How to Develop New Antibiotics - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/opinion/how-to-develop-new-antibiotics.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

<comment><USER2> Regulation and the enormous unnecessary costs it imposes are the problem. That is why in an era of radical and accelerating progress in biotechnology there is ever diminishing clinical translation via the traditional channels.

[http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/fda_05.htm](http://www.manhattan- institute.org/html/fda_05.htm)

Though the United States urgently needs new treatments for common illnesses such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, the nation's system for drug approval discourages innovation and investment, especially for our most pressing public health challenges. In this paper, we find that the main culprit is the high cost of Phase III clinical trials, which are required for FDA approval of most drugs. We examined drug development in four major public health areas and discovered that for any given drug on the market, typically 90 percent or more of that drug's development costs are incurred in Phase III trials. These costs have skyrocketed in recent years, exacerbating an already serious problem.

The enormous cost and risk of Phase III trials create incentives for researchers and investors to avoid work on medications for the chronic conditions and illnesses that pose the greatest threat to Americans, in terms of health spending and in terms of the number of people affected. This avoidance, in turn, harms overall U.S. health outcomes and drives up the cost of health care.

[http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/28/17/2925.abstract](http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/28/17/2925.abstract)

Increasing the regulatory rigidity of clinical trials (regulatory fundamentalism) augments trial complexity and costs while slowing progress without demonstrating meaningful safety benefits. Time from drug discovery to marketing increased from 8 years in 1960 to 12 to 15 years currently. Toxic death rates on phase I trials have decreased from 0.8% in 1979 to 0.5% by 2002, but the estimated cost per life-year gained by tighter regulations is $2,700,000 (far higher than costs of other health measures), and simulations suggest that regulatory delays in development of effective therapies result in tens to hundreds of thousands of life-years lost, whereas stringent regulations save extremely few.</comment>


Smoothies and fruit juices are a new risk to health - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/07/smoothies-fruit-juices-new-health-risk <comment><USER2> It's often quite surprising to read the ingredient list on these smoothies. They consist largely of apple juice concentrate, and rather small amounts of the fruits advertised on the front.

<comment><USER3> This is what I would like to know more about. Other day I picked up a 32oz smoothie, which said this is equivalent to 40 strawberries, 1 banana and 6 apples. How is that possible in only $5? Do they get fruits so cheap to make up for other costs? And true enough, there was strawberry puree, banana puree but apple juice concentrate and apple puree in it.

<comment><USER4> From what I understand, fruit is a LOT cheaper at the "source" \-- before they're shipped, individually sold, etc. Which is why it's SO much cheaper to buy jam, than to make it yourself.

However, if you think of it purely from a volume standpoint... if you stuck 6 apples and 40 strawberries in a blender, I have a feeling that's gonna add up to significantly more than 32oz. Maybe they're really tiny apples...

<comment><USER5> Also, they can use fruit that doesn't look as pretty or is lower quality. Fruit used for juices are those not pretty enough to sell, fruit used for concentrate is those not tasty enough for "pure" juice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fruit juices maybe. Smoothies are a much more complex issue.

I make my own smoothies, 3 or 4 a week.

I know what goes in there. I put 1, sometimes 2 cups of fruit or berries. No added sugar, no fruit mixes, no "smoothie mix" stuff. I also add Greek Yogurt, protein, and all sorts of other mostly glycemic-neutral items.

I've also seen pre-canned and restaurant smoothies that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Some of these things are sugar bombs. Incredible amount of glycemic impact. You'd be better off just getting a milkshake.

But for me, two cups of fruit a day is not a significant health risk at all. While I completely agree that fruit juice and smoothie consumption can be just another sugary alternative to soft drinks, they don't have to be. Unlike store bought fruit juices and soft drinks, with smoothies the entire purpose is that the drinker is in control over exactly what they're consuming.

</comment><comment><USER7> The problem is not fruit juices, smoothies or sugar. The problem is that if you drink calories in addition to meals, you get too much calories and you will fatten.

I've been drinking fruits, fruit juices and smoothies instead of most other carbs for a year now and I feel great without being fat. It's just about calories.

<comment><USER8> Calories and fat have been the go-to for mainstream publications as the cause of obesity. But I'd highly recommend watching this talk about high-fructose corn syrup:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

It makes a great argument that high-fructose corn syrup might be single handily the cause of the explosion in obesity in the USA in the last two decades.

<comment><USER7> I know this video and he's wrong (HFCS is bad, simple sugar and fruit fructose are not). I would recommend you to read articles on [http://dannyroddy.com](http://dannyroddy.com) [http://raypeat.com](http://raypeat.com) [http://andrewkimblog.com](http://andrewkimblog.com) backed by a lot of studies showing fructose is awesome.

<comment><USER9> I'm appalled by your lack of judgment.

You dismiss the recording of a university class made by a Ph.D in Endocrinology that worked for 20+ years against the whole industry (which shows resilience and belief).

On the other hand you suggest to read articles on 3 websites that looks scammy at best?

I feel insulted.

<comment><USER10> Stephan Guyenet is a phd and he also kinda poo-poos the whole "sugar and fructose are toxic" thing. The problem with fructose is just that it's so yummy to humans that its modern ubiquity causes people to overeat.

<comment><USER9> Obviously his theory is being challenged and there might be some valid reason why it is. I'm not an expert in that field.

The guy saying Lustig is "wrong" was just full of it and I called him on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is kind of obvious advice. By drinking juice, you are consuming an unusually large amount of processed fruit. I hardly touch the stuff. Stick to water or tea or whatever.

<comment><USER12> It seems obvious, but you'd be amazed how many people don't do the mental math. I've actually had this conversation while waiting in line with someone as he got a Jamba Juice.

Friend: "Why aren't you getting one?"

Me: "Too much sugar. I'm trying to eat better these days."

Friend: "What?! This is a smoothie! There's nothing healthier!"

Me: "But you just saw them grind up 8 oranges, 5 bananas, and 2 pounds of strawberries and put them in a single cup."

Friend: "So?! Fruit is healthy, dumbass!"

Me: "Would you ever eat that much fruit in one sitting?"

I'll stop before it becomes painful. :) But you get the point. People have strong mental associations between fruit and health, no doubt conditioned by years and years of advertising, and USDA guidelines, and so on. But they don't get the whole "too much of a good thing" logic.

That's what makes smoothies particularly dangerous. People know they're not making a great choice when they drink a Coke. People _firmly believe_ they're making a great choice when they drink sugary smoothies and fruit juices. And Jamba Juice, despite being a sugar bomb, at least uses whole fruit. A lot of the packaged drinks use heavily processed crap with added sugar.

<comment><USER13> > "too much of a good thing" logic.

How many people are having two or three smoothies a day vs. just a single smoothie? How many of those people would eat the amount of fruit in that smoothie over the course of a normal day? There might be something to be said for getting your daily dose of fruit at once instead of spread out over the day, but I doubt that we're talking about people that are overdosing on fruit.

> sugary smoothies and fruit juices

How is a smoothie _more_ sugary than eating the equivalent amount of fruit? Do you claim that someone eating a bowl of strawberries is having a sugary snack?

> That's what makes smoothies particularly dangerous

How dangerous are they really? Plenty of people will drink > 2 litres of soda over the course of a day. On the other hand, do you think that anyone is drinking more than even a litre of smoothie in a day?

> But you just saw them grind up 8 oranges, 5 bananas, and 2 pounds of > strawberries and put them in a single cup.

Really? I make smoothies at home, and it's more like: 2 leaves of kale, protein powder, a banana or two, and a handful (or 2) of frozen strawberries (and maybe an apple or pear). This makes enough smoothie for 2 adults and a child. Are you really don't to claim that this isn't something that could be eaten in a sitting by 2 adults and a child?

