Ask HN: Companies using Racket? - <AUTHOR> Hello everyone,
I'm looking for companies that are currently hiring Racket developers or did so in the past.
I created https://www.racketjobs.com, because I was myself interested in workplaces that use Racketlang commercially, but couldn't find any. After sharing the site on /r/Racket and a couple of other sites I got a bit more than 100 people to sign up for the newsletter.
If anyone knows a company, using Racket, or a place on the web where I can find open Racket positions, I'd be happy to hear from you. Of course I did my Google searches before. <comment><USER2> Naughty Dog (game dev) have used it to some extent. This has been up on HN more than once. They have even done a presentation on RacketCon 2013. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12203694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12203694)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I already watched the presentation, but couldn't find any open job positions in regards to Racket. I'll try to contact them directly and will see if I have some luck.

<comment><USER3> I think they may have stopped that after being bought by Sony? I don't think it is still around.

<comment><USER4> I think they still use it for scripting in their games. For things like AI, etc.

<comment><USER5> They are using an in-house variant of Scheme known as DC. There are a few pages about it in Game Engine Architecture, a book written by an engineer at Naughty Dog. [https://www.gameenginebook.com/](https://www.gameenginebook.com/)

DC is compiled to bytecode then interpreted. DC compiler is written in Racket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We are working on a product written in Scheme. It's mostly just me currently. Not (currently) using Racket, but a set of libraries[1] on Gambit-C, as well as an interpreter written in C++[2]. We might take someone on board a few months from now (London/UK).

[1] [https://github.com/pflanze/chj-schemelib](https://github.com/pflanze/chj- schemelib) [2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18045890](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18045890)

<comment><USER7> What about Racket's ability for arbitrary languages via #lang, not just macros? Are there any plans for this?

It's really nice to be able to do #lang c and just write C that is FFI'd into racket so you can avoid using an external toolchain to compile.

<comment><USER6> I don't really have a use for this. Gambit-C allows to include C files or also strings of C code from a Scheme module and builds it as one. I haven't used Racket's FFI though, perhaps the real benefit is from parsing the C code to auto-generate bindings? Generally I'd like to reduce the use of C code in case I want to re-target the code to run in a different, not C based, environment. chj-schemelib will need work for general consumption, let me know if you want to use it. (If you're talking about the interpreter in C++, it's the other way around, write FFI declarations within C++ to allow Scheme access to C++.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We, at Linki Tools [0], use Racket for our main product: S10 [1]. Not hiring at the moment but most likely will in the near future. I always hire remote (contracting up to now) and by the time I have to hire remote for racket I don't think I will have any problems finding a fine dev.

If you're in the Frankfurt area, I will be presenting at the first After Work Racket [2] on Thursday, the 8th. Come join us.

[0] [https://linki.tools](https://linki.tools) [1] [https://linki.tools/s10](https://linki.tools/s10) [2] [https://www.meetup.com/After-Work- Racket/events/253939676/](https://www.meetup.com/After-Work- Racket/events/253939676/)

<comment><USER9> Hi,

I found your meetup and would really like to join - too bad that the company I work for is holding a conference at this day (www.talentthinking.de). So I may join for Episode 2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I enjoyed using it in college during my programming language theory course. However, I thought it was meant to be more of an academic/teaching language. Why should a company use it over Haskell or Clojure?

<comment><USER11> I think racket would be a good choice for internal company tools. It's batteries included philosophy allows you to create very complex apps with minimal effort.

Racket is significantly more expressive than clojure in many different ways (nice gui tools, very sophisticated macro system, good IDE)

I wouldn't want to use racket for applications that would have thousands or millions of concurrent users. For programming in the large, clojure wins by a long shot.

<comment><USER12> > I wouldn't want to use racket for applications that would have thousands or > millions of concurrent users. For programming in the large, clojure wins by > a long shot.

Can you explain why?

Because it's been used more in big prod envs? Or for reason intrinsic to the languages themselves? If the latter, which ones?

<comment><USER13> This is a bit funny to post in hacker news which was written in arc, a language built on Racket and serves large numbers of people.

<comment><USER14> Indeed, and Arc has some brilliant ideas, but if you ever tried to hack in it, you'd experience how dog slow it really is. But Arc's web framework is implemented in somewhat low level MzScheme and is entirely different (and much slower) than web apps in Racket's[0].

Part of what makes Hacker News fast is that the page only has 4-ish images (if you count the invisible gif that is used for indentation) and a tiny amount of JS.

[0]: [https://docs.racket-lang.org/continue/](https://docs.racket- lang.org/continue/)

<comment><USER13> Yeah, but that's sort of the point: for most web applications, most performance issues are not the result of the implementation language but of the chosen architecture. If a fairly inefficient language like Arc can handle HN loads (for the most part, at least), almost anything can.

<comment><USER14> > for most web applications, most performance issues are not the result of the > implementation language but of the chosen architecture.

I don't think that's true (but I also don't understand what is meant by _architecture_ in this context).

There's a simple file upload form example in the Arc community repository. It's so slow that it would timeout on files smaller than 100K. I tried optimizing the POST request parsing, but could still only barely get Arc to handle file sizes of 5M.

Tried making a similar simple file upload form in Racket, and it runs way faster. But it shouldn't be surprising that some languages are less efficient than others, right?

I'm also not sure that _most_ web applications are text-only. Many web applications send and receive other things that plaintext.

<comment><USER6> > But it shouldn't be surprising that some languages are less efficient than > others, right?

A long time ago I read a comment somewhere saying that Arc is interpreted (as in by a program itself written in MzScheme, instead of translated down to MzScheme), which struck me as odd but I didn't check back then, so now I finally went and looked through the Arc history[1] and release 0 already does the translation, so apparently that was just wrong. There can still be reasons why Arc could be slower, though, I remember PG's design called for overloading function calls so that e.g. hash table lookups could be written like function calls, and if implemented naively this could cost a slower than usual type check on each function call and prevent optimizations applied by the MzScheme/Racket compiler like perhaps function inlining. But just a different parsing infrastructure could explain it too (working on strings-as-vectors vs. lazy lists would make a large difference, but I couldn't get down far enough to see how that's implemented; srv.arc in parse-multipart-args uses regular expressions, not sure that's what you optimized?). Anyway, new code always has large potentials for optimization (early lisps were very slow, today's implementations are generally very fast; same was/is true for Java, JavaScript, ..).

[1] [http://github.com/arclanguage/anarki](http://github.com/arclanguage/anarki)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great initiative. I often wonder why Racket isn't used more in the industry, especially when you see much more niche languages being used...

One note about your site: You are subscribing people to a mailing list without sending a confirmation email?

<comment><USER15> Racket is too powerful to be used by big corporations. The last thing a company wants is to have their rockstar programmer leave behind a terse, arcane, impenetrable walnut of an application.

Languages like Java make it much easier to treat your programmers as interchangeable parts.

<comment><USER16> _Racket is too powerful to be used by big corporations. The last thing a company wants..._

Ah yes, The Slashdot Cynicism.

Guaranteed to get a +5 Insightful.

What is your experience with Racket? Or failing that, Scheme? Or, failing that, Lisps in general?

<comment><USER17> Not exactly Racket. But with Perl. And the same argument.

Early 2010's, I remember my company had a fairly fast, stable and small(LOC wise) data feed processing application in Perl. It just worked, barely any bugs, maintained by 2 - 3 programmers.

Time came around, and your Director level people realized the teams were too small, programmers were having too much fun and more importantly it made programmers felt valuable and hard to be treated as kleenex.

They decided to give some Architect Astronaut love to the application. Then came in Java programmers. Code base size exploded by 500x. Design pattern floods followed. DI to manage complexity which shouldn't have even existed. Hundreds of classes to do things that could be done in hundreds of lines in Perl.

Managers routinely boasted how they managed to grow their teams, about their culture, and how big and great their teams were. They could never make it work as well as it did in Perl. I too moved on. But eventually I saw they just shut down the product.

No manager likes to see their work less valuable or better than that of a programmer.

Languages like Perl, Scala, Clojure, Racket, Common Lisp are never going to see decent adoption in the industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have a work available at the moment, but a bit quirky as we're using our own novel Racket-influenced scheme dialect for business workflow, coupled with Python. Happy to chat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great to hear. How can I contact you? You can mail me at cihan(at)tas.fm

<comment><USER18> Just sent you an email, thx.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I just finished teaching Racket for 2/3 of the semester. I have never had a group of students hate their introductory programming experience the way that they did with Racket. 0/10 will never teach Racket again the rest of my life, no matter how much I enjoy functional programming.

<comment><USER20> Genuinely curious as to why this was so.

Did these students have prior programming experience? Was their reaction due to a particular fault of Racket or would they have disliked any language to which they were not accustomed? Perhaps their reaction was to the idea of functional programming which would have provided a distressing challenge to intuitions developed through object-oriented or imperative programming? What textbook did you use?

<comment><USER21> I would suspect that at least part of it is the same reason that I disliked having Pascal as taught as doing my programming introduction course: It's not a main stream language and it's sufficiently different that you cannot directly apply what you're taught in most commercial settings. The languages they will be using in the future, or expect to be using in the future are C-style object oriented languages like C# or Java (depending on where in the world you live).

It's not that languages like Racket, Rust, Haskell or even something like Prolog and other languages aren't interesting or useful, in many cases they're a better fit for your problems. It's just that without the background in the C-style and object oriented languages it's pretty hard to appreciate the more "niche" language and the problems they solve.

