I feel like Gmail went from being Photoshop to Draw Something - <AUTHOR> http://www.taigeair.com/why-gmail-2013-sucks-terribad-user-experience/ <comment><USER3> Here's another total usability fail: Tab sends the e-mail you're currently writing instead of indenting text. Everywhere else tab indents text, and when you write an e-mail in gmail you'd expect it to act consistently with how it's used everywhere else.

Start writing in gmail, hit tab to indent some text. Congratulations you've now sent half an e-mail to you boss....

I can't fathom who thought this was a good idea.

<comment><USER4> The default behavior for "Tab" on the web is to move to the next element on the Tab order.

<comment><USER5> The default behavior for Tab in rich text editors has been to insert a tabstop for quite some time. I think this is just a casualty of goog.editor.Editor's unconventional default behavior, which is to tab out of the field. If that is truly an oversight (not overriding this behavior), it says a lot about how the Gmail project is being run these days, because previously they did override this.

<comment><USER6> Is it really unconventional though? Tab for navigation is the default behavior for HTML form inputs and contenteditable. I can't think of a website that I use that has input boxes that have tab do indent actually.

<comment><USER5> I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a widely used rich text editor, be it TinyMCE, CKEditor, YUI Editor or ExtJS' HtmlEditor that doesn't map the Tab key to insert a tabstop or a number of non-breaking spaces. goog.editor.Field is absolutely in the minority in that regard.

There are good design reasons for this. The goog.editor package is designed to be modular. This tab-to-indent behavior is instead provided by the goog.editor.plugins.SpacesTabHandler plugin.

As I mention before, I find it questionable that the GMail developers elected to omit this plugin. I'm not suggesting that there are some fools on the project who can't read an API. Rather, it strongly indicates that GMail is catering less and less to any approximation of the "power user", and assuming that most emails could just as well be composed in a <textarea>.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure if it's because they are demo versions (and my experiences echoes esrauch's), but every rich text editor you listed except YUI Editor actually does _not_ map the Tab key to insert a tabstop or spaces.

[1]: <http://ckeditor.com/demo> [2]: <http://www.tinymce.com/tryit/basic.php> [3]: [http://try.sencha.com/extjs/4.1.1/docs/Ext.form.field.HtmlEd...](http://try.sencha.com/extjs/4.1.1/docs/Ext.form.field.HtmlEditor.2/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't remember the last Gmail change that was actually an improvement.

In general Google's changes since the Google+ rollout have been 90% terrible. There's been a couple of changes to Youtube that are better (like the really big mode), but overall changes to all Google services have been bad. I feel like they've really lost the plot.

<comment><USER9> I may be in the minority here, but I actually think most changes to the Gmail interface have been improvements.

My biggest gripe was when they did the overall visual refresh, which reduced the information density on my small laptop screen. Then they added a "Density" switcher, which made things alright again.

I actually like it when interfaces change. Even when I was super busy I wouldn't mind learning and adapting to changes interfaces. Oh well, I guess I just like change for its own sake.

<comment><AUTHOR> I love trying new things and I love learning new software but I've learned the new gmail UI and I don't like clicking 2-3X more for things I do pretty regularly. Like getting someone's email address.

<comment><USER10> I agree that for you it's 3 more clicks, but for the millions of other regular users, it's less useless info on the way.

People have to get that it's a product for many, not for all. You can agree with hiding emails or not, but a company as large as Google wouldn't hide it just for the sake of it. Obviously there was research and data that backed that change.

Bottom line is, if it was your company, you'd hide stuff to improve the experience of 90% of your customers at the cost of a few without another thought.

<comment><USER11> While that may be a good point, you also need to consider that Gmail is part of Google Apps for Business. I don't really mind the changes for my personal Gmail account since most of the emails that go through there are quite simple and these changes don't have any real impact on my workflow. But for my work account, it's a whole different story. Most of these changes make my experience quite annoying when dealing with business emails where I often need to copy email addresses, modify subjects, CC people, etc.

Breaking Gmail for business users doesn't seem like a good idea since they are the ones who are actually paying for the service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm torn between strongly agreeing with these points and wanting to comment pointing out that none of them matter..... I hate change for change's sake, but the new gmail compose window has made me more efficient. It took some getting used to however.

Responses to the points made in the article:

1) I can't easily delete my signatures.

Forget about deleting your sig and generally cleaning up email threads. Decent email clients do this on their own and are we really that worried about a few extra bytes of data these days?

2) I can't easily change my email subject.

If its time to edit the subject of an email thread maybe it is time to hit the big read "compose" button and start from scratch anyway.

3) Ok, so what if you want to insert a link or something.

Drag and drop from the address bar. So easy.

4) Rapportive doesn't work.

I've never used rapportive, it sounds awesome. Bummer on this one.

5) You can't easily get access to people's emails. (Also fonts and formatting)

This one does bug me, because they've all become 3 clicks (or new shortcut keys to learn). An option to just always display these things would be good.... but I've evolved and learned the hotkeys.

In conclusion, I've also been a long time gmail user who got cranky at the fact that the new compose form forced me to change my habits. I learned hotkeys and feel it has made me more efficient. Since I try to spend as little time in life being cranky and optimize efficiency I evolved and moved on.

Full list of hotkeys: <https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6594?hl=en>

<comment><USER13> Saying 'hit the big red compose button' totally misses the point of why subjects get edited.

If you'd ever participated in a discussion list, you'd know that sometimes a single discussion thread branches out into multiple smaller threads. The best way to handle this is to reply with a new subject so that threaded conversation views in email clients show it as a new thread, but all the participants stay on the reply-to list and the conversation history remains in the quotes.

Drag and drop from the address bar to insert a link? What is this, Mac OS 9? I've literally never observed a user drag and drop from the address bar. _I_ know it works, but I'm a power user. Do you really think it makes sense to remove an obvious button for a common operation (inserting a link) just because you assume that users know how to drag-and-drop a text selection from a 16 pixel high rectangle?

Maybe all Google's user testers are dragging and dropping fiends so this actually is the reasoning behind it. I don't know how you would find precision drag-and-drop convenient on a typical laptop/chromebook touchpad, though.

<comment><USER14> What you're arguing for is better parent-child discussion relationship management in Gmail. Something like Gmail + Google Group at a much deeper integration level, with the Google Groups part not sucking like Google Groups does now.

Also, I'd love if I could take a mailing list thread (like from NANOG), and with one-click blow it out onto a thread on something like Stack Exchange.

Email needs to continue to evolve. It's role is to remove the friction of communicating tasks, thoughts, ideas, concepts, etc. We need work refining how those things are defined and moved between communication mediums.

/endRant

<comment><USER15> A la Google Wave?

<comment><USER14> Sort of? I can definitely see design elements from Wave in what I'm suggesting; maybe more like a collaborative/group version of www.mailboxapp.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Gmail is now a cluster fuck of terribleness. Who the hell decided it was a good idea to make you type your email in what is basically a slightly larger chat window? Who decided it would be a good idea to put the "reply" edit box at the end of a potentially very long email? Oh, and make it fit like six lines of text. I swear, this is what happens when you let a bunch of kids run the show. "My emails are rarely ever more than 'kthx' or 'heh' so lets get rid of all that useless space!"

<comment><USER17> Probably the same team that has usage data for hundreds of millions of users.

<comment><USER16> I'm gonna quote @kevingadd from down below because I can't say it better myself: "The new gmail is streamlined for particular purposes and not for others. You'd think that one of the biggest data companies in the universe would be able to gather actual data about how people use their software and ensure they aren't making it significantly worse to use for subsets of the customer base. Maybe this is what Google actually did, and they decided they don't care about the 1-10% of their users who use gmail for anything other than sending glorified SMS messages to people."

The new gmail is a toy for kids.

<comment><USER17> Glorified SMS? I get that the compose window is smaller but this is pretty unbelievably hyperbole. On my main screen, I get over 4000 characters before having to scroll and even on my 13" laptop screen, I can fit close to 1700 characters in the compose window before I get a scroll bar (<http://cl.ly/image/0H1A2O3u251U>). In contrast, the "old" version only gives me about 650 characters on my small screen (<http://cl.ly/image/0h3O2H3g0P21>). Perhaps I'm missing something but this seems to free up real estate.

<comment><USER18> It's glorified SMS in that the designer of the feature has explicitly said that they changed the design so that it would basically be glorified chat:

> What it looks like, really, is a slightly oversized version of Gchat. And > that's no accident. Google's actively trying to make email less fussy and > formal--or, in other words, to make it a little more like instant messaging. > And as Jason Cornwell, Gmail's lead designer, explains, one of the ways to > do that is simply to "give you permission to write shorter messages." [...]

> "It was a space that was sort of intimidating, I think, to write a message > like 'Hey, wanna get lunch?'" he explains. "We wanted the new compose to > facilitate these quicker messages. Or at least make it a space where that > felt appropriate."

