Chinese Tesla Clones - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/10/attack-of-the-tesla-clones-from-china/ <comment><USER2> One thing missing from this picture is the significant amount of software that Tesla has that's not open-source.

It's not trivial to get an always-connected car working(as we've seen from other mfgrs). I think where you'll see Tesla succeed is using the aggregated data across it's whole fleet to make smart engineering/product decisions moving forward.

We've already seen this when the bumped up the spec on the 85D from 5.2s to 3.9s 0-60 based on real-world motor usage.

<comment><USER3> The article is critically lacking in insight because it implies that open sourcing patents gave Chinese manufacturers an advantage.

That's not how patents work.

A patent includes the description of how the invention works right in the application. Consequently, if you live in a jurisdiction where you don't fear prosecution, you can immediately clone the idea. The only way Tesla could have kept their ideas "secret" would have been to not patent them at all!

Tesla's patent pledge was just a public statement that, under certain conditions, they wouldn't sue.

<comment><USER4> > A patent includes the description of how the invention works right in the > application. Consequently, if you live in a jurisdiction where you don't > fear prosecution, you can immediately clone the idea. The only way Tesla > could have kept their ideas "secret" would have been to not patent them at > all!

That's exactly why SpaceX doesn't patent their technologies; the actors who would copy them are orgs they can't sue (nation states).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is good news for Tesla. Elon Musk has often stated he welcomes the competition and his goal is to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles.

Hopefully they will use the same charging standard so they can use super charger network. I suspect Tesla wouldn't mind just making drive trains and super chargers for all the world's vehichles. There is also talk of giga factory as a product, so that's another possibility.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, as Tesla stated when open sourcing their patents [1]:

> Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars > being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out > of the world's factories every day.

[1]: [http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong- yo...](http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've already stated in another thread my general paranoid state with anything related to China stemming from years in manufacturing. Please don't be dismissive of the threat to Tesla and the industry in general. It's very real.

Look, electric cars are easy to build. I feel funny saying this but, well, it isn't rocket science. The vast majority of people have no need for the gizmos a Tesla has. They need to get from point A to point B and back in comfort and with reliability.

Is that difficult to achieve?

Well, considering an electric car has a thousand or more less parts than an internal combustion car, probably not.

Is that enough? Is the lack of an IC engine enough?

No.

You have to know how to design a chassis and suspension. There are plenty of people who do that for a living. No rocket science there.

You have to know how to make a good electric motor and controller. There are plenty of folks who do that too. Look at the electric forklift industry. Electric motors and their controls are solved problems, from switched reluctance through PM BM to AC motors, loads of people know how to design and build them. I'd venture to say a good number of them are made in China these days.

Well, how about batteries and battery chargers? Panasonic probably has that covered pretty well. They'd throw an entire engineering team at you just to sell you batteries.

I mean, an electric car is an overgrown RC car. Very, very simple at the core. The complexity comes in if you want to turn it into a computer on wheels. And, I would venture to say, a lot of that is probably not that difficult these days. Load it up with ChromeOS or something like that and go.

I am not diminishing the amount of work it would be to design and build a new electric car. It's monumental. All I am saying is I don't think it is as much about inventing new technology as much as money and execution in a business where most of the moving parts are well known solved problems.

I think Tesla --and the world-- needs to take this very seriously. The way the Chinese piss all over intellectual property and manipulate markets is despicable.

<comment><USER8> Its not despicable if you come from a country that is not in the western hemisphere.

Tesla will never sell its cars - in africa.

And lets not forget that america was built on blatant coping of IP from europe for over 100 years !

Paradoxically this blatant copying is actually going to lead to strong IP in china in the future.

A country can go so far by copying others - they will always be behind america by 10-20 years.

Anyway China is not a real threat to american interest - the american govt is.

<comment><USER9> Tesla will release the PowerWall thing in Africa next year, South Africa might very well get Tesla cars as well but it's some what of a unique case where it comes to the rest of the continent. But anyhow no Tesla wont sell it's cars in Africa just like BMW won't sell it's cars in Africa (outside of few corrupt government officials) even their planned 30,000$ car is way too expensive for most of the world.

Africa is also not a very good place to sell electric cars in it lacks the required infrastructure it has at least 3-4 more decades of development until electric cars will be viable there. Africa needs cheap, dependable preferably multi-fuel (diesel/bio-diesel) cars, it might be able to handle hybrids but even that is pushing it.

China doesn't need to replicate Tesla, if they make an electric car which is just good enough it will have huge impact on the air-quality in the cities and sine China is pretty much the only country which is developing and building new nuclear power plants as well as leading the research into fusion when it will be able to make even a 1/3rd of a Tesla it should have enough emission free electricity to actual make a big difference.

China is also quite good at actually completing tasks it sets it's sights on no matter the "cost" or what the market says if the Government will put electric cars by 2025 as a mandate the rest will fall in line.

<comment><USER8> I agree with everything you just said -

Just pointing out coping IP may be bad in the short term ( Tesla doesn't make as much money as they excepted ) - but in the long term its good for humanity.

<comment><USER7> In general terms, no, you are wrong.

Why?

The "R" in "R&D" is the expensive part. Very expensive. Ridiculously expensive in some segments (pharmaceuticals).

Doing the "D" part once someone paid for the "R" part is easy and cheap. That's what stealing IP is about. If "R" was easy and inexpensive everyone would do it. Not so.

The problem with saying "Oh, it's OK, China will make it better for humanity in the long run" is that killing-off companies that are engaged in heavy "R" creates a situation where all you have in the market is crap or you effectively freeze "R&D" for decades until the equation makes sense again or someone is stupid enough or rich enough to throw money at a problem.

Patents and IP protection make a lot of sense when used for real inventions, real "improvements in the art". It is when they are used by trolls who make nothing, contribute nothing to society and get in the way of progress that patents turn evil.

Stealing legitimate IP is a terrible thing. The only people who don't see it that way are those who have never devoted time, treasure and effort to find a solution for a difficult problem. That is when, in no uncertain terms, you absolutely get it.

In my case, I devoted ten years in a constant effort to develop a technology. It was extremely difficult work. I funded all of it and it cost a bundle. At the end of the process anyone could have just taken the "D" part and gone with it with very little effort in relative terms. Go through something half as intensive as that and you'll understand where I and others are coming from.

<comment><USER9> China and India have been infringing on US patents for 4 decades now and nothing has happened yet.

<comment><USER7> Citation please.

<comment><USER9> Of what that China is on the priority watch list of the USTR for IPR violations? [https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/USTR%202014%20Special%2...](https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/USTR%202014%20Special%20301%20Report%20to%20Congress%20FINAL.pdf)

Or that the US economy hasn't collapsed? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(nominal\))

<comment><USER7> You are changing the topic. You said that patent infringement over decades has had no effects. Quoting:

"China and India have been infringing on US patents for 4 decades now and nothing has happened yet."

I just want to know how you came to that conclusion.

The problem with your atatement is that it requires access to data that may not be public. If I had not had IP stolen by a Chinese company I would not have some of the insights I gained during that experience. Mine isn't the only company that has had these kinds of issues. During my ordeal I got to meet other business owners affected by Chinese IP theft. Why? Because we got the State Department involved and that was the conduit through which I met others.

Unless you've had access at that level it would be hard for you to understand the subject. In our case the IP theft probably cost us $30 million dollars in R&D, over a hundred million dollars in lost sales and hundreds of very high paying jobs.

No, IP theft is a very serious problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Judging by the quality of every else made in china, the batteries will last a year and the flash memory used in the computers will fail after a few thousand cycles.

<comment><USER11> That's a funny view considering that most semiconductor companies have manufacturing plants _in_ Asia.

Intel: Fab 68 Dalian, Liaoning, China

AMD: Fab 2 & Fab 7 Singapore

<comment><USER9> AMD doesn't have fabs anymore it had to sell all of them to GlobalFoundries.

Fab 68 is a 65nm fab even tho it's their newest it's pretty much delegated for making non-vital parts.

The only Fabs Intel has outside of the US that are manufacturing CPU's and high-value components are in Ireland(24, 14nm) and Israel(28, 22nm currently will be Intel's first 10nm fab by mid 2016).

But anyhow no one doubts China has the capability to manufacture quality components, and they got better at developing internally as well many of the newer Chinese consumer electronics brands can quite easily compete with other Asian primarily Korean manufacturers quite well.

The Chinese automotive industry on the other hand well didn't had much success as far as designing goes their best cars currently are probably the MG (or which ever brand SAIC Motor uses these days) ones which are based on existing designs and IP from the MG Rover buyout, and although they look very modern allot of them are based on quite old designs even the newer MG's can still be traced to the Rover 75 and the Streetwise which were well kinda outdated designs to begin with.

I've drove the MG 6 when I was in China, it's not a bad car it looks quite nice the accessory pack of the leasing agency unlike in Western countries was probably couple of levels beyond what ever is normally sold in the local markets but it still felt like an older car, the steering, responsiveness breaking everything felt like a car from the late 90's early 2000's which under all the flare it kinda is.

