Show HN: log-shuttle – log delivery over HTTPs written in Go - <AUTHOR> http://log-shuttle.io/

<comment><USER2> _TLS transport mapping for Syslog requires that you maintain both client & server certificates for authentication._

The point of requiring certificates for the client is so your server doesn't get spoofed logs.

<comment><USER3> That is correct. However, using and maintaining client certificates is a huge pain, especially for a massively multitenant service such as Heroku.

HTTP Basic Auth is quite a bit simpler as an authentication mechanism and, over TLS, is sufficiently secure.

</comment></comment><comment> wc- This reminds me of another log shipping tool, <http://logio.org/> which I think recently added support for encryption as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great work as usual, Ryan. Glad to see this make it out there!

</comment><comment><USER5> You don't need a client certificate for rsyslog's tls transport.</comment>


Ask HN: I'm bored with programming, what should I do? - <AUTHOR> I've been coding for a living for about 15 years and, while there are plenty of days where I learn something new, overall, I'd say I'm actually pretty good at it, and generally quickly earn the respect of my peers wherever I work.
The problem is, I've lost my spark and enthusiasm for the job, BUT, I can't afford NOT to work, and with 3 young kids, I have some pretty significant overheads to meet each month.
I still read HN and other tech sources avidly, so I still have enthusiasm for the industry, in fact, I dream one day of running my own successful tech business. I'm just finding the physical and mental act of programming for a living draining, having done it for several years, I'm in need of a change, and, if I don't change something, I fear I'll burn out.
So, turning to HN for some inspiration. What should I do? <comment><USER2> I'm about 7-10 years myself, I've gotten pretty bored and unmotivated as well. But what I've learned is: Programming for money and programming for passion are two very different motivators. They don't have to be exclusive, but regularly are. And often it can become over extended.

So, here are somethings you can consider: Try finding work you're passionate about first, that also pays. Maybe work for a non-profit? Try to find a role that lets you expand from where you currently are, perhaps management, business analysis, marketing, design or whatever pet preference you have. The point is not to over extend a single skill. Consider less hours, I've personally found 30 hours a week to be tolerable. Relax that skill more often. Try working on different projects regularly, I work on different projects every 2-6 weeks. The change in pace & direction keeps me excited & interested.

Also consider: building passive income generators, you've been programming for 15 years (why isn't the code working for you?).

All in all, keep changing your angle until you're happier.

Just my two cents.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had a six figure salary as a programmer before I decided to give carpentry a try. I love woodworking so I figured this would be a good vocation to take up. I enrolled in carpentry classes with my local community college. I did this for 6 months and stopped for two reason:

\- Hard labour is hard labour. We (programmers) get paid a lot of money to sit on our ass. It may be mentally grueling but it doesn't hurt your back.

\- I decided that $60,000 a year, which is good salary for a carpenter isn't a six figure salary.

So I had the option to go back as a programmer and make others money, or take a gamble and try to make myself a lot of money. I choose the latter and here, we are today.

What I've learned from my personal experience is we (programmers) have it kind of good. We get paid a lot to sit on our ass. If you think you are burning out, then take some time doing something else and I'm sure you'll find going back to programming won't be bad.

As long as you don't take programming seriously, then I really don't think you'll burn out. I like to believe I'm an above average programmer, and my salary has always reflected this, but if somebody said you couldn't program anymore, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. I'm good at programming, but I'm not passionate about.

I would personally advise you to stick with programming but learn to disconnect from it. There are not a lot professions out there that pays as well as programming for the physical effort required.

<comment><USER4> I agree that we in the IT profession often forget that we're being paid relatively well to work in a comfortable environment, doing something that's reasonably challenging/interesting. Most of us also have an outside interest in tech, so it's pretty close to having one's hobby as a job.

