Ask HN: How many people upset over Apple's rules are actually iPhone developers? - <AUTHOR> It would be interesting to know what percentage of the people in uproar about the new no-cross-compiling rules are actually developers for the platform (who are affected by the rules) and what percentage are developers of other platforms, or not developers at all? <comment><USER2> I'm an iPhone developer and I like the new rules.

The privacy thing was getting out of hands - according to survey of 600 people I ran on mturk about 1/3 of the users are concerned about privacy ("what do you mean my data is collected!?"), 1/3 are willing to give developers benefit of the doubt and 1/3 don't care one bit. Apple should get praise for addressing this thing before it blew up, not "after numerous warnings were ignored". We don't want scared users, we want users happy and safe.

I also like the ban on 3d-party analytics for purely selfish reasons - I have my own and this ban gives me an advantage. It also paves the way for me to sell my analytics package to people to use in-house later on. Apple has shown indifference to dev analytics (beyond daily sales numbers) so I hope they keep doing that.

I like the cross-language compiler ban as well, again for selfish reasons. I was not looking forward to a horde of flash developers joining the fray and flooding the app store with more apps. It also elevates value of my Obj-C skills, should I decide to market them instead of building products.

I'm only concerned about smooth transition from current regime to the next one - I wanted to release an ad-supported app next week and I hope these new rules don't put me in limbo (e.g. Apple's ads aren't there yet, other ads are banned).

<comment><USER3> Other ads are NOT banned--that was in the Q&A session specifically, and Jobs said you can use any package you like.

(I guess as long as it's not collecting data that's user-specific.)

<comment><USER4> The intersection of ads with the new rules only has to do with location- targeting. Apple had unofficially discouraged it before, saying your app couldn't use Core Location "primarily" to serve targeted ads, and they've now strengthened that language and put it in the dev agreement (3.3.9).

There's no reason to think the Deck or FusionAds or AdMob are going away in their current incarnations.

<comment><USER2> Not true, agreement forbids using user data in ways not related to the primary function of the app and it also forbids passing device data to third parties.

I'm fairly sure moblcix and admob libraries collect device ID which falls under "device data".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Many top charting 3D & 2D games by indie developers (like top ten world wide, and staying there) use the the Unity3D framework to develop their games. It saves a ton of time, and the engine is very efficient and well developed and probably would do a better job than you whipping something yourself with just OpenGL ES. (Not to mention you don't have to learn OpenGL). The main chunk of the engine is written in C/C++ with other C libraries, but developers don't see that part and instead interface with the engine through a C#/javascript with types/Boo scripting interface and a 3D modeling interface to build objects and assets. I used it to make a game that didn't go through and I know using anything else would taken many months more of my time. If I was one of the developers who made one of those top listing games, I'd be pretty worried now about the future of my business.

Also not to mention, almost every type of game engine/game development methodology use a very similar model of main engine in c/game logic in a scripting language, and to not to be able to do that significantly decreases productivity. Baldur's gate, unreal engine, EVE online, Unity3D and probably many others.

<comment><USER6> That games point is worth mentioning again.

Using an engine can result in crap-ware. But is _also_ allows developers to focus on the gameplay/story/important stuff. Planescape Torment wasn't good because it had a new engine (it just used the BG engine) - it was good because of the story/artwork/effort put into it.

Apple should focus on discovery. It doesn't matter how many crap apps there are (put it this way - There's far more crap webpages than there are crap apps) - as long as I can see and find the good ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this is great news for "real" iPhone developers.

The good thing about being an ObjC iPhone-developer is that there aren't that many iPhone developers. So if you're producing decent stuff (or better, of course), you'll be in high demand. I'm not sure for how long you'll be in high demand, but I think this is a great move from Apple for ObjC-developers. It makes them in even higher demand. Anybody can program in Flash or Java, but learning ObjC is a bit different and perceived as more difficult, due to things like no automatic garbage collection and (sometimes) low-level C APIs. All those developers that have invested their time in learning these things are now rewarded by Apple.

I used to be an iPhone developer, and although it's really good for making money, I was personally frustrated by Obj-C. It's not that I can't program in it: I've been making good money from it for over a year. It's just that I also program in Haskell, and that is just such a better fit for me. I guess it's really a personal thing. I've decided to quit before I grew really frustrated, and start doing things I love. I'm not sure if it's a wise thing, but it works for me.

I was hoping that someday in the future we could use Haskell on the iPhone, either via the arm-ghc, jhc (which can compile to ansi C) or DDC (a Haskell- variant). So it's too bad that this isn't going to work anymore.

To answer the question: I stil consider myself an iPhone developer, and I am a bit upset.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm an iPhone dev, and I really don't care. I knew going into it that if I wanted to make iPhone apps that I was playing in Apple's ballpark and that essentially my apps could be blacklisted for whatever reason. I decided that if I ever came to the place that I had reason to believe an app wouldn't make it through the review process that I'd do something web based.

That said I took the time to learn Obj-C as I figured MonoTouch would deliver a subpar user experience and would also be a few steps behind whatever the latest version of the SDK was.

Truth be told, I'd much rather write F# than Obj-C. However, when in rome...

</comment><comment><USER9> Good question. It is unlikely that many real iPhone devs are upset with the rules regarding 3rd party frameworks.

Here is a portion of my comments on mobileorchard

On the question of cross-platform tools, I think the old dev agreement did have some language against using 3rd party frameworks. The new dev agreement makes it much more explicit/clear. If I wanted to develop Android apps, I wouldn't expect to use Cocoa-Touch and Objective-C. Similarly, I don't need .NET or Flash to write iPhone apps. I like the Apple platform and code to it.

It appears that Apple wants to limit their app-store to developers who want to work with their platform. I think this is a legitimate desire. From Apple's perspective, it helps iPhone users by improving quality and reducing quantity in the app-store and it also helps developers who invested the time to learn Apple's platform. Obviously, it also helps Apple if developers use their platform directly instead of going through middle-men. Overall, I don't have a problem with Apple's policy.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am. I'm an iPhone developer, and I do a lot of stuff in Phonegap. While Phonegap seems to be safe, for now (they explicitly allow Javascript in their Webkit in 3.3.1), that might change, which is scary. Also I have just discovered Titanium, and played with it. It's impressive: it's easier to make nice looking apps with it than Phonegap, and native components still react (a bit) better than elements in a webview. I would argue it's also simpler/faster to develop in Titanium than in Objective C. I would be really disappointed if the Titanium apps I'm building won't be allowed.

Also, on a more (for me) theoretical level: I do believe a lot of innovation around languages and compilers is and will happen outside Apple's 'approved' tools. They will hold their platform back if they don't allow this. It also pisses me of they change the rules like this. In a way it's a modern company disallowing tools like those newfangled 'Computer' thingies..

I don't really buy into the quality argument: It's also possible to build really crappy apps with Objective C (have a look in the Appstore). Also, they already have their testing in place, and can not allow crappy apps.

It seems Apple wanted to stop Flash. I have talked to people in the CS5 beta's, and it's not easy to build a well-working Flash iPhone app: It takes a lot of optimization. So I understand they not wanting Flash apps. But the way they worded this has a lot (too much) collateral damage.

tl;dr: I'm affected by this now, it sucks both in principle and in practice.

<comment><USER11> I tend to feel this was more about stopping the potential for a move by large numbers of developers to platforms that allow targeting multiple devices with one codebase diminishing the advantage apple enjoys in having exclusive Apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> i left the iphone game middle of last year. i had some fun but it wasn't the business i wanted to be in. anyways, these new rules are in keeping with apple's general disregard for developers. i don't think this particular rule would have affected me so much because i had already resigned myself to writing obj-C (which i grew to like after a while).

the general theme i see in some apple's more controversial policy changes (e.g. removing erotic apps, restricting developer tools) is to improve the quality of apps, both in terms of content and performance. i think a lot of the problems they have stem from the structure of the app store and that's what's incentivizing shitty, throwaway apps. restricting developer resources seems like a short sighted approach to addressing this. honestly, if they just started ranking apps by total revenue generated (instead of download volume) i think a lot of their problems would be solved. developers would be far more willing to put the time into making a quality app if they thought they could actually charge more than $0.99 for it without getting pushed out of the ranking.

this was one of the reasons i left iphone development. i spent a month or so working on a knockoff of Set (called Fetch). A friend did the graphics, i implemented wireless multiplayer. I really tried to create a nice application. I barely made enough to pay the designer and certainly didn't make enough to account for the time spent on it. I made another app called eyeTrip in a day. Not quite as dumb as Sound Grenade, but close :) Anyways, i made more money in a day off of that then i made off of Fetch. Once I realized that was the game, I started looking for a job.

I guess my little story is not specifically related to the OP, but the point is that there are much larger problems with developing for the app that are driving away developers.

<comment><USER4> There is a "Top Grossing" app store list, currently at the bottom right of the landing page. #1 is currently MLB 2010 which is $15. #2 is The Sims 3, $6.99. #3 is Red Laser, 99¢.

#6 is an app called "iRa Pro" which integrates with surveillance systems to show you the current feeds, and costs $900.

<comment><USER12> shows how much i've been paying attention :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not really upset about their rules, because I'm not, nor ever will be, an iPhone developer. Apple has always been about _control_ , and that's just not a world that interests me. I'm much more in favor of the web, Linux and that sort of thing, just as I was when Microsoft ruled the roost. Luckily, the world of computing is big enough so that there is room for everyone. I just hope Apple doesn't become the default mobile phone platform; but I don't think they will.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm an iphone developer (or at least, I have been intermittently in the current project I'm working on). Other than the iPhone, I developed a Java ME app once (I won't make that mistake again).