<comment><USER14> Clearly comparing your smoothie to Jamba Juice's fruit bowl is not the same thing.

<comment><USER13> Well, Jamba Juice also doesn't fit "8 oranges, 5 bananas, and 2 pounds of strawberries" into a single smoothie either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Cant people just eat actual fruit? Is that really so inconvenient these days? All that energy wasted to process, package, transport, etc. Just eat a damn fruit.

I'd love to know how much of this pointlessly processed food contributes to environmental problems compared to cars, for example.

<comment><USER10> This is what I don't get about the soylent thing. You can walk into any drug store or corner store and buy a few canned foods that together offer complete nutrition. How the heck is mixing a special powdered drink any easier than opening a can of oysters and a can of sauerkraut and downing the contents? There isn't even a glass to wash with the latter.

There is some sort of odd cultural glitch going on in favor of drinks as "healthful." Drink foods make people think of the medicinal brews of yore? I don't know.

<comment><USER16> > How the heck is mixing a special powdered drink any easier

Surprising as it may sound, making it just a little harder to prepare can make us value it more (we tend to value our own work). I remember reading about a case of one batter mix that ended up selling more than the "just add water" mixes by asking in the instructions to add the eggs and milk.

> a can of oysters and a can of sauerkraut

that sounds like an awful diet

<comment><USER17> I believed this until your post prompted me to look it up, but apparently it's not true: [http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/cakemix.asp](http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/cakemix.asp)

<comment><USER10> Perhaps this ignores that powdered eggs do in fact taste horrible compared to fresh. They're also apparently quite bad for you (oxysterols).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Diabetes too. That's a huge problem in the US. And many people who are diabetic are not excessively over-weight. Those who are not diabetic, are pre- diabetic.

"Over 25 million people in the US have diabetes, and close to 80 million are pre-diabetic." \- From American Diabetes Association

IMO, this problem is way larger than the former cigarette health problem as more people consume sugary drinks and foods than smoked cigarettes.

<comment><USER19> Indeed, the scale of the issue extends to the very young. The worst cases of smoking-related cancer are the result of starting smoking at a very young age, not unlike how obesity and type 1 diabetes are especially destructive when encountered at very young ages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Fruits contain fibers that are beneficial for your digestive system and control the spike of sugar level in you body. If you put them in a blender, you destroy much of the fibers and one of the major benefit of eating fruit.

<comment><USER21> Blending speeds up digestion and reduces satiety versus eating whole fruit, but (unlike juicing) I haven't seen any evidence that it _destroys_ fiber. Do you have a reference?

<comment><USER13>
      Apparently the lowered glycemic index for foods
      of a smaller particle size is only for starchy
      foods (smaller particles hydrolyze easier,
      making them higher GI). So while my statement
      may have held true for starches, it wouldn't for
      fruits. I have no idea about smoothies! It's out
      of the scope of the paper, though, so all we can
      say is that the study suggests that juicing
      increases diabetic risk and whole fruits lower
      it.

Source: [http://www.reddit.com/r/veg/comments/1le10o/eating_fruit_cut...](http://www.reddit.com/r/veg/comments/1le10o/eating_fruit_cuts_diabetes_risk_but_juice_raises/cbz2hd3)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For those making their own smoothies: I use kefir as a base. It is thicker, has very little, easily overpowered taste, has the kinds and amounts of probiotics that yogurt claims but often fails to deliver, and is easier to digest than milk. I normally add a banana, protein powder, and sometimes berries (which are lower on calories than an equivalent amount of fruit). Delicious, and aside from the protein powder, these are all things I would consume as individual items.

</comment><comment><USER23> DO NOT DRINK FRUIT JUICES / SMOOTHIES without a straw. The acidity from the fruit will demineralize and erode your teeth.

Here's what happened to my two front teeth. [http://min.us/lbzsDfIjfJqxOz](http://min.us/lbzsDfIjfJqxOz)

Luckily my two front teeth are large enough to sand and grind past the damaged bottom portions and look normal again. It happened in just 2 weeks of drinking fruit juices twice a day.

</comment><comment><USER24> We need a social-shift that treats sugary drinks more like we treat alcohol. I'm not saying let's only sell Coca-Cola to 21-year-olds, but rather that the social stigma should be different.

A sugary beverage should be a celebratory drink, reserved for special occasions, like beer or wine, not a staple of our diet.

<comment><USER25> I don't see society conforming to your ideals any time soon. Hell, I love nothing more than celebrating the end of a hard days work with a beer.

IMO people need to worry about sitting down all day way before worrying about sugary drinks.

<comment><USER24> _Hell, I love nothing more than celebrating the end of a hard days work with a beer._

No disagreement from me. I would simply suggest that people think the same way about a Coke.

There's nothing wrong with celebrating the end of a day with a beer, but most people would look askance if you were drinking them all day at your desk. So why is it considered normal to do the same with a caffeine and sugar concoction that we _know_ is highly dangerous?

As to the standing desk issue, I think it's most an issue of being sedentary in general than standing vs. sitting. There's nothing particularly natural about standing in a single place for hours either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well yeah. The health benefits of fruit are generally oversold anyway. But this will be met with mockery, "I can't have soda and now fruit* is bad for me too?! Scientists are dumb."

* this is where they miss the point.

</comment><comment><USER27> Everything will be killing us in the future. Now it's the smoothies and fruit juices. I don't know what this health-society pretends, if ending all kind of consuming substances or really wasting time producing FUD. No offense to anyone.

<comment><USER19> Yes, however there is a coordinated effort on a global scale to cause people to be addicted to a substance to the detriment of their health. That is the key difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Same old risk: drink too much sugary stuff, get fat.

<comment><USER29> Well, I didn't know that a smoothie was worse than the fruit it's made of. (Not that I drink smoothies anyway.)

<comment><USER30> The fruit has fiber and a lot of other ingredients that slow down absorption of sugar. Not to mention, you wouldn't eat as much fruit in one sitting as the number of fruits you've extracted into a cup.

So you're consuming (1) just the sugary liquid extract of the fruit, and (2) getting much more of it from more fruits than if you were eating whole pieces of fruit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does anyone have evidence that blending and immediately drinking fruit has less fibre than eating the same amount of fruit unblended?

</comment><comment><USER32> Make your own smoothies -> super healthy stuff with plenty of energy to get you through the afternoon slump.

<comment><USER33> Depending on the fruit you use you can still overdose on fructose which is, as everyone knows by now, metabolized (interesting story) almost only by the liver - just like alcohol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Better title: Smoothies and fruit juices are THE new risk to health

</comment><comment><USER35> The problem also seems to be portion size related. On the larger end of the spectrum some of these smoothies can be over 20 ounces.

</comment><comment><USER36> > _All sugars are equal in their bad effects, says Popkin_

Wait, what? I thought that HFCS was significantly worse than everything else.

</comment><comment><USER37> I was scared of the title.

Thankfully, I make my own smoothies, with no sugar.</comment>


Browse old web pages the old way with virtual browsers in the browser - <AUTHOR> http://oldweb.today/ <comment><AUTHOR> Previous discussion (2015): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10653033](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10653033)</comment>


Vishwa Bandhu Gupta Explains Cloud Computing [funny] English Subtitles - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApQlMm39xr0 <comment><USER2> Silly or naïve as it may sound, he still expresses real concerns:

\- What do you do when the cloud is not accessible?

\- Can you trust the phone maker not to build-in spying hardware or software?

