as microcontroller programming all the way to desktop application development. It may be better to figure out how to reconcile C's broad applicability before booking a venue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So far this seems more like "the vague idea that a C conference might occur somewhere at some point if someone wants to pay for it and someone wants to organize it" than "The C Conference".

Can we have more action and less wishful thinking?

<comment><USER11> Woah, this hit Hacker News and Twitter before I expected. I started contacting people today to start organizing this and created the site to have a point of discussion. If you want to discuss ideas, sponsorship or venue stuff email me directly or post to the Google Group.

If you want to discuss in person stop by 231 27th St. SF, CA.

firstname.lastname@example.com email@example.com

<comment><USER10> Discussion is good, but it needs to start somewhere. All you've got -- or at least, all you've published -- is a vague list of ideas, most of which would _individually_ make a big conference.

A conference is defined as much by what it _isn't_ as by what it _is_. Start by narrowing your scope a bit; a conference which is about everything relating to the single most widely used language in the history of computer programming isn't even remotely feasible.

<comment><USER12> Chill, man. It's clear he posted this as a "Here's a good idea, let's start to flesh it out" sort of page, and it got exposure before it had even been fleshed out. I'm sure he's looking for people who are really excited about making it happen to help him do just that. I think this is a fine way to go about it.

Two weeks from now nobody will remember that this took off on GitHub, HN, Twitter, etc.

If you like the idea, or even just the potential of the idea, why don't you offer up useful suggestions instead of being uselessly critical? What would you want to see? Since it needs more focus, where would you focus it? If you were giving a talk, what would you give? Do you know anyone who would be excited about helping to organize it?

If I were Brandon, I'd be ecstatic that this took root so quickly and people are already responding emotionally -- even if negatively.

<comment><USER10> _why don't you offer up useful suggestions instead of being uselessly critical?_

I thought "you need to narrow your scope" was a useful suggestion. I guess you think differently.

<comment><USER13> No, a suggestion would be:

"You need to narrow your scope. I personally would be more interested in X and Y, but not Z, J, or N."

What you did was give a vague criticism without offering a concrete solution in response. Those kinds of criticisms are always difficult to respond to primarily because, should he follow your suggestion and it fail, you can simply say:

"Well I just said narrow your scope, I never said narrow it to those failed topics."

<comment><USER10> I'm not so egotistical as to think that the topics which interest me would be the ones which interest lots of other people. In fact, I have ample evidence to the contrary.

<comment><USER12> Nobody is saying that's the case, but surely you see the (qualitative) difference between:

"Why did you even do this? It's really unfocused. This needs to be more focused if you ever hope in seeing something happen. We need to see more action and less wishful thinking."

and

"Interesting! This has a lot of potential. I'd love to see topics X, Y, and Z, although that's just me. Send me an email and I can introduce you to some people who might be interested in helping to organize this."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Didn't know about CCAN <http://ccodearchive.net/> I plan on investigating. Am home bound so attending the conference is not possible as much as I would like to. Am hoping for videos and similar post conference so I can get what I can :)

</comment><comment><USER15> I would absolutely pay for and go to this. Such amazing potential for keynote speakers.

<comment><USER16> Do people really go to programming conferences for keynotes? My experience has been that the hallway conversations are alone worth more than keynotes.

Many keynotes sessions tend to be disappointing because there is not enough time to dive into technical details, or the presenter is not sure if they should be focusing on the movement as opposed to their technical contributions.

<comment><USER10> I go to conferences I've attended before because of the hallway track. But that won't get me to attend a _new_ conference, because I don't know if the hallway track will be any good yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It might turn out to be interesting. So far I was only aware of such conferences by ACCU.

</comment><comment><USER18> Every time I use Grand Central Dispatch on Mac OS X, I get the feeling that "C99 + Blocks" is actually a pretty great language for many things, and I'd love to use it on other platforms.

One of these days, I need to look into the state of Clang on Windows...

If you haven't used blocks, Wikipedia has a concise article with a readable code sample, although it doesn't really give a very good idea of what real closures in C are good for: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocks_(C_language_extension)>

</comment><comment><USER19> uh, looks like some webdev hippster read the 2nd ed. and now wants to start a C-rockstar/ninja cult.

