German court bans Tesla ad statements related to autonomous driving - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN24F1T5 <comment><USER2> I agree with this wholeheartedly, even as a Tesla owner. Tesla goofed from the beginning by calling tech like "Autosteer" and "Traffic Assisted Cruise Control" under the moniker "Autopilot" while shifting everything above that to "Full Self-Driving". They should have called it "CoPilot" since that infers that you're still the driver in charge of controlling the vehicle and it would have had exactly the same reception (possibly better) than what's happening now. As it stands, it's misleading and, frankly, disappointing to get into a Tesla for the first time and try "Autopilot" only to realize that you have to keep your hands on the wheel, navigate the accelerator and brakes, stop at lights and stop signs, and basically drive the car while it keeps you in the lane and stops you from hitting other cars. That's not "Autopilot", that's "CoPilot".

<comment><USER3> > Tesla goofed from the beginning by calling tech like "Autosteer" and > "Traffic Assisted Cruise Control" under the moniker "Autopilot"

I am not accusing you specifically of using weak language, but let's call a spade a spade: it's not a "goof," it's a dangerous and deceptive business practice. It's one that Elon Musk is directly responsible for and directly encouraged with misleading statements where he deliberately exaggerated the capabilities of Autopilot. It's a disgrace and one of many many many reasons why Tesla needs to outright fire Musk. There are too many good people at Tesla, who don't deserve his selfish and irresponsible leadership.

To the people pointing out that airplane autopilots work similarly to Tesla Autopilot: the problem is not the foolish Tesla owners have never flows a plane before. The problem is that in the public mind, they "know" that "autopilot" means "totally autonomous" and they "know" that the computer-car- spaceship supergenius Elon Musk has been hyping his self-driving tech.

It is true that highly knowledgeable people know that Musk is an idiot conman, that "autopilot" is a very limited set of features, and so on - and that none of these things detract from the fact that Tesla makes a good car. But Tesla fans shouldn't invent ridiculous exonerations. Tesla has a responsibility for the safety of its users and they failed. Fans (along with the EU and US) need to hold the company accountable.

<comment><USER4> It's strange how much people will bend over backwards to give Musk the benefit of doubt when he openly lies about such things

<comment><USER5> Tesla is one part car company, one part battery company, and 5 parts marketing hype. The only reason people are seriously contemplating buying full electric cars today instead of the bullshit BMW produced is because Iron Man convinced enough people that electric cars will simultaneously fly to mars and cure world hunger. The stock reflects this.

In other words, there is no Tesla without Elon's meme machine. The graveyard of failed EV startups was chockful of more well meaning participants before Tesla came along. I'd go as far as to argue that the Elon's bullshit was the only thing that could stand up to big oil.

<comment><USER6> > _The only reason people are seriously contemplating buying full electric > cars today instead of the bullshit BMW produced is because Iron Man > convinced enough people that electric cars will simultaneously fly to mars > and cure world hunger._

Is this supposed to be ironic or do you actually believe this drivel?

Drive a modern EV and try again. Most Tesla owners will never go back to a noisy, smelly, crappy, slow ICE.

<comment><USER7> I was all for it and in fact had even reserved a Model 3 when it was announced, but later cancelled after Tesla/Musk engaged in their pricing shenanigans.

And, then I had a conversation with a friend who has a Model X and driven from SJ to LA, and he mentioned that it needed 3 charges each way. _Each Way_... Yes, it can be argued that how often do people drive from SJ to LA, but still...

On top of that Musk acting like a dude who's permanently high on coke, quality issues with Tesla, the _pedo_ affair, his fights with SEC, the drama he did regarding opening the Fremont plant during Covid-19 and so on and on ......

Anyway, long story short, I'm really not looking to buy a Tesla anymore..

<comment><USER8> FWIW your friend must have a _very_ heavy foot. My brother-in-law has a Tesla and goes from SJ to LA a few times a year. They make one stop in the middle to supercharge, and use the time to go to the bathroom and have lunch. The car is usually charged before they are done eating.

When we caravan, the Tesla is never holding us up.

<comment><USER7> I really cannot comment on that. My friend I believe has the regular ~250 mile, or so, range Model X, so perhaps your brother-in-law has a longer range, but that still won't explain 3 times vs 1. So, don't know..

Edit: Now self-doubt is creeping in and I wonder if they had gone to Palm Springs and not just LA. The conversation was over a year ago.. Will that result in 3 charges each way? I've never driven to Palm Springs, so not sure if there is another mountain pass in that direction or not.

<comment><USER9> WLTP spec ranges favors city driving, in which Tesla has an edge because of the really aggressive recuperation braking. It also factors in highway driving at 90km/h IIRC, which no normal human being drives at. Highway it's actually not anywhere "light-years ahead" from other serious EV attempts like Taycan which does similar Autobahn range with wider tires than a model S.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good. These statements are lies. The company should face punishment in the US for saying that full self-driving is blocked by "regulatory approval" when they're still an unknown number of years away from even being able to demo something they plan to ship.

They still don't know if full self-driving is even possible at the required level of reliability with their current hardware suite. They could well be wrong and sitting on a scandal that will eclipse Theranos.

<comment><USER11> When it gets there, regulatory approval will absolutely be a bottleneck to deployment. They don't say it is a current blocker.

And it won't come close to Theranos. Tesla makes real products that are class- leading. Even if Tesla can't reach level 5, it will be damn close and make driving 10-100x safer than just a human.

<comment><USER12> _And it won 't come close to Theranos. Tesla makes real products that are class-leading._

Class-leading in what sense(s)?

 _Even if Tesla can 't reach level 5, it will be damn close_

But that's the problem with self-driving cars. _Damn close_ isn't good enough. A miss is as good as a mile.

The problem with the self-driving/automation scale is that anything around levels 2-4 probably shouldn't be allowed on public roads, at least not yet.

Basic driver aids, where the driver is always fully engaged but the system can help to avoid mistakes, are proven to improve safety. This is what you get at level 1, and such technologies are already widespread in the industry.

If we can ever make a fully autonomous vehicle that can genuinely cope with any driving conditions, so you don't need any driver or controls in the vehicle any more, then obviously this has the potential to beat human drivers. This is level 5. But we don't know how to do this yet, and I have seen absolutely no evidence so far that anyone will know how to do it any time soon either.

In between, we have several variations where a human driver is required for some of the monitoring and control of the vehicle but not all. This has some horrible safety implications, particularly around the transitions between human- and vehicle-controlled modes of operation, and around creating a false sense of security for the human driver. The legal small print will probably say that they must remain fully alert and able to take over immediately at any time, but whether it is within human capability to actually do that effectively is an entirely different question.

 _and make driving 10-100x safer than just a human._

I've been driving for more than 25 years, and racked up hundreds of thousands of miles behind the wheel. I've never caused an accident, as far as I'm aware. I've never had a ticket. I try to be courteous to my fellow road users and give a comfortable ride to any passengers I have with me. What, in your opinion, would driving 10-100x safer than mine look like?

Humans certainly aren't perfect drivers and we have plenty of variation in ability. Things can go wrong, and I'm sure we'd all be happy to see fewer tragedies on our roads. But given the vast amounts of travel we undertake and how many of us do drive, autonomous vehicles will need an extremely good record -- far better than they have so far -- to justify the sort of claim you're making here.

<comment><USER13> >But that's the problem with self-driving cars. Damn close isn't good enough. A miss is as good as a mile

Maybe close _is_ good enough. The problem as I see it that people usually don't seem to be focused on is that it's impossible for humans to monitor the situation while doing other stuff. You can only do that when you're far away from other things like in a plane or on a boat.

How can we simultaneously believe it's possible to instantly engage with driving _and_ that people can't be trusted to text or make phone calls while driving?

<comment><USER12> _How can we simultaneously believe it 's possible to instantly engage with driving and that people can't be trusted to text or make phone calls while driving?_

Exactly. Driving while distracted by phones is well-known to be very dangerous, which is why it's against the law in many places. Encouraging drivers who might need to take over in an emergency to zone out and focus on other activities seems unwise for the same reason. This is why the middle levels on the self-driving scale could be very dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > The Munich court agreed with the industry body's assessment and banned Tesla > Germany from including "full potential for autonomous driving" and > "Autopilot inclusive" in its German advertising materials.

Fully autonomous driving won't be here for _at least_ half a decade so this judgement makes complete sense. Tesla was engaged in flase advertising.

<comment><USER15> Only five days ago Elon Musk claimed that _" we will have the basic functionality for level five autonomy complete this year."_ (yeah..!)

[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53349313](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53349313)

<comment><USER16> Didn't he claim the same last year and the year before?

<comment><USER17> Really? You're guna bet against Elon Musk? You really think that's wise? XD

<comment><USER18> Betting against Elon is a fools errand not because he's right, but because he's built a personality cult around himself.

<comment><USER19> Counterpoint: Elon Musk is the only (publicly visible) CEO who is seriously talking about going to Mars and direct interfacing between machines and humans _and making tangible steps_ toward these futuristic goals.

His rockets are [mostly] not exploding, his cars are selling to [mostly] good reviews, and neuralink seems to be doing something too.

Perhaps his cult of personality is deserved because although he (along with basically the entire industry) overpromised on self driving timelines, nonetheless he does seem to be one of the few people with the practical vision to take us into a techno future.