<comment><USER11> I was referring to GlobalFoundries since yes, AMD no longer fabricates any of its own chips. The car note is interesting. I think it is less about tech and more about price probably. Because it shouldnt be difficult to do the ol' chinaroo dupe like they do with phones and handbags. Yes, a car is significantly harder but I dont doubt the ability to be copied

<comment><USER9> Well when China puts their heads to it and actually builds a quality device e.g. Oppo and Huawei cell phones they look, feel, and act like a modern Korean, Japanese or US designed phones but they also cost pretty much the same... When you have a premium design that uses premium components you can't save that much money by building it in China because that is where it would've been built anyhow ;)

When it comes to their old-chinaroo stuff well we all know what those things feel like and how they fall apart after 3 days.

For a knockoff hand bag its not an issue, for a car well.... some people even in China probably value human life enough to understand that there's that many corners you can cut before you turn your product into another government sponsored population control project.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Story of Hertz Going Bust - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-24/o-j-accounting-fraud-and-icahn-the-story-of-hertz-going-bust <comment><USER2> I am Hertz Alumni, 2011-2016. We had a great group of engineers and product people, many of us far too talented to be in company like what hertz turned into. We were under the leadership of an incredible division head and most of the folks in our group felt a deep sense of loyalty to her. Nearly all of us, including that division head, are gone now, mostly laid off. If you poll any random Hertz alumnus, the story you're likely to hear is "we had a great team and incompetent senior management."

To us, there is a quote in a different bloomberg article from last week [1] which strikes us as accurate. Attributed to Maryanne Keller, who is referred to in this article, it says:

> 'It's a saga about gross mismanagement," said Maryann Keller, a longtime > auto-

> industry consultant who was on the board of Dollar Thrifty when Hertz > acquired

> the company. "It could have been salvaged had he picked the right > management,"

> she said, referring to Icahn.'

Icahn lost $1.6b. Thousands of us lost our jobs. But these C-suiters sailed the company to bankruptcy over five years, each of them extracting 7 or 8 figure bonuses. The CIO who laid us all off, for example, received $6.5 million compensation that year [2]. (Sidenote, the work we were doing was replaced with Accenture consultants, who couldn't handle it, screwing up so bad they ended up in court [3].)

One former colleague of mine wrote a post on LinkedIn suggesting Icahn was the unwitting victim of untenable debt situation, and while he may be correct that the debt made it difficult, Icahn can read a balance sheet and he understood the situation.

I can't speak about Marinello's performance, but I agree that the problem dates back to 2014 or even earlier. People have a widespread belief that Frissora was flying too close to the sun, driven by his aggressive personality. Despite his flaws, he had a great team of people who kept the business running, and it wasn't Frissora who fired them all. Nobody, it turns out, was a fan of him. But everyone agrees he was far better than the gang of unusually wealthy miscreants that Icahn replaced him with.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-27/icahn- fil...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-27/icahn-files-13d-a- on-hertz)

[2] [https://www.cio.com/article/3404205/how-much-do-cios- really-...](https://www.cio.com/article/3404205/how-much-do-cios-really-make- pay-packages-of-25-fortune-500-execs-revealed.html)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19737070](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19737070)

<comment><USER3> I had the unfortunate opportunity as an Accenture consultant to work on the Hertz redesign. It was a shit show and hands down the worst project I've ever been on. I left Accenture but not sure how much I'm allowed to talk about it.

Needless to say, leadership across ALL disciplines (mobile, front-end, backend, etc) was a fucking joke and they didn't listen to the red flags we brought up in literal sprint 1.

Sorry to hear about your Hertz experience.

<comment><USER4> For the most part, all that I've heard of Accenture seems to match what you are saying.

<comment> blaser-waffle I believe the parent comment was talking about the shitshow that Hertz was, not Accenture.

<comment><USER5> Both are bad. Every big "consulting" company sucks nowadays.

<comment><USER6> I've had good experiences with Accenture in a staff aug role, but leading projects have been disasters. Similar problems working with Deloitte.

That being said, I've had nothing but good experiences working with McKinsey.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> hertz had a 'hackathon' (more like datathon?) at my university in 2013. They gave us data (no PII but demographics such as age) along with other store sales, etc. goal, take the data and draw some insights.

I showed them a chart on how the average age of their customer was going up and they were failing to get newer and younger customers. I also showed search trends on car rentals going down, and search trends on ride sharing going up. They didn't like my presentation at all =|

<comment><USER8> What an incredible way for a company to signal that they only want sycophants. Good on you for pointing out what probably should have been obvious to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Honestly this is a good thing. There are too many big companies, not enough small, we need more to fail - esp the type that have gone through lots of mergers to reduce competition.

<comment><USER10> While I agree with the sentiment, operating at scale does mean that consumers often get lower costs.

Smaller players would also be far less likely to enter less lucrative markets.

<comment><USER11> Often, but not always - sometimes the benefits of scale are eaten up by an oligopoly gouging customers. In New Zealand, the big rental companies were much much more expensive than small local companies that were hard to find because they didn't show up on the international aggregators.

And unlike the big companies, there were no hidden costs, no upsells, no attempts to scam, no attempts to extort huge fees when trying to change the rental, ... didn't even charge us for forwarding a traffic ticket which would have totally been their right.

After my experience with Hertz (US) as a customer, the only reason why I'm not 100% happy with them going under is that I don't expect their large competitors to be much better, and less competition means the others can become even worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think the most "duhhh" moment was moving the headquarters. Of course they lost a ton of experienced and qualified staff when they moved the headquarters to Florida. Why wasn't this seen coming?

<comment><USER13> I don't want to reply with a blanket statement, but a lot of the times senior management just doesn't understand how much work it takes to build complex IT systems and how a great team can make it happen. They see IT as disposable and expect anybody with some computer skills to be able to do complex work.

<comment><USER12> That makes sense for IT networks, annoying as it may be. But the article makes it clear they lost quality leaders as well, and the CEO should have fully understood and appreciated the impact that would have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What is the ten-year survival rate for companies after a leveraged buyout? It has to be near zero right?

<comment><USER15> You only hear about LBOs that fail. There are dozens that work every year

<comment><USER16> Do you know of any data referring to the success to failure ratio of leveraged buyouts?

<comment><USER15> The easiest way to do this is to look at the performance of LBO funds. It's up and down, returns are pretty poor compared to the stock market, but still positive, so that means they're getting back more cash than they are putting in - which means more success than failure, especially as success means +20 to +40% whereas fail means -80 or -90%

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In the end Kathryn Marinello failed. She was at the helm for years where she could have positioned the company better. Blaming it on a 2014 misfilling and the wasted years cleaning it up only gives false cover. She didn't pay back debit when times were better because it would have affected her compension.

<comment><USER18> Why do you say Kathryn Marinello failed?

Compensation incentives are there for a reason. Acting according to them just means fulfilling the shareholders wishes. (Unless the shareholders are idiots or impotent and the board set the wrong incentives.)

Running a riskier strategy that fails under a pandemic is a perfectly cromulent business decision to make. Shareholders and creditors knew what they were in for.

Not all gambles pay off. That doesn't mean taking on any risk whatsoever is wrong.

<comment><USER19> > Unless the shareholders are idiots or impotent and the board set the wrong > incentives.

That's quite a big leap. Humans are exceptionally good at gaming objective metrics if that's all that matters... setting the right incentives is by no means something any non-idiot can do; it's in fact exceptionally rare to find people able to set right incentives for an entire organization (or for it's leadership; if the leadership doesn't inherently have the right motivation, I don't actually think you can fix that via a set of incentives; probably the best you can do is constantly-modifying incentives, tracking aggressively any sign of misaligned motivation etc)

<comment><USER20> > Humans are exceptionally good at gaming objective metrics if that's all that > matters

I think that's OP's point: the board should understand that, and set them appropriately.

<comment><USER19> And my point is that's basically impossible to "set them appropriately", and one shouldn't throw around strong words such as "idiots or impotents" for those failing to do so. Did the board fail in its mission? Obviously. But do only the idiots fail?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The company also found that Dollar Thrifty had let the tires on its cars get > thinner than Hertz allowed, and many had to be replaced at a cost of $30 > million

I always wonder if its worth going cheaper or more expensive when renting cars. Stuff like this is interesting, I wonder how many other corners are cut at the cheaper places.

<comment><USER21> I've always rented from Hertz because they've historically been the least hassle, if more expensive than Enterprise.

I live in downtown Toronto and don't own a car. I use car sharing for local needs, but the traditional car rental companies for when I need to leave the city. Enterprise has been consistently terrible. On multiple occasions I've had to wait hours past my scheduled pick-up time due to either understaffing, overbooking, and/or due to other events. Enterprise apparently has a deal with insurance companies where they loan cars after accidents. I once had to wait 12 hours for a car as they were over-booked due to accidents after a snow storm. One time I was rear-ended in an enterprise-rented car. The other person's insurance dealt with the damages, but _18 months_ later they called me up, demanding payment for the time the car was in the shop.

I used to rent from national/alamo as they would rent to me w/o mandatory extra insurance when I was under 25. They were bought out by enterprise and almost immediately went downhill.

Hertz has always had a car available when promised. I can also take the rentals across the border to the US w/o extra fees. Twice they had to upsize my car for whatever reasons and they gave me a discount to deal with the greater fuel consumption.

As somebody who is a loyal Hertz customer, I worry what the company will look like after the bankruptcy.

<comment><USER15> I can't remember if I've ever seen Sixt in North America? They're definitely one step above the rest here in Europe

<comment><USER22> They're a step above in the US as well. I rent from them whenever possible. Their vehicle selection is relatively small, they have few outlets, and I can't say they have the best (or most uniform) service.

