Ask HN: How much does Amazon contribute to the open source community? - <AUTHOR> Amazon seems a big consumer of open source technology.
Does it give much cash in support to open source projects?
Does it contribute much in other ways? <comment><USER2> It's really hard to guess at Amazon's code contributions; I don't know what weird corporate anti-pattern causes this, but I've received patches from Amazon in emails which say "here's a bug fix but don't tell anyone that this came from Amazon", and I know other people who have received similar contributions.

In a more financial sense, they have been generous in supporting my work on FreeBSD/EC2 -- not with cash, but lots of free EC2 usage for development and testing.

<comment><USER3> Yeah there's a weird internal thing where Amazon employees are not supposed to publicly contribute to open source projects but I don't know the reasoning behind that...

<comment><USER4> Former Amazonian here.

When I was employed:

To do ANY FOSS work as an individual unrelated to the company (And I mean ANY: private projects that may be on Github, projects with nothing to do with Amazon) required a one-off application for permission.

To actually contribute something to some FOSS project that is in use at Amazon (For example, to fix a bug) requires even more special permissions (I think it is once per submission but cannot remember).

This is to "protect Amazon IP"; you can imagine why people try and skip the hassle.

<comment><USER5> I'm a prolific open source contributor, and I found it strange when Amazon tried to recruit me.

Let me get this straight: you're scouting me because of all this open source stuff which you will now insist I abandon.

<comment><USER6> You don't have to abandon. You just have to check your ego and contribute anonymously, with full corporate backing.

<comment><USER5> I would rather work for a company that appreciates the value of my open source involvement and encourages me to develop it further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the things that I am aware of them Open Sourcing are their chef cookbooks used for opsworks([https://github.com/aws/opsworks- cookbooks](https://github.com/aws/opsworks-cookbooks)). Unfortunately the activity on the repository is a sad read. A lot of issues and PRs created that solve real problems for users of opsworks and in some cases fixes security issues. Most of these sits ignored and unmerged and some, such as one of mine([https://github.com/aws/opsworks- cookbooks/pull/231](https://github.com/aws/opsworks-cookbooks/pull/231)), have been rejected elsewhere(on Twitter in this case). There are in fact many PRs dealing with SSLv3 and POODLE besides mine for example [https://github.com/aws/opsworks- cookbooks/pull/291](https://github.com/aws/opsworks-cookbooks/pull/291) and [https://github.com/aws/opsworks- cookbooks/pull/281](https://github.com/aws/opsworks-cookbooks/pull/281). So while these cookbooks might be open source they are nothing but a read only representation as PRs are very rarely accepted.

</comment><comment><USER8> Amazon doesn't contribute much to the open source community. Most of their contributions happened around the XEN project which they use to power EC2.

<comment><USER9> Even there though, isn't it mostly bug fixes? Has Amazon contributed any major functionality back? They do a ton of custom stuff and I don't really see any of that showing up like you do with say, Google and cgroups.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like "not much". Amazon is an open source leech.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have heard both good and bad things about Flipkart, the obvious Amazon competitor in India, but something that makes them quite attractive to me is their healthy open source portfolio [https://github.com/Flipkart](https://github.com/Flipkart) From what I have heard from people working at the place is that it isnt any well thought out strategic decision to attract developers, just something that felt right to them because they use quite a bit of open source stuff. If anyone knows more I will be quite interested to learn.

</comment><comment><USER11> Amazon has assume the Linux Kernel developers (~20) from AMD in Dresden/Germany a few Yeats ago and is still hiring Kernel Developers in Germany.

</comment><comment><USER12> When the Echo came out, I created a proxy to add functionality ([http://alexaho.me](http://alexaho.me)). One of those functionalities was a Hue integration, which Amazon integrated natively this week.

All of my code was open sourced. I never received any credit or compensation from Amazon for my idea or code, if they happened to look at it and frankly, I wouldn't try to fight them. Who would try to fight a company with such a large legal team?

Even a thank you for my idea would've been nice...

<comment><USER13> They integrated your code or the idea?

<comment><USER12> Honestly, I have no way of knowing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know that in an effort to provide SDK's for their services, they have also produced some greate high quality supporting Libraries.

Guzzle, an http library for PHP came out of their PHP SDK: [https://github.com/mtdowling](https://github.com/mtdowling) is the author, and participates in the php framework interop group on behalf of Guzzle.

</comment><comment><USER15> On the 'liability' angle...

Was the legal team really ready to bring lawsuits against any other open source project that was used internally that may have broken or caused a problem (like anything from Apache, for example)?

If not, why would they think they'd be sued as well?

</comment><comment><USER16> [http://www.quora.com/Did-Amazon-ever-open-source-any-of- its-...](http://www.quora.com/Did-Amazon-ever-open-source-any-of-its-software)

<comment><USER17> [http://www.quora.com/Does-Amazon-actively-avoid- contributing...](http://www.quora.com/Does-Amazon-actively-avoid-contributing- to-open-source-software-projects)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This sounds like a _great_ argument for AGPL.

</comment><comment><USER19> They don't. They're classic free riders.

</comment><comment><USER20> Richard Stallman's personal site has lots of information about Amazon.

[https://stallman.org/amazon.html](https://stallman.org/amazon.html)

<comment><USER21> Richard Stallman's website (which is ironic, because he doesn't use a web browser) is full of extremist opinion about lots of things, most of which are irrelevant to this discussion

<comment><USER22> Stallman does use a web browser, just locally. His workflow is that he works offline, but when he runs across mentions of webpages that he might find useful, he queues them up to be wgetted via a proxy, then later points his browser at them. So it doesn't seem too ironic to me that he might put up web pages that others can retrieve (and indeed he's been doing so since the early days of the web). If he had some kind of crazy AJAXy webapp that can't be viewed offline, that might be inconsistent, but he doesn't.

However, I agree that page doesn't much have to do with whether Amazon contributes to free software.

<comment><USER23> I never knew he did this, I sometimes do the same with websites I enjoy so I can have archived backups.

<comment><USER22> He has a bit on how he works here: [https://www.stallman.org/stallman- computing.html](https://www.stallman.org/stallman-computing.html). He freely admits that a lot of it is pretty idiosyncratic, though.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Physicists Finally Made a One-Poled Magnet - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/physicists-create-magnetic-monopole-2014-1

<comment><USER2> Current discussion , from other source [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7148899#up_7150174](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7148899#up_7150174) (74 points, 16 hours ago, 15 comments)

It's not a real monopole. It's a simulation of a monopole using a special solid state system.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Paywalled Journal article here; [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7485/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7485/full/nature12954.html)</comment>


Intel SGX - New CPU instructions for securing software and data (TPM like?) - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_wHUJwViKDaSUV6aUcxR0dPejg/edit?usp=sharing

<comment><AUTHOR> More papers here: [https://sites.google.com/site/haspworkshop2013/workshop- prog...](https://sites.google.com/site/haspworkshop2013/workshop-program)

I've only skimmed it, but it looks like it's suppose to fulfil some of the promises of the TPM.

The most important thing to grasp is that the hardware element opens up for another type of security and control (for good and bad) than software only approaches.</comment>


Implementation of some ideas from ggplot2 on top of d3.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gigamonkey/gg

<comment><AUTHOR> Demo plots: <http://gigamonkey.github.com/gg/></comment>


Mac platform reaches 15-year high with 5% worldwide market share. - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/11/16/macs_worldwide_market_share_reaches_15_year_high_at_5.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This trend should really help get more developers on board. Mac software is already very good, in fact I don't feel like there's really much missing. The only hole would be in gaming and the fact the market share is growing globally should incise these developers.

Of course Apple has this 5% share because of their slim product line and you can only run Mac OSX on Apple computers. Considering all of their products are medium - high end they aren't able to get much market share from emerging markets.

This should be good news for Chrome OS and maybe Linux as it shows users aren't just focused on Windows. These OS' can hit the markets Apple can't.

</comment><comment><USER2> It's amazing that it's still only 5%.</comment>


Ask HN: How to scope a bespoke CRM project? - <AUTHOR> UK SME Company I work at is looking to commission a custom CRM that meets are needs.
It's all in my head! How do I get it out?
Is there any guidance / manual on how to describe to programmers what we want?
How does one put on paper specifications?
Want to KISS but even so somewhat complicated given sector.
(separate note - Do I insist also on html/js/php which I'm competent in order to keep tabs? Or best to leave to what they are more competent in.) <comment><USER2> Hello funshed ! I'm developing a tool for just that, I mean to rapid prototype and play with the data structure of any project that has data management at it's heart. I use to be in Reading but I'm back to Spain now, if do you want to give a try we can throw in one or two hours and then you can see if it can help you, for me I'll get your feedback to improve it.

There is also [https://airtable.com/](https://airtable.com/) but last time I looked at it we couldn't get out the data structure to reuse.

You can have a look at one prototype here [https://borme.w.meimporta.eu](https://borme.w.meimporta.eu) it's for managed company's info in Spain, something similar to the companieshouse.co.uk opendata.

Cheers !

</comment><comment><USER3> One thing that really helps is to draw the interface. If you can protoype simple mockups, on paper or photoshop, it will give a lot of details about how the software will work. Then, programmers can figure how to do this.

I don't think that makes sense to force them use languages that you know just because you know.</comment>


Remind HN: The Business of Software conference is streaming live NOW - <AUTHOR> http://businessofsoftware.org/

<comment><USER2> Which of these talks are likely to be about something new and interesting that we haven't read here before?