Consider that this guy went from a payment processing app to a bonafide private rocket company and is democratizing space flight (and satellite internet!) in what, about a decade?

People love to hate the guy, I believe because he has brash and harbors some unpopular (callous but rational) opinions. Regardless, the respect that he gets from his fanboys is arguably in deserved, if you're the type to find inspiration in great people.

<comment><USER20> I don't think that anyone is arguing that Musk hasn't done _big_ things. The problem is, he's about 50/50 on how often the big things he does are actually _good_. This is completely ignored by his fanboys, who ignore the bad, and laud the good to an extent that's entirely untethered from reality.

Take your post for example: You soften the word "lied" to "overpromised" and then slowly build to more and more absurd lavishing praise. "Practical vision" is a bit of a stretch, but "democratizing" is _just not reality_. And "if you're the type to find inspiration in great people"\--just about everyone finds inspiration in great people, so that's not even saying anything, it's just trying to indirectly say Elon Musk is a great person.

<comment><USER17> Yes they are.

<comment><USER20> Links or it didn't happen.

<comment><USER17> Unless of course you are the one who should be providing links, then they don't matter right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Tesla has been selling level 5 autonomy since 2016. I can see nothing wrong with that. Definitely not vaporware /s

[https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced- now...](https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now-have- full-self-driving-hardware)

<comment><USER22> I realize this is a sarcastic comment, but I think this illustrates the problem.

Tesla vehicles cannot operate fully autonomous as-of now. Tesla has no idea if they'll need to replace or upgrade hardware either. They simply have not solved the problem yet, but want everyone to buy into the hype. And, the hype machine is working, unfortunately.

<comment><USER23> It's a scam. They're implying level 5 capability is just around the corner, when none of the current hardware will ever get past level 2. The current cameras can't even stay clean enough to keep autopilot reliable, it'd be pretty foolish to rely on them for any kind of real self-driving.

I love my car but the FSD debacle is embarassing. A lot of people are finding out that they'll never get anywhere near $8K value from their pre-purchase, and they bought a license that expires when they sell the car. I expect a class action lawsuit eventually (I'm surprised it hasn't happened already).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I own a Tesla and love it. Having said that, "full self driving" is so far off what it actually does it's actually not just a marketing issue, it is a safety issue. I've had my Tesla drive towards an incoming lane, slam on the breaks in the middle of the highway with no cars in front of us, swerve into another lane with no warning, and probably other hiccups I don't remember.

I know now I not only need to keep my hands on the wheel but I need to actively make sure the car doesn't kill us. And I know the car warned me the feature required awareness, but its name made me think it was way more developed and safe than it actually is, and that disconnect will surely cause other drivers to trust it more than they should.

<comment><USER25> > I need to actively make sure the car doesn't kill us

Same experience here. Why people say this is relaxing; and takes the stress away from long distance driving is beyond me...

<comment><USER26> When I test drove a Tesla for a weekend my opinion of the Autopilot was the same as the car's owner: "It drives like a learner driver". Just like the nervous parent teaching their teenager to drive, this is _not_ a relaxing experience.

However, the speed-adaptive cruise control is the best I've ever experienced. It maintains the set speed _exactly_ , slows down for corners automatically, and follows the car in front as if there was a steel rod connecting the two vehicles.

Using the cruise control in the Tesla was some of the most relaxing long- distance driving I've ever done in my life...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> His remarks talking about how Level 5 is fundamentally solved should be investigated by the FTC. I think he is purposefully and fraudulently saying that self-driving will be available to get more people to pay the $8000 for the self-driving software "before it goes up". They should make sure his statements are actually true otherwise he would be fined severely because to me, self-driving is decades away still.

<comment><USER28> Never mind his $8000 self-driving packages, Tesla's share price is where the action is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> When are we going to address the elephant in the room?

Advertising regulators aren't able to regulate, or arre taking too long to regulate, and we're leaving this to platforms.

When it should be done by a regulator, and fines should be applied to both the advertiser and the media owner - BECAUSE YES, media owners/platforms have the responsibility and should abide by law. I'm looking at Google/Facebook.

If platforms can't do it, too bad on them, pay up.

False advertising is alive and well, and it's encouraged. People are being defrauded and we're whistling.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you actually believe that Tesla will fail to deliver full self-driving in the coming years, I have two questions.

1\. have you watched this entire technical presentation made by Andrej Karpathy, Senior Director of AI at Tesla? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx7BXih7zx8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx7BXih7zx8)

2\. if you understand what you've seen in that video, why do you think Tesla will fail?

<comment><USER31> Google has a much larger and better funded team that still doesnt seem close. Karpathy is no doubt smart but google has like 10 karpathys for every one TESLA has.

<comment><USER30> Did you watch the video? Waymo is stuck using lidar, and the video explains why that's a dead-end.

(Want to keep in touch about this bet? I'm maxharris9 on twitter.)

<comment><USER32> I skimmed the video. It's doing what I expected, knocking down a goofy strawman of _LIDAR-only_ while ignoring the obvious _camera /LIDAR sensor fusion._ The depth map Tesla is getting from stereoscopic vision is pretty shoddy; sensor fusion with LIDAR is the obvious solution. The reason Telsa resists this is because they want to market their cars as having all the requisite hardware and acknowledging the usefulness of LIDAR wouldn't let them market their cars that way profitably.

<comment><USER30> Hmm, looks like Tesla actually _does_ do sensor fusion, just not with lidar: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19803817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19803817)

I also think that being _so_ cynical about Tesla's motives is pretty short- sighted from an investment perspective. In the long-term, they don't win if they don't get this right.

<comment><USER32> Their radar/ultrasound has _awful_ angular resolution. That's where LIDAR excels.

This is why Telsa cars run into trucks parked across the street. Their stereoscopic depth map is shoddy and the radar or ultrasound has awful angular resolution that can't tell the difference between an object parked next to the street and one parked in the middle of the street.

> _" In the long-term, they don't win if they don't get this right."_

They've been claiming they're on the cusp of getting it right in the _short_ -term for years. So far, my cynicism has served me well.

<comment><USER30> I have 110 shares, and I'd love to talk to you about how that's going in 2024. I'm maxharris9 on twitter

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's unsurprising that Germany isn't as tolerant of "growth hack" advertising as the US. Many Tesla owners are smart enough to realize that their cars can't actually drive themselves. But those few who buy into the marketing and ignore the fine print pose a risk to themselves and the drivers around them.

</comment><comment><USER34> I wonder how many people complaining about Tesla's marketing actually have a Tesla. The car clearly makes you acknowledge that the driver is responsible before using any Autopilot/FSD capability, and if you bought the car with the expectation that it didn't , you have a return period to get your money back in full. It doesn't matter if they said it would take you to the moon and back. If you test drive or buy it and don't like it then just return it: no harm done.

<comment><USER35> It does in Germany (as the ruling in question indicates). False advertising here is very much considered 'harm done' and no way to do business. Lying to the customer until she takes the product out of the box is in no way, shape or form how you operate in this country. (well I guess it was for wirecard which is embarassing enough)

I do not want to live somewhere where I have to order ten things, three are fake, three I have to sent back, another few break and the last thing works.

<comment><USER36> Even in the US false advertising like OP suggests is considered fraudulent and against the law. There are just too many Musk fanboys around here that don't seem to know how the law works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> While the average non-Tesla owner might be confused on phrases like "autopilot", any Tesla owner is very aware of its capabilities and shortcomings.

When you first purchase your Tesla and are beginning the setup process, you're presented with multiple warning screens like this: [https://boygeniusreport.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/autostee...](https://boygeniusreport.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/autosteer- warning-tesla.jpg)

That's an old image: I couldn't find the current warning screen on Google Images, but it's even more stark and serious about the driver's role w.r.t. autopilot.

<comment><USER38> Aren't the ads largely targeted to non-owners? Even if I agreed with your point, I just don't see how it's relevant.

<comment><USER37> I'm actually confused by the phrase "ads", because my understanding is that Tesla has an advertising budget of $0. I assume they're referring to marketing materials (pamphlets, websites, etc).

<comment><USER39> The law is against fraudulent advertisement.

The channel used to perform the advertisement and how expensive that channel is are completely irrelevant.

For example, if Tesla claims in their website that their cars can drive themselves and they can't, that's false advertising and illegal in Germany. If Tesla organizes a concert in some city somewhere, and the singer states that Tesla's cars can drive themselves and they can't, that's false advertisement.

If Tesla distributes stickers to their car owners that claim that Tesla's can drive themselves, and their car owners stick them in public bathrooms where people can see them, that is, as well, illegal advertisement, even if Tesla did not stick those stickers themselves.

The law basically requires all companies selling products in Germany to be honest about what their products can and cannot do. This is good for consumers, and good for companies doing business there, because everybody is forced to play by the same rules.

The definition of being honest and what communication means etc. are all super loose, so most companies don't risk lying about their products. There are dozens of consumer protection organizations that'll sue a company for you due to false advertisement. The main consequences for the sued company are usually damages if there are any, and mainly the fines designed to discourage false advertisement. Most of the money ends up on the tax payers accounts, so consumers are really encouraged to report these times of crimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Not a lot of companies can get away with selling $6000 packages on which they'll never be able to deliver.