[http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672250/how-a-tiny-new- compose-w...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672250/how-a-tiny-new-compose- window-could-reinvent-gmail)

<comment><USER19> "hey, let's meet for coffee soooooooon! your shout? :-)"

Dear Google, please don't feel you need to give me permission to write the above. And definitely don't remove or change handy features to achieve such an objective. It's my business how I compose email, and my responsibility for justifying the occasions where a formal style is needed vs casual. Just make the interface useful and stop trying to turn email into something it's not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone really think Photoshop is a good UX for mass consumption (which is obviously the target for Gmail)? I've been using it since version 2, and I think it's a great product, but for new users it's a miserably difficult product to learn, especially for any kind of casual use.

There's a reason why users love apps like Draw Something or (more relevantly) Instagram or Paper. They're able to easily achieve the results they want without investing a huge amount of time in learning the software. Why is that so hard to understand? Not everyone wants to invest 40+ hours in learning Photoshop.

<comment><USER21> Nobody thinks Photoshop has a good UX, but that's not the point; the point is it's been consistent, with only small, helpful changes.

If Adobe redesigned the Photoshop interface they'd instantly love half their market share, as people using software professionally don't like or have the time to learn something new just because it's better in some odd way.

Microsoft did that with Office, the whole Ribbon fiasco, but to their defense: \- Office 2003's UI was extremely complicated; GMail's new extra steps are nothing in comparison. \- The Ribbon UI was well designed from the start. \- All (or most) keyboard shortcuts stayed the same. \- Microsoft actually did extensively test the new design and, being Microsoft, it will be supported for a long time.

Adobe probably wouldn't be able to pull that off, and it looks like even Google can't anymore.

<comment><USER20> Yes, but Photoshop has a totally different target market from Gmail, which is why the article's comparison is nonsensical if not entirely wrong.

Gmail is designed for _everyone_ and has to support the full spectrum of users, in particular the new ones (because they're the ones picking new email accounts - consider that they're partially trying to target people who _still_ don't have email). Photoshop is designed for a very select set of power users. Saying Gmail's interface is becoming less like Photoshop and that's bad makes no sense at all.

You probably wouldn't recommend Photoshop to your Grandma - you'd tell her to use Picasa or iPhoto, both of which I suspect have far more users.

<comment><USER8> If your point is that his analogy wasn't great, I think we'll all concede that point.

<comment><USER20> Well, my point was that the analogy shows the problem with the rest of the post - he's applying a faulty standard to judging if the changes are good ones or not.

If it's just griping that he doesn't like the changes, fine, but if his point is that these are _bad_ changes that don't make sense for the product, then he needs to pick a better analogy.

Everyone wants simpler, more intuitive products, unless it disrupts _their particular workflow_. <http://xkcd.com/1172/>

<comment><USER8> I think despite the weak analogy, his point is obviously valid and solid. Gmail has gotten shittier for _everyone_.

<comment><USER20> That's a pretty broad statement. It seems like what he's written is that it's gotten worse for someone with _his_ use cases, which I'm not arguing (and I fall in that camp.) But we're also not representative of the average email user, which we sometimes have a tendency to forget when judging product changes.

<comment><AUTHOR> @tomkarlo

Photoshop is extremely customisable and full-featured which is what I was getting at. Draw Something is fun and light which works well as a mobile app.

I don't know about the average email user but after 10,000+ hours of using email, I feel like I'm pretty proficient at email :)

<comment><USER20> Understood... but all your points are about the negatives of that, and none are about the positives.

It's pretty easy to come up with a bunch of arbitrary gripes about any major UX change. But you haven't made any effort to contemplate why these changes might make a lot of sense.

For example, you're complaining about the need to do two clicks to make a link, but it seems to me that 90% of the time people just _paste in a URL_ and gmail deals with it properly. Separately entering a link and URL is more like writing HTML and I don't expect regular users do that... and frankly, I'd rather just have the URL anyway. If you knew that users were only using the "add link" icon maybe 1% of the time, wouldn't you move it down a level as well? Or just get rid of it?

I'm a super, super heavy Gmail user - I average ~6,000 emails a month received on my work account, and a smaller but similar flow on my personal gmail. I know and use the keyboard shortcuts. I generally find the mole and the new text formatting UX a bit annoying - but from a product usability perspective - not a design perspective - I can see why they make a lot of sense.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well we all know gmail is great that's why we use it so I didn't want to convert the converted.

It's just I'd like my gmail web app to be more full featured. We can make it chat-like for mobile. I'm glad you're not encumbered by it though.

<comment><USER20> The line between mobile and desktop is rapidly blurring into irrelevance at this point... I'd guess gmail is used from mobile more than desktop at this point, and "mobile" devices are starting to look more and more like "desktops" when it comes to things like tablets, Android laptops (more of which are reportedly coming from the major OEMs over the next few months) and the Surface.

Expect to see more web services looking more like mobile, because while it used to be they were primarily web sites with mobile access, they're turning into mobile apps with some desktop web access. Installed base on PC vs. mobile should cross over this year, and usage trend is already ahead of that for lots of services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> On a related note: did Google hire some broken UX person with an immense fetish for annoying popups and interruptions? It seems that almost every product has some sort of "oh, let me intrude into your day and tell you about some annoying UX misfeature that you have to stop everything you are doing and look at right now"-popup nowadays.

Of course, since I have 3-4 Google accounts (work, personal, hobby projects etc) I get each and every one of these popups at least 3-4 times.

Whatever clown is responsible for this at Google: stop it. Fucking stop it right now. And if you work for Google and you read this and you have something to do with UX, please quote me in the next meeting you go to and be sure to include the word "clown" and the word "fuck". If that doesn't help I have a 4 by 6 foot poster of my ugly mug looking disapprovingly down on you mailed to you. I can mail that to 1600 amphitheatre parkway mountain view ca 94043 and whenever someone gets the urge to make a popup: point to the poster and shout "BJØRN SAYS NO POPUPS!" until their ears bleed.

<comment><USER23> 4 feet by 6 feet, you say?

<comment><USER24> Do you have spam filters for traditional corporal mails as well, Matt? It'd never bypass them in that case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm normally pretty easy to please with UI changes, but even I'm a little frustrated with some of the new compose quirks.

Personally, I've had a very hard time putting together bulleted lists in the new compose. To start the list, you need to click the underlined _A_ (for Additional Formatting), then the familiar bulleted list icon. I can live with that, though I'd certainly prefer one click.

To do a nested list, though, I often get confused and frustrated. With your existing list, you need to click the underlined _A_ , then click what appears to be the left align icon, which is the Align Menu. From there, Indent More is what you're looking for. It took me quite a while to figure this out, and I still find myself forgetting it frequently. Even when I do remember, I'm frustrated by the maze of clicking I have to go through.

I also have trouble with hyperlinks, often clicking the attachment button instead of hovering over the plus to reveal the chained hyperlink icon. I don't know that I've ever used the attachment button (other than mistakenly), as I always drag files onto the message to attach instead.

For me, pretty much the only formatting options I want are lists and links, and those are pretty inconvenient to access.

<comment><USER26> Learning the following keyboard shortcuts for formatting bullet lists made the transition to the new compose UI much less painful for me:

      ctrl + shift + 8 to create a new bullet list
      ctrl + ] to indent right
      ctrl + [ to indent left

<comment><USER21> Ctrl + Shift + 8? You gotta be shitting me!

Ctrl + ] & [ to indent? What's wrong with Tab & Shift-Tab, like in _every_ other app?

<comment><USER27> Uh, [tab] usually switches focus to next control, and shift-tab switches focus to previous control.

Thus, when I hit [tab] now focus is taken out of this text box and to the reply button.

<comment><USER28> HN discourages formatting. We don't indent posts, we don't have nested lists.

Gmail and email encourage formatting. You're writing a letter, not a twitter post.

<comment><USER27> That's irrelevant to the point in the parent that I was responding to - <USER2> every app uses tab to format text. Most apps don't. There are a limited section of apps that use tab for text formatting. I'm pretty sure most web browsers never have, although I welcome examples of web browsers that do.

If people want to write real email they can use a real client, not a web interface.

<comment><USER28> I think it's relevant. I expect app designers to use the keybindings that make sense based on what the user wants to do instead of blindly adopting whatever guidelines the OS suggests.

If you're in the shell, "tab" should tab-complete, not move to the next terminal you have open.

If you're in a shooting game, "tab" should reload your weapon or show scores or whatever, not advance your cursor to the next target.

If you're in MS word, tab should indent the next line, not move to a different control.

If you're writing an email, same thing, because "writing" is most like "writing in MS word."

Re: your second point, Gmail _is_ a really good "real" web client, at least for most people, and this is a small step away from that.

<comment><USER29> None of your other examples have the conflict of running within a browser, and the browser already having an expected behaviour for tab, including an expected behaviour for tab inside a text box / edit field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wouldn't consider myself a gmail power user, but I do use it as my every day email. I love the new updates. Most of the things that gmail makes hard (and when the author says hard he means an extra click) are things that are rarely, if ever, done by me. This is exactly how I think email should function, make the stuff you use most easy.