But they're the only agency that actually rents cars I have any desire to drive.

I got a brand new full-size Volvo S90 sedan for what all the other agencies charge for a janky Corolla or something. And this wasn't a lucky upgrade scenario, they just had better cars at lower prices when booking.

<comment><USER23> Rented a Jaguar F-Type from Sixt during a trip to Miami. Service was great, car was awesome, and I paid around the same I would have for a 4cylinder Mustang from somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The article uses the term 'bitfd' which apparently means "burn it the fuck down".

</comment><comment><USER25> why is Carl Icahn, always involved in dirty takeovers n putting the wrong managers.

</comment><comment><USER16> Turo[0] immediately crossed my mind upon finishing the article. I have never used a traditional car rental service and plan to avoid them.

[0] [https://turo.com/](https://turo.com/)

<comment><USER26> I'm not sure how that's your takeaway here.

Hertz's troubles seem pretty unrelated to the experience as a consumer.

While Turo is great for your weekend trip or whatever, it is not at all good for a business traveler.

<comment><USER7> the business traveler began using other things. its this same mentality ('it doesn't relate, business <insert here> are our customers and they wont go away') that gave a false sense of security to blackberry.</comment></comment></comment>


I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer? - <AUTHOR> http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/48698/i-dont-program-in-my-spare-time-does-that-make-me-a-bad-developer <comment><USER2> A good programmer should wake up at 6 am in the morning get a solid 2.5hrs of coding done by 8:30 am, at 8:30 leave for work, work till 6 (it goes without saying that the lunchbreak must be spent trying to learn the Haskell or if you are feeling lazy answering questions on stackoverflow). Commute from 6 to 6:30 (it's a bonus if you listen to a technical podcast during this time and no stuff like TWIT does not count, perhaps audio lectures from the Advanced Algorithms course on MIT OCW). 6:30 to 7:00 time for supper and excellent time to catchup on r/programming and hackernews. 7-8:30pm is the time for relaxation by doing some recreational mathematics, doing problems from project Euler and that proof from The Art of Computer Programming excercises which you have been itching to get a go at! 8:30pm to 1 am code contribute to that open- source project, write patches for the Linux kernal and continue working on your startup.

Anyone who does less programming that what is mentioned above cannot call himself a "good programmer", I would have serious reservations in calling that person even a mediocre programmer.

<comment><USER3> I guess not everybody caught the irony

<comment><USER4> I catch the irony, but I'm not confident that it really contributes to the discussion here. Look at the comment thread it's produced: practically nothing of any consequence or interest.

<comment><USER5> Yes. Good programmers must also be humorless drones that post disapprovingly when others are clearly enjoying themselves.

<comment><USER4> Humor is funny. That post was a sarcastic expression of an obvious truth. Neither the tone nor the obviousness was what I come to HN for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Correlation does not equal causation. Asking whether not programming in your spare time makes you a bad developer is the wrong question. The right question is, _What is it about certain/many good developers that leads them to program in their spare time?_

Pursue that something and you may end up programming in your spare time. Or starting a company such that your side project is your job. Or finding something really exciting to do at your current job. Or whatever. In words much older than our civilization: "Do not follow in the footsteps of the Sages. _Seek what they sought._ "

<comment><USER7> _The right question is, What is it about certain/many good developers that leads them to program in their spare time?_

This is a good question, but it does lead me to a thought... why does it seem like most side projects are done by people for whom the predominance of their work appears to be side projects? Let me explain.

Most of the programmers who produce large products, don't do much in the way of side projects. Carmack seems to be heads down on Rage. I don't see a Carmack GitHub project. Nothing from Tim Sweeney either. I don't see anything from the devs that did GTA or Halo or RDR or the latest Mario game.

What about David Cutler? Linus -- he did Git, I guess a side project(?) -- other stuff? Any of the iOS architects have GitHub side projects? WebOS architects?

It seems like we have two classes of devs. Those that ship large products. Whether its iOS or Grand Theft Auto 5. And devs that ship little projects. Small startups, little tools here and there. The overlap between the two seems rather small.

<comment><USER6> _why does it seem like most side projects are done by people for whom the predominance of their work appears to be side projects?_

It's easy to see why most side projects are done by people for whom the predominance of their work _appears_ to be side projects: This is a trivial consequence of the fact that the vast majority of the software developed on this planet is "dark matter." It's developed inside companies, and even if you know I work for IBM on DB2, it's hard to see from the outside whether I'm a coding machine by day or whether I write emails from 8-5 and code side projects from 5-8.

In the universe of software projects, we're mostly talking about side projects that are visible things like Github repositories, and mostly talking about day gigs that are invisible. If we want to drop the word "appears" from your first statement, we need to include side projects that aren't on Github (like startups being developed on nights and week-ends while the authors go to work "for the man" M-F 9-5).

We then need to compare all of the side projects to all of the code these people write during their day gigs, whether it's highly visible stuff like Linux or "invisible" like the internals of an ATM locator for an online bank.

If we don't include all of the side projects and we don't include all of the day gigs, it is very easy for our skewed sample to have many examples where the authors _appear_ to do most of their work on their side projects.

Please don't assume from this that I disagree with where you seem to be taking the conversation. If we see that things are not always as they seem, we also must accept the idea that even if people with side projects _appear_ to be good programmers, it might be that the high-profile examples we find on HN or who blog are not representative of programmers as a whole. It is very dangerous to draw conclusions about the correlation between a side project and talent based on an incomplete sample. I think we agree on this here and in another thread elsewhere.

As they say... The plural of anecdote is not "data."

<comment><USER7> _If we don't include all of the side projects and we don't include all of the day gigs, it is very easy for our skewed sample to have many examples where the authors appear to do most of their work on their side projects._

Absolutely -- I think that's where I was trying to go, but not as eloquently. If you look at the thread, I define "side project" in, what I consider, an odd way. Basically something that is on GitHub, because that has become what so many mean by side project.

In a roundabout way I was trying to say that people learn and grow in ways that are less visible. And while others may question your programming skills as a result -- you shouldn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> DanI-S Unless you have a super-awesome job (and lots of people do), programming in your own time may be the only way to discover and play with new things. If you work backend at a C# shop but would like to start writing Ruby, you're unlikely to get the opportunity to learn unless you do it in side projects.

Practically, you may be totally happy in your current niche, but you're at higher risk from technological obsolescence unless you diversify.

This is as much an argument for '20% time' as it is for programming at home.

<comment><USER8> What about the auxiliary scripts that need to be written for some tasks to automate some task that is ancillary to your product? If you are writing a ruby script for those tasks that are useful but could be done by brute force methods I don't see a problem with that.

Automation of deployment or some menial task, sanitizing test data, gleaning statistics from a csv dump of the database, cron jobs, etc... I'm sure you could come up with more.

<comment><USER9> >What about the auxiliary scripts that need to be written for some tasks to automate some task that is ancillary to your product? If you are writing a ruby script for those tasks that are useful but could be done by brute force methods I don't see a problem with that.

Pfft.

Any semi conservative workplace, anywhere: "What? No, who the hell would maintain it? Stick to <tools of choice>."

Although I like to think I'm a bit cooler and down with the times and the hip words the kids use would probably say something like, "So help me god, if I have to learn Erlang at three in the morning to fix some bullshit you cobbled together I will fucking end you".

<comment><USER8> I didn't mean anything that other people use. Just scripts that help you out; those scripts are for you and you alone. They help you do you job more effectively but do not require you to install them on other machines. It depends on the size of the company for where the level of latitude stops though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am a research mathematician. I work hard, but I also spend a lot of time pursuing other interests such as yoga, swing dancing, and improv comedy. This takes away from the time I do math.

Does this make me less of a mathematician? Of course it does. This is a tautology. I am a mathematician to the extent which I devote my time and energy to learning and doing math.

Sometimes I feel guilty about this, but on reflection, this is a sacrifice I am willing to make. We only get one shot at life, and we have to balance all of the activities we find valuable.

<comment><USER11> >Does this make me less of a mathematician? Of course it does.

I disagree. Burn out is a real thing and once it happens your capacity is drastically reduced. I suspect you've probably found the maximum output you're capable of producing long term.

<comment><USER10> It's possible you're right. In my case I rather doubt it -- especially considering the late nights I've been out -- but at the very least I agree that this kind of thing is often true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Not programming in your spare time does not make you a bad developer, however, programming in your spare time can make you a better developer."

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Just about sums it all up

<comment><USER13> Totally, and thats pretty much _all_ that can be said. If you program more, you're likely going to be better than had you not (by how much is another question).

Using this as a way to compare different people, on the other hand, is foolish. Just spending time coding is going to do little to improve your skill assuming you're past the stage of just starting out. It's how much you're challenging yourself, and how you handle that challenge that makes a difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I mentioned to someone that in my spare time I made iPhone games. They asked, "as a hobby or you trying to make money?" I replied that sure, I'd like to make a few bucks. He said to me "If you let your hobby become your job, what will you do for a hobby then?"

At that point, I realized that making a distinction between a hobby and a career path is a good move, and you have to know what you are pursuing. For example, I tinker with arduino in my spare time, as a hobby, and I don't intend to sell or make money off anything I make with arduino. There is nothing wrong in learning, say, Ruby in your spare time because you know that it will come in handy and that you could make money with it. But that's not a hobby.