<comment><USER37> The Full Self Driving package is actually quite good. With the exception of going "hands free", this is an accurate video on the current state of FSD: [https://youtu.be/tlThdr3O5Qo](https://youtu.be/tlThdr3O5Qo)

<comment><USER41> Another huge difference: the current FSD feature set will not make turns at intersections as demonstrated in this video. It now (as of recently) can be configured to automatically stop at appropriate traffic signage (stop signs, red/yellow lights, not sure about yields). However, it won't make a left or right turn.

Some caveats: sometimes it will still want to stop at a green light, in my experience, and requires a manual override; and, if you're the foremost car in your lane at a traffic light, it won't begin moving on its own. I assume the same is true for stop signs.

I guess that video is intended to be a preview of what the current software could do with all the driver interaction safety switches off (no required hands on wheel, no requirement to confirm safety through intersections/turns, etc) and all the internal feature flags turned on (particularly: enabling turns and enabling Navigate on Autopilot on non-freeways).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Why not call Full Self Driving: "Future Self Driving". This way you don't need to make the claim. People will make the inference from FSD. If they can change FSD to mean. "Future Self Driving" Perhaps this will help them make it very clear what the FSD can do and cannot do. amiright?

</comment><comment><USER43> Good. This kind of advertising is misleading and was not only posing a risk for individuals but also for the sector of autonomous driving as a whole. I always feared that one more Tesla autopilot death might cause the public to generally distrust any company working in the field.

<comment><USER44> Exactly! That's why I am glad EU is very cautious in approving self-driving solutions. Yes, we need full self-driving and it doesn't look like an impossible task to achieve eventually. But it has to be done step by step, ensuring it behaves consistent and that the current limitations are well- understood by drivers. Bad reputation of some self-driving implementations could cause damage to the whole self-driving industry which would be bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> So no quotes either from what Tesla said or what the court said. Bit of a useless article.

</comment><comment><USER46> I am wondering if a regular person when is thinking about autopilot term in a car is thinking at movies and not at aircrafts. In SciFi/spy movies autopilot means the ship or car is piloting itself and you can do something else.

<comment><USER47> Sure, they probably do. But more problematic is what does an average person think when they read "Full Self-Driving Capability" and "Includes the Full Self Driving Computer"?

<comment><USER46> Yeah, but the "autopilot" claim will spawn a large numbers of fanboys with dictionaries and definition trying to defend Tesla's marketing department , the terms you mentioned will mostly get the mention of some text message you have to click OK on when you start using the car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Auto-pilot is disingenuous at best, it should be labelled "driving assist" or something similar. I remember that one person in florida[1] where they died by having their tesla on "auto-pilot" and a tractor trailer truck collided and killed them while they were watching Harry Potter and not driving with their attention on the road. Would this person have died if the Auto-pilot feature was named something different? Who can say as people do dumb things on the road, but it could lead tesla to future lawsuits from similar events.

[1] - [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla- dri...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla-driver- killed-autopilot-self-driving-car-harry-potter)

</comment><comment><USER49> > All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the > hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level > substantially greater than that of a human driver.

From Tesla.com/autopilot in February of 2017. Absolutely shameful.

</comment><comment><USER50> Great. I hope they bring charges against Tesla for causing deaths that were completely avoidable.

In fact we keep talking about AI ethics and so on. But we seem to have missed this very basic key ethical point: when Silicon Valley VC funded madness via AI/ML crap is pushed at breakneck speeds via these metal torpedoes, who is taking accountability?

It's really amazing that Elon is worried about AI overlords when a 'simple' autopilot is not engineered to ethical standards. (Same goes for people like Andrej Karpathy and co who should take the blame and publicly apologize/resign).

Shameful.

Glad Germany is ahead of the curve.

<comment><USER51> Out of curiosity, what part of the driving AI of tesla would you say is currently not lining up with ethical standards?

<comment><USER50> The fact that they cannot disambiguate between a white truck and the sky color that killed an innocent driver is a starting point.

I realize the drivers probably should be paying attention etc: but when Tesla falsely advertises (or worse by the toddler antics of Elon, portrays the optics of L5 automation); and drivers believe such advertisements then of course they wouldn't know that the car is much worse than promised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Well, I'm gonna disagree. Let's quote wikipedia:

> An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft, > marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a > human operator. Autopilot does not replace human operators. Instead, > autopilot assists the operator's control of the vehicle, allowing the > operator to focus on broader aspects of operations (for example, monitoring > the trajectory, weather and on-board systems).

This is 100% exactly what Tesla is selling. Instead of constant manual control you focus on the broader operations of your car.

Even the colloquial use of "autopilot" makes it clear that being on autopilot means you're not paying very much attention: [https://learnersdictionary.com/qa/what-does-on-autopilot- mea...](https://learnersdictionary.com/qa/what-does-on-autopilot-mean)

Your car being on autopilot very much implies you still have to pay attention.

<comment><USER43> Not sure if that quote supports your argument. Tesla states:

"Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment." [0]

This sounds very different from "allowing the operator to focus on broader aspects of operations". I have never heard of pilots having their hand and feet on the stick and paddles in case the airplane make an incorrect maneuver.

[0] [https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/autopilot-and-full- self-...](https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/autopilot-and-full-self-driving- capability)

<comment><USER53> > I have never heard of pilots having their hand and feet on the stick and > paddles in case the airplane make an incorrect maneuver.

From the FAA guidlines on Autopilot:

> Be ready to fly the aircraft manually to ensure proper course/clearance > tracking in case of autopilot failure or misprogramming [0]

[0] [https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/a...](https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/advanced_avionics_handbook/media/aah_ch04.pdf)

<comment><USER54> Being ready to fly doesn't require keeping your hand and feet on the stick and paddles.

<comment><USER53> The FAA guideline is "ready to fly manually" -> key word "manual" from the Latin manus meaning "hand". Tesla is going a step further by requiring hands- on contact at all times, which makes this system a MORE restrictive autopilot.

Contrary to what has been posted in other comments, pilots don't just get up and start walking around the aircraft. There must be one pilot always ready to take IMMEDIATE control of the aircraft.

I hate when arguments devolve into semantics, which is the premise of this whole thread. But for the sake of discussing semantics, the use of the word "autopilot" is technically accurate. Its vernacular understanding is not. But this was also the case with cruise control. See this case where a driver set a cruise control on her RV and got up to make a cup of tea:

[https://www.suffolkgazette.com/news/motorhome- crash/](https://www.suffolkgazette.com/news/motorhome-crash/)

<comment><USER55> Being semantically right does not help against technically colliding. I can hook up an avian autopilot to a car to keep my bearing. While this is semantically a car with an autopilot, the contraption is useless on a road.

When I talk about autopilots, I'm talking about a system that allows me to disengage from steering. Literally by employing a self-steerer. The Tesla "Autopilot" does not permit this because I still have to closely monitor the trajectory at every moment. As such it does not fulfil the main expectation I have of an autopilot. What are your expectations of an autopilot?

<comment><USER53> I'm sorry, I'm terribly confused by your logic.

> hook up an [aircraft] autopilot to a car

This sounds histrionic

> semantically a car with an autopilot

??

> Literally by employing a self-steerer. The Tesla Autopilot does not permit > this

This is not how Tesla autopilot works.

If you are genuinely asking my opinion, I would very much like to see this technology in the driver seat of more vehicles on the road as soon as possible. Where distracted drivers kill 9 people PER DAY in the US [0], if an autopilot system (speaking about the current one available today) is anything less than that, then it is well worth it.

[0] [https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/distracted_driving/in...](https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/distracted_driving/index.html)

<comment><USER55> Autopilots are reliable in aviation because they are simple. An autopilot for road steering cannot be that simple. The term transfers badly.

It is a false dilemma to say that we need autopilots to avoid road deaths. Because assistive tech is already successfully being used for exactly this.

We want self-driving cars to avoid the drudgery of driving. But the current batch of implementations needs very controlled conditions (Waymo), or close human supervision (Tesla).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Full autonomous driving is so far away that I don't know why people and media even talk about it.

<comment><USER57> Because companies like Tesla keep claiming it's just around the bend...

<comment><USER58> and politicians that need a useful lie to leverage ie Yang stating all the driving jobs will be gone in 5 years lol

<comment><USER57> Trucking jobs are a little more vulnerable because theoretically highway driving to a depot or drop off is easier than city driving. Or there's an older idea of making convoy trucks where multiple semis follow one human piloted truck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Good. Not that it will stop Tesla from the next round of hype, from the most recent news we can expect level 5 autonomous driving soon. Maybe they'll call it 'autopilot'? Who will they blame when it doesn't work?

</comment><comment><USER60> Can someone provide a link to a Tesla advertisement? Haven't seen this.

<comment><USER61> [https://www.tesla.com/de_de/models](https://www.tesla.com/de_de/models)

> Hardware für autonomes Fahren Jedes neue Model S verfügt standardmäßig über > modernste Hardware, um die Autopilot-Funktionalität schon heute und > vollkommen autonomes Fahren in der Zukunft zu ermöglichen. Software-Updates > werden diese Funktionalität im Laufe der Zeit weiter ausbauen und > verbessern.