In other words, it's fun to listen to Clay Christensen, but I've read his book, so it's a bit of a rehash. Edit: the later portions have some new things, but still, for me, listening to long talks is not a productive use of my time when I could read them. The actual benefit of a conference like this is being there and meeting people, and chatting about what's been presented.

<comment><AUTHOR> In my experience of conferences it's very difficult to predict the good talks.

Don't miss patio11 at 9am on Tuesday though. Last year was, 'hello ladies'.

<comment><USER3> For us EU folks, in what timezone is this?

<comment><USER2> EDT, I think. It started at 9:00 when it was 15:00 here in Italy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Speaking now - Clay Christensen (The Innovator's Dilemma)

EDIT: Schedule - <http://businessofsoftware.org/schedule.aspx></comment>


The Dark Place – A story on startups, depression and coming back - <AUTHOR> http://alexpotrivaev.com/writing/the-dark-place-or-there-and-back-again

<comment><USER2> Well said... a very poignant and moving article. It really resonates with me, as I'm feeling a bit depressed right this moment. The "numb feeling" thing is SO true. Being depressed isn't being sad, it's just feeling empty, numb, disconnected.

The sad thing is, we haven't even failed. In fact, in some regards things are going really well. We have a great opportunity to demo our products this week at the CED Tech Venture Conference, and we have some other cool stuff coming up[1]. But... like TFA says, it's the weight of your expectations that crush you. And while we have some good stuff going on, we're not where we want to be, and the road forward looks pretty bleak sometimes. And for me personally, being on the older'ish side (41), the pressure seems amplified, since I feel like I'm running out of time to achieve things I want to achieve.

Lately, I think the hardest part is how I've been starting to doubt myself. I've always been pretty confident and optimistic, but something lately has me starting to look around and go "Am I really good enough to do this?" and "why should I believe I can make this happen?", stuff like that.

I attribute most of it to overwork and burnout. Working full-time, plus slaving away on the startup by night and weekend, working 100+ hour weeks over and over and over and over and over again... and having the pressure of getting ready for this demo thing, and these upcoming talks, etc., it just wears you a bit thin.

I think if I make it to the end of October, I'll be able to ease off a bit in Nov and Dec., and recover a bit. Maybe take a brief vacation to let the batteries recharge, and then get back at it.

[1]: [http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2014/09/come-meet-fogbeam- labs.h...](http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2014/09/come-meet-fogbeam-labs.html)</comment>


Is 'var' Coming to Java? - mite-mitreski https://www.voxxed.com/blog/2016/03/var-coming-java/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hopefully not.

The lack of type inference in Java is one of the few things we still have for keeping prima donna programmers far away on the Javascript domains.

Explicit type inference reduces the effort of debugging code and simplifies understanding the object behind each variable. This is honestly a reason why I find programming in Javascript so messy and time consuming.

<comment><USER2> Fortunately progress doesn't rely on the approval of the nay-saying minority. It's type inference for local variables. Do you really think that val str = "foo" is less readable than String str = "foo"?

<comment><AUTHOR> In the example you mention it is readable.

Perhaps you can agree that for an extended class (not a primitive like a String) it will make code quality revisions for both humans and compilers more difficult?

Because in Java you find classes extended very frequently and the code always should point to whatever object you are expecting so that the output is perfectly clear for everyone.

A positive side-effect is that some people will try to cram-up as many instructions per line as they can, for readability purposes they are literally forced to break their code into perfectly readable (and repeatable) functions. This in turn makes the code easier to breakpoint/debug/audit.

I'm talking as someone who professionally programs both in Javascript and Java. For me the real beauty of Java is not having to look at someone else's code that crams up functions within functions and type infers everything he can. Really, it gets quite painful to review and debug such code.

So would be sad to see Javascript ninjas now start jumping into Java and doing the same kind of thing. We don't need ninjas to quickly hack Java code together, we need proper engineering that builds lasting and maintainable code. So, different audience and purposes (philosophies if you will).

<comment><USER2> People need to apply common sense when writing code to ensure readability. Banning type inference isn't going to stop incompetent coders from writing bad/unreadable code. I'm talking as someone who uses both Java and now (mostly) Scala professionally. Java's lack of type inference is a source of great annoyance when I'm working on Java code. In my experience having types inferred for local variables strikes a good balance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fully agree on common sense.

Unfortunately managers hire cheap coders, so it was kind of useful this natural obstacle to repel code ninjas, or at minimum demotivate them from writing cryptic code.

I'll tell you, even with static typing rules I've seen code where I just think: "why, oh why?". One time found a nested IF chain that was 15 levels deep with other IF statements.

In Javascript it is honestly so difficult to try figure out what they were expecting as output, because comments are never present on the code. If you write scala, that is good but there are reasons why Java caters a different type of projects and audience.

<comment><USER2> > One time found a nested IF chain that was 15 levels deep with other IF > statements.

Ouch, good luck...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What are the odds that two pull requests get completed at the exact same time? - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180326-00/?p=98335 <comment><USER2> > I found that adorable. You [Linux] have 45,000 files. Yeah, call me when > your repo starts to get big. The Windows repo has over three million files.

That Linux repo bashing at the end was very natsy.

Yes the Windows git repo is larger than the Linux git repo. Windows also has a larger scope than the Linux kernel. If you want to dick wag please bring some performance benchmarks, not footprint benchmarks.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. If they want to get into a p*ssing contest, they ought to consider they're comparing their entire OS to just the kernel. Let's pick any one distro and I bet they'll be eating their words. Then consider everything that counts as 'Linux' and I bet the daily commit count would result in Windows' development being classed as a 'critical network outage'.

<comment><USER4> I read it as a pretty fair comparison within the context. They're not comparing windows vs linux. They're comparing the challenges their repo faces vs the challenges the linux kernel repo faces. And within that context, I really hope the windows repo is substantially larger, else the linux kernel is going very very wrong.

<comment><USER3> It was a fair comparison until they started using words like 'cute', mocking the average commits per day and challenging the kernel team on size - that's when it got unnecessarily nasty. Almost condescending, Microsoft telling the guys _who wrote git for their own use_ that they don't know how to run it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article doesn't say much of anything, the real meat is in one of the links:

[https://www.visualstudio.com/learn/race-to- push/](https://www.visualstudio.com/learn/race-to-push/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Microsoft brags that their repository contains 3 million files with 4 million commits.

Compare that with Google's repository which had 1 billion files and 35 million commits -- as of 2015.

 _On a typical workday, they commit 16,000 changes to the codebase, and another 24,000 changes are committed by automated systems.

Each day the repository serves billions of file read requests, with approximately 800,000 queries per second during peak traffic and an average of approximately 500,000 queries per second each workday._

[https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204032-why-google- stor...](https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204032-why-google-stores- billions-of-lines-of-code-in-a-single-repository/fulltext)

<comment><USER7> Apples and oranges. Or some other fruits...

Microsoft's repo in question here is only for the WINDOWS OS.

Google has all their code in one repository. And it's not git.

Microsoft's repo may well be the biggest git repo.

<comment><USER2> I've heard many people claim Microsoft has the largest git repo and I've never heard anyone successfully dispute that claim.

<comment><USER8> It makes sense though. The largest Monolith has the largest Repo. ;)

<comment><USER2> I imagine that the windows OS repo includes IE (and edge), paint, Exploer.exe, Windows Management Systems, Cortana, and a ton of other projects that would merit their own repository in an open source community.

<comment><USER3> While separate repos do make sense for individual projects normally, as we well know, most Windows components are incredibly tightly bound together (how many different things can crash Explorer?) so a mono-repo seems to make sense for it.

<comment><USER7> I don't think it's fair to say that _most_ Windows components are _incredibly_ tightly bound together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dylan-m I'm really confused by this monorepo thing. So many people have gleefully hopped on to this particular cult, and the most reasonable reasoning that I've heard is it helps to glob together interdependent parts of a system, but I feel like that's throwing away everything we take for granted about what makes good software: that it's better to separate your code into distinct pieces with well-defined scope (and their own version numbers that reflect their interfaces); to expose your interfaces, rather than your implementations, and if someone is dependent on the exact implementation of module B then maybe your design is fucked and you should start over before you hurt someone.

So I'm skeptical of that first argument. What does this do for you that a decent architect doesn't do better? Is it a way for dangerously lazy project managers to justify themselves? Is it because it works for Google so of course it works for everyone? Is it a workaround for Github's private repo limit but nobody wants to admit it because they're afraid Github will figure it out? If Windows needs this, how the hell are Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu doing all these releases? Do you know how many repositories they have to deal with?!

<comment><USER9> Amen. Bragging about having a large repo is showing the world that you can't design large software systems.

Just like creating branches in Git is cheap, creating repos in Git is just as cheap. The difference is that you need actual design and engineering discipline to version your interfaces and manage those dependencies.

Having a kitchen-sink repo is poor engineering, and massive code smell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't know why we as an industry can fetishize shaving milliseconds off of interaction, response, or compile time, then turn around and have dick- measuring contests about how poorly we can manage version control.

<comment><USER11> Those sound like two sides of the same coin to me?

Microsoft is bragging about shaving milliseconds off source control time (some of which has been merged upstream into main git, most of which is in GitFS which they've made available, [ETA: this particular bit is in VSTS which they've not made available as an open source effort, but also may have further smaller audience than GitFS]), and the dick-measuring here is how that reads in direct comparison to why they needed to invest in shaving those milliseconds off. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm rather surprised that Microsoft chose to use git for Windows rather than roll their own SCM. It seems to clearly not be suited for the needs of Windows. For a software company that's so invested in dogfooding, git's a really odd choice.

<comment><USER13> Did you ever use TFVC (shudder) or SourceSafe (vomit)? I'm glad they chose git... keep them productive and making Windows 10 better.

