Why Whales, the largest animals on Earth, got so big - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-whale-evolution-20170523-story.html <comment><USER2> We're lucky to be living in amazing times where the largest creatures that have ever lived on this planet are alive...and their explosion is size is just 3 million years old.

<comment><USER3> Which must obviously raise the question: Is the coincidence a coincidence? Which it might well be, but how infinitely more exciting if the giants and we were somehow molded from the same set of circumstances. I am not really qualified to judge whether the article implies such a thing.

<comment><USER4> I imagine we would have a giant fin along our spine and would be required to sleep in the sun for 10 hours per day and 8 hours per night to be able to function in the rest 6 hours. But on the other hand we would be much smarter with bigger brain in those 6 hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >"You have the privilege of sharing the planet with the largest animal that ever lived on Earth."

We've returned the favor by killing 90% of them.

>The IUCN estimates that there are probably between 10,000 and 25,000 blue whales worldwide today. Before whaling, the largest population was in the Antarctic, numbering approximately 239,000 (range 202,000 to 311,000).

<comment><USER6> Interesting level of precision used there...Nassim Taleb would hate it. Whom was whale counting back then?

<comment><USER5> It's based on the number of whales killed by whalers

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-7692.2004....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-7692.2004.tb01190.x/abstract;jsessionid=EC6D0DEF83EF0D2B730532B3648DF100.f04t03)

<comment><USER7> > Pre-exploitation population estimate of 239,000 (95% interval > 202,000–311,000).

> Estimated 1996 population size, 1,700 (860–2,900)

Don't use three significant figures when your confidence interval spans 50% of your estimate. "200,000 to 300,000" would more clearly express the data.

And be honest about accuracy: if modern satellite, aircraft, and naval technology can't pin the 1996 value down more tightly than "half this number to double it", you can hardly say with a straight face that your confidence interval on the 1800s data is "minus 15% to plus 25%".

<comment><USER5> Sometimes shitty data is all you've got — I was making a simple point, not submitting a paper to a journal.

Humans killed these things by the tens to hundreds of thousands and the population is no where near that today.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, I was commenting on the numbers in the paper and not on your simple point, with which I agree

<comment><USER5> No worries. Thanks for being cordial. It's easy to get frustrated when conversations turn this way online.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Happening with humans too.

Humankind has transformed in the last century-and-a-half: a good chunk of our species is now taller than it's ever been.

Over the last 150 years the average human height has gone up in industrialized countries by up to 10 centimetres. And gains of up to 19 centimetres for Dutch men and woman.

Primarily due to improved nutrition, health, and in general a better quality of life. [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150513-will-humans-keep- ge...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150513-will-humans-keep-getting- taller)

<comment><USER7> > And gains of up to 19 centimetres for Dutch men and women.

I am a 6' Netherlander (among the shortest men in my family). I just traveled to Shanghai and met a lot of very short Chinese people - but I was surprised to see that there seemed to be a small population of some young men who were as tall or taller than me.

When I asked about these tall Chinese of a native, she explained that they were from northern China, and that they have a harsher climate and eat more fish and protein than locals. Many of the locals grew up subsistence farming under Mao, mostly eating rice, and she explained that the weak nutrition of the resulting diet resulted in less growth.

This is, of course, anecdotal. But in comparison to Dutch height gain, I haven't heard of a similar change in Dutch nutrition or health, at least not relative to peer countries.

<comment><USER9> For a large part of history human height has been limited by nutrition. This is why the United States was the tallest country in the world at the beginning of the 20th century.

Once everyone is everyone is fed the genetic differences become apparent.

There are plenty examples of this. For instance, the Normans who invaded England were nearly six feet tall. However, by the mid-17th century the average man in Europe was something like 5'3-5'6.

My great-grandfather was 5'3, and my great-grandmother was 4'11\. They grew up during a famine in Hungary. My grandmother was 5'8, my dad was 5'11", and I'm 6'3".

Of course my mom is half dutch, and her mom was 100% dutch and was 6'1", which is huge considering she was born in 1913. So I definitely get some of my height from that side of my family.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "You have the privilege of sharing the planet with the largest animal that ever lived on Earth."

<comment><USER11> correction: largest known animal.

There could very well have been something bigger but never left fossils. I mean fossil creation itself is sort of a miracle. Combined with such an animal really bound to living in the ocean, it would be very difficult for a whale the size of a blue whale to

1: meet the conditions to be fossillized 2: survive millions of years 3: discovered at the bottom of the ocean

<comment><USER3> Exactly. These unfounded absolutes are a sloppy habit, though many of us probably do them from time to time.

Strangely, yesterday I was angrily downvoted for pointing out the same problem with a historical statement ("the world's first paint").

<comment><USER12> it's not unfounded. there's direct supporting evidence. and they're not really absolute. it's blatantly obvious that the "that we know about" is implicit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems like humans could also cause them to be bigger. Food distribution became more concentrated over time. If humans impact the world in a way that magnifies this power law distribution of food, we could end up with even bigger whales, right?

<comment><USER14> The reciprocal of this is that here in Oklahoma we've got animal breeders turning saltwater runoff from reinjection wells into mini seas so as they claim... to breed tiny pet whales. The goal is to have teacup size whales that fit into purses in a hundred years or so. Idk internet cuteness combined with the desire to eat them in a sustained way or something, I guess. I think the whole thing is crazy and unethical.

<comment><USER15> There's no such thing as real hundred year business plans.

<comment><USER16> Or so you claim. There's enough family business in Europe or Japan that existed for centuries or even a thousand years that for them a hundred year business plan can make sense.

<comment><USER17> longevity has nothIng to do with havinv hundred years plans. Most businesses hardly a vision beyond 20 years from now, because the longer you try to project the more preposterous your assumptions are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I watched a program once that said that one of the reasons they are so big is to allow them to communicate over large distances. Is there any truth in that? It was a kids program though - probably octonauts

<comment><USER19> A problem with any such rationalisation is that evolution is not teleological.

Animals don't _seek_ to become anything, evolutionarily. But characteristics and traits offer fitness advantages over alternatives.

It's also difficult to disambiguate primary vs. secondary effects and consequences.

<comment><USER20> Gp's claim does not imply teleology of any kind; it's entirely plausible in terms of increasingly larger animals being selected for their hability to communicate over increasingly larger distances. Finding mates in a larger volume of ocean comes to mind.

<comment><USER19> It has causality backwards. Teleology itself is ... complicated. It likes it that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So the blue whale got big to eat more krill- does that mean that there's no other animal than the blue whale that can eat as much krill as a blue whale?

In that case, what would happen to the krill if the blue whale went extinct? Would its numbers grow uncontrolled until it took over the oceans? Or is other predation enough to keep its numbers down?

<comment><USER22> What is not mentioned in the article is the reason big animals exist: efficiency. The physics are simple: assume animals are ball-shaped (true to within a factor 2 for mammals). That means the amount of filling grows with the third power of the radius. The "skin", or outer boundary only grows with the second power.

"Skin" is how an animal loses power (by far the biggest power draw inside mammals is keeping the body warm. Obviously in water this is an even bigger problem). "Filling" is how an animal generates power.

That means that smaller animals cannot hope to match the whales in efficiency: for sustaining the same biomass, they need to keep a bigger "skin" warm (add all the skin of all individuals together).

Now when does this matter ? Obviously this would matter a lot in terms of scarcity, at which point it would be much easier for whales to survive than smaller fish. When there is richness of food, smaller is better, as you can move faster and "eat" the available energy faster. However if smaller animals do this to the point that food becomes scarce, they've just screwed themselves.

So you see what happens : the longer the biosphere goes without a major disaster, the bigger animals get (and plants, for that matter). The advantage of being the first mover, where you can be small and still win, disappears, and the advantage of efficiency grows and grows. So when food became scarce, whales, the biggest animals that had the easiest time surviving at that point, became even bigger. That made the difference between different whale species.

This framework allows answering your question: no, if whales went extinct fish would increase in numbers (slightly, in the sense that it'd be less than the biomass of the whales that disappeared). There isn't enough predation to replace the whales at the moment, but that would be very quickly rectified if something happened to them.

The real reason krill is increasing is the slight increase of co2 caused by humans (krill eat plankton, as do most whales). It's tiny when measured compared to total volume, but if you look at it in relative terms co2 has increased quite a bit (amount now vs amount 100 years ago). In reality the plant growth in the world is hampered significantly by the amount of available co2, and the fact that plants use it to store energy, a part of which gets buried and is lost to the depths (literally in the case of krill).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why doesn't more food simply lead to a higher birth rate? And also what was the reflexive effect, bigger whales -> more food eaten?

