Ask HN: Do you enjoy working in a coworking space? - <AUTHOR> Coworkings are still on the rise and people from startups, freelancers, and corporates are moving in.<p>To all my fellow coworkers - do you actually like working there? Why/ why not? <comment><USER6> I've been a solo dev for about 7 years now, these are my findings:

# Working from home ('free')

Working from home is great for about 6 months, then isolation kicks in and the divide between work and relaxing disappears. Given my situation (single, no kids) I quickly become very lonely. A separate in house office helps for a separation between work and not-work, as long as you have the discipline not to use your office space for something else. (locking your office after work hours helps).

# Renting an office (~1000 eur/month)

Can quickly become lonely as well, and can be quite expensive once you add costs for the cafeteria, internet, insurance etc. It does give you social interaction during lunch breaks, and no disturbance during work. There is also a very distinct separation of work and relax time. I did this for a couple of years, but once again I felt lonely and was craving for social interaction, a.k.a. colleagues.

# Coworking place (~300 eur/month)

This is my current setup, I rent a fixed desk in a large open space. In this space there are about ~8 fixed desks and about 10 flex spaces. We have sound insulated phone booths, so it's usually pretty quiet here. My 'coworkers' don't understand my work but that's ok. I use noise-canceling headphones when I need to concentrate. Personally I love it, it's been my favorite setup so far.

<comment><USER7> I think your specific situation has a HUGE impact on how much you'll enjoy working from home.

I'm married, have 4 kids, and I never feel lonely at home. I totally get how a single guy / gal with no kids would, though.

I never found any issues with dividing work / life, though. I have a dedicated office, and I believe it's a huge part of it.

<comment><USER8> I'm in the same situation. Renting small office, alone. When I need to work, I'm going to the office. Can't work from home - kids don't distinguish work hours from family hours. Having separate place for work is mental healthy.

<comment><USER7> I guess it's a matter of education. My kids know when I'm at work; I close my door. Doesn't mean they never bother me, but it's not too bad. When they do, I simply tell them no. My youngest still has a hard time with this, but she's only ~15 months old.

You have to be consistent with it, though.

<comment><USER9> I've heard of people making a name tag so their kids know when they're working, even if they're not in the office (e.g. taking a small break).

However, my biggest source of interruptions when my door is closed is my wife. I keep telling her to only bother me for "important" things, but we have very different definitions of "important". It's a work in progress and getting better everyday. I've considered renting some office space when I really need to focus, but so far I've been able to get enough done that I don't want to trade the benefits for a little more concentration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nah, I just work from home, you don't need a lot of space.

The smallest room we have (about 2m x 3m), which has a desk (couple of monitors, desktop, etc), a view, a door, a small rack (nothing particularly noisy), couple of cupboards, printer, and a pull down single bed for when mother-in-law stays the night.

So much more productive than if I go into an office and try to work, or try to work from a cafe or train. About the only time I come close to the level of productivity at home is when I have a specific task to do, and I'm on a plane with a decent amount of space and power, on a day flight (say an 11AM flight from Europe to the U.S, or a 9AM flight from India to Europe, with the window up)

An old friend has an even smaller setup, he put up a plywood wall at the end of his utility room, about 1.5m by 2m, and it's great. He has a whiteboard and stuff in view of the webcam for group design sessions.

Before we had kids, working from the kitchen table was fine too -- but I agree if you've got kids running around having a dedicated room does the trick.

I've seen a couple of people saying something along the lines of:

      people tend to treat you as if you are "at home" rather than "at work".

This is simply a failure on behalf of the person working to just say no. Nobody treats me as if I'm "at home".

<comment><USER11> I've worked from home for 11 years. Wife and I established from the beginning that we cannot treat it as if I'm "at home". I now have 7 children. Occasionally there are some disruptions, but generally speaking, if you layout the ground rules early, it doesn't have to be a problem. Routine trips to the grocery store, helping with the homeschooling, and brief tickle sessions help to not be isolated in my case.

<comment><USER12> > Routine trips to the grocery store, helping with the homeschooling, and > brief tickle sessions help to not be isolated in my case.

Doesn't that sort of betray your point that you're "at work" and not "at home?" I'm asking earnestly. I'm about to have twins and I work full-time from home, for the past 3 years and with no intention of going back to an office or to a co-working space.

I am trying now to get all of these sorts of ground rules decided on, and listed out, so that they can be established shortly after the children arrive.

My wife and most of my family already understand the "at work" vs. "at home" distinction and do their best to respect it on the rare occasions that they're around the house during a work day.

<comment><USER13> As a father of 5, I see these as the exceptions that prove the rule. Aside from these moments, there are few interruptions, so he gets to pick them or manages them, just as those of us at the office also know when an impromptu visit to the store or call with family will not disrupts our work or that of others on our team. We're not robots, after all, we need to be human/parents/children once in a while during our 8 hours service.

<comment><USER11> This right here. On the occasion I go out of town to meet up with coworkers, we break to play foosball or just take a 10 minute walk outside. That doesn't mean that all we do is break. Same thing goes for family at home. With clear communication even my 2 and 3 year olds get it. Daddy is working and every once in a while he comes out to see how everyone is doing, talk for a few minutes and then back at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've tried these 3 things:

1) Having my own office:

       PROS: no disturbances

       CONS: (even) more expensive than you might think, especially once you
       factor in heating/internet/coffee. Kind of boring with absolutely
       nobody to talk to and nothing going on. Can be a bit weird to invite
       people over.

2) Working from home:

       PROS: easy to get to work

       CONS: more distractions than you might think, especially if you have a
       family with small kids, because people tend to treat you as if you are
       "at home" rather than "at work". You really need to have a dedicated
       space in your house to even consider this. Some expenses (internet,
       electricity, general upkeep) are not be tax deductible since you are
       at home. Not super good for mental health since there is no real need
       to leave the house for days on end, and all your stressful work stuff
       becomes associated with your home.

3) Working in a coworking space:

       PROS: Nice space, (some) cool people, meeting rooms, a degree of community

       CONS: Easy to be "alone in the crowd". You need to make a concerted
       effort to make friends, and have people to eat lunch with.

<comment><USER15> I do work from home and am father of two small kids (3 and 1 years), both kids and my wife are stayign at home.

From the begining we set strict rules: my office is off place: nobody except of me can go inside, kids are taught that when I am inside I am not home and they just can't see me. I am also not going inside my office outside of my business hours.

With those rules in place it feels like having office outside with minimal commute.

<comment><USER16> How do you get around the problem of not leaving the house? I find that the biggest reason I go back to co-working is that it gives me an excuse to walk to the metro station and just be in the open air.

<comment><USER15> I always had hobies: I used to be into live music A LOT: I went out to gigs like 5 or 6 times a week, then there was always some friends around, wine tastings, mountain hiking or random trips on weekends. I have small kids now, so I dont go out very often but there is always hiking on weekends and I spend one day a week on my wine farm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Coworking spaces aren't about work. As a small business owner who uses a coworking space, my perspective is that it's about signaling that you are a real business with a business address. Working from home may work for freelancers or online only businesses, but the second you start signing contracts or having meetings, you need a professional space to be taken seriously.

That said, it's incredibly hard for me to get anything done in a noisy environment with no visual barriers and so many wantrepreneurs around. I like the coffee, camaraderie and event spaces, but for most days, working from home is sufficient.

<comment><USER18> At that point why not rent a small office? I don't know where you are, but small offices are usually pretty cheap. The thing that gets me about co- working space is that they are pretty expensive compared to normal office rents. The equivalent of studio apartment as an office in a building can be the same price as a co-working space.

<comment><USER13> Some coworking spaces, especially away from the city center, can be had for the cost of a cheap utility, like $30/month. That's one reason. But these are also privately run and maybe offer a step or two above a public library in terms of services. So there's a spectrum of places to get with features to match.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was searching for a new coworking space, and in the process learned that a very large library with gigabit internet existed near me. I love going to this library to work! It has cool water features that mask the noise and they even have dedicated sound proof study rooms I can rent for calls. Check out the awesome funky 70s style architecture: [https://www.google.com/search?q=huntington+beach+central+lib...](https://www.google.com/search?q=huntington+beach+central+library&client=safari&hl=en- us&prmd=mniv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiu0Z305pDgAhVhwcQHHbpIBloQ_AUoA3oECAkQAw&biw=414&bih=622)

<comment><USER20> Yes! There are a few others that are also good, like the one on Santa Monica. I think overall these tend to be better than co-working spaces.

But at the end of the day, it boils down to accountability. I realized it is actually really hard to stay focused and motivated to meet your goals when you have so much freedom.

What I mean is that by you actually paying for a co-working space, it creates accountability and the fact that you are paying it, forces you to go. It is a mind thing and that is a value you can't ignore.

So it's a catch-22.

<comment><USER21> That accountability doesn't work for everybody, of course.

I learned in school that gyms sell more memberships than their facilities have space to support. People think that by buying a membership, they're locking themselves into going and working out because they're paying for it.

Sometimes, however, people conflate paying for the gym membership as _actually going to the gym_ , and then don't go at all.

But yes, as you said: it boils down to accountability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am enjoying reading this thread. There are many pain points here that need to be solved. And I would love one day to run a decent sized makerspace / cafe myself ;)

Can attest to fact that coworking spaces in Metro US (NYC,DC,Boston) can be very crowded. My experience is somewhat limited as I typically attend during events. But have noticed the ratio of work to non-work socializing tends to be well below parity. Terrific for networking, though.