<comment><USER3> I know SourceSafe was a disaster and didn't think anyone used it until I started with a firm in 2013 - thankfully they were on SVN, but the first commit of the repo was from 2009, which stated simply, 'Initial import from VSS'. The company was founded in 1995...

TFVC is annoyingly proprietary but seems to follow a solid client/server model. Git support is very nice.

<comment><USER13> i don't know about solid... to me, when i can't work and have to track down someone to checkin their changes to unlock a file, there are issues. maybe other places have better practices in place to prevent this stuff from happening and i was just unlucky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I could never work on Windows. I'd just want to burn the whole thing to the ground and start over. There is no way an OS actually needs to be that massive; as helpfully illustrated by the comparison to Linux's metrics at the end.

<comment><USER11> Kernel versus vast monorepo of most of the OS, many of its pack-in apps, etc. I've heard it said the core NT Kernel itself is mostly on par with the Linux Kernel, it's when you consider all the other things that are a part of Windows when it gets that huge. (Also why much of the work in GitFS the team did was making sure that partial checkouts work well, because few people need a work tree of the entire thing at once.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This really isn't about pull requests getting completed at the exact same time AFAICT, it's about 1 person attempting to accept a pull request around the same time as 1 or more people and based on how many changes you made it you may "win" the pull request race or "lose" and have to start over.</comment>


The man with the Y Combinator tattoo - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2007/09/21/mathematical_markings.php <comment><USER2> Wow.

That wins for world's dorkiest tattoo. Dorkier than the golden ratio. Dorkier than e^{i\pi} \eq -1, and maybe dorkier than using latex notation in a web forum :)

<comment><USER3> +1 for the use of LaTeX notation.

<comment><USER4> -1, extraneous use of \eq

$e^{i\pi}=-1$

: )

[http://nirvana.informatik.uni- halle.de/~thuering/php/latex-o...](http://nirvana.informatik.uni- halle.de/~thuering/php/latex-online/olatex_50776.png)

[http://nirvana.informatik.uni- halle.de/~thuering/php/latex-o...](http://nirvana.informatik.uni- halle.de/~thuering/php/latex-online/latex.php?sprachauswahl=2&aufruf=50776)

'LaTeX compiler' cloud app...very 2.0

<comment><USER2> It's been a while.. I actually retyped that both ways and somehow decided the \eq was better. woops

<comment><USER5> OTOH, gratuitous LaTeX notation is even dorkier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm thinking about getting a tattoo. The goal is to get something that is aesthetically pleasing in an abstract sense, to avoid thinking something is ugly years later.

I was thinking about the great wave, a dragon, a dragon fly or something else made up of PCB layout lines. I think that would look very nice on a forearm. [http://www.imakethings.com/2007/09/14/image-to-pcb-app- and-p...](http://www.imakethings.com/2007/09/14/image-to-pcb-app-and-plugin/)

Most science tattoos are very, very ugly. And what if maxwell's equations or the Y-combinator get invalidated in the future :-P ?

<comment><USER7> Maxwell can get invalidated. Math can't.

<comment><USER8> Ahem. Russell paradox.

Granted it's been a while, but one can never be too careful.

<comment><USER4> For the truly paranoid only:

Witness the evolution of 'V-E+F=2' since Euler's time:

[http://www.amazon.com/Proofs-Refutations-Logic- Mathematical-...](http://www.amazon.com/Proofs-Refutations-Logic-Mathematical- Discovery/dp/0521290384)

Is it right? Is it wrong? What does it mean to even BE a 'face' ?

Although I guess the worst thing that could happen in this situation is you change your explanation of the tattoo, and not the tattoo itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if he has a wife/girlfriend.

<comment><USER6> I never understood comments like this. They assume there are no geek girls with similar interests.

<comment><USER9> Relax, was a joke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Gee, imagine waking up hungover after a total blackout and discovering _that_ on your arm...

</comment><comment><USER10> Oh, I've got one of those, only in Javascript.

<comment><USER5> Heh,

"I hate you with the radiance of a thousand suns. I wish you get the Y Combinator tatooed, _in Java!_ "

<comment><USER7> May you live in interesting times?</comment></comment></comment>


Spotify quietly stops Linux development - Linux users outraged - <AUTHOR> https://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Windows-Web/Linux-Spotify-client-1-x-now-in-stable/td-p/1300404 <comment><AUTHOR> In summary, Spotify was working on integrating their latest desktop versions into Linux, and then just stopped about 6 months ago. Then yesterday, they pushed it live anyway and revealed that no one is working on Linux, but maybe someday they'll get around to it.

"The intention was to fix a few of the bigger issues and then quickly move this to stable. That never happened, since after September, we have had no developers working on the linux client. There are still lots of problem with this version of the client for linux, but we are now seeing much more problems with the old client."

</comment><comment><USER2> Quite a snarky response:

>> Why the Spotify company does not hire a full-time Linux developer for tackle these issues?

> The reasoning is probably based on the number of actual and potential linux > users. But who knows, maybe 2016 will be the year of the linux desktop.

I don't get (but well I'm a Linux user) it looks like it's not that much effort to polish it up to some degree - there are a lot of possible users out there e.g. at universities or at the workplace.

</comment><comment><USER3> To be fair, Linux users aren't really completely left behind, there's the web interface (play.spotify.com).

I'd be interested to know how many people use native app vs. web interface. The web interface is not always as snappy as the native apps, but if it bogs down I can just kill the tab and launch it again.

<comment><USER4> 1\. I hate web apps for things that run the the background, Music is one of the things that needs a Tray Apps. 2\. If it "bogs down" I can kill it by my dropdown terminal and killall, probally much faster than killing the tab

I do not spend all of my time in a browser, so I want a native app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> TBH, I'm not at all surprised.

Look at Skype, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix Linux, Oculus VR and so many other cases of partial/broken Linux support. Linux is not a business priority. Even Valve, who jumped in with SteamOS and the Steam Machines, seems to keep Linux aside lately.</comment>


Ask HN: What to keep in mind when designing an API? - <AUTHOR>

I'm designing an API for information about the nearby colleges: current dining hall menus, whether they are open, list of events on campus, etc.<p>What should I be sure to do when I am implementing an API? <comment><USER2> The very first thing you should do: _talk to consumers of your API_.

API design is not something you do in a vacuum. It's basically user interface design for programmers; after all, an API is an application programming _interface_. And the first thing you do with UI design is find out how your interface will be used. There's usually at least one surprise in there.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think making it a RESTful API is a good thing. And make it consistent. Document it well. Find a great example and understand why its great.</comment>


Try to list all Python dunders - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44856728/is-there-a-lists-of-built-in-methods-like-func-and-how-they-work-in-python/44856756#44856756 <comment><USER2> Almost all of these are on this page

[https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html](https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html)</comment>


What are the top sites known to be running ASP or ASP.NET? - <AUTHOR> In a discussion with some programmers about Facebook HPHP, one participant voiced an opinion that it's ridiculous how hard companies will work to avoid using Microsoft products, the theory being they could just pay for them and not have to worry much about performance.<p>There are plenty of angles to take on that, but it got me thinking: what top sites do run Microsoft web products? The biggest ones I know of are: - stackoverflow.com - accuweather.com <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm missing something but... how does having paid for a software license mean you "don't have to worry much about performance"?

<comment><AUTHOR> You're not missing anything. It wasn't a solid theory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Summary of webservers being used by the alexa top 100: [http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/03/18/apache-dominates-the- top...](http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/03/18/apache-dominates-the- top-100-websites-iis-still-far-behind/)

Plentyoffish.com is famous for being built and scaled by one man on ASP.

I'm sure Microsoft.com and their other properties are primarily on their tech stack(hotmail, msn, etc.)

I'd bet that every site that has experienced any scaling concerns uses a combination of technologies. For example, much of facebook is actually written in C++.

</comment><comment><USER4> The argument is BS. Regardless of your technology stack performance will be an issue. ASP.NET MVC is a solid software stack and fully capable of being used in high-performance / high-traffic websites but that doesn't mean that going MS is a panacea. Indeed, if anything I think the consensus is that most naive ASP.NET webforms based websites are as poor performers as the average naive PHP based website.

<comment><USER5> ASP.NET MVC has only been around for a year or so, a dynamic version of C# only a few months. There's nothing wrong with MS's MVC framework or dynamic language but Rails and Django have a massive headstart.

<comment><USER6> "There's nothing wrong with MS's MVC framework or dynamic language but Rails and Django have a massive headstart."

Wow, Rails and Django have a head-start on MS's web technologies? No, not even close. Slapping a new name on it does not let them restart the clock and act like they're brand new.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure what you're saying. That ASP.net MVC or dynamic typing in .net isn't new?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> MySpace. They were ColdFusion but moved to Asp.Net for performance. They were running blue dragon as a hybrid for a while...not sure if they still are.

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://dell.com> and <http://www.nasdaq.com/>

<comment><USER5> Note that Dell was a massive WebObjects site before Apple brought the tech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I noticed (and was surprised at) vans.com using asp.net.

</comment><comment><USER10> Plenty of Fish, last I checked.

</comment><comment><USER11> tjoos.com is a huge coupon site that runs on ASP classic</comment>


Muscular Bonding: The power of dance and drill - <AUTHOR> https://fs.blog/2020/04/muscular-bonding/ <comment><USER2> >> Marching aimlessly about on the drill field, swaggering in conformity with prescribed military postures, conscious only of keeping in step so as to make the next move correctly and in time somehow felt good.