<comment><USER22> >The languages they will be using in the future, or expect to be using in the future are C-style object oriented languages like C# or Java

Between Go Rust, F#,Nim, Kotlin etc I think ML-style syntax, and composition over inheritance is generally being preferred in a lot of newer up and coming languages. As well languages like C#/Java/Rust are so multi-paradigm these days the crossover relevance is very high from any one language to another.

I've never seen most languages as drastically different really. Lisps and Prolog certainly are, Rust is a little with the borrow checker, but otherwise I feel like people make much ado about "int x" vs "x :int" and "f(thing)" vs "thing.f()"

<comment><USER23> Go isn't a strong example of ML syntax.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was surprised to see that you charge $100 for a 60-day post. Is that typical of job posting sites?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's actually cheap compared to other job boards, which usually charge 250+ for 30-60 days, giving you access to a pool of highly relevant developers. Not trying to say, that it couldn't be free of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A long time ago, I was using racket at the largest hospital in Massachusetts analyzing DNA sequences of MS patients. I used racket to create a GUI that allowed non-technical biologists to create custom bioinformatics pipelines.

I found Racket to be great and highly productive. If you are looking to use racket at work I would recommend you look into working as a software engineer for academia.

If you are the only engineer around, you get to use any language that you want.

<comment><USER25> To just offer a possible contrary perspective: nobody else is around to tell you you're using the wrong tool for the job.

There's many fine options for each domain and yeah, you get the choice of them if there's no established languages. But be careful not to go off the deep end on using your favourite langauge for everything.

On small teams it becomes increasingly important to endeavour to objectively scrutinize your own choices as best as possible.

<comment><USER11> I agree with you, though being a lone developer sometimes allows you to be more flexible in the tools you use. At the hospital I used Racket, Haskell, C, and R. Because my programs didn't need to talk to each other, I was free to write each utility in what best suited the job. On a team I think there's a lot of pressure to just use what everyone else is using, which can lead to sub-optimal results.

<comment><USER26> Yes, but if the hospital ever needs to replace you they are SOL

<comment><USER11> Any developer worth their salt should be able to pick up a new language in a couple days. I'm not sure why some developers are so adverse to learning anything new.

<comment><USER27> This just isn't true. There is a reason people look for devs with years of experience in a certain stack.

<comment><USER11> At work we use Scala in a very functional style and Akka. Not a single dev on our team (including me) knew Scala when they started. Everyone was productive with the codebase and programmed idiomatically within a matter of weeks.

<comment><USER27> I imagine the team was familiar with writing Java, which makes moving to Scala the easiest possible language transition besides maybe a move from C# to VB.NET. Switching to a completely different ecosystem, such as to R, Racket, Haskell and C takes at least twice as long. And could be much longer if you're relying on large framework changes, for instance if you're switching from QT to GTK+ or WPF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Having discovered the TCL programming language because of a single person using it in a bioinformatic lab I can second the recommendation.

<comment><USER29> TCL/Tk is used heavily in finance/wall street.

<comment><USER30> It's used heavily at Intel, in hardware verification.

<comment><USER31> Virtually all EDA (electronic design automation) tools include a Tcl shell that echoes back any GUI action as a Tcl command. This makes it very easy to write Tcl scripts that perform repetitive actions (e.g., load HDL source, compile design, simulate, check value of signal).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Another programming language?

<comment><USER33> Racket exists since 1995</comment></comment>


Airlander 10: World's largest aircraft prepares to take to the skies - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/Airlander-10-Worlds-largest-aircraft-prepares-to-take-to-the-skies/articleshow/51374710.cms <comment><USER2> These things could lead to an increase in exports from landlocked countries with crummy infrastructure in Africa, as well as inner parts of places like India.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't helium supposed to be wildly increasing in price soon? Why would people build new airships requiring helium?

<comment><USER4> What else would you use?

<comment><USER3> I don't know, but if the cost is going to vastly increase, perhaps the ships are infeasible.</comment></comment></comment>


Day 7: Brutal Triage – Freetown, Sierra Leone - <AUTHOR> http://pfmhcolumbia.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/les-roberts-the-prediction-landscape-is-looking-bad/

<comment><AUTHOR> These are the numbers in Sierra Leone from Les Roberts, WHO Foreign Medical Team Coordinator.

Les is a long-time epidemiologist and sanitation engineer; he's served in dozens of outbreaks and conflict situations including both of the cholera epidemics in Goma following the Rwandan genocide.

</comment><comment><USER2> From the OP, which is worth reading in its entirety:

"[...] this is not about treating the ill as much as it is about minimizing infections. [...] We are primarily trying to facilitate people to die without infecting others. Very little of this logic beyond the ORS [oral rehydration supplement] is about treatment."

<comment><USER3> There are so many unanswered questions. Why would any family bring a loved one to one of these ECUs? You are basically abandoning someone you love to die alone in great pain. Who is going to volunteer to work in one of these ECU as they will be basically unprotected and at great risk? Even if everything go according to plan they will be worse in a months time than they are now?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
        " We are about to assist thousands and thousands of people
        to die an excruciating death at home without even the most
        mild of pain relief."

I simply don't understand this. Why isn't humane assisted suicide an option considered in this scenario? If I were one of the people who was going to be left to die an excruciating death, all I would want is one syringe with a super potent does of heroin... i.e. enough to slip into a warm coma and then shut down my breathing and nervous system. How hard can it be to repurpose seized drug shipments for such a purpose if shit is truly hitting the fan.

The longer the host stays alive, the longer the virus has to multiply in the host and get caretakers sick.

<comment><USER5> 50% survive.

<comment><USER4> The number I've seen is 30% and I've haven't seen anything written on the quality of life afterwards...

But either way, a 50% survival rate under circumstances where I am more likely to infect those I love the longer I'm alive makes it a much easier choice. At an R0 of 2, I'm statistically likely to take one other life, who will go on to take one other life etc. At an R0 of greater than 2, I'm going to result of many more people. Only at an R0 less than 2 is it even reasonable to consider trying your chances to stay alive.

<comment><USER5> 50% is for the current outbreak in West Africa.

Total Cases: 9937 Total Deaths: 4877

[http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west- africa/inde...](http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west- africa/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wish I had someway to up vote this post to the top of HN. I feel like I am in a theatre on fire and everyone is ignoring it and just complaining that the smoke is blocking their view of the stage.</comment>


Game Engine Containers – handle_map - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/general-programming/game-engine-containers-handle-map-r4495 <comment><USER2> I find it highly suspect when a data structure uses independently allocated nodes tha contain actual pointers (as opposed to indirection ints). I know people like to make the tree just be another node, but it's really really important to allocate things together! I would deem it mandatory to allocate every node in the same tree in the same vector.

<comment><USER3> Are you criticizing the separation of m_sparseIds and m_items in this article? Could you give some more detail as to why you see this as a problem?

The only performance issue I see with having these separate is what the author describes as Consideration #2: you have to do completely separate read for the indirection which may incur an additional cache miss. But this is the cost of keeping the dense set dense and the handles constant.

Is there another issue I'm overlooking? Maybe I misunderstand you, as this structure does use int indexes (both for the free lists and to locate objects in the other array), and I don't know what you mean by "I know people like to make the tree just be another node"

<comment><USER2> Sorry I'm not going to look at specifics, but I'm not arguing with the article; I'm agreeing with it.

<comment><USER3> Ah, sorry, I completely misunderstood.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I think it's common to associate a hn comment with criticisms :) (in the negative sense).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should use maps in game engines parsimoniously and when you do, use integer keys like a hash or something. This should be evident for any game programmer.

If you are at the point of inventing a more complex structure to compensate for programmer mistakes and/or malpractice, I suspect you should fire or reassign people instead of coding this.

But meh, I'm probably getting too old/grumpy... lol

<comment><USER5> STL containers aren't the most optimized things for game programming ever... otherwise the EASTL[0] wouldn't be a thing.

[0] [https://github.com/electronicarts/EASTL](https://github.com/electronicarts/EASTL)

<comment><USER4> It's also very optimal not to use a map when you don't really need one, that's my point.

I agree eastl is cool, I clearly remember smilling when it first came out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Inspired by "Pitfalls of Object Oriented Programming"[0], i did something similar to this (in C). Idk how the cpu usage would be by doing it another way, but this way processing thousands of matrices is no problem.

[0] [http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/OO_programming/_pdf/Pitfal...](http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/OO_programming/_pdf/Pitfalls_of_Object_Oriented_Programming_GCAP_09.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of this article [1] that appeared in game dev mag when that was still circulating.

[1] [http://seanmiddleditch.com/data-structures-for-game- develope...](http://seanmiddleditch.com/data-structures-for-game-developers- the-slot-map/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Could someone give this code a try to see if G++ will vectorize it's tree? If this is ordered to enhance cache hits for this data then you should see some serious performance with vectorization enabled IF g++ recognizes it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Do any languages have compilers that do this (semi-)automatically? Data layout optimizations are really lacking in the current state of compilers.