I'm pretty upset about it, but I'm not one of the people yelling at Apple everywhere (and honestly I am one of the people that got tired really quickly about how much it was filling up the front page of HN). It doesn't affect the code I've written-- I used Objective C, all the way, because I was new to the platform and that's what it's documented with.

Honestly, it scares me, and it scares me enough that I have no real interest in developing for the iPhone anymore. Apple doesn't appear to care about its developers. This isn't so bad, except that it also has a lot of control over its developers. I have little investment in the platform (one app? pff), and not much reason to develop for it (users are not really that big of a motivator here), and so I quit. iPhone development is a gamble I don't want to take. (And of course, the new change prevents me from hedging my bets and developing cross-platform apps. How annoying!).

</comment><comment><USER15> Well mobileorchard is shutting down and many of his comments seem to indicate at least a few developers are following him

<http://www.mobileorchard.com/goodbye/#comments>

But by in large I think most of the developers upset by this are ones who wanted to develop for the iPhone not ones that are already. Since those who already did develop for the iPhone would obviously know how to use Objective-C already. The true cruelty of this is that Apple basically pulled the rug out from under these people after they'd been waiting for over a year (since CS5 was announced)

Anticipating something like that for so long and then having it taken from you at virtually the last minute is bound to cause a lot of anger

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, I hadn't heard about Mobile Orchard...

I've definitely had reason to question my own position as an iPhone developer having endured a stunning rejection myself recently but I have to say that, as someone who's developed for many platforms over the years, my sympathy for anyone who let learning a new language stop them from building something is limited.

Either way all this is certainly "fuel for the fire" of my plans for developing a new platform.

<comment><USER16> Curious what other platforms you are considering. I chose iPhone over Android because I perceived the latter to be a poor marketplace to sell apps and of fragmentation of the OS. I'm now wondering if I made a mistake or if mobile web apps are actually the best route to take.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm considering developing a new one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> After the iPad announcement in January I bought three books on iPhone and Cocoa development and spent a few weeks learning it before deciding in the end that I just couldn't live in Soviet Apple-land. The technology, sure, no problem -- but the contract terms, well, I thought at first I was going to choke them down, but when it came to actually signing, it felt like my self- respect was on the line.

I'm not upset at their latest whims because they're only more steps down the road I already balked at. They already banned the interpreter, why _not_ ban the compiler? I will never write a native iPhone app except perhaps for hire, or after a regime change.

<comment><USER16> Do you really expect a regime change at Apple? Jobs walks two feet off the ground in Cupertino.

<comment><USER18> isn't this a repeat of history though? his controlling nature cost the apple II, to the anything goes Windows/Microsoft, and it will likely do the same to ChromeOS/Android and Google. if and when apple again loses it's grip, will he be ousted from Apple? my bet is no, if only because they wouldn't want to bet against him and be wrong for the second time. but in my opinion, he's an incredible innovator, but he sucks at follow through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm currently developing iPhone app code, at justin.tv.

I wouldn't say I'm _upset_ exactly, I just think Apple is being needlessly controlling right now (by which I mean they're being controlling _just because they can_ , not because they need to be) and that turns me away from wanting to develop code for their platform again.

It also makes me think twice about buying any more of their products in the future. Again, I'm not "in uproar" - I just think Apple is probably no longer a very good option for me as a hacker/consumer.

</comment><comment><USER20> I gather that the Gambit-C Scheme community is not happy; they've shipped multiple games and at least one for the iPhone, see "Scheme is also dead on the iPhone" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1253420>.

Outlawing modern programming language technology (C/C++/Objective C are all _old_ , at base they are '60s to early '70s languages) along with what I'm sure is indeed a lot of awful multi-platform middle-ware can't be good.

For people like me who are used more powerful languages, one higher up on the Blub scale (including Lisp at the top, of course :-), this shows either a failure in execution (of the ToS language) or that Jobs doesn't "get it" when it comes to programming.

ADDED: (forget this early in the morning while editing this post): this is straight out of Dilbert, Jobs is _demanding_ that i<whatever> programmers to work harder, not smarter.

<comment><USER21> Seems kinda silly that you're referring to Scheme as a "modern programming language" and then excluding C/C++/Objective-C. Scheme dates back to 1975, while Objective-C is only from 1986. So by your standards, Scheme would be considered less modern than Objective-C.

<comment><USER20> It has to do with how good old plain LISP, pre-Algol-60, has a nature that has allowed it to naturally and steadily evolve (well, subject to all the usual human foibles, e.g. the fate of original formula LISP being capped with Common Lisp).

C hasn't in my considered opinion significantly evolved from its mid-70s beginning. Too much of C++ is held back by its C compatibility requirement, but I will admit I haven't paid attention to it for a few years. In either case, they very seldom have GC runtimes, and very few interpretive run times for them have been developed. Scheme had both in 1975 (by virtue of running on top of MACLISP).

As I understand it, Objective-C is C with Smalltalk style classes. Wikipedia says it "is a thin layer on top of C, and moreover is a _strict superset_ of C." A quick skim of the Wikipedia article suggests that it's very much like C++ in how I view this, both are mid-'80s languages that built something on top of C with similar backward compatibility and efficiency design goals (the two are of course linked), including no GC.

You can do conservative garbage collection of both and Objective-C 2.0 added it as an official feature (although that's not available on the iPhone version according to Wikipedia).

Anyway, all things considered, I don't consider them modern in the way Scheme and Clojure are (Common Lisp got stuck in amber), and I'm pretty sure I'd consider some version of FORTRAN after 1977 more modern than they are. Certainly higher level, see Fran Allen's flames in _Coders at Work_ for how much the low level nature of C has set us back.

C is a good universal assembly language. C++ is good for certain performance critical applications (VLSI design and simulation were good '80s examples as I understand). Neither are good for many if not most i<whatever> applications.

I can't render an opinion on Objective-C's suitability for these type applications (I only have theoretical knowledge of Smalltalk style objects and know nothing about the whole package), and it's almost certainly the best language under the new restrictions ... but suppose we just defer this until it has a REPL. (A LISP feature from the very early '60s, after the first punched card FORTRAN subroutine version. They'd _just_ switched from vacuum tubes to transistors....)

That is or was a design goal, but I gather from all the discussion it's not even on the official road map. Meanwhile, today you can use Gambit-C Scheme to run a REPL on an iPhone ... you just can't use this implementation that compiles to very efficient C for your app and follow the new ToS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not a developer and don't object to it. When I bought my first iPhone 3 years ago I did so because all these other SmartPhone platforms were so unpleasant to use. I don't mind letting Apple do their thing and protect the sanctity of the platform. If it upset me I'd just use something else instead.

</comment><comment><USER23> I am an iPhone developer and have no problem with this rule. It makes sense and is in line with Apple's policies before. I think most people won't be upset if they realize that Apple is not a business model, they are just a channel. You can't build a business on Apple because they can shut you down when ever they want either directly or indirectly. The iPhone is the first mobile platform that I created apps for and I have been considering developing for other platforms as well. I enjoy working in Objective-C and this is why I will spend more time with the iPhone/iPad projects.

<comment><USER24> You seem to contradict yourself.

"You can't build a business on Apple because they can shut you down when ever they want"

I totally agree...so why are you OK with that when you might be next?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm a C# developer who learnt objective-C and started down that path, went to Monotouch when it came out as it made sense. I trust people who specialise in memory-management to do a better job at object allocation and deferencing than I can do manually.

I'm annoyed that Monotouch and a few others are essentially caught in the cross fire of what is clearly an Adobe hate campaign. Monotouch makes you write using wrappers around UIKit and doesn't water down Cocoa unlike the Flash libraries do.

I would love to see a solution where the clause was slightly amended to read "C-derived language" (though arguably ECMAscript is based on C). They would also need to remove the tools clause which won't happen. There has to be a court case over this if it doesn't change, and I fear Apple will probably win.

</comment><comment><USER26> As a software developer I am annoyed that Apple is exerting so much control over their platform instead of being more open with it.

But as an iPhone developer I don't really care that much. It doesn't really affect me since I'm already doing my work in Objective-C.

I'm not exactly surprised by the recent changes and can understand the logic behind their choices.

I think most of the outrage is coming from Flash developers and others who were hoping to be able to leverage their existing skillsets on the iPhone platform.

<comment><USER27> Before this, if I was going to develop for the iPhone, I'd have leaned toward doing it in Scheme. Now, my only options are languages I don't like.

Previously, if I had an idea for a mobile app that seemed financially promising, I'd have written an iPhone app. Now I'm convinced that developing for the iPhone platform is too risky. The only way I'd develop for the iPhone now is if I had some other project that would really benefit financially from a mobile tie-in that didn't work as a web app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why are you interested? Are you suggesting that I don't have the right to be outraged if it doesn't directly affect me?

<comment><USER29> I think it's a really valid question. If all the iPhone app makers now turn up and say "nah doesn't worry me" then it's an interesting metric.

I don't think anyone is saying that people don't have the right to be disgruntled or disproving unless they are developing for the platform.

It's simply interesting whether the concern is drive by a feeling that this is wrong, or because it materially affects people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm a Flash developer and I've produced multiple games I would have looked at pushing to iPhone, not to mention future games I develop.

