Developing Rails apps on Windows (the joyful way) - <AUTHOR> http://factore.ca/on-the-floor/44--the-os-as-app-or-developing-rails-apps-on-windows-the-joyful-way-

<comment><USER2> Ruby certainly can do SQLite3 on Windows, quite well under 1.8.6 and 1.8.7, but as the article's author notes, it's just troublesome under 1.9. (But enough other stuff doesn't work quite right in 1.9 yet either anyway.)

The setup for dev on Windows is pretty simple as you can see from

<http://napcs.com/howto/rails/windows/>

As it stands now, with the latest installer for Windows, Rails development is quite possible. Msysgit works fine, SQLIte, Rails, all of it works great, it's just slower.

In fact, I've been using Windows for Rails dev for nearly 5 years - I'm even crazy enough to have deployed production apps on Windows servers. (out of necessity, not out of choice, but it's a neat skillset to have, and I was able to contribute a chapter on Rails + Windows to [http://pragprog.com/titles/fr_deploy/deploying-rails- applica...](http://pragprog.com/titles/fr_deploy/deploying-rails-applications) which, oddly enough, is still relevant.)

HOWEVER, I will state that if you're looking to truly leverage Ruby, _nix is the way to go. A VM like this works great, but I also recommend two pieces:

_ Putty to act as your console * SAMBA on the VM so you can have a share.

I used a setup like this for a while for LAMP development before I started doing Rails.

</comment><comment><USER3> Serious question here. I come from a game industry background and am /very/ comfortable and productive in a Windows environment. However, I have recently setup my system to dual-boot into Ubuntu largely because I am serious about entering the world of web development and my impression is a *nix core is a must (either OSX or linux).

I am finding the learning curve to be rather steep, but I have prepared myself to pull through and come out the other side a Linux guru.

The question is this: Am I doing it wrong? Given that I am already comfortable and productive in Windows.. is it idiotic of me to try to force my square peg into a round hole? Should I at least go the middle-ground and use a VM so that my 'normal computing' is in my familiar environment and I can just drop into Ubuntu for testing/deployment?

One last bit of context: I am bootstrapping a web startup in my evenings so time is rather premium. My day job is still windows centric so context-switch issues might occur.

<comment><USER2> Honestly I think there are many benefits to Linux especially if your plan is to work on Python or Ruby development. If you're looking to do C# stuff, Windows is gonna be better. When it comes to a lot of open-source languages, Windows is kind of an afterthought, and while it often works, the non-Windows solutions end up being faster, and more likely what you see when you deploy your apps. It can help greatly if your dev platform mimicks your production platform, but it's not necessary.

I just taught a day long Ruby / Rails class in Feb and we had Windows users mostly, with some Mac and Linux folks too, but we all deployed to Heroku.com without issues.

My advice is to use what makes you productive now. Learn many things, but learn them one at a time or you'll frustrate yourself. Switch from Windows to Linux when Windows starts slowing you down if that makes you more comfortable.

Programming should be fun. :)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the advice. I am planning to use a Python/Django/MySQL/nginx/EC2 stack initially.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Last year I revived an old, underpowered Windows box by wiping the hard drive and just installing Ubuntu straight-up. Aside from the dramatic speed-up in performance, I can state from experience that Ubuntu is definitely wife- friendly - it was a smooth and painless transition for my not-nearly-as-geeky- as-me life partner. (It helped that we had already been using mostly free software even on Windows.)

As for git on Windows, I've found Msysgit to be a lot faster and more stable than git on Cygwin. You can also configure it during installation so that git commands work on the CMD command line, which is marginally less bad than Msysgit Bash.

</comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr version: The 'joyful way' to develop in Rails on Windows is by installing Linux in a VM on the machine (and then developing in that). No seriously, that's the author's argument. Can't say I disagree, though.

<comment><USER6> I have been using Cygwin to develop for Django, combined to native Windows Emacs. It works, but I would not call it joyful.

Obviously, I never noticed Ruby can't do SQLite on Windows. I find that somewhat weird, as Cygwin appears to hide Windows very well and has its own builds for Ruby and SQLite (I use Cygwin's Python instead of win32 Python.

At first, I was considering to congratulate the author for being able to use "developing", "on Windows" and "joyful" in the same sentence.

<comment><USER7> No, really, all you anti-microsoft what kind of programming "job" experience do you have to say that M. is so bad? Mac is better? Linux? Really? And for what?: I mean real job experience where you are paid by somebody to do something not just working on your own secret project.They are just tools.It's 2010.Grow.

<comment><USER6> I know I shouldn't feed trolls but I also feel I should clarify some things.

I started developing software professionally about a quarter of a century ago, on Apple IIs using the built-in BASIC, 6502 machine language and assorted toolkits for graphics and animation. For a long time, I used Microsoft technologies, from Actor (a Smalltalk-like environment that ran on Windows) to Visual Basic, Visual C++ (mostly for WinCE) and assorted MS web technologies. I also did a lot of web stuff on Unix platforms at the same time. It was not until 2002 that I made my switch to Unixes complete. Unless you develop for Windows, it makes little to no sense to develop on Windows and, as far as you are comfortable with other platforms, it makes little to no sense to deploy to Windows. It's expensive, not particularly predictable and the hood comes soldered. Not a good thing on a server.

In fact, I like to develop on a platform as close as possible to the deployment platform. It makes a lot of sense.

Development stacks are tools. All I implied was some are much more refined than others.

With time you'll learn.

<comment><USER7> I use a text editor, a shell, other tools. The idea that I want to fight is that linux is a far better environment or mac is far better than windows. I mean, just use what you want, but when you say "x" is better is just because (usually) you are mixing personal like/dislike with ideology (and in the IT community there is a lot of ideology: just think about apple...). I don't care about Microsoft, and all these talks about "the tools" are all right until a certain point. Some times, I've to be honest, seems like talking with kids. I mean _really_ you need ubuntu to do a good job? Maybe developing rails is a far better experience on linux for some reasons I don't know (I'n not a rails develoepr): so you'll use linux. People use linux as a server because is a unix-like platform costing no money. It's better than microsoft server. Good for them and for me because I also use linux. I use windows because I'm used to this platform, I need some tools are just on Windows and I don't like too much the Apple OS. But I've to be honest, I don't like also Steve Jobs and the ideology that Apple brings with its cult. So I'm religious as you. The important thing is to be _aware_ of why you think in a certain way and why you take certain decisions. Tools are tools are tools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Went through the same experience--Ubuntu (via VirtualBox) on a Vista machine saved me from pulling all of my hair out. If you have plenty of memory to play with, certainly the way to go.</comment>


Facebook Users Cry 'Censorship' After Being Told Which Troll Pages They Liked - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/facebook-users-cry-censorship-after-being-told-which-ru-1822552451?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow <comment><USER2> I routinely get blamed for being a Russian troll/bot, but after checking today, I am surprised to see that Facebook reported I followed none of those suspected pages.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is why you can't blame Hillary for losing.</comment>


The World in 2050 - <AUTHOR> http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/economy/the-world-in-2050.html <comment><USER2> This article assumes that future patterns of development will resemble past industrialization, driven by growth in consumption and the availability of cheap labor. I don't necessarily think that will be the case.

And honestly, I really doubt India is going to get its act together in 50 years. Between a regressive social order and rampant, socially accepted corruption, it needs a major cultural revolution if it is going to achieve its potential as a world leader.</comment>


Show HN: This App will make you fall asleep faster and wake up more refreshed - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.changemystyle.gentlewakeup&referrer=utm_source%3Dar%26utm_campaign%3Dhackernews <comment><AUTHOR> I am the indie developer of the app "Gentle Wakeup" which has already helped over 200,000 people to improve their sleep & wakeup. The app uses slowly changing light and sounds similar to a professional wake up light.

It contains: \- Sleep timer with fading light and music for falling asleep \- Night clock with deep background sounds for sleeping \- An alarm with natural sounds and slowly increasing light for wakeup

 __ __* I give a FREE unlock code which will unlock all features of the pro version which costs normally $10 __ __*

Enter the code wakeup2604 in the app settings. The code never expires and can be used multiple times. Feel free to share.

I am always happy about feedback. The app has an average rating of 4.4 and changed the life of many people as you can see in the reviews. Any new feature ideas are welcome. I will try to answer all comments.