> Die Autopilot-Funktionalität ermöglicht dem Fahrzeug automatisches Lenken, > Beschleunigen und Bremsen auf seiner Spur. Die Funktionalität für autonomes > Fahren bietet zusätzliche Merkmale und erweitert bestehende Funktionen, um > Ihrem Fahrzeug weitere Fähigkeiten zu verleihen.

Looks like a pretty close translation of the same thing on the US site:

[https://www.tesla.com/models](https://www.tesla.com/models)

> Full Self-Driving Hardware Every new Model S comes standard with advanced > hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self- > driving capabilities in the future—through software updates designed to > improve functionality over time.

> Autopilot enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically > within its lane. Full Self-Driving Capability introduces additional features > and improves existing functionality to make your car more capable over time > including:

<comment><USER60> That's a web site though, not an advertisement. Was asking about advertisements.

<comment><USER62> That web site clearly advertises a Tesla car. Hence it is an advertisement.

Maybe you meant to say "TV commercial"? The German law doesn't make that distinction though, which means that blatantly false claims about capabilities of a product are just as illegal on the products' website as they are in a products' TV commercial.

<comment><USER60> I don't see any blatantly false claims though. But certainly there can be false interpretations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> That's hypocrisy from the German court. This is 100% a push from German car industry lobby. Note that the case wasn't started from consumer complaints, it was instead started by an industrial group.

I bet _all_ Tesla buyers are aware about what they are actually buying. They can return the car and get a refund if they are not pleased with it.

This ban is bullshit considering that many ads in many industries are deceptive, including healthcare. Tesla is punished only because it is a direct competitor of German cars.

<comment><USER10> Deceptive healthcare ads aren't allowed in Europe either. Consumer protection standards are much higher.

<comment><USER64> Heck, in the UK if a medicine is prescription-only you're not allowed to advertise it _at all_. This is a great improvement, frankly.

<comment><USER65> > you're not allowed to advertise it at all.

You're not allowed to advertise it to the general public. You can still advertise it to prescribers and suppliers.

[https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advertise-your- medicines](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advertise-your-medicines)

> You can't advertise prescription-only medicines (POMs) to the general public > but you can promote them to healthcare professionals and others who can > prescribe or supply the product.

<comment><USER66> The advertising to prescribers is fairly strictly regulated, though; you certainly couldn't put 'we anticipate this malaria drug will cure COVID-19', say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> German is a huge car manufactoring country. Wonder if they feel a bit of a threat from Tesla on certain points and wish to control their inner markets.

On the other hand, Tesla doesn't come close to driving an Audi, BMW or MB. Neither tech-wise. It might be the choice for the nerd or the socalled envitonmentalist, but for people that don't have time for reloading batteries all the time, it's a toy car.

</comment><comment><USER68> This is good, even though it could be a possible result of VW/BMW/Mercedes lobbying efforts. Human life safety is the top priority in any industry in Germany. Regulations are keeping Germany a little behind in the innovation race but, at the end, it is all worth it if people are not dying everyday because of failed tech.

</comment><comment><USER69> > Tesla's Chief Executive Elon Musk said this month the electric car > manufacturer was close to making its cars capable of automated driving > without any need for driver input, so-called Level 5 autonomy.

I suspect we will remain "close to" autonomous cars for several decades.

</comment><comment><USER70> I think / hope that Elon Musk wanted everyone to be crystal clear about the end goal from the outset. Go on public record about the ambition in a way that will push himself and his employees. Use language to drive vision and outcome.

<comment><USER71> I agree that presenting a vision and facing it with reality of what is currently possible is great because it may motivate people to try to achieve something better than they would normally think of.

But misrepresenting the reality as if it already was reflecting the vision, when in fact it is not, bears in my opinion many signs of fraud.

For example, consider someone who has a "vision of wine" and decides to sell bottles of grape juice which are supposed to represent that vision. They can have honest intention to fill those bottles with wine at some point in time. But as far as they in fact sell the grape juice, I think that it is reasonable to require them to clearly present it as such.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> They should call it "DriveAssist" because thats what it is instead of layering autonomy with Autopilot (for that matter, even Copilot carries similar underlying semantics).

</comment><comment><USER73> I think it's poor for "autopilot." That word has a long history. It really is the best existing word to use.

But a fair ruling for "autonomous." And I think the concerns HN people have with "autopilot" are in part due to the fact that the terms have not been properly contrasted by Tesla. Being more careful with "autonomous" and "self- driving" would help a lot with the confusion with the word "autopilot."

<comment><USER74> Tesla's not only calling their stuff "autopilot", but also "full self driving", which is probably the wrong way to describe their current implementation.

Its a bit annoying to see people so fixated on the word "autopilot" when its clear that "full self driving" is complete and utter vaporware, a $5000 lie sold by the company.

<comment><USER75> The reason many people buy the full self driving package is so they can experience the latest state of the art autonomous driving software as Tesla develops it, and Tesla continues to deliver on that promise. Smart summon and stopping for traffic control were both added recently as software updates. Even more recently they've improved the lane keeping performance on curvy roads, which is something nobody really mentions. Many of the problems people talk about like Tesla's swerving out of the lane have been greatly improved in recent updates.

There's also the auto lane changes on the highway, which is really quite impressive to watch. Your car will automatically pass slow cars, move out of the passing lane when traffic clears up, and change lanes to follow your gps navigation. Not sure how you can call that vaporware.

<comment><USER74> [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/866482406160609280](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/866482406160609280)

>>> (Question from Twitter): Update on the coast to coast autopilot demo?

>> Elon: Still on for end of year. Just software limited. Any Tesla car with HW2 (all cars built since Oct last year) will be able to do this.

May, 2017. Elon bragging that "coast-to-coast" autonomous driving will be available by end of 2017. Straight up vaporware, a lie, no where close to done. We still have "Full Self Driving" cars crashing into the sides of trucks in 2020.

<comment><USER75> It's obviously behind schedule, but that doesn't make it vaporware. Tesla is still actively developing fsd and continues to release useful features.

Would you rather they stopped hyping the feature altogether? The income from selling fsd helps fund development.

<comment><USER74> > Would you rather they stopped hyping the feature altogether? The income from > selling fsd helps fund development.

Selling stocks funds development. Raising bonds funds development.

Selling $5000 features to paying customers that don't work is immoral, and the very definition of vaporware. Its blatant false advertisement.

When a customer crashes into a police car and dies, due to misunderstanding what "full-self driving" means, the blood is on Telsa's hands. When a customer is beheaded by a stationary truck in the middle of the road, because the "Full Self Driving" Tesla cannot see stopped vehicles, it is blood on the hands of Tesla.

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

Leave the speculation to stockholders and bondholders. They're rewarded with speculation. Customers literally die if they use these features wrong, and have already died over this issue.

<comment><USER75> The features do work though, navigate on autopilot is great. Sure there is a potential for misuse but that's true for any car, cars are just inherently dangerous.

Overall Tesla's have great safety ratings. Can you show me hard data that autopilot makes the car measurably less safe? If anything I would guess that it makes good drivers better.

<comment><USER74> > The features do work though

Not according to the German courts they don't. That's why Tesla's marketing was just banned there. Its not "full self driving", not by any definition of the word.

If you don't like it, take it up with the German courts. Despite being from America, I think the Germans did the right thing here.

Call it what it is: automated lane assist. Automated lane centering. Etc. etc. Don't lie about it. That's where the line is drawn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> It's surprising that it took so long to identify this as a dangerous lie

</comment><comment><USER77> Tesla haven't been sued for this yet?

</comment><comment><USER6> The hate in this thread is staggering. Let's see you explain how "smart" your phone is...

</comment><comment><USER78> Guess they will need to apply the same to Airbus as the two systems both function in the same way.

</comment><comment><USER79> That explains why Germany makes best cars in the world.

</comment><comment><USER80> This was probably the most brilliant advertising scheme of all times. Tesla is not just an electric car, it's the self driving car brand - even if it doesn't actually do that.

I believe banning this kind of advertisement will only cement Tesla's image as the "Self Driving Car company" as no other company would be able to replicate it. People will continue to post memes about self driving Teslas but no one else would be able to claim anything like that up until they actually make a self driving car, and if they do it before Tesla, when people hear about it they will say "Oh cool!, So just like a Tesla?".

<comment><USER81> Or it backfires when people realize their newly purchased, expensive car doesn't do what they thought it could do. Tesla is not managing expectations well.

<comment><USER82> That's what the 7 day return period is for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Do regulators have an idea of what test a car needs to pass to be able to claim certain things? It there were levels of tests and passing each gave you better rating, that might give everyone an idea of there the system is. But most of the talks about this type of stuff seems to be gut feeling rating. Someone will say they think some car/software is good, other's will say it's no where close and the conversation ends there.

It is also possible that updates can make software worse than it was before right? Say a software does pass some test. But how do you know it's still as good or better after some update?

Is the problem we know for sure if has specific issues or it is more that we have no idea where it might fail while randomly driving? Are all this problems considered solvable in short term?

<comment><USER35> >Do regulators have an idea of what test a car needs to pass to be able to claim certain things? It there were levels of tests and passing each gave you better rating, that might give everyone an idea of there the system is.

The 'five levels' of autonomy are fairly well established by now. Full autonomy generally is defined as driving capability that does not involve human attention, that is to say it is what the name suggests, the vehicle drives itself, you could ship it to the consumer without a steering wheel.