<comment><USER20> Would that be a bad thing?</comment></comment>


A PostgreSQL Response to Uber - <AUTHOR> http://thebuild.com/blog/2017/04/28/a-postgresql-response-to-uber/ <comment><USER2> There was already detailed conversation on this well over a week ago.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14222721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14222721)

</comment><comment><USER3> > "I assume the company the size of Uber can figure it out. C'mon"

Really? Is there no acceptance that the state of PostreSQL replication is a huge hot mess? The fact that Uber couldn't figure it out should be a huge giant red flag about _both_ Uber's DBAs and _also_ the state of Postgres!

> "Uber had a lot of long-running transactions because [they were doing it > wrong]"

pool-of-threads is a much better and much more defensive connection model. It's why NGINX beat out Apache - people LONG AGO realised process-on-request is terrible. How this can be shrugged off when pool-of-threads is easily one of MySQL's best features is a bit shocking. Has this guy ever been on-call for a web application before?

> Great for WordPress.

Lol! Bitter much?

<comment><USER4> I'd agree with your point about replication. PostgreSQL is amazing but falls over in a HA setting. If people are willing to put up with MySQL to get good replication, that speaks volumes. That said I'm hoping this will soon change in 10 ~fingers crossed~.

<comment><USER5> HA is relatively painless even with 9.x if your ok with wal replication. The problem there though is like they say in the paper, the amount of crap that is sent over the wire is pretty substantial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Naïve users can be surprised by query cancellation messages.

Irrelevant

> Is this better or worse? Why? Uber doesn't say

It's worse. Obviously. Now you have introduced a race condition that only appears at load. Don't do this.

Fail fast and fail often.

> Great for WordPress.

Mocking, within the presentation, is not compelling.

> The consistent comparison of logical vs binary replication is maddening

There's no mention of community support around the logical replication. Statistically, nothing you look for will reference or confirm that the side feature added "years and years" ago, includes all the features from the binary form. Yes this is FUD-talk, but I'd be interested to know if Uber ran in to practical problems. When working with a complex software product, it's not uncommon for some less used product features to be broken, missing, or marked as "not going to fix" (e.g. Databricks, Silverlight) because they were less used and/or less important to the product aim.

This feels a lot like systemd debates (both in nomenclature and pragmatism).</comment>


Ask HN: Am I being exploited? - <AUTHOR> Hi there! (using a throwaway)
I currently work as a student engineer at state school in California being paid 15$/hr. After much thinking, I currently feel that I am being underpaid and exploited for my skills. Currently, I'm building a service that should entail a production ready app in iOS, Android, website, and server setup as well as website/app design and logo creation and branding all by myself. The due dates the present want me done within 4 months, with an hour cap of 18 hours a week. Originally I wanted to join because I needed the money, but I feel like my workload seems ridiculous.
I was instructed not to negotiate since I was a student of this school and they will not pay me higher. I'm confused on where to go from now on, other students who will have to take on my work will be exploited too.
Am I actually being exploited, then what do I do? <comment><USER2> No.

You are only being exploited if you: 1\. Are "worth more" in the industry (you could get paid more for the same work) 2\. Are unable to take another higher paid position for whatever reason.

Both of these items must be true.

If you have heard of others paying more, that doesn't count... the only way you can reasonably claim to be "worth more" is if you have actually been offered a position at a higher pay rate. Then you can either take that position, or work for yourself, or turn it down because you like your current team. A situation such as yours is only exploitive if the employer is underpaying you AND blocking your ability to transfer.

If it's too much to get everything done in 18 hrs / wk, then it doesn't get done. They can increase your hour cap or your deadline. These discussions are sometimes hard, but they're not complicated.

What you fail to realize is that you are, right now, gaining the most valuable thing you can: experience. Though most tech shops claim to be a meritocracy, you'll discover very quickly that experience is very highly valued by hiring managers... maybe even more than it should be. So you're making $15/hr, and could be making $20 / $50 / whatever. Treat this as a learning experience to sharpen your skills and seriously buff your resume.

You need to optimize for learning. NEED TO. This is the wrong time in your career to optimize for paycheck.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think replying to this either way will make me look arrogant or dumb. I think I am more worth in the industry, I've secured an internship that pays triple. I thank you for the input for the other thing though - I've taken your idea and talked to management about at least hiring more people seeing how they won't budge on a raise. (but are willing to hire more people?)

<comment><USER3> _I 've secured an internship that pays triple_

Unless you're under some kind of contract, you have your answer. What is holding you to this current job?

<comment><USER4> > What is holding you to this current job?