<comment><USER24> The critical part is not more food, but very unequal distribution of food. Quoting: "..from the time of the dinosaurs to about 3 million years ago, nutrients were evenly distributed across the ocean. But then there was a transition, in which dense aggregations of nutrients could be found along certain coastlines, while vast parts of the open ocean became virtual marine deserts."

I guess larger organisms are more likely to survive in this scenario. Maybe similar to the reasons why larger vehicles are more efficient for transportation: [http://www.sustainablefreight.com.au/case-studies/bigger- is-...](http://www.sustainablefreight.com.au/case-studies/bigger-is-better)

<comment><USER25> The whale is the sahuaro cactus of the ocean. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> also whales (aquatic animals) are not weighed down by gravity so much, and that combine with being a mammal must play a part.

</comment><comment><USER2> The ocean and the diversity of life in it is immense and needs to be explored a lot more.

<comment><USER27> I think we've decided to solve that problem by driving most of that life to extinction. This will eventually make it easier to explore all of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > Hungry whales accelerate into this swarm with their enormous mouths open, > eventually filtering out the water and swallowing the krill. Using this > technique, the biggest whales can ingest half a million calories in a single > bite.

Also known as a "bloomin' onion".

</comment><comment><USER29> How many of y'all know that Crocodiles can grow really big because they get bigger throughout their life? And that crocodiles will not die "unless" they are deprived of food or get sick? Both true facts.

<comment><USER30> [https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/natural- world/n...](https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/natural-world/no- crocodiles-are-not-immortal/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do you use framework X? - <AUTHOR> After reading posts like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=712975 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=750142, I find myself facing a decision regarding what technology to build a new project on. Rather than simply understanding numbers on how many of you use framework X, I'm far more interested in why you use it. Questions such as:
* What was your decision-making process when evaluating frameworks?
* Was your ultimate choice made simply because the framework was the defacto in your language of choice? In other words, did you choose Rails for Ruby, Django for Python, Cake for PHP, just because the language itself was what you knew?
* Assuming you're sufficiently experienced in framework X now, what are your regrets? What makes the other frameworks look like greener grass?
* If you could start your project over again, would you chose the framework again?
* Did you choose framework X secretly because you just wanted to learn it? In other words, was it attractive to you just because all the cool kids were doing it and you wanted to add it to your toolbox? Be honest.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I'm not a fan of frameworks, if their particular philosophy fits with the way you think, they're probably great. For me, they just don't seem to fit and provide a lot of bloat.

I prefer to start small, and add libraries as I need them.

For example, for my current project I was at the point where I needed to add authentication/authorization, preferably with openid support and fallback to a simpler system for development/test installs. I've been able to implement most of this with very little effort by using repoze.who and repoze.what (python). They're flexible enough to do a few things which would be harder to do in a framework where components are written to interface with other parts of the framework, instead of being really generic.

Apart from those two libraries I use beaker for sessions, werkzeug for dispatch, couchdb as a database, mako for templating, my own forms library, etc..

Basically I put together my own framework from already existing components, with a few components of my own for those tasks where I feel the existing solutions aren't good enough or don't solve my problem.

With this approach it does take longer to get up to speed, but you're not tied to any particular way of doing things and can replace any part as needed.

<comment><USER3> Completely agree. The best framework is one you've built yourself IMHO.

<comment><USER4> The best framework is the one you _would_ have built yourself, but which is improved and promptly bugfixed by someone else. :)

<comment><USER3> I still disagree. Frameworks are usually multipurpose general 'jack of all trades master on none' type things. Unless you've built your own based on some specific use case(s).

It's extremely unlikely that it'll be improved by someone else in exactly the direction you need it to be improved based on your particular use case.

Depends how important it is to your success though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I generally decide on a framework project-by-project. I started off with Django because I was experienced with Python. The project went ok but I found, as most people seem to, that when the code started growing more organically (often called 'maintenance mode' :)) it got real ugly real fast. I went looking for an even more dynamic language than Python, stayed with Perl for a while (Catalyst) and eventually went with Ruby (Rails, specifically).

I'm sufficiently experienced in Rails now and don't regret it at all. It is quite heavy for your average website, though... For this reason I tend to use Sinatra for lighter stuff (my personal website, etc) since it doesn't give you anything except it's base DSL for handling requests. I end up re-implementing tiny parts of Rails, but which part depends on the project and I tend to re- use those parts I've re-written often.

If I could start my big, main project again, I would still use Rails -- no question. Tool support is a huge part of a big project, and Rails is ready.

I have been missing Perl a little, though, and Mojo feels really awesome (and quite Sinatra-like, a good thing :)), so I might convince myself to go that direction sometime as an experiment.

 _Links:_

\- Sinatra - <http://www.sinatrarb.com/>

\- Rails - <http://rubyonrails.org/>

\- Django - <http://www.djangoproject.com/>

\- Catalyst - <http://www.catalystframework.org/>

\- Mojo - <http://mojolicious.org/>

</comment><comment><USER6> _What was your decision-making process when evaluating frameworks?_

I'm a Microsoft guy and have been for 12+ years. When .NET Framework came out, that's just what I went with.

 _Was your ultimate choice made simply because the framework was the defacto in your language of choice?_

No, I chose it because it was going to be popular in the MSFT community and, as a consultant/trainer for MSFT technologies, it's my job to know those things.

 _Assuming you're sufficiently experienced in framework X now, what are your regrets? What makes the other frameworks look like greener grass?_

No regrets - it's "good enough". And nothing makes other frameworks look better to me. I can see how they look better/interesting to others but, for me, I'm happy with the .NET suite of tools/languages.

 _If you could start your project over again, would you chose the framework again?_

Yes.

 _Did you choose framework X secretly because you just wanted to learn it?_

I sort of answered this already - chosen because it was destined to be popular with my clients. At the time (2000), MS was putting tons of weight behind the marketing campaigns for .NET Framework and C# so you knew it was going to be supported. And, after coming from Visual Basic 6.0 and ASP, looking at the .NET Framework and ASP.NET - it was easily miles ahead of what we were currently able to do without .NET.

<comment><USER7> Have you ever used a different framework?

I started my web development career on asp.net but now that I have experience with django I wish to never see another line of asp.net code again.

<comment><USER8> I've heard this comment from others before - but alas, I cannot echo it as I haven't had experience with anything ASP or .NET related.

Not an uncommon sentiment though.

<comment><USER7> <http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/>

Was sold in less than an hour of reading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _What was your decision-making process when evaluating frameworks?_

Accessibility, features, technology (i.e. is it up to date with the latest language features), development (looking for highly active development)

 _Was your ultimate choice made simply because the framework was the defacto in your language of choice?_

No. However I did reject some other language frameworks because of having ot learn the specifics as well (RoR for example).

 _Assuming you're sufficiently experienced in framework X now, what are your regrets? What makes the other frameworks look like greener grass?_

Most of the regrets are about the development. I chose KohanaPHP which is a solid framework - and but of a power user one (lowish documentation but very powerful once you get to grips). The problem is that they scrap revisions so easily - version 2 is ending it's lif cycle after a very short time frame and V3 is a complete rewrite using HMVC ideals (as opposed to MVC). Porting to V3 is something of a pain (mostly Im not going to bother while V2 still suits my needs). There are also outstanding bugs in the v2 framework that need ironing out and it's looking like they might not all be done.

Also there is sometimes a tendancy for it to bottle neck on some PHP versions / installations - I have not yet tracked down why but it is concerning me more and more.

 _If you could start your project over again, would you chose the framework again?_

Yes I think so. I started on Code Igniter and Kohana was a more actively developed fork of that (later fully rewritten) so I was versed in the syntax and so forth.

It is a powerful framework.

 _Did you choose framework X secretly because you just wanted to learn it? In other words, was it attractive to you just because all the cool kids were doing it and you wanted to add it to your toolbox? Be honest._

Honestly - no. I used Code Igniter after a recommendation from someone. After finding it frustrated I heard from a forum post about Kohana and how it got rid of those bugs - and it did. At the time the cool kids were going with RoR - their website instantly turned me off at the time so I never bothered.

<comment><USER10> I use CodeIgniter extensively and have also tried Kohana. How did I get there in the first place? I believe that the best code you can find is the one you can write, however, I only have one life and not enough time to rediscover the wheel, so I went for the second best and decided to use CodeIgniter as was closer to what I wanted in that being a smaller framework I could mould it around to what I wanted to develop. Before selecting it, I downloaded CakePHP and gave it a try, it was just too big a framework for me. Have I got any regrets not really, would I use it again, yes but at least this time it comes with all the additional bells and whistles that I have attached to it. In reality the more you use a framework the more you .. forking it out towards your own needs and style.