\- Even if you naïvely believe the phone maker company won't do anything bad, can you believe it won't be infiltrated by the NSA, the MSS or the Mossad, with key employees inserting such spyware?

On the other hand, while problems are more acute with live smartphones than the dead ones that will be recycled, it occurs often that desktop PCs are thrown away or donated with hard disk full of private data.

Can you expect everybody to understand the technical jargon that would have to be used to explain properly what happens and what are the risks, or is it not more convenient to push the analogy forward, and ask what happens on a rainy day with your data in the cloud?</comment>


Ask HN: How to write a diary? - <AUTHOR>

i am having a hard time writing diary, I cant express my experience nor I am getting much help from previous diary entries. I think there is some problem the way I write. I generally write my experience or whatever nice thought crosses my mind <comment><USER2> What kind of diary?

<comment><AUTHOR> Dairy where I write about my experience, my life, what problem I face. for purpose of introspection, to analysis my self.</comment></comment>


Penguins starving to death is sign that something's very wrong in the Antarctic - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/13/penguins-starving-death-something-very-wrong-antarctic <comment><USER2> This article seems to imply that Global Warming is at least partly at fault, but the similar 2013 event was attributed to _too much_ sea ice, not _warming_ , in another Guardian article[1]:

"The colony had experienced a similar event in 2013, when no chicks survived. In a paper about that event, a group of researchers, led by Yan Ropert-Coudert from France's National Centre for Scientific Research, said it had been _caused by a record amount of summer sea ice_ and an "unprecedented rainy episode"."

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/12/penguin-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/12/penguin- catastrophe-leads-to-demands-for-protection-in-east-antarctica)

<comment><USER3> Of course, it could simply be that the increase in sea ice is due to global warming. Rising sea temperatures generate more humidity, which causes more snow, leading perhaps to more Antarctic ice.</comment></comment>


Fidelity Writes Down Snapchat Holding by 63 Percent - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-01/fidelity-writes-down-snapchat-holding-by-63-percent <comment><USER2> Hmm...this is odd:

Bloomberg says, "Fidelity bought convertible preferred stock in March"

However, NYPost [1] says, "investors were forced to take common stock, rather than preferred shares or other instruments"

So which is it? Because marking down the value of preferred is very different (and means much more) than marking down the value of common.

[1]: [http://nypost.com/2015/05/29/snapchat-has-sold-537m-in- commo...](http://nypost.com/2015/05/29/snapchat-has-sold-537m-in-common-stock- to-investors/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Bloomberg has correct the headline to read 2% instead of 63%.

<comment><USER4> That's one hell of a mistake.

<comment><USER5> An eyeball attracting "typo"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article now indicates 2% rather than 63%. This should probably be updated in the link.

</comment><comment><USER7> Breaking: Bloomberg writes down write down of snapchat from 63 percent to 2 percent

</comment><comment><USER8> Snapchat is Blue Chip Growth?

Fidelity managers can't see the wipeout of $10Billion not many months after they invest?

</comment><comment><USER9> The cracks in the facade of phony, good-for-bragging-rights-only "valuations" are really starting to show now. Hold on, this is going to be quite a ride!

<comment><USER10> I'm assuming you're referring to 63% from the HN headline, and not the actual article, which specifies _2%_, not _63%_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wooow, so it valued at around 6B right now?</comment>


Rust and the limits of swarm design - <AUTHOR> http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7303 <comment><USER2> > This isn't a question that comes up so often with respect to (say) Python > because Python has an effective form of curation – blessing things into the > standard library, at which point their alternatives generally disappear. In > effect, Python modules are quality-filtered on the taste of the BDFL and the > devteam.

I _love_ Python but this statement is absolutely coming from someone who does not write Python on a regular basis. Many stdlib modules are greatly outclassed by third-party alternatives - urllib2 vs requests, datetime vs arrow just to name a few - to the point where no one actually uses the stdlib modules in production.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but even then, I think his point is still applicable. It's urllib2 and requests, not urllib2 and requests and 20 other libraries. The fact that an inferior library is being kept alive by being in the stdlib is maybe unfortunate, but there's still only a small number of choices overall. That makes it much easier to do research and see within the first few search results that the majority of the community recommends one over the other.

<comment><USER2> His point is absolutely not applicable. Rust is a _very_ new language. The community will eventually converge on specific crates for specific purposes in time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Actually, the kind of features ESR asks for are covered by github, IMO. It's easy to review code quality from there, the number of stars and forks reflect project popularity, the list of committers (how many they are and who they are) can help having an idea about long term maintenance expectations, etc. The cool thing is that it works for almost any language : github is "social coding", thus it's also social validation.

But this article raises an other question : if you want 10 years long stability, is it wise to rely on third party code? If you plan on maintaining your own project that long, it's probably acceptable to take time to write your own implementation and maintain it. Or you could even use a third party dependency, then progressively replace it with your own API compatible implementation.

<comment><USER5> 10 years is "that long", now?

<comment><USER4> How many libraries you use today that you already used ten years ago? Is there more than a handful?

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's about "libraries that you use". It's about the codebase of a widely used software. Most of the software I use existed 15 or even 30 years ago. It has been updated, of course, but not necessarily redesigned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >"A lot of Rustaceans don't seem to grasp why, when the question is "where do I get feature X?" the answer "oh, there are 23 crates for that" is objectively terrifying."

This is a real problem. Here's a blog idea: "Consumer Reports for libraries"

(As an aside, the phrase "objectively terrifying" bugs the hell out of me. Terror is fundamentally subjective - it's a primal emotion. Please let's not let "objectively" become the new "literally".)

<comment><USER8> FWIW, this is not as bad a problem as he makes it out to be -- the reason folks don't seem to grasp it's a problem is because from inside the community the answer is usually "there are 2 crates for that, with the following tradeoffs". You have to ask, however; and it's hard to find out which crate you want to use without asking someone.

This is still a problem, however, but it's one the community has been aware of for a while. [https://github.com/rust- lang/rfcs/pull/1824](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/1824) is step 1 in fixing it.

<comment><USER9> "Inside the community" isn't a very strong argument in my opinion, because there is a strong bias. Folks "inside the community" are developing Rust packages because they really, really enjoy it. This is much different from having a mature language where folks who aren't as gung-ho about it develop things (out of curiosity, because work made them, etc.).

I understand there's a recognition of the problem, and I think it's great that it's on the radar.

<comment><USER8> My point about "inside the community" was solely to say that it's not as bad as he makes it out to be. You usually get recommendations and help picking one within minutes of posting on a Rust forum. (Or by googling it). Survivorship bias is irrelevant here.

This is not an ideal situation to be in, but it is better than he makes it out to be. And of course, we're already working on fixing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> i think he is exaggerating a bit. Many languages have a model where most of the functionality lies in packages and not in the standard library. And it's working. You just have to get used to it and try to develop a taste in choosing the right package. But it's not fundamental and not the limit of swarm design, because you can use statistics to assess maturity.

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't say it _works_ , rather that people will put up with it. When I write JavaScript/node.js code, I have no idea whether the dependencies I'm using will be supported 6 months from now.

It's not so easy to just "choose the right package". Often _all_ the packages for a given function are someone's hobby.

Consequently JavaScript code needs constant, expensive maintenance. Whereas Python code can rely more on the standard library and big frameworks and tends to keep working for years.

Programming language designers should see themselves as builders and curators of great standard libraries, the language itself is almost incidental to that goal.

<comment><USER12> What makes the libraries blessed by the language designers so much better than a library blessed by any other trusted party? Rust is an open source language, and only the core team works on it full time - even then, any one of them could leave at any time and the community at large would need to pick up the slack. This isn't any different than the situation around any of the amazing community libararies in the Rust ecosystem. Heck, libs blessed by the language designers aren't even always the best choice - just look at json manipulation in .NET; you get multiple different stdlib ways to work with json, yet the community still gathers around the much better JSON.NET package.