<comment><USER84> Likely can't ship. The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic prohibits fully driverless cars [1], I assume the US has something similar. Cruise is still waiting for their waiver to have cars without a steering wheel and that's not even for consumers.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traf...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traffic)

<comment><USER85> Here in the states, its at the state level what is allowed.

We have autonomous vehicle testing in pretty much any state that allows it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> I wonder how much BMW/Daimler/Volkswagen had to do with this.

It is a common practice for technology companies to offer features that will only become available after a certain time period. It actually takes time and money to build these features.

I'm sure the fact that BMW/Daimler/VW have completely botched their EV/Autonomous vehicle strategy and the automotive industry is Germany's cash cow has nothing at all to do with the court's decision.

Disclosure: I do not any automotive companies stock, and I am a dual US/German citizen.

<comment><USER87> > I'm sure the fact that BMW/Daimler/VW have completely botched their > EV/Autonomous vehicle strategy and the automotive industry is Germany's cash > cow has nothing at all to do with the court's decision.

What are you implying? That the German Court felt pressured by the Auto Lobby to take this decision? That the judges were biased? Bribed? Vague statements like this are very unhelpful, because you can't argue against them but they try to make a point anyway.

<comment><USER88> > That the German Court felt pressured by the Auto Lobby to take this > decision?

Probably that + the constituents. When a very large chunk of your constituents are employed by local car manufacturing companies, letting those companies fail and lose to a foreign competitor not only loses money for those companies, it also puts a threat of unemployment on your voting population.

Lobbying from local car companies + your voting population's employment dependent on success of those local car companies is a very strong combination.

EDIT: to clarify, I am aware that judges in Germany are not elected, I wasn't implying that judges would support the ban just get re-elected. I meant it to say that the judge could see it not only as some lobbying effort, but also as a move to protect interests of the working people they are serving.

<comment><USER89> Judges in Germany generally aren't elected. The few that are cannot be re- elected and have fairly long terms.

The voting population in this case would consist of politicians in the legislative branch.

<comment><USER88> I am aware they are not elected, I wasn't implying that judges would do it just get re-elected. I meant it to say that the judge could see it not only as some lobbying effort, but also as a move to protect interests of the working people they are serving.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How are you exercising at home? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I sold my other equipment and just have a pull up station now. I use it for different pull up variations (wide grip, chin up, etc), dips, and knee/leg raises.

Aside from that, I do some stretching, climb the stairs in my apartment for cardio/legs (30 floors), do a few pushups, bodyweight squats, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have an exercise bike to which I added a tablet (an old bookshelf plank I had lying around) on which I can put my laptop. It's pretty hard to type but it's perfect for conf calls and a bit of light document reading. I have _a lot_ more conf calls since we went into lockdown so I can manage at least 30 minutes of biking every day while sitting in meetings. I have never gotten so much exercise so regularly!

I also do HIIT (high-intensity interval trainings), which is basically series of body weight exercises (burpee, squat, sit-up, etc.). Doesn't require anything except some room and a video or training guide to follow.

<comment><USER4> How can you possibly bike while in a meeting and still make a meaningful contribution? I

<comment><USER3> 1) I usually bike on a low-resistance setting where I can talk without being out of breath (similar to talking and walking). If I'm on a higher setting and I need to talk, I just stop biking.

2) I was going to insert a joke about meetings and meaningful contributions here. But more seriously a lot of meetings are about synchronisation, which means that I spend most of my time listening. Believe it or not, it's easier to concentrate on what everyone is saying when biking rather than, for instance, reading your emails or browsing the internet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Double kettle bell complex: cleans, military press, front-squats.

A free standing pull up bar. Randomly do 2-3 pull ups through out the day.

Pushups.

kettle bell swings.

Loaded carries through the house. Waiter walks, farmers carry, racked carry.

No long cardio specific training, but the heart gets worked.

</comment><comment><USER6> My partner and I had been working with a personal trainer up until the lockdown hit and had sold most of our exercise equipment before we moved to London, so without the gym we were a bit stuck. Thankfully we did have a rowing machine and some dumbbells so have been using those with an app called FitBod. You enter the equipment you have and it builds a workout based on that. It also has body weight exercises too. Once we're out of lockdown I suspect we'll skip the personal trainer and keep using FitBod, just at the gym instead.

</comment><comment><USER7> I use two 15 pound dumbbells and perform a full body workout with them, using exercises I learned a while back. You'll be surprised how far you can go with just a pair of dumbbells and good lifting form.

</comment><comment><USER8> My wife and I decided we did not want to pay for Crossfit and the math worked out that if we built a home gym, we'd eventually be saving. Olympic bars and weights, two racks, pull up station, kettlebells and dumbbells, assault bike, rower, treadmill, ghd, wallballs...

We do a mix of an app called StreetParking, some Instagram workouts, and some stuff we just make up. StreetParking is nice because it has daily workouts all the way from body weight to oly and power programs.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have been going back to doing bodyweight workouts. Did them during last winter/spring and jumped to powerlifting in the summer. I am following this[0] routine and have been doing it three times a week plus some running or biking from time to time

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J3RaEYTPvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J3RaEYTPvM)

</comment><comment><USER10> We have recently built [https://www.co-train.space/](https://www.co- train.space/) to let people exercise online with Youtube video. See discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22890595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22890595)

</comment><comment><USER11> I have an indoor bike. It's pretty awesome. I hurt my foot about 1.5 years ago, and combined with way too much work, I stopped doing sports.

Luckily, I got back in the game roughly at start of Dec. Now, I do 4 times/week, 40 minutes pretty high intensity. At the end of the workout, my bpm is between 185-192.

</comment><comment><USER12> Almost bought a Concept2 rowing machine on the day UK lockdown started, decided not to, now there is no stock left in country and no possibility of getting one until at least June. Really regret it.

If anyone has ideas how I can beg, borrow or buy one I'd love to know!

</comment><comment><USER13> In India, we have this app called cure.fit[1] which now conducts live CrossFit classes for anyone to attend from home. This is just body weight movements and no equipment.

[1] - [https://www.cure.fit/live](https://www.cure.fit/live)

</comment><comment><USER14> Six days in a row I do 100 diamond pushups, 100 shoulder pushups, 100 squats, and 100 leg raises. I rest one day a week. I started at 10 reps and each week and worked to 100. It's easy, and requires no equipment. Bike rides for cardio.

<comment><USER15> How would you rate your overall fitness? Is this a lean, defined build? Do you think it helps with things like hiking endurance?

Just trying to get an idea where that would take me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I live by a trail and run 5-8 miles whenever the weather is nice.

But inside my home... I have a pull up bar in a doorframe, a bench with some dumbbells, and an ab wheel.

I basically stick to the same routine I was doing at the gym, with the exception of more running.

</comment><comment><USER17> I use a bike on a trainer with a training plan + body weight work.

TrainerRoad, SufferFest

</comment><comment><USER18> No equipment calisthenics, theres loads on YouTube and images for routines

</comment><comment><USER19> Burpees...lots and lots of burpees. And also, burpees</comment>


CSS: The bad bits and how to avoid them - <AUTHOR> https://www.joeforshaw.com/blog/css-the-bad-bits-and-how-to-avoid-them <comment><USER2> There's nothing wrong with styling on an id.

You could put the style right in the HTML tag, or on the page where it's used, but with dynamic pages (and static stylesheets) both options will cost you bandwidth.

And they split up your styles into separate places.

So putting the style on the id is the right thing to do, and I don't understand why the author is against it.

If I need my footer to look a certain way, then #footer {} is exactly what you should do.

Not add some bogus class based style just in case someone decides we need two footers on one page.

<comment><USER3> There is not a single time I had though to myself "This should have been an ID instead of a class"; but there are hundreds of times where I have though to myself "This should have been a class instead of an ID".

<comment><USER4> Well if what you style is the main content/header/footer area, and there is should only be one of it per page, using an id is a good way to enforce it as well as document it.

If you made it a class, I would assume I can reuse it elsewhere.

Now it's ony true for stuff you can't reuse, but unless you are building a boostrap competitors, there are actually a lot of things you never reuse in a real website.

<comment><USER5> Once I needed to make an internal IE addon to listen for certain elements being selected on pages outside of our control. (to ensure we never collected sensitive data for compliance reasons, long story. Trust me it makes more sense in context than it does in a single paragraph.)

My co-worker wanted to grab by id and attach listeners, but I was convinced that wouldn't work. I wanted to listen at the top level and filter down by id/class/etc...

The first production test was <redacted>.com/login. It had a login widget on the navbar and a login widget in the main content section. Both the username and the password field had the same id in the navbar and the content. So the addon did the right thing on the navbar, but not in the content, and we had to go back and redo it thanks to id reuse.

My point is, elements with ids are rarely unique. I've never regretted using a class instead of an id. I've regretted using an id instead of a class. And I really regretted third parties using ids instead of classes.

Please don't use ids. Your unique elements won't be for long, I guarantee it.

<comment><USER6> A friend once told me about a girl in their cs 101 class, who learned about arrays, and proceeded to make every variable an array. When queried, she responded, "I might end up realizing I need a multiple of the variable, and this way I won't have to change anything when I do".

<comment><USER5> Did she then go on to create jQuery? Because that concept (with a touch of functional inspiration) is one of the underlying ideas behind the library and why it was considered so much easier to work with than the DOM API.