For blog variants I have mostly used Drupal and I have a couple of blogs using Wordpress. Don't underestimate the power of both of them and that is one reason why I am still sticking with PHP for the forseeable future. I can attach a Wordpress installation to a CodeIgniter framework and with very little additional work, I can have a blog working - albeit with ugly code! After all wordpress is only 10 tables, Drupal is about 50.

<comment><USER11> I'd be interested in hearing how well-suited CodeIgniter is for a web- application that will be brought FAR beyond just presenting blog-like content. What I intend to build will be a full-blown web-based app.

I'm about to start a new project, and thought I'd settled on CI as my framework of choice (never coded w/ a framework, so trying to get it 'right' on my first try), but some of the comments I've read here and elsewhere have me second-guessing my choice.

<comment><USER9> I'd heavily advise ditching CI and hacking around with Kohana Version 3. Despite my misgivings it is super fast, super extensible and extremely powerful.

CI is just not updated enough IMO to form the stable base for an app.

As for taking it beyond blog content - I've created all sorts of complex sites; for example featured realtor website (property search, user management etc.) a wiki/"stackoverflow similar" site and am also working on a twitter "ticket" and marketing site (which is pretty complex). So it is suited to stuff like that.

<comment><USER11> Cool. I'll give it a look. Thanks so much for the reply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Documentation plain and simple. If someone can't be bothered to document it, then I can't be bothered to use it. If two libraries have good documentation then you read up on both and decide which fits your mental model better.

I tried RoR before it had hit version 1 and the only documentation was the prag Prog book. Looked through the Zope and Django documentation and found the documentation to be better quality. Django just fit my mental model better so that is what I went with. I don't regret the choice, sure I have found some corner cases where I and it haven't agreed but that happens any code that you don't write from top to bottom.

</comment><comment><USER13> My company's big project right now is built in CodeIgniter. We picked a framework for a number of reasons, but mostly as a way of standardizing the code. Rather than everyone having some arbitrary way of doing something, we found it easier to use a set framework with its own conventions, at least in terms of naming schemes and file structure and whatnot.

We went with CodeIgniter on an outsider's suggestion, and in retrospect, it was probably not a great choice. We've found a few weird things in their core classes that we've had to modify, which should never happen. I've used Zend since that project and I greatly prefer it over CI. The documentation can be a little funny (explanations of functions are in places where you wouldn't expect it) but overall I've just found it to be much more robust.

I've heard good things about Kohana, so I think if I were to start a new project, I'd look into it. I think my biggest concern would be being able to update the core classes without having to rewrite all the code, so what ErrantX said here about Kohana going from MVC to HMVC is sort of worrisome.

</comment><comment><USER14> One of my biggest criteria when I was looking at frameworks was how much each one wanted you to "drink the kool-aid." I'm not saying it's a bad thing to have conventions built into the framework to make developers' lives easier, but some frameworks really demand total commitment to their system. Since I was looking to slot the framework into a very large existing PHP codebase, I knew we couldn't immediately start doing everything "The _____ Way (tm)."

Another criteria I used was to just browse through the quickstart and reference documentation and look at code examples. How complete were they? Did the accompanying description make clear what all options were available? Could I imagine adapting this code to work with our system? If the documentation was crappy, I was likely to give it a quick pass. Maybe a bit unfair, but a project that hasn't put in the time to make the docs shine has probably left some rough edges in other, less-obvious places (plus if we adopt it, I have to read that crappy documentation every week of my life).

I ended up going with Zend, and haven't regretted that for a second. It's been quite easy to take the pieces of ZF that are useful to us and use them together or in isolation. The libraries are great, the documentation is (usually) wonderful and complete, and it all just works.

</comment><comment><USER15> * What was your decision-making process when evaluating frameworks?

very clean internally framework code. not necessarily large user base. something where the original devs may likely still be using their creation within the next two years. lightweight. no magic!!!

* Was your ultimate choice made simply because the framework was the defacto in your language of choice? In other words, did you choose Rails for Ruby, Django for Python, Cake for PHP, just because the language itself was what you knew?

Two years ago, I wanted ruby, but not rails. I settled with rails and moved on to merb once that was available.

* Assuming you're sufficiently experienced in framework X now, what are your regrets? What makes the other frameworks look like greener grass?

I have a background in writing and choosing frameworks. So I knew rails was not a fit before I used it but it was all there was if I wanted to go with ruby. Merb still is a fit despite its relative neglect this year. I have few regrets continuing its use.

* If you could start your project over again, would you chose the framework again?

I am doing a new project now, I'm using merb again because I have invested in it and it works well. If I were to move on, it would be for a javascript framework as I should benefit from javascript client and server. Such js frameworks are not mature enough for my needs.

* Did you choose framework X secretly because you just wanted to learn it? In other words, was it attractive to you just because all the cool kids were doing it and you wanted to add it to your toolbox? Be honest.

no. I'm cool enough as it is ;).

</comment><comment><USER16> For me I based my choice on modularity, available components and available documentation.

I got tired of working on dozens of authentication/registration systems, or admin interfaces with sortable tables ... that's boilerplate that distracts you from the purpose of your project.

I'm currently using Catalyst (Perl) for heavy-weight projects. I like that I have CPAN modules at my disposal.

I'm also playing with Django (python) ... I like that it has already built independent modules (see Pinax / django-cms) and a customizable admin interface. It also has very good (free) documentation. I always wanted to get familiar with a CMS platform like Drupal, but I haven't found any that I liked, and Django seems like a good alternative.

I don't like Rails because currently it is too monolithic. There's no way you can replace ActiveRecord with little effort without losing functionality. It is also too heavy for my taste and makes too many assumptions about my application. Of the projects I worked on this year, none of them fits the Rails model.

I took a look at Merb (Ruby) and it looks good. But it doesn't have a large following. Version 2.0 will be merged with Rails, so Rails 3.0 looks promising.

I don't care about language choice as long as I like the language :)

<comment><USER17> There are quite a number of people who don't like activerecord. They usually swap it with datamapper. Search on github for "rails-template", its recipe for settinf custom rails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have been using Symfony for about 3-4 years now. I knew I wanted to use a PHP framework when I first started looking into frameworks because it was the language I was already very familiar with.

In decision making there were a number of different aspects I considered first. The two largest were the community and documentation for the framework. Many of the other frameworks lacked documentation or a large supportive, and knowledgeable, community. Symfony is known to have quite a large learning curve, but it offers multiple 24 hour tutorials to get you acquainted with it(Jobeet and Askeet). The IRC and Forums community are very active and more than welcoming to help anyone with questions.

Every framework has a few special features that others do not, however Symfony's plugin base is very large and often helps make the other framework's grass not as green.

If I could start my projects over I would still choose Symfony, however on a couple I might choose to implement them in a different language which is more suited for the project.

</comment><comment><USER4> My top reason for using a framework for a new project is typically that I want to learn it. Since I worked for myself for most of my developer career so far (but don't any more, to be clear), that wasn't a problem.

However, to _continue_ using a framework, my top criteria are low (or no!) boilerplate and whether it keeps its hands off my SQL and templating.

</comment><comment><USER19> Bought in to work on an in house framework that was to be fair quite outdated, needed to find something that would fit the same space as the technology it was replacing (Basically Java + J2EE) but at the same time wanted something that was friendly to rapid app dev + agile, had used Django extensively before but obviously not a possibility here.

Looked around in the J2EE space and found grails which was;

A) Modelled after ruby on rails conceptually B) Constructed from a large amount of best of breed components in the respective sphere which addresses that piece of the framework, like Spring and Hibernate. C) Had a language which didn't make me want to tear my hair out.

I'd actually never used groovy, which is the language that the grails framework uses internally, before, but found it to be easy to adjust to having a fairly good grip on the general digital polyglot, and having the ability to mix and match with java code has been very eye opening just because of the sheer volume of ready made solutions to the vast majority of problems out there.

To be honest the thing I hate the most about grails is stack traces, they're ridiculously verbose, huge, multipage sprawling monsters, and there's really not much to complain about aside from that.

If I could start my project over again and the need to have it work in the J2EE space was not there, I'd be very hard pressed to say if I'd choose grails or django, both are spectacular at what they do, with their own unique advantages and disadvantages.

