Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less? - <AUTHOR> As a developer, I've found that it's just not worth it to respond to tech companies / recruiters seeking engineers, unless they're based in the USA. Companies based anywhere else, in my experience, expect to pay less than half the rate that US companies will pay.
Why is this? There are possible causes having to do with tax rates and culture, but has anyone really looked into it? How big a contributor is this (rather than, say, immigrants as percent of total population, or university quality) to the fact that the US has Google and Apple and Facebook and Twitter, and the rest of the world has… JustEat and Spotify? <comment><USER2> A part of the gap can be explained by the way that work is organized in the US compared to Europe. Let's compare e.g. Germany and the USA:

[https://data.oecd.org/germany.htm](https://data.oecd.org/germany.htm) [https://data.oecd.org/united-states.htm](https://data.oecd.org/united- states.htm)

If you scroll down to the Economic indicators, you will see that on average people in the US work around 1.700 hours a year, whereas people in Germany (and many other European countries) work only 1.400 hours. This alone can already explain 20 % of the wage gap between the two countries, and in fact if you look at the average salary per hour worked, it is almost identical (32 USD), which would support this theory. In addition, many things like education, housing, social security and health insurance are much cheaper in Europe, which leads to lower salaries (as they tend to follow the cost of living). Furthermore, regulations in Europe are stronger than in the US, which makes it more difficult (or sometimes even impossible) to fire people once they have been employed for some time. Hence the risk of losing your job is smaller, which should lead to a lower salary as well as companies face a higher risk when hiring someone, and employees have less risk.

And in extreme tech hot spots like SV or NY there should course be an additional effect due to the high demand of skilled IT professionals and the fact that people can usually find a new job very easily, which also makes it easier to negotiate a higher salary and forces companies to pay above average rates to attract talent, which is a self-reinforcing effect.

<comment><USER3> My wage in the US is about 3 times what I'd be making home in France. 3 times. Trust me I'm not working 3 times as many hours as my friends over there. Actually it's quite the opposite.

<comment><USER4> But... You're not living in France. There are many people who would rather be making 3 times less and living in France.

It is a trade off, that's all there is to it, e.g. If you, God forbid, have get into a severe health condition in the US, you might very well be making 5x more, you're still going to get broke pretty soon because social healthcare is virtually nil.

<comment><USER5> Someone making 3x (as a programmer) can very easily afford very high quality health insurance. When you have it, it actually does work.

Chances are they are already covered by their employer though.

The lack of "affordable" healthcare really isn't a concern for the six figure tech worker class - those salaries imply quality health insurance as part of the package.

<comment><USER4> > The lack of "affordable" healthcare really isn't a concern for the six > figure tech worker class

Isn't it? Let's do the math... A leukimia treatment drug that is virtually free in most advanced European healthcare will cost virtually 0 USD/year.

In india the same drug might as far as 2.5k/year. In the USA the same drug (patent hold by Novartis) costs 70k/year.

Let's say you are living in SF. You get paid anywhere between 80 and 120k/year at a top IT company and you have to give 70k/year away: 120-70 = 50k. Are 50k/year enough to live in SF, Silicon Valley or the Bay Area?

<comment><USER6> Generally speaking good healthcare (insurance) is going to cover the majority of the cost of the drugs for the person that has it.

<comment><USER7> Yes, assuming one remains employed and still has this great employer-paid health insurance while needing this hypothetical $70k/year drug while fighting leukemia.

I really do wonder though, since there's zero guarantee in the US that one would remain employed through all of this.

<comment><USER4> For posterity, the 70k/year is a real[1] number.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/why- chemo...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/why-chemotherapy- that-costs-70-000-in-the-us-costs-2-500-in-india/274847/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't really care how much someone in USA earns.

As a software engineere in germany you are earning good money.

There are no killings in cities, affordable health care, high quality living standards, university costs 150$ for 6 month, no donald trump, 30 days real holiday (i take them, everyone does, every year), seldom over hours, parental leave.

Btw. IT is more than google, apple, facebook and twitter.

And no we do not have anywhere in germany rent prices like in NY or in SF. Perhaps, only, if even in the middlest of the centere.

<comment><USER9> >> university costs 150$ for 6 month.

This is not a German miracle, its simple demographics, most of the Germans are in their productive years of 40s and 50s and their population in teens and 20s is tiny, so their investments are low even though at per-capita level they look tremendous. This is the reason why Germany's hope is automation. They are demographically not in a great place. of course, this will come home to roost in 20 years or so.

[edit] Demographics link: [http://www.indexmundi.com/germany/age_structure.html](http://www.indexmundi.com/germany/age_structure.html)

<comment><USER10> Or maybe they figured out that relying on population growth to drive the economy is a Ponzi scheme. Eventually you can't add more population so you have to reckon with aging one day, might as well solve the problem ASAP. Automation combined with exports allows you to grow your economy without adding humans.

If they still wanted to, they could turn on the migration spigot at anytime. Plenty of brilliant engineers and scientists to pick off out of Eastern Europe, Iran, etc. Labor has already come in on its own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're comparing to European jobs, one factor is that the U.S. has higher income inequality then many other countries, which means generally the highly paid jobs pay more, and the poorly paid jobs pay less. This will make U.S. salaries look good in some areas, and bad in others. (The median U.S. salary is also a bit higher than most other countries, but not by enough to explain the differences seen specifically in _tech_ salaries.)

I think there is also not as much of a general tech talent shortage in Europe, so it's not one of the most in-demand jobs outside of specialized areas (if you're a top deep-learning expert right now, yes, but not for general programming / SE jobs). Many European countries traditionally have very strong STEM education, in a number of cases actually overproducing highly skilled graduates in the field relative to the local industry's needs (which is why you see a lot of Spanish, Romanian, Greek, Italian, etc. STEM graduates working in other countries). Not quite as badly oversupplied in the "T" part of STEM as in the "M" part, but still, not a shortage.

edit: Oh, another factor, for right now, that I should've mentioned is that the U.S. dollar is much stronger against the Euro and UK pound than it has been historically (even compared to a year or two ago), while salaries don't respond that quickly to currency movements. There are still significant differences if you use circa 2015 exchange rates, but smaller.

<comment><USER12> Uhhhhhhhh income inequality does not have that kind of effect. Income inequality may effect the taxes paid by people, but it doesn't change salaries the way that you're suggesting.

America just has more highly paid jobs, because we've got some of the biggest companies and highest GDP per capita in the world. And this has the effect of creating a greater spread of income. It's a bigger, richer, pond.

<comment><USER13> >[USA] has the highest GDP per capita in the world

Not quite, it has the 18th highest. Below Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Ireland all who pay less for engineering.

[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html)

<comment><USER14> The US does have the highest GDP for any major country, though. The ones above it there are all quite small.

<comment><USER15> Switzerland, Singapore, Norway, Hong Kong and UAE don't match my definition of "quite small". Each of them has several million inhabitants.

<comment><USER16> The U.S has ~ 320 million people. So 2 magnitudes difference compared to some others. Additionally the U.S is quite large with many regions and sub-regions. Some regions have quite high GDP while others lower. So given that it's quite impressive versus much smaller and less populous countries.

In any case it's a stretch to make an apples to apples comparison when you have 2 magnitudes of population difference.

<comment><USER17> That way you could say the US is a small country because it only has ~1/4 of the population of China.

Just because a country has a smaller population it doesn't make it unsuitable to live or to compare economic data.

<comment><USER16> You're just being pedantic here.

There's a big difference between countries that above the US (top 18) on that list where there is a 10x to 100x difference. 1x (US) to 4x (China) does not a magnitude make.

Even given that I would concede that the U.S is a lot less populous country than China. Additionally, there's a lot of places where comparisons of stats are invalid because of that difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As someone with Canadian and American work experience, I think US wages are higher because there is more capital in the States. Both Canada and the States struggle to find qualified software devs. The companies that can afford to pay more, get their pick of devs out of a very small pool, so the wages increase. However, in Canada, the companies won't/can't pay as much, so the devs end up making less, or moving south. Brain-drain is a problem in Canada for a lot of different industries (healthcare is hugely impacted).

The cost of housing in Vancouver, Canada is right behind New York and San Fran. I don't think wages has anything to do with cost of living. In general I think Canadian investments are less risk tolerant, the market doesn't shift as fast as it does in the States, and therefore less cash flow. Also, its in the employers best interest to keep salaries down and convince their employees that living in Canada (Vancouver instead of San Fran) is better (how ever you define better).

<comment><USER19> There is more _free floating capital_. There are VCs in the US who are willing to invest in all sorts of things and willing to take chances. There are few VCs or banks in Canada that would take a chance on Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat or Uber. Brain-drain is a problem but the bigger problem is lack of capital.