However I think focusing on physical exertion is misguided. A carpenter may be out doing physical work all day, but his/her job requires nothing like the mental exertion of a programming role. A long day of coding is just as exhausting as a day spent climbing ladders and lugging tools, if not more so. And as one gets older, both types of exertion take a greater toll and require more recovery time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Teach programming to young folks; you may thing is the same but you get to have more and different social interactions with new people and to share their fresh view on programming might be something good for you too.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have been programming for about 15 yrs as well but I have never actually cared much for programming. Programming for me has always been a means to an end, my primary passion has always been products and I find whenever I have a product idea the programming motivation just kicks in. Virtually all the programming I have done has been product development.

So perhaps start thinking more about what you can create via software but viewing the writing of software itself as a just a way to create, that might change your perspective. Also maybe take concrete steps towards that technology business idea, there is never a perfect time for working on business ideas :)

You could also consider job role change away from programming to maybe a managerial/leadership role, you already have the experience.

In the mean time you could just wait for my company's product to mature :) it aims to be a developer tool for those who just want to build software products without necessarily being bugged down in technical minutiae. (check my profile for link)

</comment><comment><USER7> Start learning something new but without loosing touch of programming...so here are your options(without knowing what you already do):

1.) Data science : Learn about data mining, machine learning,computer visions,natural language processing etc etc.

2.) If not above then start diving into computer security. Learn about penetration testing,cryptography,forensic etc.

3.) Become a designer learn: UX,CSS,graphic designing etc.

You can keep your current job going fine and get the daily dose of excitement from any of the above item! This is what I have been doing.

<comment><USER8> I think this is a fantastic response. You can do a lot with programming where the end goal isn't necessarily a program/app but rather to reach a conclusion or to find out something interesting (e.g. data science). It's a different take on programming if you will.

I think design is awesome and I would like to do it at some point. I think having a programming background would help me a lot when doing CSS/HTML/JS/UX stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's been a long time since I've been ass-deep in new tech. Most days I'm recalling on that thing I did that time in order to help a teammate or a group of teammates work through a task. I would suggest you look at what you can give, not what you can get. Mentorship (both giving and receiving) has been a practice that I've found very rewarding. Generally, I mentor other people in an area that I have a lot of experience (technology) and I look to be mentored by those who have experience in areas that I don't have a lot of experience (management, finance, etc.). I think it contributes to my end goal which is also to run my own business. Hope that helps.

</comment><comment><USER10> Learn Haskell ;)

It helped me find excitement. It did the same for Edward Kmett: [https://www.quora.com/Reviews-of-Haskell/review/Edward- Kmett](https://www.quora.com/Reviews-of-Haskell/review/Edward-Kmett)

</comment><comment><USER11> There will probably be three more submissions just like mine before I hit submit, but you should very likely consider a transition to a management / liaison role.

There are a variety of fields that benefit from code-savvy people that are able to communicate effectively and that have just a little bit of initiative, namely:

\- project manager -- there are a lot of definitions for project managers, but the simplest I think is the guy who sits between upper management and the engineers to ensure that project deadlines are met by removing obstacles for the engineer. As a developer, your unique insight here is in the ability to anticipate roadblocks and be able to remove them, as well as not having to have things explained to you three times before you can act. As a project manager, you'll be privvy to upper management's goals and directives earlier, be in a position to shape the project, and tangibly demonstrate how your contributions streamline the development process. Often-times, as engineers, we only hear "We need feature X", without an explanation for __why __we need feature X, and a lot of times, project managers don 't communicate that downstream. Being able to understand the woes of engineering and the plaints of management simultaneously gives you an advantage to communicate effectively and deliver more efficiently.

\- product manager -- Similar to but different than project manager, a product manager sits between the project manager or engineers and the customer or potential customers. The product manager evaluates customer concerns and helps shape the product or products by ensuring that the features you're working on will actually help improve the product's market position. What features are people asking for? What features are people asking for that are negatively impacting the ability of sales to sell the product? What features are people not asking for that they should be? What could make the product better? Those are the questions that the product manager seeks the answers to, and provides those answers to the rest of the team, then puts in a request for the proverbial "Feature X".