<comment><USER10> Yes! I work on a dynamic compiler (also known as a JIT) for Ruby that will for example represent small hash maps as a single allocation of a linear consecutive set of keys and values. This helps further optimisations such as escape analysis, scalar replacement and loop unrolling, which in turn improve the effectiveness of inline caching and then inlining, splitting and specialisation. So after all that it can have quite an impact, beyond simply being more cache friendly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Mmmm, like getting a ticket to exchange for your coat.</comment>


Humans 'threaten 1m species with extinction' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48169783 <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19838229](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19838229)

<comment><USER3> It annoys me that an obvious dupe (heck, I was 95% sure it would be a dupe before I even visited the link) with a sensationalized headline can reach the front page before the original reporting without the sensationalized title is even off the front page. Goes to show you that the people around here are just as susceptible to click-bait as everyone else.

<comment><USER2> Accidents happen. I try to check before submitting myself, and still managed a dupe last week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Go humans..</comment>


Ask HN: Would you hire a programmer without a degree? - <AUTHOR> Hello there,
I'm a 22-yo male. Long time I was a freelance Python programmer. Also I have some projects on GitHub.
Currently I work at a Russian company as a Java EE developer.
The problem is, I have no university degree. Of course, I went through the school and college and got secondary special education (guess it's correct). I got a profession which is more into system administration than programming. But I decided to be a programmer.
In the future I plan to move out of here to somewhere in the US and work there.
So here I am, thinking if I need to go to university, since I'm absolutely disappointed in Russian education system.
The question is, Would you hire a programmer without a degree? What if I study remotely, does it make sense? Is there any chance to get hired for skills, not for education? Is there any advice you can give?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I hire experienced people, which means that I don't care about your degree. I care about your professional career: have you been successful at other companies? What are your key accomplishments?

I can't wave your CS degree in front of my customers to get them to pay me more, so who cares about it? I prefer someone that can show me how his work will make my product or company better.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes. Disclaimer: I'm one of those.

I started a degree, but dropped out. It was just a waste of time and money, "learning" and doing what they put before me, which often was outdated, badly presented, silly or plain wrong (this might be different in a good college, I tried three different Spanish ones). I could just go and learn by myself the right things, from the right sources (seriously, the Internet is full of _amazing_ stuff), both theoretical and practical.

If something, I wish I could take back all that time and money rather than go back and finish. I never had a problem so far on getting hired or learning what I want or need.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, I'd hire someone without a degree. Some of the people who have impressed me the most thus far in my career have had no formal education. In the security industry especially (primarily where I work), it is not uncommon to see incredible work done by those who dropped out of, or simply never attended university. This is true even in cryptography (though it's rarer).

This doesn't mean it's necessarily a winning bet to drop out of college. It depends on what you want to do. If you have solid skills and want to drop out to start a company, great, go ahead. History has shown many people beyond just Gates or Zuckerberg who succeeded that way.

In general, the more hands on the work, the less a degree matters if you have other ways to prove your skills. Research is harder to just break into.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've worked with many programmers without degrees, including at least two who didn't graduate high school.

In my experience, people care more about your github repo, and how well you can code in person on a whiteboard, or on a small takehome projects.

</comment><comment><USER6> If a potentional employer cared more about my previous education history than they do my skills or previous work, than I personally wouldnt really value them either. Not sure if that's the 'correct' way of going about it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I also moved to the US recently, got rejected so many times due to the lack of US-based degree. I already got a degree in CS from my home country, but it doesn't help. I'm not saying 100% companies/startups in Silicon Valley required a degree, but you better to get one.

</comment><comment><USER8> The bad news: If you don't have a degree, your resume has a much higher chance of being weeded out before even getting to a phone screen.

The good news: This prescreening step is the only one where your degree matters - by the time you're actually talking to a person, your degree almost doesn't matter at all.

Getting your first job will be tougher than you might like, but there are plenty of companies that don't filter candidates based on education. After you get that first job, your goal should be to expand your network - an internal referral can oftentimes guarantee a technical screen, at which point you're right where you want to be.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, without a doubt. Some of the best devs I've worked with don't have degrees.

I have a CS degree, and in my own personal view, I think that a degree is extremely helpful. With that being said, your average degree doesn't teach you how to be a great developer, nor should it. Programming is a vocational task, and while there is a ton of theory that can help you out, there is no substitute for experience.

With that being said, a lot of people on here say that a GitHub profile will help you get hired. I'm not so sure, especially when you're dealing with your typical non-tech company looking to hire a developer. The underlying idea that experience trumps education is valid in the workplace. I've worked with Oxbridge graduates that can't write code for shit, and UWE graduates single- handedly build great tools being used by millions every day.

Where I disagree is with the idea that a few small projects on GitHub can show that you work well on large projects, or as part of a team. The only thing that can reliably do that is experience, and naturally you won't get to flaunt the code you've written for a previous employer. If you want to move to the US, get some paid work in Russia. It doesn't need to be ground-breaking, or even a huge project; something you can write on your CV/Resume that says "I've written code professionally".

My advice is everything in moderation. Get enough education. Write enough open-source code to show that you can write something non-trivial. Get enough experience to show that you are capable of working as a professional developer.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yes, you can get hired without a degree. Even at places like Google and Facebook. Most people don't care about your degree if you can deliver (i.e. have results to show for it). The older you get and the more you have accomplished, the less important it gets.

Since it seems like you're living in Russia at the moment, one thing that could be problematic is the visa issue. You might not be able to get a US residence visa without a degree (depending on your personal situation).

</comment><comment><USER11> It seems like most people on thread say one thing, but the statistics seem to say something else.

[http://phys.org/news/2014-03-hire-google-companies-bad- idea....](http://phys.org/news/2014-03-hire-google-companies-bad-idea.html)

86% of people at google have college degrees. I guess 14% is a pretty high number, but it also says a vast majority have a college degree.

<comment><USER9> Hacker News doesn't represent the world of programming as a whole. In many companies, developers are hired in the same way that many other office workers are. The required degree is needed, the necessary experience on top. For larger companies that don't deal primarily in tech, this is their HR policy, and it exists for all roles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, as long as you get the job done I wouldn't bother about whether or not you have a degree. And quite a few of my friends are pretty good programmers though they don't have a degree. In fact degree is just a piece of paper so you shouldn't let it stop you from getting job offers. And if does, it means the employers aren't seeking for an expert. And such employers aren't worth spending time on. BTW have you thought of taking online courses in some university abroad. I heard from [http://dissertationwriter.org/contact- us/](http://dissertationwriter.org/contact-us/) that if you are good you can join one of these courses [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/).

<comment><AUTHOR> By the way, I have thought about online courses. I think I'm gonna try MIT course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yes i would. Today degrees are overrated in our field. Is a young web engineer without experience more interesting than a developer without degree but 5 years experience ? In fact the more valuable is your personal knowledge and personal projects. And I don't speak about school knowledge/projects, but those you developed by yourself.

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't think you would have a problem getting people to want to hire you without a degree. What you should really look into (and I had to do this as well, though not moving from Russia) is what countries you can easily get a visa to without a degree (even if an employer is willing to hire you). In my case I had to first get my Australian citizenship (originally Ukrainian, but Australian resident at the time) to qualify for a Working Holiday visa to Europe to make my preferred move (then looked for employment once there).

Another option might be to try to get a job at a Russian branch of an international company - sometimes working at a local office for a year or so can legally make transferring overseas within the same company easier.

<comment><AUTHOR> > What you should really look into (and I had to do this as well, though not > moving from Russia) is what countries you can easily get a visa to without a > degree

I did not think of that option, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I certainly would. I don't have a degree either. I've been working in the industry for over 20 years now; nobody cares what I was doing or not doing in the '90s. It is probably harder to get in the door now than it was when I started, but my experience has been that if you know how to code, you want to keep coding, you know how to learn, and you want to keep learning as you go, lack of formal certification will not be an obstacle to your career development. A degree gets you the first job, and experience gets you all the jobs after that. If you can get in and show that you know what you're doing, you can build from there and it doesn't matter how you started. It sounds like you may already have jumped that hurdle.

</comment><comment><USER16> It depends on the employer. Some large companies may have policies about degrees. Smaller co's may not care. The key is having the necessary skills and experience, which may take _years_ to accumulate. Lacking a degree doesn't mean lacking education. You mention freelance work, so maybe you do have the skills.

Your biggest issue might be getting a proper work visa, which, by the way, even immigrating post-grads struggle with, so good luck to you if this is a factor...

</comment><comment><USER17> As others have said, the problem is getting the interview, not getting hired.

You'll have to get a recommendation from someone to get an interview, either by doing Open Source or Stack Overflow or attending conferences or something. Once you're in an interview, most companies in the Bay aren't going to care about a degree if you can pass the interview.

The problem is making it through the HR/resume hurdle. (And passing the interview).

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't know the degree status of any of my team. That said, getting a work visa in the US without a degree seems like it maybe _very_ difficult.

</comment><comment><USER19> No, because if it turns out you don't have the skills you say you do, I will get fired because I hired someone just based on my own (wrong) preferences. If you had a degree but couldn't do the job, it is a more 'honest' mistake and I could blame your school.

<comment><USER20> Doesn't this just make you a bad interviewer? The fact that blaming someones college is even on the table just makes it seem like you aren't doing your job as an interviewer. I've met tons of CS degrees from UC Irvine and other great schools who can't program worth a damn.

<comment><USER21> I'm under impression that parent expressed frustration with having to work in environment with so little respect for human intelligence that this kind of bureaucratic CYA is needed to stay employed there.

Now, there is the question whether one should _want_ to stay in such a place, but it seems to be a common folk wisdom that many places are like that and there is no escape.