The author mentions things like "It's hard to delete my signature." I've never done that, and if you find yourself deleting your signature all the time you might want to figure out a different work-flow / change your signature.

Most of the time when I'm trying to send an email I want to get in and out of the editor as fast as possible. I feel like the new gmail is streamlined for that exact purpose.

<comment><USER31> When Gmail first launched, they made a big deal of the fact that their user testing revealed ~11 different types of user with distinct workflows. They made sure the Gmail interface supported all those workflows well. It seems like the new interface is going after just one or two, and making life harder for everyone else. I think I will switch back to a desktop email client for day-to-day use and only use the web interface when I'm on a different computer.

<comment><USER32> Do you have a link? Curious to see what kind of user I am (I also generally like the new interface; seems perfectly fine for me).

<comment><USER33> I'm pretty sure I'm not on that list. I've never liked the way the gmail web client works.

* I've always disliked conversation view, and I keep ending up turning it off whenever I try it

* The lack of ability to sort emails is really annoying

* The layout of emails, particularly when trying to reply to an email, I find confusing - in particular it would make far more sense to have the text box at the top of the page

That being said, I probably dislike it less now than when I first started using it so I think the changes have generally been positive.

On a side note, I think Photoshop is also a UI disaster area.

<comment><USER34> * I've always disliked conversation view, and I keep ending up turning it off whenever I try it

>>I hated it deeply, thoroughly till I used it for a while. Now I can't live without it.

* The lack of ability to sort emails is really annoying

>>It took me some time to rely on search.

* The layout of emails, particularly when trying to reply to an email, I find confusing - in particular it would make far more sense to have the text box at the top of the page

>>Neutral on this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Yes, yes, yes. What the fuck is going on with design/UX at gmail? It just becomes suckier progressively.

Yesterday I attached a document 3-4 times during the course of my writing the email because there is no way to know if a document has been attached already. But if you start uploading another document, it will list out the documents already attached. What an incredible fail. And sadly, this is a trend, not an edge case complaint.

This reeks of design-by-committee fail. It seems like an experience built on compromises to merely accommodate ideas of many different individuals even if those ideas together make the experience suckier.

<comment><USER36> This is what I see after attaching a file. What do you see?

<comment><USER36> Oops, forgot link: <http://imgur.com/b3iW4p5>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I feel like a lot of people are mistaking gmail's opinionated UI design for a design failure. Changing the subject isn't difficult because the designers failed at making it easy, it's difficult because the designers succeeded at making it difficult. They really, really don't want you to change the subject because consistent subject lines are essential to gmail's conversation threading functionality, so they've made it as difficult as possible.

similarly, the hiding of all the formatting options: they have all that space available, and they've quite deliberately chosen to hide things anyways. there's no way they just did it to make the compose window prettier, they want you to stop using so much formatting in your emails. Read the interview[1] with gmail's designer, they are trying to use a simpler UI to encourage faster and smaller responses and lower friction conversations. By and large, people are using email as a messaging tool, not to sit down and spend half an hour composing a letter, and they are adapting gmail to cater to this behaviour. you might disagree with their goals, but don't mistake your disagreement with their direction for a failure to advance their direction.

[1][http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672250/how-a-tiny-new- compose-w...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672250/how-a-tiny-new-compose- window-could-reinvent-gmail)

<comment><USER38> > They really, really don't want you to change the subject because consistent > subject lines are essential to gmail's conversation threading functionality, > so they've made it as difficult as possible.

So, as someone who doesn't use Gmail, I'm finding this (not just your mention of this, but others as well) confusing: what happened to In-Reply-To and References? I thought that using the Subject for threading was something you only did in a worst-case fallback scenario if you see something that looks like a reply but is somehow missing the required headers to establish the threading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Google has been infected by the "minimalistic design" disease in the last few years. The term evidently means "hide everything from the user and present them with a pure white surface". It looks beautiful. The sensitive artist types running google UI now love that. Look at all that negative space. Orgasmic. Ship it.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that attaching large images makes the composer completely unusable. It is so bad it makes me wonder if anyone in Google actually uses the new composer.

They've fixed one bug where the image wouldn't scale to fit the size of its container (i.e. if you had a 3000x3000px image it would render 1:1 as opposed to being shrunk down), but even with the scaling it's still incredibly hard to navigate emails with more than one picture in it. I mean, I have a 1080p monitor, _let me use it!_

</comment><comment><USER41> To all the people complaining about text formatting in Gmail, I strongly recommend Markdown Here: <https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here>. It lets you write emails as markdown and compile them to HTML in the email composition form. (I have mine bound to CTRL-ALT-Q). It works extremely well, I can easily store my emails in plain-text if I need to, I write emails in my text editor, and the Markdown utilities there make formatting much faster. It's great.

Chrome extension: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/markdown- here/elif...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/markdown- here/elifhakcjgalahccnjkneoccemfahfoa) FF/Thunderbird extension: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/markdown- here...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/markdown-here/)

As for the UI complaints, I haven't hit too many of them, but those that I have have been very irritating. I don't use an email signature ATM, but I have run into the hard-to-change-sending-address quite a bit (I use <email>+<category>@gmail.com quite a bit), and didn't even know you could do it until just now. I only started using Gmail recently, so I can't say if it's worse, though it seems to be from what I've heard.

</comment><comment><USER42> I have new compose disabled. It's just more incompetent UI design from Google. Even their search page is bad. There are two menu bars after I run a search including two More drop downs and the poorly named Search Tools which seems to change frequently as they A/B test ever worse designs on me. I was hoping Marissa leaving would allow them to hire real designers.

<comment><USER43> I agree. I am annoyed by the two menu bars, and also +You thing. Further i used Google Scholar regularly, but now I cannot find it even in the drop down menu. I cannot customize those menu bars, according to my use case. Also, there used to be an option to search videos, instead it has now been replaced with a Youtube option. It is amazing, Google used to be so custom friendly, atleast I perceived them to be...and with advent of G+..........

<comment><USER44> You guys should see what they've done with Groups. :( The inmates have truly taken over the Googleplex asylum.

<comment><USER43> Well, no going back now. With upcoming Google Glass this behavior will become even more prevalent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Considering Google made all those changes to make the experience better and managing mails easier for most people, I think the author should recognise that he's in the minority - an edge case - and maybe consider switching to an email client that suits his needs rather than whine about one that works just great for many other people.

<comment><USER46> How difficult would it be, though, for Google to hide some advanced options in settings for power users to enable? Always Expand Header, Always Expand Collapsed Content, etc.

When you're handling more than one or two emails in succession, every keyboard-shortcut that became a triple-click-drag adds up and takes time.

I don't believe the author is an extreme minority - Google should cater to all of its customers - requesting that Google add a few options to enable power user mode isn't unreasonable in the slightest.

<comment><USER47> I realize it's from a different product, but I find that these 'minority' cases in Google products are often summed up by:

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=223070#c...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=223070#c7)

"Why was this closed if we're leaving it for future consideration?"

"Because it's asking for an option and we don't do options."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> As far as I understand, these UI changes are there to empower "multitasking" and bring Gmail closer to the way social networks and chat work. Now, I loathe the new compose, I like writing my emails in a structured way, with proper formatting, which this new feature doesn't let me do easily (or comfortably); I often use them as reference for docs and whatnot.

I'm not saying this doesn't work for some people, but when I see that a large number of people I communicate with can barely read or write properly as it is, I fail to understand how empowering multitasking will make things any better. I'm a bit tired of the "social networks way" becoming the end-all, be- all.

<comment><USER49> "I'm a bit tired of the "social networks way" becoming the end-all, be-all."

Hear, Hear!

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Honest question, why would someone use the gmail ui at all, even before the 2013 changes?

I have rules setup in gmail, and sometimes when I need _very good_ search I will login to search, but everything else Outlook covers fine/better. Mac guys at the office use Mail.

I've always thought of gmail.com as nice for vacations or using someone elses or crazy times when I dont have laptop/phone/tablet by some act of god

<comment><USER12> My personal response:

I use outlook for my work email, where I am an "inbox zero" guy. I get an average of around 10 emails a day, so this isn't hard.

I use gmail for my personal email addresses (I have a heap of gmail and other hosted accounts all pointing to one central gmail account). I get HEAPS of emails a day. I read the important ones and skim the rest by having my browser window nice and wide and just reading what is displayed on the inbox screen. I treat my gmail inbox unread emails count as a highscore. I have 12,440 unread emails in my gmail inbox. I'm winning my little game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> As always, I feel like people are more averted to a change to a product than the product itself. People complain in droves about how "everything is RUINED" in Facebook or Gmail, but simple fact of the matter is that you can do far more in both than ever before.