Doing iPhone development (among other things) is my full-time job, and I am loving it -- mobile app dev was never my hobby, but a career choice, and I'm ok with that because I am happy at the place I work.

<comment><USER15> I get it, you should be free to enjoy your hobby without money clouding your thinking. Totally agree with that.

On the other hand, I think a hobby that could be something more is totally legit. For instance, I am learning Haskell as a hobby. I'm not really sold on it as a great language for business (yet), but I realize that if I get good enough at it I may be able to shift my career in that direction.

To answer the original question you were asked: If that happens I'll get a new hobby.

<comment><USER14> I think the real point of "what are you going to do for a hobby" isn't the fact that you can get a new hobby. The point is, you like your hobby (you find it relaxing and stimulating at the same time). When you make it a job, it ruins that experience. So back on point, if you're programming as a hobby -- great! But if you're constantly looking at the screen just to get ahead... that can't be healthy.

<comment><USER15> Right, but if you extend that logic then you're almost forced to do something you _don't_ like professionally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> when i'm working a 9-5 job, the last thing i want to do is go home and program more. i'd rather throw the ball around with the dog or rock out on my guitar.

in my experience the people who say "you have to have side projects to be a good developer" are either people who do program in their spare time, or people who want to hire the type of programmers who voluntarily chain themselves to their desk.

this is one myth i'd really like to see die. good accountants don't balance checkbooks in their spare time, do they? lawyers don't hold mock trials, doctors don't do surgery on their friends as side projects, and construction workers don't pour concrete for kicks on the weekend.

<comment><USER17> Let's say you and I started writing code at the same age or time, and you code only 9-5, whereas I code an average of 15 hours a week more than that in my spare time. Two years later, I've gotten as much experience (or at least put in as many hours) as would take you >3 years to gather. Five years after we started, I'm 3 years your senior in terms of experience.

It's not that you won't be a good developer if you don't work on side projects; it's that as compared to anyone your own age who codes in their spare time, you're going to have less experience. You'll probably be way better at the guitar, or taking care of your dog, or whatever else you're doing instead of coding, but they'll be a better programmer.

<comment><USER18> Actually, that's not true. Their is a limit to how much each day you can "practice." I believe the number is 4 hours. Putting in more time doesn't mean you are learning more. It simply means you are putting in more time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> When I look at resumes and talk to candidates, seeing that they don't at least read about programming outside isn't an automatic no-go but as natch says, it's a red flag. I've worked with people who have no interest in programming, they just do it because it's what they do and they need a paycheck. Not programming or showing an interest outside of work is an indicator of this kind of person to me. Of course it's not 100% but it leads me to ask other questions to make sure they will want to learn. That said, there are plenty of corporate places that are perfectly fine with this kind of person, I just don't work at those places anymore.

</comment><comment><USER20> Not programming outside of work is an indicator rather than a cause of 'bad programmer'.

Programming outside of work indicates that you like programming. If you are bad at programming you will not like programming, as it will be frustrating.

It also indicates that you are reasonably smart, probably get bored watching television, and are at least a little intellectually curious. If you are specifically programming something 'fun' to unwind after a long day of work, you are clearly comfortable programming, and you have interesting (enough) ideas about what to program.(It also indicates that there are no decent pubs within walking distance).

If you are programming in your free hours because some guy on stack overflow said 'this is what you must do to be the greatest programmer,' you are probably an idiot. No amount of outside work programming will help you.

<comment><USER21> Doing _anything_ outside of work other than going to the bar signifies intellectual curiousness and a willingness to expand.

Why do you think there are so many designers in bands? Hell, Feynman took up Samba.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I could see someone who only programs for work or school becoming a competent developer, and a good employee.

So, do you have to program for joy to not be a bad developer? No. But if you don't love what you're doing, it's unlikely you'll ever be _great_. People who are the best at anything reached that point through a combination of natural talent and vast amounts of work. Chris Broderick ( <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkpZ645ztl0> ) wasn't born this way... when everyone else was hanging out with high school buddies or going to college, he had a guitar in his hands 4-8 hours a day. Loving what you do is more powerful than desiring the rewards. If you love what you do, learning to do it better can feel effortless.

On the other hand, having a passion for a topic to the extent that it consumes your work _and_ personal time isn't always a good thing. When you do it in lieu of things friends, a romantic life, spending time with your children or simply resting your mind, you may regret that later on.

</comment><comment><USER23> No, but it probably keeps you from being a great developer.

I've worked with a large number of people at a large number of companies, and the difference between the solid "B" developers and the amazing "A" developers is that the amazing developers are passionate about technology and coding, and always have a side project of some sort going on. They are excited to learn new languages/frameworks/ideas and bring that added knowledge to their day job with great effect.

</comment><comment><USER24> Back in first year uni, when I felt like everything I was supposed to be learning was a bit of a walk in the park I'd program in my free time a whole lot. later in uni when I was swamped with engineering maths and compulsory management subjects I didnt program in my spare time at all (I suck at analog maths and ROTE learning so it sapped my enthusiasm to do anything in general).

when I finished uni and got my first job, I was back in the position of being given boring menial tasks and I programmed in my spare time for fun again. I left that job for something a lot more interesting and was quickly given enough responsibility that at the end of the day I didnt feel like programming so I didnt. After a few years there I'm on top of things at work again and I'm back to coding for fun in my spare time again.

I dont think that not coding in your spare time is a sign that you're a bad developer; it's more a sign that you're getting enough mental stimulation elsewhere. That said, I think if you've never coded for fun it's possibly a sign you're in the wrong career. You should love what you do enough that you'd do it even if you weren't being paid to do it; not necessarily the exact same work, but at least the same domain. No point spending 1/3rd of your waking life doing something you dont enjoy

</comment><comment><USER25> I'll preface this by saying that this is my personal opinion.

Github (and the like) are becoming prerequisites. You should have a portfolio of _personal_ code you've done that you can freely share. Stuff you are proud of and passionate about (or not so proud of, but are deeply interested in) and stuff you want to learn more about.

Would you hire a wedding photographer without seeing personal samples and talking to them about their interests and opinions on how to photograph _your_ wedding? You'll interview a slew of photographers who just do it to make a buck (and that comes through very clear), but you'll also find a few guys (and gals) who do it with a passion.

</comment><comment><USER26> It doesn't mean you are a bad developer, it means you are a satisfied developer. Some people however have so many things rattling around their heads that _not_ exploring those ideas makes them unsatisfied.

</comment><comment><USER27> Programming in your spare time is much less attractive when your employer claims to own all the code you write.

<comment><USER23> You should _never_ sign an employment agreement that includes that. Never. I've successfully gotten employment contract/non-competes/IP contracts, etc... changed at every employer I've worked at who tried to pull that, from small shops to Fortune 500.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I used to code the night away. Then be unable to sleep too excited about what I was doing.

Now I have a fiancee and we live an exciting new city (Brisbane, AU).

I've just outgrown it. I think both ways are normal. However, the dude that doesn't program during the day and yet paid to do so IS WRONG... Whoop, that would be me. Back to work!

</comment><comment><USER29> If you enjoy programming do some development in your spare time. Find a project that interests you. Programming is a tool, master it by all means if that is what you want. However, don't lose grasp of the fact that there are numerous other pursuits you can take up. Learn a language, build a house, learn chemistry, send a rocket into orbit, make an erotic film, excel in martial arts, whatever it is that you want to do, do it. Have a diverse range of experiences and regret nothing in life. Don't just be a developer.

</comment><comment><USER30> To continue coding in your spare time, you must have a real exciting project to work on: to learn a new technology, or to build something you really love. Without that passion, you won't have the extra energy to do that and it won't necessary to be beneficial.

So try follow your passion. If your passion is to write a novel, play guitar, do that. If your passion is to build a new web app, do that. Don't code just for the sake of coding. You cannot lie to yourself.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wasn't really interested if someone programmed in their spare time. I was more interested if they had written a program, at some point in their career, to solve a non-work / non-school problem or scratch a personal itch. I just wanted to know they had used their skills without outside direction. I always wanted people that saw their skills as useful outside the office / classroom.

</comment><comment><USER32> As an outsider (not being you), I would consider it a red flag, nothing more. Additional evidence would be needed to draw any conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER33> Most developers I know - in real life - don't program in their spare time, never mind going to conferences or evening meet ups. If you work as a developer and your hobby is developing then there's a good chance that you'll burn out.

That's not to say that it is bad for people who do it, just try to expand your hobbies to something outside of technology.

<comment><USER34> _If you work as a developer and your hobby is developing then there's a good chance that you'll burn out._

People are allowed to have more than one hobby. And I'd think that if your paid job is writing and maintaining boring internal enterprise apps, hacking on fun projects could prevent you from getting burned out.

<comment><USER35> I occasionally try new recipes, jog, travel, exercise and other none computer related activities are way to prevent from getting burned out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> No of course it doesn't neccessarily mean that. Like most things in life; it depends. If you feel that your day job is fulfilling your interest and happiness as a developer, I'd say you don't need to work on side-projects, you're probably learning plenty during the day.

But if your work gives you restricted oppurtunities to try new technology, or burdens you with outdated tech and boring work, working on a side-project can reignite your enthusiasm in programming, which can never be a bad thing for your career.