I didn't choose it because I wanted to learn it, I was already very familiar with the paradigm and it was obviously the right path forward in terms of getting some rapid app dev processes in place for this organisation, mostly I just wanted to show people what was possible, rather than building apps with string concatenation and manual sql with selects by row and index ( I shit you not ) while staring at AJAX and the general web app environment with increasing confusion.

</comment><comment><USER20> I started using django a few years ago. Previously I'd been using php and had built up my own 'framework' of tools. I'd learnt python though, and loved it (perhaps the finest language in the world) - I'd heard some talk about django and thought I'd give it a go.

And it blew my mind how easy it was. And how well architected. And how it took me a tenth of the time to make a website/app

I've chosen it for every project I've had a say in since - absolutely no regrets.

In terms of framework envy, I've tried out a few others. Rails seems nice, pretty equivalent to django, but I haven't really any desire to learn ruby - it seems too similar to python.

I've also played with stuff like web.py etc.

One of the advantage with django's full stack is that it 'just works'. While it is undoubtably a big framework, if you get in the right mindset you can develop ridiculously rapidly.

<comment><USER20> Oh, and I forgot to mention the community (which is amazing - very friendly), the job opportunities, and the brilliant documentation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> My own, java + apache velocity. In the process of switching to compojure.

Why my own? It's simple, does what I want and does it well, and when it brakes it's my fault. No learning curve :p

</comment><comment><USER22> I look for a framework which satisfies 80% of my criteria. This saves me about 20% of the work.

</comment><comment><USER23> clickable links:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=712975>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=750142>

I found myself in much the same position, so I read all those same links asked a bunch of questions and settled on Django (for now, we'll see how I feel in a couple of weeks).

The decision making process consisted of listing all the contenders, reading as much as I could about them then asking a few HN'ers in private what they would pick if the choice were up to them.

I got some pretty interesting replies, but the most interesting fact was the common 'thread', Django and ruby/rails were mentioned by just about everybody that bothered to answer, Cake by quite a few.

Other technologies were mentioned too (lift on scala for instance), but were either still very immature or had big strikes against them right from the get go (personal ones, technical ones).

So that settled the basic question for me, now the hard part was to choose.

The key decision factors for me were:

\- the possibility to migrate to the jvm at some point, which means I could use some of our investment in the large number of tomcat servers we've got deployed (don't ask).

\- the python language, which seems to be a more universal and widely supported language than Ruby, I do a lot of other progamming besides web stuff and the availability of all kinds of third party modules and code really helped here.

\- GAE support

\- the fact that I had already done a little bit of python programming definitely helped but I would have been more than willing to learn any language.

Cake looked very tempting, I have about a decade invested in PHP, and if the language were the only factor then I would have probably gone with Cake.

I'm not 'sufficiently experienced in framework x' (this has been going for about 5 days now). I chalk up most of my frustration so far to being unfamiliar with the tech, in half a year or so I'll be able to make a more reasoned statement on that.

If I could start again, I'd probably reach the same conclusion because I'd apply the same method, sure there is some frustration but there always is when you're learning something new.

Your last 'be honest' question, no, rather the opposite, I have some pretty major issues with Python (that bloody whitespace thing, it's just too much of a hassle, significant whitespace was a bad idea in makefiles, it is not much better in a programming language). But I feel that the platform has enough momentum to justify my investment in time and other resources.

During the installation procedure (django/wsgi/apache on Etch) I ran into a bunch of snags, if you decide to go this route and you are using the same or a similar platform then let me know.

</comment><comment><USER24> Because I wrote it.</comment>


iOS Screen Time setting blocks searches for "Asian" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/charliestigler/status/1229845987864109056 <comment><USER2> > _iOS built-in adult content filter blocks all searches with the keyword > "Asian," assuming it's porn-related. Which means a 12 y/o Chinese-American > girl might Google "Asian hairstyles" and find out that her culture is > blocked as "adult content."_

> _Searches like "teen mental health resources" are also blocked, because > "teen" is on the blacklist. Which is so dumb for a feature that's probably > being used BY TEENS!_

Wow. One of the biggest tech companies in the world, people.

<comment><USER3> The entire screen time feature is incredibly lame and half assed. As is 50% of Apples output these days.

If you really need to monitor/block your child's online behavior (and cannot handle it with a good talk/trust/etc.), give [https://nextdns.io/](https://nextdns.io/) a try:

* Set up a profile on their site, for example with blocking of porn and enforcing of safe search

* Install the app on their iPhone and link to the config

* Set a passcode on the app

<comment><USER4> Can't the child just delete the app, do the deed, and reinstall the app? Or just disable the VPN temporarily for that matter.

<comment><USER5> I would think that an MDM like Jamf Now could enforce iOS settings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like their recognition model wasn't tested for false correlations...

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh hi! I don't really use Twitter, but I noticed this and wanted to help it get on the right people's radars.

Apple's scale is what makes this especially unacceptable. How many children and teens around the world are using iOS devices with parental restrictions enabled? There is a huge audience dealing with this incredibly poorly- engineered and poorly-considered feature.

<comment><USER8> If you honestly hope to get onto the right people's radar, I encourage you to literally file a Radar! [https://developer.apple.com/bug- reporting/](https://developer.apple.com/bug-reporting/)

As for "huge audience" \- I mean, if so, wouldn't it have been noticed years ago? The feature is buried three dialogs deep and doesn't work well; Apple should probably just remove it.

<comment><USER7> I obviously don't have the actual stats, but I think this is widely used by parents (of the parents I know, usage of the various Screen Time restrictions seems standard, which makes sense to me).

Why hasn't it been noticed? The user isn't the customer. Parents enable the feature, but I doubt they actually _use_ the iPad with filters on and look at what it's blocking. One of the first replies to my tweet was a mom who _had_ been asked by their child yesterday why they'd blocked the word "teen"[1] - and of course they didn't know!

And great idea on filing a Radar as well! (I already backchanneled this to a couple friends who work at Apple, so hopefully it just gets duped to their reports.)

[1] [https://twitter.com/drivingmzstacey/status/12298581552380231...](https://twitter.com/drivingmzstacey/status/1229858155238023168)

<comment><USER9> Any blocking can lead to confusing and non obvious results - another reason to oppose ISPs and states doing it. I run a block list (2 million or so URLs in Pihole) for reducing adverting and tracking. The things that happen can be unpredictable and unexpected, particularly because issues are rarely encountered. I wouldn't be at all surprised if users of this iOS feature have had problems and haven't known the source or reported them (even when there is an error message).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft.com - Careers: Linux/Open Office - <AUTHOR> https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?ss=&pg=0&so=&rw=1&jid=9914&jlang=EN <comment><AUTHOR> And joel weighs in with an analysis: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/12/30.html>

<comment><USER2> _"Microsoft...[have] become so insular that their job postings are full of incomprehensible jargon and acronyms which nobody outside the company can understand."_

Sounds like something I heard about GM last year. Their managers had no idea what the competition was like because they all "had" to drive their own cars.

<comment><USER3> _they all "had" to drive their own cars_

I can imagine that this must be a hard thing to overcome in a car company. When you work for a car company, you want to be proud of your product so you want to buy from your company. However, most families have at most 2 cars, so you have very little incentive to buy and really understand a competitor's product.

I can see how in Microsoft you have the same forces at work. When building infrastructure or programming there is so steep of a learning curve regardless of what technology you choose that it is all but impossible to really understand all possible choices. Couple that with the inherent Microsoft desire to dogfood everything, and you get a lot of people understanding only the Microsoft way. Once you start going down that path, it's very easy to create your own mini-languages. It's all very incestuous, and not a good way to run a company. I think this is why Microsoft seems to have a hard time understanding Apple and Linux.

<comment><USER4> >regardless of what technology you choose that it is all but impossible to really understand all possible choices. Couple that with the inherent Microsoft desire to dogfood everything, and you get a lot of people understanding only the Microsoft way.

I don't actually think this is the case. More than half the people I met at Microsoft over the summer use iPhones (the rest generally had a Palm Pre or an Android phone; I met maybe 2-3 people with Windows Mobile), and many of them have Macbooks for their personal laptops. It was also quite common for people to use Google rather than Bing (though Softies are generally quite enthusiastic about Bing). Linux use probably is lower, simply because they use MS development tools to develop for MS platforms, but I certainly didn't get the impression that everyone at MS only uses MS products.