Gmail features like fulltext label search make me prefer it over almost every other email client. And the author's comment about it being "too hard to change the subject" is by design, because it both breaks threading and pisses people off when you change the subject of an ongoing thread. New subject? Write a new email, idiot.

</comment><comment><USER52> Every UI designer knows the backstory of the QWERTY keyboard, how the designers arranged the keys to intentionally slow down the users, to prevent typing errors.

Well, Gmail's new pop-up Compose window makes me wonder if designers sometimes need to create interfaces that slow down users' cognitive processes as well.

In theory, it's more efficient to write emails using the pop-up window because you can easily reference other messages. But in practice it makes me less productive because I feel distracted by seeing all of the other messages.

<comment><USER53> Actually, the QWERTY-layout made typing a lot faster, since the keys didn't jam together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Gmail is the application which has made me realize a big weakness of web applications. The web was supposed to make "application upgrades" painless and instant. After GMail's recent changes, I would really love to "download old version of Gmail"; however its web, I can't do that!

<comment><USER55> I was given the option to go back to the old version..?

<comment><USER56> So was I, and I took it, and I'm still using the old version. Thankfully. The day they force me onto the new version I'll go back to Thunderbird, using the gmail backend only as a searchable archive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> The biggest disappointment was to kill drag and drop attachments. Now you have to click the paper clip and pick the picture (one by one!) form your PC.

In my opinion that's an indication that Google wants to discourage you from adding a lot of attachments to your mail because they don't make money off the bandwidth you are using. To me its another indication that Gmail at some point in near future may be doomed to sunset.

<comment><USER43> Bang On. I encountered this a week before too. I had to pick the pictures, drag and drop just in-lined them. On attaching the pictures, there was hardly any space in the window left to write any words. I am in transition to another email provider, but I am being forced to do so, and at a critical juncture for me personally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seriously I don't want to inline pictures sometimes. And guess what? If you delete it? You don't know if the picture is still attached because there is no visual feedback. Try it.

1\. hit c 2\. drag a picture into email 3\. delete picture from email body 4\. now i don't know if it's in attachment still or just removed from body.

<comment><USER43> Yes. I had to double check too, since the pictures were of wide dimensions. I totally agree with the original post, I am also personally annoyed by this change. Another thing i hate is how it hides the "sent from" address, when the text focus is in the body. I use lots of emails aliases, and want to double check the address that I am sending the e-mail from. I have to click on the field, to see the address again. It is just one more click involved, instead of a glance.

This is exactly why, I am moving onto outlook.com or maybe as another poster suggested use it as a spam filter and set up my stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> "I can't easily change my email subject." This is so crucial since threads are created using the subject. Easily the most frustrating thing about Gmail.

SHOW THE SUBJECT! I have sent 3 emails before which all said "TIME SENSITIVE" only to find out later, that only the first was really time sensitive. For non-gmail users getting those emails, this is terrible.

</comment><comment><USER59> _There is a tradeoff in HCI that is between ease and efficiency. It seems Gmail is less easy to use AND less efficient. The only improvement seems to be design._

Speaking as an Interaction Design student, please don't confuse looks with design - the whole article is essentially about how the author thinks this is bad interface design.

</comment><comment><USER60> I don't know if anyone else has this problem but since I use VI for code editing I have a twitch reaction to hit escape a lot when I'm editing text.

This actually closes the compose window now. Which is incredibly frustrating. I know it's not a mainstream user problem just something that effect my perception of Gmail on a daily basis.

<comment><USER61> If you use firefox, try the "it's all text" plugin (although I don't know for sure if it works with the new gmail compose). You can write in the editor of your choice.

<comment><USER62> Nope, new compose breaks that as well, and it used to work fine. Guess it's finally time to switch to mutt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Am I the only one who finds email signatures entirely obsolete nowadays?

<comment><AUTHOR> how do people know your phone number and twitter otherwise?

<comment><USER63> 99% of the people I email already know me, and can look up any of those details in an address book or social network. On the rare occasion I'm making first contact, I'm more likely to take care over communicating further contact info in the body of the email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> c--misura I understand how some of these changes could frustrate users, but, honestly, the analogy ( used in the title ) of 'Photoshop' being user friendly just doesn't hold water. Also, the idea that every choice in UX needs to fit neatly into some Jakob Nielsen checklist is antiquated. I don't think developers/designers should blatantly ignore proven UI methodologies, but there does need to be a balance between standards, and aesthetics, or else, an application runs risk of becoming steril.

</comment><comment><USER64> Google is great at ruining their UI. Starts out really well; you get a lot of power tools, the simple stuff is really easy to access and there's nothing confusing about the UI. And then it takes a nose dive after a few updates. Just look at how awful Youtube is. It's a disaster in there. It's almost as if the UI staff has a quota of changes that they have to fulfill every quarter lest they get tossed into a cauldron.

</comment><comment><USER65> How can this - <http://i.imgur.com/0mTa36W.png> be better than this - <http://i.imgur.com/FvnkaWX.png> ?!?

There should be some serious psychological research into the possible causes for such glitches of common sense.

<comment><USER66> One definite advantage: with the new design you can still navigate around your Inbox, open and reference other emails, etc. I've found this useful since the redesign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> For whatever it's worth, it's possible to temporarily switch back to the old compose [1]. Perhaps this is well-known, but I just discovered it.

[1] [http://www.ghacks.net/2013/04/01/switch-to-gmails-old- compos...](http://www.ghacks.net/2013/04/01/switch-to-gmails-old-compose- window/)

</comment><comment><USER68> I hate the new interface for a simpler reason -- why would I want to take the size of my writing area way down???? So I haven't used it.

Any word on when Google will force users to switch? That's my deadline for finding an alternate email client.

</comment><comment><USER69> Just make the switch to a desktop client. Lots of friends have been complaining about the new GMail UI and each time I recommend the same thing.

I personally use Sparrow, but it seems like it has been abandoned since Google bought it.

<comment><AUTHOR> But the cloud...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I agree with you. The newest updates annoy me a lot, especially the signature one - I commonly write emails in two languages and I need to check if the signature is the correct one; a pain now.

Furthermore I use the web client to manage all my email addresses, because it is, well was, convenient. Now if I need to send from a different address I have to take extra steps. WHY?!

But what alternative is there?

I'm on Windows 8. The built in Metro mail app is... not that great. Outlook 2013 has some parts Metro, some parts leftover from all the way back in '95. I'm not particularly fond of Yahoo either.

</comment><comment><USER70> 1\. I never change my signature, really, who cares? I've registered several domains on my google apps, and when I change the email address I'm using, the signature changes automatically.

2\. If you need to change the subject, maybe you need a new email.

3\. Attaching a file?, just drag and drop from the download bar, or from the folder... Links really dont need to click the button.

4\. Maybe your contacts use tweeter, but most of the industries dont, dont mess our email system with tweeter. It's awesome and anything you say, but it's almost exclusive of IT/media industry.

5\. It's quite rare for someone to change the sending email address. I've several but I only change the email address when I really need. Most of the time, everybody knows my main address. (I happen to manage several companies, each of them with a simple webpage, I always receive my email at r __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __*a.com, but I also have the other addresses just in case. Anyway, I always use the same. (Does Bill Gates used @microsoft.com @xbox.com @hotmail.com @….. =

In conclussion, Gmail is awesome for bussines, try Streak for managing your mail chains with other parts of your company and you will love it. The only thing I really need is an option to attach a Google DOC directly as PDF on a Email on Gmail, and chain it up to Streak.

EDIT: Sometimes I'm writing an email, and then I have to search for another one, or I receive a call. Sometimes I can be redacting an email for 4 hrs because I get busy. It's neat to minimize it and keep work rolling.

</comment><comment><USER71> Time to try Outlook.com buddy. That product beats GMail anytime.

<comment><USER21> I gave it a 5 minute trial. Can't figure out if it supports multiple addresses.

<comment><USER72> it does. setting icon>more mail settings>managing your account

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> The whole redesign seems to based on the idea that I need to look at my inbox when composing an email. Well, I don't.

And I personally use inbox in one tab and the compose email in the other. It is easier to switch tabs than learning to use the new interface. Also, it is frustrating to type in the smaller compose window. Seriously Google has screwed up the interface of Analytics and Gmail in the last year.

Who ever has been doing there UI is surely not getting the User Feedback.

</comment><comment><USER74> I was once a big Gmail fan and have had a Gmail account since 2005. However, in recent years I think they screwed with the user interface too much, turning something which was once very simple and elegant into a confusing mess. There's always the temptation to add more and more features. Now I just use Gmail as a glorified spam filter and forward mail to my own local server.

<comment><USER75> This. And mine is a backup dump too - if all else fails, its in gmail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> > "There is a tradeoff in HCI that is between ease and efficiency. It seems > Gmail is less easy to use AND less efficient. The only improvement seems to > be design."

I would argue that the improvement is the arrangement of pixels to be more eye pleasing -- design improvement would be addressing all of those issues outlined. In fact, this is a design failure.