In terms of value proposition, I think the author is just hankering for some .NET style support agreements in order to hedge his maintenance cost bets - and I'm sure there are or will be plenty of consultancies willing to provide this service, so long as the demand exists. That open source language users are entitled enough to expect this service for free from language maintainers... I'm not sure that's completely justifiable.

<comment><USER11> If a library is supported and maintained by the language designers, then its _lifetime_ will be at least as long as the lifetime of the programming language. Or if the library is replaced, then it will be done through some mechanism of deprecation, rather than sudden abandonment.

I don't see the standard library and third-party packages as being in opposition. Far from it. A rich standard library encourages a rich ecosystem of third-party packages.

Maintenance costs affect the authors of open source packages even more than they affect commercial users. They are working for free and in their spare time. A rich standard library makes a language attractive to people who want to write packages.

<comment><USER13> Omg. You just made me think about lifetime markers for crates... your project requires a minimum lifetime of stability in a crate or something. Kinda funny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It seems like the core thrust of this article is that someone isn't around to perpetually support the libraries the author would like to use; i.e., he/his company is unwilling to fork out the money for someone to keep the 'blessed' libraries fully up to date -- so now that's the implementer's problem! I can understand wanting stability and a promise of timely updates for all one's dependencies, but it doesn't seem like the core language team is the right group to foist that responsibility upon.

<comment><USER15> In the end, it doesn't matter who it's "fair" to assign responsibility to; a language you can't rely on is a language you can't rely on. All esr is pointing out is that there's a problem. Personally I think the Rust folks are pretty aware of this problem, and are managing just fine; Rust is definitely still in the early stages of language community growth, and locking things down too much would be a mistake.

<comment><USER14> I suppose I'm not arguing from the perspective of fairness, but moreso about incentives + experience. If we applied the author's argument against other fields and languages, e.g. machine learning and python, then the cpython maintainers would be right in including TensorFlow in the python stdlib (or whichever competitor dethrones in and sticks around for long enough).

That doesn't sit well with me, at least. I'd want the top ML developers looking at TensorFlow, and the best language implementers doing the same for cpython, not the latter trying desperately to improve code they have no expertise in. From that perspective, what matters is community: is there a knowledgable community supporting codebase 'x', where x could be the stdlib or some third party library. Some other commenters in this thread proposed better library curation/discovery tools in place of a formal commitment of long term support by the core team, which seems ideal! Using such an approach, you rely on the language for the core-language bits, and on third parties for the third-party bits, which seems on the surface to be healthier than arbitrarily choosing the only constant group (core language devs) as your supporters of everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Reminder that before you take anything ESR says remotely seriously, you should read [http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/dancing.html](http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/dancing.html) from beginning to end.

<comment><USER17> He's not a Christian, so we should ignore what he says about computers? That's preposterous.

<comment><USER16> That _really_ isn't a TL;DR; of that article.

<comment><USER17> Haha nice try, but one won't be drawn into a theological debate about e.g. how many neopagan angels can dance on the head of an atheist pin. The point is that religious beliefs, no matter how banal or how fringe, are completely orthogonal to technical judgment. They are separate spheres. You've cannily left unclear the precise nature of the spiritual pablum you're peddling, but one can still see through your clumsy attempt to invoke religious prejudice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Which brings me directly to what bothers me about the crate system and the > sociology behind it – I don't see any pruning. Worse, I don't see much > understanding of the need for it. A lot of Rustaceans don't seem to grasp > why, when the question is "where do I get feature X?" the answer "oh, there > are 23 crates for that" is objectively terrifying.

Actually, I think the community does recognize that this is a problem they are running into as they scale up. Previously there was the discussion of the Rust Platform [1] as a pseudo-stdlib which was received with a lot of mixed since the Python approach isn't actually all rainbows and sunshine. More recently, there has been effort to try to improve the discoverability of relevant crates [2].

[1] [https://aturon.github.io/blog/2016/07/27/rust- platform/](https://aturon.github.io/blog/2016/07/27/rust-platform/)

[2] [https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/1824](https://github.com/rust- lang/rfcs/pull/1824)

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't think Rust has a problem of having too many crates yet, and hopefully crates.io will improve discovery before it becomes a problem. They're making first steps to improve it already, e.g.: [https://github.com/rust- lang/rfcs/pull/1824](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/1824)

</comment><comment><USER9> I can't say I agree with the author's first article (which he mentions in this one), but I think he has the kernel of a good argument here. That's not to say I agree with it entirely.

At some point "design by everyone" turns into "design by committee" by another name. This criticism of Rust has manifested itself in other ways, too. For example the amount of "unsafe" used in various crates (the idea being that "the community" will collectively minimize "bad" use of "unsafe"). In my view there's a tendency for some of Rust's advocates to simply assert that it will work itself out without presenting good reason to believe so.

<comment><USER20> Do you have any numbers on the amounts of unsafe? I would be interested in a decent methodology to figure this out. I've seen people assert that this is true in the same vague way you're referring to for the other perspective.

<comment><USER9> I haven't any numbers and I wasn't asserting anything about the quantity that exists.

<comment><USER20> Cool. If anyone else has ideas here, get in touch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My company has to approve all software on the development network. Getting newish versions of boost is bad enough. But keeping something like tokio or even simd and all its dependencies approved and in sync and then transferring them to the air gapped dev network is just this side of impossible. Is my company an outlier or is this common in bigcorp?

</comment><comment><USER22> Maybe we could have something like what Debian has to manage channels? Differents stages (experimental, testing, stable) and a group of official maintainers? I know that's not easy to create that kind of communities and that you née a lot of ressources (benevolent people). But that works great for Linux distributions.

</comment><comment><USER23> > _My use case – foundational network infrastructure with planning horizons on > a decadal scale – needs stability guarantees that Rust is not yet equipped > to give._

Can you be any more pompous?

<comment><USER24> He may be talking about NTP -- that is core infrastructure code that had been poorly maintained for many years, and he's been involved in the rescue effort. Points off for not saying so, though; without context, your reaction is pretty natural.

<comment><USER13> The thing is he is attacking Rust not based on the safety the language provides, but more on a feeling that the package, crates, network doesn't fit his belief of how things should be curated. He states that he thinks this is why BDFL is good model, but gives no strong evidence supporting that view.

Rust has curation in its crate system. It's all in really good crowd sourcing numbers. Crates.io, number of downloads, with trends (i.e. Even if it was popular, is it still?). Then GitHub has great ones: stargazers == community interest level; watchers == # of people interested in tracking the project, possibly b/c it's a critical dependency; forks == # of people who've reviewed the code; contributors == overall success in the community; commit graphs = how much work has and is going into the project; issues can help you understand if there are any critical underlying problems with the maintenance.

When I'm evaluating a library I look at all of these numbers to understand how comfortable I am in pulling a dependency on the library. IMO this is far better than the curation of some system level tools, which just become defaults, and don't always offer users the ability to evaluate different options easily, cron stands out in my mind as one that there are better options than the default.

Anyway, his loss... the Rust community is awesome, _in my humble opinion_.

<comment><USER9> > The thing is he is attacking Rust not based on the safety the language > provides, but more on a feeling that the package, crates, network doesn't > fit his belief of how things should be curated. He states that he thinks > this is why BDFL is good model, but gives no strong evidence supporting that > view.

One might easily argue that folks who criticize C and C++ for its ecosystem are also "attacking" it, by your reasoning. It detracts from the rest of your comment in my opinion (which isn't humble at all).