FWIW, I _have_ heard from friends at Apple that using competitors' products there is frowned upon...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _2\. Be a Perception Change Agent. The CSI Lead needs to drive perception > across a number of key audiences (IT Pros, Government Elites, BDMs, IT > Journalists, etc.) Ability to implement programmatic marketing that will > CHANGE THE WAY PEOPLE think about Microsoft, specifically those with a > 'hostile' or negative perception of the Microsoft platform._

If I was Microsoft, and I wanted to change perceptions of my company, I'd start by changing the reality. Perceptions of MS are poor largely because the reality is poor. But MS want to change the one without the other. This is called bullshit, and is unlikely to work for an organisation as much in the public eye as MS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Having worked for some large companies, the public perception of the organization is thought to be subject to various PR and marketing efforts. What MS has always excelled at, is the PR angle, relying less on advertising. That is the #2 element you quote there.

Part of the reality of MS is that they have a very healthy cash flow from the products that are sold in an institutional fashion, that is, to the enterprise and preloaded on consumer devices. Any organization in that successful situation can't innovate like we have come to expect small companies to do-- serious changes in their "reality" will threaten territories that are bringing home the bacon.

And it has to be a difficult proposition to continue to convince people to pay you money for software that, to a first order of approximation, costs nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Grow your US evidence" ??

Microsoft must have an interesting internal situation going on. On the one hand they want to work with open source - at least, that's what they claim. On the other they want to "compete" with Linux. Since there is enormous overlap between open source projects and Linux projects, that must result in some cognitive dissonance for MS employees.

<comment><USER7> The words "evidence" and "compete" have special meanings inside Microsoft:

As I understand it, "evidence" is proof that your work was received well by the community you are targeting. Rather than sales figures, "evidence" is the currency of the division that this job is in.

"compete" is a blanket term for "not Microsoft": Mac OS X, Linux, (Free|Net|Open)BSD, Plan 9 are all part of "compete".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Damm, I don't understand a word of that job posting. "Compete muscle" and yada yadda, I mean FTW.

<comment> brown9-2 Does Microsoft expect applicants to know what all these internal terms mean? Or is this a listing more for internal candidates?

 _If you're looking for a new role where you'll focus on one of the biggest issues that is top of mind for KT and Steve B in "Compete", build a complete left to right understanding of the subsidiary, have a large amount of executive exposure, build and manage the activities of a v-team of 13 district Linux & Open Office Compete Leads, and develop a broad set of marketing skills and report to a management team committed to development and recognized for high WHI this is the position for you! _

<comment><USER9> looks like an internal job ad (to me) that got disclosed incorrectly.

<comment><USER4> Looks internal, but it also looks like they're hiring marketing folk, not engineers. I think that's more likely the reason that it sounds like gibberish. If a marketing person saw an ad looking for someone with experience in T-SQL in Perl (or whatever), it would probably sound equally bizarre.

<comment><USER9> Lots of those acronyms and abbreviations are microsoft internal, i think. They're not generic marketing. I also think they disclose a lot about the nature of internal senior management structure- who reports to who.

An example: "KT and SteveB" are probably Kevin Turner (COO) and Steve Ballmer.

<comment><USER7> You're right. Those are Microsoft internal jargon.

"compete": Term used for "not Microsoft" (I came from "compete")

"v- team": This position will have contractors working for them. Contractors working for Microsoft have usernames in the format: /[a-z]\\-[a-z]+/. Contractors or "Vendors" have usernames starting with 'v-'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a compete lead. The job is for competing against Open Office and Linux.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some analysis: [http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?ent...](http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2712&blogid=14)

<comment><USER11> I prefer Paul's post ([http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/12...](http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/12/29/and- the-silliest-blog-post-of-the-year-is.aspx))

[disclaimer: I work for the company in question :)]

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Open Office != OpenOffice.org, AFAIK the trademark for Open Office is held by some one other than OO.org

<comment><USER13> You're technically correct - just like the the 'Linux is a kernel' people are also technically correct.

However most people refer to 'OpenOffice' meaning OpenOffice.org, in the same way they refer to 'Linux' and mean a Linux-based OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> so what _is_ a v-team? vertical? victory?

<comment><USER15> Virtual team, as in remote or distributed. (I assume.)

<comment><USER7> Vendor. A team of contractors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Even if we dismiss the jargon, it still demonstrates some really bad grammar.</comment>


COBOL on Wheelchair - <AUTHOR> http://azac.pl/cobol-on-wheelchair/ <comment><USER2> I'm usually not one to get offended and and I'm not going to say the author is horrible person like some jerks around here that get offended by non-PC stuff, but it comes across as possibly a tad offensive to use a wheelchair as a jab at Ruby on Rails. I know it's a play on Cobol being old, but a lot of people confined to wheel chairs are young, in the prime of their life and extremely capable in other areas of their areas of expertise. Anyways, I leave it to the author to think whether or not this has merit, because it's not really my place to judge since I'm not in a wheelchair myself.

TBH I was expecting this to be about someone actually hacking on the cobol that runs their wheelchair.

<comment><USER3> > it's not really my place to judge since I'm not in a wheelchair myself

Yet you do a sterling job of not letting that hold you back for an instant.

<comment><USER2> It is possible to perceive something as likely to offend many without being offended yourself. I'm neither judging, nor offended, but simply stating that the choice of diction here is likely to be hurtful to others. It is not necessarily judgement to speculate on likely outcomes from actions and words.

That being said it is my place to judge you as a pedantic troll that lowers the quality of the discourse here. Furthermore, it is the place of everyone else to judge this comment of mine as one deserving of downvotes since my previous sentence makes it as useless to everyone here as your statement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Though I get the name, I wish it was named something other "on wheelchair". It feels a little degrading. Other than this, it's a nice conceptual work.

<comment> V-2 Degrading in what sense? For Cobol or for wheelchair users?

</comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Oh damn, the aspirations of COBOL on Cogs are now a reality?

I call shotgun on "Why You Should Use COBOL on Wheelchair Instead of Ruby on Rails For Your Startup".

<comment><USER5> Introducing the CRAP (COBOL-RPG-Apache-PL/SQL) stack. Consulting available and a book on the way.

<comment><USER6> Make a CRUD app with CRAP!

<comment><USER7> I thought that was PHP's sales pitch. Zing!

<comment><USER8> Don't be silly. PHP's sales pitch is "at least it's not Perl."

<comment><USER3> Perl's pitch, meanwhile, has lately been "at least it's not PHP."

I know who's winning that fight, in terms of share, but I'm not sure who I think more deserves to lose it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This was both humorous and interesting. The people complaining about the wheelchair aspect need to stop and think about their own projections around the word "wheelchair".

<comment><USER10> I don't like it because the lack of alliteration makes it a less catchy name.

I reckon it's the real reason responsible for Ruby on Rails recognition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler.

The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages.

Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao.

But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it."

but very nice graphics )

<comment><USER12> _But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it_

This was my motto until i did a year or so consulting in RPG-III.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have to wonder: there are _very_ competent "old technology/mainframe" programmers. They debugged complex programs using very primitive tools when we were all in diapers. Obviously, there are also very mediocre old programmers, but for the sake of this discussion, consider the best practitioners of their generation.

How is it that they mostly find themselves stuck in horrible jobs, maintaining legacy software on their old platforms? Surely, for a programmer with experience in assembly and Basic (as an example), becoming proficient in most modern languages shouldn't be a problem. But I strongly suspect that even the minority of the old programmers who bother learning a new language, can't find employment utilizing their new knowledge. Any thoughts?

<comment><USER14> Lots of these guys learned new languages like C aeons ago and have since moved to Java, Scala, Python, etc. The folks who are stuck maintaining legacy COBOL apps are there because they want to be there. The very competent people quickly learn how to use new tools, but can still deep dive and find bugs related to memory leaks and race conditions when it is needed. At the same time, these old guys are likely to demand that everyone around them use TDD so that they don't introduce that kind of bug in the first place. Case in point, Uncle Bob.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Cobol and some of the Basics had a characteristics that made them very desirable for certain use cases. Namely, static memory allocation. Although you can dynamically allocate memory in Cobol, you generaly don't. All storage is statically allocated at program startup. This would be highly desirable if you wanted to allow third parties to execute arbitrary code on your server. That plus no recursive function calls ensures stack and heap safety.

</comment><comment><USER16> Beats the hell out of DOS on Dope [http://dod.codeplex.com](http://dod.codeplex.com)

</comment><comment><USER17> I should put up a repo for my "QBASIC Gone Quixotic" project.

</comment><comment><USER18> Love the logo & name.