Etc., etc. There are positions that benefit from having a developer's mindset that aren't development. By your post here, I can see that you communicate effectively, so you have at least the minimal qualifications necessary that a transition could probably be easily managed.

</comment><comment><USER12> After about 7 years of professional programming, every day I'm in awe at how much I don't know and how much understanding it would make my life better. The amount of stuff I want to learn seems to increase daily. I can't see myself be even close to being "done" in 10 years.

There's so much depth, beauty and challenge to be found in language design, API design, architecture of scalable distributed systems, design of human and computer-friendly tools, refining one's mastery of various programming paradigms (working daily with Clojure and Haskell will keep you busy and interested for many years). Learning about OS internals, graphics programming, networking etc is mind-blowing. Find inspiration in the great work of those who came before like all the people featured in the AOSA books. If you ever reach the point where you've done everything you can as an individual contributor, you still have a lifetime ahead of you mastering how to inspire, coach and pass on wisdom to the more junior members of the team, share your shokunin-like fervor for software with them.

<comment><USER13> I often feel the same way. The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. It's like one of those dreams where you are running as hard as you can but every time you look up you're farther from where you want to be. It's depressing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You don't mention any details of your current role. Are you full-time or contract?

If it's the former, you could always try contracting for a while. A few potential benefits:

\- You're only in the same organisation for 6-12 months so it's less likely to get stale.

\- You'll earn more $/day so you can take more time out to pursue other interests, holiday, play with your kids etc

\- It's a solid precursor to starting that 'successful tech business' that you dream about. You're less likely to break out and pursue that while you're earning wages.

Of course if you have a family to support then a lot will depend on your financial situation. But as another poster said you should be in reasonable shape if you've been a dev for 15 years...

</comment><comment><USER14> Programming doesn't have to be your passion. _gasp_

Transition to a less demanding role, if needed, and look for other areas where you can contribute the result of your experience.

For example, if you have passion for *BSD, some linux distribution, or some other community software project you could contribute. You could start by fixing bugs and submitting patches.

OR, skip out on software development completely. Find a way to get more free time and then study a foreign language or learn how to play a musical instrument. Maybe the issue isn't what you are doing but what you aren't?

</comment><comment><USER15> I hear you and I know what you are going through. I burned out two years ago and I started to think in my future. Do I want to continue programming what I am told when I am 40? I find out that programming is sometimes frustrating depending on the motivations of your coworkers as well...

You may be considering you will be a "manager" in the future but I do think that only a bunch of today programmers will be managers or CTO in the future (a lot of politics in Spain). Somehow there are some people that are meant to be CTO no matter they age or experience, so don't trust you will be one.

So I started to think what do I wanted to do with my life. I considered two options: \- Helping make the world nicer by learning the secrets of design: my mother and brothers are artists and I consider I have some potential, I have done some freelancing regarding this topic. \- Helping the IT world to be more secure in an useful way: I was kind of a hacker in my teen years and I loved it but I started to work as a developer and I lost this track.

Long story short, I studied a MSc in Information Security and now I am helping the enterprise where I was a programmer to build useful security. The good things about the security world is that: is an art, is quite challenging, it involves working with people, is a growing industry, you can program from time to time and... It is cool! =D

I continue programming but as a hobby and I find it much more rewarding.

(Any grammar corrections are appreciated since English it's not my mother tongue).

</comment><comment><USER16> So you are bored and your job has lost its luster. For that do something completely different and do it just for fun. If you work as X and even if you are good at X you will eventually get bored of X. Imagine if you had ice-cream or chocolate all the time. Eventually you will hate eating anymore of it. The thing is to do something you like or you feel you need but do it only for yourself and not because you have or need to.