I get where you're coming from, but I don't think it's a good reason to avoid classes. That's what they're there for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Never understood why people prefer verbose and repetitive BEM classes over custom properties and appropriate CSS selectors.

becomes

This solves for specificity, and uses built-in CSS features instead of a "manual" workaround.

<comment><USER8> This isn't a realistic example of how you should use BEM, you would never have a block, element, and modifier in one class. The "block" class would be used in a div that wraps the elements:

                I am an item

                I am a dangerous item

Your simplification relies on an HTML hack and can potentially be more confusing when modifier names start colliding.

<comment><USER9> Yuck. I would follow the advise in this blog post [1].

[https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/08/semantic-css- with-i...](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/08/semantic-css-with- intelligent-selectors/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a huge fan of 1 & 2, so I end up using CSS with only class names.

This helped me deliver maintainable and reliable stylesheets that other devs like.

Most importantly using only class names you will gain :

1\. Your HTML / CSS is easier to maintain.

2\. Is faster to develop.

3\. Is faster to refactor.

4\. Is more portable.

5\. Is faster for the browser.

I even wrote a blog post about it [1].

[http://www.drinchev.com/blog/css-with-only-class- names/](http://www.drinchev.com/blog/css-with-only-class-names/)

<comment><USER11> But your HTML is uglier.

<comment><USER12> So? The only people looking at your html classes are you and your team. Bots don't process css, and most people don't look at html.

<comment><USER11> The same people looking and working on the CSS are the same people looking and working on the HTML. HTML full of long complex class names is a bit harder to grok.

I actually prefer nice semantic HTML but I admit that's not always possible.

<comment><USER12> > HTML full of long _complex class names_ is a bit harder to grok.

I wouldn't recommend long and complex names either, but with something like tachyons, they're not long or complex, there are simply long lists of orthogonal classes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The advice to use CSS variables to handle Z-index confusion is a good first step, but IME that's only the right way to handle global z-indexes like modal lightboxes and menus. For local z-indexes, you should also know how and when to create a new stacking context with position: relative.

This is the go-to article I send to newbies struggling with z-index. [https://hackernoon.com/my-approach-to-using-z-index- eca67feb...](https://hackernoon.com/my-approach-to-using-z-index-eca67feb079c)

<comment><USER14> CSS Flexbox and CSS Grid allows one to reorder elements to avoid Z-index problems as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Using CSS-in-JS to enforce component-local CSS (and also allow easy dynamic updating of styles, by making a "getStyles" type function) is the best thing to happen to styling for a long time in my opinion. Recently I've been using the "styled components" pattern (using the Emotion library) and despite being initially sceptical, have found it really nice to work with.

So much more logical to write and maintain than plain CSS for a site of any reasonable complexity. You can still apply global styles where they make sense (e.g. styling all body text) and making use of JavaScript patterns for reusing common chunks of styling feels much more robust than the CSS equivalent.

As someone who can do CSS but doesn't do so that often, I can confirm that it's getting better with things like Flexbox and Grid, but it is still full of maddening quirks! I do have a lot of respect for people who are CSS experts.

<comment><USER16> As someone just dipping my toes into some Preact, I'm still a but confused about the styled components pattern. If you already have, say, a menu component in an es6 class, with its own methods and helpers and render func - how do you convert that to a styled component. All of the examples I've found just spin up new buttons pre-wrapped in Styled, etc

That's my only real sticking point here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've heard about BEM many times and been forced to use it on a lot of projects. It seems to be reasonably commonplace I was hoping for some smaller tips so here's one I use very often.

Vertical height of text comes up a lot in CSS. It seems many people do not make liberal enough use of the line-height property. Line height is a magic bullet when you need some text to take up the correct amount of space.

With it, and your element styled to inline-block, of float left, or however you are using it. You are able to modify the font size later on without having any effect on the element's surroundings. It's also automatically centered vertically and you can change it without much effort.

Not enough people using line-height.

</comment><comment><USER18> In my opinion, most CSS bad bits are a byproduct of bad use, not a problem of the language(?) itself.

SASS, BAM, OOCSS, etc are all good practices. You can/will abuse those as well without proper understanding and planning.

<comment><USER19> > In my opinion, most CSS bad bits are a byproduct of bad use, not a problem > of the language(?) itself.

I've seen far too many bad languages come and go to believe that anymore. People used to say that about PHP and VB6 too.

PHP eventually stopped with the "only bad programmers use me badly" and grew up, and VB6 died. A win in both cases.

CSS could be far better; and bad practices won't disappear until doing it the right way is easier than doing it the wrong way.

<comment><USER20> The ability for good practices is already there, just too many people would rather complain about their bad practices to bother learning the good practices and blame the language.

<comment><USER21> -it is not possible to decrease scope

-tooling is hard e.g. to detect unused styles

-scope problems are a pain to debug

-some constructs are awkward (e.g. tooltips with :before and positioning styles)

-vertical text behaves unexpected wrt box model

-variables are suboptimal

There are probably a lot more.

<comment><USER20> 1\. I require more of an explanation as to what you mean by decrease scope. I could interpret that in different ways.

2\. Sure, I understand the discipline necessary to prevent that is difficult in a team setting. I would say that likely at reaching that point something went wrong before then. That seems a tooling problem, not a language problem. How many languages provide features out-of-the-box that assist with discovering unused code without some form of third-party exploring that space?

3\. In what way? What scope problems? I can think of several bad practices that lead to scope problems. I can think of examples of two people following two different best practices creating such problems.

4\. I know it's not exactly a fair thing to say, but I don't have those issues with the example you provide. I'm sure there's plenty of examples of showing how to do it.

5\. Flex. But, granted, old practices didn't handle vertical issues well because originally HTML wasn't intended for that.

6\. In what way? Do you mean variables from a pre-processor or CSS custom properties?

I'm sure there are more, just like almost all languages have their quirks and issues that make it difficult to address if not understood. Do you have any other examples that we could discuss? Are there any specific use cases where you are having difficulties that I might be able to help out with?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm surprised nobody mentioned using the Shadow DOM yet. That provides you with a very good means of scoping your CSS; e.g: within custom elements. Just look at Polymer.

</comment><comment><USER23> For z-indexes, we're using a slightly an approach that I find a bit clearer:

      $some-element-z-index: 1 + max(
        $other-element-z-index,
        $should-be-below-z-index
      );

This way the relationship between elements that should be below or above is more explicit.

In my head, it works a bit like a spreadsheet. You update the z-index value of an element somewhere below, and all the z-indexes that depend on it update their value too.

</comment><comment><USER24> I tend to write CSS for projects by hand without a pre-processor, borrowing from previous projects only when called for.

One of the things I've been doing recently that helps debugging a lot is to group the attributes within a css class into three, separated by a line.

1) Things that control where the item shows up.

2) Things that control the overall appearance of the item, like size and background.

3) Things that control appearance of things within the item, like font color.

<comment><USER25> That sounds a lot like the 'concentric order'. Can sort like that automatically: [https://github.com/Siilwyn/css-declaration- sorter/blob/maste...](https://github.com/Siilwyn/css-declaration- sorter/blob/master/readme.md#sorting-orders)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> There is a different and IMO better way to solve the global scope problem in CSS. Adapted from the Paul Irish method of executing JS you can use data attributes to conditionally write CSS. For example a new user controller would output the controller and action names as data attributes on the body. I then have a separate css file under `assets/users/new.scss` which only contains css for that page. Your Sass code looks something like:

      [data-controller="user_controller"][data-action="new"] {
        .header {
          background-color: blue;
        }
      }

This method keeps you organized and completely removes the biggest problem most people have with CSS.

<comment><USER27> If we're going that way, you might as well include that particular file only on that page.

<comment><USER26> I would rather have one single request for a large static asset, than multiple small requests for per page based css. In my experience CSS files typically fall in the range 50-100KB. I'd rather not have to pay the perf penalty every time I load a new page considering the typical file size.