Alex

</comment><comment><USER2> Thanks for this wonderful app. It surely does what it should. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You are welcome :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: IsItDownFor.Us, a simple notification when your site is down - <AUTHOR> http://isitdownfor.us

<comment><USER2> Looks simple enough, which is good. I signed up a site of mine, but I'm not going to test if it works :P</comment>


California nears adoption of energy-saving rules for computers - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-energy-computers-idUSKCN11G022 <comment><USER2> _" The standards for desktops, which use far more energy than notebooks, will add about $14 to the retail cost of computers but save consumers more than $40 in electric bills over five years, according to commission estimates."_

I wonder how they came up with those estimates.

The cynic in me is inclined to believe that in reality the values will be reversed when the regulation is passed and manufacturers have to deal with implementation.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious about how much of the gain will simply be from newer tech being more power efficient by design... a decent computer today is going to use a lot less energy than one from 5 years ago.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A free tool to create social media posts in seconds - <AUTHOR> https://www.gfxdepot.com <comment><USER2> In browser, I like to use the tools on kapwing to do this kind of thing, but this tool seems more structured around these specific use cases. Kapwing tools are more general purpose photo/gif/video tools.

The equivalent tool on kapwing:

[https://www.kapwing.com/meme-maker](https://www.kapwing.com/meme-maker)

List of all tools:

[https://www.kapwing.com/tools](https://www.kapwing.com/tools)</comment>


Plex launches a co-watching experience for on-demand library and personal media - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/28/plex-launches-a-co-watching-experience-for-its-on-demand-library-and-users-personal-media/ <comment><AUTHOR> Product video: [https://youtu.be/-JfY880Bu6c](https://youtu.be/-JfY880Bu6c)

Plex blog post: [https://www.plex.tv/blog/coming-in-hot-watch-together- chill/](https://www.plex.tv/blog/coming-in-hot-watch-together-chill/)</comment>


Making Time: Does it matter why we help others? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24457645

<comment><USER2> _Behaviour in some animal species is indeed genetically determined, he says, but with humans "that certainly isn't the case". He argues that culture sets us apart from animals in that respect, and points to the huge variance in social norms in different countries, and over short periods of time._

There's no clear line here. Many animal species have been shown to have certain elements of culture, that are learned rather than inborn. Findings that local dialects can be found in different species are examples of this.

And on the other hand, many culture elements can be rationally explained as natural responses to different circumstances.</comment>


Ask HN: Argument Exploration Tool - <AUTHOR> The topics of echo-chambers, what constitutes truth, bias and misinformation are at the forefront of many discussions at the moment.
I think the HN community could rally together (regardless of left/right/whatever) to create an online tool that approaches discussions in a logical, systematic fashion.
It could possibly take the form of a mind-map. Lets say one type of node represents an assertions made in a sentence or accusation. The Assertion Node interface would provide sub nodes in which a user could input a primary source that confirms or discredits the assertion. Perhaps if an accusation is levelled against an individual, the Node is marked with a warning that it is currently unsubstantiated until a primary source is provided.
Although I am not sure the best way in which this could be moderated to reduce bias, there must be a clever way. Perhaps users in other argument maps are presented a Node and its children out of context, simply to confirm whether it is logically correct?
Other nodes could include marking logical fallacies, unsourced material etc.
I imagine that many smart minds have come up with logical and systematic approaches to arguments.
Perhaps this is something the HN community could rally together behind, despite many of our differences that could be a truly useful tool for understanding one another? <comment><USER2> Politics remains the mindkiller no matter how intelligent you are.

In particular an effort of your sort is appealing to the prefrontal cortex.

However politics is not higher math. It lives in the lizard brain. It's strongly connected to our survival instincts which is why it is both dangerous and important i.e. all this exists for a reason. I don't know if you could interfere with that without resorting to brainwashing.

Remember Douglas Adams's Total Perspective Vortex?

The Net is speeding up people's 'transitions'. It used to be the case that a person gradually changed their political perspective, but now with the Net this has gone into overdrive.

It is now common to meet people who have genuinely undergone several political perspective changes. It is slow but real.

I suggest somehow speeding that process up yet further would do a lot of good. I don't think you can 'teach' people, but you can get them to argue with each other, and then get them to examine how their thinking is evolving over time.

Looking at your past comments/posts on the Net gives you some humility, many of us would be strangers to our younger selves now.

Appealing to self interest (you used to think X too) could improve empathy. It would at least result in people appreciating complexity and prevent them writing each other off altogether.</comment>


Falling for sleep - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/the-cure-for-insomnia-is-to-fall-in-love-with-sleep-again <comment><USER2> Stopped halfway through because the author is apparently one of those people who think "making stuff up" becomes productive if you call it "spiritual".

<comment><USER3> Yeah, this is basically mythmaking. That's fine as far as it goes, but it's a poor substitute for medicine. The author has several hallmarks of being a quack: he is described as practicing "dream medicine", makes sweeping medical/health claims despite not (as far as I can tell) having a degree in physiology or medicine, and is part of a center for "integrative medicine" headed by alternative medicine guru Andrew Weil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The headline is currently the more evocative "Falling for sleep". The article doesn't describe a cure for insomnia so much as a repudiation of the concept as it's generally understood.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting article. When I have trouble falling asleep, it often seems as if there is part of me that wants to fall asleep, but it is stuck and the part of me that wants to stay awake is keeping the sleepy part from getting what it wants.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Not a medication, but a natural neurohormone, melatonin is Nyx in a bottle." So taking a hormone isn't a medication? Not only is it a hormone, but we take it at many times the natural level of that hormone. There are a few new melatonin receptor agonists that are even stronger (but are still super expensive; I haven't tried them).

The main problem with medications may just be that most of the ones we have now are not that good. I suspect in many cases how a person relates with sleep may have an effect, but sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes medications can help a person who has developed bad habits change them. F.Lux or redshift (to reduce the blue light in displays in the evening) are quite helpful also, I find.

Many people do not know that melatonin patches exist. They are harder to find (I only have seen them online). For me they have a different effect: oral melatonin, even extended release, helps me get to sleep but makes it more likely I'll wake up later and not get back to sleep (plus they cause digestive issues) and melatonin patches help me stay asleep but not get to sleep. I haven't tried both oral and patch together. I'm currently using a quarter of a 5mg patch, which is less effective than a half patch (but less bad when I forget to take it off) but I couldn't tell the difference between a half and full patch.

Uridine monophosphate (150mg sublingually) is one that I find helps me feel more rested for the same amount of sleep (I have circadian rhythm issues; this may not happen if you don't). It also seems to help me get to sleep, although it doesn't have such a dramatic effect as some and seems to become more effective over time with regular use. While it seems to have few short term effects, long term effects have not been studied and it might potentially increase cancer growth. So still a high risk medication at this point.

The other one I've been taking lately is baclofen 20mg (phenibut 900mg is similar but I prefer the balofen). While not commonly used, it is the best I've found at keeping me asleep. I need a break of at least two days in a row per week or it looses effectiveness. I've noticed rebound effects for over a week after stopping it so it isn't entirely a positive effect on sleep, however I do get much more sleep with it than without and it doesn't seem like less restful sleep. Baclofen and phenibut can cause withdrawal effects if taken continuously without breaks and phenibut can be addictive. They also seem to conflict with many other drugs (including, it seems, something as mild as L-theanine). So they are higher risk, but not as bad as most sleep drugs.

Going back to non-medical sleep aids, waking up at the same time daily seems to be much more important than going to sleep at a consistant time. Bright light in the morning but avoid it in the evening. Consistent meal times may help. I'm always interested in hearing what other people do to encourage better sleep.

<comment><USER6> Steve Gibson of GRC.com is a "health hobbyist" and has been experimenting with various Sleep Formulas, with some success, which you might find interesting: [https://www.grc.com/health/sleep/healthy_sleep_formula.htm](https://www.grc.com/health/sleep/healthy_sleep_formula.htm)

He may be interested in hearing about your experiences in his forum

<comment><USER7> I'm only interested if he also sends samples to labs for testing. There's a bunch of "melatonin" in the US that contains no melatonin.