No. Modern drill is definitely not aimless, let alone fun. If done properly, it hurts. For some people at basic training it is more of a workout than the actual PT workouts. I've seen people pass out. I've seen people damage themeselves and others with bayonets as they fall (parade bayonets are not sharp). And all the foot-stomping and repetative motion leads to knee and back injuries. The one thing I took from drill was an ingrained desire to avoid it at all costs.

>>A plastic surgeon has called for a change to the way a German battalion does its rifle drill after its elite soldiers started developing breasts. Dozens of soldiers in the Wachbataillon unit (Guard Battalion), which performs drill displays at official events, have complained about over-developed breasts on their left-hand side because of the way they clasp their rifles. It is understood the repeated slapping of their rifles against their chests has stimulated hormones, causing a condition known as one-sided gynecomastia.

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2267631/Germanys- Wa...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2267631/Germanys- Wachbataillon-soldiers-soldiers-developing-breasts-drill.html)

>> "There is a very significant link between the activity in the … battalion and the development of the breast on the left side," Dr. Bjorn Krapohl, director of plastic surgery at the military's main hospital in Berlin, told the Herald. "They need to change the way they drill."

[https://www.livescience.com/26597-german-army-soldiers- breas...](https://www.livescience.com/26597-german-army-soldiers-breasts.html)

<comment><USER3> These sorts of comments frustrate me. You seem to take objection to drill being described as "aimless", but clearly the author is using that term to describe his perception at the time before going on to show how it wasn't aimless at all. This makes me think you didn't try to understand what was being said before attacking it.

I once heard the concept of an "Iron Man Argument", being the opposite of a Straw Man. Let's take the most charitable and coherent interpretation of an argument that is presented to us and try to poke holes in that. Then we will both be better for it. Maybe this guy is dead wrong. But defeating arguments he never made will not determine that.

Sorry to be a grump. It just frustrated me that this was the top comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a competitive Dance Dance Revolution player. nothing compares to the euphoria of being perfectly synchronized with the music, the notes on screen, and in an ideal scenario, the person playing next to you.

all types of dancing and synchronized movement achieve this effect. in a lot of senses, when you perform these kinds of activities with other people, the informational content of your minds and bodies come closer together in the possible configurational space of brain states. your sensory input, mental activity, and bodily sensations all line up, creating an instant bond with another person, as you can be 100% sure that you now have common ground with each other. the psychological, social and emotional benefits are real.

watching a movie or listening to music together with someone obviously achieves the same effect, but without as many modalities involved

<comment><USER5> Thank you for this. I love music festivals, and as strange as it sounds, one or two a year put me in a much better frame of mind. I've been struggling to explain this to my significant other who accepts it, but ultimately views them as just a party. To me "the psychological, social and emotional benefits are real". Very real.

<comment><USER6> I've always felt the same way about crowded sporting events. Intellectually, I understand that sports are rather... shallow?, but there's something that just seems magical about tens of thousands of people gathered in one place for a shared purpose and being so _loud_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Prior to the stay-home order my wife and I would go out line dancing three nights each week. Dancing in unison with dozens of other people is surprisingly invigorating. I miss it deeply.

</comment><comment><USER8> Re: dance. My current cardio routine is improv dancing and it's definitely a lot of fun. Re: drilling. This applies in any domain, even programming. Pick small problems and do variations on them until they become second nature. It's a surprisingly effective way to learn. Gary Bernhardt has actually turned this idea into a product with Execute Program: [https://www.executeprogram.com/](https://www.executeprogram.com/).

I suspect there are a few untapped product ideas here for programmers still. I'd be willing to pay for a set of drills in learning the various AI frameworks. The theory is linear algebra + calculus which can be learned alongside the drills for the framework and could potentially be another set of drills.

</comment><comment><USER9> >> This refers to a sense of euphoric connection that is sparked by performing rhythmic movements in unison to music or chanting.

I suspect this euphoria happens whenever we believe ourselves to be synchronized with others, even if we are physically doing very different things.

I've felt euphoric on a few occasions while performing comedy/skits for an audience before. It's a weird sensation to feel like I understand what the crowd is thinking and can anticipate reactions to my words.

It felt very similar to dancing, minus the exercise.

Good to know the term "muscular bonding" though. I'll look that up for more references.

</comment><comment><USER10> This has sparked a few "connected moment" memories.

I was riding a bicycle downhill when a bird happened to fly next to me for a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

When my oldest child had just learned to run, and we ran across a field together for the first time, for no reason but to feel the wind, and look over at each other, moving as one.

There's definitely something about moving together that is wired to demand an emotional response.

</comment><comment><USER11> The first somewhat-detailed description of military marching is in a 16th century dance manual.

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

</comment><comment><USER12> "The righteous mind" speaks about this at some length, I'd highly recommend the book for anyone interested in a look at bonding individuals into groups.

<comment><USER3> I second this. Few books have affected me the way The Righteous Mind did. I read it once in 2011 and thought it was cool. On the second reading I became troubled and found myself disagreeing with much of what he said. It wasn't until the 5th reading that I understood how huge his discoveries were.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> In the subjective tech tree dance is a thick branch of emotion

</comment><comment><USER14> skateboarding!!! surfing!!! the best exercises for intellectuals</comment>


Can you help me secure my App? - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/a/blazingboost.com/forms/d/1BiSnTzR4XNNmNxEBoTm-tsDi5FpO9tgtEphfeF0oN1w/viewform

<comment><USER2> No one will want to work with you (or, at least, who you would want to work with you) if you have grammatical and spelling mistakes in your job listing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I'm Italian. I'm not a native English speaker. I try my best :)

<comment><USER2> I'm just saying that for your benefit. You might want to have a native speaker edit it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you help me?

<comment><USER2> Hi,

I'm Nicolas Nemni. My friends and I have founded a new startup that will begin operating in January. We will handle some VERY sensitive data about our users, such as sexual orientation. Due to the threats directed at LGBT people worldwide (in Russia for example), our concern is to protect their identity and associated sensitive data as much as we can.

Since we are currently bootstrapping, we have a limited budget. With that said, we are looking for someone who shares our passion for the project. If you are good fit for our team, you may invited to join as our Internet and Data Security Chief. Right now, if you are interested to work with us, we can pay you to set up the structure and to find our main security bugs before launch.

We are looking for a security specialist to secure our: \- Computers (5 Mac Os X based computers) \- Network (does not exist right now) \- iPhone, Android and web app

If you are interested, please use the form below.

Thanks, Nicolas :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ingenious Chinese Army shovel (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/m-DmaTXvgl8 <comment><USER2> While multipurpose tools are always fun, how is the Chinese army shovel particularly noteworthy? I'm pretty sure you can get an almost identical model from, say, REI. Or the /US/ Army's surplus.

...actually, they likely all come from the same factory, huh?

<comment><USER3> I know it sounds plausible, but I've never seen one. Show me: [http://www.rei.com/search?query=shovel&button.x=0&bu...](http://www.rei.com/search?query=shovel&button.x=0&button.y=0)

<comment><USER4> The thing is that these things are called 'entrenching tools', searching for that gives more results. See e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenching_tool> \- the pictures there don't look like they have serrated edges to serve as a saw, but there are plenty on e.g. Ebay that do. I know I used to sell the folding model, with serrated edge, 15 years ago in the military surplus stored I worked at.

<comment><USER5> Dutch shovels, they're known as in the outdoorsy subcultures in the UK, probably because at one point some supplier like Millett's bought up a job lot of them from Dutch army surplus, and that's what everyone bought.

For some reason olive oil in spray bottles is known as "Portuguese sunblock".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It slices, it dices, it opens cans, bottles and jars; but wait there's more; you can also use it as an axe, can your shovel do THIS, I don't think so! So call now, operators are standing by.

Repeat above sentence with different features, repeatedly. Until someone buys every last shovel you have in stock.

</comment><comment><USER7> Also, you can use it to determine the height of a skyscraper.

<comment><USER8> Drop it off the top and time how long it takes to reach the ground!

<comment><USER9> Or use it as a payment for the janitor if he tells you how high the building is!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They forgot to show in the video that you could of course kill people with that shovel.

<comment><USER11> That's what I thought when I saw the chopping and sawing parts. I seem to recall that in the Great War book "All Quiet on the Western Front", the author mentions that sharpened shovels get used as weapons extensively on the German side. The author makes some offhand comment about chopping deeply into someone's neck and chest with a sharpened spade or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Every comment on this thread so far (20+) has said that this story is not noteworthy in some fashion or another -- and it has a lot of upvotes and is the top ten.

??

<comment><USER13> My theory: a 4chan group is starting to experiment with manipulating HN through reddit.

<comment><USER12> Needs more cowbell

EDIT: Sorry, that was bending the rules. I wasn't trying to be snarky. My point is that I think you are pulling my leg. If so, well done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> how is this any different from any other army's entrenching tools? Yes there are a few extras added to it but it is not in any way more ingenious than what's already available elsewhere.

<comment><USER15> Well, it looks like not many people were aware of these entrenching tools.

<comment><USER16> Nerds on hackernews not familiar with tools for digging infantry trenches!

Hope nobody ever posts a fashion/haircare/style video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love the rousing music accompanying the video, it's like something from The Great Escape!

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks like a pretty standard multifunction shovel to me.

<comment><USER19> Yup, most Eastern bloc armies have these or similar. Well, the one I saw, of the Romanian army, may not have had the bottle opener :)

Or I may not have seen it among all those gadgets.

FYI, they're also a close-quarters combat weapon, and were a favourite of assault engineers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love the video player they're using. Instead of 'scrubbing' over the video when you drag the playhead during playback (like most online video), it has something like the Red Book Audio CD 'search' algorithm; it plays a short sample over and over. Hilarity ensues.