I can also tell you the Flash game development community is not happy. We were all looking forward to this.

On top of that I work a lot with .NET and have been looking at MonoTouch for a long time.

<comment><USER31> Learn Objective-C and OpenGL :) Im not being an arse when I say that because if you truly want to dive into the iPhone space you have to play by Apple's rules. If your games are awesome then I will buy it, and you can go and make it now and in a few weeks time it could be on the store. Think about it, mid May I could buy your app.

Why wait for a miracle to happen?

I find it interesting that so many people believed that Apple would allow this to happen and are now bummed that its been blocked. A sign of laziness or of one-eyed devotion to Adobe? I say, stop suckling the Adobe teet and enrich your coding knowledge and portfolio. Learn Objective-C today! _propaganda poster_ :P

<comment><USER30> I don't want to learn another language and platform when there are _two_ I am already intimate with that can be used to deploy apps on that platform.

Adobe, Novell etc enabled us all to skip learning a language and platform that is otherwise utterly useless .... would you learn Objective-C for anything _but_ iPhone? Course not, so why would you learn it at all if something you already know can get you there.

I don't even have time to learn another language, I'm busy working my ass off on my startup - analytics for games. Thank fucking god I didn't pick "iPhone" cause the new terms kill all the guys who've put so much time and effort tackling that too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm not an iPhone developer, but I am surprised how many of them here think they're being helped out by this.

I see it as a step to hinder them (this is modified from another comment I wrote a couple of days ago...):

1\. Apple are increasing the barrier of entry for iPhone devs in to OTHER mobile development worlds - they're no longer able to develop a solution that is easily portable to Android, WinMo, BB, for example. They're forcing devs to bet their ability to write popular mobile apps on the fact that Apple will always provide the platform they need, and (more worryingly) that they will continue to keep the App in the App Store. If Apple chose to duplicate the functionality of any app themselves, the developer can't easily move to providing it for Android - so they're screwed. Given how Apple don't seem to care about doing this, I think it's bad for iPhone developers' job security.

2\. There will be more ObjC devs now, so iPhone developers' hard earned ObjC skills will be less unique and useful in the long run.

If, however, the move results in a working ObjC-->Other platforms compiler, point 1 becomes less important.

</comment><comment><USER33> Keep in mind that it's not just iPhone. It's also that brand new iPad thingamabober we're talking about.

This doesn't just affect existing iPhone developers. It affects people that may have been interested in jumping over to this new, very compelling platform.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm currently not an iPhone/iXX developer and this Apple move is a strong incentive to stay away from it. The risk on the investment into it is too high for me now. By risk I mean being suddenly locked out for arbitrary and unpredictable reasons, or access fee raised, etc.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm an iPhone developer and this doesn't change a thing for me. I'm doing it for fun & seeing my apps in the hands of ordinary people far outweighs all of Apple's nonsense. I have a deep hatred for everything Flash & Flex. Insofar as Flash is concerned I'm actually happy about Apple's decision, not so much for the other cross-compilers.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm not professional developer, but I'm a passionate computer hobbyist. I make a good income with my day job - I'm a medical doctor - so I have no financial motivations when it comes to programming, it's just something I like to do.

When I became interested in web development I spent some time learning Django. As a result, I put together Instant Django, a no-installation-required Django development environment for Windows, and I also wrote an introductory tutorial. Over the last few years I've had a couple hundred thousand downloads. I don't make any money from it, but a couple times a week someone emails me a thank you note, which gives me a little thrill.

Last year I decided to learn to program the iPhone, because it seemed interesting, and my 3 year old daughter loved to play with my phone. It looked like a great way to share my hobby with her. I've spent the last few months writing an introductory tutorial for iPhone game programmers, based on the Cocos2d framework.

I've been unhappy with Apple's policies up to now, I especially thought it sucked eggs that I had to pay $100 a year to run software on my own phone, but I tolerated it. With this latest move, I've decided to drop the whole thing.

I purchased an AT&T Nexus One, and I've begun learning how to program for Android. I've also started to rewrite my tutorial.

Will Apple miss me? Nope. But I'm a passionate user, and they've lost me for good.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've had one app in the App Store since its launch and admittedly only do hobbyist work now and it doesn't bother me at all. I bought a Mac and learned Objective-C just to make stuff for my iPhone and I learned to really like Xcode and Obj-C.

I can understand why developers want their work on as many platforms as possible but when each platform has distinct interaction and design paradigms they can't fulfill them as well as they should by targeting the least common denominator.

</comment><comment><USER38> People _love_ being outraged by things. Gives them something to talk about I guess. That's why people buy The Daily Mail.

Personally I think it's a good move by Apple. Good for their business, good for iPhone users.

<comment><USER39> How is it good for users? The quality argument is bunk, and the net effect of these new rules is to restrict choice for developers. When developer choice is restricted, does that not also restrict choice for users?

<comment><USER38> The quality argument isn't bunk. If a single tool becomes mainstream to 'automatically' build the same app for iPhone,android,flash,html5+js,etc then the quality is going to go suffer. Apps won't be well tuned to the individual platforms.

I disagree it restricts choice for users, and I don't think there's such a problem on the appStore. If anything, there's too much choice and not enough quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I blogged about this here: [http://www.alwaysontechnologies.com/blog/2010/04/09/section-...](http://www.alwaysontechnologies.com/blog/2010/04/09/section-3-3-1-is- good-news-to-native-iphone-developers/)

I think Apple did native iphone developers a favor. Just think about the army of Flash developers jumping into the app store.

</comment><comment><USER41> Apple's terms were never agreeable to me, so I never started developing for it in the first place. I figured something like this was inevitable, so it changes nothing for me.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm a developer. I have a simple app in the app store, and I spent time porting it to Titanium so that I could add features faster by using Javascript.

I also have two simple internal apps that my sales people use that I was going to port to JS, then to the iPad, so I could more easily make modifications since none of the applications are performance sensitive. If there were bits that weren't performing, I would code only those bits in Objective-C or change my algorithm. It takes about 10 times longer in days for me to develop in Objective-C. I'm still debating if I want to cancel my iPad 3g pre-order, since I won't be able to do with it what I want, except browse the internet on the can. I'm definitely not going to order the other iPads (~12 sales people) that I was planning to order once my software has been modified. Further, I already put work into full-featured ports, so instead of wasting the work, my apps will be coming to other platforms, although I set out to just increase the speed of iPhone development.

I'm going to write a blog post on this today at some point.

</comment><comment><USER43> I have a Java/Flex background, and I have spent the last four months (approximately 300hrs) fully invested in learning Cocoa/Objective-C. I love Categories and Protocols. NsNotificationCenter is beautiful. Cocoa is design patterns in real-life. Instruments is amazing. IB doesn't suck as much - it's good for some views. Cocoa/Objective-C are so well designed that I have been struggling with an impedance mismatch when going back to Java/Flex and most importantly, Windows and 'Not Responding'. I can understand why Unity3D and MonoTouch.Net make things easier for developers. Because at the abstract level, the consumer doesn't care how you wrote the application - they care about how your app makes them feel - as in did they get personal value, does it make them look cool, does it look kick-ass...

However, if an app can be written once in a framework and deployed to Android and iPhone simultaneously, that weakens the main tent pole of Apple's strategy.

I don't support Section 3.3.1, and I believe it will be enforced (with high- profile exclusions).

</comment><comment><USER44> Not an iPhone developer and I disagree with it. It seems ObjC iPhone devs will be happy since it means less competition for them. As a user, you should be pissed though since you WILL miss out on quality Unity3d, Appcelerator, and Flash apps/games. When I say "quality" I mean that Apple did it's job with the review process and didn't accept the crappy Apps.

I also think it was an "evil" move to wait until days before CS5 release. From a business perspective I believe Apple would have made more money by the potential sales of the banned apps (think of Farmville #s) but don't want to lose control of their vision of the "future of the web". They simply don't want any chance of a superior IDE for iPhone to be created.

All arguments of "quality" seem silly to me since that's the point of the review process. How much does it cost to hire a reviewer? How much money will the influx of quality Flash/Appcelerator/Unity3d apps bring? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to accept 60+ fart apps.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm an iPhone developer. While I'm not generally a fan of restrictions, I also don't quite get where the outrage is coming from. My reaction was "So? I never planned to write in anything other than Objective C anyway!"

I have observed that for every low-level platform (in this case, iPhone OS) there tends to be one or two languages/paradigms that are the most natural fit for the platform, due to the way the platform itself is implemented. For native Windows, those are clearly C and C++. (For .NET, it's C#, but I think it's important to note that would not have worked out well for Windows, if the .NET platform itself had not been executed upon so carefully.) I do think that really first-class apps are much more likely to come from people who understand the platform well enough to implement for it on its own terms (not that this in itself is a guarantee of quality).

</comment><comment><USER46> I am a developer, just not developing apps on iPhone/mac. I am concerned but not angry at the new policies.

</comment><comment><USER47> Why is it interesting? You can be affected by the rules even if you are not yet an iPhone dev. Since many companies copy Apple's approach, you can be affected even if you never intended to dev for iPhone.

What if you would like to develop for iPhone, but don't like C? Not entitled to an opinion?