</comment><comment><USER77> There seems to be this tendency for good UIs to degrade over time. A good UI usually comes from someone who knows the basic principles of good UI design: unit economy, intuitiveness, ergonomics, simplicity/minimalism, uniformity, etc. But then, later, people "improve" on this original design template.

</comment><comment><USER78> I'm planing to move to fastmail.fm in the near future. I find the Gmail UI very sluggish and quite the opposite of being user friendly, and I also don't have any guarantee I won't become a horror story about how Google automatically shut down my account without me doing anything wrong.

<comment><USER5> The FastMail UI is the best webmail interface I have used. It has keybindings for just about everything, and the UI is snappy and intuitive. Did I mention it doesn't hit me up to join Google+ or give it my mobile?

Moving to FastMail from GMail for personal emails, and self-hosted (via Thunderbird) for business emails, has been nothing but a pleasure.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> wow you guys totally crashed my little wordpress site. sorry it's down now :(

<comment><USER79> This is the place to ask if you need advice on how to optimize WordPress to survive traffic surges.

<comment><AUTHOR> @josefresco Really haha? I thought it was just because I have a cheap hosting service. But yes, advice would be great :)

<comment><USER79> Sorry for the late reply, the lowest hanging fruit with WordPress assuming your theme isn't bloated is to implement a caching plugin.

This will serve static HTML instead of hitting your DB every page request. There are others but since this post has now aged I'm assuming you have moved on. Contact me if you want specific help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> One thing that annoys me in GMail is the fact that it doesn't support .eml files. Every time someone sends me an .eml I have to open my desktop mail client, wait for it to download all mails and then check what's in the file. Exporting mails to .eml would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER81> There are many keyboard shortcuts available for gmail. You have to enable keyboard shortcuts in the settings though. See this link: [http://gizmodo.com/5995218/a-cheat-sheet-of-every-single- gma...](http://gizmodo.com/5995218/a-cheat-sheet-of-every-single-gmail- keyboard-shortcut) Or enable keyboard shortcuts in gmail and press shift + '/'

Some of these keyboard shortcuts address some of the issues pointed out in the post, but I did not see any shortcuts that allow you to edit the subject in a composition window though.

I have not been terribly inconvenienced by the changes to the interface.

</comment><comment><USER82> I never really used this Gmail design in the first place, I'm in love with the "basic HTML" version which you can choose as default interface.

</comment><comment><USER83> Consider even task to "open the contacts list". Who would guess it is hidden under "Gmail logo with dropdown arrow"? [0] Yes, after such recall it is single 'clickdrag' operation, but still, recognition just passed out.

[0] [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1571982/shots/gmail- open...](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1571982/shots/gmail-open- contacts.gif)

</comment><comment><USER84> My major gripe is that some formatting is completely hidden, making it impossible to deal with.

I've often tried to copy-paste from an email thread to a new compose window, which looks like it works. But then the resulting email has a line break after each word!

The clear-formatting button doesn't reveal this, nor does plain-text mode - this has led to a number of embarrassing emails.

</comment><comment><USER85> The spell checker used to be great. It was a one-click feature (even if you needed to change language). Now, with the "improved UI" it's hidden away under a drop down menu, which on click brings yet another floating menu where you have to click a second arrow to change language. It's a mess. I hope they don't take away the old compose UI.

</comment><comment><USER86> I think Yahoo mail beats Gmail at many levels..especially the newest UI. It feels like working from desktop email client.

<comment><USER87> I've been using yahoo mail for so long now I cant remember. 15 years, maybe. I'm not going to wave flags for it, but in all these years I have never seen a half decent reason to ever consider changing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Completely agree. Still clinging onto my old GMail UI for dear life in both gmail.com and hosted flavors.

</comment><comment><USER89> Try your native email client. gmail has IMAP for free over HTTPS, and is available on every Android device, so I don't understand what this post is trying to say. If you don't like the web interface, go try one of the other hundred options that are also free.

</comment><comment><USER90> Maybe it's time more of us thought about the drawbacks of relying so much on a program that is proprietary, that we can't even hold onto a particular version of, and where the users are (mostly) not customers but part of the product offered to someone else.

</comment><comment><USER91> It doesn't suck, but its certainly not as good. I was holding on to the old UI as long as I could but now that option is gone.

I've grudgingly got used to the new compose UI but I agree its nowhere near as quick and easy as the old one was in an effort to be "cleaner".

</comment><comment><USER34> All great points. I'm surprised that I never experienced these problems till you pointed it out. Could be because my usage of Gmail is strictly personal. I would have run into these I used it for work (deleting signature, modifying subject etc.).

</comment><comment><USER92> I switched back to hotmail after using gmail for so many years because of this ...

</comment><comment><USER93> My biggest gripe is the lack of a shortcut key to refresh/check for new mail without refreshing the page... everything else is just background noise compared to the lack of a shortcut key for refresh/check for new mail.

</comment><comment><USER94> People expect email to be instant now, despite SMTP not exactly being built for it. I'm sure there is a non-zero number of users who would think the undo delay was the gmail service being "slow".

</comment><comment><USER95> That's the thing what can happen with all the cloud services. They say it gets better over time but it can also get worse and you can only begging, hoping and crying that it will get fixed.

</comment><comment><USER96> To quickly access the signature and (when applicable) the cumulative email thread text, press Ctrl/Cmd + a to bring them into the compose editor.

This is often faster than "click[ing] on three tiny dots."

</comment><comment><USER97> I see this as a good motivator for moving away from webmail and using some offline e software, perhaps Thunderbird or mutt that will be more likely to keep its UI experience consistent.

</comment><comment><USER98> It's become a common topic to just pown any change to any service from google or any large company alike. And I just don't see the point.

Google knows people that dislike changes are always louder than people that like changes. It doesn't mean they are in larger number. So no matter how hard you scream, don't fool yourself into thinking companies take these change decision lightly. The article claims it lack of UI tests which is an ignorant assumption.

The goal of the new compose is very clear. Allow you to write an email while still reading others. It undoubtedly completed the goal. Of course there are some drawbacks like having to remove fields that would be visible by default otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER99> Regarding email formatting, I'm pretty sure that for a given message once you click on the formatting tools once, the bar stays open because they know you are formatting things.

</comment><comment><USER100> Gmail got where they are for:

\- being offered by 2000 google, a company everyone loved and trusted

\- having a slick and useful UI

it's not missing both those points. That means the market it serve is there for the taking!

<comment><USER101> Gmail got where it is because it offered a 2GB inbox when everyone else offered 25MB. It basically created a whole new market and got first mover advantage.

<comment><USER100> which would mean nothing if it was offered my hotmail.

the 2GB is a huge falacy. it only matered for us nerds. the bulky just moved because it was "google email"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> TLDR: Gmail, my favorite email program, rolled out the "new compose experience" and then forced everyone to change to it, and everything about it sucks.

</comment><comment><USER103> we recently switched to MailQuatro.com, you can keep your gmail and you can also create customized email addresses at your domain

</comment><comment><USER104> Would certainly be nice if Gmail had pins (or some config page) to optionally keep minimalized/hidden stuff open by default.

</comment><comment><USER105> I agree with all the criticisms in the article and in the HN comments.

But my biggest gripe with the new Gmail - it is UGLY.

</comment><comment><USER106> > Internal Server Error

<comment><USER107> I made a screenshot (seems like the pictures aren't working for the cache links): <http://i.imgur.com/lSC4g0C.jpg>

<comment><USER21> Surely you could've made it a PNG!

<http://awesomescreenshot.com/00e18gxe65>

<comment><USER107> Damn you, imgur! I actually uploaded a PNG :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> pine

</comment><comment><USER109> Use a real mail client. The web is terrible for non-CRUD work.

</comment><comment><USER110> My biggest gripe is not being to reply all with a single click!

<comment><USER98> You can change the default to reply to all in the settings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> Adding links really is a huge pain in the Compose window now.

</comment><comment><USER112> Rapportive still works for me in the new Gmail

</comment><comment><USER113> For me the worst change was the new Compose email. Very fail because before it was in center of screen, big, easy to compose. Now, it's in the screen corner, so bad!

</comment><comment><USER114> Gmail used to have a single concept, and do very well at that. Someone thought up a vision for how an ideal simplified email client should work, and made that as a web application.

Then the usual cruft built up. People wanted to "add features," not realizing that doing so changes the concept of the whole. The interface became non- consistent.

In general, as companies grow, so does the cruft. Projects are no longer in the hands of a single visionary, but a committee. That committee makes demands of programmers, who graft on the new changes. These accumulate and soon inconsistency is the norm.