One simple hack is if you are in proximity of your college alma mater, you can obtain alumni library privileges. Typically under $100 per annum. Some facilities are open 24/7\. And going when majority of students are on break you have the whole place to yourself. Surrounded by that familiar scent of decaying tomes. And you can always seek inspiration by wandering the stacks.

My ideal space would have all the requirements of a modern software foundry, but still be steps from Nature. Colorado. Or perhaps a remote beach in Chile, with easy access to mountains and hiking and skiing. There is no better mental refreshment or rejuvenation than that!

</comment><comment><USER23> No. I work remote, and I tried all four co-working spaces in my current city after I moved here a few months ago, and didn't like any of them. I decided on just buying a desk and chair.

The biggest issue is that they're all open plan and all of them have music playing all the time, both of which suck. One of them had private offices as well, but they were tiny and window-less and didn't have height-adjustable anything; as 195cm guy that's not going to work.

In general I find that after working from home for two years that I'm really struggling with a "real" office environment. I'm just so used at being able to control my environment now that going back to an office feels terribly constricting.

<comment><USER24> I've tried and failed to picture myself in an open plan. I realize in my cube when I'm debugging something hairy I talk to myself, swearing at the hardware and my mistakes and life. For my own sake and those around me I really need to be in either an office, a soundproofed cubical with tolerant cow-workers, or an asylum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I dislike coworking spaces. For a solo developer, they offer a lot of distraction. You're stuck in one place which defeats the purpose of getting out of the house for inspiration. For a team, it becomes very hard to create company culture. It feels like you're an empire without a fortress. I'd rent an apartment over a coworking any day for the team.

What I now tend to prefer are other cafes frequented by other designers and developers, or new private member clubs. These clubs offer a lot of stimulus for freelancers and you're surrounded by people of various different fields, which sparks interesting discussions.

<comment><USER26> _> > These clubs offer a lot of stimulus for freelancers and you're surrounded by people of various different fields, which sparks interesting discussions._

Could you elaborate on how cafes frequented by other designers and developers, or even private member clubs, differ from coworking spaces? I'm ignorant and am unclear how coworking spaces would not also offer a lot of stimulus for freelancers and not let you be surrounded by people of various different fields, which sparks interesting discussions.

It seems like the distractions are the same, just in one locale, the distractions are attractive, while in the other locale, the distractions are not attractive, and I'm not clear why this would be the case.

<comment><USER25> Because coworking spaces are full of employees of other companies, while working cafes are usually solo people working in super focussed fashion. There's no foosball table. No startup kool-aid. It's the same with private members clubs. Usually it is the founders, investors, lawyers, reasonably successful people in whatever field they work in. The networking opportunity is immense, and it's usually a better atmosphere.

I'm sure a coworking space could maybe screen their candidates and employ a deep work culture. But so far they are focussed on free coffee, big TVs with Playstations, beer on tap and ping pong tables.

<comment><USER27> Your posts are very black-and-white. Not all coworking spaces are kool-aid- foosball, nor are all cafes filled with successful people just longing to network with you.

<comment><USER28> Not just that but sounds like a completely different world from my experience. I travel around and work from coworking spaces a lot, I have seen more than ~20 different ones but have never seen any coworking space with a ping pong table, foosball table, big TVs with playstations or a large amount of people working for a specific company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't really enjoy working anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER30> I currently work in an open-floor office in a Wework. Yes, it is distracting at times, especially since I know other people in the Wework and we often have spontaneous conversations.

However, I like it much better than working from home because I want to completely separate my work and home environments. This way, I can develop a different mindset in each environment, as opposed to a weird hybrid of always- relaxing/alway-working if I try to work from home. Also, I'm the type of person that simply can't focus at home because:

1\. it's too quiet 2\. there's always a couch/bed for a "quick" nap 3\. there's always an excuse to do household things instead of work

On the other hand, I know the moment I get into the office, #2 and #3 aren't possible and there are other people working their butts off, and that's helped my productivity.

Granted, I think a majority of research on open-floor offices actually shows that it's detrimental to both productivity and socializing: [http://find.xyz/map/effectiveness-of-open-floor- plans](http://find.xyz/map/effectiveness-of-open-floor-plans).

Maybe I'm just the exception (or maybe I'm just fooling myself into thinking I'm productive), but anecdotally I'd say working in a coworking space has been a net-positive for me.

<comment><USER31> I'm with you on #2 and #3. But I guess I've just learned to embrace it. Yeah...my day no longer has a defined start/stop, but I'm OK with that. Sometimes I just like doing laundry on a Thursday at 2PM :)

It has lightened my stress significantly by accepting it. There are days that I "work" 16 hours broken into 2 hour chunks with 30 to 60 minute breaks. And there are days where I'm hyper productive and work for 5 or 6 hours straight. I like the flexibility. I always felt stressed when in an office and needing to "be productive" for 8 hours (well...6).

It definitely helps if your employer truly embraces remote work vs. just "work from home but keep your normal hours and be available for phone calls just like if I were to stop by your desk randomly"

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Here's my not coworking solution which has the advantage of letting you sing along with Bon Jovi at the top of your voice.

I built a 2x3m shed/office. Windows are second hand double glazed windows from gumtree. Power and ethernet are cables tacked to house, under a path and then running over ground under hedge. I used fallen branches from a local park to make a little fence so I cant run lawnmower over cables.

Heating was tricky. I landed with a 500w electric heater and raspberry pi as a thermostat. Optical relay and temerature sensor cost about £5. I have a cron job checking the temerature every 2 minutes and turning heater on/off for a target temperature. Some old computer fans blow the hot air at my feet.

Been working out there happily for 3 years.

<comment><USER33> If anyone wants to see the kinds of offices and studios other people have built this way, do a search for "Shedquarters".

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I recently (11 months ago) moved to a large city - Buenos Aires - from an almost-a-town city (100K people). We moved from a 140 square meter house where I had a large room all for my own as office (also doubled as gym) to a 35 sq meter apartment. So, my wife gave me an ultimatum: there's no way in hell you're going to keep working at home. I had to search for a coworking space, I found one really close (10 minutes by bike), that also happens to be the cheapest in the city by far and started working there. Even thought I still maintain that there's no match to working from home, I find that working there has the incredible benefit of allowing for networking (Even thought the teams in this particular coworking space are rather closed), plus sets very defined boundaries between work and personal life. As a personal benefit, I'm quite the hermit, where I'd go several days without leaving the house except for grocery shopping, so being forced to actually go out is a plus.

</comment><comment><USER35> I prefer working at a cafe. Coworkings remind me about awful jobs at office spaces. At a cafe, I feel more freedom that I can change my working place every day. If you pay for coworking, you have to go there every day. What is the difference between an office job and a freelance job? With freelancing, you can work from anywhere. Startups and corporates move in coworking because it might be cheaper to rent.

<comment><USER36> Some coworking spaces do have better atmosphere than a cafe. But those can be deep in the city, expensive, high traffic, which would also feel like an office job.

<comment><USER35> I will find a cafe with my atmosphere. BTW, I met my wife at a cafe. She was freelancing there as I was!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> During my 15 years as a freelancer I've tried many things: coworking, working from coffee shops, libraries, private office, sharing office with one another freelancer and working from home (both corner in bedroom and dedicated home office).

Coworking for me is the worst from both private world (home office or private office) and public world (like coffee shop. In coworking I am easily distracted by people walking around and am not really comfortable just talking myself loud or pacing around. Something I really like to do when designing new systems or trying to debug some complicated case.

Everybody is different, but for me and my line of work I like to work in my dedicated home office and then, maybe once a week, go out to my local coffee shop for a hour where I do planning, reading or some admin work. When I have to do a lot of thinking/planning I usually take a tram to downtown area and just spend day walking and visiting various coffee shops.

I am sure it is not for everybody and there is very little social time during my days, but I have enough social time outside of work.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've had a few jobs at smaller companies in WeWork's, and I'd advise staying away from them in particular. The whole thing feels like some nightmarish version of what a committee thinks millennials want in an office. It's expensive, loud, and a creepy environment for the most part. The offices we had were nice though; at least the glass partitions made it feel a bit more open, compared to other coworking spaces where an interior room had no windows at all. I have no idea if that's all of them though.

</comment><comment><USER38> I loathe offices, coworking spaces, and cafes. I need a clean environment free of distractions to focus. It took a few years to adjust to this initially but I'll never go back. I don't feel the compulsion to have meaningless social interactions with strangers - maybe I am unique in that way.

</comment><comment><USER39> No. I enjoy working absolutely alone. I rent a private office now. If I wanted people in my work space, I wouuldn't go full remote in the first place.

<comment><USER40> How did you bootstrap the process of working alone? Did you start working on the side while having a non-remote job?

<comment><USER39> Tried to build a startup, failed, recovered by doing consulting work.

<comment><USER40> Now I want to try the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I can block certain people from Facebook and Linked In, but those people are very active in coworking spaces. They're the type who love to mingle and promote themselves as experts, talk above others, completely ignoring that other people are focused on doing their own thing.

At least if you work in a company open office, your boss tries to prevent it from happening.

</comment><comment><USER41> As a solo developer, I love it.

I focus much better out of the house, I get a _lot_ of value and sanity out of the day to day social bits that I'd otherwise miss out on outside of an office environment, and I don't find it particularly distracting.