</comment><comment><USER21> Put a USB memory stick in it and I'll buy it.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have a few e-Tools too, but nothing like this. And the outdoorsman in me would really like one of these, versus the two anemic and subpar e-Tools I already own. So to all you guys who are like "oh yeah, just swing by REI" or "yeah I have one just like that" (yes, I'm hyperbolizing a tad) it'd be nice if you'd show us where we could get one that's more like this one and less like the ones you can buy for $50 at big retail sporting goods stores.

kthx.

</comment><comment><USER23> The shovel is pretty cool, but I kept on marveling at just how fast the soldiers work when a propaganda video is being made.

<comment><USER24> Are you absolutely sure that is not the same speed that the Chinese make iPods?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> You can buy similar tools on ebay: [http://cgi.ebay.ca/New-Folding-Camp-Army- Shovel-Tool-Entrenc...](http://cgi.ebay.ca/New-Folding-Camp-Army-Shovel-Tool- Entrenching-/220593531774?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item335c662b7e#ht_4406wt_941)

<comment><USER26> Yeah, but that sort of looks like a cheep Canadian knock off.

I don't think I've ever used that phrase in this context before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Damn, the Chinese have invented _everything_! The compass, gunpowder, chopsticks, printing press and now this!

Although, the fact that their inventiveness missed baking, opting instead to stir fry everything, is a point I bring up often with my Chinese colleagues during lunch.

</comment><comment><USER15> I see they're already preparing for WW IV. The Shovel War.

</comment><comment><USER28> I see nothing new here because the German army used this in WW2 and possibly™ even sooner (they called it "Schanzspaten").

</comment><comment><USER29> <call a spade a spade joke>

</comment><comment><USER30> Is that spam, at 4:55 ?

</comment><comment><USER31> my question is what can this shovel not do ?

<comment><USER32> digg

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> TL;DW

</comment><comment><USER34> I am super scared of Chinese military now, because they can use their shovels to open cans of Spam.

PROPAGANDA EFFECTIVE</comment>


How America might get a Value Added Tax - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2010/04/05/how-america-might-get-a-vat-of-its-own/

<comment><USER2> The theory of this article is that we will:

(a) Shift from a complicated progressive tax to an _even more complicated_ regressive tax, and _simultaneously_

(b) Adopt a series of reforms that will end Medicare and Social Security.

Whether you agree with the principles or not, we're more likely to get a flat income tax than a VAT.

<comment><USER3> Nope, far more likely we'll get the VAT _and_ keep our existing tax system as well. The article's flaw is in assuming that the tax needs to somehow be made palatable to voters; it doesn't, all they need to do is continue to increase spending until it becomes impossible to not raise taxes.

Reagan's "starve the beast" strategy was based on the assumption that if you continue to cut taxes, eventually congress will be forced to cut spending, but it didn't work. Obama's "gorge the beast" strategy is based on the assumption that if you keep increasing spending then eventually congress will have to raise taxes. It looks like it might work a lot better.

<comment><USER4> This concept of gorging the beast reminds me of something I read in a book called "Being Sovereign":

"Individuals tolerate limitations and control, obey mindless bureaucratic nonsense, make a sincere effort to "follow the rules," until they don't. While their own best interests seem to be served by obedience, people try very hard to obey even the most idiotic of directives. When it becomes clear that they cannot prosper, or may not even survive, following the rules, they revolt. It should come as no surprise that people have limits, and there is always a straw that breaks the camel's back, but the perception of people accepting more and more nonsense as they try to "go along to get along" misdirects those in power to believe they can continue to be arbitrary and capricious far past the breaking point."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not going to happen, as the Constitution reserves these powers to the States. The States retain (so far) plenary power with regards to transactions within their borders.

A very detailed refutation: [http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2005/05/Beware- the-...](http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2005/05/Beware-the-Value- Added-Tax)</comment>


Internet Brands sues for forking under CC-by-SA - <AUTHOR> http://davidgerard.co.uk/notes/2012/09/06/internet-brands-sues-people-for-forking-under-cc-by-sa/ <comment><USER2> The postscript to the article caught my eye: "Update: A Slashdotting is about 6000 hits these days, if you were wondering."

Is slashdot's glory fading, or was 6,000 hits an hour a catastrophic event years ago? I remember "slashdotting" being a regular phenomenon. CoralCache and Google's cached pages were the only way around it.

<comment><USER3> It takes surprisingly few hits to knock a fragile web site down, although I'm sure that's way lower than from peak too. Most common is poorly configured WordPress installations which will fall over in the slightest breeze. For a minor comparison, a Daring Fireball link was worth about 20,000 hits/day or 50,000 hits over a weekend last time I got one, and DF knocks down sites with some regularity.

<comment><USER4> The site lives on a cruddy VM belonging to a friend at a cost of $0 and worth every penny. But WP-SuperCache is holding up okay in the onslaught of hits from HN - which I'm actually noticing unlike the Slashdot numbers. I'll look at the numbers tomorrow and let you know what an HN-dotting is like :-)

<comment><USER4> It's a day later. Total hits with HN as referrer: about 3300, which is much less than Slashdot, but they mostly came in the first hour or two. This was enough to make the server whimper slightly. Zero hits with Techdirt as referrer, which makes me wonder if my stats (awstats working directly on the Apache logs) aren't utterly bogus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> IB does not appear to be suing over the forking itself. They acknowledge in the complaint that the content is under CC-by-SA and that this allows people to copy it.

They complaint is basically about the name Wikitravel. They claim trademark on the name and are upset that the forkers are using the name to promote the fork in a way IB feels misuses their trademark. They also throw in unfair competition and a couple other things.

<comment><USER6> I'm one of the forking admins.

At no time did we even consider using the name "Wikitravel" for the fork. On the forking email list, a recurrent problem has been participants suggesting a new name. The plan was do deal with names last. Now that we are moving to Wikivoyage first, a cleanup pass is being performed to remove "Wikitravel" from all text and maps.

IB is just throwing stuff at the wall to see what might stick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's a losin'!</comment>


The JVM's mysterious AllocatePrefetch options: what do they do? - <AUTHOR> https://www.opsian.com/blog/jvms-allocateprefetch-options/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if this could be used in other languages like go or common lisp?</comment>


Petascale Urban Computing - weaving supercomputer networks through the city - <AUTHOR> http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/other/petascale-urban-computing-3340

<comment><USER2> Hmm, this fits the bill as far as the 1GHz CPU and 1GB RAM... fairly trivial to add a 1TB hard drive: [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/146765-amd- launches-giz...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/146765-amd-launches- gizmo-explorer-an-overpriced-raspberry-pi-competitor)

However, at $200 without the hardrive, it gets a bit pricy.</comment>


Stacking Theory for Systems Design - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jlouis666/stacking-theory-for-systems-design-2450e6300689 <comment><USER2> Is it Erlang-specific, or it is possible to use those principles with other technologies?</comment>


Before Peter Thiel, There Was Tycoon Robert Graham's Island Utopia–Grahamland - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-tycoon-who-planned-his-very-own-island-utopia-in-the-1970s

<comment><USER2> Please don't rewrite the titles of stories you submit to HN, unless they are misleading or linkbait.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment>


Startup Vlogging - we're vloggin our iOS beta launch w new content on fridays - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAgQoZwN2_9BEXdt7Sdmzgg <comment><AUTHOR> Hi I'm Brian, the founder of SmashHound. We've started vlogging our progress as we launch our iOS app into private beta. Check it out if you're interested in starting a startup! We'd love feedback too! If there's a specific aspect we don't cover in our vlogs, that may interest you, hit me up!!</comment>


Ask HN: Facebook graph API how many people like Pepsi AND Coca Cola? - <AUTHOR>

Is it possible to query the count (not a list) of people who like page A and page B? <comment><USER2> You might possibly be able to do this with FQL (Facebook Query Language), but I believe support for that is disappearing in April.

Also, there are some queries they don't like people to do unless they're paying. This might be one of them. Facebook isn't an easy network to scrape.</comment>


Why I believe Apple is losing - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/110513964841937233661/posts/JW5ghLJA3Bx

<comment><USER2> Short-sighted.

His rant is about Apple releasing new software but no (relatively)new hardware. Dude, software is innovation, and Siri is a big one, even if you don't realize it.

</comment><comment><USER3> For me, the single biggest feature of the 4S is that you've now got a world- version of the iPhone 4G that is twice as fast as the iPhone 4.

The potential for a 100% speed boost is reason enough for any HTML5 application developer to rejoice. Everything else is just icing on a stepping stone release.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you pass off "integration" as some kind of unimportant side issue you just don't get why Apple has been successful and why your white box PC is not the future.</comment>


Germany's Top Court Extends Privacy Rights to Foreigners, Halts Wiretap Programs - <AUTHOR> https://news.trust.org/item/20200519072904-kkpa7/ <comment><USER2> > _Germany 's Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday that monitoring the > internet traffic of foreign nationals abroad by the BND intelligence agency > partly breaches the constitution._

Does that mean that the German intelligence agencies have just effectively been banned from spying?

Considering the importance of online communications this would sound like a very bad outcome.