</comment><comment><USER48> If the new rules affect the number of quality apps, consumers will vote with their wallets. I have no problem with developers leaving a platform based on the new language, but Apple (and the developers) work for the consumer and should be doing what is in their best interests. Apple believes intermediary compiling spawns less-then-great apps, so they are doing what they feel is best for the customer and their bottom line.

If you're a developer who doesn't like it, switch platforms. If you're a consumer who doesn't like it, buy something else. If enough people do so, Apple will change or fail. If nothing changes and they maintain their quality and popularity, you really can't blame Apple one bit.

</comment><comment><USER49> Definition of an object to hold some state in Objective-C vs Io: <http://gist.github.com/361355>

Think of how many more apps would be created if we could use a less verbose language to create them.

<comment><USER50> Yeah, obj-c language is crazy. About the only thing more archiac is cobol. I don't care how innovative it was in the 80s. It's a damn fossil nowadays.

When going through tutorials and examples I just couldn't stop myself from saying: this would be so much simpler if I could write it in c# (my prefered language, but a bunch of others would come ahead of it if I had to make a list).

<comment><USER51> Crazy?

It's just smalltalk mixed with C. Learn those two, it makes total sense.

C#'s only features on the language IMO were: Better XML api's and Garbage Collection. Both of those are actually iPhone limitations, not language limitations.

<comment><USER50> Fine not crazy, but definitely archiac. Saying it's as modern as 2 other 30+ year old languages is funny. Heck, doesn't Apple even have a commercial where PC guy gives Mac guy a C manual or something like that?

It just takes so much more code than modern languages. Obviously that doesn't bother some people but it bugs me. I find this especially frustrating from a company that brags about how user friendly it is. To me obj-c is the DOS of programming languages.

<comment><USER51> And C# is Java2.0. It's the re-enterprisation of a 18 year old language designed to replace cobol.

I'm _not_ an apple apologist, and wish I could run a real dynamic language on the device. C# however, was not that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I have been in the process of porting an existing iPhone app over to Titanium as well as doing some contract iPhone development.

I am frustrated by Apple's decision, but I understand it. I don't enjoy ObjC, but I can handle it.

</comment><comment><USER53> I am a developer for the platform and am a bit pissed. I have done a bit over a hundred grand in sales and another bit in AdMob revenue from free apps.

I'm pissed less from a pragmatic perspective and more on principles. I'm working on my Ph.D. in CS, working on programming languages. How hypocritical is it for me to work on a language-locked platform when I work on things like a parallel dialect of ML in my real job?

</comment><comment><USER54> I speak objective-c. I like it's verbosity. I couldn't care less about the recent changes in the toc partly because I knew this was coming.

</comment><comment><USER55> Maybe people who are upset about the new rules are not iPhone developers because the iron grip Apple has on that platform? If the rules were more lax those people could become iPhone devs.

</comment><comment><USER56> Well given I already wrote a layer on top of titanium, I'm spewing!

</comment><comment><USER57> As a prospective (licensed but unreleased) developer, I don't care about this particular rule, because I'll be working directly in XCode. I _do_ care about how Apple sprung it on their developer community out of a clear blue sky, trashing a lot of peoples' hard work in their quest to hose Adobe.

If Apple doesn't mind taking a wrecking ball to Unity3D's business model, who's to say they won't come up with some crazy rule next year that prohibits something I'm doing? How can I build a healthy long-term business around iPhone/iPad development, when I could find myself on the wrong side of a turf war I didn't even know was being fought?

<comment><USER58> Same boat here. For me, this is a really touch choice. I like the SDK and I think the iPhone OS is by far the best mobile OS out there, but I'm not sure I want to back this horse.

When Microsoft was the Evil Empire it was easy to stay away from them because I didn't like their software, but it costs me something to stay away from Apples ecosystem since it's really good. But I'd much rather see the mobile web succeed than the App Store and the other closed ecosystems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm pissed. Not sure if I'm and iPhone developer now that Steve says PhoneGap is out. Oh, well...I guess I won't be able to make 99 cents 10 times a day through iTunes sales.

On the plus side, using PhoneGap I can still develop for Android and Blackberry...and if Steve changes his mind I'll definitely take that $10 a day.

</comment><comment><USER59> 78.

</comment><comment><USER60> I'm not accusing you of anything. But hopefully no one will infer that all the non-iphone developers should stay quite.</comment>


OpenPositioningSystem - GPS alternative with seismic sensors - <AUTHOR> http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2013/02/openpositioningsystem.php

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks like a cool hack but note this is from an art project website, and may be just conceptual. Also the link to openps.org doesn't work and it doesn't show up on Google.

Still, interesting idea.</comment>


Caviar was a free bar snack - <AUTHOR> https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?3917 <comment><USER2> I grew up on Caspian shore. Article says shortage began in the 70s but I would say, from my observation of my father who was a fisherman, even in the 90s there was a lot of sturgeon in Caspian. We would have buckets of caviar at home being prepared for sale. The area we lived in was poor but people always had caviar on the table for breakfast. Also, the article says sturgeon doesn't need to go upstream in freshwater rivers to lay its eggs but it still does, the river Samur near us used to have sturgeon going up. Locals would catch sturgeon and would try to hold the belly hole of the pregnant fish because caviar would start dripping. Nowadays I rarely hear local fisherman catching any sturgeon with caviar, only industrial fishery companies are able to do that and sell 250 gram can of caviar for $100

<comment><USER3> Yeah, when I was really young I'd have caviar regularly, it was cheap, never thought much of it. Twenty years later, prices seemed insane for what was basically a weekend of fishing (mostly for the fish meat).

On that note, we had freshwater crabs pretty much every week, one big boiling pot of them. They were great, nowadays I can't find any.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Caviar is delicious, and also can be relatively sustainable because sturgeon are amenable to aquaculture. Beluga caviar is actually illegal in the US now, since it's listed as an endangered species. But California raises farmed sturgeon. (The meat itself is delicious, so it's not being wasted.)

Fish eggs, in general, are very tasty. A favorite Bangladeshi food is fried hilsha roe: [https://www.cosmopolitancurrymania.com/wp- content/uploads/20...](https://www.cosmopolitancurrymania.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/08/BeFunky_Hilsa-eggs.jpg.jpg)

</comment><comment> m-p-3 And lobster wasn't a fancy meal until early 20th century [https://www.history.com/news/a-taste-of-lobster- history](https://www.history.com/news/a-taste-of-lobster-history)

"lobsters were routinely fed to prisoners, apprentices, slaves and children during the colonial era and beyond"

<comment><USER5> Makes sense: lobsters are essentially insects, and eating insects, such as cockroaches is disgusting for most people. I still refuse to eat lobsters and shrimps for this exact reason: I'm not eating any insects, ever.

<comment><USER6> Some human puts some species under some label.

You: I'm not eating anything under this label as it must be alike!

But in this case insects a lobsters are not even close in the tree of life. Maybe they indeed look alike a bit. Do you eat feces because it does look a bit like chocolate?

<comment><USER7> It's not that far apart Lobsters and insects both belong to the invertebrate phylum Arthropoda.

If you want to include both spiders which are Chelicerata and grasshoppers which are Hexapoda that's Arthropoda.

<comment><USER8> I guess cows are basically fish then. Both Chordates after all /s

<comment><USER7> Again it depends on the measuring stick. In terms of nutrition costs and fish are rather similar in comparison to say wheat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When my parents were first married they would be forced to eat abalone due to running out of money at the end of the month. They had friends who would go abalone diving on the California coast and give away bags of it.

</comment><comment><USER10> What's interesting about beluga caviar is that it taste varies a lot. I've tried illegally caught Russian caviar and then I've tried some caviar from a sustainable farm and the former was way better for some reason.

<comment><USER11> It's because the secret ingredient is crime

<comment><USER12> This explains some things about the legal weed market in my area too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "It takes twenty years for a female beluga to mature, and at that point she can weigh as much as 1,800 pounds [...]. Such a fish could yield twenty pounds of eggs [when killed]."

That's got to be one of the least sustainable things I've ever heard of. I tried caviar once. It didn't taste like much, and I didn't see the point.

<comment><USER14> It is as sustainable as fishing any other species of fish. Whether caught for meat or eggs the result is the same. What matters is the quantity fished.

Many luxury foods became so because of culture/fashion trends, btw. For example, lobster used to be used to fertilise fields and to feed prisoners and servants in the American North-East.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, that's why I don't buy fish.

<comment><USER15> Maybe I'm just falling victim to corporate propaganda, but I'm pretty sure wild (Alaskan) salmon is truly sustainably fished, as are sardines and anchovies

<comment><USER16> The Alaskan fishery is much like the fishery south of it in BC, where 'sustainable' is a bit of a joke - I think that term is based on taking a 'sustainable' number of the estimated population returning to spawn in rivers. Alaskan rivers are doing better than BC's, but returns are dwindling and both governments are consistently shifting baselines on a yearly basis. Every year quotas are smaller, but so are the populations.

This is something I follow constantly and the numbers are actually terrifying. Some rivers have _okay_ returns of some species of salmon, but some like sockeye are at incredibly low numbers. They are by some measures on the brink of extinction, and many spawning runs are extinct already.

In BC, sockeye returns are currently being tracked daily and the result so far is that less are returning than _ever_ before, and the amount returning is far less than the department of fisheries and oceans' lowest estimates. It's an emergency in my opinion. People shouldn't be eating sockeye.

I'm not sure about sardines and anchovies. I know herring have been seriously overfished, so I have doubts that anything we fish is sustainable at the moment. I hope it is.