I'm not sure if this is the case, but OP may not be aware that some employers offer part-time remote internships, or the employer who OP interned for at triple his current pay may not have offered them.

OP, if you read this and this is the case, I went through a similar experience. My first internship was for a Silicon Valley company over the summer, and then I went on to work as a System Administrator for a college when I got back to school at ~33% of what I made over the summer. However, for my next internship, I worked for a different company and when I went back to school we agreed that I would work part-time remotely. I still made the same per hour as when I was working 40 hour weeks, I just worked fewer hours. I had a bunch of friends who did the same thing - interned for a company for a semester and then returned to school and worked for them part-time for a lot more than they would have made if they'd worked for the school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> IMHO one of the following things is at play here:

1) They have low-quality standards, so they expect something that _barely_ works

2) They don't expect you to _actually_ deliver, only to drive the project from point A to point B, but they didn't tell you just in case you could drive the project to point C (that could be a little exploitative, but that doesn't really matter).

3) They don't care about the result because it's part of a program that runs for <reasons>.

I would bet for (3). Either way, If I were you, I'd just do my best within the constraints they gave me, trying to fulfill the minimum requirements and then move on without taking this too seriously. Take this as a learning experience, at this point you shouldn't care about the money, under regular circumstances. Take it as a learning experience.

<comment><USER6> Very good comment and this is something that employees pick up more as they become more commercially savvy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you are paid hourly, then you shouldn't worry about the workload. What does the cap of 18 hours/week mean? Are you supposed to work beyond 18 hours, just not being paid? Otherwise, just work 18 hours/week, and if the project doesn't get done in 4 months, it's not your problem.

Just don't agree to both a deadline and an hours cap. That would definitely be exploitation.

<comment><AUTHOR> You aren't allowed to work more than 18 hours, the university won't let me. They just expect it to be done, else I'm fired and get a bad reputation at the school and future hiring.

<comment><USER8> By "fired", do you mean _expelled_?

<comment><AUTHOR> Fired as in just fired, though I'm not sure, since they are well connected to the school's main operation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you decide to continue with this job, take it as an opportunity to learn two essential professional programming skills: estimating effort and managing expectations.

"production ready app in iOS, Android, website, and server setup as well as website/app design and logo creation and branding" in 4 months at 18 hours a week is an unreasonable scope of work, at least for me. I would not be employed under these terms unless my hourly rate was in the thousands or tens of thousands, and even then I would be concerned about the impact of four high-stress months on my health.

You are going to encounter these kinds of unreasonable requests throughout your career. The ability to explain in layman's terms and plain English why this isn't possible and to present an alternative is invaluable and it's part of what you're being paid to do. It is always better to risk disappointing the client in the beginning, by having this conversation, then it is to disappoint them in the end, by failing to deliver.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that's a good skill to know - thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment> a-saleh On one hand, 15$/hr, amount of work required, 18hr/week cap, sounds like the job I had while in college.

On the other hand, 18/hr week cap and arbitrary hard deadline sounds borderline exploitative. But to me, it sounds much more like a mismanagement.

If I were in your shoes, I would first go to the person responsible for continuation of my employment and talk about the possibility of you not handling the work-load. It might be that this person doesn't even know what is asked of you, but would be able to tell you things about the process of evaluation of your work, possibility of hand-over, extending of your employment, when would they terminate it e.t.c

Then I would get the person who represents the people whose problem you are solving with your software, with the one who created the product specification (i.e. you got that it has to be iOS, Android,e.t.c from some piece of paper, hopefully with more specifics and a known author :-) and as well as person that is responsible for the progress of your work into the same room. Might be a single person. Might not :-)

Now I would try to negotiate reduction of scope (i.e. I would probably want to drop the iOS and Android apps and focus on the web/backend, focus only on the biggest pain points that you want to solve).

This is why it would be good to have some user representative in the room, maybe you learn that EVERYBODY has iPhones, and nobody would use a web-browser on their phone, or some other arbitrary thing, that would help you reduce scope/prioritize features. I would try to leave in just the Minimum Viable ;)

Then I would setup probably weekly meetups with the person that the work will be completed so that we would see if the deadline needs to be extended.

Your situation kind-a reminds me of a weird fan-fiction about the second Death Star and its project manager [1]

[1] [https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11685932/1/Instruments-of- Destr...](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11685932/1/Instruments-of-Destruction)

</comment><comment><USER10> Shoot. I only made $8.75/hr doing development work at my university. It was excellent experience and once I hit the market I was much better prepared than those who hadn't done any real world work yet. Look at it as a good learning experience, enjoy your time, and look forward to the massive increase in pay once you move on.