The fact he mentions alcohol as useful for sleep (especially for people who wake early) shows how clueless he is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> More suggestions - vasodilation in your feetsies [0]

[0] [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v401/n6748/full/401036a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v401/n6748/full/401036a0.html) \- Physiology: Warm feet promote the rapid onset of sleep

> _Even healthy people occasionally have difficulty falling asleep. > Psychological relaxation techniques, hot baths, soothing infusions of plant > extracts, melatonin and conventional hypnotics are all invoked in the search > for a good night 's sleep. Here we show that the degree of dilation of blood > vessels in the skin of the hands and feet, which increases heat loss at > these extremities, is the best physiological predictor for the rapid onset > of sleep. Our findings provide further insight into the thermoregulatory > cascade of events that precede the initiation of sleep._

If you find that you're regularly not able to sleep.. (for me, 1-2 hours for unconsciousness eventually became falling asleep every ~1.2-1.5 days).. you probably should (if you're aware of risks and don't think they'd be any more ruinous than insomnia) (IANA Doctor/Psychiatrist) be taking z-drugs / benzos. Thank you, sweet temazepam.. Honeymoon stage? Probably, but still worth a try.

<comment><USER9> I don't think recommending long-term benzo / z-drug usage outright is a good idea. They should be the absolute last resort. I have never met anyone who hasn't used them long term who was aware of their risks. These are some of the most prescribed medicines on earth and even the doctors prescribing them have no idea of their effects, let alone how to get you off them.

This is, most likely but not necessarily, a life-long addiction one enters into where the risk of going without can cost one's life. Also, some people have paradoxical effects: basically, the opposite of sedation / sleep. Getting off them takes at least a couple of months, if you're lucky, up to a year or more during which you can't really do anything like work, etc. They are especially nasty to people suffering from depression, something quite common (if not actually the same underlying condition) in the sleep-deprived.

At the very least, one should exhaust all other possibilities, including much safer sleeping aids like melatonin and cannabis, before making a plunge into what is almost guaranteed to be a life-long dependency.

<comment><USER8> Melatonin is about as dangerous as it is effective, imo - lightweight. Cannabis is not without risks either, but they're nearly negligible. Outright recommendation is not really what I was talking about, either - I was talking about situations where I would go multiple days without being able to sleep, and not for a lack of trying..

David Nutt et al. are better qualified to talk about it than I am I guess.

 _Over the last decade there have been further developments in our knowledge of the risks and benefits of benzodiazepines, and of the risks and benefits of alternatives to benzodiazepines. Representatives drawn from the Psychopharmacology Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the British Association for Psychopharmacology together examined these developments, and have provided this joint statement with recommendations for clinical practice. The working group was mindful of widespread concerns about benzodiazepines and related anxiolytic and hypnotic drugs. The group believes that whenever benzodiazepines are prescribed, the potential for dependence or other harmful effects must be considered. However, the group also believes that the risks of dependence associated with long-term use should be balanced against the benefits that in many cases follow from the short or intermittent use of benzodiazepines and the risk of the underlying conditions for which treatment is being provided._

[https://www.bap.org.uk/pdfs/BAP_Guidelines- Benzodiazepines.p...](https://www.bap.org.uk/pdfs/BAP_Guidelines- Benzodiazepines.pdf)

<comment><USER9> There are definitely cases where long term use of benzos is the only viable solution and your sounds like one of them. But this paper just rehashes the same things about benzodiazepines. Are they saying that only some people become dependent on benzos? Do they have an example of anyone who's been on them for four weeks that isn't dependent? I doubt you could find someone who has been on them for two weeks who isn't dependent. They completely gloss over the fact that doctors have no idea how to get people off and rehabs are even more clueless (you can't do anything in 30 days other than damage for a long- term benzo user). Doctors often use a patient's dependance to squeeze money out of him and not provide any actual care outside the prescription, a prescription they know with certainty will bring the patient back regardless of how awful the rest of the services are. Often, they will stop seeing patients without warning, literally leaving them in life-or-death situations that they need to resolve themselves, situations they might not be able to resolve without going to a black market or emergency room. I'm not saying the guidelines are bad, just that they are extremely incomplete, they unacceptably play down the risks involved, and most doctors have never heard of them. The situation will hardly change given how much profit comes from benzos to all parties involved (except the patient)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter Un-Suspends Journalist Guy Adams Account - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/guyadams/status/230356309889929218

<comment><USER2> Where's the apology from Twitter?

<comment><USER3> There won't be one - Twiiter likely regard themselves as above that. They have a complete stranglehold on "micro-blogging" (who ever called it that?)

Time for an open protocol with multiple, distributed servers?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4318930></comment></comment>


Design like it's 1999 - <AUTHOR> https://exclusive-design.vasilis.nl/design-like-its-1999/ <comment><USER2> In 99, the screenreader would have serenaded him with visitor counters "This website has had over [graphic without alt text] visitors since July 1997" and "This site works best in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4" which isn't very comforting when he's using a screen reader, and the whole website would be laid out in a table, sometimes with menus that were sliced graphics instead of text, or entirely javascript. Meanwhile the accessibility wing of the web standardistas got so angry at people using font tags _instead_ of the designated header markups that the font tag got deprecated when css browser coverage was half decent. And let's not even start on Flash.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention the prevalence of "Mystery Meat" navigation, where you couldn't know what a graphical link did until you hovered or clicked on it.

[http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html](http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html)

(For whatever it's worth I still agree with the sentiment of the author here, just worth pointing out that the 1990's weren't a panacea and that usable web design has existed throughout history.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In my experience, many websites are an extension of their CEO's ego. They don't have the money to build a website that is both unique and usable, but there's no way they want to look everyone else - so they drop the requirement to be usable.

They're the same people that drive impractical cars, because they look flashy.

<comment><USER5> Yep.

CEO of our company didn't like the progress on one of our frontends, so he took a weekend to write a whole new one himself, claiming it was "almost done." It was, as you may predict, nowhere near done, but still shoved into Git and became the new frontend.

In reality he seemed offended that he didn't know much about how we (the frontend team) built it and he didn't like that, so he built the way he thinks he knows, which turned out to just be a hodge podge of code from various tutorials and no singular vision for how the application functions. There are no less than three different paradigms in use in this codebase, and none of them really play well together.

The end result is that it took us nearly as long as it took us to develop the first version to bring the second version up to feature parity, but now we have a giant mess of a codebase that was very strictly written to do exactly the things the CEO wrote it to do. Predictably, development slowed to a crawl pretty quickly because we're essentially forced to rewrite every single individual piece that needs touching.

I told them this was a bad idea and would only make things take far, far longer than finishing the one we had. The whole reason this was done? The CEO and CTO found some bugs but didn't want to file them on the issue tracker. They decided it was better that the CEO write his own, despite the CEO having exactly zero experience with frontend development. This is just one of a long line of bizarre decisions that I have accurately predicted would only cost us more time and money than is worth it.

We're currently looking for new jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Where did we go wrong?!

I think JavaScript is what started the downward spiral that ruined the web. It's what enabled the shoehorning of the web browser into an application framework. Now Google, Facebook and Amazon and a few others control it, and are actively hostile against anyone who doesn't align with their interests.

<comment><USER7> No, the real problem is a tension between standardised, accessible, boring documents and the desire for flashiness. Being nonstandard helps a website "stand out", and helps the designer sell it to the commissioner of the design. Even if this doesn't help the actual users of the website.

Many customers have a sort of "print design" mentality where they want the website to look a particular way on their device, preferably a pixel-perfect match to something done in Illustrator. This was true in the Flash era, and it's still true today - that's why you get restaurants whose menu is only available as a PDF, a deeply mobile-hostile format, when _just putting it on the front page_ would actually be easier and work better for the user.

<comment><USER8> _that 's why you get restaurants whose menu is only available as a PDF, a deeply mobile-hostile format, when just putting it on the front page would actually be easier and work better for the user._

IMHO that's still better than making it an SPA, because the former at least can be easily downloaded and viewed locally. Another example I've seen is a recent redesign of a public transit site, where a simple HTML form and directory of PDFs (literally --- it was just the webserver's directory listing) for finding bus schedules was turned into an SPA that took a disturbingly long time to load and was filled with, as the sibling comment puts it, "flashy, user-hostile crap". The old design was unchanged since at least 1999, if not slightly before.

<comment><USER9> A local restaurant had their menu redone in React! Not just React, but React done badly. Click on "Lunch Menu", say, and literally nothing changes for 30 seconds. Then the new page appears. I took a while to realise it wasn't completely broken. God knows how much they paid for it. It's awful.