<comment><USER17> I don't know much about fish or live near the Pacific, but neither of the links in my comment (sibling to yours) suggest sockeye is a bad choice. In fact NE Pacific 'early summer' sockeye is a recommended choice, and many BC sockeye fisheries have MSC certification.

<comment><USER16> I know there's certification, but if you look for BC's department of fisheries and oceans' minutes on the sockeye return, it's dire. As I mentioned, it's well below their lowest estimates. Their lowest estimates for this year are even lower than previous years. I've been following this for 7 or 8 years, and while there are years where the return is better than previous years... It's still not a good return historically speaking. The sockeye are disappearing.

This year it's not clear why numbers are so low, but a sound guess would be that the generation spawning this year's returners were largely impacted by pre-spawn mortalities. Numbers look good going into the river, but they end up dying before they can spawn. Research into this phenomenon isn't well-funded, but it's a known problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When Glasgow was a major force in the ship building world, the unions had a clause in their contract so they would not fed smoked salmon more than twice a week.

<comment><USER19> Saw mill workers in northern Sweden had similar clauses. "No more than 50% of the salary is to be payed out in salmon."

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I grew up eating caviar (brought back from trips to Russia where it was dirt cheap in the 90s, not from being rich), and I absolutely love it. It's an incredible flavor, but definitely an acquired taste.

Like many things, if you grow up eating it, you learn to appreciate it. You can also learn to appreciate things that you didn't eat as a child, though that takes much longer as an adult. For me, I learnt to appreciate spicy food (in particular numbing spicy Sichuan food, and other Asian spices) as an adult.

</comment><comment><USER21> > Caviar was served as a free bar snack, in the hope that as with peanuts, the > saltiness would encourage drinking.

So it _isn 't_ just the cheap stuff.

I do have a note about the source, though:

> _Salt: A World History_ by Mark Kurlansky

This book vectors the myth that Romans were paid in salt.

This is not true:

[http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and- salary.ht...](http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.html)

(Wikipedia has, of course, been fixed. The printed material never will be.)

</comment><comment><USER22> Now there are poachers and counterfeitters. [https://www.google.com/amp/s/longreads.com/2019/02/12/the- ca...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/longreads.com/2019/02/12/the-caviar- con/amp/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Neat video of Gordon Ramsey visiting a caviar farm in Spain: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88aDJFdUjH4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88aDJFdUjH4)

</comment><comment><USER24> I always wonder how much of the scarcity is supply+taste vs. conspicious consumption.

I personally would't pay a lot for caviar of any sort, even though I tried it quite a few times.

</comment><comment><USER25> Came here thinking this was about the demise of caviar the app.

</comment><comment><USER26> I enjoy beluga caviar - very expensive for what it is though. A much cheaper alternatve is (homemade) black olive tapenade - almost as good for similar usages, and far more sustainable. But I suspect the consumption of caviar is more about signalling than actual taste anyway.

<comment><USER27> That's like saying that Trabant is a much cheaper alternative to Bentley. Technically it is... but not quite.

Edit:

I don't know how to be any more clearer here, but "Olive tapenade as a beluga caviar alternative" is straight from the /shit-the-hn-says department, it's beyond ridiculous. "Ketchup as a San Marzano tomato alternative."

<comment><USER28> Is an interesting comparison. Salty taste and color could relate in some ways, but tapenade don't has the "exploding in your mouth" part, neither the strong fish oil taste. Is perfectly good in its own terms even if is not caviar.

<comment><USER29> While by no means required, it's not unusual for a tapenade to incorporate anchovies or anchovy paste which gives some measure of fishiness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > bar snack

I honestly thought this was a link to an article about caviar bars, kind of like energy bars or chocolate bars.</comment>


Ask HN: What framework Google uses for their UI? - <AUTHOR>

The buttons styling looks alike in all their apps. This suggests some kind of framework. <comment><USER2> I once read a blog post of the creator of the buttons of gmail, and all was custom. What was more surprising for me, was that different teams in different apps (at that time) didn't seem to share UI components like those

</comment><comment><USER3> I think they use Google Web Toolkit for things like Gmail.

Example: <http://gwt.google.com/samples/Mail/Mail.html>

<comment><USER4> Any sources to back that up ? Last I checked, GMail seemed to be a couple hundrend thousands lines of handwritten Javascript[1]

[1] [http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178558/Google_to_use...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178558/Google_to_use_HTML5_in_Gmail?taxonomyId=11&pageNumber=2)</comment></comment>


A simple explanation of how mt.gox lost everyone's coins - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/ef3c8926a198

<comment><USER2> The article links this wallet: [https://blockchain.info/charts/received-per- day?address=1Drt...](https://blockchain.info/charts/received-per- day?address=1Drt3c8pSdrkyjuBiwVcSSixZwQtMZ3Tew)

But that was a Bitstamp wallet, not an MtGox wallet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have a source on more info on that?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any HN peeps in Shanghai? Want to meet up? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in Shanghai for about a month (all of october) & I would like to get a taste of the startup life over here. Who do I get in touch with? Which meetups should I go to?<p>I'm also co-organizer of the Hacker News Cologne (Germany) Meetup & sometimes we set up a long-distance skype chat with other startup-minded people. We did that with the US & it worked out great. Anyone (or maybe a company / group / meetup) in Shanghai up for this? <comment><USER2> You should join the Dynamite Circle -

<http://tropicalmba.com/innercircle>

It's a great online community of location-independent entrepreneurs, including lots in Southeast Asia and Europe too.

From the guys behind the LBP - <http://lifestylebusinesspodcast.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks interesting, but is it really worth $388 / year though?</comment></comment>


Silicon Valley's Diversity Problem Is Not a Myth - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/inclusion-insights/silicon-valley-s-diversity-problem-is-not-a-myth-29c549bc696b#.gasun9l3w <comment><USER2> The article is certainly nothing if not well cited.</comment>


Toughest Problem in Programming: How to Name Things - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/pirhilton/how-to-name-things-the-hardest-problem-in-programming <comment><USER2> It's actually simple: give them UUIDs.</comment>


Launching v2.0 of Zero Bullshit CRM - <AUTHOR> We are launching version 2.0 of Zero BS CRM for WordPress. 1 year on. It's matured a LOT. Hope you guys like it https://zerobscrm.com/extensions/ <comment><USER2> Clickable [https://zerobscrm.com/extensions/](https://zerobscrm.com/extensions/)</comment>


Show HN: Visualize any server data (ex: from Database, system, etc..) - <AUTHOR> If you have a website or other server, just implement a simple server JSON API (http or https) and you may visualize statistics information on a timeline. JSON should looks like an array of dates and values.
"Registered users per day grouped by gender or age", "CPU usage", etc.. Yes, anything!
Timeline maker: https://time.graphics/
Have a look at help section: https://time.graphics/manual/en/#/reportingAPIs
It's free. Furthermore, you can add any other events! <comment><USER2> Congratulations on all the progress since the previous "Show HN." It is impressive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Do you remember what have been done a month ago? :-)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to broadcast your desktop on linux? - <AUTHOR> Workflow needed:
1. Drag a bounding box
2. Click start recording
3. Take the URL, let's say my IP address + /stream_key=blabla
4. Send the URL to a friend who just needs a browser with streaming support, and it plays like Youtube video plays without needing anything else!
On Windows, I use Join.me to achieve roughly this. But on Linux?
I don't need Chrome Remote Desktop which needs installing an extension.
I think it can also be coupled with Webtorrent and can be used to serve large audience without needing very high upload speed!?! <comment><USER2> why don't you use twitch or youtube live streaming, and a streaming tool like this [https://obsproject.com](https://obsproject.com)

not sure about twitch, I think youtube streaming can be private?

<comment><AUTHOR> But why we need youtube or twitch?

I don't want them to record my private activities which I might be willing to share with some other person.</comment></comment>


BU scientists discover group of genes that code for 100+ year lifespans - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25693/?a=f

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm pretty sure this is how we end up in a Gattaca future. This is the first story I've seen that really has the chance to make genetic screening followed by IVF worthwhile.</comment>


Julia Reda: EU has rubber-stamped copyright reform including Articles 13 and 11 - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/senficon/status/1110509970213294081?s=21 <comment><USER2> Very surprised there is not a front page thread on Article 13 on HN.

</comment><comment><USER3> Welcome to the Soviet Internet!</comment>


The Matasano Crypto Challenges - <AUTHOR> http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto-challenges/

<comment><USER3> Quoting:

        You'll want to be able to code proficiently
        in any language.

That should probably be:

        You'll want to be able to code proficiently
        in *some* language.

I should think no one can code proficiently in every language, and to me, that's what the first implies.

<comment><USER4> If you're going to be pedantic at least consult a dictionary first:

"any 1 [ usu. with negative or in questions ] used to refer to one or some of a thing or number of things, no matter how much or many"

<comment><USER5> See how that entry says "usu. with negative or in questions"? The usage in this case is neither negative nor a question, and so many, like the gp and myself, found it confusing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh. _This_ is why we suddenly got a huge flood of mail on a Sunday night. Well, hello again.

A reminder: $20 to Watsi for each person who finishes all six sets.

<comment><USER7> I did the first set and loved it. Are you running much of a backlog? I sent that in about two days ago.

Actually, looks like an email mixup. I didn't reply directly to the more recent email and composed a fresh mail to email@example.com which doesn't work (although I did CC the other address as requested). Just forwarded my submission.