Stand in front of the mirror and ask yourself what you like to do. I, for example, started exercising more after trying it and stopping because of life matters. Choose something that you like and make you feel you're experiencing a new thing. Don't learn another programming language like everyone on HN is suggesting. You know that saying about when you're a hammer...

Just because you are good at something doesn't mean that it's enough to fulfill you. It will make you proud of yourself for a while but then it'll start wearing off. You need something that makes you feel in touch with your purely human nature that is different from your daily job. How about painting, cooking, exercising, stamp collection (a dying hobby), reading poetry (I won't do that but you might), theater, dancing lessons, gardening, sightseeing, photography, magic tricks. Don't pick something like your job.

<comment><USER17> I totally agree with this notion. Don't just go out and learn another programming language..it's an addiction to go after the next shiny tool/language/package that comes along. instead step away from it and focus on how you're career has evolved. what are the aspects of various jobs that you've taken on so far that really appeal to you. try to do more of it on the side. I am currently in a similar situation where I'm trying to explore how my experience can benefit other younger students or early stage programmers. The end result of being enthused by them and also helping them with my broader perspective is very appealing to me. You can of course ease into such a role; don't have to give up your day job. family responsibilities are very real, very important and very satisfying...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> >I have some pretty significant overheads to meet each month.

Do whatever you can to reduce your overheads. A few years of sacrificing to cut your overheads can be hugely beneficial to your overall happiness. I know this is easier said than done but, if you have any debts, get rid of them as soon as you are able to.

>I dream one day of running my own successful tech business.

Have you considered starting something in your spare time? Do some freelancing, build some gizmo and release it online or whatever takes your fancy. You don't need to spend any money to step out of the employee box and to start developing a side income or outside projects. If anything it helps with saving money as you find yourself spending more time tinkering instead of being out spending money.

I don't know what you do exactly but I had great fun doing onegameamonth.com I did this free course [https://www.coursera.org/course/interactivepython](https://www.coursera.org/course/interactivepython) then started making crappy little games and had great fun doing it.

Go check out coursera.org, edx.org and udacity.com. Take some free courses in whatever amuses you. Either something technical to broaden your skills or something totally unrelated just because you want to.

<comment><USER19> >Do whatever you can to reduce your overheads. A few years of sacrificing to cut your overheads can be hugely beneficial to your overall happiness. I know this is easier said than done but, if you have any debts, get rid of them as soon as you are able to.

I read this in the context of his children being his overheads, and I chuckled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Maybe you are too deep to look out... Stop HN. Stop Mashable. Stop RSS. Stop all your sources that keep you up-to-date... Hopefully, in a few days, some bit of enthusiasm may return. Right now you might be too attached. Let go for a while.

My suggestion off the first
 would've been take a long-long break. But then, you mention, its not in the picture. You have a family.

So take a break anyways. Break from your routine. From your job. Not right now, but lay the first stones.

Find good freelance solutions. 15 yrs in, I'm sure you wouldn't need elance, freelance.com to get you work. You must be having some connections. If you feel you don't try to figure that out.

So that in the next couple months, you are ready to put down your papers (assuming you are at a regular job). That is the break you need. A break from the norm.

You say you still have enthusiasm for the industry, that is great after 15 yrs. I'm ~5 yrs in, and pretty sure I'll burn up quicker than you. Feel really great about it. And try to channel it.

Another route. Have you tried getting a little off-hands. A tech-lead, architect sorts roles. They are usually balanced with you typing code, and not. Pays better. With your source of inspirations, I'm sure you would love that role. It has its own challenges, but they will be a different kind to you...

And yeah, try to venture into newer areas in your free time. If you are a network engg, try web dev. If you're a web dev, try machine learning.

Long term advice: Look to join a startup, a fairly stable one, since you need some kind of stability. Challenges there are multi-fold and multi-dimensional. That should keep you hooked on for a good few years.