<comment><USER3> Not fundamentally, but the law authorizing them to do it will need a proper rework and introduce restrictions and oversight that are currently missing.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My partner works at the NGO and was part of the team that brought, fraught, and won this case ([https://freiheitsrechte.org/english/](https://freiheitsrechte.org/english/)). Happy o (try to) answer any questions.</comment>


PageRank is an abomination (mathematically) - <AUTHOR> http://inperc.com/blog2/2011/05/29/pagerank-is-an-abomination-mathematically/

<comment><USER2> Interesting, but I'm surprised the guy sounds so angry. PageRank gets credit for being an engineering feat not a mathematical wonder... When people refer to PageRank as "elegant" they are commenting on its simplicity of concept.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More discussion on [http://inperc.com/blog2/2011/07/05/pagerank-is-bad-math- disc...](http://inperc.com/blog2/2011/07/05/pagerank-is-bad-math-discussion/)</comment>


Nigeria Online Start-ups See a Future 'Silicon Lagoon' - <AUTHOR> http://www.voanews.com/content/nigeria-online-start-ups-see-a-future-silicon-lagoon/1564936.html

<comment><USER2> I really hope it will workout for them. Africa in general is very innovative in surprising areas such as mobile payments.</comment>


Anyone know of cheaper alternatives to Hostgator? - <AUTHOR> I've been using hostgator for a long time now and was wondering if there were any cheaper alternatives. I'm hosting a simple wordpress blog. <comment><USER2> If its only wordpress blog why not use wordpress.com ?

Here is a nice infograph with more info; [http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners- guide/self-hosted-wordpr...](http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/self- hosted-wordpress-org-vs-free-wordpress-com-infograph/?display=wide)

</comment><comment><USER3> I recommend A Small Orange. I use their shared and VPS hosting service. Very reliable, affordable and customer centric. Link: [https://asmallorange.com/](https://asmallorange.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I host my website at amazon aws.

Try amazon aws and you will get a free 12 months hosting.

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.hostmonster.com/](https://www.hostmonster.com/)</comment>


Angelina 101 - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamesbyangelina.org/?p=104

<comment><USER2> That's a very similar idea to our startup. Except we're not using brute force evolution algorithms. Which I think is a bad idea, for the same reason researchers have found neural networks to be generally a bad approach to machine learning. The problem is the same, while it might be mathematically viable to code a system that will brute force it's way to learn if a great game is. That takes too long to most commercial applications. Specially when it's so easy to "cheat" and pre-input some values you already learned yourself.

In short, why would you write a code that takes 10 years to learn something that you could teach it yourself in a few minutes?

Brute force evolution algorithms are a fun and interesting thing to do research on. But that's it. The only practical application for it, is to research the algorithms itself to better understand how they work! But I'm sure the author of Angelina knows this, as his main goal does seem to be better understand how the algorithms work. That's fine, just don't expect many awesome commercially viable games from it. If that was the goal, I'd recommend "cheating" your own knowledge and the knowledge of other players to train your machine learning algorithms, similar to a recommendation algorithm. That's what we're hoping to achieve ourselves.

<comment><USER3> Far from my area of expertise, but I always considered the reason to try the brute force approach was to uncover the non-obvious things that "everyone knows won't work".

<comment><USER2> You're right. That's why these algorithms are often said to be _effective_ , but not _efficient_. Meaning they do what they're supposed to, but the costs (time and money) might make it not viable for commercial use. Specially when there are known solutions that performs better.

Brute force evolution algorithms are fun to observe and do research on. But at the end of the day, it's the more efficient manually trained algorithms that end up making their way to commercial use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool idea. Can a computer design video games for humans through a combination of trial and error, and combining existing games?

I think it can. Will be interesting to see what games it produces.

<comment><USER5> Evolution is a pretty cool tool. That said, it has its limitations! Inventing brand new mechanics seems to be a particularly tricky problem, for instance. Look at something as left-field as Antichamber (from this year's IGF). That takes some creativity to come up with, I think.

Still, that's why it's research! Wouldn't be fun without feeling a bit impossible.

<comment><USER6> > Evolution is a pretty cool tool.

This is not evolution, it's exactly the opposite. Take the cake sample. You have a goal (the cake) and let the AI system find a way to reach that goal. Evolution has no goals at all.

<comment><USER5> Are you objecting to the use of the word 'tool', or do you not consider ANGELINA to be an evolutionary process?

<comment><USER7> "Evolution" is a touchy word, because there are so many idiots who will deny it exists or who will distort it horribly.

It's a shame that a useful word is less useful now - purists want to make sure that biological evolution is never misrepresented. That's fair enough. It's a simple concept and lots of people (even the ones who accept evolution) sometimes make mistakes.

Personally, I think the term "computational evolution" is clear enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not sure current technology is capable of yielding real creativity. Perhaps as we enter the era of quantum computing. But fun level design and infinite gameplay generated using AI/ML techniques are a welcome addition to casual games.

<comment><USER5> Well, 'real creativity' is a tough thing to pin down or talk about at the best of times. I think it can be achieved with conventional computing, but I think many people would reject it as creative even when faced with it.

As you say, though, creative or not I'm just happy to be producing software that can make fun(-ish) games!</comment></comment>


How an unknown Taiwanese server maker is eating the big guys' lunch - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/03/16/how-an-unknown-taiwanese-server-maker-is-eating-the-big-guys-lunch/ <comment><USER2> Quanta. Unknown. What? Maybe unknown to mr Jordan Novet. They've been out there for what, 25 years, and are like the biggest notebook ODM in the world. Chances are your Apple, HP or Dell laptop is made by Quanta.

</comment><comment><USER3> Eating the big guys' lunch, but with next to no margins I'm sure. This is a commodity space now.

<comment><USER4> But the point is they're becoming less of a commodity. They're moving up the value food chain to both manufacture and sell their servers under their own brand. Presumably their margins are better now then before.

<comment><USER5> IMO their brand isn't worth anything and they can't really charge any more than Supermicro, so they don't have much room to add margin.

<comment><USER6> "We build for facebook, rackspace, and IBM"is rather marketable, especially with larger/corporate customers which are the bread and butter of the big name vendors.

<comment><USER7> Very few if any organizations buy servers on the scale of Facebook, Amazon, Rackspace.... Quanta are likely to face the "Walmart" problem where they get squeezed so hard on margins they might not be making much at all, yet they feel they can't afford to ignore buyers of that size because _someone_ is going to sell all those servers to them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Top algorithms preprints of 2010 - <AUTHOR> http://11011110.livejournal.com/211518.html

<comment><USER2> I'd love to see a similar treatment of various math fields also. As an amateur, the top ten papers for a year would be about my speed.

<comment><USER3> It would be great to have that for _all_ fields, regardless of discipline.

Sadly, I'm not sure how many people would be up for the task as the writer of the blog post, David Eppstein, is a machine when it comes to reading/writing papers.

As one of his doctoral descendants, it was more than a tad bit intimidating to see how prolific he is.</comment></comment>


So, what's the next step?  Let's network. - <AUTHOR>

Some people reading this are kicking themselves for not having applied to for YC.  Some people reading this got rejected yesterday.  Some people reading will be rejected in a couple weeks.  And all of us have a lot of rejection on the horizon or under our belts.
Get used to it.  Let's hack the system.
Two of the main things that YC provides are connections and other smart people to bounce your ideas off of.  Let's build that.
I've set up a few things to further that today:
- A Hacker News LinkedIn group.  You can connect by going to my profile and connecting from there.  I've not found a reliable way to send a link other than that.  Add a line to your "Groups and Associations" with your news.YC nick.  I'll add everyone in with over 20 karma -- just enough to establish active community members.  (If you get rejected, it's because either because the info isn't there, or your profile isn't public.  Just add it and re-request.)
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/7/8a8/6a3
- A mailing list for entrepreneurs.  The contents will remain private (though I'd still use some caution when posting your secret sauce).  This isn't for general news.  You can bounce business ideas off of others, ask for help in establishing connections and look for partners, co-founders, etc. there.  If you can, subscribe with an address from your startup.  If not, I'll send you a follow-up mail to figure out what you're hacking on.  This one is for people that are already working on a startup, not just passively interested.  We'll be incorporating soon, and we'll consider swapping minor stakes (1% or so) with another startup or three where we see there could be a mutually reinforcing relationship and where we value your input.  If others consider the same that might be a cool way to pull the community together a bit.
http://lists.directededge.com/listinfo.cgi/startups-directededge.com
- I'm in the process of setting up a small web-app where we can store extended Hacker-News profile information with stuff we know about (i.e. "connections to angel funding", "friends that are driver developers", "ajax") and stuff we're looking for other people that know about, and an index of those.  This should allow for some info swapping and ideally will suck less than LinkedIn for such things.  Paul, if you're reading and would consider that as a patch to the news.YC source, I'd be fine dusting off my lisp chops and doing it that way, otherwise it can live on our servers.  Once it's up I'll post source code for anyone that wants to extend it and work with us.  I'll mail the list and possibly repost here when it's ready.
Now, let's get back to kicking ass. <comment><USER2> Don't forget the Hacker News group on Chatterous: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134464>

Or the #startups channel on Freenode IRC

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the most useful aspects of YC are the weekly dinners. You know, face to face interaction with other entreprenuers. It's very valuable. It might be worth while to organize a weekly gathering for entreprenurs working on similar projects.