And "the Rust community" is not a monolithic entity. For example, I find "the Rust community" in aggregate here on HN, other than a relatively small few, to be rather caustic, aggressively defensive against criticisms of Rust, and a bit too handy with downvotes for disagreement of legitimate arguments against some of Rust's features, syntax, grammar, etc.

<comment><USER13> 'Attack' is a bit of hyperbole, so it's fair criticism, but I do feel that the article he wrote had much less to do with issues with the language, but a very monocular and subjective view of how ecosystems should be maintained.

He does have some good ideas in there about how to possibly to make crates.io help you more easily identify the best crate for your usecase, but I think the solution to that is a fairly detailed algorithm weighing the some list of values like I put above. Otherwise you end up never allowing new options to blossom.

Trying to read how what I put before wasn't humble, and perhaps your right on that point as well. The perseption of humbleness is definitely subjective, and the added color I threw in there probably in fact did remove any humility from the overall statement, which of course are my own personal views and I highly encourage people to question and criticize them.

<comment><USER9> I meant my opinion wasn't humble, not yours.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: WordPress Running on .Net Core - <AUTHOR> http://wpdotnet.com <comment><USER2> Is this using Peachpie?

</comment><comment><USER3> > WpDotNet distributes your application without the need to have the original > source code on the server. This is both more secure and allows you to sell > or distribute your application without revealing the sources.

Is the last sentence there allowed by the WP license?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe it should be rephrased, but if you just want to setup WordPress on your server, the sources to WordPress and all plugins are still available in the original format somewhere, but they're not sitting on your server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We were so busy wondering if we could do it we never stopped to ask if we should.

In all seriousness, this compiler looks incredibly well-made! It's quite an achievement to be able to successfully compile WordPress, so props for that. Are there any known limitations to e.g. plugins that can't be compiled? Are other frameworks like Laravel or Symphony able to be compiled to .NET?

What was the motivation behind the compiler? A legacy PHP app being moved to a .NET team?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are plugins that can't be compiled _yet_ , but otherwise no limitations, unless a plugin requires you to change the PHP source code while the site is live. This isn't allowed in wpdotnet due to security reasons.

Laravel is quite close to being run, Symfony should follow soon after. Mediawiki is already tested and runs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would it work with existing themes and plugins?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, themes are almost certainly working, but some plugins might not if they use functions not yet implemented. Sometimes there are also bugs in the compiler still, it's only in version 0.9.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best big companies to work for? - <AUTHOR> In the event that someone wants to take a break from the typical startup life (e.g. after a burnout or because of shifted priorities in life) and work for a big company, what would HN recommend for a senior software engineer (late 20s) with a very solid background developed while working like a horse in startups for the past few years (and MS in computer engineering)? These points (in random order) might be important:<p>- Very very competitive salary and "deterministic" benefits (401k with good employer contributions, RSUs, cash bonuses, etc.)<p>- Challenging working environment where neat technical problems are still solved despite not being a startup, possibly with modern tools and technologies (e.g. not a "we use CVS as our SCM" shop)<p>- no more than 40-45 hours a week expected as per company culture<p>- Stable job (no serious failure possibility in the next 3 years or so for the company)<p>- Possibility of working from home (even just once or twice a week to break the routine)<p>- Main headquarters in SF bay area (where I'm located)<p>I'm of course expecting Google, Facebook, etc. But I'm curious to see what else might be there. <comment><USER2> I had applied to work at Google. A few years ago, Google would have been in my top 5. This time the experience was disappointing. Their offer was low, a little lower than what I make at a startup. When I tried to negotiate with my recruiter, she said "we think this offer is good enough" and that was it. Instead, they offered me a small signing bonus if I responded yes WITHIN THE NEXT TWO HOURS.

So they made me the offer on thursday, I responded on Friday afternoon, and they demanded an answer by Friday at 5pm. I ended up rejecting the offer but the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth.

<comment><USER3> The hiring process at Google is affected by a lot of variables. But for senior engineers, the salaries + benefits (especially stock and bonuses) are definitely very competitive.

It's also much easier to negotiate a better deal if you have a competing offer from another firm. And doing extremely well on the interview process also helps, along with a strong track record or in-demand skill set (e.g. mobile development). This is generally applicable to the most tech companies, not just Google.

Disclaimer: I'm a hiring manager at Google.

<comment><USER4> Blind allocation for senior talent is just st00p1d.

And I speak from personal experience. As Erich stated, all the cool work is taken at Google. Blind allocation will likely land you on a team doing work unrelated to the standout work that got you noticed by Google in the first place.

If you don't mind trading away your life's passion for Google's admittedly fantastic perks, then it's a great career move. OTOH if you're finally making your mark in the world such that Google notices you, don't fix what isn't broken, avoid Google(1). My stint at Google could best be described as "Career Interrupted."

1\. Exceptions: Acquihires and moonshots in your area of expertise. These are no-brainers and a great deal. Google perks plus compelling work? Sign me up. Sadly no longer an option for me because I got labelled as unmutual for leaving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Even though you're expecting it, I did want to mention Google. We're actively hiring and there are lots of really great opportunities, especially for startup / mobile folks who also have really strong fundamental CS backgrounds (e.g. algorithms, data structures).

Having come from the startup world myself, I'd encourage anyone who wants a change of scenery, even if it's only for a few years, to apply here.

      * Great company culture, competitive pay, and amazing benefits
      * Lots of interesting problems to work on
      * Learn about developing at scale
      * Good work-life balance.

And, especially if you want to go back and do a startup again in a few years:

      - Expand your network of really talented people.
      - Understand the kinds of products and teams the top-tier companies are looking for

Although I also wouldn't be surprised if you decided to stay for a lot longer.

One of the downsides to the hiring process is that team placement can still be a bit random. If you're a senior dev who still loves actively coding and is in the startup world, and is thinking about applying but is worried you'll end up working on something that doesn't interest you, drop me a line at the email in my profile. Especially if you're interested in mobile.

Disclaimer: I'm a hiring manager at Google.

<comment> saiko-chriskun I'm been a full-stack web/mobile developer for various startups over the past couple years.. I've always thought it would be cool to work at a larger company like google for awhile, seems like I'd learn a ton.. but I didn't really go through school and don't have your standard strong CS fundamentals as a result, so haven't been quite sure about what to do :P. Any tips on the best way to acquire these skills through self-study?

<comment><USER3> Read "The Algorithm Design Manual", and do exercises from every chapter.

Whether or not you decide to interview at Google, building up strong CS fundamentals will make you a better programmer. And we're not the only ones who ask those types of questions. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" Challenging working environment where neat technical problems are still solved despite not being a startup"_

This phrasing makes me chuckle. Why's there a presumption that "neat technical problems" are the sole preserve of startups? If I were to make a generalization at all, I'd say a successful company with a solid customer base has a lot more areas of technical challenges (both new products as well improvement and scaling of existing products) than a small startup, (especially when those small startups are in the consumer space where product features/design and customer support are far more important than sheer technical solutions).

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, reading the sentence again it doesn't make sense at all.

I definitely confused "technical problems" solved by the company mission vs the feeling of excitement and freedom that a single developer gets solving a "technical problem" in a typical early stage startup.

<comment><USER6> I agree with chetanahuja that there are _more_ "single developer's technical problems" in established software companies rather than startups.

During my time at Google, there was an engineer next to me working full-time on GCC, because found compilers most fun and technically challenging. On the open-source version, not a private branch or anything.