Whatever the downsides are, I'm guessing memory leaks aren't among them :-)

(given that the DATA DIVISION is fixed size, unless there are significant GNU extensions)

<comment><USER19> The logo was done in the font Glass Tty VT220 -- which, fyi, also makes a very nice terminal font for your command line. (In fact, I have yet to see anything that matches it.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The fact is COBOL is still used, and useful today, all these decades later. I wonder what the sentiment about Ruby on Fails will be in thirty years time, and I don't think we will still be using it.

<comment><USER21> Ruby will still be used years from now. Rails, probably not, but Ruby is a good language in its domain (scripting, dynamic languages).

<comment><USER22> I'm pretty new to Ruby and I'm already sick of people equating Ruby and Rails though I understand how it happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm waiting for FORTRAN on Steam Engine.

<comment><USER24> Not a microframework, but a friend of mine committed this: [http://freecode.com/projects/cgi77](http://freecode.com/projects/cgi77)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Satoshi shirts – monero and ethereum jerseys - <AUTHOR> Hi HN!
We're just launching satoshi shirts (www.satoshishirts.com) and would love your feedback on: 1. our designs 2. other coins you'd like to see 3. general thoughts as you poke around
thanks! :) <comment><USER2> Are you using a tshirt api dropship service? If so, which one? Or is it custom ordering and fulfillment?

<comment><AUTHOR> Custom ordering and fulfillment. We design, manufacture, and hold the inventory</comment></comment>


How to Get Lucky: Focus on the Fat Tails - <AUTHOR> https://taylorpearson.me/luck/ <comment><USER2> In casino terminology they are called "whales". One whale, at a casino, can spend (i.e. lose) the equivalent of 100s of penny-slot grandmas and so the casinos spend a lot of time catering the whales</comment>


Nine Reasons Why 8GB Is Only Just Enough - <AUTHOR> http://www.jondavis.net/techblog/post/2009/02/13/Nine-Reasons-Why-8GB-Is-Only-Just-Enough-(For-A-Professional-Business-Software-Developer).aspx <comment><USER6> I can't help to notice that all the apps he's talking about that add to the overall memory load are Microsoft apps.

I'm using an open source editor, gmail, xamp, and some webbased servuces and I'm having no problems with 1GB of memory.

<comment><USER7> I noticed that as well. I run Ubuntu, which could be part of it (although that's not to say Ubuntu's not a little bloated as well). Just to test this, I opened up every program that I could think of which I use on a regular basis:

      - Firefox, with 20 tabs
      - <USER2>
      - <USER3>
      - Three terminal windows, running Python, vim, and CherryPy
      - <USER4>
      - GIMP with a photo loaded
      - Two OpenOffice Writer files
      - Geany (a text editor) with nine tabs
      - <USER5>
      - Three large PDFs (books) using Evince Document Viewer
      - System Monitor (not much)

And I'm only at 1.2 GB! (No swap, out of 2 GB total.) I rarely have all of these programs open at once, either.

While I agree with his point in general, it might be overall more effective to avoid relying on apps as bloated as Visual Studio. Then, you can save some of the money on computer upgrades and avoid any negatives that might be associated with developing on a high-end computer. (Of course, I'm a _moron_ for suggesting that there might be any.)

<comment><USER8> I agree with you that using less bloated software could be an option but for some it just isn't an option and they are bound to use (at least some of) the bloated software because of the platform they are developing for or other dependencies...

I think what we can take from the article is that companies bound to use such software have to invest a bit more for their hardware, and to be honest, the costs for the additional RAM probably are pretty negligible compared to the licensing costs for the "bloated software".

Of course 8 GB is a pretty high number but it doesn't come with that high a price anymore.

<comment><USER7> You're right, of course. But there are a lot of people who use this kind of software that don't actually need to, and who would probably be better off using other options.

Also, I don't think that licensing costs hurt my point; by using free software, they could save on that money as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nine Reasons Why 8GB Is Only Just Enough... For A Smug, Self-Righteous Windows Developer.

<comment><USER10> I stopped reading when I read this:

 _Every business software developer should have his own copy of SQL Server Developer Edition._

edit: Oh god, I didn't notice this nugget:

 _Note to the morons who argue "this is why developers are writing big, bloated software that suck up resources" .. Dear moron, this post is from the perspective of an actual developer's workstation, not a mere bit-twiddling programmer_

I wonder how this guy manages to hold down a job with such a hostile attitude.

Hell, I can't make this crap up. Here's from another post:

 _People who swear by Linux for the most part only hate Windows for the sake of hating Microsoft; it has little to nothing to do with the overall quality of the Windows product. They just feel that they have the moral prerogative to spread hate of Microsoft throughout the world._

<comment><USER6> There's a little bit of truth to that last statement though ;-)

<comment><USER11> I think the last statement would be more true if it read: "[people who hate Microsoft] for the most part only hate Windows for the sake of hating Microsoft; it has little to nothing to do with the overall quality of the Windows product. They just feel that they have the moral prerogative to spread hate of Microsoft throughout the world."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Quite a few of my start-up friends use laptops exclusively and I've never understood how they can be very productive on them. Besides the resource issue, they're only working with a single screen, usually a 15" one at that! I have a Macbook that I will occasionally use for work (though mostly just for reading HN after I wake up, as I am now), but a mere 17" of screen real state and 2GB of RAM is just not enough for the long-term.

Compare this to the 48" of screen and 6GB of RAM I get from my Mac Pro and there is no comparison. Still, even on that machine I routinely use 4 Spaces because there's just too much crap to keep on one desktop. Another advantage is never having to think about what to keep open; everything I use on a daily basis is always open and accessible in a Space without any waiting. There's no way I could do this on my laptop.

I think mobile working is a possibility, but I simply don't believe that laptops can replace desktops when it comes to software development.

<comment><USER13> Some of us can't afford Mac Pros. For me, Macbook Pro is about the limit of what I can afford.

<comment><USER12> The 17" MBP is very nearly the same price as a Mac Pro, and nothing says you need to buy one of those. You could build an impressive Linux desktop for far less than either of those machines.

<comment><USER13> Really? What's the entry price for the Mac Pro?

<comment><USER12> $2799, same as 17" MBP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've never seen someone document software bloat so effectively.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hardware is cheap. People are expensive. However these facts are lost on most upper management.

I have developed software for four decades. I was expected to develop the next generation software on what was essentially obsolete systems. I was never allowed to use development hardware that was much over current entry level capability. I did it but at what cost of lost opportunity and lost productivity? The management was stupid cubed if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm very happy that I upgraded my MacBook Pro to 4GB of RAM -- as depressing as it may be, it was just painful trying to do work with only 2GB of RAM, and 4GB is barely enough. The biggest memory hog is VMWare, but Eclipse, Firefox, and OSX itself take up a _lot_ of memory. In addition, you really need your entire working set of documents in memory, so that means the source code of all the projects you're working on. Considering the cost of 4GB of RAM for the MBP, upgrading is a no-brainer.

</comment><comment><USER17> I use a MacBook Pro with 2 GB, and I'm very happy with it. Would it be nice to have 4 GB? Yes. Would I work faster with 4 GB? No (I would work much faster if I just spent less time reading Hacker News, Reddit, Digg, Wikipedia, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER18> From the title I thought he meant hard drive space.

On my netbook 16GB is plenty and 8GB would be just enough. That's including all my dev tools. The 1G of RAM is more than enough.

</comment><comment><USER19> people developing end user products should be given a machine that matches the average machine the application will be used on. fast and powerful machines reserved for fast feedback of large testing.

developing an interface on an 8GB machine then hoping it will run nice and fast on X users 1GB laptop is just silly.

that aside, I develop entirely on my laptop, I run linux, virtualbox with windows xp, photoshop + excel, emacs, firefox and a shell and it never breaks a sweat

<comment><USER14> no, they should be given the _worst_ possible machines their application is still expected to run on, then it will run like greased lightning and use very little resources for everybody else.

The main reason I see for code bloat is because developers have too powerful machines.

<comment><USER19> yeh I was going to say lowest common denominator, but if they are running reasonably expensive dev tools then that kinda evens out

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > By quadrupling the performance of your employee's system

But you don't necessarily quadruple the performance by quadrupling memory.

More memory -> slower hybernation

64 bit -> fatter pointers, leading to larger memory consumption

<comment><USER21> 64-bit -> more registers (8!) -> fewer memory accesses, so it might even out a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have 4GB on a regular old Macbook and I've never had any trouble whatsoever keeping not only Xcode and Firefox running in the background, but also a VM running XP, VS2008 and Google Chrome on it, among other programs. 8GB is useful if you need all of your (many many) programs ready to go at once or if you're dealing with HD video, though.