Edit: I should add, this reactivity serves no purpose. It's a sit down restaurant. You can't order electronically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >This is a nice example of how easy it is to make something usable for someone like Simon. But it doesn't really go beyond the usable. There is no personality in it, and we didn't really explore other possible solutions. In the next chapter I will tell about the invisible animations I made together with Hannes Wallrafen. In this project we went beyond the functional by working with both identity and nonsensical ideas.

I don't agree, the site did it's job and it did it well. This isn't from a company, so the personality isn't that important. The accessibility is more important in this case.

<comment><USER11> Think of it this way: for a screen reader, every bit of "identity" is a screaming popup.

Even a simple image saying "welcome to x" gets old really quick. It is already in the page title.

Narrative, linear, well delimited paginated interfaces like web search work much better, magic autoloading infinite or overly long lists do not.

Short version: if it looks fine when styles, images are disabled, it's probably ok, as long as it does not try to mess with input.

<comment><USER12> Remember CSS Naked Day? It's coming up now, on April 9th.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Using a website that seems to be focused on video content as a demonstration of (in)accessibility for the blind seems a little unusual... perhaps something like a news site --- which has lots of textual content --- would make a better example.

<comment><USER13> A blind person browsing a video site does not necessarily mean they want to watch the videos. They might want to listen to the audio, or share the video links they find.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reminded me of a quote from Paul Arden: "All creative people need something to rebel against."

It's why things were simple and easy to understand in 1999. But then we all rebelled making it more sophisticated and complicated on purpose. And then now we all want to rebel against what we've done. The pendulum swings and swings. I do prefer the 1999 version myself :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Here is a two-fold win: use the Vimium extension for navigating the web.

It lets you navigate web pages via keyboard shortcuts much faster than a mouse.

Also, it readily exposes issues of non compliant links and navigation elements that would also be missed by a screen reader.

<comment><USER16> Shout out to one of my favorite projects, Luakit [^], the only chromeless browser that lets me resize the window to a single pixel.

Best part is the vim interface,

      :open hacker news
      [ddg results]
      /Hack
      Enter
      :tabopen github top lua questions
      [Github search results]
      :bookmark

^ [https://github.com/luakit/luakit](https://github.com/luakit/luakit)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The same layout is not going to work best for both sighted and impaired people. Attention spans are short and sight has an order of magnitude more information bandwidth than hearing.

</comment><comment><USER18> He did pick one of the worst sites. The whole site is a design disaster with lots of times not working vids.

</comment><comment><USER19> "Toggle Accessibility" button forwarding to a clean page.

</comment><comment><USER20> Sitemaps or screenreaders.txt</comment>


EMS: Shared Memory Parallelism for Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/syntheticsemantics/ems <comment><USER2> I'd rather have immutable data, and no shared state in concurrent apps, but to each and their own.

Just remember that there is no big conceptual difference between blocking and locking, which is what you end up doing when having shared mutable state.

Recommending anyone to check out CSP (like in Go & Clojure/script (the latter also with immutable data)) or Actors (like in Erlang, Elixir).

<comment><USER3> I guess the wordcount process cannot be done with immutable structures? at least not on the same memory footprint, or at the same speed

<comment><USER2> What do you mean?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's fairly obvious that this will followed by XMS.

<comment><USER5> And then you'll have to edit CONFIG.SYS (sorry, I couldn't resist)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can we have immutable datastructures in a multithreaded NodeJs please? It is simple to implement (because immutable), and would solve a lot of problems.

NodeJS works nicely with nonblocking IO, except what most people seem to forget is that the CPU is a resource too, which is still being blocked by NodeJS when handling any event. Multithreading would help alleviate this.

<comment><USER7> You can do this with child processes or you can help with this issue [https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/2133](https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/2133)

<comment><USER6> Child processes don't allow "structural sharing" (unless using complicated shared-memory techniques, which have their limitations).

("Structural sharing" is a technique to make immutable data structures more efficient in time and space).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can someone explain how is this EMS thing better than these : [https://www.npmjs.com/package/webworker- threads](https://www.npmjs.com/package/webworker-threads) ?

<comment><USER9> webworkers don't share memory. You have to pass data back and forth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Do you need more than atomics to build locking primitives?

<comment><USER11> Yes and no. You can build concurrency with just atomics and it will work. If you design the architecture of your program well it can be incredibly fast. Atomics on Intel processors at least are amazingly fast.

Mutexes though have a special property in that when a thread waits for a mutex to be unlocked, the processor can idle (this is all Intel knowledge).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why not just use Elixir to begin with? Ok, Node existed before Elixir, but erlang has been around a long time.

It seems to me that engineering has become very cargo-cultish. "Lets use node cause we already know javascript" seems to be an argument that people who never learned Java or C/C++/Objective-C or Go or even Python or Ruby would make. Ok, there's a lot of those people... now they are stuck in a monolithic (eg non-distributed) system and dealign with scaling problems.

I'n not saying Erlang is always the right answer (I'm a fan of Go at the moment)... just that there's too much hopping-on-the-bandwagon based on seemingly a lack of awareness of the technology that's out there.

Imagine if all the effort making node work had been put into existing choices.

<comment><USER13> Only JS runs in all browsers.

Some people want to write once, run anywhere. Hence JS and Node.js. ( or a compile-to-js language )</comment></comment>


62 years old woman swims from Havana to Key West, without a shark cage - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/07/nyad.swim.motivation/index.html

<comment><USER2> I feel the "without a shark cage" claim is a bit misleading. While she won't physically have a 100% protective shark cage around her, she has a crew of experienced professionals protecting her the entire trip, whose sole purpose is to ensure she doesn't have any encounters with sharks.

Isn't that basically a "shark cage"?

<comment><USER3> She had more than just people, she had an electronic repeller, too.

> Six ocean kayakers will switch off paddling kayaks mere inches from Nyad's > side throughout the journey, towing underneath them electronic Shark Shields > that emit a harmless but annoying electrical impulse that repels most > species of sharks. Shark safety officers trained to distract any creatures > that may get curious will take turns in the water surrounding her.

This is like saying, "I'm going camping in Mosquito Swamp, without the benefit of a tent!" and then climbing into a sleeping bag, and zipping it shut.</comment></comment>


Why You Should Join a Startup Straight After College - <AUTHOR> http://feefighters.com/blog/5-reasons-to-join-a-startup-right-after-college/

<comment><USER2> I've been looking for a post like this for a while, thanks. It's definitely something I'd want to do upon graduation.

The only thing is, I'd say you have to be pretty lucky to join a startup that instantly becomes the latest sh^t hot thing going around. A large majority will join startups that don't go far, but then again, the experience of failing or 'wearing many hats' and actually being in that situation is probably where the value comes from anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> in a follow up post, i'm going to write about how i chose to work with feefighters.

I actually talked to at least 10 other startups before selecting FeeFighters. I totally agree with you, but I think there are ways to hedge the risk of a startup failing. in my situation, i joined a startup with founders who were serial entrepreneurs. both are technical, and both are brilliant. anyway, look for a follow up post :)</comment></comment>


Readers offer tales of Silicon Valley's ageism - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/Readers-offer-tales-of-Silicon-Valley-s-ageism-4758726.php <comment><USER2> I've had mixed feelings on this issue for a while. On one hand, I think there's a real danger in hiring people who are like you. I'm frequently surprised how much people defend this practice in the name of having a cohesive company culture.

Would it be more nice to have a greater proportion of older folks? I think so. The problem isn't older folks per se. The problem is just _people_ , period. Just as much as I'm surprised by cultural homogeneity, I'm surprised by how close-minded young grads are to things they weren't exposed to in school or in youth. It's kind of baffling that by 30, a lot of programmers act like they've seen it all and done it all, and then they start snarking out on the newer, unproven languages, frameworks and platforms. It gets worse as a programmer builds up more experience to back up his case. Case in point: you ever talk to an older Lisp guy? The ones who will rip into you just for using Clojure?

In a nutshell, I think that we do it to ourselves, and it is just a matter of time, before the current crop of "young" people turn into "old" people. Mental age does not correspond to physical age, but there is a correlation, and it would lend an appearance of ageism. The problem isn't one of age. The problem is close-mindedness, and you can pin that one on people regardless of age.

<comment><USER3> Ok, but that works in the other direction -- a person may be closed-minded with respect to the age of people they are willing to hire. Don't get me wrong, I would like to believe that all I have to do is keep learning and not get mentally lazy. But I fear it ain't so.

<comment><USER4> If they are, they're hurting themselves by overpaying for less valuable young workers.