 _Also, its in the employers best interest to keep salaries down and convince their employees that living in Canada (Vancouver instead of San Fran) is better (how ever you define better)._

Yes, especially true. I've yet to see any Canadians who have actually received a raise in recent years. No one talks about it and no one knows whether their salary will be increased to at least meet inflation. It's a little messed up.

<comment><USER20> Raising money for an internet startup in Canada is effectively impossible. You might get some minor Series A angel investors (dentists and vets are your best bet), but once you start getting into the Series B rounds where you need real money, you won't find anyone willing to risk it. All they're interested in is gas/oil/mining.

Very risk adverse. We've had to resort to roadshows down in California and New York to try and get US capital.

<comment><USER10> It's not about risk aversion. There's just not enough money going around. US is a big country so obviously if 1% of your capital will be allocated to high risk VC it's going to be a much more substantial amount.

<comment><USER20> We've had Canadian VCs tell us it was too risky to invest in internet startups. Full stop.

<comment><USER21> They're not really wrong though. Unless you really know what you're doing you will lose money, as evidenced by the fact that most VCs do in fact lose money and venture as an asset class sucks.

<comment><USER19> They aren't wrong but salaries are too low; you can't really bootstrap unless you're doing a side business and then you're effectively working two jobs. There's no YC in Canada or at least it's harder to get some funding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm in the US and a friend just moved to The Netherlands to accept a much lower paying job. He swears he has more disposable income due to cheaper health care, Internet, transportation (no car required!), etc. The basic assertion being that the cost of living is higher in the US.

I would love to see salary vs cost-of-living comparisons globally. I suspect this might account for the disparity, but I'm afraid I don't have the data to confirm or disprove this assertion.

Update: Spent 5 minutes googling with no luck. Found some moving company (?!) sponsored data showing most of the EU having a very high cost of living. Makes me wonder if that takes into account free-or-cheaper-than-US health care, child care, transportation (owning a car is $$$), education (most US tech workers are paying a high student debt "tax"), and other lifestyle/political differences between the two regions.

<comment><USER23> Is/was your friend an American citizen? I've been fascinated by emigrating to Europe for a long time and am always looking for stories about how people pull it off.

<comment><USER24> This is rather easy for the typical HN crowd. For example, to get a working visa for Germany (Blue card) you "only" need to find a job that pays more than 50000 Euro/year. In a nutshell, that is all.

[http://www.bamf.de/EN/Infothek/FragenAntworten/BlaueKarteEU/...](http://www.bamf.de/EN/Infothek/FragenAntworten/BlaueKarteEU/blaue- karte-eu-node.html)

<comment><USER23> Had no idea about this, thank you for passing it along. This part is particularly interesting:

> Holders of an EU Blue Card can enter another Member State without a visa > after 18 months and apply for the EU Blue Card of that Member State within a > period of one month.

And it looks like Americans (at least for now...) can go to Germany before they're even approved:

> Exceptions apply to nationals of Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, the > Republic of Korea, New Zealand and the United States of America. They can > enter Germany on a visa-free basis and can apply to the competent > immigration authority in Germany for their future place of residence for an > EU Blue Card within three months of entering Germany.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Supply and demand?

I think there's a large variance in the US as well between different geographical areas. I would expect you can find x2 differences even within one geography.

There are a lot of factors in play:

\- In SV there's a lot of "easy" money and a shortage of people.

\- There's a lot of friction preventing this from equalizing. Immigration policies being one example.

\- There have been significant currency movements over the last couple of years and those take some time to reflect back to things like prices and salaries. The strength of the US dollar means that at least temporarily you make that much more if you work in the US.

\- Cost of living. If you have to pay more to own a house, pay for your kids education, commute, health, etc. then you can expect upwards pressure on salaries to make up for that.

\- Risk premiums.

I think it's important to realize that these things can take a while to play out. When I look at today's salaries compared to 10 or 20 years ago I don't actually think they're very high but that's against a backdrop of erosion in other middle class salaries. Time will tell.

</comment><comment><USER26> I suspect a partial cause from right-to-work laws. It's much harder to fire an employee in Europe, so companies are less willing to bid on employees, and so compensation is lower. Plus the employees themselves value the job security, which substitutes for wages when evaluating offers.

For specific predictions from this model:

1\. Public-sector programmers in general should get paid less than private- sector programmers, due to employees valuing the job security

2\. The public/private gap should be larger in the US than in Europe, since there's a smaller job security gap

3\. Public-sector programmers in the US should have higher wages than public- sector programmers in Europe, due to having to compete with more vigorous private-sector activity in the US

<comment><USER27> California, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington do not have right-to-work laws, yet software salaries in SF, Boston, New York, and Seattle are among the highest in the world. If that were the cause, Austin, TX should become the high-pay Mecca that every programmer would migrate to, because Texas is a right-to-work state.

<comment><USER28> GP is confusing "at will" with "right to work". All states, except Montana I believe, are at will, meaning employees can be let go without cause. Right to workis much less common, and prohibits things like closed shops where an employee is required to join a specific union as a condition of employment.

<comment><USER27> That would make more sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Everyone throwing around "free" healthcare as a valid explanation for this wage gap needs to account for taxation levels too.

using estimates via Google:

"average programmer salary usa" -> $84,360

"average programmer salary in sweden" -> $54,264

According to [http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/10/focus-4](http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/10/focus-4), average effective taxes in the USA (including social security) are 25%... but 35% in Sweden. Even if those particular numbers are off, the point is that higher taxes may further expand the gap with lower pre-tax foreign salaries.

So the Swede keeps $35k and gets state-sponsored healthcare. The American keeps $63k and probably has decent health coverage from his employer. I'm not sure about this but I suspect that the American can use a fraction of that $28,000 difference to upgrade the health insurance to Swedish levels or better.

(There are also smaller but still significant expenses like housing, affected by property taxes, and consumption taxes like New York City's 8.875% relatively-high-for-the-USA sales tax vs Sweden's 25% VAT.)

<comment><USER30> The averages don't work well when you divide. You need to look to medians for the income and then compute average tax rate _for_ that* income.

<comment><USER29> That's true. I didn't look into how exactly Swedish rates are computed. A 25% effective rate sounded about right to me for a single-filer US salary in that range in most states which have income taxes on top of the federal+FICA. A Nordic country having 10+% higher effective rates likewise seemed reasonable but I certainly don't know for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Five things:

1\. We are taxed on income _heavily_ in the US.

2\. Insurance is expensive here.

3\. In the hubs, rent is _very_ expensive.

Take-home pay after considering these three things is a lot less than you might think. And also:

4\. Generalizing the salary of positions across the whole US is misleading. An average engineering job in the midwest or outside of a hub can pay half the salary of SF or NYC.

5\. It really depends (1) where the company you're considering is based and (2) if it's a remote gig, whether they adjust your comp based on your location. One example of this is Buffer's extremely transparent salary calculator [1].

The holy grail is to geoarbitrage by getting paid by a company in a location that pays highly while living remotely somewhere the cost of living is much lower.

[1]: [https://buffer.com/salary](https://buffer.com/salary)

<comment><USER32> > 1\. We are taxed on income heavily in the US.

I was surprised at this so I looked it up. From the article [1] it looks as if income tax in the US is lower than in most of Europe. But yes, higher than Russia, Saudi Arabia or Mexico.

[1] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26327114](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26327114)

<comment><USER31> There are a couple issues with that article.

1\. "For each country, they calculated how much a high earner on a salary of $400,000..."

That number is way higher than programmer salaries. Most programmers are high earners but not that high.

2\. It assumes a constant salary amount in any country, but this isn't reality.

If someone makes $250k as a programmer in the US, it might equate to $100k–125k in another country. US tax rates are tiered (see "Marginal Tax Rate" at [1]), so someone that makes $250k pays more than double the taxes of $125k.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Marginal_tax_rates_for_2017)

<comment><USER32> If you scroll down a bit further, you should find that both your points are addressed in the second set of figures. US tax rates looking even lower there.

<comment><USER31> These percentages are misleading because they don't paint the full picture. Especially considering insurance and rent.

It's a very apples to oranges comparison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Hum, I don't know how the system works in the US, but in France a lot of money is taken from the salary to cover for health insurance, unemployment insurance and retirement plan. Plus we have 5 weeks paid vacation automatically included. And I think cost of life is lower than in the US, even in Paris which is the more expensive area. To go with numbers, I currently earn 50k€ per year (gross), which makes for 3k€ per month (net). I don't have a car (no need in Paris). This income is enough for me to live my life without any privation, going to bars, cinema, restaurant, weekend trips, etc whenever I want, and still save 10 to 40% of it each month. Last year I bought a new computer, a new phone, and 2 weeks vacation in Iceland without even touching my savings account. All that knowing that if I go unemployed, I stay at full pay several months, if I'm sick I'm covered, and when I reach 65 yo I'll get retirement rent until end of life. Oh, and I'm only in my early 30's, meaning I get to get paid more and more. After my next raise, which should occur this year considering I got a title upgrade, I'm even considering stopping asking for money and asking for additionnal time off instead. So, I don't know how your 100k+$ reflect on your life in the US, but sorry I don't feel any need for it :)

<comment><USER34> In NYC a decent 2 bed apartment in second tier areas (ie not in Manhattan) is 3k€ a month, I'm surprised Paris is cheaper.