At that point, users flee to other projects.</comment>


Show HN: C0D3 – A free, interactive site to learn coding - <AUTHOR> https://www.c0d3.com <comment><AUTHOR> Last year, I mentored a few students who are learning coding to become a software engineer from non-traditional backgrounds. Rather than encouraging them to leetcode and practice for interviews, I taught them software engineering practices and mentored them to build c0d3.com together as a team. c0d3.com will be a free learning site where other students like them can learn coding and then help improve the site. As a senior engineer, I made sure to not write any code myself and focused on helping them with code reviews, architecture questions, and holding sprint meetings every Monday at 9:30pm. We document our daily sprint updates here: [https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/wiki/Sprint-H1-2020](https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/wiki/Sprint-H1-2020)

To get beta users for our app, we started a free coding group at our local libraries and got a few dozen active users: [https://www.meetup.com/San- Jose-C0D3/](https://www.meetup.com/San-Jose-C0D3/)

I am pretty happy with the outcome and the code quality. The students wrote unit tests with every pull request, listened to feedback, and achieved 100% code coverage in the codebase. Now, after some user feedback and iterations we are ready to give a preview of what we worked on. Any feature suggestions / feedback will become learning opportunities for the next generation of students.

Last month, a rec opened up on my team and I was able to hire one of these students. If I could hire all of them, I would. If anyone here is hiring, please consider hiring these awesome students who worked hard to make c0d3.com possible (I've listed their code contributions and linkedIn profiles): [https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/wiki](https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/wiki)

<comment><USER4> You said, " Rather than encouraging them to leetcode and practice for interviews, I taught them software engineering practices...".

How do you square that with the reality that many software jobs have leetcode as a gate to an offer? I find myself stuck at this juncture. I am comfortable with software practices, but the reality of these sorts of interviews has me basically trying to figure out how to "hack" the coding interview portions. It's somewhat beneficial, in terms of pushing me to improve my solving skills and data structure/algorithmic understanding, but I obviously can't help feeling that a lot of the time I'm spending is tail-chasing, as a lot of the problems I encounter seem to be very far removed from the reality of day-to- day web development.

<comment><USER5> The reality is that you need to practice that stuff in order to get through the first interview or two at many companies. It is most likely helping with web development even if it isn't obvious how. Kinda like how lifting weights and jogging helps someone be better at their favorite sport. Think of it as cross-training.

<comment><USER4> I think this is the best frame of mind to keep me pushing forward. Maybe once I'm at the top of the food chain I'll be able to have some impact on these practices lol Thanks for the advice!

<comment><AUTHOR> make sure to remember your promises to yourself. Many people get stuck in the fame and glamor and stop giving a shit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a student here, I can say the learning experience has been like no other!

I am a self-taught developer going on 5+ years of online self-study. After the virus and lockdown hit, I managed to find c0d3.

What makes c0d3 different from other platforms like freeCodeCamp, CodeAcademy, Udemy, etc.?

I feel that here at c0d3 we focus more on community and helping one another out than anywhere else. Learning to code (particularly as a beginner) can be a very daunting and lonely task at times.

The learning structure is very unique in that you are forced to get your hands on code immediately and use practical skills (using git, etc.) to submit challenges and continue down the curriculum path. After each submission, your code is then peer-reviewed by another student who has already passed that particular section you are on.

Among all these amazing aspects that c0d3 brings to the table, I believe the most prominent one is the ability to work on real-world projects (such as c0d3 itself) as a student, in an actual engineering team comprised of other students and learners such as yourself.

This experience has by far eclipsed any other I have had anywhere else during my self-studying journey!

<comment><USER7> I totally agree. The experience mirrors what you would be doing at a tech company. Song definitely planned this correctly.

<comment><USER8> hey, is in the website react, graphql resources are also available , thing is i am not able to click on the react in the website which is mentioned at the last

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> All: much of this thread has been arguing about the definition of the word 'engineer'. That's not interesting in HN's sense of the word, and it's a shame not to be discussing the specifics of this project. Since that word 'engineer' seems to be so activating, I've taken it out of the title. Please comment out of curiosity going forward.

<comment><USER7> that's very unfortunate that people get stuck on something like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> man, we definitely need more initiatives like this, the pandemic ended my small business and I no longer have a source of income. learning programming is my only hope at this moment and I'm sure there are more people in the same situation. A free and dedicated course to the community is all we need right now. Please count on me for anything you need and I can collaborate. Already signed up!

<comment><USER11> I'm in the process of creating something similar with www.thecloud.coach. My aim is DevOps, though, not software development.

<comment><USER12> Small world, fellow Brissie resident! How long would the courses take to complete, roughly? Might be useful information on the courses list :)

<comment><USER11> The landing page is in the design phase, right now :-)

I'm writing the book and making the sure the code is valid. Keep an eye out as I'll post something here about it when I'm done.

I've got a Discord too if you're interested in having a chat? It's on the website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> shameless plug: If you want an editor/IDE for JS without installation and with Linux shell, try [https://webide.se/](https://webide.se/) you get access to a dedicated server where you can run Docker, Android emulator, etc. Useful when you are on a Chromebook that don't have Linux support, or want to code on a mobile phone or tablet ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><AUTHOR> really cool. Did you build the whole thing yourself? it has so many functionalities I can get lost digging and playing into this.

<comment><USER13> I've made it for myself and have been using it for my daily dev environment. It's very fun to work on it so I've put a lot of time into it. Just have to implement e-mail/IMAP support with bayesian filters and I can call it a real editor ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _# Why Learn JS?

JavaScript is the only language that lets you do every aspect of technology._

This is misleading at best.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, I haven't had time to revisit it to improve the wording, will do it tonight. This is really what I meant:

Our decision behind JavaScript:

We want our students to understand technology at a conceptual level first, end to end:

1\. Client side - Mobile, web, terminal 2. Server side - <USER3> interactions, system design and optimization 3. Batch - ML models and scripting

AFAIK, JavaScript is the only language that is able to cover everything end to end (front end to backend to scripting to even ML) so I'm able to come up with appropriate exercises for each of the moving parts.

Afterwards, they should pickup domain specific language that optimizes for each task.

I think it may be too overwhelming for students to learn different languages and learn the high level concepts at the same time.

Unfortunately, there may be more instances of word choices. Each lesson is about 4-5k words (totaling 30k) and I simply don't have enough time to think critically on every word so feedback like these helps. Feel free to bring these up in the chatroom and help us improve our wording!

<comment><USER15> I think you are right and I'm annoyed that you are. Because I think JavaScript is a really hard language to master. Ubiquitous yes, versatile yes but so full of cruft and bad design decisions that it really can put many people off programming.

<comment><USER16> And the ecosystem is a confusing, overwhelming mess.

<comment><USER17> I personally think it's only as overwhelming and confusing as one's predisposition to FOMO. I stopped worrying when I found out at meetups and interviews that it really doesn't work like that in most parts of the real world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I learned how to code using c0d3.com and it has helped me find a job. c0d3 gave me the fundamentals of full stack development both the technicals skills along with critical thinking skills. I was previously a developer on the c0d3.com team

</comment><comment><USER19> The best part about C0d3 is the community of supportive ppl you'll meet. When faced with what might feel like a dead end, you'll never feel like it's time to give up because there's always going to be either Song or someone else there to help guide you through it.

C0d3 was way more helpful for me in learning programming than a college room filled with hundreds of students, and only one professor and a limited # of TAs to help.

Thanks to Song & C0d3, I've developed the strong foundation of engineering I needed to land multiple Developer Advocate roles.

10/10 would recommend lol.

</comment><comment><USER20> I appreciate the approach where you combine a text chat with an online course, though feels a bit strange that the content is on notion.so.

Contentwise, I have the feeling that there are at least 3 distinct skill sets with ~ 10% overlap for a swe career: Passing coding interviews, actual software engineering, climbing the corporate ladder. There is certainly a web comic for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah the notion is there for me to capture all the things I want to make sure students know, its a quick way for me to jot down notes and reorganize content when I notice common struggles among students when understanding different concepts.

Eventually, I want to have a fully integrated experience and I have all that planned out. I'm just waiting for more students to join our engineering team and start contributing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This appears to be focused almost entirely on Javascript outside of the html/css/databases portion.

Curious if there are plans to expand it into python or other languages.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our decision behind JavaScript:

We want our students to understand technology at a conceptual level first, end to end:

1\. Client side - Mobile, web, terminal 2\. Server side - <USER3> interactions, system design and optimization 3\. Batch - ML models and scripting

AFAIK, JavaScript is the only language that is able to cover everything end to end (front end to backend to scripting to even ML) so I'm able to come up with appropriate exercises for each of the moving parts.

Afterwards, they should pickup domain specific language that optimizes for each task.

I think it may be too overwhelming for students to learn different languages and learn the high level concepts at the same time.

<comment><USER22> " _I think it may be too overwhelming for students to learn different languages and learn the high level concepts at the same time._ "

That would take literally years.

<comment><USER23> I'm currently teaching a friend of mine "Computer Science" (he means programming primarily, but a bit of theory). He showed me his spreadsheet where he laid out his grand plan for the summer, in which he plans on basically covering the whole of CLRS in a week.