</comment><comment><USER21> Find non programming hobbies? I like programming a lot more now that I don't do it for a living. You can burn out on too much of a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER22> I would suspect you are probably less bored with programming but probably bored with your job as a whole. It's likely time to move from day-to-day programmer to a management role. If you are as experienced as you seem you should really consider it. It will present a number of new challenges and leading your peers to do great work will likely be a whole new challenge.

<comment><USER23> Management (especially managing people) isn't for everyone. I tried it for several years, burned out on it, and went back to being a developer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Great question. What _are_ you passionate about? What is one thing that would improve the world that is within your reach? How could you make people's lives a little better? Answer that question, then figure out some way to use your coding talents towards making it a reality.

Example from my own life (don't steal it :P) - I'm passionate about nutrition and exercise. I'm currently making a website that _vastly_ simplifies the process of getting in shape and eating healthily. I hope to launch within the next month or so. Thinking about how people's lives will be improved by being a healthy weight and being physically strong really motivates me to open up sublime and write code.

Second suggestion: How good are you with people? Look into project management, particularly a technical role. For example maybe you lead a team of devs and make decisions regarding backend scalability for a growing startup.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER25> Awhile back I started working on some Project Euler problems and found that some of my passion for programming returned. Also, pursuing some projects of great personal interest to me helped, but the repetitive annoyances (rabbit hole/yak shaving issues, horrible API documentation and frustrating APIs, etc.) still got to me eventually. Ultimately, I began to realize that what made me happy with my work in the past was having good people around me, regardless of whatever death-march project I was on.

Show me a passionate, mature software developer and I'll show you someone with a good social work environment.

Oh, and never underestimate the power of a real vacation. I'm talking two weeks swimming and reading (non-tech stuff) on a beach somewhere, never fretting about your real-life and tech problems. Really, how many of us _ever_ experience such relief?

</comment><comment><USER26> Why not start a company? If you're good at programming and have been doing it for 15 years, you've probably got some financial stability. Your family may need to lower its expenses a little, but thats the price you pay to do what you enjoy.

<comment><USER27> Speaking as a parent, I think the OP has three startups already.

<comment><USER28> I'm not sure what to make of the business plan. What's the exit strategy?

<comment><USER29> After you pay for college, hopefully they exit your house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I get into these modes every once in a while, now that I have been a IT guy [1] for 12+ years. Here are a few suggestions that might be worth thinking about. Of course you are not me, so YMMV

a. Get a _new_ hobby. I have realized that having an out-of-work hobby helps your work life immensely. I don't mean a hobby that you'd go to only when bored or on the weekends, nor something 'easy' \-- so listening to music, or watching movies or reading a book don't qualify for what I am recommending. It has to have a steep learning curve if you want to get a high enough level of satisfaction from the process that it improves your overall sense of well being. Learning to draw/sketch, learning to play a musical instrument or juggle or scuba dive would qualify.

b. Teach. The easiest way to get into this is get involved in your local User groups and share what you already know. Do it for free. I assure you this too will indirectly have a phenomenal affect on your work life. Also checkout [http://software-carpentry.org/contrib/training.html](http://software- carpentry.org/contrib/training.html) ...which leads me neatly to my next point...

c. Challenge yourself and get involved in a writing software for a completely different domain. I see way too many software engineers limiting themselves to writing code and creating products that are consumed by other software engineers. That gets boring after a while. Write code (or quite your job and join a firm that writes code) for scientific research (think physics, phrama, genetics ...etc) or for automotive companies or for hospitals ...basically move out of the domain where software is the central/critical component (eg: web or software solution providers ...you know what I mean ?)

d. Just take a break. I don't mean a long sabbatical. Just a break. You don't even need to do something special with your break, ie: you don't need to travel to exotic locations -- you can just take a break to seriously pursue (a) above.