</comment><comment><USER11> No. From my point of view, not at all. From my point of view you are actually at a very priviliged position. A few other comments that you curiously did not reply better explain why there is no exploitation here.

That said,I am not one of those people that think that privileged people should not complain. At all. Every has the right to try to improve their life. In your case, I believe you should practice negotiation. Try negotiate your salary. If dont get a raise and dont get a better offer elsewhere, maybe you are earning a fair salary. Try negotiate the deadline. Explain why is asking too much to do all that in 4 months. Maybe you will learn that their expectations of quality are much lower than yours. A logo and a website can be made on one morning if there no expectations at all.

Or maybe you will end up your negotiation with a raise and more time.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you are right, but I did not reply because HN blocks constant replies to posts for new account. I do acknowledge very privileged to be in this position, and I am actually fine with the pay for now. The reason why I asked this question was because someone told me I was being exploited for my labour, I soon realized that it seems like I was. I wanted to see if I could do anything about it seeing how there will be a point where a student who actually needs a job like this would become overworked by the weird requirements of the build.

<comment><USER12> > someone told me I was being exploited for my labour

Some people believe the employer-employee relationship is intrinsically exploitative, so that's not saying much.

I don't think you're being exploited although you are probably being mismanaged. I'd just take the job for what it is. You gain experience, you work your 18 hours a week until the deadline, and if you aren't done in that time, it's not your problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wouldn't necessarily use the term "exploited" (I would save that for a different sort of situation), but you've certainly been put in an untenable position.

It sounds to me as if the problem here is not the pay grade but the expectations. Did you know what those expectations would be when you agreed to the project?

What you're expected to get done in the designated number of hours sounds to me as if it would be unreasonable at virtually any pay rate. Assuming the app you're building has a certain level of complexity, I wouldn't expect those results in that time frame from anyone less than the most experienced professionals. And it's obviously unreasonable to expect you, as a student, to work at an equivalent velocity.

My guess would be that the people in charge of this project don't actually understand the work involved in it. Either way, I would run, not walk away from it.

</comment><comment><USER14> > state school

That's what I noticed. I really don't expect state schools to undergrad student workers much. So I wouldn't really worry about it too much. If you can find another job that pays more elsewhere, take it. But I'm really not surprised at all with your pay.

</comment><comment><USER15> $15/hr for "I'm building a service that should entail a production ready app in iOS, Android, website, and server setup as well as website/app design and logo creation and branding all by myself"

YES, this company is using you for cheap labor

<comment><AUTHOR> Can I ask how could I get about changing this situation? I go to the school that is employing me, I feel like any complaint will just impede my graduation or education. thank you :)

<comment><USER16> If you think you are worth more, find another job to pay more. Either use as leverage or take the other job.

For what's it's worth, I think I made like $12 in college updating crappy php college websites. It was fine, gave me some resume material. Gotta start somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was in this situation in college as well. I was writing code for minimum wage as part of work-study program to help pay my tuition.

I looked at the larger picture. I was gaining experience. It wasn't costing me gas as I was already at the college each day. I worked with great people that I still communicate with to this day. I was offered a full-time job at the college after I graduated.

</comment><comment><USER18> Change is good, if you are unhappy - simply go somewhere better.

</comment><comment><USER19> Yes. Don't comply with any exploitation ever. They're exercising unstated leverage over you because you're a student at their university.

</comment><comment><USER20> Much akin to medical students undertaking a residency, no?

<comment><AUTHOR> It isn't directly related to my graduation (I never needed to work to gradaute) more like I took a job at the school, like a librarian, but instead a developer.

<comment><USER21> underpaid yes.. but you are getting experience which is more valuable then another $10 an hour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Given that you could make $6k a month interning at facebook doing way less then yes you are being taken advantage of

Enjoy the project though that's alot of experience especially for your own ideas

</comment><comment><USER23> It happens. Gain experience. Move on. I worked for a tyrant for $12/hr fixing bugs and adding new things to the program. Over a year and a half I did this. It was Visual Basic 6.0 and this job I had about 6 years ago. I was severely underpaid, especially for putting up with his crap, but with no money and student loans @ $40k, I had to do what I had to do. No sense in just quitting a job without having another lined up.