<comment><USER33> Depends on what you call decent and how far from the center you go. I'm currently outside of Paris, having 15 minutes on foot plus 15 minutes on train plus 15 minutes in Subway to go to work. I share a large two bedrooms flat (73 square meters) with a friend, and my share is 700€. (this includes water, electricity, heating, garbage collection and unlimited internet connection) Sure if you insist on having a big flat right inside Paris it may go up to 3k, but if you tolerate commute time you can find better rates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> So i think it's partially values and markets. Enough US companies know the transformational effect tech can have on a business where that's not really understood elsewhere. Just having part of the market get it means it drives up all prices. In the US you are quoted a price before taxes, many countries quote offers post taxes (including after income tax is taken out). That can make US salaries look MUCH higher. Because the employer doesn't think about taxes, if you're outside the US as a contractor or freelancing, you can get a much better deal.

</comment><comment><USER27> A possibly flawed analogy follows:

Hollywood is the biggest city in the world for acting, followed by New York, and maybe Vancouver is in third place. I'm pretty sure people working as actors in any of those three cities are going to be paid more than actors working elsewhere, because there's greater demand in Hollywood/NYC/Vancouver than there is Omaha, Nebraska.

The biggest cities for software are San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, New York, and Austin. Probably not in that order anymore, but that's where most of the action is. If you're not working in one of those places, you're probably not making as much because there's less demand in your area for software people. All of these cities are in the US and none of them are in Europe.

<comment><USER36> There's also video game industry, which produces software, and traditionally the only kind of software normal people enjoy using to the point of getting emulators for.

It's a little more distributed: [http://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/best- cities-for-video...](http://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/best-cities-for- video-game-development-jobs/)

I'm surprised SF comes up so much still. Isn't the rent an existential threat to the industry?

<comment><USER27> The rent is a minor expense if it gets you access to a competitive labor market and venture capital you otherwise would not have.

Plus, I imagine that many of those studios may have gotten their start before things like Unity and Steam made it possible for anybody with enough time on their hands to make and publish their own games very inexpensively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> There are a few reasons I have seen.

The US has a higher cost of living than most other countries. Those who are comparable pay somewhat more competitively with US jobs. This becomes really clear with remote work. Outside of the major tech hubs, the pay for IT drops off to comparable levels with European companies.

We have a culture that doesn't require a business degree to open a business that investors would take seriously. As a result, companies pay highly skilled IT employees more to keep them happy enough to not start up their own business.

There is more direct competition between deep pocketed firms for talent. High demand always skews the price, and it is faaaar easier for the US firms to hire US based workers.

Traditionally, the US _had_ been the only place to get any form of quality IT. The training programs and college degrees are more established.

We also see that many of our outsourced maintenance IT jobs may be done cheaper, but they are often worth far less than what they charge. That negative impression reinforces the stereotype of US based IT professionals are more competent.

<comment><USER27> >The US has a higher cost of living than most other countries. Those who are comparable pay somewhat more competitively with US jobs. This becomes really clear with remote work. Outside of the major tech hubs, the pay for IT drops off to comparable levels with European companies.

This is partially true but I thought the cost of living in Europe was generally higher than in the US.

<comment><USER38> Eh, I don't have to own a car, I have cheaper health insurance, vacations cost less (but only because I used all of them to go to Europe before I moved here), and my rent is cheaper. Also, remember that you're getting at least a month off a year, by law, which even now relatively few US companies do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's simply due to the competitive hiring environment for the best software engineers in USA. The difference in pay cannot merely be explained simply by the difference in cost of living. I have personally worked in Singapore as a software engineer before moving to USA (worked for companies in SF & Seattle). A very good senior software engineer in SG might make SGD100-120k/yr with 10 years of experience. Singapore is a world-class city but it's also a very expensive place to live. In USA, the same engineer could be making USD400-500k/yr with 10 years of experience provided they work for top-tier companies like Google/FB/Apple/Amazon. These numbers obviously include stock- based compensation. The key is to be in the 95th percentile - I think the difference in pay (between USA vs world) is less drastic if you are just in the 50th percentile.

</comment><comment><USER40> Don't underestimate the impact of social norms. If I were looking for work in the USA, I'd expect a salary which I would feel very uncomfortable asking for in Canada.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So a lot of the comments have argued the relative merits of one economy over another, or simply invoked "supply and demand" or "availability of capital" to explain the difference.

What I very often see in Europe isn't a marketplace of employers saying "We will pay X" and then finding a developer who will work for that. Rather, it often is a company _desperate_ to hire a talented engineer, but when quoted a totally-not-outrageous-by-US-standards salary, respond with "Oh, we'd never pay that".

I suppose in some cases the employer literally couldn't pay that, but to me it seems more like there's some kind of cultural block, like "engineers make this amount and that's all there is to it".

Managers/executives don't seem to have any such restriction, again based on what I've been privy to, so I don't think that it's (completely) a case of just "salaries are lower here"

</comment><comment><USER41> Since salaries are so much lower everywhere but the US, doesn't it make more sense to flip this argument around and instead ask: "why are software engineers' salaries so much higher in the US than everywhere else?"

<comment><USER19> Because devs get to keep more of what they earn? That should also be true for other workers but it isn't. It's really difficult to hide how much wealth is created through software.

I always like to point out that even the most junior developer can automate a task and save a company hundreds of thousands of dollars.

<comment><USER42> True, but companies don't reward employees if they don't have to. If anybody can save them hundreds of thousands of dollars then they'll get a normal pay.

They get so much because they'll be somewhere else instead. A race to higher salaries started at some point in the past and it's still going on. It's a difficult bubble to deflate until there are more jobs than people that can do them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> It may sound obvious, but most foreign companies will typically hire foreigners, rather than Americans, at least most of the time.

If you're a foreigner, working for a company in your country of origin, compared to an American company, offers the following benefits:

1) The right to work in the first place - getting an American visa is rather hard 2) Not needing to pick up your life, your family's life, and move far away from extended family and friends 3) Work in the same time zone - have a job during normal work hours, without an expectation to show up to meetings late at night 4) A work environment where most communication happens in your native language

Most development salaries are pretty high compared to the median salaries in the surrounding region, they're just low compared to American developer salaries, but few people abroad make American salaries, so people tend to be happy with their "I'm upper-middle-class compared to the people around me" salaries. And since American jobs aren't really under consideration, for the reasons listed above, foreign employers don't feel the need to boost salaries even further, to a level comparable with the US, since the labor pool doesn't apply for jobs with those salaries.

</comment><comment><USER44> The main reason seems to be linked to the cost of living: salaries in EU are lower only numerically. 50K€ have the same purchasing power of 150k$ in SF (EU devs pay rent, a car, savings, have holidays, etc.)

However the really STRANGE thing is that only a few USA companies exploit that by hiring EU devs for remote working. (ie: paying only 30% of a USA salary for an almost as good developer)

<comment><USER45> > 50K€ have the same purchasing power of 150k$ in SF

You can't compare the entire EU to one of the most expensive cities in the world - in spite of what the media may have you believe, most people in the US don't live in San Francisco or New York.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Other than the cost of living, (compared to India) I think one of the reasons is that most US jobs are "at will" where an employer can fire any time or an employee can leave anytime, with no notice. But often, employer/employee gives adequate notice (2 weeks) in US as a courtesy.

In India, most jobs are tied up to a contract. If you have a 2 yr contract with an employer, and you want to leave after 18 months, you have to pay the 6 months salary to the employer. If you dont, you wont get the next job, because the next employer expects a "relieving letter" from the previous one, which is given on completion of the contract or on paying the fine. Sounds atrocious right? Such practices, bring down the salaries or at least keep them from going up, unlike in US.

I dont know how often such contracts are enforced in India, especially when companies were going on a poaching spree.

</comment><comment><USER47> A lot of it is cost of living in a given area can vary a lot in the US. Also, if you're looking for an EU job, that may well be post-tax, include better medical benefits (US contract jobs often don't), not to mention potentially better retirement options and last, but definitely not least upwards of 8-weeks of pto/year.

A lot of US jobs, you're lucky to see even 2 weeks of PTO, and even then, if contracting, you don't see that. I wound up taking about a month and a half off due to a bad relocation/project cut experience last year, and that has a huge impact on your hourly/annual salary. The culture is just different and the tax models very different.

In the US variety in income taxes at the state level, or cost of housing can vary a _lot_ and you'll see similar variance in IT/Developer pay as well.

</comment><comment><USER48> I haven't heard anyone suggest that overall demand for developers is higher in the USA.