Also, theres nothing to say you need to spend huge amounts of time on a side- project, maybe a few hours a month just to try a few new things. Sure, you won't become an expert in those things, but you'll get a feeling of what it's about.

And choose something fun to inspire you, nothing is more mind-numbing that coming home to work on a side-project that actually bores the hell out of you.

</comment><comment><USER37> It is very hard to push your skills forward without side projects. Do accountants balance ledgers in their spare time? No. But good ones do read up on their craft and push their knowledge forward off the clock. It just so happens that pushing your knowledge of code forward usually involves coding.

</comment><comment><USER38> I don't think it does necessarily, although it might be a symptom of lack of confidence or dissatisfaction with your work programming. I think having a broad range of interests - reading, playing music, drawing, socialising, sports - makes you a complete human being but programming for yourself, at home, should probably also be something that gives you joy. Rather than asking whether you're a 'bad developer' maybe start from the other end: 'What is preventing me from hacking at home? What spoils it?'

The other thing I recommend is to do the kind of programming that YOU enjoy and NOT the kind of programming that you think is necessarily 'important' or 'difficult'. All you need is that ONE opening, that ONE gap into accessing the joy of programming.

</comment><comment><USER39> Sure there are programmers that don't program in their spare time that are great programmers, but I think the general theme is that doing side projects in your spare time is generally a strong signal you're adventurous, self- reliant, eager to learn, interested in broadening your skills and have a strong desire to get better -- all very important things in anyone hoping to get better at your craft.

When I'm interviewing people, side projects (especially successful ones) are _strong_ signals of a candidates value as a good programmer. This doesn't mean I won't want to hire someone without side projects, but candidates having them 90% of the time are very strong.

<comment><USER40> "Adventurous" and "Self-reliant" are not necessarily good traits for a programmer. It depends on the field one programs in.

For example, the programmers that <http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html> talks about are neither (at least not when on the job). They do have a strong desire to get better, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> As long as you re learning, be it newer technologies, languages, frameworks, patterns or whatever it is that interests you most during work time, spare time, any time, you would always be a better developer today than you were yesterday.

</comment><comment><USER42> Short answer - yes.

But it's more complicated.

You are not supposed to do programmng all day long, but ifbyou don't feel a need to expand beyond what you do at work its one of the following:

1) you work is so great and diversified that you simply get all the programming you could ever need. For most people it's not the case 2) you are already extremely great. I think Linus probably doesn't need to learn yet enother language/framework (although I wouldn't be surprised if he does sometimes). For most people it's also probably not the case 3) you just don't like it that much

For most people that don't program at home (3) is probably the reason.

</comment><comment><USER43> For my internship this summer, I actually write code! I've found that I do little to no non-work programming during the week. However, I do spend a lot of time during the weekend programming.

</comment><comment><USER44> I find that the less time you spend programming, more time solutioning the better developer you become. reading and learning how other folk are solutioning is where its at for me. anyone can program, not everyone can design a good solution for a problem.

If you enjoy programming as a job, then in your spare time you allow for tech, take the time to read a couple of pages here and there. If you don't read or get exposed to other talented programmers/architects then yeah, you are destined to be a bad developer!

</comment><comment><USER45> I've been coding in my spare time in and out since I got my first computer. I didn't do it because I wanted to be a good programmer, but because I love creating stuff and programming is the easiest way I know to create stuff. I'm not happy if I'm not creating something.

Also, a few months ago I quit my job and I'm now making a living teaching people what I've learned during my "spare-time". I now have more free time than I could ever imagine, and the notion of spare-time is starting to disapear.

</comment><comment><USER46> Programming is my hobby. I work on a startup product in my spare time, one question I'm faced with - is it possible to balance corporate work, startup idea and have time for side (hobby) projects? If startup product is not my main task when out of work, is it a sign that the thing will fail?

I'd like to learn 3d, develop simple games, learn new languages and algorithms while still working on the startup product and maintain my corp job. Do you think it's possible?

<comment><USER47> You're asking too many different questions at once.

It's possible to have 'successful' side projects, if you define success as simply not failing.

It's not possible to have a runaway success like Minecraft while you have a day job, though. It takes too much of your time to keep it going.

As for learning, you can learn anything you want. Just go to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> do you code for fun? as long as you do, it doesn't matter whether you do it at work or at home. if you can experiment with new technologies and learn new things at work, your skills are going to improve and it's probably healthier to spend your free time doing something other than coding.

if your work is drudgery where you are maintaining old stuff and it isn't helping you keep your skill set current, then you should be programming in your free time as well.

</comment><comment><USER49> Nope. But coding in spare time make you better developer. And.. If you do not like coding - it's wrong career.. But who knows, code monkeys useful sometimes too..

</comment><comment><USER50> I think the idea that you must program in your spare time and contribute to open-source has a sociocultural benefit. It might be more 'pure' to devote all of your time to your fellow developers and improving your art.

Yet the quality of your work has nothing to do with the time you spend on it. Quality over quantity, as they say.

Either way, there is certainly some benefit to be had in being passionate about your work and in keeping on the bleeding edge of technology.

</comment><comment><USER51> Has anyone else noticed that doing totally unrelated activities outside of work often inspires programming solutions? Practicing a musical instrument or other creative activities seem particularly useful to put my brain into a state where solutions or at least new ideas come more freely. This seems more pronounced now that I'm in my forties and I couldn't code the night away even if I tried.

</comment><comment><USER52> No. Just means you write more code. If you spend that time learning different languages and design patterns, it can make you a better developer.

</comment><comment><USER53> It comes down to caring enough to do it right. You have to love it and be a pedant who pays stringent attention to detail. You can be smart and motivated but unless you really want to know why and how it all works and fits together it's hard to excel.

That type of person will always be reading and writing code and solving problems. Spare time and work time all blurs if you are focused on a problem.

</comment><comment><USER54> It occurred to me the other day that writing a lot of code might actually be a bad thing if it caused one to become bored with programming.

</comment><comment><USER55> For me it is the other way round. When I program in my spare time, I do it because I need a certain piece of software and no one else (I know of) is building it. I even switched jobs to become better at a specific platform because I was frustrated how slow I am programming for it only in my spare time.

</comment><comment><USER56> Is there a site where programmers can post their side projects for the rest of us to look through? I am always working on a side-project... usually something built on Facebook platform. I'd love to see what you other hackers are working on in your spare time.

</comment><comment><USER57> Yes, you are a very bad programmer! just follow reedF211 advice to improve yourself, and be prepared to loose everyone around you.

good programmers do not have friends :)

and by the way do not forget to meditate on sarcasm, always make the other feel bad for being alive.

</comment><comment><USER58> Interesting post! I posted one not long ago saying the opposite. The reactions were staggering and felt the need to update my post to clarify my point.

Regarding your post though, i think that no one is assuming extremes - you can easily manage a few hours a month to do some mad science experiments. You might even surprise yourself with the outcome or renew your passion that made you take up development in the first place.

You also don't always get the full perspective in your day job - even if you work at an amazing place.

Development isn't a music skill. It isn't about repeating a piece over and over to train your mind, motor skills, and dexterity until you can reproduce it perfectly.

Every day people are pouring tons of new and interesting ideas into this discipline and more often than not, they have excellent ideas which can be shared and studied to your benefit. Take advantage of it.

<comment><USER59> The software craftsmanship / hacker dojo people would argue your point that about needing to repeat over and over again.

Example: I probably need to sit down and actually _practice_ , over and over again, certain Regex concepts, because I need them at hand immediately.... which is what habit does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I don't stitch in my spare time. Does that make me a bad tailor?

</comment><comment><USER61> Something I've noticed over the years is that my productivity and ability peaks don't correlate with time spent programming, but rather with time spent reading other people's code.

</comment><comment><USER62> Yes, you're a bad programmer as you do it for earning.

Good programmer code if for satisfaction, contributes to open source, /., HN....

<comment><USER62> Down voting?? I think, it's for poor comments--not for disagreements.

<comment><USER63> "Poor comment" is very subjective; I think that people are downvoting you not only because they disagree, but because of the _type_ of argument you made: you imposed a value judgment on a certain kind of decision-making without really backing it up. You just said, "People who do X are 'wrong' and people who do Y are 'right'." There was no logical basis or evidence for what you wrote, and on HN, I feel like people value the rationale behind opinions as much--if not more--than the opinions themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I'm sure that 98% of programmers who are of indian origin dont code in their spare time. They do it because its a good living and nothing else.

And a lot of them are good at what they do.

<comment><USER65> You're not sure.

Could you elaborate?

<comment><USER64> Most of my friends are indians who are programmers - none of them code outside of work. And I mean none. I'm indian - I code outside of work as I'm trying to start a company.

Indians look at programming as a great way to make good money. And a way to move up to management after that. Thats about it.

<comment><USER62> Reminds me [http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/2011/04/mbas-vs- hackers.htm...](http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/2011/04/mbas-vs-hackers.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Chrome's process model explained - <AUTHOR> http://blog.marcchung.com/2008/09/chromes-process-model-explained.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Chrome's process model is extremely sophisticated. The web comic only mentions the default behavior, but you can configure Chrome to manage processes differently: one process per web site, or one process per group of connected tabs, or one process for everything.</comment>


Notes manager from power of git. Very convenient! 'Gxt' - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/TxGVNN/gxt <comment><USER2> suggest renaming this as "someone" has already snagged GXT [https://www.sencha.com/products/gxt/](https://www.sencha.com/products/gxt/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I got it, thank you. May not affect to sencha product =D

<comment><USER2> no, but if you want people to find your new thing, you would do well to use a name which is not already in widespread use.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't think any other name =)). I should think about it. Thank you very much</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How To Do Everything Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.zahdoo.com/zahdoo/ <comment><USER2> I thought it was going to be an article that would teach me how to fail fast.