Good noise cancelling headphones especially have worked great for me - I've got Jabra Evolve 80s bought by a previous employer, and they've super effective. It helps that it's only light background chatter at worse - <USER2> culture where I am is pretty clear about not having any more than that at the desks (go get a meeting room, or go chill out in the cafe instead).

</comment><comment><USER42> No. It sucks but I make do with headphones.

WeWork is the noisiest fuckig shit show in existence.

<comment><USER43> I can't stand how poorly sound-isolated the conference rooms and offices are. I have literally been standing outside a conference room, waiting for my meeting to start, and overheard the details of a company shutting down. The private offices that we pay good money for aren't much better. Because they use single-paned glass (cheap) you can hear every foot step, conversation, or other random noise from any office or hallway near you.

What's even more hilarious? Our door locks seized closed for a couple of days, and their fix was to just open all of the locks and leave the entire WeWork unlocked with a single security guard there during business hours. Ridiculous.

<comment><USER44> I think there are pretty big differences between people in terms of how much sound insulation they actually want. I find that the insulation provided by the single (floor to ceiling) pane of glass in a WeWork office is more than enough for my tastes. I usually leave the door open if I'm in the office alone.

I have never overheard a conversation in an adjacent office. You can sometimes hear what people in the hallway are saying, which doesn't bother me at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Not really. All I want is an isolated box where I can enjoy silence and being sure nobody will ever see my screen while walking by. Sense of being watched (even occasionally) is what totally kills my productivity and silence is what helps me to concentrate. Nevertheless, as long as I'm sitting my back to the wall so nobody can see my screen and as long as there is not too much noise, friendly strangers hanging out around feel nice (kind of like a human aquarium) so I enjoy working in StarBucks during their low hours occasionally.

</comment><comment><USER46> Not sure linking enjoyment directly to work is a good idea. Coworking spaces work better for me than home or cafes because there are fewer distractions, better internet, relatively good security at least in terms of laptops not suddenly disappearing. Sometimes it is possible to socialize and make relevant and interesting connections and sometimes the people suck and are mean and rude but that can be a useful and strengthening exercise to deal with. Coworking spaces vary hugely in their configuration and clientele.

</comment><comment><USER47> No. I used to work as a programmer for Nokia and was with 50 people in a co- working space with different groups (administration, developer, service, etc.). I find that exhausting. Someone kept arriving to ask me questions about computer problems. Every few minutes someone comes and wants to have a cup of coffee or go for a smoke. As an Asperger, I don't like open offices and I personally prefer a single small room with a door that I can close.

<comment><USER48> Same for me. There is no type of working space that offers even minimal required functionality to perform the basics of a programming job other than a single-occupancy private office with a door that closes for privacy.

Not to mention that all the research indicates this turns out to be cheaper than open plan / cubicle / pod / etc. layouts after factoring in productivity losses from those layouts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Previous to working at my current company, I was at a startup working in a coworking space, and I also previously had been at a startup in its own space. Overall, the quality of the space was better in the coworking space. There were also benefits to having more "networking" opportunities (i.e., just talking to people that sit near you). We were able to share knowledge across companies, which was always very valuable.

A lot depends on the particulars of the coworking space. One space I worked in ( [https://www.grandcentraltech.com/](https://www.grandcentraltech.com/) ) was laid out not as one giant space, but rather conference rooms broke up the space so that desks were in clusters of 12-18. It was a nice balance between not paying a premium for your own room while also dealing with the noise that comes from a completely wide open space.

You do need to think about security a bit differently. Our startup was a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), and to test out our tech we had a whole bunch of phones. As much as possible, we had to keep them locked up.

The first start-up I worked for was before coworking spaces were as big a deal. The space was tolerable, but not great.

</comment><comment><USER50> I like some co-working spaces, but it really depends on the space, and the culture around that particular space.

DOJO in Kuala Lumpur stands out to me as a co-working space with an excellent culture.

I don't use them regularly however, because I think they're quite expensive.

It's often much better to work from a library. Libraries are usually quiet, and in many cases free to enter, very beautiful, and have no social pressure to buy things every so often.

</comment><comment><USER51> The problem I have found with co-working spaces is that most people manage to work without causing disturbance to others but there are always one or two people who's sole reason for being there seems to be the exact opposite.

The biggest offenders are the one-man call centres with the hipster startup crowd coming a close second.

Ironically, there is always a clause in the agreement about not causing a disturbance but, in my experience, it's never enforced.

I was fortunate once to get an office in an architect's studio in Spain for 120 euro a month, everything included. He simply had too much space and was happy for someone else just to make a contribution to monthly overheads. Although I could work behind a closed door it was nice to have the odd casual chat and to have someone to say good morning to.

Unfortunately, he owned the whole building and decided to update the lift and staircase (we were on the top floor) and after 4 months of banging a drilling with no sign of progress I simply lost patience and left.

So yeah, a private office is ideal but it isn't always the end of your problems.

</comment><comment><USER52> No.

Every single time someone gets up and walks around, they are in my line of sight, and the movement distracts me. When people argue or cough or speak, it is distracting. All of that takes me out of Raphael's 'sleeping while being awake' that is when I write my best code.

The alternative is to face away from everyone else, meaning my monitor is visible to everything, which causes my brain to flip out a little bit and makes me feel like I'm being watched over, which isn't good for concentration either.

At my last job, we had a room with desks set up with monitors, and I would usually hide away there -- at least on the days I didn't work from home. Unfortunately I think my manager would look around and assume that I simply was working from home. In my opinion being present at the office is an ancillary issue that is orthogonal to what the company _actually_ wants from me, which is effective communication and well-written code and documentation with good task-execution.

</comment><comment><USER53> For me, the main benefit of coworking has been the community. It's been great to chat with someone else who needs a break or to go get lunch/coffee with people. The second big benefit is that I am more productive than when at home (too many things I can use to procrastinate).

Really, the only drawback is that I don't have a dedicated space because all the offices are full right now. I thrive in noisy environments and many of the drawbacks (visual barriers, wantrepreneurs, slow internet) for others don't apply in my case.

Also, I helped open this space (the only one in a city of ~100,000) and have been involved in the community from the beginning.

EDIT: I've worked in a few coworking spaces around the US and these pros/cons still generally apply for me.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm shifting to a coworking space after working from home for the last 5 months. I've worked in co-working spaces and my home intermittently for the last 3 years.

I've found that working from home for too long tends to build "cabin fever" in me. I start itching to get out of the house on weekends and meet some people.

I don't like co-working spaces, especially since the ones near me don't have quiet private offices. And I still haven't gotten around to the awkwardness of the "community" meetups where everyone puffs up and exaggerates what they do.

But as for now, that's the only alternative I have to working from home.

</comment><comment><USER54> Yes, kind of. I really enjoy the change of the environment and someone to talk to for a while. I'm doing one day a week from the coworking space and the rest from home.

But I also enjoy any change in general, even if the environment is objectively worse. I'm more productive in a day working from car service waiting room than on a normal day after a week at home. Or in a cafe. Or on a train/plane. Or other much weirder places. (Even if I'm using my laptop actually on my lap, in a terrible seat) I have a great, comfortable setup at home - but the occasional change really helps.

</comment><comment><USER55> No. Its like trying to work in the middle of a prison cafeteria.

</comment><comment><USER56> Totally.

I initially started to go to a coworking space in order to get more focus than when working form home.

I got the following extra benefits by coworking:

* built a network * made friends * found clients * found providers and partners * found inspiration

I tried about a dozen spaces in different cities and countries. Experience may greatly vary from one space to the other. Find one that fits you.

</comment><comment><USER57> I echo the same sentiment as other commenters in this thread. I have tried all possible routes and here's my findings:

1\. Working from home

This is possibly the worst decision I've made because, the disconnect between work and leisure disappears and either of the two things will happen - <USER3> will either end up working 24/7 or you will relax more often than you would in a proper office environment.

If you have a large house with an office room in the ground floor and the rest of your rooms upstairs, it can work. But then, there is very little friction to stop you from moving out of that room to watch TV, play with your dog, etc.

The other thing is it's super hard to control external distractions - <USER4> guests visiting, delivery guys, etc.

I don't recommend working from home if you can avoid it. But I do understand not everyone can afford office spaces and home offices are basically free.

2\. Proper office spaces

I rented out an office space with a provider for about a year. It was very expensive and on top of a city center, but the experience was amazing. I had a private room for myself with a really beautiful view of the beach nearby. There was a receptionist I hired, who would take care of and filter out all the noise. I had absolute tranquility and was very, very productive.

In my view, this is the best bang for your buck as when clients visit your office, they know you're not joking around and you have proper office space that gives them the confidence, especially if they're corporates.

3\. Co-working spaces

The idea seems nice on paper, but it was really terrible. It's only terrible because I have to pay money for it. It's literally a Starbucks experience you pay $300-400 per month for. People will fight for charging ports, talk so loud, keep interrupting you for random reasons, etc.

I absolutely think co-working spaces have the least value for money. In fact the co-working space owners know this themselves, which is why you will often see them try to attract customers by saying they host events, invite investors every month, things like that. But, the value isn't there for me.

4\. Coffeeshops and Public libraries

These days, I'm on constant travel and hence I usually find out the nearest public libraries and take my laptop there. Usually they have ample space, so I'm not taking away any readers' space and it's dead silent and as a bonus you get free Wi-Fi too. The next best alternative is Starbucks, but you better invest in a good noise cancellation headphone (I use a Bose).