Edit: Just got set 2.

<comment><USER8> I sent in my request a few minutes after this went live, still waiting. :(

They must have a huge spike in requests to go through, plus the people completing sets 1 and 2. I would expect waiting times to drop as fewer people complete the advanced sets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great review and subsequent discussion:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5574074>

</comment><comment><USER9> Maciej did a good review here: [https://blog.pinboard.in/2013/04/the_matasano_crypto_challen...](https://blog.pinboard.in/2013/04/the_matasano_crypto_challenges/)

</comment><comment><USER10> i'm a third of the way through these are they're really entertaining - i am going to recommend them to my colleagues at the next weekly meeting.

i "knew" some of attacks were possible, but had no real idea of how to go about exploiting them "for real" - this course works you through practical applications (and i found it to be pitched at an almost perfect level - <USER2> moves fast enough to be interesting, but not so fast you get lost).

they're quite meaty - doing one email (out of the 6) takes at least a day for me (but there's also some slack - you've got quite a bit of freedom and i think you could spend more or less time, depending on exactly what you choose to do.)

i haven't needed any deep technical knowledge or hard maths (but i already knew, for example, what a "block cipher" was and what "modes of operation" were, even if i couldn't tell you which did what without looking at wikipedia). the hardest part has just been "bookkeeping" in the code - tracking which offset in the array of data i am modifying, etc. the usual programming details.

so this is for interested amateurs - i don't think the nsa is going to be very excited learning who has completed the course...

(also, fwiw, i'm using python 3.3 (the new "yield from" is very useful when writing code that modifies sequences) and it's plenty fast enough so far)

<comment><USER11> > so this is for interested amateurs - i don't think the nsa is going to be > very excited learning who has completed the course...

Yes. Though: I studied cryptography as part of mathematics in university, and while we studied much more sophisticated attacks and ways to break your ciphers, we never actually ended up coding up the breaks even of comparatively trivial attacks.

<comment><USER6> What's an example of sophisticated class of attacks we have poor coverage on? (If you like, mail me directly; we're not publishing exactly what the challenges are).

I'd appreciate leads on places we should expand our coverage. Sean is already working on set 7, and we're pulling attacks out of the recent literature to do that.

Worth mentioning: we're not cryptographers.

<comment><USER12> Do you have anything on certificate verification? Not that I actually know anything about it, but.. here, I think these words from Moxie Marlinspike about sum it up:

"I'm not actually a supporter of the general adage "never roll your own crypto." I believe that cryptography is a fairly closed system, and that it's relatively straightforward to learn how to carefully use cryptographic primitives to build protocols securely. Certificate validation, on the other hand, is something that I would recommend people avoid doing themselves, if possible. It's mired in cruft and gotchas."[1]

Moxie covers a few examples in the link, but it would be interesting to see some more along those lines.

[1] <http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/strongtrustmanager-mitm/>

<comment><USER6> I think very highly of Marlinspike, and he is clearly smarter than I am, but he is wrong on this point. No, one thing I will say about our challenges: we don't spend time on certificate parsing. We thought about it, but decided people were unlikely to run into a lot of new X.509 implementations that can't handle a NUL byte (and things like that), at least not as likely as the other bugs we showcase.

 _Edit: I read this comment out of context. Sorry. Obviously, I asked for examples of flaws we could cover. Thanks for offering one up._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 'People "know" this already, but they don't really know it in their gut, and we think the reason for that is that very few people actually know how to implement the best-known attacks. So, mail us, and we'll give you a tour of them.'

As Hegel said, "The familiar is not understood precisely because it's familiar." _Das Bekannte überhaupt ist darum, weil es bekannt ist, nicht erkannt._

I live this every day as a teacher. Students believe they understand, say, linked lists because they can recite all sorts of Linked List Facts™. It's not until you put them in front of a problem with a linked-list-shaped hole that they truly come to understand (erkennen).

<comment><USER14> Ain't that the truth. And (if you're doing it right), the older you get the more holes you spot. And, in filling those holes, keep collecting the lightbulbs from over your head when the "erkennen" mallet strikes.

<comment><USER11> Why did you use German here? (Please pardon the off-topic comment. Just my interest as a native speaker.)

<comment><USER13> He was quoting me quoting Hegel, talking about the relationship between familiarity and understanding.

Unfortunately English doesn't have the precise distinction that German does, so the translation is a little confusing. To an English speaker "familiar", "known", and "understood" are almost synonymous.

Many programmers I know use the word "grok" as a stand in: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok>

<comment><USER11> Oh, thanks. I didn't have the whole thread in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Pardon the paranoia, but who else gets to see the little black book^H^H^H list of people who are skilled at practical crypto exploits?

<comment><USER11> What's the matter with that? You can study the stuff at universities to a much deeper level.

<comment><USER6> If you can point me to a university curricula (and, especially, a syllabus) that has hugely better coverage of practical attacks on cryptographic implementations, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Nobody is going to come out of these challenges qualified to pick SHA-4 or AES-ng, or for that matter, prepared to design a new cipher or even a novel crypto construction. That's not the point of the challenges.

But we're covering what I think might be an odd corner of cryptography. Our approach to crypto is from a software security perspective. In a similar sense as 2013 software security researcher might be able to tell you a great deal about how Javascript objects are allocated a browser but not have any idea about best practices for organizing actual working Javascript code, we're covering an idiosyncratic set of implementation details but leaving all the theory out --- not least because we don't have the theory background.

<comment><USER11> > If you can point me to a university curricula (and, especially, a syllabus) > that has hugely better coverage of practical attacks on cryptographic > implementations, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Me, too. The courses I took were much more theoretical--lots and lots of number theory. I enjoyed them, and I enjoy your challenges, too.

The theory is fun, and I learned enough to understand some interesting attacks, but at the level of courses I studied the material at, we did not come up with any new attacks.

The distinction is a bit like theoretical computer science versus actually writing a programme.

P.S. I'll looking through material from my old university and see if I can find anything interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's great to see a company doing something like this and getting involved in the community this way, I took Dan Boneh's class on Cryptography some time last year so I've sent these guys an email and I will see what I can manage.

</comment><comment><USER16> I just started doing these and am very much enjoying it so far despite not being much of a programmer (and never having done any crypto before!). I spent a good Saturday afternoon doing the first 8 though have to confess problem 4 seems I be confounding me despite having easily found the answer to problem 3 :( and whatever bug I have in problem 4 also means my problem 6 isn't working either. And sadly I have to get back to my real work now it's Monday again!

</comment><comment><USER17> Still waiting. How long is the average wait time?

<comment><USER6> Much better than it was on Friday when the first story hit (none of this was automated on Friday), but still on human-scale time. Minutes to multiple hours. When did you send your mail to us? If it was any time before this afternoon, you should have already seen mail from us; check your spam filter.

About 1 out of every ~200 people we mail refuses the mail (at SMTP) for one reason or another, so if you're running your own email server, make sure it'll accept mail from MATASANOCRYPTOPALS.COM --- note that's not the domain you sent to.

<comment><USER17> Sent it on Friday. Unless you didn't RE:, it shouldn't have been spammed, but I have a habit of emptying my spam folder without ever looking at the contents, so we'll never know.

<comment><USER6> Mail me directly. (My email's in my profile.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've really been wanting to do these for a few months now. I've just got to get through finals this week before I can start!</comment>


Love this "coming soon" page - <AUTHOR> http://ispecimen.com/

<comment><USER2> Comment bait? If you want to make this coming soon page useful, then insert a clear call-to-action that has purpose. In other words, now that you've got us all going to your lovely page, why not make good use of our time and request that we give you our details if we're interested in your startup...but that would involve you telling us more about your startup.

Have a look at these for some inspiration: [http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/05/14/design-a- successfu...](http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/05/14/design-a-successful- coming-soon-page/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I dunno, the page seems pretty derivative to me.

<comment><USER4> Certainly not an integral part of the 404 process?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The image on the "coming soon" page is hotlinked from another site. Also there are some interesting comments on the CSS that would lead me to believe that the programmer is maybe fairly new at this, and still feeling the need to heavily document the reason behind simple CSS rules.

<comment><USER6> No kidding:

      <title>Untitled Document</title>

<comment><USER7> Guilty as charged! We're a bunch of MD/PhDs... Help! How would you perfect this file?

<comment><USER8> Insert the name of your company/organization in-between the <title> tags and ditch the "Untitled Document." Don't sweat the comments in the CSS because those will shed with experience.

Change the big centered image from a .png to a .jpg. Try to get it down to around 30 to 60kb. Right now it's over 600kb, which is pretty big for a design element. As a general note you'll also want to add more text to the page and utilize your header tags (<h1>, <h2>, etc.) when constructing a full layout. That will make sure you've got something for the search engines to nab onto.

<comment><USER9> Oy, JPG is a shit choice for anything with graphics or text (as does this) — perhaps just the earth as JPG would work, or simply compressing the PNG a bit more (reduce the palette).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Could someone explain it to me?

<comment><USER11> d/dt is the standard mathematical representation for rate of change.

My guess was "Change the world", and judging by the alt text for the image, I was close: "Changing the world".

It's kinda neat.

<comment><USER12> Let's pray that d(world)/dt > 0.

<comment><USER13> I guess it's highly multidimensional, so you cannot really compare it to a real number.