<comment><USER3> Instead it was just a demonstration of how to fail fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish I could install a multi-hundred-megabyte Zahdoo Client application instead.</comment>


Ask HN: How many customer/user interviews are enough? - <AUTHOR> When evaluating an idea how does one decide what number of customer interviews are enough to make a decision in favour or against the idea? Does it just depend on duration of the evaluation period or the number of total prospective customers interviewed, or both? How many customers are enough and for how long should the idea evaluation phase last? <comment><USER2> 5-6, then iterate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Isn't that a very small sample to decide whether there is a demand for the project?</comment></comment>


Is Google Stadia Doomed? - <AUTHOR> https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=46628 <comment><USER2> I'm in the Nvidia Geforce NOW beta at the moment. It's fantastic. If you want to get in the beta it's running until early May. Invites are going out fairly quick at the moment (a friend just got on with a one week wait).

Their pricing is not released yet (the beta is free with unlimited use, you just have to disconnect and reconnect every 3 or so hours), it might be hourly or monthly.

They do not provide the licenses for games, you just log into Steam (or one of the other publishers launcher you have your games on) and play any of the supported titles.

I am able to play every game (Conan Exiles, PUBG) I've thrown at it on max settings and the servers are peered very well so it's very low latency to my machine and also the game servers I am using.

It's crazy to be able to play modern games on ultra at 60+ fps with a near- native experience on a machine I built 10 years ago.

These streaming game platforms definitely have legs.

<comment><USER3> Just as with any other X-as-a-service, it quickly becomes cheaper to just buy it outright than to rent it.

And even if the pricing itself isn't that clear-cut, not having the constant stress of "I'm spending $x/h, I had better enjoy every minute of it" (or, on the flip side, "I'm already spending $x/mo, so I need to use it as much as possible") makes it a lot easier to enjoy the experience.

<comment><USER2> If you play games a lot it will quickly become cheaper to buy a high end PC. But if you're like me and only game a couple hours a week on average, it ends up being cheaper than getting a new top-of-the-line PC every 3 years to continue playing new games on max settings.

Right now it's free.. can't get any cheaper than that. :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm also concerned about the fading concept of ownership. But, IMHO, the author gives up most of his credibility by spending the first half of his opinion piece picking a semantic argument over an advertising tagline.

<comment><USER5> It's funny how things come full circle. We're coming back to pumping quarters into arcade machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not worried about the loss of ownership and the rise of "disposable games" that the article identifies. Most games, like most movies, are good the first time but not worth a second run, and that's completely OK. We shouldn't expect "games as an art form" from AAA studios. So why not have a model that reflects that reality?

I'll start worrying if indie games got sucked into this, to the point you could no longer purchase them. Indie games are more likely to become high- replay classics (Braid, FTL, Papers Please...) and don't require a powerful gaming PC.

I'll also start worrying if ads start appearing in-game, and that seems like a much more likely outcome.

<comment><USER7> It depends on what you like to do. If you're really into modding Bethesda games you can easily do many playthroughs.

I guess with Stadia modding is no longer a thing, or only supported on a limited and expensive basis using systems built directly into the game such as Creation Club.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is an awful argument. The author begins by nitpicking at the "gaming is not a box" argument, while Google has positioned Stadia as you targeting a _datacenter_, multiple GPUs can be utilized at once and the very fast networking between Stadia nodes is an ideal environment for middleware like SpatialOS. That's what they mean by 'a box', it's not confined to one node.

There's the expected rant about digital ownership, but I imagine more people will warm to this if it's a Netflix-like model, or if a Stadia purchase grants you a downloadable copy of a game as well.

The rest is a complaint about games the author doesn't like, implying that Google's main focus is Ubisoft and that Ubisoft makes games he forgets about.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe think of it this way. How many people watch movies by going out and renting/purchasing a dvd. I'm willing to bet a lot less than 10 years ago. We're all doing it on-line. It sort of sounds like these cloud based gaming services want to mirror what netflix is doing. Sure, this is already happening to an extent.. but we still have to purchase the gaming console (dvd player vs just using your computer/smart tv). I guess that will have implications for the gaming blockbuster stores out there. If you look at it from that viewpoint it seems almost inevitable that it will happen eventually. Plus, from a consumer perspective you are isolated from having to cycle one less piece of hardware all the time. 10 years from now, how many people will have dedicated gaming consoles vs streaming online.. I'm willing to bet a lot more than today. I own maybe a handful of physical dvds and movies now.. its is all online. I'm totally happy about that too.

Same thing happened with cell phones. You used to have a walkman, dvd/cd player, a camera, a calculator, a pager, flashlight, notepad, etc. Now, you just have a phone.. add the gaming console to this list (and most other electronics too).

<comment><USER10> > how many people will have dedicated gaming consoles vs streaming online..

Why not try playing on a PC then? No need for anything 'dedicated'.

<comment><USER7> Pc gaming is awesome. Not everyone can afford it though. If stadia can actually get low latency 60fps ultra settings graphics on low end hardware that will change everything.

One issue here though is exclusives. Many of the best games are console only, or even ps4 only. I don't see how Stadia could overcome that, but I guess we'll see.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it possible to get 60fps with current network speeds?

<comment><USER10> More importantly, is it possible to get the responsiveness of 60 fps with current network _latency_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The first part on if servers are box-shaped or not misses the point.

The future is not _a_ box, just like the present of running code in the cloud is not _a_ box, it's a provider running _multiple_ boxes for you on demand, and transparently updating and replacing them behind the scenes, with individual boxes lying below the threshold of things that you need to care about.

Same with serverless "Functions as a service". Of course there are still servers. But you don't have to worry about them any more.

Running games in data centers won't live or die depending on the question "is there a box or not?", rather it will depend on "is the latency acceptable?".

<comment><USER12> It is a joke.

<comment><USER11> As a joke, I found it painful and pointless. Wrong target.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> m-p-3 Personally, I believe that the savings made on not needing a good computer and sufficiant network bandwidth to run games with Stadia aren't worth it. And there's nothing that will stop Google from pulling the plug on the service like they did with other projects.</comment>


New homes will now require solar panels in South Miami - <AUTHOR> http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/south-miami/article162307863.html <comment><USER2> For context, South Miami is a small city (~12k population) in the Miami Dade Metro. It is pretty close to 100% built out. There are not large developable tracts for subdivisions. I suspect that most new homes are teardowns (and hence the 75% rule).

In terms of regulation, Florida has had an energy code for new houses since the 1970's. Florida has regulated windows by orientation (i.e. solar gain) and air conditioning efficiency and insulation for decades. This is just one small local addition to an existing regulatory framework.

In terms of politics, South Miami is not a libertarian paradise and Florida is not a do what you want with your land state. That's why its happening there and not in Wyoming.

</comment><comment><USER3> > If the house is built under existing trees, the shade may exempt it.

Maybe this will stop them from simply clearing a site. We have many beautiful old trees in Florida that just get destroyed when new housing goes up. They then plant of bunch of tiny junk trees after construction. It's truly sad.

</comment><comment><USER4> I understand the desire behind this sort of regulation, but it ends up pricing working and middle class families out of homes in the long run:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_ar...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/6lvwh4/im_an_architect_in_la_specializing_in_multifamily/)

<comment><USER5> I don't think mandating ground parking is the same as requiring solar panels on the roof. Solar will eventually pay for itself?

<comment><USER6> > Solar will eventually pay for itself

In 10 to 30 years.

In the meantime you have to pay the capital costs upfront, so the home will be more expensive upfront.

<comment><USER7> The whole house will take that long to pay for itself. Any new home that pays off earlier points towards a bubble.

So if you assume that it takes 30 years until the house has amortised (via rent or saved rent), why not assume the same for the solar roof?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _"So even if we were were going to give up one-sixth of that, it would still be 1 percent of our budget. Where is the substitute?"_

Well, if the Mayor himself has an electricity bill of ~$10 per month then the shortfall in city's budget could be made up by increase rates.

The article doesn't address how the city thinks it will handle intermittent nature of solar power. I don't know much about Miami's electricity generation to know whether there are existing peaking plants that can cope?

<comment><USER9> The intermittent nature of solar power correlates nicely with the intermittent nature of air conditioning power consumption. Miami is unlikely to run out of airconditioning demand any time soon.

<comment><USER10> Not in South Florida. Air Conditioning demand is 24-hour there, and day/night temperature swings are pretty small.

<comment><USER11> That's true, but off peak hours it's easy (and cheap) to buy power from neighboring states.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Neat and all, but I wonder how this affects people who barely use electricity? In San Diego in winter months my normal load was 50-70 Watts with an electric bill around $10 per month; this seems like enormous overcapacity. Negawatts are better than megawatts...

That being said, I'm still very much in favor.

</comment><comment><USER13> Doesn't the aesthetic factor count at all? The panels are ugly (to say the least) and they tend to blind you when the sun is at certain angles.