So what did I do? I always kept looking for a job during my time there, but in my time there, I did what I had to do, acquired all the knowledge I needed, added everything in detail on my resume -- for example, I made the program more user-friendly and boosted our sales by over 200%. It definitely looks good on my resume and I'm able to talk about it in interviews. I was pretty much hired to make the program more user-friendly and that is what I did, and it drew so many new customers. That was about the only benefit to me, I did not actually see any raise for my efforts.

In fact, it was not until I found another job, making just $16/hr when he offered me double my salary. I think I tried it for about a week before I realized I was going to suffer immensely: "I'm paying you to do this job... why.. how..." and all that kind of stuff. He also installed spy software on my computer to make sure I was doing the job. That's the kind of boss he was, a micromanager, complete with paranoia. Read more about that here: [http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/the- opportunity/](http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/the-opportunity/)

I think most of us... are never making the salary we actually want and most of us probably won't unless we are working in Silicon Valley OR we run our own business and charge our own prices. Companies are certainly after profit, but rather than always try and ask for the salary you want: see what else the company will offer you.

For example, I had gotten a job with another company that paid a pretty good wage, far more than the $12/hr, and they also gave me a company phone which I don't pay for, 3-4 weeks vacation + sick days, and I had only lived about 10 minutes from the job.

That first job, I may have disliked, but I knew it wasn't going to last forever because I am a college graduate with skills that are in demand. I'm a web developer and a programmer. Always learning new things. What company would turn away a person with college experience AND programming skills? I've expanded well beyond Visual Basic 6.0.

While working at your current company, build up your portfolio and your resume. Update your LinkedIn profile and get RECOMMENDATIONS ( [http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/useful-feature- li...](http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/useful-feature-linkedin- recommendations/) ) Get some clients from freelance and have them write reviews about you. Any kind of experience you can get: write it down and turn it into something beautiful on your resume and if you have a portfolio, add it there too so you can have proof. Don't hesitate to take screenshots of your work.

That first job gave me all the tools and experience I needed. I even built a website for the boss which I took a screenshot of as well as screenshots of the areas of the program that I worked on and built the user interface. I left my name in the meta data as a creator of the website and it is still there over 6 years later! Definitely ensures no company questions that I actually built the website. It also gave me real world experience for understanding how to deal with an arrogant micromanaging tyrant boss.

My advice is this: Always aim for a price range of the salary you want to be making, within a $5000 range or so, ask for it, and negotiate a bit. Companies are after their own best interests, and if they can get you cheap, they will. They will take advantage of your services. If you want to ask for a raise after a year, which you probably should because that is normal, than at least have something to go on: build a case for reasons why they should give you a raise.

But do take into account what the company offers you besides money. You could also do what I do.. how I make the extra money I want to be making, although I'm still always working on it and not fully there yet: side projects, freelancing, etc. There are certainly ways to make money without asking your company for it. Maybe they have a set budget that they want to pay everyone. Just remember: Those making the highest salaries are usually looked at first when it comes to layoffs.

<comment><USER24> > It happens. Gain experience. Move on. I worked for a tyrant for $12/hr > fixing bugs and adding new things to the program. Over a year and a half I > did this. It was Visual Basic 6.0 and this job I had about 6 years ago.

That's not an argument. There is no reason for the op to accept being treated badly because you were. I was severely underpaid at my first job too, but I don't think it is right that others should be underpaid just because I was.

<comment><USER16> What makes you think someone with no real experience and half a degree is underpaid at $15? He may be overpaid.

<comment><USER24> Assume the value of Mr Throwaway's work to the institution is $X. We also know that Throwaway's total take home is $15/hour * 18 hours/week * 4*4.5 (nr of weeks) = $4860.

I claim that underpayment occurs when the ratio of pay to value of work produces is about one to five. I would estimate, given the description of Throwaway's assignment, that the value of the work is about $50k. Therefore, Throwaway's ratio of pay to value of work being one to ten means he is severly underpaid. We can argue about exact ratios and stuff, but fact is, $4.8k is shitty pay for the job he is asked to do.

<comment><USER16> 1) Colleges do not hire students to do work at "market rate". That is never how it has worked. You get slightly above minimum wage to do some work. If you want market rate, go find a job off campus! No law against that (well perhaps for some VISA holders)

2) The better comparison, would be how much would this work cost to do form a body shop in India? I bet a lot closer to 5k then 50k. And honestly if he is anything like most college students I know, the India work may actually be better.