<comment><USER28> For what its worth, this is no longer the case with HTTP/2, which is up and coming for most sites (I hope). I imagine in a few years time this will be gone with the wind (hopefully).

see [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r7QXGYOLCh4fcUq0jDdD...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1r7QXGYOLCh4fcUq0jDdDwKJWNqWK1o4xMtYpKZCJYjM/edit#slide=id.g518e3c87f_0_318)

and

[https://medium.com/@asyncmax/the-right-way-to-bundle-your- as...](https://medium.com/@asyncmax/the-right-way-to-bundle-your-assets-for- faster-sites-over-http-2-437c37efe3ff)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have been writing a lot of CSS (well SCSS) lately and this seems like a good time as any (though I admit somewhat off topic) about a question I have regarding the newer Combination & Multiple selectors [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Learn/CSS/Introduct...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Learn/CSS/Introduction_to_CSS/Combinators_and_multiple_selectors) and Attribute Selectors [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Learn/CSS/Introduct...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Learn/CSS/Introduction_to_CSS/Attribute_selectors)

This stems from the fact that I have inherited the task of re-writing a very large (at least for one person, I feel) task of re-writing an internal framework that is really gotten too burdensome to add anything to. I have been contemplating instead of trying to get crazy with a ton of different selectors where you end up with a pattern like this:

``` .selector .selector1 li, .selector .selector1 li a { some-style: some- value; } ```

Which I find A little crazy compared to something like this:

``` [class*="selector selector1] { some-style: some value; } ```

or my person favorite:

``` ul > li > a { color: blue; } ```

While these examples are I think very simplistic (I don't wanna junk up the page with tons of stuff) I've met alot of resistance to this idea, and splunking other frameworks for inspiration (Shout out to [https://bulma.io](https://bulma.io) ! I like their work, its really wonderful FYI.) I don't see alot of this.

While the resistance I've met from others who have some input on this project (and rightly so, they're also part of our stellar in house design team) seem to resist this idea, but haven't articulated why.

I was wondering if it comes down to: is there actually an issue with using these heavily vs some of the older semantics or, which I feel is quite possible, people have done things for so long one way its hard to see another way?

While its seemingly less verbose sometimes (not always) I feel like the new selectors give you a way to combat specificity problems by controlling when context around your classes is better than having ton of different classes and nesting those over and over.

Am i missing something?

<comment><USER29> Generally you would want to avoid descendant and child selectors. With rules like

      ul > li > a

      .selector .selector1 li a

The system will check ALL anchor tags and move left until it has completely matched the rule. This makes the above selectors extremely expensive (perfomance-wise) and can cause slow page-loads. Tag selectors and universal selectors are generally a bad idea for this same reason.

And using inheritance to select elements indirectly is actually better for performance than directly selecting the inheriting elements. For example, if you want to set typography for an entire page, instead of selecting all p and h1 tags, just select the body tag.

Here's a link to a more in-depth explanation of all of the above with examples:

[http://mdn.beonex.com/en/CSS/Writing_Efficient_CSS.html](http://mdn.beonex.com/en/CSS/Writing_Efficient_CSS.html)

<comment><USER30> The good news is all modern browsers use a Bloom Filter to quickly skip over elements that wouldn't match the descendant or child selector relationship.

You could probably construct situations with very deep selector relationships and thousands of matching elements where the ancestor walking adds up but the other costs of computing style often end up being more important than the selector matching in many scenarios. Not that you shouldn't aim for simpler selectors of course.

(Usually the problems with expensive selectors come from side effects of dynamic changes to the document. ex. Some selectors will make the browser recompute hundreds of elements when only changing something small because the browser isn't tracking that relationship in a precise way.)

<comment><USER28> Hmm so what's consensus then? Avoid these types of selectors when at all possible or no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Often there's an argument to use tags to create a default set of styles. For > most sites, it's usually a good idea. However, if you're just overriding > those styles pretty much everywhere, I'd say don't bother. Put them in > generic utility classes (e.g. .paragraph, .heading-1, etc) and use them as > you need.

Please don't. Tags have semantics for important reasons. Even if you're removing one of those by overriding the default styles, the semantics of tags are still used e.g. for screenreaders. It's not a mistake that HTML 5 added a ton of new semantic tags like
, , ,  and .

<comment><USER32> I think the argument is against adding rules to tags to create a default set of styles, not against using semantic tags throughout the page.

If my understanding is correct, the argument is to use

...

rather than

...

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> One bad thing about CSS is cascading. Too bad that's the main thing. Some styles like colors and fonts move like a plague into every nook and cranny, all children elements get infected. Others like border get applied only onto the targeted element. Heavily nested selectors is another one, good luck overriding a style on a bootstrap element, their selectors strictly follow html nesting levels. You want to override a td style by a adding a class, you mean .table > tbody > tr > td.yourclass. Ugh. Sass only helps you write even more convoluted CSS if you don't know what you are doing, it's like C and C++.

<comment><USER34> > _One bad thing about CSS is cascading._

This is an odd statement, considering that the C is CSS is "cascading". Maybe it's a perspective issue, because I really enjoy the cascading part of CSS. Don't you think it's better that we _don't_ have to set a color for each element/child element individually?

<comment><USER33> I know C in CSS is cascading, that doesn't make it a good feature. I think it's one of the big reasons that the web is slow and bloated. CSS is needlessly complex, no wonder it takes herculean efforts from browser vendors to keep up with the exploding complexities [1].

[1][https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css- en...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-engine- quantum-css-aka-stylo/)

<comment><USER20> One reason for the cascading is to reduce bloat. If the CSS is bloated because of cascading and/or needlessly complex then the CSS and/or design is wrong, not the cascading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Just like WASM allows us to implement new languages as alternative to JavaScript, could it one day become practical to implement an alternative to CSS?

EDIT: Perhaps by implementing the whole browser in WASM? Would that even make sense?

</comment><comment><USER36> CSS Grid really helped me understand/wrangle z-index and stacking contexts. For example, within a grid you can use grid-row/grid-column to position an overlay over a grid item. The z-index will be scoped to that stacking context.

Modular CSS I think is a huge step forward - I totally agree that global scope is killer. As much as people love to hate on CSS-in-JS, I enjoy using styled- components a lot. I've noticed since using it I've been composing CSS instead of inheriting or overriding styles.

</comment><comment><USER37> I think tooling is coming a long way to help with these - take for instance BEM. CSS modules is a great way to avoid needing BEM, as the bundler is handling the uniqueness of the classname for you (during minification etc.).

This is just the nature of web development - almost every tech in the stack is flawed, but tools and best practices make some sanity out of the chaos.

</comment><comment><USER38> Best workaround for all the problems of the class discussed in the article: stop trying to be pixel-perfect.

</comment><comment><USER39> Add another class to make your element more specific. You can have many classes in one element! Then you never have to use !important again.

      .rabbit.drivingACar.onIce.withRocketBoosters  {
        color: pink; /* pretty specific */
      }

</comment><comment><USER40> Shadow dom and proper scoping (whichever popular method you chose for that) is a god send. I really dislike BEM though, we have files that have more classnames than content and tags combined :D

</comment><comment><USER41> Just wondering how much more complains and valid critique against css is still required to get real alternative.

[https://ishoudinireadyyet.com](https://ishoudinireadyyet.com)

<comment><USER34> I hope never enough, CSS is a fantastic language. Also, houdini won't replace CSS, it's actually the opening up of the CSS engine:

[https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/05/houdini](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/05/houdini)

<comment><USER20> I agree since most of the complaints and critiques of the language that I've seen are from people who don't appear to know how to code it correctly. Especially the complaints along the lines of "this is how it works in language X, it doesn't work that way in CSS therefore CSS sucks!" and other similar notions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Bad bits? More like code correctly, use already existing CSS features to your advantage, and use common sense when naming things. Then the so-called "bad bits" tend not to happen.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'd add one thing: avoid multiple classes on a single element; use mixins to avoid duplication. I tend to do so even for classes that have some toggle state, i.e. .some-class-active.

<comment><USER43> does this have a performance benefit or are you recommending it for the code clarity?

<comment><USER30> It'll increase your parse and network transfer time (gzip might help there though) in exchange for reduced selector matching and style computation time. How much that matters probably depends on your content, how big the document is, how much CSS you have and how many classes you're using.

If you're talking about the difference of:

.a { ... } .b { ... } .ab { ... }

It's probably not going to matter a lot. It's two map lookups vs one, and some associated overhead. Probably better to optimize elsewhere. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> _Best workaround: Quit front end web development. If that's not an option, tough, you've got to use CSS._

Instead of quitting front-end dev, you might also consider using [https://www.styled-components.com/](https://www.styled-components.com/)

Styled-components solves all of the issues the author highlights in his writeup.

Bonus: styled-components works both on web and on React Native! So you don't have to throw out all your stuff to participate in the post-browser future...

</comment><comment><USER45> >If you told any back-end developer that they had to use a programming language that gave all variables global scope, made every object's internal state visible, let any other developer override their code, they'd probably resign on the spot

Isn't that the case with Javascript?

<comment><USER46> Nope. A variable is only global if you are in non-strict mode and leave off a `var` on the declaration, or explicitly assign to the global scope (aka window in the browser).

Object internal state is generally true, if you're using prototypal objects. Use function closures when you need to internalize something.

Speaking of which, anything hidden via closure is truly hidden and can't be overridden. Anything public can be overridden, excepting objects frozen via the ES5 spec's Object.freeze method.

I generally enjoy most aspects of JS, and generally detest working with CSS, in large part because I delegate interacting with many browser APIs to JS libraries, whereas there's no escaping the awfulness that is years of backwards compatibility with incompatible vendor specs and CSS implementations.

I suspect I'll be happier once CSS Grids are universally supported (properly) among all of the browsers I need to target, and use postcss for the rest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Use CSS Modules imo.

</comment><comment><USER48> Keep going!

        z-index: 2147483647;

<comment><USER49> //[FIXME] Workaround for the component in IE

z-index: 2147483648 !important;

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Stop using CSS and go with modular SCSS

<comment><USER34> > _Stop using CSS..._

Maybe I am stupid here, but doesn't SCSS just render out to CSS?

<comment><USER51> For me the best thing about scss is the ability to nest selectors. This makes your code a lot easier to read and more organized. Of course having functions, mixins, extends is also nice.

Saying scss is pointless because it outputs regular css is the same as saying that es6 is pointless because it can be represented as regular es5.

<comment><USER34> > _...es6 is pointless because it can be represented as regular es5._

Let's be reasonable, that's more like comparing CSS 2 to CSS 3. :P

Everything I've read and discussed with others in the industry, SCSS seems to be useful for far large projects with many designers and programmers stepping over eachother. I work for a smaller company, and we build very clean CSS, and would not benefit at all from SCSS.

Recently a friend at another medium sized company switched to SCSS "because". Seriously, it was one designer that liked one feature from some library that required some build tool that required SCSS... So they all have to learn SCSS now. No other reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> The world really doesn't need another "What to Avoid with CSS" list.

This list also assumes the use of a CSS pre-processor.

<comment><USER53> Well, I liked it. I had never heard of BEM before, either, so I'll definitely take a look at that. What gets me about CSS is that, in spite of having used it now for about 20 years, I still don't have an intuitive feel for it. With everything else I work with, I start out with an experimental approach: if I change this, I see this, if I change that, I see this other thing; after usually a few weeks of experimentation, I develop an intuition for it so that I can usually predict what it's going to do before I have to see it do it (admittedly it took more than a few weeks to get to that point with Lisp and assembler). CSS, though, just seems to deny intuition; even after reading the O'Reilly "CSS: The Definitive Guide" book, I don't have the faintest clue what my CSS is going to do until I try it out.

<comment><USER54> Hear, hear! Working exclusively in scss, maintaining orderliness and decent discipline, and having - like you - been at it for close on twenty years, I still keep a constant wary eye on my output screen, I still get regular surprises there, I still rely on the browser dev-tools, and I sorely miss the 3d representations they used to have, at least in Firefox.

I have learned to simply accept css for what it is: An unholy legacy kludge we have to live with. Just don't let's speculate on the millions and millions of wasted man-hours over the years.</comment></comment></comment>


ASK HN: Why does the Outback app on my IPhone need access to my photos? - <AUTHOR>

I downloaded the Outback app and if I go to Settings->Privacy->Photos I see the Outback app and looks like by default its turned on. Seems like a security threat to me. <comment><USER2> I don't believe iPhone apps can have default-yes access to photos. There's always a prompt, isn't there?

<comment> atom-morgan Yes, I think so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Access in iOS is never on by default. You have to approve each app individually.

You can go in and turn that access off by launching Settings, and tapping through Privacy->Photos and finding the Outback app and switching it to off.

While you're there, you may want to review other privacy settings for other apps.

</comment><comment><USER4> The Outback app is designed free. Free as in in hog pens and slop troughs.</comment>


Omniscient Debugging - <AUTHOR> http://www.lambdacs.com/debugger/ <comment><USER2> From the page:

"Everybody loves it! They clearly understand the concept. They ask great questions, they make suggestions. But do they use it afterwards??

The ODB is as close to a silver bullet as you can get. Why don't people use it?

I don't get it. :-("

"Needed

More than anything else, I need people to use the ODB."

Now, this tool is not for me personally - I don't see myself writing for JVM anytime soon - but it seems really good. I wanted to ask you, as the author is asking, why don't you, Java and other JVM programmers, use this tool?

Is it that there are better tools? You're not allowed to use this? You don't think it is worth it? The tool itself proved to be somehow lacking? Or are you actually using it heavily and the page is outdated?

I know nothing about Java ecosystem, Java programming or about ODB - I just felt that, if what the author writes is true, it's truly sad situation and would like to know why it happened.

<comment><USER3> Feedback -- not of the 'comments and criticism' variety.

Think of any successful project like a nuclear chain reaction. If you are not familiar with nuclei, some of them are "too heavy" and want to fall apart, spraying neutrons everywhere; they especially do this when they get absorb an extra neutron flying around, but quantum mechanics always gives you a spare neutron eventually.

The system transitions from negative feedback (no chain reaction) to positive feedback (chain reaction) according to a very simple principle: the number of free neutrons that a free neutron creates (call it N) must be more than one. (N=1 is the replacement rate; it's a metastable state of reaction. If you like, the reason why some nuclear reactors have been risky is that horrible accidents kill the safeguards which are simply designed to force N ≤ 1.)

This principle is so fundamental -- it's why there's a 'meme' analogue to the 'genes' in the modern theory of evolution, why countries become bureaucracies, and why nuclear reactors are hard -- that I hope everyone working in startups starts thinking about their products this way. It's not _signups_ which you need to have a successful product. It's that every free customer must convert, on average, greater than or equal to one new free customer. Even if you cannot get all the way to one, you boost your marketing effects by a factor of 1/(1 - N), so if you can increase N from converting 0.25 people per person to 0.30 people per person, it's as good as spending 10% more on marketing.

And it applies, yes, to any open-source project too. The open-source projects which succeed are those which help hackers to help those projects, just like the genes which succeed are the ones which help their species to spread that gene. I'm not even sure that this particular project is open-source. (I believe it falls into a special case where the GPL is used as a closed-source license. That is, GPL requires me to provide a copy of the source code when I distribute the code -- but I do not have the source code, and I cannot coerce the author into giving it to me, so I am not actually free to distribute the binary either until they give me permission to do so one way or another.) The author's claimed reason for not providing a way to "Fork me on GitHub" is, "I have not made a major effort to put its code on any of the open source repositories as it does not currently seem the right thing to do. Just not worth the effort." And that's probably the deepest reason why it's fallen into neglect.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I found this bit about not setting up a public repository strange, too, but the reason there is no "Fork me on GitHub" seems to be just that the project predates Github by a year :)

You're hinting at licensing as (one of) a reason that this project was abandoned, but I think the author just wasn't sure what to do with his code - I think he wanted to get some money out of the project and didn't know or couldn't decide how to do it. If enough users told him they wanted the source, I think he would comply - it's just that there never was enough users (seems so).

Your analysis is interesting and a good one (thanks!), but it doesn't answer the more fundamental question: why the project failed to get another user out from every user it already had? That's assuming somebody was actually using ODB - maybe it failed at even lower level: everyone said it's cool and stuff, but nobody really gave it a chance and actually started using it.

I'd like to know which one it is and why? If something like this was available for Python (btw: is there something similar?) I think I would use it instead of ipdb without hesitation (assuming that I would know about it).

From what the author writes he did his best to inform the Java world about his and his project existence. So why aren't we all using this and similar tools today?

I think this can be an interesting case for every developer who wants to change something with his software. This debugger failed; LightTable seems to have a high chance of succeeding - what's the difference between them? (Not having Bret Victor talks as an inspiration seems an obvious one :))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very cool. A C/C++ version (also mildly abandoned around the same time) was done by Robert O'Callahan, a very smart guy...

Worth checking out and it would be nice if someone could pick it up and develop it more actively.

<http://code.google.com/p/chronomancer/>

<comment><USER5> _"The Chronicle framework provides complete register and memory-level recording of Linux processes and efficient queries over the recorded traces."_

Wow, I was looking for something __exactly __like this a while ago, but was unable to find it. I notice that these days with Google it's really hard to find a tool or project when you're looking for it especially if it's more obscure. Might be a consequence of the ranking rules that crowd lesser known pages out.

<comment><USER5> BTW I looked around a bit and found another similar system, based on QEMU instead of Valgrind, claiming to be faster, ie less runtime overhead while tracing, and also supporting kernel mode: <http://wiki.nss.cs.ubc.ca/Tralfamadore>

Edit: never mind, the program does not seem to be publicly available, just papers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I occasionally use the omniscient debugger to debug some particularly tricky bugs, and it's always proved quite useful.

There is also a more modern-looking, commercial implementation of the same concept, but I've never used it: <http://www.chrononsystems.com/>

</comment><comment><USER7> _you don't have to wonder which threads ran when_

How does that work? Does it really record every single assignment to every variable in every thread? Wouldn't that potentially slow everything down sufficiently that some classes of multithreaded bugs wouldn't show up under ODB?

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting concept (one that i actually stumbled upon a couple of years ago).

If i would venture to guess why people don't use it more often i would say that it's because the marginal win (ease of debugging for a certain class of hard bugs) is smaller then the hassle of changing the complete toolset (current debugger and tools).

My guess this kind of tool is really good at a small class of hard bugs (which in general are pretty rare). For all the other the current tools are good enough so a switch would be costly for no immediate gain.

</comment><comment><USER9> How does this compare with the tools mentioned here: <http://stackoverflow.com/a/4561350/388928>

</comment><comment><USER10> I believe Visual Studio 201x Intellitrace feature is very similar, it "lets developers step back in time to see what happened in an application without having to restart the debugger".

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/vstudio/dd264915.asp...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/vstudio/dd264915.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER11> There is an open-source (but Linux only) project called FReD which does reversible debugging for C and C++ programs: <https://github.com/fred- dbg/fred>

It works without modifying the program (e.g. no recompilation step necessary) or the debugger (like gdb).

</comment><comment><USER12> Looks like this page is from 2007 and the latest version of the debugger works with Java 1.5.

<comment><USER6> I don't think I've tried it with Java 7, but it works just fine with Java 6.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The OCaml debugger also has time travel ([http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual- ocaml-4.00/manual030.ht...](http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual- ocaml-4.00/manual030.html)).

</comment><comment><USER14> Such an advanced debugger would make me miss the hours spent debugging a bug just to jump over and/or press the wrong key on the line of code revealing the real problem. That'd be unacceptable.

</comment><comment><USER15> Try Chronon. While Omniscent is a research project, Chronon is a full blown product <http://www.chrononsystems.com/></comment>