<comment><USER19> Like it or not, once a company has more than one manager they are competing for headcount and budget. They can't just leave to another job. cya is the nature of the job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yes. I would value 1 year of actual professional experience over having a 4 year degree. A CS degree teaches you CS. Most software engineering jobs are <5% CS. It's all about being able to deliver. Don't sell yourself short.

</comment><comment><USER23> We'd hire three of them, tomorrow, if they had the right skills we were looking for.

</comment><comment><USER24> What you're actually asking is: Would I hire a "programmer" without a degree and with zero work professional programming experience on their resume.

Yes. But only if that programmer had a good portfolio and showed a lot of promise. They'd have to interview well and be able to explain what their code does and why. Oh, and I'd only ever hire them as a junior developer, which of course means that the company has to be willing to handle that situation.

Once they've had a few jobs, the experience portion completely replaces the need for a degree and the question is obviously 'yes'. The rest of the interview is much easier for someone with actual experience, degree or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not what I'm asking. I'm currently working at a Russian company as a Java EE developer. So, "professional programming experience" is the thing I'm getting right now.

Update: I was hired with no experience. But here's another country, different people, different companies. I came up with this question to find out if other countries are better or worse with such thing as hiring an ungraduated employee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't know about Russia specifically, but getting a work visa in the US might be very hard without a degree in some science/engineering/management field.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm in the UK and we definitely hire without a degree. We do, however, require a few years exp. to make up for it.</comment>


Why We Shouldn't Trust Social Media Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.inquisitr.com/10470/why-we-shouldnt-trust-social-media-startups/

<comment><USER2>
      Even with Twitter one has to wonder what will happen if
      it doesn't come up with a real business plan other than
      being bought up.

Nah, we don't have to worry about Twitter.

Twitter is not your usual startup. Like _very_ few startups, it's gained gigantic amounts of cultural exposure. Pownce, JotSpot and DodgeBall were barely known by the general Internet populace. Twitter's appearing in comics, TV references, news articles.. all over the shop.

      I play around with Twitter but I don't plan on making it
      a real part of my daily computing and communication life.
      I use FriendFeed but I don't expect it to really go
      anywhere. I insulate myself with this attitude because I
      am fed up with seeing all the effort and time people are
      putting into these so-called businesses only to see
      nothing of any value coming back.

With such a cynical attitude, why use anything? Nothing is permanent! Enjoy the now. Refusing to make Twitter a part of your "daily communication life" is like refusing to buy a new PC because a better one will be out in a year's time. There will always be obsolescence - use what's in the now and get ready to change.</comment>


Show HN: Block time wasting sites (like HN) until Duolingo reviews are done - <AUTHOR> https://unregistered.github.io/will-save/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to keep the amount of time I spent browsing the web under control, and I thought it would be an interesting experiment to use Duolingo reviews as a currency for that.

If you're also doing Duolingo regularly, give it a shot and let me know how it works for you!

</comment><comment><USER2> Cool project, really like the DnD flavor of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad someone else got the reference :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Holy smokes. Can we get a BlockIFTTT? Block anything if something isn't done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably, what did you have in mind?</comment></comment>


Copenhagen vs. Everett, Teleportation, and ER=EPR - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.02589 <comment><AUTHOR> A new paper from Leonard Susskind [0], see also:

"This new equation might finally unite the two biggest theories in physics, claims physicist"

[http://www.sciencealert.com/this-new-equation-might- finally-...](http://www.sciencealert.com/this-new-equation-might-finally- unite-the-two-biggest-theories-in-physics-says-physicist)

"The equation that could transform physics: Researchers say ER=EPR could show how quantum mechanics fits into the theory of general relativity"

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3768070/The-e...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3768070/The- equation-transform-physics-Researchers-say-ER-EPR-quantum-mechanics-fits- theory-general-relativity.html)

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Susskind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Susskind)</comment>


Swarm Wants to Send Hundreds of Tiny CubeSats into Orbit - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/swarm-wants-to-fly-the-sky-with-tiny-cubesats <comment><AUTHOR> As the article notes, Swarm is the same company that illegally launched their first prototypes without FCC approval.

HN thread on that: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16555106)</comment>


Alan Bean, 4th Person to Walk on the Moon, Dies at 86 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/26/obituaries/alan-bean-astronaut-dies.html <comment><USER2> Just looking at the Wikipedia category, there are 12 people who have ever walked on the moon: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_who_have_walke...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_who_have_walked_on_the_Moon)

It looks like we have 4 left:

Buzz Aldrin, age 88: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_who_have_walke...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_who_have_walked_on_the_Moon)

David Scott, age 85: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Scott](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Scott)

Harrison Schmitt, age 82: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Schmitt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Schmitt)

Charles Duke, age 82: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Duke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Duke)

It will be a sad day for me when there's nobody left who has walked on our nearest neighbor. It feels like a turning away from possibility.

<comment><USER3> Just 13 months to the 50th anniversary. Wonder if Buzz Aldrin will make it.

Mission Control in Houston is being restored to its 1969 look. Funding is from a completed Kickstarter.[1]

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/589813043/restore- histo...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/589813043/restore-historic- mission-control)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When my wife and I met Alan Bean he was witty, charming, warm, friendly, and a real joy to chat with. Subsequent email conversations only served to cement that impression.

From another article[0]:

 _"Alan Bean was the most extraordinary person I ever met," said astronaut Mike Massimino, who flew on two space shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope. "He was a one of a kind combination of technical achievement as an astronaut and artistic achievement as a painter."_

 _"But what was truly extraordinary was his deep caring for others and his willingness to inspire and teach by sharing his personal journey so openly. Anyone who had the opportunity to know Alan was a better person for it, and we were better astronauts by following his example. I am so grateful he was my mentor and friend, and I will miss him terribly. He was a great man and this is a great loss," Massimino said._

I had a brief hint of that, and couldn't say it better. The world is poorer without him.

[0] [https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/family-release- regarding-...](https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/family-release-regarding- the-passing-of-apollo-skylab-astronaut-alan-bean)

</comment><comment><USER5> While I can't vouch for its accuracy, the portrayal of the Apollo 12 mission is my absolute favorite from the "From the Earth to the Moon" miniseries. While the Apollo 11 were diehard professionals and excelled in the spotlight of one of the most prominent moments of humankind, the Apollo 12 crew seemed like just a bunch of regular (and obviously very talented) friends having enormous fun and the ride of their lifetime on their way to the moon.

If it serves of any proof, here are the words of the second crew setting their foot on the moon (which, contrary to the first one, almost nobody knows):

"Whooopeee! That might have been a small one for Neil, but it's a long one for me..."

<comment><USER6> Audio of apollo 12 mission is online. [https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap12fj/audio/audioindex.html](https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap12fj/audio/audioindex.html)

In EVA 1, Conrad and Bean carry on like kids at an amusement park. There is a genuine sense of joy and amazement.

Their partnership was unique in Apollo, a genuine and moving warmth and friendship. In defense of other crews, the work schedule was gruelling and hyper-competitive, with alot of people vying for seats seeking opportunity to advance their chances.

I enjoy watching recent interviews with Bean, he comes across as an 80+ year old man-child. Had Apollo 12 been the first crew to land on the moon, at the time this was a distinct possibility, then the very human aspect of how we connect with that extraordinary event in history would be markedly different to how things are. RIP Alan Bean.

<comment><USER7> For anyone looking for the "Whooopeee! That might have been a small one for Neil, but it's a long one for me..." audio, it is a little after 6:20 here:

[https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap12fj/audio/a12a_115_15_43_to_...](https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap12fj/audio/a12a_115_15_43_to_115_54_05.mp3)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Along with all the other great comments here about Bean, one of my favorite aspects of his time as an astronaut is that he was the one in the rocket for the renowned SCE to Aux situation. This 4-minute clip from the "Failure Is Not An Option" documentary explains.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWQIryll8y8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWQIryll8y8)

<comment><USER9> From time to time I enjoy listening to the soundtrack of that launch. Two strikes of lightning, every instrument reading going bonkers, all red lamps lighting up in unprecedented manner, sitting atop the chemical equivalent of half a Hiroshima bomb 30 seconds into a flight to the Moon.

And nowhere does any voice match my fluster when I phone home from the supermarket to report some item unavailable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of my favorite photos from space is a photo of Alan Bean: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Apollo12...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Apollo12Visor.jpg)

<comment><USER11> this is my iPhone case. it's an amazing photo by pete conrad.

[https://society6.com/product/apollo-12-face-of-an- astronaut_...](https://society6.com/product/apollo-12-face-of-an- astronaut_iphone-case?sku=s6-7967818p20a9v510a52v377)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a book, "Misson Control, This is Apollo" ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6082047-mission- control-...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6082047-mission-control-this- is-apollo)) that features a lot of Alan Bean's paintings. I always thought they were quite good but I'm no art expert.

</comment><comment><USER13> Watched "In The Shadow Of The Moon" [0] lately, a wonderful documentation from 2007 where, amongst the other astronauts, Mr. Bean drops some wonderful wisdom he gathered after being on the moon and coming back to earth.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osl9sDYDPqs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osl9sDYDPqs)

</comment><comment><USER14> Coincidentally, the Space Rocket History Podcast is currently chronicling the Apollo 12 mission:

[http://spacerockethistory.com/](http://spacerockethistory.com/)

I recommend this series. He covers the US and Soviet space programs, with a balance of technical detail and human drama.