Hope this helps, cheers,

[1] translation: I've held positions in pretty much every aspect of delivering software - userspace programming, systems-level programming, web dev, Level 2 & 3 support, system administration and ^devops^ (whatever that is)

</comment><comment><USER31> With your code skills and business aspirations, why not create a "set it and forget it" style product? Create some freemium app; Dominate a niche enterprise market.. Income hack.

<comment><USER32> You make it sound so easy.

<comment><USER31> I don't know the OP's background, but if he's the great programmer he says then I'm sure he has the smarts to find his place among the countless profitable one-person companies in our industry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I was in same situation around a year back. Then I thought just coding will not give me financial freedom to do whatever I want and started my own tech company. It's been a great year I had lots of new experience, learning and making money as well. Consider creating some products in your free time preferably in your domain to start with. Connect me tapesh at vitallabs.in if you need any specific details on how to transition from engineer to entrepreneur.

</comment><comment><USER34> I think you need to open yourself to exploring the option of starting your own company. Start by looking for a good co-founder on the side: once you find the right person to work with, the idea will be secondary, and this is something you can do job or no job. It'll let you start cracking at what I think is one of the hardest, if not hardest tasks in a startup setting: deciding whether to go it alone, or deciding what team one wants to work with.

</comment><comment><USER32> _tl;dr: I rambled on way too much, describing my own cases of "burn out". Unfortunately, I haven't even figured out a good solution for myself so I don't have any good advice for the OP. You probably don't want to waste your time reading this wall of text; it doesn't say anything useful or productive, although it did make me feel a little better. Sorry._

I'm not really a developer/programmer; I'm sr. network engineer at an ISP and I manage all Linux servers; the only code I write is that which makes my own life easier. Prior to this, I was in a similar role at a .edu.

A few years ago, I was getting burnt out pretty bad and although there were a few other contributing circumstances, I decided pretty spur-of-the-moment to quit my job and move to either Seattle or the Bay Area. I desperately wanted a change of pace.

I turned in my resignation two days later, on a Friday, and gave 'em two weeks notice. At noon the next Wednesday, the head of H.R. (also a good friend of mine) told me I could go ahead home (they did this pretty much anytime someone decided to leave, although they always us for the remainder of the two weeks).

That was at the beginning of May 2011 -- just when it's really starting to warm up and turn into summer here. Instead of taking care of personal things and tying up the loose ends I needed to before I could move 2500 miles away, I spent pretty much every day on the bike (motorcycle) or the boat and every night at the clubs (I live in a college/party town). I never got around to taking care of my personal business so that I could move.

At the end of October, a guy who followed my blog e-mailed and asked if I was looking for a job -- a company he occasionally worked with in my area was looking for a new head network guy. I wasn't really looking but I agreed to talk with them and gave him the okay to pass along my contact info. Shortly afterwards, I got an e-mail from the owner saying that they really needed someone who had extensive knowledge of and lots of experience with Cisco and Juniper gear. Ironically, I was attending an event in San Jose then and so I got to reply with a cocky "Yeah, I'm actually at Cisco right now and I'll be at Juniper tomorrow" e-mail.

Anyway, I started working with them shortly afterwards. I didn't really _want_ to have to work -- I had gotten used to all the free time I had every day -- but I was actually starting to get bored (and I was starting to forget things). While I was doing pretty much the same work that I had gotten burnt out on, it was a different environment with different requirements than what I was used to (old: EDU, new: ISP) and so it was quite interesting and had different challenges. They had grown the ISP from a very small company into a decent size organization. None of the technical staff had any formal education and had pretty much learned as they went along. Because of this, they had huge holes in their knowledge but weren't even aware of it. Things hadn't been designed properly and best practices were a foreign concept. They made managed to make it this far but they were starting to hit the point where their environment wasn't scaling any more and major changes were going to have to be made -- nearly the entire network needed redesigned. This was gonna be a huge project and is exactly the kind of stuff that I like to do. I love a good challenge and especially enjoy being able to finish up a major project successfully.