<comment><USER4> This sounds like a great idea. Anyone in Chihuahua Mexico interested? :-D

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll set up a calendar for startup-related events (that need not be related to news.YC). I think it'd be good to have a place where people can post in their blogs and try to get groups together. I think as soon as you've got three people together you can already have a meaningful meetup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is really great. I'm relatively new to the Hacker News and YC, but love the threads. I guess I'm gonna have to get my Karma up to pass muster though :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Any early risers are welcome to join us at the Bootstrapper Tue April 15 in Sunnyvale or Fri May 2 in Palo Alto. 7:30-9am everyone buys their own breakfast and we meet in a back room. We've been meeting for a year and half; details at <http://www.bootstrapperbreakfast.com>

<comment><USER7> 7:30am ?! Why so anti-programmerish? Is it for "business-types" only? :-)

<comment><USER6> We get a lot of serious folks at that time of day. It's for bootstrappers, who are founders who are trying to sell what they have instead of seek investment. We've had many attendees who have raised investment or been acquired, but the focus of the conversation is on practical issues related to bootstrapping a software startup. The age range is 20's through 50's with a mix of men and women. And since it's in Silicon Valley there are folks from many lands. It looks like you are in Austin: check out [http://www.bootstrapaustin.org/wiki/index.php/Monthly_Get- to...](http://www.bootstrapaustin.org/wiki/index.php/Monthly_Get-together) they seem to meet later in the day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's another piece of the puzzle. In the open source world, we use "planets" to aggregate blogs. Let's get that going for the news.YC crowd. If you're here, and you're running a startup, send me a link to your feed and I'll add it here.

<http://planetstartup.directededge.com/>

I'll worry about making it pretty later. I just took the default template for now.

</comment><comment><USER8> Groups on LinkedIn are unfortunately a very under-deveopled and over-utilized feature. LinkedIn, however, does provide a unique link for each group. You can access it from the following path: Groups -> My Groups -> Manage -> Invite Members

You will see something like this:

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

Invite Members

To invite new members, send out an email invitation with the link to join your group.

        http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/2342/3423ASD3432

Important: You should pre-approve people to join your group before you send out the email invitation.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

Just copy and paste the link above to this thread. You DO NOT have to pre- approve people. Anybody who clicks on the link puts in a request to join and sit in a queue waiting for your approval. You can access the list by clicking on "Requests to Join"

Hope this helps!

<comment><USER8> Another suggestion regarding the LinkedIn process: Since Groups and Associations can be publicly available, I would rather not post my YC-handle there. Rather, when a user makes a request to join, LinkedIn allows them to send a msg to the group manager. It would be better if we can use that to let you know of our YC-handle so you can figure out the real requests from the SPAM requests.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't have that option when joining a group recently, feel free to send me a message as an alternative (or even email, if you feel so moved). I just want some means of filtering for folks that are actually participating in the news.YC community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think I would be more enthusiastic about these sorts of postings if they didn't invariably occur a few days after YC rejected a bunch of people. It's not like they're bad ideas (asterisk), but they'd be a little bit less tinged with the negative association if they were to pop up independently, and not seemingly as a reaction to a failed attempt at YC.

(asterisk) I am not in a position to try for YC myself, and live somewhere where I basically have zero contact with hackers/startup people, so I'm actually pretty enthusiastic about utilizing the internet in order to participate in that "scene".

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually that was intentional. I'd been planning on setting up most of these things anyway, but I figured, "This is the time that people will be most open to try out new stuff."

I don't think there's anything wrong with translating some of the feelings that people have of rejection into momentum for something positive. Quite the _contrary_ , this is _exactly_ the time to bring up these ideas. They'd get nowhere near the participation were they brought up randomly and independently at other times of the year.

Edit: Oh, and for the record, you're like a one hour flight from us. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The last thing entrepreneurs need is "more networking." We need more "doing," more education, and more understanding how to bootstrap our ideas rather than rely on things like YC (although YC does a great job, it should be "an option" instead of "the option.")

There are already more than enough places for entrepreneurs to network, both online and in the real world. There are not, however, enough people developing exciting new ideas and products.

<comment><AUTHOR> So do it. I disagree, and apparently some others do too, but if it works for you, great.

There's a lot of stuff I don't understand. I know how to build cool stuff; I learned that in a community that was good at building stuff (the open source world).

I don't know very well how to pitch it, who to pitch it to, or when I've got it right. But I'm trying to figure that out, as are a lot of folks here. Pooling experience tends to pay off.

<comment><USER10> I've already done it. Started from nothing, built a business, then sold it (twice technically, but only "real" money once). I also didn't know much (not to say I'm particularly expert now!)

I am convinced, however, that if I listened to a large crowd of well meaning people, things might not have turned out as well as they did. Being a good entrepreneur IMHO rests a LOT on your ability to take risks, do things in a radically different way (often out of ignorance) and to just get stuff done without talking about it.

Networking and engaging with a community works well when you're trying to learn something initially (programming language, other technologies, and, yes, even entrepreneurial skills), but isn't much use when it comes to actually breaking through.. indeed, it can be a hinderance if you actually adjust your plans or thinking on what other people are saying, as that could limit your success.

Good luck if you are trying to boost morale or just provide a place for entrepreneurs to share stories.. but I'm not so confident that setting up networks for people to actually bounce ideas around is a good idea at all. So many risky / weird startups might not have made it if people paid attention to the "suggestions" other entrepreneurs would have made to their ideas.

Of course, the above all applies to you, your idea, and my comments now. So.. you just need to do what you feel from the gut! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, in context you comment means a lot more.

I think there's a lot to be said for running from the gut. We're running in 18 directions right now from the gut and determined to get our startup off of the ground. But when we first presented our stuff a couple weeks back we realized that some stuff that seems clear to us, because we're so close to the problem, wasn't coming through in the presentation. If we'd had a group to pre-pitch that through, we might have gotten a "Huh?" at a more appropriate moment.

A lot of people also seem to be looking for co-founders (we're not, but this seems to be a common problem). In a community they might be able to find that.

Another bit is that it seems pretty much all VCs / Angels prefer personal introductions. Well, that assumes you've got them. We're starting to pull them out of the woodwork, with a few good leads, but we may have a couple dozen pitches before we get a bite, which means we're going to need a lot of introductions. I'm super-well connected to hacker culture in the OSS world, but that doesn't translate over to seed funding.

All of that is why I'd like to see a group come together. It's not a fear of bulldozing our way through the startup world, or a desire to hold hands and reaffirm each other, just an acknowledgement that some people will have smart stuff to say, and hopefully we'll notice. Some people will have dumb stuff to say, and hopefully we'll ignore it.

<comment><USER10> It's rather a shame that this very site isn't good enough for the task you're laying out long-term. Quite a few people have been asking the sorts of questions you've pointed out here lately with good results and good connections made. I sense, however, that Hacker News is going to veer away from that discussion / entrepreneur friendly vibe which may make the sort of community you're discussing a useful addition.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would take a more active commitment to transform this site from a news site to a community platform. You can build a community on top of almost any technology up to a certain size. But once you outgrow the everybody-knows- everybody level I think you either have to react with technology or there's some inevitable splintering.

I'm just applying some of the same techniques that I've seen work in OSS; time will tell if they work out in this context too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There was another LinkedIn group formed 11 months ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21359>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25246>

<comment><USER12> It's true that there is a linkedin group, and I'm part of it, but to my knowledge there is little activity. I think the point of making a new one is to get a fresh start and really put some effort behind it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Also, Younoodle.com!

Pretty much the entrepreneur social network. It works pretty well, too.

<comment><USER12> Thx for that -- didn't know about younoodle. I'm on it now! :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm in a web entrepreneur mailing list with a couple of other guys from this forum. We started on email, but quickly moved on to using the wordpress prologue theme on our own URL, <http://EntreList.com>. It's working out pretty well, it's more fun to share the discussion across the web, and it's given me a ton of ideas for my own app.

Prologue wouldn't scale for the level of discussion that YC news handles, but it's good for small groups (perspective co-founders, perhaps?).

Maybe you could set up a tried & tested discussion forum via <http://www.lefora.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you like for that to be added to the Planet Site? (I've got a couple of pending requests that I'll be adding this afternoon.)

<http://planetstartup.directededge.com/>

<comment><USER14> Please do if you think it's appropriate; I'm not sure how well the discussion style posting will work when aggregated amongst traditional blog posts, but let me know what you think (at the moment we're organising an entrelist session on ImInLikeWithYou's 'Blockles'). I have startup blog at <http://webappropriate.com> which may be more suitable.

<comment><AUTHOR> I added both for now. We'll give it a try for a while. If it gets distracting later on we can make a call on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Subscribed to the mailing list. Joined #startups channel on IRC. LinkedIn... Nah, I'll pass. Web-based communication tools suck compared to email+IRC.

<comment><USER12> Which irc net is #startups on?

<comment><USER7> Freenode. We're discussing Berlin as a place to live in right now :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Per the LinkedIn group:

If you're currently waiting to be accepted that means your news.YC account name isn't visible anywhere. Please either add it to your profile, or mail me with it and I'll approve your request.

</comment><comment><USER15> Are you thinking of adding an element of geo location of the hackers in?

I remember hackertrackr doing something similar.

I'd reckon your physical location is pretty important in making connections.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hey man, I see you are a Calvin grad, That's my neck of the woods :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> great idea...done.

</comment><comment><USER12> Any other face-to-face meetups that happen on a regular basis? (For my purposes, anything in the Bay Area, especially the peninsula.)</comment>


When is a global variable not a variable? - <AUTHOR> http://andrew.hedges.name/blog/2010/04/07/when-is-a-global-variable-not-a-variable

<comment><USER2> When it's called a Singleton.</comment>


What Programming a Game in 48 Hours Taught Me About Programming Games - <AUTHOR> http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=1495 <comment><USER3> >if I could transfer the pace of production from Ludum Dare into my normal work, I would complete a game like House of Shadows in less than 2 months

While the article lists many plausible reasons why the pace of work turned out to be faster on the shorter project, there is also one that is not mentioned but perhaps the most important: complexity doesn't scale linearly. It's always faster to write the first 1000 lines of code from scratch than to add 1000 lines to a project that is quite large already, mostly because each newly added component has a growing chance to interact with an ever increasing number of older components.