</comment><comment><USER15> There's a wonderful miniseries called "From the Earth to the Moon" which is sort of a dramatic retelling of the Apollo program. Think the "Apollo 13" movie, but longer and more diverse.

My favourite episode, "That's All There Is" (#7) is told from Alan Bean's perspective.

It portrays him, and the entire crew, as an amazingly capable, funny, and tight-knit group. The entire episode has a humorous tone which, after my impression from watching several interviews with Al bean, probably fits his personality.

If you're an aerospace nerd like me, you'll love it. I probably watch the whole series several times a year.

</comment><comment><USER16> He has a website at [http://www.alanbean.com/](http://www.alanbean.com/) where you can buy his paintings, look at photos from his life, and learn more about him.

</comment><comment><USER17> My dad ran into him on a plane once. I still have my dad's business card that he signed along with a coffee table book of his artwork. What a live he lived!

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm obsessed about Apollo. Having grown up in the cape.

I created this site a while back, after I had spent years going thru the Hasselblad reels. You can view great Apollo images and buy frames, iphone cases, sheets. Check out Top 20.

Check it out at [http://www.projectapolloprints.com](http://www.projectapolloprints.com)

I've been migrating stuff to Society6 this weekend.

<comment><USER18> Where can I download those images?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Live long and prosper, Captain.

</comment><comment><USER20> Randall Munroe, any chance of an updated [https://xkcd.com/893/](https://xkcd.com/893/) ?

</comment><comment><USER21> So you're telling me Mr. Bean walked on the moon!</comment>


Why We Should All Care About Today's Senate Vote on FISA - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/why-we-should-all-care-about-senates-vote-fisa-amendments-act-warrantless-domestic <comment><USER2> _In brief, the law allows the government to get secret FISA court orders—orders that do not require probable cause like regular warrants—for any emails or phone calls going to and from overseas._

Is it somehow shocking that a probable cause standard doesn't apply to national security intercepts of cross-border communication? Customs doesn't need a warrant to search your bags at the border, either.

The key point of FISA is not to legalize spying on communications among foreign nationals or between foreign nationals and Americans. Such spying has been considered part of the Executive's national security authority for decades. The key point of FISA is to ensure that intercepts between Americans that _are_ subject to Fourth Amendment protections are avoided by design and deleted when discovered.

Congress couldn't obligate the Executive to get an "Army Court" order before ordering a division to take a city. There's a little more sense to the obligation here, since they're just as responsible as any other branch of the government for protecting Americans' Constitutional rights. But these orders aren't meant to act as warrants: They're oversight tools.

<comment><USER3> More specifically, they're oversight tools set up in 2006, following the awareness of the Bush Administration's use of warrentless wiretaps. The FISA revisions were to extend the flexibility of judges who were already allowed to retroactively provide legal permission up to 48 hours after the initial wiretapping began and approved over 95% of the wiretaps requested.

The Bush Administration simply refused to go through even that rubberstamp process. I was an intern in the House office where the initial compromise that became this bill was proposed, even if it was later named for a much more senior Congressman.

The FISA deal was a small retraction following a huge jump forward in intrusive government powers, so I'm proud to be supporting EFF's efforts to push privacy forward as much as possible, in light of the PATRIOT Act's overreach and similar during the past decade.

<comment><USER2> So do you think there should be a "probable cause" standard to warrant intercepting a call between Chicago and Cairo? Do you think the Constitution requires one?

<comment><USER3> I'm not a lawyer :)

Sen. Paul argues an absolutist position on the Fourth Amendment, that any sort of search/seizure of information involving US citizens requires a warrant. Do I agree? I'm certainly favorable to the interpretation of the Fourth.

However, my larger concern is the lack of oversight, even by the so-called "Gang of Eight" re: Intelligence committees: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight>

The government, under both the Bush and Obama administrations, has clearly engaged on systematic "overcollection," or going beyond even the allowable actions by the FISA law. It was a large scandal leading to the retroactive approval by congress through these FISA amendments in 2006: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy)

So I don't think the right question to ask is whether or not probably cause is the correct standard to use since it doesn't appear that government actors follow the assigned standard anyway. The question is of oversight and the reasonably effective ability to challenge such government behavior, as contrasted with the case of Nicholas Merrill and his NSL letter.

<comment><USER2> I'm asking about the Fourth Amendment issues because I think they're irrelevant, but most people who discuss this issue seem to think they're paramount.

Really, this is a separation-of-powers fight: How much permission from Congress (and oversight by Congress) does the President need to authorize varying degrees of spying? The President has no obligation to obey laws that impinge on his Constitutional authority. Or to put it more gently, he's generally free to interpret those laws as broadly or narrowly as necessary to avoid that impingement.

So I can't get too worked up about the "systematic overcollection" argument. Unless you make it "systematic, deliberate overcollection of purely domestic communications". I am disturbed that the EFF seems to think it's advantageous to blur the distinction (using terms like "probable cause" and "warrants") and make it seem as if these programs are _prima facie_ targeted at domestic communication and unconstitutional.

<comment><USER4> Given the fact that most of these things are done in near-total secrecy, how can you be sure that the "systemic overcollection" concern is what you say it is?

And what is a "purely domestic" communication in this context? Is this message board a domestic communication? A telephone call? A telephone call to a foreign national living in the US? I have no idea. How would I prove that it is or isn't?

I'm not some sort of paranoid that thinks that the government is out to get me. I do know that for routine criminal matters, the Federal government has incredibly broad and effective police powers, even with court oversight. Pre-9/11, the government was already able to gather lots of actionable information about the threat our nation was about to face (and fumbled the ball).

So I'm not convinced that all of this secrecy and lack of accountability is buying me anything as a citizen. Frankly, I'm concerned that by mindlessly gathering vast swaths of data, it will become exponentially more difficult to extract signal from the noise.

<comment><USER5> If the concern is that the executive is hiding facts from the legislative or judicial branches: those branches can appoint special prosecutors, independent counsels, or whatever it is you want to call them. There's obviously no foolproof mechanism by which anyone can absolutely ensure that the President or his team or the DoD will divulge information, but there are facilities the branches can use to hold each other accountable.

<comment><USER6> I participated in one such example of this oversight (most fun test I ever did).

We were hired by a Special Master that Congress appointed to conduct a pen test against a branch of the DoI without their knowledge[1]

[1] As part of this class action: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobell_vs._Salazar>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FYI, all the amendments meant to "fix" FISA on privacy issues were rejected. The one from Rand Paul that required a warrant for all spying and data requests on American citizens, just like currently a warrant is required for snail mail and phone call spying - was rejected 79-12. America - the land of the free.

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't having your request to obtain information reviewed by the FISA court judge kind of like having a warrant issued for it?

I also thought that part of the point of the FISA court was that it contains the spread of classified information to just a few judges, who gain increasing expertise in understanding how to handle it, rather than spreading classified info all over a sea of amateurs.

</comment><comment><USER8> Video and transcript available at <http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SenateSessionPartOne2>

Starts at 13:55.

<comment><USER9> Was there a vote at the end?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> it's really funny when you read this article and you are called "fisa" :)

</comment><comment><USER11> So how did it go?</comment>


Anatomy of a Mechanical Keyboard (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://drop.com/talk/10016/anatomy-of-a-mechanical-keyboard <comment><USER2> You'd think that with the DIY freedom people would be making Kinesis Advantages and slapping touchpads in the middle. But no, somehow it's the same old flat boards for arms that grow out of the chest and fingers that extend out of the hand instead of rotating on joints; with the typewriters' staggered layout that makes no sense on electronic keyboards. Only now they're a couple centimeters higher so the wrists are even more crooked, and of course there's no wrist support.

<comment><USER3> It's not only the form factor. They're also obsessed with high resistance switches (going as high as 65 and even 80g activation point) which is sure way to develop RSI.

You should aim to go as low as possible but still avoiding accidental activation when resting your fingers on the keyboard. For most people, that means between 30 and 35g.

Realforce makes a bunch of them but they're not held in high regard by the mechanical keyboard community because they don't feel tactile enough. Let alone the fact that they dare using rubber in the keyboards.

Fortunately they seem to be busier building them from scratch and posting the results on Reddit than actually typing.

<comment><USER4> Actually, increasing resistance has reduced my strain from typing. After a few minutes of typing, I start to bottom out less and less, and instead I feel like I have little shock absorbers under each key, reducing the impact of every press.

As for the community, most seem to dislike high resistance switches, which is why my preference for MX Clears leaves me with few brands to purchase from, and my dream ideal of a higher resistance Topre will probably never happen.

<comment><USER3> You can install some BKE Redux domes. I hate those, so you'll probably love them.

<comment><USER4> I actually like the domes as they are. What I want is, somehow, to increase the spring tension _after_ the dome collapses, so that I don't slam into the baseplate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if this is the audiophile equivalent of computer enthusiasm.

I mean, like audiophiles buying gold cables for 10x the price and no reason, and using 20's tech (vacuum tubes) in their amps, selecting individual tubes and all that...

So here the keyboard enthusiasts select their switches, key curvatures, materials, etc. and the result might just be some placebo feel good improvement and more noise for everyone else.