Very few startups would have the scale and stability to allow an employee to work on something that maybe delivers 5% faster code or 5% faster build times in a few year's time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Red Hat. You'll work on open source stuff all the time, in systems, infrastructure (Openstack), kernel development (Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS), cloud stuff (Satellite, Foreman, Katello, Openshift), or even programming languages (JRuby).

\- 401k match and bonuses from the start. RSUs after you've spent a significant time in the company.

\- Lots of problems to solve in areas that are out of reach for a lot of startups.

\- Good work/life balance in my experience.

\- I am 100% remote, and I'd say 50% of my team is remote too.

\- There is an office in Mountain View, but your house is probably more comfortable ;)

Again this is just my own experience, I definitely recommend it.

<comment><USER8> Why do I get the feeling that Red Hat is a software company run by software engineers?

It's hard for me to shake off the distinction between companies run by business/product-goons whipping their engineers into submission to produce code that they can sell and companies run by engineers themselves. Wether or not the CEO codes is irrelevant, but the fact that it's entirely engineer driven.

<comment><USER9> It seems to me that key management in Red Hat come from Digital/DEC, and have the same engineer-led ethos that Digital had (before it was acquired by Compaq).

Edit: Also Red Hat is somewhat cult-like (I say that in a good way). Open source, "upstream first", etc are taken _very_ seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems like Adobe checks a lot of your boxes. The pay, from what I've seen personally, and tracked on Glassdoor seems pretty competitive. They've got great 401k, benefits, RSUs, bonuses, etc.

All the engineering teams I've worked with are fairly forward thinking in both process and technology. Most teams use the hosted, enterprise GitHub for source control. There are a bunch of technical problems across the company spanning everything from researching photo/video manipulation, open source projects like Brackets, to a bunch of cool stuff going on as part of the Creative Cloud (or even analytics/big data in the Digital Marketing part of the company).

The company will definitely be around in 3 years and is on a good trajectory. A lot of teams have an unofficial work from home day every week, and while "main" HQ is in San Jose, a lot of fun stuff is going on in the SF office. In general I've found it to be a great culture in terms of work-life balance as well as encouraging volunteer activities.

<comment><USER11> Disclaimer: I work for Adobe.

Not only does it fit most of the criteria youve listed, Adobe technical leadership is becoming infused with alot of new blood since the acquisition of Day. Technologies like Apache Jackrabbit/Oak, Apache Sling, Apache Cordova/Phonegap are becoming integral pieces of Adobe's go to market on the DMS (Digital Marketing side - which is the lesser known enterprise offering side opposite the Creative Cloud/Creative Suite products).

It may be an big, "old" tech company, that gets a bit of grief for stale technologies like Flash, but IMO theyre moving in the right (and interesting) direction as quickly as their internal structures and market offerings allow.

<comment><USER12> Nice to hear that they are having a positive impact. Sling is one of the most compelling pieces of software that I've worked with in a long time. It's odd that AEM/CQ5 being as big and as disruptive as it is, doesn't get any play here in HN

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Microsoft Silicon Valley is actually pretty awesome. HQ isn't in the bay area, but their Silicon Valley campus is 10 minutes away from Google's HQ in Mountain View.

<comment><USER14> I agree as well. Microsoft Research in Mountain View is pretty awesome, my time there was nothing short of amazing. I have sinced moved but I enjoyed my time there and the compensation and benefits are top notch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Red Hat

\-- all of the above, except the head office is in Raleigh NC, which probably doesn't matter as you can work at home full time if you want, and there is an office in Mountain View if you prefer to work in offices.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'd look at NetApp. They're consistently listed as one of the top places to work (in the US and worldwide) and have a variety of software projects (hardware/firmware work to web management tools).

</comment><comment><USER16> A friend in SF who was the prototypical "startup designer" just got tired of it after too many failed projects and too many unstable positions and got a job with General Electric designing extremely technical user manuals. He loves the rhythm and by his account it seems like a great job. Not sure that he can ever work from home though. Otherwise it fits your criteria.

<comment><USER17> I've been a sysadmin since the mid-90s, working almost exclusively for startups and small companies. Eventually I got tired of it, and went to GE in late October (not as a sysadmin, but a security/automation related position).

So, on the bright side, there are no more insane hours, there's no begging for money, I'm doing a bluesky / "fun" project for a living, and for a big company a lot of it seems to be more fast paced like a startup. My coworkers are nice people, and my boss is like a real life Ron Swanson.

Downsides? We're not really supposed to telecommute though some managers allow it. There's a dress code, but it's tolerable. Lots and lots of meetings, and lots of lots of management. There can be a lot of communication issues between different departments. Almost everything has a well designed workflow, but they often break down due to those communication issues. As GE is a very large and political company, people without great social networking skills may need to work on them.

All in all I'm happy there, and it's a really nice change from burnout- inducing workloads, pagers constantly going off at 3:00 AM, and wondering whether any of us will have a job by the end of the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't know if we count as big, but Mozilla fits all of your criteria.

</comment><comment><USER19> Groupon is headquartered in Chicago, but has a big office in Palo Alto. Very modern tooling, decent compensation, working from home is fine, keeping your own hours is fine, 40 hour weeks (including lunch) is the norm, interesting problems.

<comment><USER20> As a former Groupon employee in Palo Alto (they acquired my startup this past year) I can tell you working from home is most definitely not "fine."

My startup was based in San Francisco. Even though Groupon has an office in the city, they mandated my entire team be in the Palo Alto office from day one.

The rest of the things you mention are spot on. Besides the commute issue I had no complaints.

<comment><USER21> It might've been the plumfare crew. They had little issue with my working remotely as well. Of course when they attempted to pressure me to come in the office more I gave them the choice of having me less hours and in the office or more hours and working from home. Not there any more, but just adding more views on things...

I would differ with the "modern tooling" opinion though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone here work at Dell? How has the culture changed since they went private? Are they still "corporatey", or are they trying to be more "start- upy" like their recent ads hint at?

<comment><USER23> I'm on the end user consumer side (can't speak for enterprise). Unfortunately, no, there hasn't been change for the better. Their primary focus is on reducing operating expenses rather than focusing on technological innovation. There has been some reorganization; however, in the end it's still the same old guard leadership that's been in charge for decades (nothing new).

<comment><USER24> Including Michael Dell I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Rackspace, cloud server company.

[https://github.com/rackspace](https://github.com/rackspace) [https://github.com/rackerlabs](https://github.com/rackerlabs)

\- 401K is available. Salary is competitive market rate for SF tech even if you're not a particularly strong salary negotiator. Quarterly bonuses, shows up as another ACH deposit to your bank account besides your regular bi- weekly(Fridays) deposit. Commuter-card, currently $125 free a month. If you want more than that, it's deducted pre-tax from your paycheck. Currently healthcare is Humana & Kaiser.

\- Opensource is the name of the game. Built on Openstack, so python is big here but we do have Ruby and nodejs too; and probably other languages I'm not remembering right nwo. Challenging problems exist to work on and still given room to develop new ideas and pitch them to upper-management. Also allows at least 1 day a month for hack-a-thon to work on anything you want(ya know, as long as it's legal and not NSFW). I saw the beginnings of floobits.com when it was alpha-ware that crashed. They ended up being accepted into YCombinator.

\- Life balance focused. There isn't the attitude that burning beyond 40hr/weeks is expected at all.

\- Stable. I don't see Rackspace disappearing anytime soon.

\- We have several people who work from home at least twice a week.

\- Main HQ is actually in Texas, but the SF office isn't bad. No cubicles, open plan. Big eating area, foosball, table-tennis, plenty of space to bring your bike into the office and a machine that makes bubbly water. Free drinks like ice tea and diet soda. The soda is kept out of site though because people are trying to be healthy. Out of side, out of mind ;) ...But if you know where to look, you can get it. There's an Xbox on a big screen TV that people sometimes play football(as in soccer) on too.