<comment><USER24> 1) I didn't speak of any market rates. I spoke of the fraction of his take home pay in comparision to the value of his work. That fraction is exploitative.

2) Indian workers are likely _also_ underpaid. I find that comparison irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> No.

You deserve exactly what you have right now. Nothing more, nothing less.

Read Napolean Hill's "The Laws of Success". A basic rule to use to succeed at life is:

\- always render more service, and at a higher quality than that which you are paid for

Go out and do amazing things, constantly increasing your value and trading up</comment>


Reverse 99Designs - <AUTHOR> http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/den/1625610355.html

<comment><USER2> It's fair to arrange spec work competitions as long as you don't give out false pretensions about the rewards going to the winner and you find the risk of inferior results acceptable.

The reverse version illustrated here is ok on the same grounds: as long as the author does not promise anything to the contenders she won't deliver, it is fair game.

But the difference is obvious. 99Designs _works_. The reverse doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't get all the whining about 99Designs. If you don't like it, don't use it. It's not like it's going to turn good designers into bad designers, or make companies that used to hire good designers hire bad designers instead.

</comment><comment><USER4> All I have to say is "Thank You!" for demonstrating the obvious (no sarcasm intended.)</comment>


HAProxy 1.8.0 - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/msg28004.html <comment><USER2> I really am amazed at the stability and quality of the HAProxy project and that since it's inception many , many years ago.

We use it on many of our projects and it has always been a very reliable piece of software, even at high traffic.

Kudos Willy and team, congratulations on the release!

-b

<comment><USER3> Totally agree. Want to show the appreciation in beers. I wish there are options other than paypal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > haproxy can now be built with native systemd support using USE_SYSTEMD=1 and > starting it with -Ws (systemd-aware master-worker mode).

What features/integrations make sense for a proxy with systemd? I'd assume it's only a unit that comes with the package, but that "-Ws" makes me wonder if there're deeper integrations.

<comment><USER5> I was the person creating the patch. For now all it does is compiling in support for `Type=notify` (using sd_notify [1]) in the unit file: haproxy is able to notify systemd when it completed the `start` or the `reload`.

In the future this could be extended to support systemd's socket passing and status messages. The latter allowing you to show a short string in `systemctl status haproxy`. See this example for php-fpm:

        [root@example~]systemctl status php7.0-fpm.service
        ● php7.0-fpm.service - The PHP 7.0 FastCGI Process Manager
           Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/php7.0-fpm.service; enabled)
           Active: active (running) since Sat 2017-11-25 13:28:22 CET; 1 day 8h ago
             Docs: man:php-fpm7.0(8)
         Main PID: 4624 (php-fpm7.0)
           Status: "Processes active: 3, idle: 29, Requests: 1203613, slow: 545, Traffic: 10.1req/sec"
        *snip*

See the mailing list thread for the full discussion of the feature: [https://www.mail- email@example.com/msg27874.h...](https://www.mail- email@example.com/msg27874.html)

[1] [https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/sd_notify.h...](https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/sd_notify.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If anyone is wondering, as I was, what haproxy is, it's a "reliable, high performance TCP/HTTP load balancer."

[http://www.haproxy.org/](http://www.haproxy.org/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Great ! I'm using it since 1.4 on projects that are reliable because of it. It's a great software.

Now I know what my week R&D time will be : HTTP2 in HAProxy !

</comment><comment><USER8> I do hope that HAProxy might support ACME at some point, I'm currently stuck on Traefik which has been breaking some traffic but I rely heavily on dynamically issued LE certs.

Otherwise, outside of SSL, HAProxy has been very pleasant in my experience.

<comment><USER9> Where's your problem? Spin up a certbot docker container and use this here in haproxy:

        frontend http_in
          bind *:80
          bind *:443 ssl crt /path/to/letsencrypt/data/mydomain.pem
          acl path_letsencrypt path_beg /.well-known/acme-challenge
          use_backend letsencrypt if path_letsencrypt
        backend letsencrypt
          mode http
          server server-letsencrypt MYLOCALIP:8080

For the letsencrypt docker image, I use mesosphere/letsencrypt-dcos with a patched run.sh that triggers a docker kill -s HUP on the haproxy container.

<comment><USER8> My problem is usually that I rely heavily on traefik being able to very easily issue certificates simply by having a backend with a hostname present.

If I, for example, configure my PHP VM to be reachable over "test.example.org" in Traefik, then Traefik will automatically try to issue a certificate for this domain once it detects the config change.