But assuming that it is normed, you can say |d(world)/dt| > 0.

Or at least you can say d(world)/dt ≠ 0.

And I guess you are right there.

Or maybe, if the norm is something like "goodness", we hopefully can say d(|world|)/dt > 0.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not worse than lisping the world: <http://www.international-lisp- conference.org/2003/index.html></comment>


Jeep Grand Cherokee's recalled Monostable transmission shifter explained - <AUTHOR> http://www.tflcar.com/2016/06/jeep-grand-cherokees-recalled-monostable-transmission-shifter-demonstrated-and-explained/ <comment><AUTHOR> This poorly designed shifter has/will cause deaths and injuries.</comment>


The Official Verdict in the stolen iPhone Case (Calacanis) - <AUTHOR> http://www.iphoneqna.com/consumer-electronics-iphone/the-official-verdict-in-the-stolen-iphone-case <comment><USER2> For the tl;dr crowd:

The opening:

 _I am not a lawyer and I do not have all the facts about the stolen iPhone, but I'm not going to let that stop me from passing judgement on this case._

The end:

 _In summary:

a) Gawker/Nick Denton = guilty b) Jason Chen = guilty (of being gullible) c) iPhone seller = guilty d) Using Shield Law defense = lame e) Gestapo Cops = very lame _

<comment><USER3> Everyone is entitled to their opinion... and to having it slaughtered on HN!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Others (e.g., techcrunch.com) have said that they would have published about the iPhone prototype but not have paid for it. This wouldn't make any difference. The California statute includes buying, acquiring, POSSESSING, or Concealing stolen property a crime. Money need not have changed hands, at all.

<comment><USER5> There's a little room for flexibility here. Engadget published the finder's photos of it on 4-17 - apparently he sent photos to several media outlets in hope that one would reward him for it. Although it would have been more appropriate to forward any such communication to the police, if Gizmodo had got it, taken some pics or video that did not go any farther that what was already published, and then sent or brought it over to Apple HQ - the same county Jason Chen lives in - they could legitimately argue the $5000 was for the story of how the guy got it, the legal doctrine of prior restraint gave them the right to publish, and they had carried out their duty to reunite Apple with their property. And I think they'd have been legally and ethically OK.

It's the dissection, its publication, and the withholding of the device from its owners - even after they called to request its return - that has gotten them into real trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't a "leak" technically also stolen information? Someone decides to give out information that is meant to be private.

And Jason, you would have _really_ turned down this opportunity if it knocked on your door while you were running Weblogs?

<comment><USER7> Legally this is covered by "trade secret" law, not theft. (IANAL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Official?

<comment><USER9> I do not think that word means what you think it means.</comment></comment>


Divergence and curl: The language of Maxwell's equations and more [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB83DpBJQsE <comment><USER2> ...or you can use quaternions (which is what ol' Maxipad did) and get around all this. You end up with a simple equation [https://slehar.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/clifford-algebra- a-v...](https://slehar.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/clifford-algebra-a-visual- introduction/)

<comment><USER3> Amazing link; thanks for the rabbit hole!

<comment><USER4> Here is Maxwell's original (short) paper about Curl and quaternions in his own words.

[http://www.clerkmaxwellfoundation.org/MathematicalClassifica...](http://www.clerkmaxwellfoundation.org/MathematicalClassificationofPhysicalQuantities_Maxwell.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And Maxwell's equations are an artifact of this formulation, whereas in geometric algebra they become one equation. From an older duscussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10232052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10232052)

</comment><comment> ur-whale There's also a book on the subject called "Div, Grad, Curl and all that"

[https://www.amazon.com/Div-Grad-Curl-All- That/dp/0393925161](https://www.amazon.com/Div-Grad-Curl-All- That/dp/0393925161)

which I would highly recommend to physics-minded folks, but would not recommend at all to maths-minded folks.

<comment><USER6> > would not recommend at all to maths-minded folks.

Why not?

<comment> ur-whale I bought the book (a long time ago) thinking I was going to get something exactly like what the OP video is: a mathematical explanation of what the tools do, with some intuitive link between - say - the formula for div and why it measures how much a vector field does indeed "diverge" locally.

Instead, the whole book tries to explain the 3 tools using electrostatics as an intuitive justification for how they behave. Ugh.

To me, the way electromagnetic fields behave is no particularly intuitive or natural, and the way I do - sort of - manage to understand Maxwell's equations is _because_ I have an intuitive feel for what grad, div and curl do to vector fields.</comment></comment></comment>


ArkOS discontinued - <AUTHOR> https://arkos.io/2017/04/sunset/ <comment><USER2> I really respect what the author tried to do with ArkOS. He got a working open source product out the door that put a premium on usability and ease of installation. There aren't a lot of volunteer-run open source projects that are able to do that.

Did anyone ever host their own email "at home" using ArkOS?

Edit: typo

<comment><USER3> > Did anyone ever host their own email "at home" using ArkOS?

arkOS is generally aimed at tinkerers/hobbyists. So, it's not really meant for people to use it for serious stuff. It's always fun to run email at home except most of the ISPs block mail traffic.

<comment><USER2> I seem to remember the "genesis" (hee hee) was the author having a hard time configuring a self-hosted server despite being knowledgeable as an admin. So I thought email was part of that goal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> i didn't know it exist, now i wonder if there are similiar project, i have an old nas that i could put to use with something like this.

<comment><USER5> Cloudron, sandstorm, yunohost are the usual suspects.

<comment><USER6> And then there's Urbit, the unusual suspect.

<comment><USER7> And then the biblical TempleOS which is an even more unusual suspect.

"According to Davis, God said to create the operating system with 640x480, 16 colors display and a single audio voice. The operating system was coded in a programming language developed by Davis in C/C++ called "HolyC"."

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

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

<comment><USER8> not sure why you'd want to run TempleOS on a NAS. It's an incredibly impressive piece of software from a very intelligent (and sadly, very schizophrenic) man but it's not very practical.

<comment><USER9> It's more interesting and probably more usable than Urbit.

<comment><USER10> Does TempleOS have networking yet?

<comment><USER9> Doesn't look like it, but it's besides (and in fact probably counter) to the point of the OS. Seriously, read that "Constructive Look at TempleOS" chx posted: [http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at- temp...](http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-templeos/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My Desertion, Court-Martial, and 40-Year Imprisonment in N Korea [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://archipielagolibertad.org/upload/files/008%20Enemigos%20de%20la%20libertad/8.2%20Los%20crimenes%20del%20comunismo/00191%20Jenkins%20&%20Frederik%20-%20The%20Reluctant%20Communist.pdf

<comment><USER2> I can't imagine that this book has been released for free distribution..</comment>


How to Build the Twitter iPad User Experience - <AUTHOR> http://cocoacontrols.com/posts/2011/05/16/how-to-build-the-twitter-ipad-user-experience

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, something's up with DNS right now. Please try [http://www.cocoacontrols.com/posts/2011/05/16/how-to- build-t...](http://www.cocoacontrols.com/posts/2011/05/16/how-to-build-the- twitter-ipad-user-experience)

</comment><comment><USER2> This might _look_ like it in the screenshots, but it's nothing like it in actual practice from a functionality or performance perspective. :)

Awesome blog, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow - nice work! Is this in the App Store yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, it's just a code sample, so no :)</comment></comment>


Kathy Sierra - <AUTHOR> https://deprogrammaticaipsum.com/kathy-sierra/ <comment><USER2> > On the other hand, they also triggered a horrid revelation, the darkest > nature of online harassment, with abject levels of abuse and misogyny. Maybe > they played a minor role as catalysts opening the door to the decade of the > Me Too movement.

The article closes with this surprising allegation without explaining anything about it. What did these books have to do with harassment, abuse, misogyny and MeToo? I'd be curios to know.

EDIT: Never mind, I've found what I wanted to know: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#Harassment_and_wi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#Harassment_and_withdrawal_from_online_life)

<comment><USER3> For the life of me, I cannot figure out why someone would attack Kathy Sierra, a mere book author. Incredible.

<comment><USER2> Wait until you find out about wars and genocides!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was lucky enough to hear Kathy Sierra speak in what I believe is one of her last public appearances. I had never heard of her before. It remains one of the best talks I've ever heard, not only because of the content, which was excellent, but her delivery was incredible. She had something like 150 slides that she bulldozed through flawlessly and she was really funny. After that I learned about the harassment and I find it so disappointing That people can be so cruel and that we have missed out on more contributions from her. I really hope one day she'll return but I completely understand if she doesn't.

<comment><USER5> BoS 2012? I was there and that presentation changed my way on how to (re)think about users interactions with products. I don't exaggerate if I say that the ROI of attending that event (if only for her session) has been well over 1000x

<comment><USER6> She also did BoS Europe in 2014 but not sure she's been back since unfortunately: [https://businessofsoftware.org/2017/08/kathy-sierra- motivati...](https://businessofsoftware.org/2017/08/kathy-sierra-motivation- matters/)

I saw the above talk first hand: well worth investing the time to watch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Surprised this hasn't been posted here yet: [https://www.wired.com/2014/10/trolls-will-always- win/](https://www.wired.com/2014/10/trolls-will-always-win/)

Kathy Sierra on online harassment, betrayal by her own community, and why "don't feed the troll" is not only ineffective, but a slap in the face to those who face this kind of abuse.