Several months ago, after nearly two years, I noticed that I was starting to burn out again. I wasn't really enjoying my job anymore and was beginning to dread working. As the OP said, "I'm just finding the physical and mental act of programming for a living draining" (not programming in my case, but very similar). Instead of working from home occasionally, I started working from home all the time -- I didn't even want to go to the office. I was still getting work done and making progress on my projects but, like you, that spark and enthusiasm was nearly gone.

At the beginning of October, right as it was really starting to get to me and I was beginning to seriously consider leaving, I was involved in a (head-on motorcycle vs. Jeep) crash, suffered some pretty major injuries (two broken wrists, broken leg, messed up ankle, ...) and was gonna be out of commission for some time. Fortunately, the systems that I'm responsible for are fairly resilient and so we haven't had any major issues while I've been out (the biggest problem happened just last night -- a hardware issue worked around by shutting down a link).

I've done a few minor things recently but haven't done any major work since my wreck. It's just been the last few days that I've started catching up on e-mails, looking back over my previous notes, and brainstorming. I've created a number of tickets for myself and have been trying to mentally prepare myself to get back into "work mode" \-- as much as I enjoy not having to work every day, I'm starting to get bored again (I can only visit HN so many times a day before I've read everything of interest!). Besides, my bosses and co-workers have been very understanding and amazingly patient but I'm quite aware that my absence is making things hard on everyone else.

I realize I'm rambling (sorry), but I can certainly relate to the burn-out. Part of it is probably because I don't often take vacation time -- my recent time off due to my injuries is the only time off I've had in the two years I've been at this job -- and even when I do I almost always end up doing work of some kind. So, for me, the last several years have basically been: work my ass off, get burnt out, a few months of not working, get bored, work my ass off, get burnt out, ...

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good solution for you (obviously, I can't even find one for myself!) but hopefully you'll figure something out before you do get completely burnt out. I don't have any children, fortunately, or I wouldn't have been able to just decide "hey, I think I'll quit my job and move across the country!" one day. Luckily, I was in a good position financially, too, or I wouldn't have been able to do that; at that point, having to continue at my job would've been quite depressing.

I am slightly afraid that, once I start working again, I'll quickly descend into "burn out mode" again. I've been trying to remind myself how excited I was when I first started at this company. I had an unbelievably large project ahead of me (along with lots of smaller ones) and it was going to be a huge challenge, but I was excited because I was going to get to redesign and rebuild our entire environment (multiple datacenters, tens of sites, dozens of links, replacing Windows servers with Linux) from the ground up, with the flexibility to do things "my way". It's helping, somewhat, and I'm looking forward to diving back in head first. There's so much I want to do -- and actually have the freedom to do -- with our infrastructure: make things more reliable and stable, more scalable, and offer services that we haven't been able to before. I really do have my perfect job. Even so, I haven't been able to conquer the "burn out". For me, I think a lot of it simply hinges on that whole "work/life balance" thing and I need to remember to take some off and get away every once in a while.

Sorry for the rambling wall of text. Good luck to you, OP.

</comment><comment><USER35> Personally, I found that I get bored/frustrated with work when the job is not aligned with my long-term ambitions. Might be similar for you if you are working for other people, which does not bring you closer to your vision of running your own shop. So might be good to think about where you see yourself in 3, 5, and 10 years (both professionally and with your family) and see if your current direction aligns with that.

</comment><comment><USER36> You need to think about what you are doing, and why you are doing it. I had a similar experience a few years ago; walked away and never regretted my decision (I have 2 kids).

(I blogged about it here: [http://tojans.me/blog/2013/03/30/freedom-learning- stuff-doin...](http://tojans.me/blog/2013/03/30/freedom-learning-stuff-doing- consulting-aka-the-fun-and-money-balance/))

</comment><comment><USER37> If you are burnt out from your current job, you need a new job. Maybe find a smaller team where you get more variety in your day. I did this 6 years ago where I went from a job of basically modifying vendor code and creating new reports to somedays I don't even know when I am going to be doing on this day due to support calls, etc. I love the variety and keeps my on my toes.