On HAProxy this is not as easy as I need to tell both LE and HAP about the new backend.

If it was integrated, I would only have to tell HAP.

<comment><USER9> > On HAProxy this is not as easy as I need to tell both LE and HAP about the > new backend.

You only need to tell the certbot container the new domain. The frontend config I gave you actually hits before any host-ACLs which means it will pass all acme-challenge requests on all domains to the certbot container, and certbot will reload haproxy when it's done.

<comment><USER8> No I need to tell both.

HAP still needs to know where to route the traffic to and LE needs to know which domains are available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Amazing work. Thanks haproxy team!

</comment><comment><USER11> Do people really announce new releases just over email and things like mail- archive or? Those mail archives always looked strange to me for some unknown reason.

<comment><USER12> For going on 20 years, yes. I even add hashes for each package (i.e. the tarball & platform installers) to the end of the message and sign it. I find it odd and inconvenient when projects _don 't_ announce releases via email.

<comment><USER13> Agree</comment></comment></comment>


The Wealth Effect Fallacy - <AUTHOR> http://thesoundingline.com/taps-coogan-the-wealth-effect-fallacy/ <comment><USER2> Oh no, the very first diagram with the Y axes from 50% to 70% is like from the How to Lie with Statistics book.

Sorry, I will not continue reading this article.

<comment><USER3> I have not read that book. I am, however, a data analyst with very strong opinions about dark patterns. My perception is that you're seeing an attempt to misdirect where there is only, at worst, lax handling of data, and writing off a worth-discussing core concept as a result. (there IS one aspect of the chart I'd complain about but it's not the 50-70 bounds) Here's why.

1\. If I wanted to lie with statistics, a single 50-70 chart doesn't really "do the trick." You want to have a 50-70 chart alongside a 40-50 chart, ideally without clearly labeled Y axes, or something like that. Really distorting the trend comparison is where the money is at.

2\. The aspect I would have called out is the fact that they're citing a trend inversion with less than a year's of data. this could be a season effect, natural volatility, any number of other things, and this single trendline is not a hugely confidence-building piece of evidence on its own.

That being said, the facts of the article stood up to my understanding, and is something I've long taken issue with in our recovery from 08 (Highly uneven distribution of gains and recovery); so I'd hope that discussion at least not be lost in the noise.

<comment><USER4> >> The aspect I would have called out is the fact that they're citing a trend inversion with less than a year's of data. this could be a season effect, natural volatility, any number of other things, and this single trendline is not a hugely confidence-building piece of evidence on its own.

I must be lost, what trend inversion are they citing with less than a years data?

<comment><USER3> No, you're correct, and I misparsed the chart _entirely_, thanks for calling out; for some insane reason I thought it was a monthly cadence (since I think I glanced and saw "april" and elided the fact that it was year incremented.)

I'd stand by the crux of my statement that I don't think the chart was intentionally misleading, however, with one fewer complaints about the nature of the data :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fired NPM staffers were trying to unionize - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/22/npm_fired_staff_union_complaints/ <comment><USER2> I'm not terribly surprised that this is the suspected reason for termination, but if its true, what were the workers looking to gain?

<comment><USER3> Rights? Many of the things demanded and expected of us in the tech industry would be considered controversial, unethical or in some cases illegal in most other modern industries. As someone from Gen-X who has been variously involved in our industry for over 20 years this is one of the reasons I gave up on the corporate world long ago. We simultaneously thrive on the cutting edge of science and technological innovation while somehow accepting the same obtuse, ignorant and backwards views of the very same failed industries we displaced. For years we thought and aspired to do something better, that the emerging technology we embraced and saw as the future would bring about positive change. To the people of my generation and the pioneers we learned from, it wasn't a future but _the future_. Now, we not only accept but praise and reward it's use against us. It was unionization that brought an end to the era of the "robber barons" but now our industry not only rejects those basic rights but actively works against them. History is repeating itself. Questionable tech companies may make questionable decisions but we ultimately do the work. They don't exist without us and we have not only a responsibility to use our knowledge ethically, but also a right. Our industry only exists because we thought ahead to the future and embraced it. Embracing the ideals of a failed past only holds us back and inevitably leads to same failures.</comment></comment>


Show HN: AppyPaper – Gift wrap with app icons printed on it - <AUTHOR> http://www.appypaper.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> AppyPaper is simply a gift wrap with a curated list of app icons printed on it and made available to anyone free of charge. A fun, unique and fresh spin on the old boring holiday gift wrap that is sure to impress and grab attention. AppyPaper puts the 'app' in Happy Christmas. AppyPaper is an opportunity to make a lasting impression with a gift that will surely be remembered, talked about and appreciated.