</comment><comment><USER23> 8GB is almost barely just enough, but that article is fluff.

No one has all those apps running at once, and the numbers are exaggerated.

The real reason 8GB is just enough: open task manager and look at the virtual memory size for your applications. All that can be a lot faster if you have the memory to stick it in.

<comment><USER24> That number doesn't correspond to how much physical memory an app will use. Just see how much RAM is free or being used for disk cache during your normal workload, if that number is less than 500MB you would probably benefit from more memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Running OS X, I just got an upgrade from 2GB to 4GB of RAM. I wouldn't have bothered--just running the OS, Eclipse etc. is fine--but when I'm running Photoshop and an instance of XP under VMWare Fusion, things start getting a little sluggish.</comment>


Can you pitch your startup in 2 sentences or less? - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/groups/pitchback/ <comment><USER2> I'm not on Facebook, but yes.</comment>


Why Intelligent People Use More Drugs - <AUTHOR> http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201010/why-intelligent-people-use-more-drugs <comment><USER2> All this shows is a correlation between IQ score and drug use. There's not even an attempt to explain why more intelligent people would use drugs more often. I'm not terribly surprised THAT more intelligent people use drugs more often, but it would have been really cool to see some data points or a survey trying to explore the reasons behind that fact. I suppose, though, that would be too much to ask from an article entitled "Why Intelligent People Use More Drugs."

<comment><USER3> Second that.

My guess is that "intelligent people" are more likely to see trough the "If you touch that devils marijuhana cigarette your gonna end up with a needle in the arm, boy" and have a higher curiosity towards things that make them see things differently.

It would be cool to see some data about what drugs higher intelligent/educated persons tend to use. My guess is that weed, coke, LSD,Mescaline,Psilocin have a somewhat higher user base than say Opiates, Meth and stuff that actually can turn your life around for the worse very fast.

I shall investigate with a poll. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article shows me that the "societal standards" of what "bright" and "very bright" individuals are, have fallen. I refuse to believe that "bright" and "very bright" individuals are in the range mentioned in the article. Maybe the "dumbing down" of society has been instituted through the mindless activities that humanity participates in like watching t.v. or movies.

As social networks have taken over the internet, live social interaction has diminished as well. Humans need live social interaction for personal development, they don't need to see/view social interaction on t.v., in a movie, or online. There is neurological reaction that occurs when you meet someone for the first time. This can not be duplicated through viewing/obtaining the action from the outside. There is an electrical transference the occurs when shaking someone's hand, or giving them a hug that cannot be obtained through "poking" someone online.

I agree with the article that drug use by more intellectual people would be higher in the fact that there is no escaping the mind. The mind needs a break periodically, and rest for the mind comes in more ways than just sleep. Even while sleeping intellectual people are still calculating and/or working on projects.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2364758> A poll to see what drugs "intelligent" people like.

</comment><comment><USER5> Theory confirmed with Wall Street traders!!</comment>


Ask HN: please review EngagePerPage, A Social Engagement Platform - <AUTHOR>

The main goal of this product is to increase the brand reach and awareness for SMB by adding puzzles and social tasks to any Facebook brand page in minutes; engaging and rewarding the audience on the way.
Here is the URL: https://www.engageperpage.com
Do you think the product is in right direction? Any feedback or comments? <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable URL : [https://www.engageperpage.com](https://www.engageperpage.com)</comment>


A problem worse than Zoom - <AUTHOR> https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/zoom.html <comment><USER2> So any website can make arbitrary requests to localhost or any internal LAN server? You could have a field day with just a little bit of internal knowledge on that one.

Do random malicious web pages in IOS still have the ability to open the app store too? Was that the genesis of all this nonsense, just trying to make the app store easier?

</comment><comment><USER3> Several russian sports sites scan your local network for several UDP and TCP ports, which I block via my firewall. Chrome should be blocked to access 192.168. _._ for all TCP and UDP ports. localhost of course also.</comment>


IPad Will Be Available In The U.S. Starting On April 3 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/05/ipad-will-be-available-in-the-u-s-starting-on-april-3/

<comment><USER2> Not saying this is deliberate, but I wonder if there's an advantage to launching a new device around tax season in the USA.

If you're crunching numbers and discover you're getting a few hundred back, are you more inclined to spend it on something like this if the hype syncs up with the money?

<comment><USER3> There's definitely a benefit to doing that. Didn't have to pay this year, so I took part of my refund and got a new MacBook Pro.

<comment><USER2> If a MacBook Pro takes up "part" of your refund, you really need to modify your exemptions and stop letting the IRS hold your money all year long.

The IRS even gives you a handy calculator to figure it out: <http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96196,00.html>

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately for too many people their excess tax withholdings are their only saving plan.

<comment><USER5> If your IRS refund is your only form of saving, then spending it on a MacBook Pro takes you to a whole new level of bad decision making.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately it also makes you a fairly typical American.

<comment><USER6> It is baffling how many people treat a tax return like it's found money, when in reality it's the end result of you losing money. People think "oh sweet I can buy a laptop" rather than "oh crap I lost a bunch due to inflation and missed interest".

Sometimes I wish I knew less about math, I would probably be happier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Now if they would only release some updated MacBook Pros. The current line is really outdated specwise.

<comment><USER8> It seems like Apple is very careful to let their current inventories run nearly dry before introducing updates. I'm sure it saves them a lot of money but they should probably be a bit more concerned with keeping up with the market.

<comment><USER9> "they should probably be a bit more concerned with keeping up with the market"

why? is the average user's experience going to be any different between the current crop of MBP's and the next?

I'd rather a longer wait and then have x25-m's standard =)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It will be interesting to see whether the publishing industry, and particularly Old Media, will be able to leverage the Ipad and start making some money on their content.

<comment><USER11> It looks like they are ready to take a shot at it: [http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-first-look-how- penguin-...](http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-first-look-how-penguin-will- reinvent-books-with-ipad/)

<comment><USER10> The Ipad and other devices that will undoubtedly appear are probably the best shot they've got. It's not about paying it's about psychology and transaction costs that are too high and cumbersome.

Apple already proved with the Ipod/itunes combination that consumers are willing to pay for music even though the recording industry said they weren't. The same is probably true of print - it's simply a question of delivering a great user experience, no hassles, and low transaction costs.

<comment><USER11> "[I]t's simply a question of delivering a great user experience, no hassles, and low transaction costs."

Absolutely. Looking at the video in the above link, it appears they will nail "great user experience" (obviously I won't know for sure until the iPad is in my hands, but those Space, Human Body and Travel app/books look slick).

Apple seems to have the "no hassles"/"low transaction costs" angle covered for the consumer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Looks like pre-ordering starts March 12 - [http://www.prnewswire.com/news- releases/ipad-available-in-us...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news- releases/ipad-available-in-us-on-april-3-86560327.html)

<comment><USER12> Congrats, your comment had more value add on top of a press release than a techcrunch post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> And many other countries in late April:

"iPad will be available in both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models in late April in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. International pricing will be announced in April. iPad will ship in additional countries later this year."

<comment><USER14> This is one I'll have to watch closely. Given the near-parity of the US and Canadian currencies, I'm not sure how forgiving Canadians will be if the iPad ends up costing noticeably more up here.

<comment><USER15> The current MacBook Pro lineup is $100 more in Canada for all models (from $1199 -> $1299 to $2499 -> $2599) with the base Mac Mini $50 more. The price difference is probably close enough to duty that it won't be worth it to cross the border.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> And they've pushed back the UK release a whole month, to late April!

This is ridiculous. Now British iPad developers be a whole month behind most of their customer base (the US is the biggest market even for most UK developers)! Can't Apple at least find a way to get iPads into the hands of the many _developers_ over here, even if regular users wouldn't be supported?

We're being held back weeks for no good reason and will have to organize getting them sent via intermediaries or hop on a plane to pick some up.. which is a crazy, unnecessary waste of money. As such, we'll miss out on being early on the iPad App Store which is a massive disadvantage. Poorly played, Apple.

<comment><USER17> Worse for us developers that operate in "additional countries later this year."

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Finally, we can get past the hype and let the device speak for itself.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think this PR is a fake. It doesn't read quite right.

EDIT: well, looks like my bullshit calibration was off this morning. I still cannot believe they threw "magical and revolutionary" into the first sentence instead of into Steve's pullquote.