<comment><USER2> The money is no big deal. The damage you do to your long-term prospects is probably insurmountable. Groupthink becomes a big deal as companies get bigger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A lot of Silicon Valley ageism is just fairly simple. A lot of the folks starting companies have a deep seated lack of self-confidence and just don't know how to hire and manage people who are older.

There are outliers to this. They tend to build very successful companies.

It's the same starting a company as an entrepreneur. A lot of angel investors who made their money through Facebook or Google or similar, who are still very young (not their fault, nothing wrong with that) are much more comfortable throwing some angel cash at folks younger than them who'll look up to them and listen to their 'advice'. This is understandable because everyone wants to think their money is smart money.

I hear a lot of older entrepreneurs complain about the latter, but my thought is quit bitching and show some results - you'll get funded if you get enough traction no matter how old you are.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, I mean, what the hell do people do about this? I may have other skills, but programming is really the only one that can I can make a living on. I guess I'll just go live in the woods when the economy decides it's done with me? I have no idea.

My father (almost 60) doesn't work in tech, but had a very successful career until two years ago when he lost his job to workplace politics (ie, not his performance). Hasn't been able to find anything since, and eventually took a crap job at Lowe's to have something to do. It haunts me because I always saw him as resourceful and able to make things work, and now he just seems defeated.

<comment><USER6> If your dad is having trouble finding work, then he should just learn to code! Oh, wait... /s

<comment><USER7> My dad is literally doing that right now. I talked to him this past week, and he downloaded Xcode and is going through tutorials in hopes of making an iPhone app idea he had. He is a self-employed cartographer making print maps, and had an idea for something that could translate to apps that wasn't already filled by existing niches.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Inexperienced people don't value experience, because they lack the experience to know the value of experience.

Bay Area Startups hire inexperienced people because they are cheaper, and more willing to take a bad deal. (Experienced people are more likely to know a bad deal.)

These inexperienced people are the ones doing the interviewing (and often the ones running the companies) and so experience is not valued.

</comment><comment><USER9> A few days back there was an article about the real estate prices in SF and SV. It felt very much like it was broken down into two categories:

* below 30 yrs old, no kids * older than 30 yrs old or had kids.

I have kids now. That is one of the major reasons I do not like SF anymore (mid 30s) but I did a decade ago. IMO, the entire SF/SV tech scene is built for young 20 somethings who want to live only to work.

When you reach a certain point in life, your priorities shift and you don't live to work anymore. If this happens to you, SF/SV is going to be an awful place to be, IMO.

Related to this article specifically, I have no doubt this is absolutely true. I've had interviews for jobs and while they don't ask questions about family or what not, they ask about "commitment" and "hours". Questions like "can you commit 100% to this job?" or "can you work 6 days a week or put in the hours necessary to do this job?". Those are questions asked to suss out if someone is going to basically live the job and push everything else away. They might ask that of everyone, but when asked to someone in their mid to late 30s it smacks of "hey, are you going to neglect your family for this job?".

</comment><comment><USER10> Most Silicon Valley companies produce products or services whose revenue does not scale with the cost of living in the area. Yet they pay their employees a lot more than in most parts of the world and they pay a hell of a lot more for office space. Contrary to what is written very frequently here by SV dwellers, it is actually not common for fresh graduates to get six figure salaries--only in Silicon Valley and NYC.

The terrible irony of it is that the over-abundance of high salaries has led to those salaries meaning practically nothing; there have been plenty of threads here on how people can barely afford 1br apartments in San Francisco while still saving for retirement and living a comfortable life, etc. Salaries for very senior folks become so massively inflated due to the cost of living-- sometimes in the $200k+ range--that very few startups can afford to hire even just a few of these guys. If they were in a cheaper area where a top salary, rather than a starting salary, was $120k, though, then they'd be in a much better position to hire a range of employees in terms of experience and age.

</comment><comment><USER11> I remember some young MBA asshole in Singapore on stage telling people he wouldn't hire anyone with a kid.

The last interview I had, I asked if they had people with kids. They had and they were on parental - no problem.

I'm 24 and will never have kids, but I do give a shit if they treat parents or engineers older than me like shit.

<comment><USER12> Working with people who have kids makes staying late optional :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Legal and ethical issues aside, if there are indeed excellent older people who are being passed over, then businesses have an opportunity.

<comment><USER4> This. If irrational bias is undervaluing a class of workers, firms can gain an advantage by hiring those workers, ceteris paribus.

<comment><USER14> In theory, yes. I'm not claiming to have the answers, but clearly we don't always see this play out that way. There are many examples of in other industries of undervalued talent not being utilized, things like the absence of black quarterbacks in the NFL for many years, etc

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is why I'm leaving the field for healthcare at the age of 39. I saw the writing on the wall when I worked in SV for over 10 years. I saw how young most of the employees were at most of the start ups and smaller companies. I saw that the older folks worked at tired corporate cogs such as IBM--nothing wrong with that, just not for me. I also saw that these older folks were just not capable of keeping up with the rapidly changing field. In fact, I worked with one guy in his late 50's or early 60's who had a Ph.D. from CalTech in EE, and he either would keep forgetting, or not understanding, what Telnetting or SSH'ing into another machine was about. I remember working with the guy and setting up a distributed monitoring system, and we were SSH'ed into several different machines on his laptop. The way he kept stumbling through the installation and configuration of each machine was pretty disheartening to see. That wasn't the only older person I've worked with who had trouble keeping up. It was ALL of them. Mind you this was at IBM, so I don't know if it was the corporate culture that eventually did these guys in or their age. I will never know. What I did eventually realize is that I needed to find a different career. So, here I am, 39 and starting a graduate program in health care.

<comment><USER16> Thank you for your comment.

I would like to add that not everybody at IBM is like that just to prevent HN from forming the wrong image.

Since client/server has been around the 60's from System 360 its hard to find a grey-beard who isn't familiar with the concept.

Although the grey-beards may not know the new upcoming frameworks such as node.js et al... they're worth every penny when it comes to design and architecture of large software systems, its usually the foresight of what will work and fail which matters the most.

Many wisened gray-beards still code everyday but they do approach us wet- behind-the-ears on simple day-to-day details.

<comment><USER17> " _Since client /server has been around the 60's from System 360...._"

Eh??? What was the client to the 360's server?

(Then again I never actually did IBM mainframe programming at that level.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Startups are not looking for great engineers. THEY'RE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO WILL TAKE ABUSE. Older folks will not take abuse.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've recently given up on applying for jobs with startups in Silicon Valley for this very reason.

I recently interviewed with one, which was supposed to be a "phone" interview. We did it over skype. No surprise, but the guy asked me to turn on video so we could have a video call. This really added nothing to the interview, was more a distraction than anything, but I got to see I was being interviewed by a 22 year old (with virtually no experience, I later discovered when I researched him online) and he could easily see my age.

The questions he asked were not discriminatory, but more along the lines of vague "technical" questions for which I would explain in detail ... detail that went over his head. Several times he assumed I got something wrong, mainly because of his lack of experience. For instance, explaining how to do something concurrently to someone who thinks in terms of threaded programming, they often don't see the issues, because they haven't done enough of it to see the terrible pain that can come with threaded solutions in certain situations.

In this case, I have been learning new things quite a bit. It's not a question of my skills being old, in fact, he asked me about a language I'd learned recently (I expect he thought this would trip me up), but I named one that I'm keen on, that has been in existence less time than the company I was interviewing with.

One of the great, fundamental problems of interviewing engineers is GIGGO-- if the interviewer is not a great engineer, and not a great interviewer, they will often presume an interview subject is not good based on their own ignorance. (ok engineers who are great interviewers don't suffer from this, of course.)

He also suffered from the problem of trying to ask the problem-solving questions, but describing the problem vaguely, or leaving key details out. OF course, in his mind, he knows the full problem, so he doesn't remember not telling me a key detail. In one case he asked me "how would you do X in Language Y"... to which I answered you couldn't, because the language didn't support it, but if you wanted to have a similar effect you could do this other thing, and here's the three things wrong, or dangerous about that approach. He then decided I'd gotten it wrong and told me how to do it in a _whole other language_ than the one he specified in the question!

So, he's a poor interviewer, no doubt, but every single one of these questions, I'm sure, he assumed I got it wrong because I was older... it puts a spin on their perception of you completely.

Plus, I don't understand the contradiction that exists in startups-- they claim they want "great engineers", but they also want cheap engineers, and they also want young engineers.