I explain things and help him write better code when he sends me stuff he's written but it's difficult to best explain that I've spent _years_ getting to the point where I can write good, efficient, code - let alone starting almost genuinely from scratch ("What's a terminal"), and with an all too common disease that I'm going to call "Let you google that for me"

There's probably a joke in that he goes to Harvard and I go to a university you've probably never heard of but hey ho

<comment><USER24> The (old, old) joke is...

"You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I was once a proud member of this community, learned all basics and built my career with help of this coding community.After one working and learning with all folks in this community I landed up with three job offers. Today I am a happy software engineer in Silicon Valley, I want to see more people changing there lives just like me. Proud of your work team.

</comment><comment><USER26> A link on the home page for how business can access your talent pool would be nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good suggestion! One of the students took a first stab with this PR to build a contributors page to featur students who have contributed features and are looking for a job: [https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/pull/227](https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app/pull/227)

If anyone has better ideas, please share!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was under the impression that the website was interactive, but it's asking me to install a node module. Is that how you submit the challenges?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes. Interactive in the sense that there is a chatroom and you can interact with other student mentors / engineers on there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I love the illustrations on the homepage. So beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is a genius idea, I love it. Good job. Great work.

</comment><comment><USER30> Congratulations. I am going to get my family on it.

</comment><comment><USER31> Great curriculum to learn the basic fundamentals of web development and it's free!

</comment><comment><USER32> Excellent work and great idea. Where did you get the illustrations on the site from?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. You can get illustrations from vectorStock: [https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vectors/computer- pr...](https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vectors/computer-programmer- vectors)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Super great and really really good place to learn coding!

</comment><comment><USER34> This program is the true upward mobility. Good on you.

</comment><comment><USER35> There is something wrong in the signing up process...

<comment><USER36> There is something wrong with your bug report. ;-)

<comment><USER35> The email confirmation opens instead a password recovery interface, which is outdated seconds after being sent. Thus it is not possible to sign up.

<comment><AUTHOR> did you type in a username / email with an uppercase letter? that's the only issue we've discovered so far with the signup process.

<comment><USER35> Nope. The links you send for password recovery are also again outdated on arrival.

<comment><USER37> what is your username? We will make sure this gets sorted out.

<comment><USER35> rogercre is the username. Everytime I try to get a password, the link opens a site where in less than half a minute I read "Link has expired. Request a new password reset". Thanks!

<comment><USER35> THANKS to all the team and I am so happy it could be of help!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Really really great place to learn coding!

</comment><comment><USER34> This is a great idea!

</comment><comment><USER38> replace "coding" with "javascript"

<comment><USER39> What programming language do you consider worthy of the 'coding' title?

<comment><USER38> Unironically? C, C++,D, any lisp, erlang, ML family stuff are all good if your goal is to learn about computers and write software that well-utilizes actual hardware. If you don't particularly love computers and just want to get a job shoveling around webcruft, by all means learn javascript

<comment><USER39> I love my job as a web developer/designer, and JS is my favorite language. Currently learning C++ and laravel (PHP framework). And I find it so silly when programmers hate on other languages, usually languages they do not want to take the time and effort to understand.

> If you don't particularly love computers and just want to get a job > shoveling

Why would you assume everyone else in this world has your same tastes and preferences? All the time and energy spent writing stuff trying to put other peoples skills/interests/occupations down (FUD) may be spent doing something more productive.. like learning those languages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> why does the tech industry need to solve problems of unemployment or why does it need to give jobs to people who do not know what they want to do?

<comment><USER41> Part of being a good human is to uplift neglected or underserved or just people in general. Tech has solved so many problems and economic inequity is one of them

<comment><USER40> we need more doctors and nurses and affordable lawyers. why not become a doctor or lawyer?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Software engineering must be one of the few professions where individuals freely share their energy and expertise with others.

This isn't a criticism, neither of the "help others code" movement, nor more insular industries. It's just a very unusual aspect of our field and I wonder where it comes from.

For instance, can you imagine reading any of these?

 _Show LN (Litigator News): Learn employment regulations to become a paralegal_

 _struct3r5.com: a free online curriculum for budding structural engineers_

 _Paying It Forward: If You 're Not Mentoring a Junior Mathematician, You're Not a Senior Statistician_

 _dmackenzie /ipcurriculum: a curated list of resources to help students of Intellectual Property law_

 _Introducing a new Programme of Mentorship with Veteran Cardiologists for Non Medical Students_

<comment><USER22> " _struct3r5.com: a free online curriculum for budding structural engineers_ "

Now I'm scared.

<comment><USER42> It's interesting though, how that will scare us, but not something equivalent for digital infrastructure.

Of course, bad programming will never do the same damage as a building that collapses, a bridge that folds in two, etc. But it can do damage enough: harming lives, enabling crime, and costing businesses a huge amount of money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm always happy to see paths for more people to learn useful industry skills (most often not taught in universities).

But can we please not lower our hiring bars because the company partnered with bootcamp X or because there is a diversity (read: three groups) target to hit?

Yes it's cheaper, and we save some money after tax incentives, but if I have to pass up a superior candidate due to an order from upper management one more time, I will pull my hair out.

I hope a program like this or freecodecamp offered at every new hire orientation will work wonders. Yes mentoring beginners is fulfilling, but its very taxing when they were hired on the basis of a few bootcamp projects plus a diversity credential when they're still very green skill wise.

<comment><USER44> I'm sorry if your company conflated diversity and inclusion with lowering hiring bars. Everywhere I've worked, that hasn't been what diversity programs are about.

<comment><USER43> I encountered it at my two previous employers (including one FANG). At my current place, I made a point to ask about their diversity initiatives and hiring practices during my own interview, because as a senior engineer I am interviewing 20-40 people annually. I've had no pressure to push a diversity agenda at the interview level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is like saying "learn to read a schematic to become an electrical engineer."

There's a _hell_ of a lot more to engineering than that. Couldn't they at least have said "learn coding to become a programmer?"

<comment><USER46> Oh hello, guy that complains about the way that the term "software engineer" is used!

Outside of your head, the job title "Software Engineer" is mainly used to describe computer programmers that do not do formal engineering. The battle to "protect" the term (as a designator of formal "engineer" status) has already been fought and definitively lost.

As such: Regardless of what C0D3 or its students desire, any successful grad of the platform will have to learn that "software engineer" is a job title that they qualify for. Unless you care more about this linguistic drift than you care about junior devs' job prospects, you (and everyone else) should be quiet about this forever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Software engineering is more than just software development. Writing requirements, drafting documentation, testing, verification, maintenance.

I hate to be hypercritical, but five weeks of javascript doesn't make you a software engineer.

<comment><USER42> I'm struggling to add this all up.

On the one hand, I have some evidence that my job is hard: I have spent ten years learning to be proficient at it, still know only a narrow slice of it, and find it challenging every day. I have a solid degree from a world-renowned university, so I know I am not stupid. I also interview candidates, and know that many applicants simply cannot do the job.

But on the other hand, there is such a sheer _volume_ of resources like this, which imply very clearly that becoming a programmer is a trivial thing. So many in fact that I am starting to doubt the evidence of my eyes and ears.

So which is it? Is there a weird drive to constantly undersell our skills, a knowing wink to the managers who have always secretly suspected us of being nothing more than glorified typists? Or are the bootcamps right, and I've spent a decade learning replaceable trivia? And why is making statement #2 seen as positive and inclusive?

<comment><USER48> There's space for everybody. I do programming ( not full time) at work: usually it's simple queries against the database and business logic around the returned collection. Sometimes it's a bit more complicated and then I have to do an integration with an external system. Would I be able to write some traffic optimization algorithm for Netflix? Not a chance. Would I be able to help an average SMB by automating some of their processes? Absolutely. Someone is sitting in a fancy office on the 50th floor in Manhattan writing some heavily optimized code for a bank making $1M/year, while some other is doing simple PHP plugins for WordPress in some sweatshop. Both are called programmers. Same with bankers: one you meet at your local bank branch who doesn't even know what nostro account is, while other is doing some M&A trying to pull billion dollar companies together. It doesn't matter how many schools, bootcamps,or even leet universities will open,the fact that probably less than 0.01% of general population could barely become mediocre developers won't change any time soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Usually on this site we would talk about how software engineering covers several important skills, of which coding is only one. The real necessity is working with people to understand the details of their own problens and what they want to get out of it and then engineering an approach that effectively handles that going forward. Maybe that's not as relevant here.

<comment><AUTHOR> > The real necessity is working with people to understand the details of their > own problems and what they want to get out of it and then engineering an > approach that effectively handles that going forward

c0d3.com' target audience: people who want to become good engineers.

Our solution: To immerse students in an work environment where they communicate with each other, code review each other, build features together, observe users, and update features.

It's meant to be an alternative to aggressive leetcoding and problem/solution memorizing, which is a brute force way to get into engineering without really understanding the details of why they want to get into engineering in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> There is more to being a software engineer than coding.