<comment><USER6> > _I wonder if this is the audiophile equivalent of computer enthusiasm._

Obviously, there are many similarities, for examples,

* Community-driven

* DIY

* Emphasis on personal paste and preferences

This is why, drop.com is actually a well-known group-buy website that offers BOTH audiophiles AND mechanical keyboards.

> _I mean, like audiophiles buying gold cables for 10x the price and no > reason, and using 20 's tech (vacuum tubes) in their amps, selecting > individual tubes and all that..._

But there are some important differences as well. Computer enthusiasm is either the delivery of objective performance or personal tastes and preferences. However, a large subset of the audiophile market is pseudoscientific, useless snake-oil that pretends to be an objective improvement.

Using vacuum tubes and selecting them individually is a personal preference, but buying "cryo-treated" vacuum tubes, some questionable power conditioners, and gold cables and actually believing them can have a significant effect (compared to, let's say, spending the money on upgrading the sound source or the acrostics of your room) is pure snake-oil.

On the other hand, computer enthusiasts know exactly what they are buying for, the transparency and competition is radical in the industry, unlike parts of the audiophile market.

> _some placebo feel good improvement_

There is no placebo effect, as mechanical keyboards users simply say that it's comfortable to type, and I don't see claims about how they can make you type faster (on the other hand, whether advocacy of alternative keyboard layouts are completely placebo effects would be something worth an actual discussion, e.g. I'm currently typing this on Dvorak).

You'll know without question that two mechanical keyboards have different characteristics, and you would have a personal preference. On the other hand, the same cannot often be said for some audio "equipment" such as a gold cable.

<comment><USER7> I don't know. I think there are some parallels, but more in the sense that many audiophile probably don't care that much about the audio. It is more about singling that you are successful enough to buy and care about different things. I think the same can be true of mechanical keyboards (and tech gadgets in general). People like the idea of something being special and having time for that more than they care whether it is. Which is why you will likely find that most people care more about the keycaps than the decaps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Now seems like a good time to ask: does the loud, audible click of a mechanical keyboards increase the user's accuracy? Are our ears in the loop, consciously or not?

A family member had a mechanical keyboard with a cherry mx switch and I tried it out with an online typing test I'd tried before.

I could type about 20% faster than usual, which is already way up there. I easily hit 135+ in several segments[1], which is insane.

I easily felt when I was making a mistake, I had confidence in what I was typing. (because of each little click.)

But it was also really loud.

Is that necessary? Is it part of what made me fast and accurate?

The obvious way to test this which would not change the feel of the keyboard at all, would be to put in foam earbuds and then see if my typing rate or accuracy drops when I can't hear the keyboard. Unfortunately I didn't have any with me so I didn't try it.

Can someone who uses a mechanical keyboard comment on whether the audible noise from it is part of the typing loop? if someone here has the inclination and a mechanical keyboard and happens to have hearing protection with them could you try it and tell me whether your typing rate or accuracy drops if you can't hear the keyboard? (if you do an online typing test with strong hearing protection in.)

If it does not, then why aren't there any absolutely silent keyboards that just have the feel (tactile feedback) but without any loud click?

I plain can't decide if this clickety-clack noise is part of the feedback loop the typist uses or not. My family member's keyboard was incredibly loud.

\--

[1] I'm being very literal so just to show you, on my own keyboard now I took a screenshot 15 seconds into a test, before I made any mistakes: [https://imgur.com/a/eOejvsu](https://imgur.com/a/eOejvsu) \- this was really hard for me to do now. On my own keyboard I can average 100 wpm for 60 seconds but it's really hard: [https://imgur.com/a/tClgZR4](https://imgur.com/a/tClgZR4)

<comment><USER9> I have a keyboard with silent black MX switches and I never felt any need for clickyness.

The cool thing about these linear switches (Black, Red, Silver, Grey) is that you can type extremely silent if you like to, by just hovering the keys or you can type loudly by bottoming them out (if somebody was wrong on the internet or so).

When I type silently it is less loud than my lenovo notebook keyboard.

For me the click was never really necessary — the resistance of the spring is already enough. Maybe it is because I play guitar, bass and piano.

<comment><USER10> > I have a keyboard with silent black MX switches and I never felt any need > for clickyness.

I had a red keyboard and I never felt that it was necessary. But then I got a blue and I would never go back. Just because the sound isn't necessary or helpful doesn't mean it's pleasing to have it.

Like a big moon roof in a car, if you've never had one you may not really see the point, but once you get one the feeling of having light coming in from overhead is something that you quickly begin to enjoy.

You may want to try this program - even though I have blues I keep it enabled when I use headphones or when I am using the laptop keyboard: [https://github.com/zevv/bucklespring](https://github.com/zevv/bucklespring)

<comment><USER8> I'm having a little trouble following. Do I have this right:

\- blues are louder than reds

\- You had a red keyboard and you didn't think you needed the noise

\- but then you got the blue which was much louder and you enjoyed this

If that's what you mean, what did you mean by this:

>Just because the sound isn't necessary or helpful doesn't mean it's pleasing to have it.

do you mean "just because it isn't necessary doesn't mean it's NOT pleasing to have it" (in fact for you it IS pleasing to have it - you enjoy the noise?)

let me know if I am reading your comment right. it sounds like you very much enjoy hearing loud clicks, to the point of installing a program to emulate them.

<comment><USER9> I know a lot of people who dislike the reds, they give the least feedback of all the cherry MX switches (be it force feedback or acoustic feedback). They are basically very light linear switches.

They are however popular in gaming, because the linearity of the force curve allows for fast repeat rates. In fact they made a silver variant, which is basically a red switch with a shorter travel way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've wanted to make a keyboard, but I'm not sure it's possible to make something materially better than the kinesis advantage. I switched to it 10 years after my hands would feel numb after typing.

I think I might have some problem other people don't, but even for normal people, I find it hard to believe that a kinesis wouldn't be better for them as well.

I've seen some split diy keyboards, but none of them have the great concave wells kinesis does. Also the kinesis has macros, key remapping, and easy switching between Dvorak and QWERTY. Being able to type your password with one button is super cool!

<comment><USER12> > Being able to type your password with one button is super cool!

Do you really have a button on your keyboard mapped to type your password? If that's the case, I'm horrified.

But I secretely wish I had a button like that too...

<comment><USER13> You can have exactly that if you set your password to "a"!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What I want is a non-radical, normal sized, ergonomic mechanical keyboard. I basically want an MS natural keyboard with a decent feel. Does such a thing exist?

Why are so many mechanical keyboards tiny? They don't want to spend the money for more switches?

I thought I found something "close enough" in this split mechanical keyboard ([https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FK74QY5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FK74QY5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)). But it is "tiny" and doesn't have normal function keys, etc. After a while its lack of keys drove me crazy and I went back to my old mushy MS Natural.

<comment><USER7> > Why are so many mechanical keyboards tiny? They don't want to spend the > money for more switches?

Yes, to some extent at least. But maybe more the pcb, plate, case etc. I have a pcb for a ms natural style keyboard (without the numpad) and the effective size is 40x15 cm (16x6 inches). Not that expensive to get in China, but I guess it is has also become fashion with smaller boards now. I think the whole thing sort of started with modifying pok3r, ducky, ninja type keyboards

<comment><USER14> That sounds like exactly what I want. Are you selling a keyboard around it? I don't need the numpad, but after 10+ years of ms natural, I'm used to the remainder of the layout.

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately not in the foreseeable future. It is a couple of years old at this point, and I haven't really tested it either. I think you would also need palm rests to recreate the experience well enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That's a well written piece!

As someone with a mechanical Keyboard obsession I have this advice: "Walk away now!". This is a expensive hobby the more you get the more you want. The first fix is something cheap a couple hundred dollars. The next will be a little more bespoke on and on it will go. Until spending $500 on a keyboard seems like an everyday thing.

</comment><comment><USER16> How many of these tiny keyboards need to ship before linux makes the magic sysrq key remappable?

<comment><USER17> Well, you can do it; you just have to patch your kernel. I googled 'linux remap sysrq'.

<comment><USER16> Everything is possible if you patch your kernel...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As someone who restores old Teletype machines, I don't consider little key units with clickers in them to be a "mechanical keyboard". On a real mechanical keyboard, like a Teletype or an IBM Selectric, you cannot push two keys at once. The mechanism resists that.</comment>


UK universities comply with China's internet restrictions - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53341217 <comment><USER2> I think this is a bad development. I know the argument that some content is better than none, but I profoundly disagree. Currently we have countless other issues were wrong opinions and content get penalized. This is a bad development and a very pressing issue.

Want to educate Chinese citizens? Tell them that content is not available due to their government restricting speech and content. This looks like anticipatory obedience and I think universities want to burrow controversial opinions themselves.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More details here:

[https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/supporting-enhanced- acces...](https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/supporting-enhanced-access-to- online-education-in-china)

Note that a 'Main Feature' of this setup listed on the jisc page is that it would be 'Fully legal and compliant with Chinese government regulations and laws'.</comment>


The Troll's Lawyer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/the-trolls-lawyer-8bf7b2283

<comment><USER2> This article is _very_ interesting. I always thought Mr Auernheimer was running his mouth off in order to get the maximum sentence possible!

</comment><comment><USER3> It's good for all of us that weev walked.

But damn. Why did they try to take down a piece of shit like that with a ridiculous bullshit charge.