The US has more companies that can see how to make more money off tech talent.

<comment><USER19> That's also possible. They know how to herd the cats and get them to move in the right direction. In Canada for example, there are few companies that do this correctly and the best ones are influenced by the way US companies (especially Silicon Valley companies) work and manage their employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The cost of life is lower. Healthcare is included in taxes.

<comment><USER50> The cost of life argument makes no sense. By this logic we should be seeing janitors, or translators, or piano teachers in SV being paid much, much more then they are. If there was a coal mine near San Francisco I suppose the miners would be paid 100k/year as well?

<comment><USER51> Since the average starting salary of a coal miner is $60-70k in the rural geographies where coal is mined, I'd say that yes, a coal mine in San Francisco would likely pay $100k.

<comment><USER52> And for experienced pit deputies in the UK the going rate for a single 12 hour shift in a deep coal mine at the weekend was £2K and that does count towards your final salary pension

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> There is a chart in Piketty's book, Capital in the 21st century, a that shows GDP PER CAPITA for several countries, including the US.

I guess US companies pay well because their share of the global GDP is higher (although it is decreasing slowly from he peak in the 50s).

Before seeing that I just thought it was that way because the US makes stuff (now intellectual property not physical goods), thus making profit of whatever is produce outside its borders.

</comment><comment><USER54> In Sweden as far as I know the percentage paid on top of your salary by companies is around 33%, and I'm not sure that includes all of the fees and taxes related to hiring someone. From what other people write here that's a quite high number even compared to European standards, but it sure does explain why the salary paid to an employee would be lower here than in the US.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tech companies in the US are extremely profitable and there is a stronger demand vs lower supply than in Europe. A typical tech company in France usually manage to make $100k of revenue per employee, so it is understandable that they can't pay them more than $60k on average. Then it's "market rate". Foreign companies just have to pay what local companies do.

</comment><comment><USER55> The non-US companies either don't see the ROI potential or may actually have a capital problem. Or, they may know that world-wide they can get someone to do the work at 1/2 of what their US counterpart would pay.

The US companies paying double what everyone else does could be caused by them having the capital and ROI to do so. But, I don't think so. Within the US, why do so many tech companies open shop in SV. They value the culture and team and integral parts that lead to success. They want top talent. Even when they hire out of the US, they don't want to subject the project to the risk of failure by being cheap and hiring cut rate developers.

There's also a culture of paying sticker price. And perhaps, price ignorance. We know what things cost locally, but we aren't the best judges of knowing what a top developer should cost if they're based in another country. Maybe we pay them 75% of local rates and that's still 2X what they would get paid from a non-US company, we don't really know.

</comment><comment><USER56> I wouldn't mind seeing a chart of effective salaries around the world. In the US, San Francisco is one of the lower paying hubs, Austin the highest: [http://posts.thinkloop.com/top_tech_salaries_by_city_adjuste...](http://posts.thinkloop.com/top_tech_salaries_by_city_adjusted_for_cost_of_living/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER57> Well, there's way more software out there than just the ones you mentioned - some companies you won't hear of unless they're hiring.

As for the pay, a lot of it goes indirectly to Quality of Life. You might not be paid as much, but benefits are generated in other ways.

Here in the US, if you have money, you can have a great QoL. Conversely, if you don't, well, you won't. Personally, I think I might like living in the EU (maybe The Netherlands), once I got over the culture shock.

One commenter brought up the killings in the US. It's not like there's killing all around you every day - it's spread out over a very large geographical area. The USA Death Panels work to ensure that the killings are distributed according to an arcane metric that no one understands.

</comment><comment><USER58> It definitely seems to be to be a supply and demand issue (I guess by definition of market prices this is obvious). On the demand side, there are less venture capital dollars and the sheer volume of companies is lower. On the supply side, there are plenty of local qualified engineers (just look at upwork and how much you can get developers for in other countries).

If you want to get a better idea of specific compensation at tech companies, check out [https://www.transparentcareer.com](https://www.transparentcareer.com)

We collect data in native currencies as well. Full disclosure, i'm the founder, but if you have any specific questions about data in other currencies i'd be happy to pull information for anyone who asks.

</comment><comment><USER59> Your salary is irrelevant. What matters is your _buying power_ in the country you live. Plus safety, health, vacation time, racism, culture etc. etc. It is a complex issue. In the same way that choosing a job based on salary only is a big mistake.

</comment><comment><USER60> If I were to make USD 200K/year as a Software Engineer in Bangladesh, I'd probably be richer than the CEO of that company.

I believe you're referring to the ration salary/cost_of_living rather than comparing difference currencies, countries, politics, taxes, etc. In this case, I'd say that the ration is fairly even, minus stocks/bonuses. The base salary puts you in a similar spot in terms of buying power in your respective country if you're a software engineer. That's the beauty of this job... you can work anywhere in the world and maintain roughly the "same" buying power.

</comment><comment><USER34> One reason right now is that the US Dollar is high right now. 10 years ago the Euro was 20% higher, GBP was 60% higher. AUD was 5% higher(but getting stronger).

Despite forecasts I think in 5 years the USD is likely to fall back again.

</comment><comment><USER61> To me, it is just currency difference and does not matter on engineer or skill. For example, when I was offered to move to the US from India, I was offered 3 times my Indian Salary to suit US expenses. Basically, the pay you get should match your expenses. So, if you earn in Dollars, you spend in Dollars providing your net savings be same as someone who earns in GBP and spends in GBP.

If you choose to work remotely, the story is different. You may want to negotiate to suit your local expenses and then it is up to the hiring company to decide if it can match your local expenses.

</comment><comment><USER56> The way to calculate pay is:

(monthly salary + equity) - (studio apartment rent + tax + health care + 30 cappuccinos + 8 steaks + 50 lbs of tomatoes)

edit: times 12

<comment><USER62> (4000 + 0) - (800 + 1000 + 0 + 150 + 150 + 150) = $1750 CAD = $1336 USD

<comment><USER56> Times 12 is $16,032 - sad face - need to triple the $4k.

<comment><USER62> It's impossible over here (Montreal).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> It doesn't make any sense to compare salaries solely by numbers and without comparing the buying power related to the salary in the given country. This is the most basic economic understanding. It just does not work out, no matter what you take in account to "justify" the the higher or the lower one.

</comment><comment><USER64> ............................................................................ these countries still pay remote contractors like shit. They don't get "free healthcare" or whatever shitty free thing you get in there, and also get the lesser pay.

</comment><comment><USER65> I'm an outsider to a lot of the tech world, and not a tax guru, but could it be because US corporations have such low taxes to pay?

</comment><comment><USER66> In Montreal, with 70k (53k USD), you can have a nice house, free healthcare and send your kids to the university.

<comment><USER67> I somewhat doubt that. Care to break down the numbers?

By "have a nice house", do you mean mortgage one for decades?

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Developers in Australia and New Zealand are really well paid.

<comment><USER69> Still not paid nearly as much as US devs.

Unless maybe I should start looking for my next job :|

<comment><USER70> Do you know that for a fact, or are you assuming that is the case? Developer salaries, especially in the non-cubicle-dweller sphere, are really VERY high. Of course, most of the jobs are in Sydney or Melbourne where the cost of living is also very high, even after taking into account the universal health care.

<comment><USER69> The majority of dev jobs here in AU probably are in the 'cubicle-dweller' sphere. I've looked around at various roles advertised in syd/melb and there are very few jobs in my are (.NET 5+ years experience) paying more than, say, AUD$120k, unless some specialised knowledge is required eg trading, machine learning, etc. That's the equivalent of US$92k which seems lower (like.. >50% lower) than in comparable cities in the US.

Of course you'd then have to live in the US, which is a downside.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Online Compiler Courses? - <AUTHOR> Compilers are one of the few major topics that was never covered in my CS education, but I've really taken an interest in them lately. They also seem like something that really would benefit from a structured curriculum.<p>Any recommendations for an online course? <comment><USER2> I'm on mobile, but three recommendations for books/resources are:

1\. Crafting interpreters. There's plenty of hn discussion on it and it was recently completed.

2\. Writing a compiler in go. There's also a book on interpreters that goes along handily with it from Thorsten ball as well.

3\. Build your own lisp

There's also plenty of traditional textbooks such as the dragon book. I don't have any lectures or videos on hand, but I'm sure teach yourself CS has a recommended course on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw Crafting Interpreters but I wasn't sure if it really covered compilers or focused mainly on interpretation (I know there's a lot of overlap, but still).

I have done basic Lisp interpreters before in JS/Python and even did a bit of compilation from Lisp to JS, but those feel like they're only scratching the surface because a) Lisp is so easy to parse it almost feels like cheating, and b) using a dynamic language as a target means you can lean on several of its built-in features instead of implementing them from scratch

So for example, I'd really especially like to learn more about representing ASTs and parsing an arbitrary context-free grammar, and maybe even some basic type-system stuff if that isn't too far out of scope

Edit: Turns out what I'd seen before was "Essentials of Interpretation", a Udemy course. I will say I tend to prefer the course format over a book.