<comment><USER20> <http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/03/05ipad.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "iPad a Kindle killer", as the article states? I don't think so. Nothing beats e-Ink for readability in the bright sunlight outside. LCD's are hardly readable under such conditions, especially if they have a shiny finish. [well, maybe a book or a newspaper beats an eBook reader ;-)]

<comment><USER22> "readability" is feature book-readers care about, unfortunately most "consumers" aren't "book consumers" therefore if the iPad is designed for the average "magazine (ultra-light) reader" than it will be a "kindle-killer". If the iPad is good for the "reading on the toilet" it WILL kill kindle's chance of "tablet dominance", BUT kindle will still have a sizable market if it remains merely the choice "e-book". As long as Amazon manages to convert a large portion of book-readers to kindle-readers than Bezos could care less (and should be thrilled).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yay.

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes! Super excited to get my pre-order in</comment>


Microsoft revenue down 6%, earnings down 30% for third quarter - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/04/23/microsoft-earnings-down-over-last-year

<comment><USER2> I don't see how they could have done otherwise.

They are delivering very little in the way of innovation and have no real focus as a business.

From my angle their products are less impressive than their peers in each market segment, with the possible exception of the Office franchise.

I have an Xbox 360, which I like, and I manage a SharePoint platform as my job. SharePoint has its moments, but overall it's solid and it works. It's good. It's a standard Microsoft product. Mlah.

But when it comes to computing resources that I own and manage, there's no value on the Microsoft platform any more. We have 3 Mac laptops at home and a Mini for the TV. I have an iPhone despite already having a work-issued BlackBerry (RIM is another story).

The value I get out of OS X may be things the consumer can't see or doesn't see soon enough before purchasing a PC or a Windows Mobile device. Things like antivirus and malware. Things like integration between hardware and software, to which anyone who has used gestures on modern MacBook can testify. Things like instant-on when waking from sleep. Things like simple backups and restores, and transferring user data and configurations from an old Mac to a new one.

I'm sure a lot of those things that differentiate Apple's offering from Microsoft's will not last for a long time. Windows 7 will close the gap. But I'm enjoying these features now and have been enjoying some of them for years. Why wait?

Microsoft will not stand still, and neither will Apple. But unless something happens at the DNA level in those two organizations, I expect Apple's offering to actually increase the gap, because that's been the trend since OS X was introduced in 2001. Windows XP was introduced later the same year . . . and I'm using it here at work to post this.

The fact that I'm using an 8 year old OS at work fully underscores the challenges faced by Microsoft. We have no plans to upgrade. None.

So Apple is the platform of innovation. They're innovating at the OS level and people who innovate are drawn to the capabilities to afford. The next generation of software is being brought about on platforms other than Windows.

Machiavelli nailed it in 1505 and in 2009 Microsoft is suffering the effects. A long but poignant quotation:

"It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from the fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them." ([http://gojomo.blogspot.com/2002/06/machiavellis- innovators-d...](http://gojomo.blogspot.com/2002/06/machiavellis-innovators- dilemma.html))

The guys who got rich at Microsoft are still there, strangling the place because they only know one way to get rich and damned if they're going to throw that away. The smart guys take off, unwilling to be stifled, so you're left with worker bees who nod when told to nod.

The best thing that could happen for Microsoft would be a new senior management team. The second best thing would be to force them all to use any products other than their own.

<comment><USER3> My ThinkPad running Vista has all the advantages you list for Mac OS X--I don't have "gestures" but I get to use the TrackPoint + 3 buttons instead, which I greatly prefer. Plus, I have "page up" and "page down" keys.

Can anybody give an example of something that makes Mac OS X better than Vista? I am not worried about driver issues because my hardware vendor gives me good drivers. I'm not worried about malware because I use UAC and because the network clients I use (e.g. IE8 and Chrome) all use more layers of malware mitigation than are even available on Mac OS X.

Also, why do you count your company's preference for Microsoft's 8-year-old version of Windows over modern Mac OS X _against_ Microsoft? Doesn't it show instead that Windows was better 8 years ago than Mac OS X is today?

<comment><USER4> _Can anybody give an example of something that makes Mac OS X better than Vista?_

It's Unix. That's the big one. Unix isn't necessarily the Platonic ideal of an operating system, but it is the standard. Learn it, and you know an OS that runs on almost all the hardware in the world and that powers the majority of the web.

No more Cygwin. No struggling with bizarrely different Windows semantics. No falling behind the open-source development curve -- git works better, ruby works better. Any software which is developed on Mac or Linux works better on Macs or Linux boxes -- that's where the bugs get fixed first.

Obvious other reasons to love the Mac include _really_ not worrying about malware, and the Mac software community and its well-designed Mac-only apps. I'm not a heavy user of such things, yet even I have a few that I would be loath to give up: 1Password, Quicksilver, Textmate [1], Pixelmator, xScope, iWork, HandBrake, VisualHub.

A final obvious reason: Mac users have Windows around if we want it. [2] I've got two Windows VMs on this machine right now, which I use for the dreaded Quickbooks (argh), the occasional game, and (of course) cross-browser testing of web page rendering.

\---

[1] Though I use emacs most of the time.

[2] Windows users can apparently also have the Mac around... but it's not supported, and they have to solve a lot of those pesky driver issues.

<comment><USER5> There are lots of reasons to love OSX, but I don't think the malware argument is standing up very well these days.

<http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2941>

"It's really simple. Safari on the Mac is easier to exploit. The things that Windows do to make it harder (for an exploit to work), Macs don't do. Hacking into Macs is so much easier. You don't have to jump through hoops and deal with all the anti-exploit mitigations you'd find in Windows."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh my, only 13+ billion dollars in revenue and 3 billion in net income during one of the worst economic downturns in decades. These numbers are more than Apple and Google combined. Total cash up from 23 billion to 25 billion. The horror.

<comment><USER7> True. But you pay a lot for the 3b as an investor. 1% earnings & negligible dividend for a 'monopoly' is not great, even in this low-interest environment. It indicates that the market (and I would guess most HN readers) do not believe MS's 'monopoly' is secure.

<comment><USER8> _you pay a lot for the 3b as an investor....It indicates that the market do not believe MS's 'monopoly' is secure._

Your argument makes zero sense. _You_ may believe MS's monopoly is insecure, but if the markets believed that as well, then you wouldn't have to pay so much to own MS. The short term dividend returns would be greater because investors would be expecting capital loss.

<comment><USER7> I agree, you're right about the low dividend. But the argument against paying a high price for MS's future earnings stands. I conflated two ideas, but although I actually believe MS's conservative cash position is perhaps their best strength - I still believe they had a valuable monopoly & lost their way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems that IT sector is quite unaffected by current recession. Of course it suffers as whole economy slows down, but still perform much better then the other industries.

1 year of indexes

S&P 500: -38.26%

Dow Jones Industrial Average: -37.66%

Nasdaq Composite: -33.56%

</comment><comment><USER10> Oh no! I'm not a big fan of internet explorer - but I hope the company does well!</comment>


Research team cracks the cause of fatal corona blood clots - <AUTHOR> https://www.jpost.com/health-science/hadassah-doctors-crack-the-cause-of-fatal-corona-blood-clots-631681 <comment><USER2> Unfortunately this research is not conclusive as it's not shown how this reaction is different from reactions to other pathogens</comment>


Ask HN: What important truth do few people agree with you on? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> If truth means relatively strongly held contrarian opinion I'll give you the science and tech ones. These vary in terms of how contrarian they are.

Phones are "done." There will be more innovation around the edges but little major innovation. Sales will continue to plateau and fall as there is no need to upgrade. Desktop will experience a minor renaissance as people realize mobile OSes and platforms aren't fully displacing it, though they will continue to displace it at the low end.

Biology harnesses quantum information systems (not necessarily anything like the QC we might build) at the cellular level up. True GAI will require QC. Present AI remains nothing more than glorified curve fitting with big models.

Quantum computing will have non-cryptographic applications first in areas like optimization, molecular simulation, etc. It will take longer for QC to seriously threaten ECC and RSA with larger key sizes due to how many qubits are needed and unexpected performance bottlenecks scaling e.g. Shor's algorithm. (I would still recommend PQ crypto if your adversary is a nation state or someone else with huge pockets.)

Cryptocurrency will disappoint in the short term but will be huge in the long term. But... this does not mean present day coins will retain their value any more than we still search with Altavista and Lycos.

Solar power will continue to grow but its contribution will plateau no higher than 50% max of the global energy mix. We will not phase out carbon heavy power without nuclear. Grid scale storage beyond load leveling will remain economically non-competitive with fossil fuels unless there are major chemistry or manufacturing.</comment>