<comment><USER51> Most of software engineering is about the code that you didn't write. There is an infinite amount of hypothetical code that you could write, and every line of code is a liability.

I strongly feel like starting lesson 0 with hello world or any other coding activity is a huge mistake if we are actually talking about trying to ramp someone with zero technical background.

A more ideal start would be to run with a problem domain (e.g. online store/shopping cart/todo tracker) and abstractly work through how you even go about reasoning with these things in the first place. You do not need a computer to develop a strong programmatic understanding for a problem domain. I know this for a fact because we do it on our standup calls almost every day w/ non-technical project managers. Talking about something for 20 minutes can mean the difference between coding for 2 weeks and no code at all.

How you model your target domain is far more important than any specific code you write to implement it. Modeling and planning is the art. Mastering this is the only thing that really matters. The code/language/framework-of-the-week will always change. Knowing how to ask the right questions and being able to identify boundaries between systems will not.

<comment><USER52> This explains why I get stuck when trying to build something on my own. I don't abstractly work through the reasoning as you said.

<comment><USER48> If you struggle to put it all together,try to flip it and deconstruct. For instance, you want to build a website that pulls trending tweets from twitter's API. Think of it as a whole,i.e. some scrolling boxes showing tweets,maybe a list that keeps growing.Then think how would you go about pulling tweet data from the API.Then how would you store it.How you would read each tweet and show it on the screen and etc. Suddenly,each individual part become much more manageable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> [deleted]

<comment><USER54> yes it's free and it always be the goal is to help people to become software engineer that follow industry best practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I take titles such as "engineer" are not equally regulated everywhere in the world?

Can you really become a chartered engineer by going through this course?

<comment><AUTHOR> > I take titles such as "engineer" are not equally regulated everywhere in the > world?

Yes. And the interview process that software companies have are trying to standardize it.

> Can you really become a chartered engineer by going through this course?

It depends on you. Building and maintaining a product that people use on a daily basis that will exist and thrive long after you stop working on it is the essence of good software engineering.

<comment><USER56> > And the interview process that software companies have are trying to > standardize it.

Which companies are trying to standardize it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I misspoke. I think hiring is more standardized within companies now, and it is trending that way.

I can only speak for places I've worked at.

Google has an internal interview committee to provide unbiased reviews. Before you interview, you need to understand the repository of questions asked and how to interview candidates.

PayPal varies team by team, but each team tries to standardize the kind of candidates that they are looking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> That's because many Anglo-Saxon folk tend to equate engineering to coding. Many people find it demeaning

<comment><USER9> This comment was originally a reply to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23421388](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23421388).</comment></comment>


At what income number does S-Corp save you money over a Sole Proprietorship - <AUTHOR>

Situation
Have formed a LLC in NYC. It is single member. Sole purpose is to sell mobile apps. Running business part time. From home.
Questions
1.	At what income number do I pay less tax as a s-corp over a sole proprietorship Right now I believe it's very close to $133K in revenue. This is from following all the way through to after income taxes are applied.
2.	What time period each tax year can I switch tax elections from S-Corp to Sole Prop or vice versa in future? 3.	How often can I switch status? 4.	If your selling software via the app store, but do all the development at home in NYC, does that constitute all sales from NYC?
My Models
Say for net income  of $100,000
They key levers seems to be a) what I deem a reasonable salary for s-corp b) what of my income is deemed to be generated from outside of NYC
Filing as a Sole Proprietorship (which is what the IRS treats a single member)
•	Self Employment Taxes = 13.3% (realize this rate would drop if earning over the $110,100 due to limit on SS tax)(as of 2012) (also realize that I can deduct 1/2 of SE tax against my income tax) •	UBT (Unincorporated Business Tax) = 4% of net income over $35K
•	Filing Fee =$25
Social Security Tax (part of SE)     $10,400
Medicare (part of SE)    $2,900
UBT Tax      $2,600
Filing Fee     $25
Sole Propetiership: Net Income after filing + SE tax, but not before income taxes     $84,075     rate of 15.93%
Filing as a S-Corp (which in NYC they treat as a corporation)
•	NYC Corporate Tax - 8.85% of NYC net income or 8.85% of salaries + 15% of 30% of net income •	SE Tax on "reasonable salary" - I'm using a number of $75K number, not sure if this is right.
•	Biennial Statement      $4.50
Reasonable Salary     $75,000 NYC Corporate Tax   $6,969 SE Tax on Income     $9,975 Biennial Statement      $4.50 Claim none outside     $83,051  rate of 16.95% <comment><USER2> I run an S-corp (one man) and wish there was a simple answer to this. There are way too many factors to consider before getting to any conclusion. The biggest advantage of an S-corp is the ability to save on the payroll taxes that the employer has to pay. But that really depends on how much you make, how much you take in salary/W-2 etc. But again, there are other costs of running an S-corp that add up really fast. For example, the accounting and taxes are much more complicated for S-corps and you certainly need a good CPA for it.

I suggest you talk to at least 2-3 CPAs and get an idea. Even the CPAs differ in their understanding and preferences. My CPA insists that S-corp is good for me while another one I spoke to kept telling me to switch to LLC.

In general, you need to consider the following factors:

1\. Social security tax portion of employer. This has a cap at about 110K i think in 2012. So any income over that, does not matter anyway. FOr 2012, the rate was 6.2%. lets say you earned 100K but only paid yourself 75K with S-corp. At a high level, you will save almost 2K in ss taxes portion of the employer.

2\. Medicare tax portion of the employer. This one is huge since there is no cap. So the less you pay in salary, more you save in tax.

</comment><comment><USER3> As an LLC, you may elect to file (with the IRS) as an S-corp within the first 75 days of your calendar year. You can't just yo-yo back and forth from one filing classification to another so you should take some time considering the consequences. See <http://answers.onstartups.com/> for answers on this topic.

Some LLCs make this election so they can take a distribution at the end of the year at a lower tax rate. The IRS monitors this, and expects you take a "reasonable salary" as income. I recently made the election for similar reasons, but also to allow me to run my company more like a startup, and less like a consulting service.

There's enough information out there to make a decision, I think, but if you're still in doubt get an accountant.

<comment><AUTHOR> I assume most people use the regular calendar year, as their year?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ask an accountant

</comment><comment><USER5> The IRS does not treat a sole proprietorship as a "single-member". It ignores the existence of the sole proprietorship for tax purposes, as do the states (generally). In other words, _you_ and the business are the same in the eyes of the tax codes. An S-Corp which has a single member is _also_ treated as a disregarded entity by the IRS. However, states differ on their treatment of S-Corps. Most states follow the IRS in disregarding the S-Corp entity, but a few do not.

Fee-wise, the differences are immediate. You must pay fees to the state and federal government related to your corporate entity. The total amount depends on your state.

Tax-wise, the difference is minimal, but the S-Corp form does make it easier to take and support deductions because you will probably maintain separate records for your business. Sole proprietors are audited more frequently by the IRS because they generally do not keep proper or sufficient records delineating the _business_ spending. States differ on the taxes they impose on business entities.

Liability-wise, the difference is immediate and substantial. S-Corps offer limited liability, meaning that generally the S-Corp's liabilities are not yours. In practice, banks won't make loans to S-Corps unless its owners agree to waive limited liability, and if the S-Corp is not properly capitalized (i.e., does not maintain proper insurance or reserves to cover liabilities) then courts will ignore the limited liability shield. However, sole proprietorships offer no liability protections--your liabilities and the business liabilities are one and the same: i.e., if your business goes under, creditors can go after your house.

Self-employment taxes: A sole proprietor owes self-employment taxes. These taxes _include_ your social security contribution. You would not necessarily pay self-employment taxes if you use the S-Corp form, if for example, you pay yourself a salary up to the respected salary limit and properly treat the remainder of distributions as potentially self-employment income.

You really need to talk to an accountant and/or lawyer about this.

<comment><USER6> FWIW, the OP seems to be equating "sole proprietorship" and the disregarded entity status of their LLC. As such, the liability cautions you make might not apply directly to their situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, that's right - I thought IRS treated a single member LLC as a sole proprietorship for tax purposes. I guess the correct term is disregarded entity. Either way the definitions were specific to the tax status and separate to the liability definition, which is yes a LLC.</comment></comment></comment>


The Scourge of Hygiene Theater - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hygiene-theater/614599/ <comment><USER2> This is a good example of why we have the scientific method. Not so long ago the WHO, the CDC, Fauci and pretty much everyone else was talking about how fomites were the primary means of transmission and that the virus was not airborne, that even after a cough the particles very quickly fell to the ground. Now it turns out that exactly the opposite is true. How about if you don't have evidence to back up your claims you just STFU or say that you don't know. The same thing happened with masks. Since they believed (without supporting evidence) that the virus was not airborne they didn't think the public should be wearing masks. Instead they emphasized alcohol gel and frequent hand washing. What a huge fuckup. All of these people should be held accountable for being dumb fucks.</comment>