<comment><USER3> I just recently finished Crafting Interpreters. The third part of the book covers a bytecode virtual machine and overlaps with compiler concepts. Perhaps Bob didn't put "compiler" in the title since the bytecode VM still requires the source code to be present during runtime. Even if it doesn't teach how to produce a "compiled file" in some form, it is still valuable as an approachable transition from simpler tree walk interpreters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's a great YouTube series where a developer codes, step-by-step, a pretty fully-fledged programming language: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgHIkdUQbp0&list=PLRAdsfhKI4...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgHIkdUQbp0&list=PLRAdsfhKI4OWNOSfS7EUu5GRAVmze1t2y)

Not too much theory but from a nuts and bolts perspective I found it extremely approachable.

</comment><comment><USER5> For a great introduction tutorial, check out "Let's build a compiler". It's an excellent and simple introduction to compiling and emitting code.

You can also check out my implementation in C at [https://github.com/rmccullagh/letsbuildacompiler](https://github.com/rmccullagh/letsbuildacompiler)

</comment><comment><USER6> Here is the garbage collector course from the FB engineer. [http://dmitrysoshnikov.com/courses/essentials-of-garbage- col...](http://dmitrysoshnikov.com/courses/essentials-of-garbage-collectors/)

Garbage collector is a part of compiler technology.

</comment><comment> nils-m-holm Just a book, not a full course: [http://t3x.org/t3x/book.html](http://t3x.org/t3x/book.html)

Or dig around a bit on [http://t3x.org](http://t3x.org) in general!

</comment><comment><USER7> The curriculum from Open Source Society University at [https://github.com/ossu/computer-science](https://github.com/ossu/computer- science) lists those:

\- [https://www.edx.org/course/compilers](https://www.edx.org/course/compilers)

\- [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDcmCgguL9rxPoVn2ykUF...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDcmCgguL9rxPoVn2ykUFc8TOpLyDU5gx)

</comment><comment><USER8> There is a GitHub project I've used as reference a couple of times, written in JS.

[https://github.com/jamiebuilds/the-super-tiny- compiler](https://github.com/jamiebuilds/the-super-tiny-compiler)

</comment><comment><USER9> Although not exactly an online course, my compilers professor released his book for free online. It walks you through all the steps of building a compiler and is an invaluable resource for me. You can find it at www.compilerbook.org

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Update: feel free to continue adding recommendations but I started reading Crafting Interpreters and it seems like the perfect difficulty/depth balance, so I'll probably stick with that.

</comment><comment><USER3> As for video courses, I have Alex Aiken's compilers course on my list. It seems a bit more advanced, and I'm still on introductory material, so I haven't started with it yet.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not already mentioned include the llvm tutorials, graalvm tutorials for building a truffle language and david beazely runs a paid, expensive course that seems pretty good!

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, Beazley's course appears to be live, not a video series

I'm okay with paying, but my schedule wouldn't allow for a full-time middle- of-the-day course

<comment><USER11> I took both his SICP course and compilers course back-to-back, and I highly recommend both of them.

Also, sometimes people need something to get them hooked, and kickstart a habit of working on a project. A compilers book is too heavy there. For that I would recommend what got me started down this rabbit hole, which was Gary Bernhardt's "Compiler from scratch" screencast (paid, not free, but his half dozen "from scratch" casts are well worth it). In 20 minutes you'll be taught how to build a regex-based lexer, a recursive descent parser, and do some very basic output generation.

I wrote a series of blog posts about using those techniques to implement an alternative syntax for C: [https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/d4f8d92886061f1629b1...](https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/d4f8d92886061f1629b150dd36619890)

If interpreters is your thing, I've hacked around with those a bit as well: [https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/a46efbf32544cde3a1d1...](https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/a46efbf32544cde3a1d156e4903e051f) [https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/d8d4034c82b0ef817913...](https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/d8d4034c82b0ef817913a01138b115bf)

I also maintain a list of links to simple CPU designs, simple compilers, and simple interpreters (for study): [https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/1f55f9679f064bcff029...](https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/1f55f9679f064bcff02905acb44ca510)

Edit: ah I forgot the compiler from scratch link! I also forgot that particular video is free!!! [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/a-com...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/a-compiler- from-scratch)

Edit: also, a (broken) math interpreter which demonstrates how to use graphviz to visualize the AST [https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/fa41234f641ce55a7374...](https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/fa41234f641ce55a737460e9f7ba0c30)

Edit: also, don't be afraid to skip the lexer and parser and just start working with an AST data structure. Whatever it takes to get started! [https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/074730ddde770f4ac694...](https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/074730ddde770f4ac694825ca3fbfaec)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [https://www.edx.org/course/compilers](https://www.edx.org/course/compilers)

</comment><comment><USER13> The final chapter of SICP builds a simple compiler.</comment>


Forth: The Hacker's Language (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2017/01/27/forth-the-hackers-language/ <comment><USER2> Anytime I hear about Forth I will forever be reminded of this:

[http://www.atarimania.com/documents/FORTH-on-the-Atari- Learn...](http://www.atarimania.com/documents/FORTH-on-the-Atari-Learning-by- Using.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I will forever be reminded of this:

[http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/technicpack/images/9/96/...](http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/technicpack/images/9/96/Example_Redpower_Computer_Setup.png/revision/latest?cb=20120907061532)

<comment><USER4> Is that a Minecraft PDP-8?

<comment><USER5> It'll be a redpower computer, programmed in forth:

[https://technicpack.fandom.com/wiki/Basic_Forth_Programming](https://technicpack.fandom.com/wiki/Basic_Forth_Programming)

ComputerCraft (programmed in lua usually) is more common these days.

<comment><USER3> Computercraft or that newer one, openComputers, which has the memory blocks and such similar to redpower2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The first paid programming contract I got, back in the late 70s, was writing a records management system for a water company .. we wrote the Forth interpreter too, for a 6502 CPU, to get low-level access to hardware such as water level sensors. A major obstacle was getting British Telecoms' permission to send data over the POTS line, but it all worked well for years. I _love_ Forth.

<comment><USER7> I really wish there was a modern book on implementing a useful Forth for x86 or Raspberry PI out of C. Not just a pamphlet either, but a thick book covering how to choose between all the different threading options...etc.

<comment><USER8> I don't know about "modern", but you could go the traditional route and bootstrap it from Assembler (You'll find that you only have to implement a tiny number of primitives until you can start implementing the rest in Forth itself).

Chapter 9 of Leo Brodie's "Starting Forth" is the text that kicked off my implementation in the early 80s (and undoubtedly countless others): [https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/9-forth- execution/](https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/9-forth-execution/)

<comment><USER7> Does Brodie's book cover implementation though? I can code in Forth a bit already, but want to know more about implementing in a low level language.

<comment><USER9> > want to know more about implementing in a low level language.

You might check out Jonesforth [0], which is an extensively-documented Forth implemented in x86 assembly language. If you read the single source file top to bottom, you'll get a good understanding of how it is implemented. There are also ports to x86-64, ARM, and other machines.

If you're looking for something in C, you might check out Ficl. [1]

[0] [https://github.com/nornagon/jonesforth/blob/master/jonesfort...](https://github.com/nornagon/jonesforth/blob/master/jonesforth.S) [1] [http://ficl.sourceforge.net](http://ficl.sourceforge.net)

<comment><USER7> I always forget about Jonesforth. Glad to see it's on GitHub now!

<comment><USER9> > Glad to see it's on GitHub now!

Ah, that github link is not the official repository. The following link appears to be the official repo:

[http://git.annexia.org/?p=jonesforth.git](http://git.annexia.org/?p=jonesforth.git)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Must read: "Thinking Forth: A Language and Philosophy for Solving Problems" by Leo Brodie ([https://www.dnd.utwente.nl/~tim/colorforth/Leo- Brodie/thinki...](https://www.dnd.utwente.nl/~tim/colorforth/Leo- Brodie/thinking-forth.pdf))

Most of the principles described in the book can be applied to any programming languages, but the book itself uses Forth. Give it a try!

If you want to learn Forth, this might be the book you need: [https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/](https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/) ([https://1scyem2bunjw1ghzsf1cjwwn-wpengine.netdna- ssl.com/wp-...](https://1scyem2bunjw1ghzsf1cjwwn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/01/Starting-FORTH.pdf))

Old HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13505285](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13505285)

\---

I would also recommend checking out Factor ([http://factorcode.org/](http://factorcode.org/), created by Slava Pestov).