</comment><comment><USER8> That spurred a memory! I remember reading the pictured Head First HTML book cover to cover when I was younger. A big part of it was the jokes. I remember laughing out loud while reading the book, and I think it definitely positively affected my idea of how difficult content could be presented. Humor is an effective backdoor to get people to engage with otherwise difficult content.

</comment><comment><USER9> « The third era actually started [...] in 2005. In this era, books are no longer dry sequences of pages, with code snippets to run on a nearby computer; their pages are full of examples, pictures, and fun. »

I haven't seen the "Head first" books this article is about, but the above could be a description of any number of books from the 70s and 80s, like the Leo Brodie Forth books.

<comment><USER10> I've read a couple and her books are amazingly good. I especially liked Head First Design Patterns -- I've read 4-5 books on the subject, but the Head First examples are the ones that have stuck with me after all these years.

Her SCJP books were also exceptionally good/the gold standard as far as I remember.

<comment><USER11> I'm honestly surprised it was a woman behind Head First books because the aesthetic of the series (in particular, the covers featuring a cute white or asian girl looking up toward the reader supplicating pose) seemed (and seem) like a kind of sexist fan service for the same online-troll demographic that drove her out of the industry.

I still think the design accommodates the industry's demographics at the time. Terrible what happened to her, but those books are embarrassing. To be fair the specific decisions around what to put on the cover may not have been hers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > On the other hand, they also triggered a horrid revelation, the darkest > nature of online harassment, with abject levels of abuse and misogyny. Maybe > they played a minor role as catalysts opening the door to the decade of the > Me Too movement.

That's a strange way to end the article.

What happened? It is kind of weird to talk about the different eras as a description for people who didn't live through them and then drop that reference expecting the reader to know the context - just my two cents.

<comment><USER13> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#Harassment_and_wi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#Harassment_and_withdrawal_from_online_life)

<comment><USER12> Wow.. I was expecting random sexist comments, not lynching threats ( not that the former are good, but that's a whole different league).

<comment><USER13> I've thought hard about saying anything here, but what the hey, let me make an observation.

HN is a pretty good community. It's got a lot of smart, knowledgeable people who share freely. They are generally curious, inquisitive, and interested in a wide range of things.

And yet, I've been watching this item. It did well to start with, and even now the number of upvotes it's had should have it on the front page. Why is it not there?

My guess (as someone who's been around for a while and watched the dynamics, but with no insider knowledge) is that people are flagging it.

I've seen similar submissions about people thrive and stay on the front page for hours, but this one is being flagged. The primary differentiators are that (a) this is a woman in tech, and (b) she was harassed by the tech community. This is all hypothetical, hand-waving, "You Have No Proof!" territory, but I've seen this played out before.

What happened to Kathy is vile, horrendous, and all-too-believable.

<comment><USER14> Another explanation: certain people - or an algorithm - will do anything to get hot topics off the front page.

The moment any discussion starts to get "interesting", regardless of who it is about, that moment it drops like a stone.

I guess it happens to any post where a number of people get lots of both upvotes and downvotes or where a number of answers are flagged.

In that regard this site is like a young child of mine who has grown up in such a happy home that when I sometimes say no to some idea my wife has that child is wondering if we are going to divorce :-/

In the same way, on this site people are so polite that either the flamewar detector or a number of users has become way too sensitive.

(That said: IMO it is a good thing that my children never see their parents argue in anger and it is a good thing that people are used to everyone being polite here, I just wish we could be a tiny bit less sensitive. Some hot topics actually should be discussed some times, like this one.)

There's a link to contact the mods at the bottom of the page. They (most often dang) usually reply, and it seems they use the feedback to tune the system.

(Yes BTW, this account is young, but I have been here a long time)

<comment><USER13> > _... either the flamewar detector or a number of users has become way too > sensitive._

This hasn't triggered the flame-war filter, because the number of up-votes is still higher than the number of comments.

> _... certain people - or an algorithm - will do anything to get hot topics > off the front page._

Or not necessarily hot topics, just specifically topics that highlight, even if only tangentially, that women are often driven out of tech by harassment, including threats of rape and death, including to their families.

> _The moment any discussion starts to get "interesting", regardless of who it > is about, that moment it drops like a stone._

There are many, many discussions that get "interesting" without that happening.

> _... any post ... lots of both upvotes and downvotes ..._

You can't downvote a submission.

> _Some hot topics actually should be discussed some times, like this one._

Yes, although the evidence suggests that rational discussion about this topic isn't possible, especially in a forum like this one. I genuinely long for the day the topic can be discussed constructively, and even more for the day it's a complete non-issue. I doubt I'll see either.

> _There 's a link to contact the mods at the bottom of the page._

I suspect the mods are happy to see this sink, because the alternative is that it will erupt into an unpleasant cesspit of people thinking/claiming that they are being logical and rational, when really they aren't.

> _... [the mods] ... usually reply, and it seems they use the feedback to > tune the system._

They are the reason the site remains even remotely interesting and useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I hoped she has a blog again - but this is only about her books.

<comment><USER16> It also barely touches on the harassment she encountered that caused her to withdraw from technology and her online presence. The reason that's relevant is I remember her blog fondly, and it's sad we lost someone who was so clearly invested in teaching others.

I hope we can learn from that lesson, though given the negative response I've seen to Codes of Conduct and the calling out of sexism within our industry, I can see growth being a very slow process.

<comment><USER14> Codes of Conducts shouldn't be necessary to tell people not to break the laws which seems to be what happened here.

Codes of Conduct also has a number of downsides, first and foremost the creation of more meta games.

Also, for the record:

This very site, one of the nicest forums there is, together with lobste.rs and others: none of the have stupid CoCs and they are still among the nicest sites there is.

<comment><USER16> HN has a form of a Code of Conduct ([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)), and strong moderation to remove truly bad-faith comments. These two aspects are really important to the level of discourse here.

And while I would say HN is often times civil, I've definitely seen misogynistic or otherwise demeaning comments here.

<comment><USER14> HNs guidelines are totally OK and the moderators have proven ywar by year how reasonable they are even to us who don't always agree.

If CoC were like HN guidelines and enforced the same way I guess almost nobody worth listening to would care at all if every project had one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I loved the Head First books, looking back I kind of owe my career to them because these books helped me level up my programming skills from hobby to job. I used to recommend these books all the time to both junior and experienced colleagues.

</comment><comment><USER18> Summary of article (I estimate some dates):

3 eras of programming books.

1: (1970's) - Booked produced by megacorps (e.g. IBM), and possibly dry content format.

2: (1980's - 1990's) - Rise of Hello World era, books with hello world introductory examples.

3: (2000's) - Effective books - (e.g. effective c++, effective java)

<comment><USER19> > _3: (2000 's) - Effective books - (e.g. effective c++, effective java)_

The author refers to that as the "2.5 era".

<comment><USER18> Thank you for pointing that out, you are right. I had intended to complement with dates with 3 bullet points and missed that fine point.

2.5 era: " ... some might argue that the third era was the "Effective" era, with books such as Meyers' Effective C++, Bloch's Effective Java or Wagner's Effective C# as flagship examples. But I consider these books, as useful as they are, just an offspring of the second era; a much needed upgrade. Let's say, then, it was the 2.5 era of programming books".

3.0 era: "... at a time where the dot-com boom opened the door for new ideas, right in the middle of the Web 2.0 craze, and right before the rise of the smartphone and social media. Through the use of comic images, unusual text layout, and a fantastic sense of humor, Kathy Sierra argues, readers can learn the concepts easier; tricking the brain into the proper levels of dopamine".

At barnes & nobles / borders I always grabbed one of these books which made content enjoyable to read. She sparked a new era of genres produced by other authors, for example, an anime version of learning python.</comment></comment></comment>


How Pinterest uses holdout groups to drive sustainable growth - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.pinterest.com/post/110916490389/how-holdout-groups-drive-sustainable-growth

<comment><USER2> Such a simple, but smart way to have a control group, helping to separate correlation from causation. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


New XPS 15 with 16:10 display - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/13/21257006/dell-xps-17-15-redesign-specs-features-update-2020 <comment><AUTHOR> I was waiting for this option for a very long time.

The 16:10 display like the MBP is best suited for non media work as you can see more vertical content than the letterbox ratio suited for watching videos.

Better processors and ability to have say 32GiB of RAM is also much appreciated.

They promised better battery life with the FHD display which if true would be a perfect replacement for my aging MBP 15.

Hopefully in a few months if the reviews don't point any weird issues like coil whine or heating problems, I will replace my Mac with this running Linux for daily driver!</comment>


Ask HN: Did Fitbit eliminate their support? - <AUTHOR> I've dealt with Fitbit support multiple times over the years for various devices and they used to be fairly responsive and helpful, always responding within a week.
However, nearly two months ago my partner reached out about her 8-month-old dead device and it took nearly three weeks for a response with some generic troubleshooting advice that's easily found online. After confirming that the steps don't work (again), I was asked for details on the purchase. It's been nearly a month now since last contact despite reaching out multiple times asking for any updates on next steps.
The recent acquisition has me concerned that Fitbit's adopted the Google model for customer support. Has anyone else experienced this lately? <comment><USER2> I met some people down in Colombia who were doing customer support for Fitbit and I know that they still have some presence there as of ~2 weeks ago.</comment>


Show HN: Turn Your Data into $$$$ for Charity - <AUTHOR> https://www.datadoesgood.com <comment><USER2> So you will pay me for my browsing history? No thanks...</comment>