<comment><USER2> Kinda feels like wrapping a phone/tablet in this kind of paper removes the very need for a wrapping paper altogether.

<comment><USER3> Great point. AppyPaper is simply a different lighthearted spin on the wrapping that might remove some of the mystery as to what is inside, heightens the experience because you have an idea of what's wrapped inside. We already have a huge interest from people hoping to get their hands on a sheet of AppyPaper before the holiday season. Eventually you will be able to pick the apps you want to appear on your AppyPaper, giving you more control over what apps present at the time of unwrapping.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I guess some papers do that actually.

Another thing though, what makes you think people care about what apps are showing? Companies with apps giving presents to... who?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


JS Visualizer – Visualize Context, Hoisting, Closures, and Scopes in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://javascriptvisualizer.com/ <comment><USER2> I like [http://www.pythontutor.com](http://www.pythontutor.com) more, it supports ES6, Java, Python, C, C++, Ruby.

It was a great complementary tool explaining some simple algo to students.

<comment><USER3> Maybe I'll reskin pythontutor with like a javascript snippit to make it look as good as this one :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me a lot of Bret Victor's "inventing on principle" talk and his "learnable programming" essay. Great way to connect the creator with the consequence of their action. I'm a visual learner myself (I know the science of learning styles is bunk) and have found most to benefit from a similar way to "seeing code".

<comment><USER5> Thank you! I hadn't seen these before. Great stuff.

[http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/](http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/)

Inventing on principle: [https://vimeo.com/36579366](https://vimeo.com/36579366)

<comment><USER6> Watch the future of computing from him as well.

It is set in the world of computing before UNIX was out of Bell Labs.

<comment><USER5> Thanks. I will be watching all his stuff. I hadn't watched _Inventing on principle_ when I commented before...I came back to say - I think it's the best tech-related talk I've ever seen. Well, so much wider than just computers or programming--although mainly about that on one level--but it's about one's life, purpose, meaning in life etc. The first computery talk I've seen that seemed _wise_ , strikingly so, not just smart, clever, cool, brilliant, innovative etc. Thank you HN!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I made something like this many years back: [http://int3.github.io/metajs/](http://int3.github.io/metajs/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I thought this would be really neat to display some simple recursion. But it seems like it's completely broken for that: [https://javascriptvisualizer.com/?code=function%20f%28n%29%2...](https://javascriptvisualizer.com/?code=function%20f%28n%29%20%7B%0A%20%20return%20n%20%3E%200%20%3F%20f%28n%20-%201%29%20%3A%200%3B%0A%7D%0A%0Af%281%29%3B%0A%20%20)

Seems like someone's already reported the issue, though.

</comment><comment><USER9> looks awesome. why only es5 support?

<comment><USER10> ES5 has a lot of interesting hoisting bugs.

For example this doesn't print what you expect:

      for (var i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
        var text = 'number ' + i;
        setTimeout(function() {
          console.log(text);
        }, i * 1000);
      }

But flipping var to let will fix it. The bug is that var is not block-scoped so everything refers to the same `text` variable which gets mutated by the next iteration.

I was hoping their demo would be good for explaining this bug but it seems to be broken.

<comment><USER11> This is not a bug, this is spec.

variables in javascript are not block scoped, but functionally scoped.

the let keyword introduces block scope to javascript.</comment></comment></comment>


Hackers at Berkeley - <AUTHOR> Is there a hacker/entrepreneur community at UC Berkeley? I tried several "startup clubs" and found that the members were mostly Haas-holes who think that wearing suits and using buzzwords is knowing about technology. The programming clubs have people more interested in padding their resumes to work at big software companies or making websites for third-party businesses. Where are the damn hackers? Please let me know. <comment><USER2> I have found the hacker groups at Berkeley off-putting for the exact reasons you mentioned (kind of silly to have an entrepreneurial club where the end goal for 99% of members is a desk job). The best that I know of are the incubators on campus themselves, though that is a bit different than I think what you're looking for.

If you're looking for classes I'd recommend checking out SCET, the club community around it seems to be growing too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Volunteer at OCF

<comment><USER4> [https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/](https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/)</comment></comment>