I'm all for efficiency and green-er energy, but I think we should find a balance between an effective solution and an aesthetically acceptable one.

<comment><USER14> Perhaps we can alter what people think looks beautiful so they find solar panels pretty.

<comment><USER9> Happens automatically: a few years of seeing clean new buildings with panels and badly maintained buildings without will rewire many brains. It's the basic mechanism of fashion and design trends.

<comment><USER15> It's like how after 20 years of jellybean cars all the OEMs slap an angry looking grill on their jellybean to prevent people from associating it with the clapped out 90s Camry the janitor drives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Good! We need every inch we can muster in the fight against global warming/heating. And I mean, come on, Miami is perfect for this.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's important to remember that if something is mandated than people can charge anything for that product/service.

<comment><USER18> That is literally nonsense.

Consuming food is effectively mandated by biology and there is incredible competition in the sector.

<comment><USER19> > Consuming food is effectively mandated by biology and there is incredible > competition in the sector.

While I understand your point, I don't agree with your analogy. The reason is because yes food production has a lot of competition, however it is easier to produce and less expensive.

You can grow small quantities of food at home with about a $20 investment into pots, soil, and seeds - of which that $20 can be spread over multiple years. However you can't as easily produce solar panels at home. Solar panels with the efficiency they have now has taken decades and billions of USD spent in r&d. The production itself takes multiple large buildings, expensive equipment, and many specialized people.

While yes my family in Nebraska has thousands of acres to produce corn, or my family in California has hundreds of acres of pasture land for milk production, I can guaranty you that they couldn't easily and cheaply switch to solar panels.

Then there's the whole aspect of installation. Not everyone in the country can install solar panels in South Miami but it's a hell of a lot easier for a farm in California to sell tomatoes to a supermarket in Ohio. I'm sure the state of FL requires some kind of license, including bonds and insurance for contractors to operate. Probably also requires at least one licensed electrician. You can't just be a CraigsList handyman today and do solar-panel installation tomorrow; at least legally and correctly.

<comment><USER18> My analogy works just fine.

My point is that the fact that a good is necessary for life or mandated by a government has nothing to do with how competitive the market is for supplying it.

The original comment is nonsensical, supply and demand have different curves with different elasticities. A government mandate affects the demand curve not the supply curve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why is it ok to force someone to buy something?

<comment><USER21> We do this all the time.

If you want a car you're forced to buy a catalytic converter, it's illegal to buy a car without one and it's illegal to operate a car without one. If you want to drive on public streets you are forced to pay to register your car then on top of that you are forced to buy liability insurance. You're also forced to buy a car seat if you're driving with a small child. In many states you are forced to pay for regular safety and emissions inspections and forced to pay for any negative findings.

It's also generally illegal to dump human waste in your front yard so you're forced to buy a toilet and pay to connect it to the sewage system or pay for a septic tank. And then forced to pay to maintain that septic tank.

You're also forced to buy flame retardant building materials that are structurally sound and appropriate for the location you're building.

Businesses generally have to pay to dispose of environmental waste properly too so that cost is bundled into many products.

Why? Because nobody lives in a bubble where their actions don't have an effect on everyone else around them. We try to balance individual liberties with collective good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What a disaster, end of American freedom. Now politicians telling you what to do or not do about your home.

<comment><USER23> There are a huge number of laws that apply to building a home, and have for a long long time.

To single out this law, which appears to be an overwhelmingly a good idea, as the "bad" one, seem a bit nonsensical.

If your against all regulation of building, then that might be a stand that you could try argue for. But to pick out this one new law seems weird.

<comment><USER24> I'm in agreement that solar panels in south Florida are a good idea, and that to single out this law as an end of American freedom is ridiculous. But we have to admit that this isn't the best way to address the problem. The law exempts houses in the case of shade, but there are are bound to be other edge cases where solar panels don't make sense. IMHO, the ideal way to address the problem of carbon dioxide emissions would be to tax it. A hefty carbon tax combined with a flexible electric utility infrastructure would do more to reduce emissions than compelling one particular house design over another.

Given that one of America's political parties has rejected the scientific evidence behind anthropogenic climate change and more or less equates taxation with theft, I don't foresee a carbon tax in the US any time soon. Compelling people to buy solar panels isn't a good law, but it might be the closest we can get in the current environment.

<comment><USER25> My thoughts are it seems that you either have to pick "mandate solar panels on homes" or "build more affordable housing" as both views don't seem to work together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A great idea for 20 years ago.

Better late than never, and a law 20 years ago would have to have been appropriate for the technology of the time, but the something of this spirit.

</comment><comment><USER27> Huge parts of Miami and Fort Lauderdale are completely underwater on a full moon. Climate change is going to be a disaster for the area with billions if not trillions of dollars worth of property underwater.</comment>


Urgent: name of piece that connect laptop screen? - <AUTHOR>

Hi.. I have LG laptop, and there is a problem in the piece that connects the monitor of the laptop with the laptop itself..
I am from Egypt... and we don't have such parts here.. so, I would like to know the name of that piece in English? so I would search for it on ebay and buy it..
Again, to make it clear... It's the part that connects between the monitor and laptop itself...  I tried VGA connector word, but it seems that it's something else...
Waiting for your answer, and thanks in advance, Ahmed. <comment><USER2> Try LCD ribbon cable.</comment>


Model H: IBM Keyboard USB Conversion - <AUTHOR> https://www.johnhawthorn.com/2020/07/modelh-keyboard-controller/ <comment><USER2> Pretty cool, and nicely documented! Thanks for this, I really enjoyed it.</comment>


Cray - A Clojure Ray Tracer - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/cray/ <comment><USER2> They should have called it clay (you know, model stuff, like with clay ;); the first thing I thought of was <http://www.cray.com> supercomputers. Maybe that was intentional.

After browsing the source, it seems they are using Java2D primitives, specifically BufferedImage to do textures and shaders. I wonder if this project could use JOGL bindings...

EDIT: btw, I meant to say that this looks pretty badass

<comment><USER3> > I wonder if this project could use JOGL bindings...

It wouldn't make much sense. Opengl is for realtime 3d graphics. Here you just output the final rendered image, which is a bitmap.

<comment><USER4> Right, although there are options to combine the two.

Shader language can be used to write raytracers running entirely on the GPU, rendering the output to merely two textured triangles streched over the screen.

However as we are talking about Clojure, not shader languages, an alternative way would be offloading some of the weight lifting to OpenGL, for example by calculating visibility using the videocard's z-buffers or creating shadow maps by rendering the scene from the lights' viewpoint into shadow buffers and using the results in the raytracer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looking at it made me curious. Is there any ray tracer that includes the effects of gravity when tracing the rays? You would have to model in terms of solids and give materials densities.

It would be a really interesting project.

<comment><USER6> Unless you were planning on ray-tracing a scene near a black hole, what good would this be?

<comment><USER5> This is _hacker_ news. It doesn't need to be good for something as long as it's cool.

<comment><USER7> How would you know it was working?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a sample image below which it says "First results, 83 lines of code." Is that the total number of source lines in that version of the raytracer? Wow! I mean, the sample doesn't look especially beautiful, but 83!! WOW!!

<comment><USER9> Hi there, I wrote this ray tracer. Thanks to everyone for your positive comments. I don't have a copy of that version any more, but it was 83 lines from start to finish, including the scene description and dealing with Java to display the image. No AA or multi-CPU support, but point-light sources and reflection, and a little general-purpose vector library.

There was probably more code on each line than is typical Lisp style, though.

There are some techniques in the code for getting good performance (as good as Java at least) for mathematical routines - the JVM is the limiting factor rather than Clojure.

I hope it helps to show that Clojure is a practical language, since the concepts in it are going to be important in the near future. Also, if anyone is impressed by shiny spheres and wants to talk of entrepreneurial things, email's on the project page. :)</comment></comment>


Animated Algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://www.algomation.com/ <comment><USER2> Featured algorithms are on the homepage or these are good examples of the site:

[http://www.algomation.com/algorithm/towers-hanoi- recursive-v...](http://www.algomation.com/algorithm/towers-hanoi-recursive- visualization)

[http://www.algomation.com/algorithm/dijkstra-graph- shortest-...](http://www.algomation.com/algorithm/dijkstra-graph-shortest- path-london-underground)

[http://www.algomation.com/algorithm/reversi-othello- engine-n...](http://www.algomation.com/algorithm/reversi-othello-engine- negamax-zobrist-history-heuristic)

[http://www.algomation.com/algorithm/heap-sort-priority- queue](http://www.algomation.com/algorithm/heap-sort-priority-queue)

</comment><comment><USER3> Instead of the animation speed setting it should have a slider (like, for instance, here [http://debug.elm-lang.org/edit/Mario.elm](http://debug.elm- lang.org/edit/Mario.elm)). Otherwise, it's more like a nice animation than a learning tool.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great site! I would suggest a list of "related algorithms" on each animation, for example if you want to look through all the sorting algorithms.

<comment><USER2> ...working on a search term extraction algorithm as we speak :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure if the site is having issues, or if I am just searching the wrong algorithms :(

Can you link me directly to an algorithm to check out the animation?

<comment><USER6> Nothing showing up for me either, a search for "quicksort" returns zero results.