More details on the programming language:

\- [https://concatenative.org/wiki/view/Factor](https://concatenative.org/wiki/view/Factor)

\- [https://concatenative.org/wiki/view/Factor/FAQ/Why%3F](https://concatenative.org/wiki/view/Factor/FAQ/Why%3F)

\- [https://concatenative.org/wiki/view/Factor/Learning](https://concatenative.org/wiki/view/Factor/Learning)

Old HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9008472](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9008472)

\---

Happy hacking!

</comment><comment><USER11> I recall Real3D, a DCC app originating from the Amiga and ported to Windows NT in the 90's. It allowed plug-ins to be written in RPL (Real Programming Language) a Forth dialect.

I wrote a 5k line RenderMan RIB exporter for this app in RPL.

I remember how hard this seemed when I started but how natural working in a RPN language felt after only a few hours. It was almost as if the stack had become an extension of my brain.

Trivia: Real3D was eventually rewritten from scratch and is now called Realsoft 3D. Afaik it doesn't support RPL/Forth any more.

<comment><USER12> That was my first ever 3D app. And Imagine. Before moving to lightwave, still on the Amiga a couple of years later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Don't miss "Thinking FORTH" (PDF) linked from the caption of a drawing: [https://www.forth.com/forth-books/](https://www.forth.com/forth-books/)

</comment><comment><USER14> > redefine 2 as a function that will return seven, and forever after your math > won't work. (But why would you?)

I often think of myself in the past as a completely different person who seems to be capable of many surprising actions.

<comment><USER15> Actually it is not uncommon to see 0, 1 and -1 defined as built-in primitives. The benefit is that in some interpretation schemes (bytecode, DTC) it is either faster or smaller, sometimes both. It also allows to _' 0_ ("tick" zero, that is get the address of the next word, which in this case is some primitive _zero_ ) to pass it as a "function pointer" to another function/definition/word.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I just downloaded 4tH with macports, anyone have experience or tips with that? Seems very cool.

"4tH is a very small Forth compiler that can create bytecode, C-embeddable bytecode, standalone executables, but also works fine as a scripting language. It supports over 85% of the ANS Forth CORE wordset and features conditional compilation, pipes, files, assertions, forward declarations, recursion, include files, etc."

Home page: [https://thebeez.home.xs4all.nl/4tH/](https://thebeez.home.xs4all.nl/4tH/)

Also..anyone tried or programmed in colorForth? Sounds extremely colourful!

"colorForth uses different colors in its source code (replacing some of the punctuation in standard Forth) to determine how different words are treated."

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

</comment><comment><USER17> A bit of a shameless plug - I did a short course for programmers at my company whose purpose was to introduce people to programming paradigms by constructing a language semantics first in JS. The language is forth-like for simplicity and I called it "slang".

[https://github.com/srikumarks/nospoon](https://github.com/srikumarks/nospoon)

Would like to hear if anyone thinks it is worth continuing to elaborate on.

</comment><comment><USER18> Oddly enough I discovered Forth when I was developing a game a few years ago.

The idea for the game was that you pilot a space ship, but your only interface was a C64-like clone. You'd have to write programs to navigate, make jumps, and explore the galaxy. Connect to space stations using a modem, and dial into their local BBS for buying and selling goods.

So I built a 6502 emulator and emulated hardware for all the subsystems (display, disk, engines, modem, etc). It really was a legit emulated system ... just that some of the addressable hardware was a space ship :P

I started out using a modified KERNAL ROM with BASIC, but ran into problems. In the first iterations of the game all the subsystems were a bit too realistic. For sensors you'd have to manually move the sensor beam around and read out results constantly. For the engines you have to manually adjust the engine thrust and read back velocity information. Same with the jump mechanic.

I figured making the subsystems realistic, as if they were real hardware that you had to write firmware for, would be interesting. But coding the "firmware" in BASIC was a nightmare, and so slow. The jump subsystem was especially problematic, because the velocity was so high. The program would point your ship at a space station in the local system, engage jump drives, and then constantly monitor distance to the station and try to disengage once you got close enough. But because of the high speeds and the need for large integers to represent the distances, the program just couldn't PEEK and react fast enough. I could never get it accurate enough to drop out of jump close to the station. So you'd spend 10 minutes crawling over there with your sub- lightspeed drives the jump.

And on top of those speed issues, BASIC was too much of a PITA when you had to do a lot of hardware manipulation and processing of large numbers (like the vast distances of space...).

So after hacking on that for awhile I looked for a better alternative. That's when I stumbled into Forth. There's an actively developed Forth for C64 ([https://github.com/jkotlinski/durexforth](https://github.com/jkotlinski/durexforth)) which even included a Vi implementation. So I could get a nicer, faster language and an editor in one package!

A bit of hacking later, and it really was a massive improvement. It was especially nice having VI.

I ended up ditching a lot of the hardcore realism in the subsystems. Even with DurexForth, which was significantly faster and handled the math better, it was still problematic coding what should be fundamental programs in this game. And it certainly wasn't fun (if a game like this could ever be considered fun).

But the journey gave me a lot of exposure to Forth, and it is such an interesting language. I definitely recommend playing with Forth, at least for a weekend, just for fun and to expand your mind a little.

P.S. As for the game, it's collecting dust. One of these days I'd like to dust it off and get back to it; I find the idea of it terribly seductive. It's like a new genre: 6502-Punk :P But I'm half tempted to drop back to BASIC, since Forth is such a foreign experience. I'd probably continue simplifying the subsystems, add a floating point co-processor, and mod BASIC to use large hardware backed floats, just to make everything easy.

</comment><comment><USER19> Doesn't Forth suffer from the Lisp curse ?

<comment><USER20> Yes. I like the language because it is so simple to implement; when I want to do live discovery on something new (hardware or software), I load up a forth and start playing. If fits everywhere and it is easy to discover stuff without having to jump through hoops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> there is also a powerful implementation for nodejs [https://www.npmjs.com/package/force- lang](https://www.npmjs.com/package/force-lang)

<comment><USER22> Why is it a "powerful" implementation instead of just an implementation?

> It is called Force because of its assonance of Forth and since the Force is > the main power of the Jedi the files have .j (or .jedi) extension. So Force > is the Jedi programmers language !

Oh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't get it. Who's using this, and for what?

<comment><USER24> It's a good option for embedded, especially low resource embedded, applications. Provides a nicer set of abstractions than assembler and let's you create basically a tuned DSL for your problem. That said, development doesn't scale particularly well, multi-member dev teams are hard, and maintenance of someone else's code can be, shall we say, challenging.

I always wondered how Sun and Apple addressed this, as they used forth in the form of OpenBootPROM as a boot environment on various platforms. Very, very nice.

<comment><USER25> I always wondered how they scaled their firmware teams myself. Really impressive stuff though:

[https://www.openfirmware.org/Open_Firmware](https://www.openfirmware.org/Open_Firmware)

[https://www.openfirmware.org/Forth/FCode](https://www.openfirmware.org/Forth/FCode)

<comment><USER24> Another interesting example for those looking for a Forth rabbit hole is the Cannon Cat ([http://www.canoncat.org/](http://www.canoncat.org/)) from Jef Raskin's (of Mac fame) team.

On the (much) lower end was the Jupiter Ace ([https://jupiter- ace.com/jupiterace/](https://jupiter-ace.com/jupiterace/)). The Ace is a fun what-might-have-been where Forth beat BASIC for the '80s PC soul. There were commercial Forths for other PCs of the time (Apple II, Atari 800, TI99), but I guess because they were extra cost, they didn't become that popular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > The hacker's language

No, that would be C. (In both senses of the word 'hacker'.)</comment>


How to manage a small web project: a simple approach - <AUTHOR> http://woork.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-manage-small-web-project-simple.html <comment><USER2> That plan is a bit too idyllic from my experience. Rarely does the client of a small web-based application possess the ability to conceptualize the application based on a specification -- more often then not they will need to see it partially built to finally "get it."

Given that there needs to be some iterative process between steps 1 and 2. Something like define scope -> identify features -> develop -> reassess scope.

<comment><USER3> Any plans which ends with "release" scares me. I've written many of them. It _never_ works out.

<comment><USER4> Sorry - I'm a noob - but how else is is supposed to end? Or would you have there be cycle of (beta release <-> feedback)?

<comment><USER5> 'release' is identified as an end. But web projects and businesses don't or shouldn't 'end'. It is a continuous cycle of invention, so at the 'end', you are really at the beginning of defining the next stage.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


YC Alum Hacks Jason Calacanis' Voicemail Message to Ask for Investment - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Jason/status/526449415117361152 <comment><USER3> Note that this was done via a Caller-ID-spoofing website where all you have to do is type in:

* The victim's phone number

* Your real phone number

* The fake one you want to appear to be coming from

Then you click Submit and it puts you through. That's it. Any idiot could do it.

The tech and telecommunications industries are _WAY_ overdue to do at least one of the following:

1\. Stop considering Caller ID a secure authentication method

2\. Make Caller ID a secure authentication method

<comment><USER4> Number one is far easier to do than number two.