</comment><comment><USER26> Have you heard of Workday? We, the employees, continually vote Workday as the best company to work for in the bay area. I wouldn't consider us a big company, but we fit a lot of the criteria that you've specified. I've been at Workday for a while, and we have very interesting technical problems.

</comment><comment><USER27> And what about something like OP asks for but in the Northeast? Chicago/Boston, NYC, DC??

</comment><comment><USER28> You should work for Intel. We have free coffee.

<comment><USER29> I was going to say Intel checks all the boxes

\- Very very competitive salary and "deterministic" benefits (401k with good employer contributions, RSUs, cash bonuses, etc.)

Total comp is high, but the bonuses are super deterministic. There's 2 cash bonuses, both based on formulas that are published. 401K is just a contribution, not a match, RSUs based on performance (4 year vesting for each issue). You also get discounts on Intel products. There's also a very nice "kudos" system where you can send people small cash awards for promoting company values or doing a good job.

\- Challenging working environment where neat technical problems are still solved despite not being a startup, possibly with modern tools and technologies (e.g. not a "we use CVS as our SCM" shop)

Intel takes sand and turns it into computers, and they spend several billion dollars a year making that happen. There's a lot of tough technical problems all over the place, like how do you make drivers and software for a chip that doesn't exist yet?

\- no more than 40-45 hours a week expected as per company culture

Depends on the group again. Some managers will push you to work more than 40 (all the time, not just crunch), but you have to let them control you.

\- Stable job (no serious failure possibility in the next 3 years or so for the company)

The company is definitely stable. In the event that your particular group is restructured or given the axe, there's retraining opportunities to keep you in the company.

\- Possibility of working from home (even just once or twice a week to break the routine)

Most are okay if you work from home once in a while. Consult your specific manager on their views of structured or regular work from home.

\- Main headquarters in SF bay area (where I'm located)

Santa Clara or Folsom would be the nearest sites, but both of them are huge.

There's free tea and soda in addition to the coffee.

<comment><USER30> Apart from [http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/slumping-intel- cu...](http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/slumping-intel- cut-5000-jobs-2014-21580346)

<comment><USER31> > The company intends to jettison the jobs without laying off workers, said > Intel spokesman Bill Calder. The reductions instead will be achieved through > attrition, buyouts and early retirement offers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Your best bet might be startups that have been acquired by mega-corps. Such as:

* Heroku (owned by Salesforce) * Climate Corporation (owned by Monsanto)

The above two and some similar companies should hit all your checkboxes.

<comment><USER33> I work for The Climate Corporation, and while I really like it, it really doesn't have a 40-45 hour a week culture right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> [Disclaimer: I work at GM]

General Motors fits all your criteria besides location. We have IT centers in Austin, Phoenix, Atlanta and of course Detroit.

I've been here a year and there is an amazing amount of bootstrapping and getting things done across the company. Fortune 5 company, making a billion in profit a quarter, moving all of it's outsourced dev in house and turning IT from a cost center to an innovation/profit center.

I work on shopclickdrive.com which is GM's foray into selling cars online (we leverage our relationship with our dealerships...a third of our US dealers signed up for the program in 3 months). Very cool stuff when you think about how no other auto manufacturer is trying to sell cars online...especially at our scale. [[http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140124/AUTO0103/3012400...](http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140124/AUTO0103/301240060/1361/One- third-of-GM-s-U.S.-dealers-sign-up-for-Shop-Click-Drive-program)]

Beyond the we use SVN as our SCM, we're moving our stack to all the best practice stuff: client-side mvc, restful apis, SOLID code backed by automated unit and functional tests.

If anyone is interested, email me at firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER35> Microsoft fit all of those criteria except the main criteria in SF.

Generally, you would only need to be in the office if you have a meeting ( as long as you get your work done).

Depending on your team, you may or may not be expected to work over 40 hours a week. On my team, we are encouraged to work 40 hours with no overtime.Even if we need to stay in late for a bug fix, we would come in late or leave early the next day.

</comment><comment><USER36> Charles Schwab seems to be pretty good in regards to taking care of their employees. This is my first corporate job and most people I work with have been @ the company for 10-20 years. All of those people rave about working for Schwab. I don't feel quite the same way but I also don't have anything to compare it to. They love benefits and how well the company treats them. The IT side is pretty well funded and you can work with some neat tools.

If you get on the wrong team, you will have a tough time getting past the "group-think" established by the ranking veterans who refuse to innovate. However, that seems to only exist at the "team" level rather than the organizational level. I had to learn the appropriate place to take certain ideas.

A downside is that they don't seem to fire anyone which can lead to quite a bit of "bloat" at the lower end of the staffing spectrum. However, the higher up the technical ladder I climb the more brilliant people I meet.

The corporate red-tape is a never ending battle and my favorite managers @ the company thus far have been able to remove me from those situations and let me work on fun stuff.

The culture is a little too formal for me. The dress code is "business casual". I feel like a renegade for wearing a t-shirt to work. They have an odd reluctance to spend money on certain things and have no trouble dumping 100's of K into something else. We still use 4:3 monitors at work and I can't bring in a widescreen from home. It drives me up the wall.

Overall, the company will treat you well. You will receive a reasonable compensation. You will fight normal corprate red-tape related fights. The "unofficial technical leaders" are really smart people and drive the company in the right direction. A few people seem to take advantage of the "it is hard to get fired" here mantra, it shows.

</comment><comment><USER37> Look at the government or public institutions like medical schools or hospitals.

There are lots of interesting projects in state and local government. Great benefits, pay is usually competitive with a company (but no bonuses), and you usually get a defined benefit pension.

<comment><USER38> For this person I would advise working against any company that isn't a software/tech company (or, at the very least, that doesn't have the development of software as a line of business or as the primary means of support for their revenue driving activities).

These organizations--governments, schools, and hospitals--aren't "tech companies". Their cultures are generally the opposite of what a person interested in technical challenges in software would want. They're places where "playing it safe" and "playing politics" are far more important than writing software.

<comment><USER37> It all depends.

I've had the privilege of working on some really amazing technical projects for a state government.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> My corporate work experience is minimal, but I think it's possible to find a good groove at Intel. You would have to check if they have teams working in your area of expertise in Santa Clara or San Francisco though.

</comment><comment><USER40> VMWare seems to be a company that'll fit your bill. I don't work there but personally I found their APIs and documentation to be among the best in the industry. Just high quality.

</comment><comment><USER41> They're headquartered in Amsterdam, not SF, but Booking.com are probably worth a mention. (They have offices globally.)

I was invited over to their HQ to give a talk late last year and _wow_. An amazing company, every employee has a huge smile and nothing but great things to say, they have a really great culture, are a very wealthy company, and engineers are given a lot of freedom. Had I not just started working for myself, I would have taken them up on the full-time jobs they offered me!

<comment><USER8> I've heard the opposite.... very very opposite. They have scorched the Perl community from what I heard.

EDIT: [http://blogs.perl.org/users/booking_employee/2014/01/booking...](http://blogs.perl.org/users/booking_employee/2014/01/bookingcom ---a-toxic-company-for-developers.html)

[http://blogs.perl.org/users/bookingemployee/2012/03/truth- ab...](http://blogs.perl.org/users/bookingemployee/2012/03/truth-about- bookingcom.html)

<comment><USER42> >It is estimated that the Dutch transported 550,000-600,000 Africans as slaves. Although slavery is banned, the Dutch society still has exploitation of expats ingrained in their mentality.

Just read the blog... what the hell?