</comment><comment><USER58> Not really. My experience so far is:

1\. They're usually too noisy, meaning it's easy to hear the entire floor from any office or seating area located there. This is especially bad with loud sales teams (which quite a few startups will need).

2\. The reliability of the infrastructure is poor compared to an office you yourself own/rent. Seriously, in the last WeWork I was in, we had the internet go down for hours twice, the microwave explode three times, the toilets fail or have issues on a semi regular basis and keycards stop working for people every other week or so. We also had them refuse to provide the latter for larger teams, so hey, some poor shmuck got stuck sitting in reception till someone else came in.

3\. Just dealing with so many others in a small environment is annoying in of itself.

But hey, not sure whether those issues are more with coworking as a concept or certain ones being really poorly managed/maintained.

<comment><USER59> Amen. I recently started at a WeWork and have had similar experiences.

* The noise levels are crazy, and we're not even in an open office plan. We share a wall with a conference room and I swear they must be made of tissue paper because it feels like 20+ people are in my little 3 person block every other day. The isolation from the other glass offices isn't great either.

* There's a lot of little things I took for granted from my old, cubicled gig, like eating at your desk. I'm a big proponent of actually eating in the break room, but you can't here. They've got hundreds of people per floor, but only a handful of tables, which are of course being used by people working or having impromptu meetings. But you can't bring your food into your office, because anything outside of a cold mayonnaise sandwich is going to stink up your little three person fishbowl to high heaven.

* Our whole building feels weirdly cramped. The kitchen in particular, only has enough room for two folks to stand next to each other at a time. Is someone heating their food while another person gets a glass of water? Congratulation, you better sit down and crack open a book and hope the coffee's still warm when you're able to get to the other side.

* Dogs. I get, I do. I love dogs. Great, furry, lovable little fucks. I don't like having to constantly look underfoot to make sure sure I'm not accidentally stepping on a labradoodle tail that's dangling out into the hallway. I don't like dobermans begging me for food at lunch. I don't like having to fight a golden retriever because I'm trying to get some damn ice and it's real, real curious about what's inside this vibrating box. I don't like having a goddamn chihuahua walk in under my toilet stall door.

* The lighting system in ours is also a nightmare. Too bright when it's on. No memory, you can't set a permanent dim and even if you could this causes it to buzz quite audibly. But the worst part is that it turns on when it detects movement and turns off when it doesn't, with no way to shut this behavior off. I'm usually the first into the office so that first hour... _code for a few minutes_ _lights go off_ _take a sip of water_ _lights_ immediately go on* _code for a few minutes_ _lights go off_ etc, etc, etc.

I will admit I prefer it to exclusively working from home. We tried that and by week 3 the loneliness was overwhelming (though you definitely still feel lonely when the people around you aren't coworkers either.)

<comment><USER58> Ah yeah, forgot about the automatic lights. Those things are an absolute pain.

It also reminded me of another issue (which may or may not be a general WeWork issue). Lifts/elevators. I swear these things are programmed in the least useful ways possible in these buildings, since they seem to think the floor with the reception area is more important than anywhere else in the building. So you'll be on say floor 3, request a lift, notice one's at floor 4, then notice said lift goes to floor 7 first for reasons no one quite knows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> No. I tried it and it was no different than working in an open office. So I either work from home or I work in a space I rent with three fellow consultants. $500 with all utils in a walkable city and decent food nearby.

Why would I want to deal with the same open office problems? Smelly perfume, still loud with headphone and nosy people.

</comment><comment><USER61> I've been working out of a co-working space for the past six years. Pros:

* It's a physical space away from home. That helps create a mental separation which helps me focus.

* You're around people in the same grind as you. When I was working on a startup, I could share war stories with other founders.

* Leads - when I started consulting, I got my first couple leads from others in the co-working space.

* Signaling - if you're a business, it's important to signal that you run a professional establishment. Sometimes I'll book a meeting room with a new client at the space just to signal this.

Cons:

* They can be noisy, especially if you are around sales folks. I've only been to open seating spaces however so my view is limited.

* They can be costly. I lucked out here - I used to pay $400/month for a dedicated desk in NYC and I pay $150/month now for a floating desk. These prices are way below the norm for the area.

All in all, worth it IMO.

</comment><comment><USER62> I work from home office. I used to live in SF in a 1-bedroom. I decided to move 30mins outside of the city get a 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom house with a backyard for nearly half as much rent. I turned one of the bedrooms into a gym. The office has its own bathroom so I never have to feel like I'm home by having to go to the bathroom downstairs.

My first though was before starting my startup to move out of SV somewhere cheaper, like Utah. But the idea came to me when I was searching properties online if you go 30-45mins outside of SF you gain most of the benefits of moving out of SF ie. lower rent, more open spaces, etc. and with little to no cost ie. losing proximity to SF, I'm a quick drive away, now where as if I lived in Utah I'd have to book a flight every time and probably wouldn't meet with any people, visit companies etc.

</comment><comment><USER63> I work from home most of the time, because I prefer to be at home with my wife and our cat. But sometimes it's nice to sit in a cafe or a coworking space.

I also work late at night so that I have a lot of overlap with the US (I'm in Thailand.) There are plenty of 24 hour coworking spaces here, and it's very safe to walk around at night, but I just prefer to be at home.

I'd probably spend a lot more time there if I was single. And I might go more often if I was in Canada / US / South America. Then I could have normal working hours at a coworking space and go home in the evening. I might also try to hire some people in the US to handle support and sales for my startup during business hours, and then I could work normal hours in Thailand, and I would spend more time at coworking spaces.

</comment><comment><USER64> I work from home most of the time and sometimes from this coworking space: [https://www.instagram.com/hafven/](https://www.instagram.com/hafven/)

I find myself more productive when working next to other people, from time to time. One of their coworking offices is for quiet working only (no talking) and it's easy to focus. I also get in touch with a lot of interesting and motivated people, in particular from startups, which is also a motivation for me.

Edit: I think it boils down to two things: being and staying motivated and getting in touch with people. And I think the building is gorgeous!

</comment><comment><USER65> This is in response to ordinaryperson's comment but I wanted to write it as a top level answer. Working from cafes can be awesome but make sure you're not a leech. My "decent cafe' customer checklist" is the following: \- Take the smallest available space (usually a table for 2 but they'll take the chair away for another table). - Buy at least 1 coffee (even the cheapest they have, espressos are usually ~2 euros) every 2 hours. - Buy lunch if possible. - <USER5> or write good reviews whenever you can. - Befriend workers/owner. - If they ask you to leave just leave, it's within their rights to do so.

Where I live the average price of a coworking space is 200 eur/month (hot desk). That's 10 eur/day (working days only). If you stay in the same cafe for 4-5 hours (which often is more than enough) you'll probably spend less (unless you always take a MochaPumpkinSpiceChristmasEasterChocolateCherryMatchaLatte).

It's really not that hard to be a decent customer. The only places I don't apply the checklist to are big chains (Starbucks, Costa, etc.). But they won't mind. I worked from countless cafes and never had a single complaint.

Once I worked in the same cafe for 2 months straight. After a couple of weeks the owner would literally invite me to stay as long as I wanted without even worrying about ordering anything. Regular customers really are an asset to a small business.

Plus another customer has no way of knowing how long someone was in the cafe' and he/she should be annoyed with all customers, not just the ones who have a laptop open.

\--

TL;DR: be a decent customer and nobody will get mad at you for bootstrapping your startup from a cafe'.

</comment><comment><USER66> Check out Capital One Cafe in your area.

It's new banking concept and partnership with Peet's Coffee. They provide a completely free coworking space for anyone.

And if you use your cap one card, you get 50% on all drinks.

Plus you get to network with other business owners.

Great working space.

</comment><comment><USER67> I've done both working from home and now co-working. Currently, I prefer co- working, but that's because I've become more of an entrepreneur and less "just" developer.

Yes, the separation of work and home is nice (and I walk to work, so a beneficial commute), but the networking opportunities and ability to meet in- person that the co-working space affords is invaluable as an entrepreneur. There are so many opportunities that "just happen" when you're in a space like this that I would miss out on being at home.

</comment><comment><USER68> I've worked in both open plan and private-office coworking spaces. Both sucked in different ways.

The open plan one was great for networking but distracting as all hell.

The private office one had glass walls (so minimal actual privacy), but nobody met anyone so there was no sense of community and the communal spaces (like kitchens) were a shit-show.

I have little difficulty concentrating at home, so I see little advantage in a co-working space. The communal one might be nice to have an occasional membership to for those days when you're feeling social and home is too lonely.

</comment><comment><USER69> No. I enjoy chatting and networking in a co-working space. But I don't find it the most productive of environments.

That said, I've not yet tried co-working in my current city, and a mate has kicked off a co-working space there, so I'm tempted to give it a go, partly to see if the experience differs, but also just to support the venture.

Mostly though, working in isolation (from home, or in a quiet office) is the best thing for me. After reading this thread though, I should probably invest in some really good noise cancelling headphones.

</comment><comment><USER70> I have only been to one coworking space, so maybe it's not representative, but I would never go back there again. It costs more than buying enough coffee to get them to leave you alone at a Dunkin Donuts and somehow the chairs are worse. Like, I am literally paying for three things: chair, table and wifi. All of the chairs were awful. It was a mix of low-end IKEA chairs, estate sale dining room chairs and those hard plastic chairs that they have for watching the school play in the cafeteria in middle school.