One thing that makes me a good engineer is that I've made a lot of mistakes in the past and learned from them. I wouldn't discriminate against someone younger simply because they haven't made as many mistakes yet, but I don't discount the value of experience either.

It takes all kinds, and the monoculture that so many companies seem to seek is part of the movement to turn software development into an assembly line, and take it out of the realm of craftsmanship.

I think part of the cause of this is the easy funding for quick-to-flip ideas started by MBA types from Ivy League schools... that aren't really technology companies so much as a form of investor arbitrage. (EG: put money into an entity which uses the money to buy "traction" and then flip it to other investors or the M&A department at a large company using acquisitions as a way to hire.)

My conclusion is this: IF you're in your 30s, you can't just be an engineer anymore.

You need to start working into management, and become a manager if you want to work for others, or you need to become a founder.

Because by 40, you're on your own.

<comment><USER12> "You need to start working into management, and become a manager if you want to work for others, or you need to become a founder."

Not everyone is capable of going those ways. I hope there is a cure for ageing. Western civilization desperately needs it.

<comment><USER19> East Asian societies needs it, too. Dropping birthdate in CJK has caused middle aged people to work longer in life. But same ageism exists in tech business.

<comment><USER12> That's true. In my defence, Japan's plan seems to be investing in domestic robotics :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The flip side of this is that the economy has been absolutely grim for young, inexperienced workers for several years. SV is a small bright spot for the Lost Generation; boomers should cede it gracefully.

</comment><comment><USER20> SF and SV are very different places, in terms of the types of tech work available and what sorts of companies are hiring. I strongly get the sense from talking to people that the SF job market is much more biased towards startups, whereas SV is more of a combination of startups, huge companies like Cisco and Google, and everything in between. Also, I've got to think that there are vastly more jobs in SV to begin with, just based on population if nothing else.

So, someone living in SF and looking for work there would be much more likely to look around and think that the entire job market is driven by startups populated by a bunch of hubristic guys in their 20s who expect everyone to work 80+ hours a week and are more likely to be (at least subconsciously) ageist and more prone to being discriminatory in hiring people who they don't personally relate to (age/cultural/background differences, etc.).

I live in SV and have lots of friends who live in SF and commute to SV, or live in SF and decided to get into a startup because they were sick of the commute and wanted to do something different. I really get the sense that the only reason there is any tech job market at all in SF is because SV draws so much engineering talent, and there's a large population of younger engineers who want to live in SF so bad that they're basically willing an SF tech scene into existence by setting up startups there, so they don't have commute anymore.

Older engineers looking for work in SV are likely running into different problems. I see it all the time and am always paranoid that I'm falling into the exact same trap (I'm 42 BTW). You get a good job someplace. You continue working at that job for 5, 10, or 20 years. You become more and more valuable because you end up with really specialized knowledge, and carve out a really customized niche for yourself. Also, you get a raise every year. The end result is that after 10 years (or whatever), you're making a really good salary, and likely have very deep (but not so broad) knowledge about whatever your niche is.

Then, something bad happens (or you just get sick of whatever you were doing), so you go looking for a new job. Your great salary was from a combination of longevity, and very specialized knowledge of a particular code base. Unfortunately, when looking for a new job, you have neither of those things going for you. You can only hope for a decent starting salary, not an "I've been here for 10 years" salary, and it'll be hard or impossible to find a job where 100% of your deep, specialized knowledge carries right over into the new position. I think that for a lot of people the best case scenario is one where they're a good fit, but they've got to take a little pay cut because they're starting fresh in a new organization. They'll get back to where they were before, but they've got to work their way back there over the next 2-3 years.

None of this is anyone's fault, it's just the nature of the beast. The only defense against it is to always make an effort to keep your skills fresh, and not get sucked into a mode where you are 100% focused on learning what you need to know for your job and nothing else. A lot of people get comfortable and stop learning altogether, which might make things tough if they want to find a new job for similar pay. There's definitely something to be said for age and experience and maturity, and I think employers appreciate that as well, but not to the extent that they're going to totally ignore the technical requirements when hiring for a position.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good point, and just as true on the business side. Basically, as your value to your particular employer (because of proprietary knowledge) increases, you cannot assume that your value on the open market will also increase. In fact, the reverse is often the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There definitely seems to be a demographic bubble in the programmer population. Should we expect that as the population of programmers itself ages, we'll see less age discrimination? Or is the bubble itself a product of age discrimination?

In other words, is age discrimination more due to "hire people like me" bias, or "work 'em hard while they're too young to know better" bias?

<comment><USER8> There was a previous demographic bubble when the dotcom era meant that all the jocks who would have become lawyers switched to getting CS degrees, despite not really being hackers. Now the same thing is happening, only they want to "do a startup".

I think it's common for youth not to trust older people, probably a byproduct of being raised by parents, and that combined with a desire to keep costs low and get maximum productivity (Eg: a deal in favor of the company at the engineers expense) go hand in hand to make hiring older people who would want a better deal less likely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can't help but believe there is more going on here than just age. The reason being my own experience with hiring the last decade or so. I don't see too many older candidates come across my desk but I never really care much about their age when they do interview with me. I'm just trying to find out something simple:

\- Can this person program a computer?

I always come back there because it's actually more rare than I would have guessed when I entered the industry. I have to ask if these people actually know what they're doing or if they're just getting turned down a lot and happen to be older. Given the number of tech firms in San Francisco I have to assume that at least one isn't making a stupid mistake based on age. How could it be that all of them are overlooking these awesome folks? Most companies typically have standing hiring requisitions open basically all the time for developers.

I'm willing to admit that I could be wrong and that companies are being insane en masse but it seems unlikely.

<comment><USER23> The research done is clear - you take two identical resumes but change the ages[1], and then send these in to a bunch of advertised jobs.

You see that the older applicants consistently receive less responses.

> and that companies are being insane en masse but it seems unlikely.

When we see companies making very stupid decisions very often that seems more likely than not.

<comment><USER24> > You see that the older applicants consistently receive less responses.

 _Less_ responses? Do you mean physically smaller responses, on little note- cards instead of letter stock? Or did you perhaps mean _fewer_ responses?

[http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/fewer- vs-l...](http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/fewer-vs-less/)

<comment><USER23> Prescriptivists demand a difference between less and fewer.

Those poor fools have lost! Thanks for the link though. HN has an international audience and people who speak English as a second language need to know that some people see a difference between less and fewer.

(I have upvoted your comment in an effort to cancel out the downvote that someone gave you.)

<comment><USER24> > Prescriptivists demand a difference between less and fewer. Those poor fools > have lost!

Yes, I agree it's a lost battle. I also don't generally prescribe. But I make an exception for this and a handful of other usages, with the understanding that I can't tell people they're wrong -- which, if you noticed, I didn't do. I instead give both definitions and invite the recipient to choose between them.

My other recent pet peeve are the many people who say "reign in" when they mean "rein in". Reigning is what a monarch does to a kingdom, reining is what a cowboy does to a horse.

But these are annoyances, not a matter of right versus wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> In my last job I had to lead a team of people and I had one developer in his 50s and one in his early 60s. They were fine, I loved working with them. The guy in his 50s was just a awesome engineer who could code circles around me and everyone else on the team and was still getting better every year. The guys in his 60s wasn't as good, but he was on his second career after going back to school for CS. So his technical knowledge level was about the same as a 26 year old.

Now I work with an engineer in his 50s who did not know what a VM was before working with me and still writes everything in procedural C. Our product still has a serial port on it because of this guy. So it goes both ways.

I would say hiring a bad older engineer is actually more harmful than hiring a bad younger engineer because your team might subconsciously give the older person more benefit of doubt, and go along with more of their bad decisions. The solution is to not hire bad engineers or to fire them quickly.

</comment><comment><USER26> People hire people who they relate to, and they tend to hire people close to their age. In a company of many young people, they are more likely to hire people close to their age. The startup in the south bay where I work tends to have an average age of around early to mid middle age, with many young families. There is also an age group with teenagers or children who have moved out. I'm probably the 3rd or 4th youngest engineer in the company.

Younger people tend to live in SF because that is where the younger person lifestyle and people their age tend to be. After I am finished with my current company, one of my criteria will either be a company with a bus to the south bay, be located next to a caltrain station or to be located in SF or Berkeley. The iOS developer having a hard time in SF should try looking for a job in the south bay because he will find many companies comprised of people his age there.