<comment><USER4> _But damn. Why did they try to take down a piece of shit like that with a ridiculous bullshit charge._

Because 97% of cases don't go to trail, and the US Attorney is in court so often that they can afford to loose here as cost of pushing judicial interpretation towards their favor (I doubt it's an explicit intention, just one of those things that evolve from well meaning incentive).</comment></comment>


First Global Topographic Model of Mercury - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/feature/first-global-topographic-model-of-mercury <comment><USER2> Looking at this I wonder how zero elevation is determined for other planets. Simply the average elevation over the whole planet or are there similar guides like on Earth where we use water level of the oceans?

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks to be mostly craters - are there no volcanoes?

<comment><USER4> The article does mention several volcanic plains and vents. The craters seem to be a direct result of volcanic activity.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you transfer files between Clouds - <AUTHOR>

If you wanted to transfer a file from Dropbox to Google Drive (or vice versa) using web only, how do you go about doing that.<p>Currently, I do not transfer files between cloud storage on the web, I usually wait until I get to my home computer and transfer files through my desktop. <comment><USER2> Good question, I don't think there is a webapp that imports files yet. Although I knkow bit torrent has some interesting technologies.</comment>


Ask HN: Suggest me good laptop powered by AMD - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I've ordered it, but haven't yet received it. So some if this is inference based on other reviews.

If you want something built well, portable, got some guts and has a reasonable warranty/support story - consider the Lenovo Thinkpad X13 AMD. It maxes out to 32Gb DDR4 with a Ryzen 7 4750U. It's got a 13.3" screen and weighs 1.3kg.

Personally speaking, I was in the market for a portable machine with 32gb memory (was not initially considering AMD). I considered the Dell XPS 13" (32gb variant was insanely expensive in Aus at $5.2k just for the unit), the X1 Carbon (maxes out at 16gb of ddr3), and the T14 AMD (a bit too chunky). When none of these were viable I considered the Macbook 13 (a bit more $, but a horrid keyboard despite beautiful screen), and the System76 Lemur (strongly considered it, but the support story in Australia was a bit of a risk for my daily driver).

When Lenovo had a sale on the X13 AMD, let's just say I could buy it + 4yr warranty + a dock for less than half the cost of the Dell/Apple, and have twice the cores.

Compromises were: a fairly pedestrian screen vs other Lenovo models or Apple/Dell, no thunderbolt, and needing to pull the trigger on it when there were literally zero reviews of this device on the internet. Jury is still out on the battery life too.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this depends on what your budget is and what tasks you want to use the laptop for.

</comment><comment><USER4> One of these two by tuxedo, depending if you want an nvidia gpu or not: [https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux- Note...](https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux- Notebooks/Alle.tuxedo#!#1271,2077;1271,2078;1275,1322)

</comment><comment><USER5> Lenovo Legion 5

Great performance, sturdy, sleek design, great air circulation. 144hz refresh rate screen.

I'm using its predecessor Y540, intel based, GTX 1660 Ti. Great for gaming and work. The only downside is the speaker's not that good. Never been this satisfied with a laptop with this price range.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just today, I saw that some Thinkpad models have AMD inside ...

</comment><comment><USER7> The Asus G14 seems to fit the loose description</comment>


Story of the Mach 3.18 breakup of an SR-71 Blackbird - <AUTHOR> http://www.916-starfighter.de/SR-71_Waever.htm <comment><USER2> _Air density at high altitude is insufficient to resist a body's tumbling motions, and centrifugal forces high enough to cause physical injury could develop quickly._

Holy crap. You can be _spun_ to death.

Let's not even _ask_ how this fact was established. Let's just say that, if you know a test pilot, you should probably buy them a beer.

</comment><comment><USER3> "The next day, our flight profile was duplicated on the SR-71 flight simulator at Beale AFB, Calif. The outcome was identical. Steps were immediately taken to prevent a recurrence of our accident."

Anyone else feel that testing before actual flight makes more sense? wtf....

<comment><USER2> Who has time for unit testing? We'll do that after we ship.

Seriously, though, there's a lot of phase space in a typical SR-71 flight, and not a lot of time to explore it all. It's a lot easier to home in on the bug once you know it's there...

<comment><AUTHOR> If you ask me, that was a pretty expensive bug...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Indeed. What a great site also. The F104 was like the aircraft version of the Venus de Milo - you just can't stop looking at it. A great example where a solution to a need (at that time, need for a high-speed interceptor) transcended the solution itself.

</comment><comment><USER5> That was an incredibly lucky pilot!

<comment><USER2> The really lucky part was that he got to tell this story for decades afterwards.

I figure that the only reason to be a test pilot is the pleasure of telling stories like this one.</comment></comment>


Three of Earth's largest extinctions maybe caused by loss of essential element - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/three-earth-s-largest-extinctions-may-have-been-caused-loss-essential-element <comment><AUTHOR> Abstract:

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X15...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X1500235X)</comment>


HN Request: Creative Commons for comment text - <AUTHOR>

Currently HN comments have no license, which means they can't be included in http://hackermonthly.com/ unless explicit permission is sought for every comment.<p>If HN applied the Creative Commons Attribution license to comment text (by adding a notice to the comment submission form) then comments could be republished in Hacker Monthly, and in general it just seems like the Right Thing.  Any concerns or reasons why this isn't a good idea? <comment><USER2> It's an interesting idea, but honestly, I find any boilerplate claim to ownership of content posted on a site or imposition of a license, well, frustrating.

The magazine is fantastic and I completely support it, but I do think this should be an opt-in. Perhaps it would be easier for commenters who wouldn't mind their work being published elsewhere to just drop a note like "All comments licensed CC/NC/SA" in their profile?

(I've dropped this in mine).

<comment><AUTHOR> IANAL, but by posting here you necessarily give HN an implicit license to distribute your comment, roughly equivalent to the legal boilerplate you'd find on YouTube or similar ("worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to redistribute, perform," etc). I don't think making it explicit with Creative Commons would be an "imposition". Creative Commons wouldn't give HN or anyone else ownership of your comment.

Opt-in wouldn't solve the problem for Hacker Monthly, as few people would bother. Opt-out would be fine. BTW, CC/NC precludes inclusion in Hacker Monthly as it is sold and contains advertisements.

<comment><USER3> I agree an opt out option would be best. Basically under each comment box a text that says:

>>

By posting here you are making your text available under the Creative Commons Attribution license. If you wish to not provide your text under the Attribution license please check here. To not see this message again check here. (you can change these settings in your profile at any time).

>>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am not a lawyer.

HN cannot apply the Creative Commons Attribution license to our comments. HN does not own our comments. We do. We are implicitly granting a license to HN to store and display our comments, but we are not implicitly granting HN a right to re-license our comments. HN needs to specifically ask for our permission in order to license our comments under a CC license, just like Wikipedia does with its content. It's not enough to just say that the comments are licensed under CC. This is what StackOverflow does, and it's ridiculous. Let's not have the same thing here. I would be more than happy to license my comments under a CC license, but I would not be happy at all if someone else thought they had the right to do it for me.

Conclusion: Be like Wikipedia, not StackOverflow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course HN can't retroactively relicense existing comments, and that's not what I'm suggesting.

<comment><USER4> What I said was not restricted to retroactively applying a license. HN cannot automatically apply a license to new content either. It was at first unclear to me how you meant for HN to apply the license. It seems clear now that the intention is that users would have to explicitly grant HN permission. This is good, and I'm all for it. It does need to be clear though that users are explicitly granting permission. And I agree with others that an opt-out is definitely a good idea.</comment></comment></comment>


Why can't we use a HTTP request header to get rid of all cookie consent popups? - <AUTHOR> I suspect I'm not the only person annoyed by all the GDPR cookie and tracking consent popups every single site now has. Many sites even go as far as to not give a "No" answer option. You only have "Agree to all tracking" and "Configure" and when you click Configure it sends you down a rabbit hole of wasted time so most users simply click "Agree" to get rid of the damn annoyance.
It would be hugely better to simply set some setting in your browser that would send a request header to every web site you visit that contains your GDPR preferences. Then every site would have to comply with this by default.
This could be a general purpose header that could send various user preferences, for example it could also tell the website the end user is a child under 13 years of age so the site wouldn't collect certain stats automatically to comply with US Coppa law.
To me this is an obvious solution that would be a lot easier to implement than all those GDPR popups and it would result in a much better usage. What do people think? Should HTTP standard be updated with such header? Or are there any disadvantages of this approach I'm not thinking about? <comment><USER2> I entirely agree but the laws get in the way of such a "blanket" approval as it's about notification as much as approval.

The laws _require_ that sites notify you specifically about how _they each_ use cookies which varies hugely from site to site.. accepting a universal approval wouldn't allow such specialized notification on a site by site basis.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, good point. However, I imagine one of the header's features could be enabling/disabling those notifications based on user preferences.

Also, many people (including me) would probably set their browsers to equivalent of answering "no" to current tracking questions so the notifications wouldn't be required if I understand the law correctly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track) was a first attempt at this, somehow.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it would be much better if the name and purpose of the header was something like: "tracking preferences" or even "user preferences". This way it wouldn't be just binary track/do not track, but could allow more customisation. For example user classification as a child for US Coppa law purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These popups are not actually GDPR compliant.

The GDPR mandates that consent should be opt-in (tracking can only begin when the user says yes) and consent should be given freely so the user should not be inconvenienced if they refuse.