</comment><comment><USER71> I worked from a shared working space in Denver for six months. My partner and I both work from home and since the new year, I have moved back home to offset the cost. However, my partner is still in the space as having two people on calls is untenable. Currently, I still think the rates for coworking spaces are a bit high. Why not head to a different coffee shop daily? My opinion is still neutral. At this point, I don't see the value over working from home if you have an environment conducive to work.

<comment><USER72> I've done the 'try a different coffee shop' thing. It's cost-effective, but it's unpredictable. Let's say you arrive at 8AM; you'll face the morning rush of commuters, wait a long time to place your order, look around and realize there are no free tables.

Or, you arrive one day and your "usual table" is taken. Or that each time you get up to use the bathroom, you risk giving up your table to someone looking for a place to sit. Or that after a week or so, the baristas know you by name and you start feeling self-conscious about your squatting.

All these things seem small but can erode away your potential productivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I work part time for a startup in a coworking space and I enjoy it most of the time.

We have are usually 6-8 people in one room and it's not very noisy.

I like to have people around that work in the same field as me, but are not part of my company. Also, we have coworking wide lunch or talks a few times per month, so you get to know the people and their startups. It's quite interesting in my opinion.

I'm also the kind of person that prefers talking in person to voice/video chat.

The coffee is also quite good there.

</comment><comment><USER74> As a full-time remote developer I looked at some co-working spaces here in Richmond, VA. I can work at home just fine, but I miss seeing and talking to people. While I could afford the $250 a month. What I was getting was a noisy environment, thats about it. I much rather put the $3,000 a year in an IRA , vacation or just about anything else.

I think a meetup for remote workers once a week is probably best for me. I just haven't had the motivation to build that that :-/

<comment><USER75> What's the tech scene like in Richmond? I'm curious because I got an offer from Capital One at the Richmond location, but I'm worried that there aren't many other companies in the area. I've never worked outside of large cities.

<comment><USER74> Not very good, that (Capital One) is legitimately the only place worthwhile that reached out to me, but they require a 4 year degree. With that said, Northern Virginia and the DC area is just 1.5 hours away. So not much of a move and plenty tech there.

Richmond as a city is good. It's a small city, but I am from Salt Lake City so that's fine by me. There is enough to do here without the hustle and bustle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> I work from home most of the time and go to cafes for that "people around me" feeling. I will say that working from home has definite downsides. I spend my work time in a different part of the house from my downtime, for the most part, but there's still a weird blend of professional life and domestic life, and I find myself combining activities from both all day instead of having clear separations.

That said, I think the benefits are worth it.

</comment><comment><USER77> I've worked in and out of coworking spaces for the last ten years. I love them mostly for the ability to ride my bike to/from them. Of course, I could do this to a coffee shop, but I like the security of an office for my bike. Tip: ask if you can get a 10-day punch card. I've found some of them that'll do it; then you don't feel like you have to go in every day (if you're on a monthly agreement).

</comment><comment><USER78> Depends which ones. I like the smaller, casual, work-focused but friendly ones. Also flexible hours and not having events / meetups / parties is important.

Pricing-wise, from experience, the most expensive are rarely the best ones. Sometimes the free section of the coworking space is somewhat better than the paid section even (depends on a lot of factors, it makes it much easier to work with other people).

</comment><comment><USER79> Every open office plan or cowork office I've been in has made it almost impossible (coming from WFH) to concentrate and get things done. Having people visit to natter over things and the potential for shoulder surfing, surveillance, traffic capture drives me nuts. If you are an SA or working with private data cowork or public settings are not really an option.

</comment><comment><USER80> No.

I work in a shared office, but sometimes I'm the only person from my company there.

So you can end up feeling like you are in someone elses office, especially if you are surrounded by larger teams. There is also very little to no interaction between teams, so when you are sitting there on your own a lot you can start to feel like the weird outsider.

</comment><comment><USER81> I haven't had a great experience with co-working at all, I wish there was something like Breather where I live.

Has anyone here had experience with Breather.com?

I work from home but would really like to tap into that "private space" vibe now and then. Regus is available here but it feels like going to the "PC room" in 1999.

</comment><comment><USER82> I enjoy working on coffee shops, especially those that are branded as "coffice" type cafes. It's not an official coworking space, but the slight "time limit" (ie you have to keep buying coffee to stay) as well as having other people working around me definitely helps me focus.

</comment><comment><USER83> I enjoy co-working spaces for certain tasks. When I have work that doesn't require my 100% concentration, such as designing layouts, replying to emails and other admin, they are fine. Occasionally too noisy but fine.

If I _need to concentrate_ on something, I'll work from my office or home.

</comment><comment><USER84> I work from home 2x a week and my coworking space the other three. I like the social contact and the feeling of energy from being around other people. And the days at home I enjoy the solitude.

If you can find a good deal on a space, there is no reason you can't have your cake and eat it too.

</comment><comment><USER85> Nope. I rarely can focus. People are on the phones, moving a lot, talking with other people. Nope.

</comment><comment><USER86> Yes, as a remote worker (developer) I really like coworking spaces. Especially since I found one close from home (5 minutes biking).

\- Less distractions (especially when kids are home)

\- Can make friends with other coworkers

\- I enjoy having a (very short) commute to make a clear separation between work and not-work

</comment><comment><USER87> Not even considering one. Mostly because of cost, commute, and prolly my slightly autistic fear of people.

One nice alternative I've found is go to work to public libraries. One particular one in Auckland university has amazing ocean view and is completely free and quiet!

</comment><comment><USER88> Eh. I miss having a door I can hang a pull up bar from, walls that are not see through and are at least a little sound proof, and feeling like I have my own space. But it's a easy way to get started.

Have been in WeWork spaces and other coworking spaces.

</comment><comment><USER89> I can focus more in a co-working space as I can't procrastinate as much.

</comment><comment><USER90> Anybody think there is a real benefit to finding like minded/same focus freelancers or remote workers and getting together to work in a coffee spot or co working space?

<comment><USER91> > a real benefit to finding like minded/same focus freelancers or remote > workers

Absolutely yes, whether through chance meetings, networking events (ugh) or just common interests and meeting naturally.

Unfortunately most of the coworking spaces I've been at made bringing guests (and more than one) for more than an hour or two kind of a pain - which is fair, that seems like an abuse of the space.

I have had a lot of luck with hosting "Hack Nights" in my living room. I tell everyone to bring something to work on, and I provide food and beer/wine/tea/coffee. I've had people show up with their music synths and work on composing while someone else works on their drawing, and someone else codes. It's reasonably productive time and people who need help or opinions can easily seek them out from others at the same time.

The hack night concept works nicely because there's no pressure to work on the thing you're known for. If you're a genius programmer from 9-5, there's no reason you can't bring your scifi writing setup to work on instead. You still get to be a resource for others, while not just extending your own work day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> All the cons of an open office, and you have to pay to be there.

</comment><comment><USER93> Are there cowork spaces that have "quiet" floors/areas? It seems a lot of these places could learn from a basic university library space.

</comment><comment><USER94> I go to a co-working space once a month. I get less immediate work done that day, but the discussions we get in to are occasionally-term helpful.

</comment><comment><USER95> I tend to prefer cafes over co-working spaces, because I get about the same value (maybe even better coffee!), but at a much lower price.

<comment><USER96> As a cafe customer however it's irritating that you're taking up space for someone who'd like to sit down and drink their coffee.

Or to put it another way: you're saving yourself money but (potentially) at the expense of the cafe owner who loses walk-in customers b/c his place is filled with barely-paying squatters.

<comment><USER97> Not entirely. The guys is a frequenter which means recurring revenue, and making the cafe look lively is something that gives it social proof.

If the place has such a problem, they can mitigate it ofc. For example, you can limit the chargers for example (or arrange tables in a fashion that would limit it). Then the amount of squatters would be limited.

Also, as another commenter said, you can just turn the wifi down (or limit the time). You can even charge for the wifi.

<comment><USER26> Limiting the power outlets used to be effective until laptops started getting USB Type C. Now everyone can just bring a power bank to charge their laptop, right?

Charging for the Wi-Fi would probably have a greater effect, plus additional revenue stream, but then would this negatively impact the experience of other more casually sitting customers.

I would be curious to see the coffee purchase numbers for a working squatter vs other customers. If someone sits in a coffee shop for 6 to 10 hours a day, I can't imagine them buying only one coffee. People can get thirsty throughout the day. And if they get hungry too, well, that's additional revenue if the working squatter doesn't want to lose their spot just because they went for lunch. Or maybe they're on a roll, and can't afford to risk breaking their zone by going to a restaurant.

To determine whether the working squatter has a higher or lower sales per hour number would probably also depend on the cafe's sitting customer turnover per hour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> Hell no

</comment><comment><USER99> The problem with co-working spaces is that there are too many techies there. Sometimes they're fascinating and you want to engage with them, which destroys concentration (in a semi-welcome way), but more often-than not they're populated by self-involved extroverted tech-bros who won't shut up.

Home-office, cafes, parks and libraries have been my offices of choice as a remote worker for the past decade.