</comment><comment><USER27> I suspect there are 2 1/2 types of older workers.

1\. workers who stop learning

2.a. workers who continue learning, and

2.b. workers who continue learning and also keep ratcheting up the difficulty ... learning harder and harder material.

I suspect category 2.a will encounter little ageism and 2.b will be in high demand.

<comment><USER23> Apply your idea to any other group facing discrimination.

It's abhorrent to blame discrimination on the people being discriminated against by calling them dumb.

<comment><USER4> What about dumb people? Anti-dumb discrimination is rampant in Silicon Valley.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> >To stay in the game, these readers urged, make sure your skills are up to date, especially in areas like coding, and be prepared to work longer hours and get paid less than you're used to.

I think that's what many young software engineers have to endure, therefore it's also the young who face ageism.

Anyway, if you can only get hired for less than you used to, then your effective market rate is actually lower than what it used. And that's "fine". Perhaps the market rate for a software engineer follows a kind of bell curve. That specific issue is not ageism.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is experience (of more than a few years) actually useful in technical fields? I think that's the underlying question. For web-development, the market seems to be saying: no.

Anecdote: I recently learned that Facebook and Amazon have teams dedicated to rebooting crashed servers - it's cheaper and simpler than writing solid code. (As told to me by someone who does this as his full-time job.)

When "doing it right" no longer matters, because cheap hardware allows massive redundancy, maybe experience does become less important.

<comment><USER29> > Anecdote: I recently learned that Facebook and Amazon have teams dedicated > to rebooting crashed servers

That's a nice anecdote. I'd hate to think it was actually true. There is potential loss of data to think about as much as anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is actually true. Unless both these engineers were lying to me when they described their jobs. (Or unless I'm confabulating or hallucinating, I suppose.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I turned 30 recently, and job searching does seem to become more infuriating with age, but I think a big part of that (at least from what I've seen) is that you don't even consider the bad opportunities, so the landscape seems more limited only because you're that much more selective. I could be wrong, but I don't think a competent 50-year-old programmer is excluded from _all_ jobs; I think it's more accurate that the list of jobs they would really want has become short (and even if you're really good, people get rejected for all kinds of reasons, and a short prospect list might have you shut out).

There is, actually, a fair amount of age discrimination, but most of that seems to be in companies where I wouldn't want to work anyway.

On the other hand, I think that Silicon Valley and New York, because they are so expensive, have created a culture where it's socially unacceptable _not_ to be a manager or founder by 35 (unless you've had an exit). There really aren't many good exemplars for older (50+) programmers in those places because everyone but the managers and investors leaves shortly after having a kid or two.</comment>


Can I withstand HN hug of death with liveview? - <AUTHOR> https://liveviews.xyz/ <comment><AUTHOR> I occasionally see blogs shared here go down with an error message "Error establishing a database connection". I guess they are WordPress sites with too much database connection within a timeframe.

I talked about (Phoenix/TS) LiveView with a friend recently. His immediate response is it sounds "not scalable" because "the server is not abusing the clients as slave". I want to see how many clients could a single node serve without any tricks on clustering, load balancing, e.t.c.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This site is built with TS LiveView, hosted on a cloud vm without load balancing. Source code available at [https://github.com/beenotung/ts- liveview](https://github.com/beenotung/ts-liveview)

The website is server-side rendered real-time webapp. More details in the "About" session in the site.</comment>


The Problem with Redux and How to Fix It - <AUTHOR> http://blog.javascripting.com/2016/05/21/the-problem-with-redux-and-how-to-fix-it/ <comment><USER2> I just wanted to use this opportunity to plug one of my projects, Radical. It addresses some of the issues raised in this article. Specifically, Radical eliminates the state-structure coupling inherent in Redux applications, simplifying reducer code and making it easy to write modular applications. It doesn't hurt that it eliminates a LOT of Redux boilerplate in the process :)

Compare the shopping cart example I produced using Radical to the one in the Redux github repo, the difference is night and day.

[http://www.nathan-rice.net/projects/radical/](http://www.nathan- rice.net/projects/radical/)</comment>


Congress takes aim at patent trolls - <AUTHOR> http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/302881-congress-takes-aim-at-patent-trolls <comment><USER2> From the article:

>At a hearing in March, Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) worried that without a proper definition, lawmakers will "impact adversely a bunch of people we should not be impacting." Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) warned that legislation targeting patent trolls could open the door to deny plaintiffs "their right to go to court in other tort situations."

It is interesting they "see" the problems with overlay broad statutes here, but with items such as the CFAA/SOPA/PIPA they fail to see just how overly broad a statute they have created/proposed.

<comment><USER3> To a politician, problems are seen in light of helping their most valuable constituents (MPAA, Apple/MS/Google, etc.) and themselves.

<comment><USER4> That argument makes no sense. Patent trolls aren't a valuable constituency. Apple, MS, and Google are.

<comment><USER5> Apple's done plenty of patent trolling of their own. Remember the rounded rectangle fiasco?

That's all beside the point. If patents are reformed so that only big corporations like Apple can use them to attack their competitors, what really will have changed? Sure, the swarm of bees (NPEs) might be gone but we'll still have to deal with the angry bear. And what of small inventors without the means to capitalize on their innovations? What will protect them if their legal power to enforce licensing deals is removed?

<comment><USER6> In the common definition, "patent trolls" are nonpracticing entities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This abuse of overbroad patents - including software patents - isn't your average bad idea. It is powerfully toxic to innovation. In the global context, it is literally a threat to human progress. For the USA in particular, patent trolls are a threat to its continued eminence as a superpower.

So it's strange that some in congress still support the current patent situation. I want to believe those who serve there are generally smart and competent, regardless of whether their opinion on something agrees with mine. But the pro-troll arguments seem massively short-sighted.

Allowing the current situation to continue would be massively harmful to our descendants. I'm grateful there seems to be swelling bipartisan support to end it.

<comment><USER8> "So it's strange that some in congress still support the current patent situation."

They may just be waiting on the lobbyists' checks to clear, or their supporters are benefiting from the current situation and hope to maintain it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is why patent reform is a problem in US politics.

The Democrats are essentially the political wing of the American Bar Association. They are bought and paid for and represent the interests of trial lawyers. Lawyers make a lot of money from the current patent system. This is the same reason Democrats oppose tort reform to reduce frivolous class action suits (of course it's all in the name of the little guy getting his day in court).

The Republicans are beholden to big business (and the religious right). As much as big players are suffering the death of a thousand cuts in the current system no one is going out of business because of it. What's more arguably it hurts the smaller players more.

The patent mess is nothing new. Patents stifling innovation is nothing new. Benjamin Franklin was notably against patents [1]. The Wright brothers started a patent war [2] that completely paralyzed the US aviation industry to the point that when the US entered WWI it was completely incapable of producing planes and had to buy them from Europe. This eventually took Congressional action to resolve resulting in the system that exists today (aviation patent licensing).

Pharmaceuticals are the thorny problem here. It's true that it takes hundreds of millions to bring a drug to market and it's easy to reproduce so some protection is required.

But at the same time drug companies spend most of their money on marketing not research. Patents are effectively extended by slightly changing a molecule (sometimes making the drug less effective) and getting a patent extension, which they then push doctors to prescribe (over the generic) leaving consumers and insurance carriers to foot the bill.

But software is easy. Just get rid of them all. You can't patent mathematical formula. Algorithms, as all those with even a rudimentary CS education know, are just mathematical formulae. How the courts haven't worked this out yet is a mystery.

And of course there are the patents on "swipe to unlock" and similar obvious "inventions", which should never have been granted in the first place.

If two people can come up with the same idea independently then it probably shouldn't be patentable. The idea that you can write software that ends up infringing on any number of patents you know nothing about is beyond scary.

Yet the US continues to push foreign powers to tow the US line on software patents (with mixed results), which isn't helped by the current Obama administration, which has to be by far the most IP holder friendly administration in US history (between the original ACTA, stuffing the DoJ and the Federal bench with RIAA/MPAA lawyers, pursuing the Swartz case beyond all reason through the US Attorney, etc ad nauseum).

[1]: [http://movingtofreedom.org/2006/08/31/ben-franklin-on- patent...](http://movingtofreedom.org/2006/08/31/ben-franklin-on-patents/)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war>

<comment><USER10> _The Democrats...The Republicans..._

It always seems evenhanded to blame both sides.