Sadly, it's as bad as the banking industry. Still today, they base a lot of their security on IP addresses. Sad really.

<comment><USER3> It's too bad you don't know anyone who works in the field of tech security journalism, because it might make for a good exposé...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People are told to "hustle", "be naughty", and "break things" \- and are applauded for it in founder stories. Small wonder something like this happens.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. If only he'd found a way to systematically make money by breaking the law and "disrupting" things, he'd be getting a valuation in the billions.

<comment><USER7> Monetizing investors as unconsenting platforms... Might be worth covering in "How to Start a Startup Class".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sam Altman responding.

[https://twitter.com/sama/status/526448975797186560](https://twitter.com/sama/status/526448975797186560)

<comment><USER9> Oh well, as long as Jason can use his personal influence to harm the attacker's life in return.

Who needs a justice system or the police, anyway?

(And why is it Sam Altman's place to apologise to Jason Calacanis? What is he apologising for - did YC suggest, approve or have anything to do with this act at all?)

<comment><USER10> We expect ethical behavior from our community, and this fell well short of that standard. Obviously we didn't suggest or approve it, but we are still sorry it happened.

<comment><USER11> If YCombinator don't kick these guys out, it's going to demonstrate that these all apologies are disingenuous and exist only for PR, and that that in the future the line to cross does is only imaginary.

<comment><USER12> YC founder ethics policy here: [http://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/](http://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/)

As well, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UacbJ72dluU&feature=channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UacbJ72dluU&feature=channel)

<comment><USER11> From the policy:

Some examples of ethical behavior we expect from founders are:

      * Not using misleading, illegal or dishonest sales tactics.

      * Not harassing any YC community member, employees, or anyone else.

      * Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of his/her company or of YC.

      * Generally behaving in an upstanding way.

Looking at Avi's background:

      "Like at age 16 when my co-founder and I wrote
      one of the first Facebook scripts to mass-invite
      people on Facebook to events we threw. Or how while
      at YCombinator I hacked prototype day (To PG's
      disapproval)"

I think YCombinator is starting to have issues with their filtering process.

<comment><USER3> Also this:

 _> At first, I decided to just solicit them our deck and pitch but then I realized something: Tim Ferriss and Jason Calacanis almost definitely knew each other. So I spoof called Calacanis from Tim Ferris' number._

I know PG looks upon a certain amount of "naughtiness"[1] as a potentially positive indicator, but it should be clear to anyone with an inkling of common sense that this is way over the line.

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From [https://generalassemb.ly/instructors/avi- zolty/1658](https://generalassemb.ly/instructors/avi-zolty/1658):

> A millionaire by age 21, Avi sold his most recent site to execs at Paypal, > and continues to devote his time to his love of innovative business. He is a > member of YCombinator, the prestigious Silicon Valley incubator, and is the > first to be inducted on talent alone, without requiring the established > company/business model usually required for acceptance. Avi recently moved > to LA to focus on his current project, a music startup called Beatdeck. > Software startups, Social Media/Marketing, Music, and swing trading bit > coins are his current fascinations.

So a 20-something millionaire who is apparently a successful serial entrepreneur is now groveling for investment by hacking a prominent investor's voicemail? Something doesn't add up.

Also, I didn't realize that entrepreneurs were "inducted" into Y Combinator, or that Y Combinator required applicants to have an "established company/business model."

<comment><USER6> Interesting. I wonder if he was the first (only?) person into YC without an idea, but on the basis of the entrepreneur themselves?

That was something they tried out a couple cycles ago, though I think I saw pg say they didn't plan to do it again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just getting out of my daughter's Halloween party today (30 kids aged 3-7, science experiments + sugar = boom!).

I accepted Avi's apology and responded to his email here: [https://twitter.com/Jason/status/526531089355927552](https://twitter.com/Jason/status/526531089355927552)

<comment><USER13> > I forgive the kid who hacked my phone today.

The "kid" in question is in his 20s. In other words, he's not a "kid." He's a grown man.

Your apparent decision not to refer this matter to law enforcement is charitable, but it's disappointing that you seem to be implying that somebody who is an adult is really a child. There are entrepreneurs in their 20s who run legitimate multi-million dollar companies. There are financial services workers in their 20s who help manage billions of dollars of capital. There are attorneys in their 20s who help represent companies in high-stakes litigation. There are MDs in their 20s who have life and death responsibilities as residents at hospitals.

You're not doing a man who used a caller ID spoofing service any favors by telling him "you obviously have talents." In the real world, the bar is nowhere near _that_ low.

<comment><USER15> Avi might not be dealing with the legal consequences of his actions, but that doesn't mean he's coming out of this unscathed. Even with Jason's forgiveness, his reputation is effectively ruined and anyone considering doing business with him in the future is going to stumble across this story without even trying: after all, who wants to be involved with someone who is immature and short-sighted enough to think that this 'stunt' was a good idea? Even his attempt at explaining his actions [1] reeks of emotional immaturity and atrocious judgment. Calling him a kid strikes me as a recognition of that immaturity, reinforcing the idea that he's someone not to be trusted in the future.

That said, I don't really agree with the idea of forgiveness in this kind of stalker-ish situation (but that's largely biased by having to experience my little sister being terrorized by an ex- who became a stalker... needless to say, it's not the sort of thing I have any tolerance for), While I don't know Jason, I can empathize with his approach: it's pretty common for people in similar situations to just want to get the entire matter behind them.

[1] [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QkTa-z...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QkTa- zWgIh8J:https://medium.com/%40avizolty/my-investment-hack-jason-calacanis- voicemail-e4b414659ad7)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For those curious about how this is done (don't try to use this for ill - it's seriously illegal and almost everyone gets caught):

Generally you can access the voicemail menu by entering star then a four digit PIN number while listening to any phone's voicemail. A lot of people leave their PIN as the default (star+1234 on some carriers, star+9999 on others). You can call their phone, get voicemail, guess the pin, and change any of their voicemail settings you like. It's even easier if you spoof the call as calling from the person's own number.

This is a breach of privacy, but generally harmless. It gets dangerous when you start changing the message to something like "accept" and using someone else's voicemail to call collect, verify identities, etc.

Again, this post is for curiosity sake only - do not try this.

<comment><USER17> Voicemail hacking has a sordid history. British tabloid News of the World, one of the oldest newspapers in the UK, was revealed to have accessed the voicemail systems of possibly over 4000 people [1]. The scandal was such a hit to the newspaper's reputation that it was shut down completely in 2011.

It's incredible that a YC founder would think it "an interesting social experiment".

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11195407](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11195407)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's the story from the founder's perspective: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QkTa- zW...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QkTa- zWgIh8J:https://medium.com/%40avizolty/my-investment-hack-jason-calacanis- voicemail-e4b414659ad7)

<comment><USER18> I find the post photo where Jason holds a phone with Skurt logo, alluding to an existing relationship equally disturbing.

<comment><USER19> The legend says the image has been modified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Andrew Auernheimer ("weev") was sentenced to 3 and half years in jail for something that was (IMO) far more innocuous than this. Terrible move here.

Not only against the law, but this "hack" involves a highly likely creep factor for the person on the other end of it, not quite as creepy as walking into your house to find someone harmlessly hanging out in your living room, but in the same general ballpark.

To top it all off, it isn't even a technically difficult feat.

<comment><USER21> weev... more innocuous? Are you fucking serious?

[http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid- point/](http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid-point/)

<comment><USER20> I've never met weev, but from his online writings and various actions reported by others he seems like a giant asshole.

However, I wasn't commenting on his character, just the one specific action he was jailed for and how it compares to the events in this story.

In that context, modifying URLs and resubmitting them seems way more harmless to me than spoofing your caller-id to gain access to a targeted individual's voicemail and change their outgoing message.

<comment><USER22> He wrote a bot to do the requests, they weren't manual, and he spoofed his user agent, it wasn't in-browser.

He then shared some of the private email addresses with various news agencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "my co-founder and I wrote one of the first Facebook scripts to mass-invite people on Facebook to events we threw"

Er...this is not "new and experimental" it's just a spambot, like thousands of idiots write daily. You have obviously lost the plot.

<comment><USER24> It's not "spamming", it's growth hacking. Get with the times, grandpa!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wow, what an unbelievable idiot. Even YC, it seems, makes admissions mistakes sometimes!

(OP: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QkTa- zW...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QkTa- zWgIh8J:https://medium.com/%40avizolty/my-investment-hack-jason-calacanis- voicemail-e4b414659ad7))

This is so dumb on so many levels I can't even believe it. Is it really so hard to get an intro to a founder, that you have to resort to this? You are a YC alum! You are literally handed the contact information of 100's of people who could help you, and instead you resort to this.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is not going to end well.