</comment><comment><USER100> I feel that none of the commentators actually runs a company. If you are a remote worker working from home is great. If you are a founder hate it or love it you NEED a coworking space if not for the actual space to work from then for the community, network, address, access to meeting rooms, discounts to conferences and connections.</comment>


Is Functional Programming the new Python?  - <AUTHOR> http://paulspontifications.blogspot.com/2008/05/is-functional-programming-new-python.html

<comment><USER2> The reason for the low variance in python solution times is a design feature: "there should be one -- and preferably only one -- obvious way to do it" (Guido).

Of course there is often more than one way to do anything in python. For instance, Guido prefers list comprehensions to using map even though both drop down to the C-layer for improved performance whereas iterating/looping generally does not. Most python programmers, however, seem to stay away from the functional programming aspects of python, if their code is any indication.

Although python has the basics of functional programming: map, reduce, lazy evaluation (for some iterators/generators), its support for lambda functions is clumsy and many advanced features (such as monads) are not present in the standard libraries at all. Python lets you experiment with functional programming but that's about it.

<comment><USER3> what about java's OOP only? why wouldn't the design lower variance?

my take is that java's high variability is caused by its verbosity: more codes = more 'moving parts' = more things that can go wrong

to disprove my theory, give me a verbose language with low variability in solution times

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems like FP is an ideal candidate for the Python Paradox. If, at this point, you draw in programmers who are genuinely fluent in a functional language, you know they're almost certainly smart, and you know they're almost certainly dedicated to their craft.

All you really need to figure out then is whether they'll crank out shipping code for you, instead of producing a really fascinating paper on the calculus of arrows or something.

</comment><comment><USER5> They have thier uses but will not be readily adopted as Python as it is too hard for most people to change thier thinking to functional programming.

<comment><USER6> That's even better for the argument being made, which is that Python used to be a good weeder language (since the only people who knew it tended to be real hackers) but it no longer is, because more people have learned it just to do their jobs. If functional languages are really too difficult to ever get widespread adoption (which I doubt), that makes it even more likely that functional languages are and will continue to be good languages to use if you want to attract only smart people.

Edit: your other comments in this thread also don't seem to be addressing the article. The article is running with the idea that more _obscure_ languages are better - because widespread adoption means that poorer programmers will learn it in order to get jobs.

<comment><USER7> <http://paulgraham.com/pypar.html>

<comment><USER6> Right. That's the exact same essay that the linked article was talking about...is there something you wanted to say about it?

<comment><USER7> I made sloppy link insert as a comment in haste, no real purpose or reason. I must have come into the discussion through user comment history from another article and thought the topic was on that other article. In essence I was replying just to the commenter and not the overall posted article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No. These languages have been around for a long time (I used ML in uni 10 years ago) and have never taken off in a big way.

</comment><comment><USER5> The test of time is the best test in my book, and hence they fail in this case as over time Python still seems to be the favoured.</comment>


What if famous brands had regular fonts?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.pixelonomics.com/famous-brands-logos-regular-fonts-regulabrands/

<comment><USER2> This is silly. What the hell is a "regular font"? If they mean fonts typically installed by default, why did they use Rockwell?

Audi's new logo is essentially Verdana; does it get more regular than that?

</comment><comment><USER3> The poor antialiasing in some of the new versions makes them look worse than they really are.

</comment><comment><USER4> I could be fooled by the re-created blackberry and Discovery fonts. They're the two that appear to match the closest.

</comment><comment><USER5> Most of those look the same.</comment>


YouTube finally notices Infowars is peddling dangerous conspiracies - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/23/youtube-notices-infowars-peddles-conspiracies/?sr_source=Twitter <comment><USER2> Translation: Unilever's threat woke them up to the reality that they're on the way to being held accountable for the content they host, and they're scrambling. Infowars is bad news in every sense of the phrase, but it's just the tip of a vast iceberg of awful Youtube is going to have to address.</comment>


Magic Angle Sculpture - <AUTHOR> https://www.jvmuntean.com/ <comment><USER2> 1\. Extrude each figure 2\. Rotate to the respective angles that the figures will be seen at 3\. Form intersection of the three(?) rotated extrusions 4\. ??? 5\. Profit

I was mildly puzzled at all the pseudoscientific gobbledigook that the artist put on his webpage - it definitely takes some crafting experience but then it's not rocket science either

</comment><comment><USER3> >John V. Muntean was inspired to create the Magic Angle Sculptures through his work with magic angle sample spinning, a scientific technique that mechanically simulates a molecule tumbling through space. The effect is to rapidly interchange the three axes of the Cartesian coordinates (x, y, and z). A complex observable phenomenon in three-dimensional space (such as the nuclear magnetic moments of a static molecule) can be represented by 3 x 3 tensors or sets of nine numbers; spinning at the magic angle simplifies that quantity to single isotropic values.

What??

This babble does not make any sense, and these sculptures have nothing to do with magic angle spinning ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_angle_spinning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_angle_spinning)) whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER4> I first saw this idea on the cover of _Goedel, Escher, Bach_. I wonder how old the history goes?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, that was 1979. I bought that when it first came out because Martin Gardner did a whole article on it in Scientific American. If I recall correctly he also posed the question of which letter combinations would not work in a three-way sculpture like that?

But I can think of at least one older precedent, a woodcarving puzzle: can you carve an object that perfectly fits a round opening, a square opening, and a triangle opening? And the answer is just the 3-way orthogonal intersection of those shapes. That is from the 1920s or 1930s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand why there's only one motion picture of a sculpture. The static images of the other 4 sculptures don't really inform me of anything, nor do they amaze.</comment>


Ask Steve #2 - Invest Your Time to Make Millions, Not Dollars - <AUTHOR> http://www.techquilashots.com/2007/07/29/ask-steve-2-invest-your-time-to-make-millions-not-dollars/#more-266

<comment><USER2> Something irritates me about the answer, but I can't quite put a finger on it.

He's right that Amazon is a bad way of making money. I hardly ever get anything out of book links. His idea may very well not be a winner.

However... "try and make millions" sort of sounds like an excuse to never try. If the guy's young, why not try a few things that make some money rather than put things off waiting for a 'million dollar idea'.</comment>


Show HN: Get a Restaurant Reservation with a Single Text Message - <AUTHOR> https://textoliver.com/ <comment><USER2> Hey there ! Nice and clean website, simplicity is great ! But I wonder how this works, do you personally handle each sms ? What's automated and what's not ?

Good luck !

</comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting service! Could not reach your number from the Netherlands although I expect that is intentional.

Some feedback that did wonders for our service (melonpost.com) is to make the call to action different for desktop and mobile users:

\- Your current link to the phone number only works on mobile so only show it here

\- An option for desktop users is a "text me" button with an input field for the number to send a text to</comment>


Show HN: A visual guide to the most popular CSS properties - <AUTHOR> http://cssreference.io/#hn <comment><USER2> This is a great little site.

A) How has the web been around for this long and nobody has done this before, i.e. there isn't at least some kind of authoritative reference like this?

B) Having worked with many UI/layout paradigms, and full aware of the fact that none of them are very good - css is indeed perhaps the worst. It takes quite a lot of abstraction on top of it to make sense of it.

But it's what we have - so good work.

<comment><USER3> Regarding point A, here are a few sites that come off the top of my head :

* Index of CSS Properties by W3C [https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/all-properties.en.html](https://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/all-properties.en.html)

* CSS Reference by Mozilla Developer Network [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/CSS/Reference](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/CSS/Reference)

* CSS Reference by Tympanus [http://tympanus.net/codrops/css_reference/](http://tympanus.net/codrops/css_reference/)

* CSS Almanac by CSS-Tricks [https://css-tricks.com/almanac/](https://css-tricks.com/almanac/)

<comment><USER2> Yes - those list a bunch of values - but they don't help that much in terms of actual documentation. They list nothing but the values.

Even MDN, which is probably the closest thing to 'standard' has very few examples, missing definitions, nothing interactive.

W3C is only really the basic stuff.

Let's face it: the tool we all use for showing our stuff to the world basically has no documentation. It's a mess.

The Mac/Safari documentation is literally blank for tons of objects. I mean - $100B billion in the bank and they can't make docs. Even swift documentation is totally lacking in examples and hard to read (they're still depending on your ability to read Objective-C stuff).

<comment><USER4> To your last point, making developers lives easier does not move their bottom line is my assumption. If they improve docs it isn't going to sell one single extra Mac, so why should they bother?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please include the link to github ( [https://github.com/jgthms/css- reference](https://github.com/jgthms/css-reference) ) for everyone to edit and write issues.

Would be particularly nice to have a direct link to edit every particular property on its section, e. g. [https://github.com/jgthms/css- reference/edit/master/property...](https://github.com/jgthms/css- reference/edit/master/property/align-content/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Really nice. I think it would be more helpful if the properties were ordered in a logical order (by "type" of properties) instead of alphabetical order.

<comment><USER7> From the title, I thought this would be a list of CSS properties ordered by frequency of use (as crawled on the web).

<comment><USER8> I thought so too, but looking at chrome css usage stats, flexible stuff is really low on the list. Its rising fast, but currently unused on the majority of the web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Quick question: this refers heavily to Flexbox, which as someone who has only a tangental interest in CSS, I don't know much about. Is it the standard way of doing positioning now? Care to explain it like I'm 5?

<comment><USER10> Flexbox is conceptually more difficult than older float & grid based layout systems (it takes some time to wrap your head around the relationship between `display: flex` containers and the various flex-* properties that child elements utilize), but it makes certain things dead simple that were nearly impossible before. For example, vertically centering content (almost comically difficult before flexbox) and fixed-width elements mixed with expanding elements that will share unused space in a row. In a lot of ways flexbox acts like old-school table layouts--which were easy to use and predictable--but without the ugly, non-semantic, and verbose markup. Best of both worlds really.