When Bilsky came to the Supreme Court, there were four justices that signed onto a dissent suggesting that business methods and software were not patentable subject matter. They were Stevens, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Ginsburg. Four justices stood for patentability in general, but just not Bilsky's patent; they were Kennedy, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito. Scalia joined each opinion in part.

That's four so-called 'liberal' justices for software freedom and four 'conservatives' for more patents on software. Not exactly an even division of partisan blame.

In CLS Bank v. Alice before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the division is more between the generalists (good) and patent specialists (evil). The CAFC governs federal employment and some international trade matters so there are some generalists. The patent reform side was one patent lawyer and four generalists; the unlimited patents side ("everything under the sun made by man" - actual quote) was four patent lawyers and one with the unusual specialties of federal employment and intellectual property law. The good guys were Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama-Obama appointees and the baddies Reagan-Bush- Clinton-Bush-Obama, with only a slight and insignificant D/R lead for good, in contrast to the Supremes.

Maybe Congress is ineffective on both partisan benches and in both houses. It certainly seems so in recent years. Nevertheless, the courts are where patent law is made. And there is a clear partisan split between good and evil on our supreme court.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Soon: "Company claims patent on democracy; sues entire US Congress, executive branch "

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm usually a Democrat in most voting situations, but in this instance, I can't find myself agreeing with any of the Democrat positions on this. It boggles the mind as to whose interests they are serve.

<comment><USER10> Those quotes were from a few Democrats from very, very, very poor districts. They're looking to extract favors for their constituents from financial and telecom companies in districts where patronage employment is a way of survival. I wouldn't take that as the view of the Democratic Party.

My post above compares the record of the parties on patent appeals judges and the split is very different.

Republicans do have an advantage in paying attention to the needs of entrepreneurs in many cases, though. It's an important thing that Democrats could improve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wish they would go after copyright trolls too...unfortunately most of them depend on copyright trolls for their reelection.</comment>


Johnson wins sweeping mandate, as Corbyn's 'radical' agenda fails to win votes - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/boris-johnson-wins-sweeping-mandate-as-jeremy-corbyns-radical-agenda-fails-to-win-votes-even-from-his-traditional-base/2019/12/13/00dcac5a-17af-11ea-80d6-d0ca7007273f_story.html <comment><USER2> the framing of this headline is ridiculous. corbyn's characterization as a "radical" is contradicted by this own article, which claims he wants to re- nationalize utilities. is nationalization of water really "left-wing"? is the us left wing for having a national mail service? his characterization as unpopular also seems mystifying to me, the article says that under his leadership membership in labour has increased.</comment>


China's Muslim Detention Camps Spark Protests in Islamic World - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-detentions-of-muslims-trigger-protests-in-islamic-world-1538040605 <comment><USER2> [http://archive.is/a0oAe](http://archive.is/a0oAe)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ironically I have found that Pakistanis who are extremely quick to raise protest even for perceived discrimination against Muslims, claim that its China's internal matter and one should not interfere. With that reasoning even Kashmir is India's internal affairs.

I dont understand the rationale behind such double speak.

</comment><comment><USER4> The Economist did some great reporting on this a few months back, and it's good to see that the issue is starting to get even more notice across the world.

The Chinese government are basically building a massive surveillance-state in the regions the Uyghur people live, complete with ever-present police, informant networks and possibly over a million people being forced into "re- education camps" (where it's reported they're being subjected to everything from beatings to other forms of abuse). Makes for some pretty grim reading.

[https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has- turn...](https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turned- xinjiang-into-a-police-state-like-no-other)

<comment><USER5> Yeah I'm glad this is being cast into the light.

I understand that the real reason why they're going after the Uyghur is to squelsh any separatist initiatives and that their religion happens to be a convenient tool to use against them but as someone born to Muslim parents I don't even wanna step into China at all now. I'd come to peace with their heavy surveillance because it just seemed like Chinese citizens had a different set of priorities in life but this ethnic cleansing makes me way too uncomfortable.</comment></comment>


Instead of 'branding,' how about startup-friendly policies for Mass.? - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/02/27/massachusetts-technology-industry-needs-a-new-deal-not-a-new-brand/

<comment><USER2> Even something as simple as not charging $500 per year to create/maintain an LLC would be nice.

As a resident of the Commonwealth, it's a mixed bag. On the one hand, the government is awesome and progressive. On the other hand, they want to be controlling and arbitrary. For example, there's huge biotech subsidies in the state - and it's a growth industry, but at the same time, it's somewhat arbitrary and means that those companies can pay up for things like office space since they're getting the subsidy and so they tend to become more of the economy. Likewise (since the article brings up transit), the Commonwealth decided that since a court ordered them to enhance public transit due to environmental concerns over that the big dig (a highway project) was causing, that it should be the MBTA (public transit authority) that should shoulder the cost rather than the big dig who created the need for the cost. That's simply bad economics to shift costs away from those that incur the costs. Likewise, the Commonwealth likes the double standard of free interstates (paid for by gas taxes) for everyone except those that live west of Boston (who must pay both a gas tax and tolls).

I'd prefer that the legislature tried to be a little less controlling of things on a high level and rather target the roots that they'd like to affect rather than simply deciding something like Industry A is good. Maybe something like, "companies with strong growth can get a discount tax incentive." Why companies with strong growth? Employing a lot of people isn't useful. Progressively employing more is useful. Being large isn't useful, growing larger is. So a company that exhibits strong growth is likely to employ more people in the future - especially if it has more capital to invest in itself. Likewise, if they've shown that they can do good things with capital, those companies will create more profits and more taxes in the future. Heck, even make it something like this: companies that show strong growth can defer (some of) their taxes for 5 years. That's like an interest free loan that gets them to locate in MA and have their growth in MA since that growth comes at a steep discount in cost with little long-term cost to the state.

I'm not complaining. Taxes are reasonable and services are high compared to other states (<http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/460.html>). It's a good place to live, despite the weather (although that's even nice today).

<comment><USER3> I thought it was rather ironic that the same week Deval Patrick was heading to CA to entice some businesses to head east, the legislature was trying to implement a tax on businesses _in other states_. It's hard to believe, but if you get your tires changed in NH yet live in MA, MA thinks it deserves the sales tax.

Readers not familiar with this will probably think I am making this up. It's totally absurd.

If state A wants more sales tax revenue, they need to encourage businesses to open shop in state A. If it's to the business's benefit to set up shop across the border in state B, state A needs to rethink its policies.

My problem with MA is that raising taxes seems to be their first answer to every problem. And driving here STILL sucks.

<comment><USER4> But it's tough when State B is a place like New Hampshire, who are more than happy to keep taxes low at the expense of having relatively poor services. Two different states, two very different sets of priorities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder what policies MA could actually change that would make a difference. These might be surprisingly far afield. For example, I think Wade is onto something with his suggestions about improving mass transit. Having a good quality of life in a town may attract startup founders more effectively than high-profile boondoggles like "innovation centers."

Of course the real weakness in Boston is not a lack of founders, but a lack of investors. I can't think of any policies that would solve that problem. Tax law changes, wouldn't, for example.

<comment><USER6> Isn't it more a lack of angel investors?

Maybe the problem is when people get rich they think: _off to California!_ and never _off to Boston!_ :)

Or they got rich in CA, never bothered to leave, and then became angel investors.

<comment><USER5> Yes, angels are the weakest point. Though Boston VCs seem to be much slower off the mark than SV ones too.

I think the weather in CA has a lot to do with it. That and the fact that for so long it's been the new, nice place to move that it has affected the composition of the people here. The Bay Area, in particular, is a place a lot of people have moved to in search of a better life. So it ends up being full of the kind of people who'd move for a better life, and people like that are optimistic.

<comment><USER7> When I visited Hearst Castle, the tour guide characterized California as a place where over the history of the US, people kept moving west to escape convention, bureaucracy, community standards, and so it became the final destination of weirdos and lunatics. Seems about right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think of Rt 128 as a Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

</comment><comment><USER9> If Boston has an inferiority complex because of Silicon Valley, where does that leave me out on the Cape looking in (enviously) on all the activity 2 hours away in Boston?

Suck it up, launch your startup, and work your butt off to make it work.

<comment><USER10> ...and move to Silicon Valley whether or not it succeeds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like that the author mentioned colleges outside of Boston. He seemed to name benefits that are the same throughout Massachusetts.</comment>