<comment> ha-ha-ha Hah, very interesting.

On the other hand companies generally put their very best developers on new products and features - i.e. writing those first 1000 lines. While the mediocre devs get to extend and maintain those products/features, by copy paste or what got you.

<comment><USER4> I have never heard of a place where "mediocre devs" get siloed off as a normal way of operating a business. If you have under-performing engineers you should change your hiring and think about mentoring or exits for those you have already.

<comment><USER5> It's more common in enterprise-y settings, since you don't have to pay them as much. Hire a few senior people to do the heavy lifting and stick all the maintenance programming stuff on the others.

<comment><USER4> Do they know they are considered mediocre? I think I might change my career if I ended up like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The linked [http://strlen.com/java-style-classes-in-c](http://strlen.com/java- style-classes-in-c) was both horrifying and tantalizing. I'd expected a preprocessor that generates appropriate .hpp/.cpp, but instead I learned about yet another corner of C++ I hadn't exactly induced from experience.

<comment><USER7> Have a look at juce_amalgamated.cpp in the JUCE library for a real world example of this. The author of this java style classes article has taken one extreme view and I have taken another, that no code, inline or otherwise belongs in a header. Just declarations all the way.

It's remarkable that modifying C++ headers is such a chore that it comes up as a reason for getting something done in a tiny fraction of the time for a roughly comparable task.

<comment><USER8> > _It 's remarkable that modifying C++ headers is such a chore that it comes > up as a reason for getting something done in a tiny fraction of the time for > a roughly comparable task._

Couldn't agree more. Though I don't find it all that painful - lots of editors/IDEs have a 'go to header file' shortcut that makes this take a couple seconds at worst.

But then I have repeatedly wondered why IDEs don't seem to have a way to synchronize your cpp changes to your header automatically. Rename function in .cpp -> automagically rename function in .h. That's all you really want a lot of the time.

<comment><USER7> It's not the editing of the header that's the problem, it's doing the edit correctly so that the program still builds. I call it include hell.

In addition changing a header file can at times trigger a lengthy build.

Visual Studio and ctags based 'IDE' style features allow you to go to definitions or declarations fairly easily.

Unless I'm mistaken I think the eclipse CDT for c++ can change/refactor file and header as you wish for. [1] [2]

[1] [http://help.eclipse.org/helios/topic/org.eclipse.cdt.doc.use...](http://help.eclipse.org/helios/topic/org.eclipse.cdt.doc.user/tasks/cdt_t_refactoring.htm)

[2] [http://r2.ifs.hsr.ch/cdtrefactoring](http://r2.ifs.hsr.ch/cdtrefactoring)

I'm unaware of anything that can change function prototypes correctly, but maybe eclipse CDT can do it.

<comment><USER8> > _In addition changing a header file can at times trigger a lengthy build._

Well yeah, but that's true for doing it by hand too. If it's _that_ slow, you won't have automatic builds on anyway, and you can usually cancel it if you need the CPU for some other reason (in which case, again, why do you have automatic builds on).

And even if it were only a 90% thing, that's a 90% savings. I mean, literally, if you change the name _alone_ , change the header name. You get immediate notification that other locations might need changing if/when the build fails. Similarly for argument order / name (type will probably cause build failures).

But all those build failures would happen _anyway_ if you changed it by hand, so it's not any different, just faster. Isn't faster the goal here?

<comment><USER7> I'm not making a distinction between manually editing and automated editing of a header file. Both are a PITA.

Changing the header name sounds like a reasonable suggestion, but I don't think it's a goer with large projects.

The problem with headers is that as soon as you are doing anything beyond trivial you can get in to a big fight with the compiler, leading to the following sorts of problems:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12573816/what-is-an- undef...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12573816/what-is-an-undefined- reference-unresolved-external-symbol-error-and-how-do-i-fix)

When these problems are C++ template related, then you have to remember exactly what you changed and where because even on the intel compiler, the compiler isn't really going to tell you what's wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Similarly, Eskil Steenberg talked about building tools for doing simple things quickly rather than for doing complicated things at all.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f90R2taD1WQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f90R2taD1WQ)

His main point is that building a game is no longer about what you can do, but rather what you can get done.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone have a reliable system for creating artificial deadlines?

There are no external constraints on my work. When one artificially arises, I get my best work done, quickly. It doesn't burn me out because a rest comes afterwards.

I have no idea how to replicate this urgency consistently.

<comment><USER11> The Pomodoro Technique is a winner for quite a few of us.

Also reading up on perfectionism might be interesting (hint: it often doesn't end with a perfect result but it is always time consuming.) YMMW.

<comment><USER12> The drawback with pomodoro in Programming is Flow - If it takes even 5 minutes to "ramp up" your brain back into the problem space, then you're throwing away 10 minutes every half hour (and that estimate was highly optimistic) - <USER2> you're doing that _deliberately_.

Much better to eliminate distractions, in my experience (selective site blocker, headphones with white noise or coffee noise or wordless trance, and an IDE that never stalls.)

<comment><USER13> >IDE that never stalls

Why I hate Eclipse

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As someone who works in another legendarily slow, computer-heavy artform (3D animation), this was a really fascinating read.

His point about metawork really hit home hard. I'm at the end of a 4-year project now, and I'd estimate 90% of what I'm doing is what he calls metawork.

The major takeaway I got from it was that I should try doing some 48-hour projects myself - or perhaps find some 48-hour film competitions to enter - and see what the results are.

And, of course, write them up as a blog entry.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you liked ActionScript but want to get back some performance I would recommend checking out NME. It looks a lot like ActionScript but outputs C++ (among others) and can be compiled as usual. Not the best, hand-tuned, C++ but probably good enough for a lot of projects.

<comment><USER16> It's OpenFL now, NME being just a native (cpp & neko) part of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> >> During Ludum Dare, I remained tightly interfaced with Flash. I was continually in the midst of the edit -> compile -> test -> edit loop. >> This was one of the largest reasons for the high pace of production.

I discovered this when I started building game ideas in Javascript instead of Xcode. I'd have a skeleton pounded out in an hour or two, and I'd add features in minutes instead of hours. I took a list of things that I though would take me the weekend, and I completed them in an evening.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Do not read Hacker News".

<comment><USER10> Sound advice. I blocked it from my laptop. I still get much value from a daily browse, but it's not a time filler. It grows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can anyone tell me what's "Wouter's dual-pass C++ class solution for game objects." ?

<comment><USER20> There's link in article:

[http://strlen.com/java-style-classes-in-c](http://strlen.com/java-style- classes-in-c)

You write all the code for your classes inside header files and include them inside another class in main.cpp. That way you get around "declare before use" rule using uncommon feature of C++.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> >I could drag a bitmap into Flash to import it, then place it, position it, add filters, animate it, and attach the animations to code all in one tight motion

I want a tool where I can do this but in JavaScript on a canvas.

<comment><USER22> I haven't really had a chance to play around with it, but have you tried Adobe Edge Animate? [http://html.adobe.com/edge/animate/](http://html.adobe.com/edge/animate/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Intensity of focus. Almost all my waking hours were dedicated to programming > during the 48 hours of the contest. I even took less sleep. This intensity > of focus allowed me to maintain contact with the concepts and issues in the > game so that I was able to remain productive without costly ramp-up and > ramp-down times.

Makes me wonder if it would make more sense to cram a 40 hour workweek into 3 days instead of 5. I think it'd be more enjoyable as well.

<comment><USER24> I'd like the option to do that at times, but I'm not so sure I'd stick with that pace for good. I get a lot more pleasure out of evenings at home with my family than I do out of that intensity of focus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> consider checking out unity which has a very rapid testing flow and should be even more productive than flash!

</comment><comment><USER26> Does game programming require C++? Ocaml can be just as performant, and Clojure might also be a good candidate (high-level functional programming, potential to get strong performance).

I admit that, for Java, the gain in language expressiveness isn't worth taking the performance hit, because the former is so minimal. On the other hand, moving to a truly high-level language with half-decent performance (e.g. Ocaml, Clojure) might ameliorate the schedule slippages for which that industry is known.

<comment><USER27> Just to dispel a common myth: in general, Ocaml _cannot_ be as performant as C++ today. As far as I'm aware, no Ocaml compiler performs auto-vectorization of loops, which means no SSE for you, leading to a 3-4x slowdown on last- generation CPUs and even more on future CPUs. Vectorization is a big deal if you want to maximize performance.

I do agree, however, that this doesn't make C/C++ necessary for game programming. That's probably why modern game engines let you write a great deal of the game logic in a scripting language.

Of course, most C++ code I see - even in language performance benchmarks - doesn't vectorize either. g++ isn't particularly good at it and most people don't know how to do it.

<comment><USER28> 3-4x game perf differences from CPU code autovectorization sounds way high? From what I've seen you'd be pretty lucky to average 3x speedups on isolated vector-friendly loops with hand rolled ASM, translating to much smaller whole app speedups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Epic quote: >The C++ programmer is a deer sniffing the air for the scent of boots and gunpowder: everything's an opportunity for gain; everything's an opportunity for calamity.

</comment><comment><USER30> >For the past several years I've spent most of my development time with C++11 in Xcode.

C++11 has been around since `past several years'!?

<comment><USER31> > C++11 has been around since `past several years'!?

Yes, but it used to be called C++0x and the official spec was still in the works. However, you could actually use most of the features in GCC and some other compilers years before the spec was out.</comment></comment>