They are supported in all self-updating browsers, so unless you have to support IE<=10 they are safe to use and extremely convenient. Replacing a classic grid-based layout with flexbox saves an astonishing amount of markup. I've been using it exclusively for the last six months or so.

I found this CSSTricks article helpful when I was building my first flexbox layouts: [https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to- flexbox/](https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/)

<comment><USER11> ooh, mixing fixed-width with expanding elements is exactly the thing i'm struggling with now. i'll look into converting from grid to flex based layout and see how that goes.

<comment><USER10> You can also use calc(100% - [fixed container width]px) in a pinch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great clean guide. Here's a couple more that often offer extra tidbits of certain properties.

\- [https://css-tricks.com/almanac/](https://css-tricks.com/almanac/) \- [http://tympanus.net/codrops/css_reference/](http://tympanus.net/codrops/css_reference/)

</comment><comment> d--b Am I the only one whose computer has trouble running the site? Using a xps 13 from 2015 and it is really sluggish. Breaking it down into sub-pages would help.

<comment><USER13> Yup, scrolling is a little bit sluggish. All sections with properties are loaded at one. Quick solution would be to break down into sub-pages as you said or use pagination.

For those from React world, there is really awesome component, for rendering large sets of data: [https://github.com/bvaughn/react- virtualized](https://github.com/bvaughn/react-virtualized).

<comment><USER14> For those not in the react world, this seems to similar to react-virtualized and has worked great for me before: [https://clusterize.js.org/](https://clusterize.js.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would expect a site about CSS properties to also know about the performance impacts of paints... Takes a good 5s for everything to load.

<comment><USER16> How would they fix that? It's rendering all the examples on one page (like it should) so I understand it takes a long time.

<comment><USER17> Well they could have a list of the properties without them all rendered and then render just the property they need when someone clicks on the property name.

And why should it render all examples on one page?

They could have a static page for every property so one could link to [http://cssreference.io/align-content](http://cssreference.io/align-content) instead of [http://cssreference.io/#align- content](http://cssreference.io/#align-content) and get just that static page. That should be pretty quick, especially with long caching of all other resources than the actual page content.

There's lots of different ways to have done it without having to do it all at once.

<comment><USER16> I personally don't like that solution. I want to see everything (on one page) without having to click anything.

<comment><USER18> How about both?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Very useful.

You should consider serving a separate page for each property in addition to one big list. This would be more useful for quick Google lookups.

</comment><comment><USER20> Nicely put together. I like the examples showing the effect of different properties.

</comment><comment><USER21> Very nice - wish list items: adding css version numbers and browser compatibility.

<comment><USER22> Try [http://caniuse.com/](http://caniuse.com/)

<comment><USER23> Doiuse is a great PostCSS plugin that check if your css is compatible with the browsers you aim to support using caniuse. [https://github.com/anandthakker/doiuse](https://github.com/anandthakker/doiuse)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Very nice CSS Visual Guide.

My other wish to really really learn CSS.... A list of CSS problems to solve ala project Euler. You get a visual example and you have to make it look identical. Then you get to see other solutions for the same problem.

<comment><USER25> I find layout to be the hardest part of CSS (as it deals with how elements interact).

This online book was helpful for me: [http://book.mixu.net/css/](http://book.mixu.net/css/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think this is a good guide for brushing up css knowledge before interviews.

But for actual coding people would still Google for css-tricks or stackoverflow because Googling is faster than opening this website and searching.

<comment><USER27> Not as fast as asking random people on Youtube for help

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've put together a PR for lazy-displaying the property examples. This should help with the rendering speed. [https://github.com/jgthms/css- reference/pull/10](https://github.com/jgthms/css-reference/pull/10)

Ace work on the site!

</comment><comment><USER29> I've nothing more to say, other than that this is a lovely app. I'll certainly use it. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is an excellent resource ,, thanks for taking the time to make it.

I would request/suggest an option to have one-per-page display of attributes - currently there's a _lot_ of scrolling if you want to move between things.

</comment><comment><USER31> Small bug: [http://cssreference.io/#animation-fill- mode](http://cssreference.io/#animation-fill-mode) does not play the animation the second time you click the button.

Great site though.

<comment><USER32> Same with animation-timing-function. It also doesn't fit on my screen, so it's hard to see what the ones on the bottom do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Interesting app. Something I'll definitely use in the future for referencing

</comment><comment><USER34> Handy, must have taken a while to put this together.

Minor bug (?): your lorem ipsum is showing when viewing via [http://hn.premii.com/](http://hn.premii.com/)

</comment><comment><USER35> As someone who does frontend only occasionally I expect this site to be of great help to refresh my knowledge now and then.

PS. Note to everyone - whitelist this in your ad blocker as author asks you to do!

</comment><comment><USER36> Very handy tool. Might I suggest indexing some values too. Searching for gradient returns nothing, but a suggestion for background-image might make sense.

</comment><comment><USER37> Flexbox is it supported by all major browsers?

How does it compare to table HTML vs. div HTML?

What are the benefits vs. div HTML & Bootstrap .. is it just the new thing to learn?

<comment><USER38> caniuse [0] has some stats.

Flexbox is supported in:

* Internet Explorer 11, but only partially

* Edge 14+

* Firefox 52+ (Everything but buttons in Firefox 50)

* Chrome 51+ (50 had it, but had a bug that still plagues Safari)

* Safari 9.1 (but Safari has a couple huge bugs [1][2])

* Opera 41+

* Safari iOS 9.3+ (but see [1] & [2])

* Every version of Opera mini

* Android Browser 4.4+

* Android Chrome 53+

A great bullet-point list of why not to use tables for layout can be found here [3].

Flexbox is designed to enhance and make easier some of the CSS that we already use today, so they go hand in hand.

As to Bootstrap, as of v4, it will include Flexbox as an opt-in option (in case you support old browsers where it wouldn't work). [4]

[0] [http://caniuse.com/#search=flexbox](http://caniuse.com/#search=flexbox)

[1] [https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=136041](https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=136041)

[2] [https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137730](https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137730)

[3] [http://phrogz.net/css/WhyTablesAreBadForLayout.html](http://phrogz.net/css/WhyTablesAreBadForLayout.html)

[4] [http://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/getting- started/flexbox/](http://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/getting-started/flexbox/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is fantastic.

For me CSS has been largely very unintuitive, and part of that has been because of the adversarial evolutionary race of browsers.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is going to be super helpful - thanks!!

</comment><comment><USER41> Wow that's so useful. Thanks for this.

</comment><comment><USER42> It's a really nice app, I'm learning front-end so this will definitely help me.

</comment><comment><USER43> A link to the relevant caniuse.com page in each section would be fantastic

</comment><comment><USER44> A codepen that goes along with every example would be cherry on top.

</comment><comment><USER45> The example is very helpful for me, brilliant works!

</comment><comment><USER46> So useful, great stuff again after Bulma & marksheet.

</comment><comment><USER47> The search feature doesn't work sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER48> Whoa. That is awesome. Thanks for the hard work!

</comment><comment><USER49> "Play animation" doesn't work in Safari

</comment><comment><USER50> Definitely a nice site. However, I'd argue that if CSS was in any way intuitively designed, this site wouldn't be necessary.

</comment><comment><USER51> very useful... thanks!

</comment><comment><USER52> Very nice. Can you make a visual guide for CSS selectors too?</comment>


MapReduce: A Flexible Data Processing Tool - <AUTHOR> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/1/55744-mapreduce-a-flexible-data-processing-tool/fulltext

<comment><USER2> Great submission ypavan. This is a big reason why I check HN all day.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Matthew Blair</comment></comment>


Facebook readies Hyper-PHP - <AUTHOR> http://www.sdtimes.com/link/34103 More info surfaces on the Facebook rewrite of PHP. <comment><USER2> Some other Facebook open source stuff: <http://developers.facebook.com/opensource.php>

One that I liked a lot: <http://phpsh.org/>

It's an interactive shell for php like python's and written in python.

<comment><USER3> That's some serious irony right there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have to wonder why people are so excited about a PHP compiler when there's been an open-source one out that runs on top of the IBM Java JIT for a while. <http://www.projectzero.org/>

<comment><USER5> Chances are because this is likely to be faster and more compatible. I don't know how what the performance of the IBM one is like but the Quercus pages say "Performance is 4x mod_php and is comparable with PHP accelerator performance.". In other words, about as fast as PHP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A Hyper-Hypertext Preprocessor...sounds fast...

<comment><USER7> LudicrousText preprocessor?

</Spaceball reference>

<comment><USER8> but but we've never actually preprocessed text at ludicrous speed before...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> While it certainly seems that Facebook will release some sort of PHP compiler tomorrow, this article cited (and linked to) only one (questionable) source.

Are there any credible sources talking about this, because this speculation mostly seems to be based on the questionable interview from last month( [http://therumpus.net/2010/01/conversations-about-the- interne...](http://therumpus.net/2010/01/conversations-about-the- internet-5-anonymous-facebook-employee/?full=yes) )

</comment><comment><USER10> I have to wonder why they're writing PHP compilers and PHP refactoring tools (in Haskell!) instead of just using something different for their front end.