Ethical quandaries aside (of which there are several) for a moment, I think this strategy speaks poorly of the startup. What type of signal does it send to prospective investors that you feel it's necessary to pull illegal stunts in order to gain attention for your round? A quality YC startup shouldn't need to go to such lengths to raise a round if the substance of your project/team is of sufficient quality as to warrant investment.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is akin to somebody breaking into Jason's house while nobody is home and placing an ad for their startup on his coffee table. Nobody is physically harmed but it is a gross violation of privacy. I assume this is against the law, and I do hope the perpetrator is prosecuted for it.

<comment><USER28> Didn't that happen with Arrington?

<comment><USER29> Arrington has a ton of these stories. There are a few that I know since I was there.

The first was the dutch guys (who went on to start TheNextWeb) showing up at the house randomly early in the morning (we weren't morning people) after finding the address online. I was woken up by them since my room was at the front. They bought over coffee, I thought they had been invited so let them in. They stood around for 30 seconds then all charged into Arrington's room and woke him up. He had no idea who they even were, took him 20 minutes to get his bearings and to figure out who these guys were. What made it weirder and surreal like a von Trier film was that these guys all looked similar and were dressed in matching white suits - when I first saw them they were actually walking through the back yard. Having just woken up to a sound of people walking around the house and seeing three blonde guys with dutch accents in white suits trampling through the backyard carrying Starbucks and donuts, I really thought I was tripping.

This story was told in the opening of the Wired profile:

[http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-07/ff_ar...](http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-07/ff_arrington?currentPage=all)

As much as we tried to scrub the address online so people wouldn't show up, it was useless. Foursquare was a nightmare because people would come over and then 'check in', giving away the address of where we lived to the world without thinking about it

Second time was in Vegas. Arrington finally unplugged and took some time off and we made a last minute trip to vegas. First day there, get to the pool, have a couple of drinks and he takes a photo of the view looking up at the sun and uploads it to flickr (iirc). 3 hours later back at his room and the room phone rings - I hear one end of the conversation - "yep, uha.. uha.. you know, this is _really_ inappropriate.. you're not doing yourself any favors.. don't call again". Gets off, and it turns out someone had tracked the GPS coordinates in the exif embedded in the photo, worked out what hotel we were staying at and called the front desk asking for Arrington, saying they were a friend. They got Arrington on the phone and then spent 30 seconds blurting out their startup pitch. They also thought it was a cool hack, but it was just very very creepy. Made that entire day very uncomfortable and it rattled Arrington for a while. We ended up changing all of our names with the hotel after telling them about it and they set us all up with aliases (which is something they apparently do as a security measure for celebrities, politicians, or people looking for privacy etc.)

edit: privacy violations affect people, it is really fucked up - have respect for the personal space of others.

<comment><USER12> Damn.... that sucks.

I try just sending tweets to TC journalists for coverage. It never works, and as such have given up on TechCrunch.

This shit is ridiculous though.

<comment><USER29> tips at techcrunch.com is your best bet, everyone at the company is at the end of that email. do a short email with a story hook in it.

Jason Kincaid's book is really really good:

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Burned-Out-Bloggers-Guide-PR- ebook...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Burned-Out-Bloggers-Guide-PR- ebook/dp/B00NFAT238)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Somehow reading the founder's perspective, makes this look worse for me. There is a threshold after which "hacking" stops being cute. Do you really want to start your relationship with a lie?

</comment><comment><USER31> What is the point of going to YC if you're going to do such things to ask for an investment?

The whole idea of YC, I thought, is they hook you up with the best investors in the valley because of their amazing network. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through (not to mention a messy legal situation) when you can just call up Sam and ask for an introduction...

</comment><comment><USER32> Wow, that was a pretty stupid thing to do. Why do people think that this is ok? Also, of all people to do it to, Jason is probably one of the easiest to get through to if you have something legitimate to say to him. Just go to one of the myriad events he throws and you're bound to get a glimpse. This is just childish.

<comment><USER33> In response, someone (EDIT: Cofounder of hacker's previous YC startup) tweeted:

"the valley seriously can't take a joke anymore. Like 'hey guys - <USER2> traction do crazy shit' then 'what have you done, you're crazy'"

"but to hack your voicemail, it means you didn't set it up in the first place. Am I missing something here? Failing to find the harm."

[https://twitter.com/apcommunicate/status/526449274133807104](https://twitter.com/apcommunicate/status/526449274133807104)

<comment><USER11> That someone is his co-founder

<comment><USER33> That puts the last tweet in a much different context: "Jacob - I didn't do anything, but I must say - We definitely don't see it the same."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Unauthorized access of someone else's voicemail is actually a federal crime. US Court of appeals ruled in 1999 [http://t.co/bvYYlzNpgX](http://t.co/bvYYlzNpgX)

<comment><USER35> But notice that the CFAA is the wrong act.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> my apology: [https://twitter.com/AviZolty/status/526467881295683584](https://twitter.com/AviZolty/status/526467881295683584)

<comment><USER37> If I were you, I'd consult with a criminal defense attorney before speaking further. You wrote a blog post admitting to a federal crime under the CFAA, and phone hacking is in the spotlight at the moment due to what's going on with Piers Morgan's former haunts.

If you do not have a criminal defense attorney, you now need one. If you're banking on Jason's good will, the decision to prosecute you is not in his hands.

<comment><USER38> Out Of all the noise, this is the only comment he should be paying attention to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I once spoofed an email from the president of a security company to their HR guy to give me a job.

They must have known immediately but played along. That was fun, though no harm came of it.

</comment><comment><USER33> The original Medium article was submitted to HN a couple hours ago, which the OP wisely deleted after being called out. (and then he deleted the original Medium article shortly after)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8511547](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8511547)

</comment><comment><USER40> I wonder how long it can possibly be until someone else "borrows" the publicly listed phone number on the front page of skurt.co

</comment><comment><USER41> There is a gray line for what you can or can not do to get attention, this isn't even near it. Even if Jason would have thought these guys company is the next truecar or something, if he ends up investing it will just solicit more hacks in the future, and it will end up with someone getting in big trouble. There are some risks that are not worth to be taken.

</comment><comment><USER29> OP posted an apology:

[https://twitter.com/AviZolty/status/526467881295683584](https://twitter.com/AviZolty/status/526467881295683584)

> I just wanted to take a moment to sincerely apologize to @jason publicly. > Been in contact, he's a great sport, and I admire him so much.

</comment><comment><USER42> I have troubles understanding how someone can think hacking people's voice mail will get them to invest in his company - that isn't related to security.

</comment><comment><USER43> It's such a fine line and if he veered just a bit more on the other side, all this press would be beneficial. Instead, he's caught with the hot potato. Honestly, some people have the gift to notice & exploit vulnerabilities but there needs to be a commensurate amount of tact, empathy, and morality for it to be a positive force. I'm on the other side of the spectrum looking to "learn" this type of behavior but my scruples hinder my progress and way of thinking.

<comment><USER11> That fine line is called the law. "Journalists" were thrown in jail for doing the same to celebrity/royalty voice mails.

<comment><USER44> Ok but what about when companies like Uber break the law and it's celebrated? Or when the law gets changed to protect existing companies from competition like Tesla's competitors have been successfully lobbying for?

<comment><USER37> It's a very simplistic world view to think that Uber defying regulation and hacking someone's voicemail are in the same ballpark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> So did he invest?

<comment><USER43> That answer is obvious but more curious if he is informing his network of investors to stay away.

<comment><USER38> Didn't he do just that by making it public on his twitter?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I hope that the same dudes that are against this aren't the same douches that were for the fappening.

</comment><comment><USER47> It's a shame that Skurt didn't include their social media links on their own site.

</comment><comment><USER48> I don't say this often, but I really hope this guy gets prosecuted.

</comment><comment><USER49> I would agree with will.I.am that we should change the name of hackathons to appathons. Facebook "Hacker" culture and the word hacker is too hyped and gives young people the wrong message.

<comment><USER6> <Glances up at page title>

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Hustle hard.

It should also be noted how he did this "hack". He spoofed a call to Jasons own number (thus reaching the voicemail). The voicemail was not setup (or PIN secured), so he was able to do the initial voicemail setup.

Would have been cooler if they were working on some security-related product.

Also: people need to relax.</comment>


Get started with low-power routed BLE mesh using beacons - <AUTHOR> http://blog.estimote.com/post/162271862085/get-started-with-low-power-routed-ble-mesh-using <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

this is Jakub, founder of Estimote, Inc. (YC S13).

We just released a new beacon firmware supporting low-power routed mesh over BLE.

It's slightly different implementation that the one Bluetooth SIG has just standarized, but it will give you a good overview what is possible with Bluetooth Mesh.

If you have beacons already just upgrade the firmware and here is a nice tutorial: [https://developer.estimote.com/managing-beacons/mesh-at- scal...](https://developer.estimote.com/managing-beacons/mesh-at-scale/)

Feel free to post any questions - happy to answer them here.</comment>