<comment><USER7> Searching for "Quick Sort" on the other hand returns results for me. Not sure if it's just a case of a different naming convention and finicky search, or intermittent site issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is really great. I always wished something like this existed when I was going through CS undergrad (and grad, for that matter). Have you tried reaching out to any CS professors to tell them about it? You might also spread the word by telling some "coding interview" blogs about it.

<comment><USER9> Feature plea: it would be awesome to have legible YouTube screencast videos of all the algorithms from sites like this for lecture purposes.

I teach various CS classes and love using these kinds of sites. It really is a powerful way to demonstrate concepts. Usually what I do is go to the site, choose an algorithm, then show the algorithm working with the default options. Then I'll change a few options and try it again. Then I might pick a different algorithm and do another demo. Then I'll share the link with the class and encourage students to experiment on their own to really understand the algorithm.

It would be convenient to have screencast demos doing the exact same thing as a backup for lectures in case there are any problems. Problems I've encountered: general Flash/JavaScript failure, projected screen resolution so bad that the site is unusable, site temporarily slow or down, sites with ads showing inappropriate content for classroom use. Video backup lets me not worry about any of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sadly the website seems to have fallen over for me.

I am really interested in how it works. From what I could see it seems a bit more cumbersome, than my approach of a using full JS interpreter: [http://will.thimbleby.net/algorithms/doku.php?id=bubble_sort](http://will.thimbleby.net/algorithms/doku.php?id=bubble_sort)

<comment><USER2> agreed, but compiling the code does have the benefit of providing syntax checking and you are assured the full benefits of whatever JS engine your browser is running. How do I create new algorithms on you site? I could not figure that out.

<comment><USER10> I make use of Tailspin [1], which is a JS-in-JS interpreter and almost fully ES262 compliant. The visualisation gets called on every line of code and updates itself based on inspecting the interpreter state.

Two benefits are, the visualisation code is kept completely separate from the code being visualised. And secondly Tailspin offers the ability to step back in time.

In terms of creating algorithms, it's a bit of an awkward wiki syntax at the moment, see the tutorial [2] and bubble sort example [3].

[1] [http://wthimbleby.github.io/tailspin/](http://wthimbleby.github.io/tailspin/) [2] [http://will.thimbleby.net/algorithms/doku.php?id=creating_an...](http://will.thimbleby.net/algorithms/doku.php?id=creating_an_algorithm) [3] [http://will.thimbleby.net/algorithms/doku.php?id=algorithm:b...](http://will.thimbleby.net/algorithms/doku.php?id=algorithm:bubble_sort)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When you restart a visualization, it automatically switches back to 'continuous' even if you had single-step selected. Making it easier to start from the very beginning would be beneficial I think. Just a suggestion.

</comment><comment><USER12> Very pretty, reminds me of [http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~galles/visualization/Algorithms.htm...](http://www.cs.usfca.edu/~galles/visualization/Algorithms.html)

<comment><USER13> Another cool algorithm animation site: [http://rosulek.github.io/vamonos/demos/](http://rosulek.github.io/vamonos/demos/) uses Vamonos ([http://rosulek.github.io/vamonos/](http://rosulek.github.io/vamonos/)). However, it looks like you have to write the algorithm twice, once in pseudocode to present to the reader and once in javascript to execute. In the Javascript code, you annotate the execution with the corresponding lines in the pseudocode so that the library can show what's executing.

I haven't dug into Vamono to figure out how that interacts with the browser's event loop. Duncan's use of ES6 generators for that interaction is clever, as is Will's Tailspin JS interpreter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Djikstra's Shortest Path crashes my browser (Chrome 37.0.2062.120)

</comment><comment><USER15> Needs a caching algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nice! I don't understand how to link the algorithm to an animation when creating a new algorithm? I'm clearly missing something.

</comment><comment><USER17> [http://www.algomation.com/search?q=bogosort](http://www.algomation.com/search?q=bogosort)

nothing :P

</comment><comment><USER18> Damn where was this while I was in university! I'm definitely a visual learner and these are great! Thanks OP.

</comment><comment><USER19> traffic issues aside, great job. Quality resource, will recomend to cs undergrad friends

</comment><comment><USER2> I added a few more dynos...nice and smooth now. Apologies. -duncan meech

</comment><comment><USER20> I desperately need delaunay triangulation

</comment><comment><USER21> Appears to be falling over.

</comment><comment><USER22> Just searched for bubble sort.

Impressive! So much easier when you get to see an animation of what it does

[http://www.algomation.com/algorithm/bubble-sort- optimized](http://www.algomation.com/algorithm/bubble-sort-optimized)

</comment><comment><USER23> site doesn't work on my browser- this is 2014.

<comment><USER24> What browser are you using?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does it really need to reload the whole page to change to a new algo? Creates a crazy history trail you'll have to backspam through.</comment>


Ask HN: Why did famous.js fail? - <AUTHOR> Why didn't famous.js succeed take off? cf:http://deprecated.famous.org/<p>This seems vastly superior (more logical, determnistic, and appropriate for modern web development than html+css) to a lot of the other options out there. <comment><USER2> It's a bit of a baseless gimmick when it comes to 3D... gives you nothing much over a good understanding of CSS and geometry... which is probably good, but what did it give us for 2D?

</comment><comment><USER3> My personal opinion: They failed because they launched big and didn't let people use it. I remember first signing up for beta, waiting, waiting, and waiting, and never getting an invite. I even tweeted at them but never got a response. They seemed to be only focused on creating buzz in silicon valley without actually letting people use their platform, maybe they thought that was marketing. But what good is marketing when no one can use the product? Later on they eventually opened up but it was too late. No developer likes to build on a platform that's going down.

</comment><comment><USER4> It seems as though it's entirely code driven. We've largely decided that declarative langues (html, xaml) are better for building user interfaces. This looks more like swing for the web.

<comment><USER5> >> We've largely decided that declarative langues (html, xaml) are better for building user interfaces.

On the other hand, many of us decided the exact opposite.

Check the history ?. Declarative UIs has been around for, what 30-40 years, and they don't seem to be actually gaining any share.

They invariably look super-useful and productive when you build "my first app". Typically it is a "ToDo list".

Then you start using it to build something larger and then you swear a lot, and eventually realize that the whole premise is flawed, and then you decide never to use declarative UIs again, ever. lol.

<comment><USER4> "Check the history ?. Declarative UIs has been around for, what 30-40 years, and they don't seem to be actually gaining any share."

Really? Because HTML seems to be by far the most popular environment these days. many are even trying to push it to the desktop.

"Then you start using it to build something larger and then you swear a lot, and eventually realize that the whole premise is flawed, and then you decide never to use declarative UIs again, ever. lol."

What other abstractions are you using? If it was manipulating things based in jQuery selectors then I'd agree. But I find a combination with an MVVM framework (like knockout) it scales incredibly well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually hate html+css and other developers I know hate it too. I feel like it's wasting many developer hours. I think one of the reasons its so "popular" is that there's no alternative that is widely supported by browsers. I think it's unlikely that mass end-user adoption can be driven by a substantially better developer experience.

However there may be opportunities elsewhere . . .

<comment><USER4> Sure it's a pain at times. But is there any other tech that makes it so easy to build apps/sites that work on anything from from a widescreen desktop to a smart phone?

<comment><AUTHOR> There isn't one yet and that's the problem.

<comment><USER4> When/if there is one I'd expect it to share many of the traits that made html+css so successful.

In reality I'm expecting html+css to keep evolving and removing most of the pain points. Grids for example:

[https://www.w3.org/TR/css3-grid-layout/](https://www.w3.org/TR/css3-grid- layout/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think css+html has evolved and improved a lot. That's a good example.

But I think ultimately everything is being done to extend a legacy technology that was meant to add hyperlinking to texts and nothing more. I think a first- principles re-approach will be so much more powerful and free of the gravity of html+css constraints allowing developers to reach escape velocity.

<comment><USER4> XAML started off from a blank slate and got inferior (IMO) results. There are a lot of not so obvious upsides to html+css that often get thrown out.

Starting from scratch could be better in theory, but I'm doubtful that it will happen in practice anytime soon.

<comment><USER6> I agree starting from scratch is unlikely to happen. XAML however, wasn't helped by being built in the era when XML was perceived as the solution to every problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Didn't they also change scope entirely? When I signed in (and never got invited) it was more like a visualization library or something to do cool 3d stuff.. and then moved to UIs and mobile apps and whatnot when it came out.

Funny enough, the same exact thing happened with Outracks' "fuse", started as a tool (called Realtime Studio) for realtime GPU-driven, optionally interactive content like music visualization (had a slick demo for that) and demo-production (Outracks is also a demogroup) and then switched to a mobile UI tool all of the sudden. (at which point I started completely ignoring because it's completely not what I wanted)

</comment><comment><USER8> I tried to get into it a couple of times and I could never understand it. I don't think I'm particularly slow at picking up new stuff in general, for me the learning curve was just massive and I wasn't ever quite sure why it was worth the investment. Maybe if I was trying to do browser game dev or something but I've never needed a magic periodic table[1] in my everyday development life.

[1]: [http://disrupt.famo.us/periodic402/](http://disrupt.famo.us/periodic402/)

</comment><comment><USER9> they were solving a problem that people were not having in large enough numbers (yet).

yes, the DOM sucks and is slow no, neat 3d client effects are not what most people need _now_</comment>