<comment><USER11> As a few facebook employees have said they have a lot invested in PHP there so it wouldn't make sense to swap it out.

<comment><USER10> With the sort of tech they're working on, a PHP -> something-not-evil compiler seems like a pretty reasonable solution.

<comment><USER11> Any sort of automated compiler is certainly going to miss out on a lot of the things that make language X better than PHP though would it not? And you're still talking about a rewrite of all their PHP code which I'm sure is no small feat.

You're also ignoring dependencies and such in the form of PHP modules that would have to be redeveloped for the new language. Ensuring your front end developers are just as capable in language X(and handle the retraining/learning curve). Why go through all that trouble when PHP will work just as well for you?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


introduction to "dark patterns" in design - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/Home Introduction to the idea of dark patterns in design. <comment><USER2> Question to libertarian-minded HNers: what are the downsides of banning such practices by law?

<comment><USER3> Try banning practices like this and you'll end up with over-general regulations that ban a lot of things that should be legal. When the government find itself with overly broad statutes, it frequently ends up applying them selectively, based on whatever criteria it chooses. This often ends up being based on things like race, or whether you're engaging in speech the government doesn't like, or whether you're engaged in activities that a politician's donors don't like (something a lot of startups like to do).

Even if you can define the problem precisely so it is not too broad, in order to prevent arbitrary enforcement you would have to place a huge regulatory burden on either a government agency or website owners (or both). Every website that sells anything would have to register with the government(s) of whatever jurisdictions apply, and file reports showing that they are meeting the requirements. Then you run into problems regarding who is responsible for user generated content -- it goes on and on.

For some particularly egregious types of fraud, these downsides can be worth it, but you have to be careful what you choose to regulate.

<comment><USER4> >Every website that sells anything would have to register with the government(s) of whatever jurisdictions apply, and file reports showing that they are meeting the requirements

I think the scenario you paint is completely unrealistic. Most consumer protection laws are not enforced like this. It's not FCC or CE marking we're talking about. Usually it's a case that when consumers complain (e.g. product not as described) the seller is investigated and, if found guilty, fined or punished as per the law.

The rest of your argument, which I realise is for arguments sake, reads like a slippery slope argument because you provide no real examples.

<comment><USER5> _> Most consumer protection laws are not enforced like this._

It's not about actual enforcement, it's about perceived risks.

Take for example recent legislation regarding HTTP cookies in EU -- it has stirred up quite a bit of FUD, slowing down use of this handy utility for decent purposes. Not because of some widespread persecution, but exactly because Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt on behalf of the good-willed netizens.

Meanwhile, the proverbial Bad Guys do not care anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even using Appirater will skew your results quite a bit. You can set it up to only ask people to review your app after using it for a certain amount of time, meaning that all the users who stopped using it won't be prompted for a rating.

The only way to fix this problem is to disallow apps from linking to app store reviews at all.

<comment><USER7> I didn't see Appirater in the link nor did a search on website reveal anything. I am concerned that my users may feel requesting a review in the App Store after 10 uses and/or 10 days to be unethical, but I cannot figure out what reasons they may have for doing so. Do you have any reasons this may be unethical?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fun fact: on the Oxfam slide where he talks about opt-out monthly donation, the ad reads :

Be there and change lives with a with a regular donation

(<http://i.imgur.com/ZGoqw.png>)

I wonder if that is done on purpose or not...

</comment><comment><USER9> Hmm. They list Microsoft's XBox Live in "Forced Continuity". It's been quite some time (at least six months, maybe even more) that:

\- you can disable automatic renewal from the console or the browser

\- MS sends you an email upon subscription informing you that you can disable automatic renewal from the console or the browser

\- MS sends you a reminder some time before automatic renewal in which they again inform you how to disable automatic renewal

The last time I had to call support to leave Gold was like three years ago.

<comment><USER10> Where do you live? In April of this year, I had to change my state to Illinois in order to enable the link to cancel via the browser. Illinois requires companies to provide a cancel link, so MS does. But they didn't offer it where they didn't have to.

<comment><USER11> I'm guessing New Zealand must be in the same position - I've seen plenty of screenshots showing me where the unsub link is, but it is just plain text for me. I had to call MS and cancel over the phone, which took a lot longer than it really should.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is extremely old, no wonder the information is dated. I used this as a source for a presentation in high-school.. I'm 25.

Edit: But, the information is extremely relevant still, in regards to UX and design (imo)

<comment><USER13> The first version of this site was published in October 2010.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> site's dead?</comment>


Freelance hourly rate calculator - <AUTHOR> https://hourlyrate.beewits.com/

<comment><USER2> This is really cool, here's my rate: $272.6/hr

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow - you've either got a lot of expenses, or are paid VERY well :)

<comment><USER2> I went kind of crazy with expenses and how many hours a week I would like to work.</comment></comment></comment>


This is Exactly How I Killed My Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.launchsolid.com/this-is-exactly-how-i-killed-my-startup/

<comment><USER2> Good read, and I totally relate. Especially not working in stealth mode advice. Wise words.

I got a laugh from the name Stack Fu, but I'm laughing with the OP, because I've picked less than optimal names myself.

</comment><comment><USER3> Website appears to be down.

<comment><AUTHOR> Josh,

Its up and running! What do you get?</comment></comment>


Ancient Maya Farms Revealed by Laser Scanning - <AUTHOR> https://eos.org/articles/ancient-maya-farms-revealed-by-laser-scanning <comment><USER2> I already had this theory before reading 1491, but definitely after: any society that works with organic matter for tools will be underreported in the archaeological records. Civilizations in intensively organically active areas, same problem. And then we have ancient societies that have both problems.

We are never going to fully appreciate the extent of rainforest societies. We will get better at guessing, but we will always underestimate them unless we give them the benefit of the doubt.

<comment><USER3> Realistically, the only way for a society to leave markers for future archeologists is to alter its environment as much as possible.

<comment><USER2> I remember a few years ago they thought they had a temple on a hill and they discovered the entire hill was the temple. It was so overgrown they couldn't find the base. If the environment fights back that hard...

I mean, you're fighting entropy every day. Sounds like an eco paradise but is also hell for historians.

<comment><USER4> Infact, the Spanish built a temple on a hill in Cholula only to be discovered that it was actually a Pyramid!

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Check out the lidar in New england, we have walls all over it, more walls than Ireland. Our walls are not protected and not attributed to ancient cultures.

Modern day people claim the settlers built them all. This is simply impossible. The walls of New England are ruins.

<comment><USER6> That's not the common view: [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/new- england-stone-wall...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/new-england- stone-walls)

Whether or not it's true, it's not at all impossible that the settlers built them all. Almost all of New England was deforested during the 1600s - 1800s. It has since reforested since the land was marginal to start with and was outcompeted by midwestern farms.

There were several hundred years for farmers to build stone walls out of annoying rocks; it doesn't have to be a mystery.

<comment><USER7> > outcompeted by midwestern farms..

with railroads to move the produce.. yes.

It was not fun to be a New England farmer after the end of the Civil War, economically. Things got difficult.</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Sample Boxes - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/sample-boxes <comment><AUTHOR> Amazon has quietly entered the sample box business.

In itself, not that interesting, but when you consider that many major subscription box models are built on getting samples to consumers then enticing them to buy full-size versions, should companies like Birchbox be concerned?</comment>


Ask HN: Developers in SE Asia - <AUTHOR> Hi,<p>I'm looking to outsource development work and wanted to know more about the quality of software development work in SE Asia. I was born in Malaysia so if you're Malaysian - brownie points for you as I'm also keen to learn more about the tech landscape in Malaysia and looking for knowledge expertise. <comment><USER2> This might be a good fit for the monthly _Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?_. It shows up on the first business day of each month.

This (August, 2018) month's, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17663078](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17663078)</comment>


Ask HN: Do you think this thin-ice weight loss concept could work? - <AUTHOR>

It seems too good to be true. To wear an insole that burns an extra 500-1000 calories a day. Does anyone on HN know if this might be a hack that can work?<p>https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/thin-ice-the-very-first-weight-loss-clothing-line <comment><USER2> Assuming those are values are actually kilocalories (1 Calorie in food is 1000 calories) then that device would need a battery that can boil 5 litres of water[1] eg 5000 grams of water raised 100 degrees = 500000 calories = 500 kilocalories.

I'm not sure I'd want to stand on that...

[1] 1 calorie can raise 1 gram of water by 1 degree</comment>


Ask HN: Will Web Assembly make Python truly viable for browser programming? - <AUTHOR> <comment> T-A I doubt it. WebAssembly is a compilation target [1]. Python is interpreted. Maybe you could compile the CPython interpreter to WebAssembly, along with every native library you need, and then run your Python code on your recompiled interpreter - so you would have Python being executed by an interpreter being executed by a JIT compiler running inside a browser. Execution would be even slower than on CPython, and I would expect download size to be impractically large. You'd be better off transpiling Python to JavaScript.

[1] [http://webassembly.org/docs/high-level- goals/](http://webassembly.org/docs/high-level-goals/)

<comment><USER2> Not just this, but interfacing with browser APIs and the DOM from WebAssembly is also not very performant at the moment.

I don't understand compilers and VMs enough know whether it's practical or even possible to expose the existing JavaScript GC in WebAssembly. Can somebody who works with browser internals shed some light on this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I doubt it but..

[https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=python%2Cjava...](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/trends?tags=python%2Cjavascript)</comment>