However regarding your idea, it's already been tried with the Do Not Track header - the ad-tech scum ended up using it as an extra data point for browser fingerprinting, which meant that opting out of tracking actually made tracking you even easier.</comment>


Major hack of German politicians' private data - <AUTHOR> https://threader.app/thread/1081089419728306176 <comment><USER2> >It will be thus very hard for journalists to determine what they do with the data now. We must act responsibly, but we must also not forget that if we do not report accurately on the info in the leaked data, others – right-wing extremists – will do it.

So it's like some sort of competition to see who can manipulate first.</comment>


Interested in advanced AI, robotics and computing? Develop for the NAO ... - <AUTHOR> http://aldebaran-robotics.com/en/Solutions/For-Development/developer-program.html? <comment><USER2> The NAO is nice, but rather pricey. You can do advanced robotics stuff without breaking the bank using a Turtlebot. And it's open hardware and software.

<http://www.turtlebot.com>

In some regards the Turtlebot is more advanced, since you can do SLAM and also carry stuff around.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z36xkUILtQE>

</comment><comment><USER3> The robot looks really awesome but the price looks to be about $16,000.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking about this - when such humanoid robots get to the point where they are truly useful, wouldn't it be reasonable to shell out about as much as we would for a car?

<comment><USER3> I think it would be worth at least that, probably more. But that time is not now.

<comment><USER4> Right, but $16,000+ is still a reasonable amount to pay when you consider the target market - researchers, educational institutions, museums, etc. It's not quite within reach of your average joe just yet, but this is a step up from what it costs to get an Asimo...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why don't they give out the simulator? Less inducement to pay $16K I guess, but, certainly it'd boost mindshare, and give a wider audience a chance to shine, feeding back to Aldebaran.

<comment><USER6> I agree. It would be a fun project to write an open source one though :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For what it can do $4000 actually isn't a horrible price. Turtle bot is cool too, but I think it's actually useful that its humanoid and seems to have character.

Are there any open source humanoid robots out there that people can recommend?

</comment><comment><USER8> This is terrible.. cause now i really really want a robot..

</comment><comment><USER9> It is the robot that just aired in a Brazilian telenovela, _Morde & Assopra_

[http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&q=morde+...](http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&q=morde+e+assopra+robo)</comment>


Zsync - the improved rsync - <AUTHOR> http://zsync.moria.org.uk/ <comment><USER2> It looks like it's designed for a different use case than rsync, rather than being better.

I'm not sure that the space it sees between rsync, plain http, and bittorrent is a niche it can fill, or a gap through which to fall into obscurity.

</comment><comment><USER3> if i wanted to rsync from a bunch of different machines, i would just run rsync on a bunch of different machines.... this sounds like a solution searching for a problem.</comment>


Ask HN: Learning HTTP - writing a web server in which language? - <AUTHOR> I've been on a hiatus to study and prepare for web development jobs since I've decided to switch half an year ago. I have appr. 8 years of prior programming experience with mainly C/C++ doing CAD-related and video games programming.
In the past 6 months, I've read numerous books and wrote I would say a lot of toy-ish and not so toy-ish code using plain vanilla PHP, Smarty templates, Zend frameworks apps, WordPress plugins, that sort of things. Recently, I've started implementing some mini projects using Twitter API and the real-time protocols over HTTP (SUP, PubSubHubbub) and I felt the need to know HTTP a lot more. So, after a little research I found (maybe) the perfect book: "Illustrated Guide to HTTP" by Paul Hethmon. It's about learning the details of HTTP by writing a minimalistic web server in C.
Since I don't program in C anymore and thought that I will not benefit fully if I wrote the server by the book in a language that I'm quite familiar, I was wondering which programming language to choose to implement the server in? I think in my position it boils down to:
* PHP: I'm comfortable programming in it, it can expand my knowledge by the usage of the standard libraries.
* server-side JavaScript using Node.js: I think I can comfortable write server-like code in JS, but I only know about Node.js for instance, not programmed in it. I guess it will not be too hard with the Node.js/JS code-test-debug cycle on Windows, will it?
Thanks <comment><USER2> Consider a look at Tcl. Tcl's socket support makes creating a webserver almost trivial:

<http://wiki.tcl.tk/11017>

<http://wiki.tcl.tk/3899>

<http://pietersz.co.uk/software/dandelion-server>

<http://wiki.tcl.tk/4333>

<http://wiki.tcl.tk/14413>

<http://wiki.tcl.tk/28412>

<http://wiki.tcl.tk/15244>

That last one (15244) has a stated measurement of request rates of 1162 and 1127 per second (scroll down the page a bit).

The advantage you'd have with Tcl is that since it abstracts away so much of the low level details of sockets and handling connections, you get to concentrate on (and learn) the http protocol instead of the low level socket handling details.

As an example, here is the webserver from '28412 above, titled: "The Smallest Tcl Web Server"

       proc webServer {chan addr port} {
            while {[gets $chan] ne ""} {}
            puts $chan "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\nConnection: close\nContent-Type: text/plain\n"
            puts $chan "Hello World!"
            close $chan
        }

        socket -server webServer 2068
        vwait forever</comment>


21 lessons from Michael Jordan for entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/lmalmanza/21-lessons-from-michael-jordan-for-entrepreneurs

<comment><USER2> I think this is a quote from Mark Cuban, but

"You can read all the literature on basketball, but you'll never get any good if you don't shoot any hoops"</comment>


We Are SpaceX Software Engineers - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1853ap/we_are_spacex_software_engineers_we_launch/ <comment><USER2> Time is running out...

      [–] TheRealFroman 848 points 4 years ago

      I'd love to know when I can start packing my bags for mars ;)

          [–] spacexdevttySPACEX[S] 1638 points 4 years ago

          Give us 5-10 years.

<comment><USER3> Realistically I'd say a minimum of 10 years. From now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess they also have a big hardware/FPGA division. I mean systems that control the launcher vertical landing are most probably done in hardware.

</comment><comment><USER3> While interesting, this AMA was from 4 years ago...

<comment><USER5> That makes sense! 4 years ago knockout was pretty popular and was often paired with ASP.NET MVC 4

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> submitted 4 years ago * by spacexdevtty</comment>


How Mediocre Dutch Artist Cast 'The Forger's Spell' (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92483237 <comment><USER2> That's a pity. It ended just as it was starting to get really interesting!

It is a good read but be aware that this is just an except from a book.

Seems like it might be worth buying though.

Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Leader of Largest US Organic Food Fraud Gets 10-Year Term - <AUTHOR> https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2019-08-16/farmers-to-be-sentenced-in-largest-us-organic-fraud-case <comment><USER2> We need a Department Of Game Theory to advise our enforcement agencies on cheaters like this who game the system (and then to go meta when ex-DOGT employees try to cash in on their insider info).

If 99/100 times the fine is less than the profit and there is no jail time, we should be surprised that there's not even more fraud happening.</comment>


I'm interviewing Eric Ries of The Lean Startup tomorrow. What should I ask? - <AUTHOR>

It's for tractionbook.com. I should have enough time to get into specifics, which is always my goal. <comment><USER2> Why would someone who knows how to build and has built a successful startup want to go around consulting on how to build one? Copyrighting the phrase "Lean Startup" is a consultant's action, for e.g.

</comment><comment><USER3> If IMVU was wildly successful like he says why did he leave so early?

</comment><comment><USER4> What companies since IMVU would he consider to be lean startups? And why haven't we heard more breakout stories of companies using the methodology?

</comment><comment><USER5> What's the difference between a Minimum Viable Product and a Proof Of Concept?

</comment><comment><USER6> What best practices would he recommend if you need to do customer development & discovery over the phone?

</comment><comment><USER7> Much of what I've seen/read about Lean Startups seems to be recasting of Lean Software Development and SCRUM/Agile techniques applied to the niche of "Startup". Much of those can be rooted in Lean techniques from Toyoda & others (Deming, Ford) applied to manufacturing from 60 years ago.

Can you comment on why you think those (SCRUM/Agile/Lean SW) are different than Lean Startups? For example, if someone is practiced in SCRUM and is doing a startup - what do they have to gain from learning about Lean Startups?

</comment><comment><USER8> How much does Lean startup have in common with Customer Development (percentage-wise) and how does it diverge? What are the main differences?

</comment><comment><USER9> Could you foresee some limits of this methodology? If yes, what are they?

</comment><comment><USER9> In a few words, how would you define Lean Startup? And main differences with others?

</comment><comment><USER9> Do you have an idea of how many companies have adopted this methodology?

</comment><comment><USER9> Did he measure, at IMVU, the real gain between first methodology they were using and Lean Startup model they implemented?

</comment><comment><USER10> Doesn't the whole lean startup thing suck the joy out of building something which you are passionate about?

</comment><comment><USER9> To what extent this methodology could scale? iow, is it really only for startups?

</comment><comment><USER9> In case, you had a new idea. Would you try to get the MVP before writing the first line of code? If yes, could you explain us how and why?

</comment><comment><USER9> Any thought on whether Lean Startup could take part in recover from US economic crisis?

</comment><comment><USER9> What are the main strengths / advantages of Lean Startup?

</comment><comment><USER5> So how did it go; When will the interview come out?</comment>


Skyscraper boom in US cities gives elevator technicians a lift - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1032125/what-is-the-average-salary-of-an-elevator-technician/ <comment><USER2> "Elevator technicians earn an average of $77,000 a year"</comment>