<comment><USER43> Indeed, the law he's referring to applies to everyone. Expat or not. He later on clarifies that it solely applies to Booking.com. This kind of emotional writing I can do without. It is way too easy to assume he's talking about all Dutch people, so IMO badly written and not worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> "no serious failure possibility in the next 3 years or so for the company"

I've mostly worked in big non-tech companies and one common thing I've seen is the eternal oscillator of centralization/decentralization. So the company might not fail, but that doesn't prevent your entire team from being shut off like a lightswitch as things are either centralized or decentralized or both around the same time.

Also see mergers and project cancellations.

</comment><comment><USER45> Strange nobody listed Apple Inc.

<comment><USER46> Not really, there's not much interesting happening on the software side there, and Tim Cook wants it that way.

Can you imagine having to work under Craig Federighi? Uh, pass, that guy is a political creation I wouldn't trust to architect a Rails app.

Bottom line: If you want interesting, innovative software work, Apple is at the bottom of the list these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Intuit is consistently ranked highly in lists at Glassdoor, Fortune, etc. Often cited as a relaxed work environment compared to others in the Bay Area.

<comment><USER48> Nearly all of my former-company's middle-management and business development people were ex-Intuit. I'd like to think that means that Intuit is good at getting rid of its worst hires.

Obviously though I have my doubts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Okay, it's on the East Coast instead of the west. But SAS is one of the best places to work for in the world. Some of the perks that seem applicable to you:

* 7 hour work day

* Flexible work schedules

* Everyone has a private office

* On site Day Cares

* On site Health Care

* Gymnasium, Natatorium, Hundreds of acres of trail laced land bordering a national park.

* Extremely stable company

* One of my co-workers on the development team just celebrated her 25th year at the company.

Personally, I feel empowered and respected. It's a great place.

<comment><USER49> Does SAS hire people with a machine learning / software dev background? Would you be be okay with passing on my resume?

<comment><USER12> It's quite possible. I would keep an eye open at [http://www.sas.com/en_us/careers.html#openings](http://www.sas.com/en_us/careers.html#openings) However the organizations that would be interested in your skills, which is our R&D group, is separate from mine. I wouldn't even know which person to show it to :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> You should look into Chevron. They're in San Ramon. Other than Shell, they're probably the most liberal of the major oil firms with their work policies and they have massive technical challenges to solve. The only thing I'm not sure about is if they have a software department in their San Ramon headquarters—those guys might all be in Houston.

</comment><comment><USER51> ARM has a CA office IIRC (not HQ though obviously). It's nit a big big company but it is a nice place to work.

</comment><comment><USER52> I am not if I should start a new thread but if this exact question was asked but instead of a senior dev, a university graduate (with experience in a large company and a startup). What would your suggestions be? (also.. I am located in UK)

</comment><comment><USER53> Amazon is expanding fast in SF, and we're hiring! Come check us out...

<comment><USER54> Any ios dev happening in Bay Area

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> We're not so big, but we check off most of your boxes (except that we're in NYC). Anyone who's interested, details are in my profile, feel free to shoot me an email.

</comment><comment><USER56> Check out: [http://automattic.com/work-with-us/](http://automattic.com/work- with-us/)

We work on WordPress.com and other cool services.

</comment><comment><USER57> SAP would have most of the items you care for. Probably the recent acquisitions like SuccessFactors would be a good place.

Disclaimer: I am a hiring manager at SuccessFactors.

</comment><comment><USER58> Salesforce.

Lot's of investment/work in "BigData" (Hadoop, HBase, etc). Interesting scalability challenges at all levels. Great work/life culture.

</comment><comment><USER59> What about companies for a junior with 2 years professional experience and and math degrees from legit but no-name colleges/universities?

</comment><comment><USER60> Take a look at SAP. Not all areas of the company are desirable to work for, but they have a lot of good groups from old acquisitions.

</comment><comment><USER61> IBM -- It's got a lot going for it, if you don't like one division/project there are bunch of other ones to look at.

</comment><comment><USER62> Not sure what your definition of "big" is. I have worked at Linkedin for 4 years and have been very happy there.

<comment><USER63> I think it's large enough to be considered a "big" tech company. I've enjoyed my first year at LinkedIn. Small enough to have a big impact, big enough to not need to worry about resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Marvel is hiring, but we are located in NYC.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here

Thanks for all the responses so far, definitely interesting names I wouldn't have considered otherwise!

</comment><comment><USER65> Trimble Navigation, Caterpillar, SAIC, Genetech, General Electric, MITRE, SLAC, SRI.

<comment><USER66> I work in IT at Caterpillar and they meet all of your points except being located in SF.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Check out Workday, we meet all of your criteria.

</comment><comment><USER68> Why did you have to ask HN for this you sad idiot?

<comment><USER69> You must be really sad and angry to register just so you could post this ignorant comment.

PS: I accidentally upvoted this ... hazard of using HN on a mobile phone :/

<comment><USER70> If you're on Android, check out Hacker News 2. Much better experience.</comment></comment></comment>


Linux.org forgot password page gives 404 - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.org/user/forgot_password

<comment><USER2> "So the Gnome team simplified our 'forgot password' page according to the latest guidelines."</comment>


IP protection before approaching VC - <AUTHOR>

Before approaching VCs, is it recommended to start patent process or some way to ensure protection of IP? Does it happen that some VC rejected an idea but gave away someone else refined or similar idea? <comment><USER2> If you are in the US, look into getting a provisional patent. It's an extremely inexpensive way to get some protection for a year before having to file a full patent application. You can file a provisional patent yourself online for $60 (for a 'small entity', last time I checked).

You'll need to spend a little bit of time learning how to write a patent description. It's a tedious (rather than say, hard) thing to do, but is a great skill to learn anyway.

Once you get the hang of it, getting a provisional patent for any or your ideas is quite easy. Then you shouldn't have any qualms about divulging any aspect of your idea to anyone.

You can legally say that your idea or product is 'patent pending' with a provisional patent. This may sound silly to some, but will definitely sway a serious investor. Like them or not, patents are powerful.

As I said, this buys you a year. That should be enough time to determine if the idea is worth the time and expense to obtain a full patent.

</comment><comment><USER3> _" Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats."_

The day you launch everyone will know what you're doing. If you're too slow too launch someone will beat you to it. Patents will not protect you from competition. Rely on your insight into the problem and ability to execute.

</comment><comment><USER4> Founders generally worry too much about this, but if you're unsure, you could try to hold back some aspect of the specific implementation of an idea.

A more general answer might be useful: VCs are just one of the groups you might talk to, and most of the time you're _not_ onto something big, and the most valuable thing for your time is to share the idea and hear the truth. Telling people your idea also lets YOU refine it. Working a bubble usually ends up meaning you work longer on the idea before you finally unveil it, and start to refine it.

The refining, the iteration and the hustle are what matter.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> VCs Generally have tons of ideas. They invest on the founders and your background in solving a problem.

If you are focused and domain knowledge on what you are working on, to solve a real world problem. They will be dying to invest in you.

If you are not the right person to solve that problem, and your idea/product is amazing. You should be make an IP and find for experts who can help you with that.

It also depends on what you are building. If you are BT you should definitely patent it.

But if it's not complex you don't need any kind of IP.

</comment><comment><USER6> If there is something of value, then you'd probably want to protect it somehow.

VCs are in it to make money just like anyone else and if your idea (like a detailed one with implementation and specifics) is good, you can expect them to poach/take the idea similar to what Huli did in the TV series Silicon Valley.

PS. If your idea is consumer-tech, it may have less value than say a patent on some powerful way to extract 100% energy from solar power (or more industrial stuff).</comment>