</comment><comment><USER38> Try other fields of programming as well. If you've worked for product companies, try a service company, or vice versa

See a sleep doctor and get a sleep study if they agree to it to see if you're getting enough good sleep (depression is often confused for "burn out", and is pretty reliably caused by sleep deprivation, which is pretty reliably caused by small children).

</comment><comment><USER39> Can you be more specific about what you currently use coding for? Web development is different than embedded systems, for example

<comment><USER40> And therein may be a solution. "Programming" is huge, because code is in everything. Since you don't seem likely to start a business today, get into programming in some industry that's wildly different from what you've done. Embedded. Astronomy. Medical. Telecomm. Hell, even CRUD for a bank if you've never done that. You might even find something interesting enough to start a business on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Keep calm, dude! Billions of people have jobs they don't like. Keep working, reduce overheads. Once kids dont neet $$$ support you can try and redefine yourself. Meanwhile, be happy that you do have a job.

</comment><comment><USER42> Open up one of those coding bootcamps like codefellows.org or some hacker school for younger students. A lot of good money in it but you'll also be helping tons of people.

</comment><comment><USER43> You should make an iOS or Android app that does something quirky :-)

It'll be also a good way to learn a new language or framework if you don't know Java, Objective C, or Cocoa.

</comment><comment><USER44> Product or project management. Microsoft's "program manager" position might appeal to you -- it overlaps these more than other places.

</comment><comment><USER45> Open a nightclub:

[http://www.dnalounge.com/](http://www.dnalounge.com/)

</comment><comment><USER46> You have good experience, You should write more about programming.

</comment><comment><USER47> Learn Haskell.

</comment><comment><USER48> change to gene programmer ? :]

</comment><comment><USER49> Start into the habit of creating things instead of programming. I despise programming, yet I love creating things. I've created a ton of open source tools and libraries that wil l be used for programming (Creating) really cool software and games.

I despise programming, but I love creating things and which is why I see myself not as a programmer, but as a product developer...

Now to find a job that pays for design + code + product development....

</comment><comment><USER50> Stop thinking about programming and start thinking about products. Perhaps there's another company in your area, or remote, that's solving a problem or providing a service you'd like to help build.

I don't give a rat's ass about technology, or which hot javascript framework or build tool I should be using. That stuff is boring.

I care about building products.

</comment><comment><USER51> > I dream one day of running my own successful tech business.

why dream? just do that now. if you fail, do programming again.

<comment><USER23> Because he has three young kids. If people's lives depend on your ability to maintain a stable income, you can't afford to take the same kinds of risks as a single person can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> How can one be bored with programming? Am I the only one never bored when left alone somewhere? There's always more to learn, more to do, to experiment with, etc. It's really a shame to read such a question. I don't even want to work with you.

<comment><USER25> > Am I the only one never bored when left alone somewhere?

Ah, boasting disguised as a response.

> I don't even want to work with you.

And a really cruel, personal insult to finish off with.

This sort of attitude needs to end. It absolutely infests tech sites.</comment></comment>


Brand Name Loyalty or Mental Trap? - <AUTHOR> http://www.flashlightreviews.com/features/loyalty.htm

<comment><USER2> I wonder why he missed out those that haven't purchased but still see the value of a product irrespective of a brand label?

Aside: I'm assuming this piece is by DougP, I found it annoying that the author wasn't mentioned. Must remember to add author info to my blog!</comment>


ZenPayroll is now Gusto - <AUTHOR> https://zenpayroll.com/blog/introducing-gusto/ <comment><USER2> I'm assuming they renamed because they lost the USPTO trademark case against Zendesk [1] or just decided they didn't want to fight anymore.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2014/12/20/zendesk...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2014/12/20/zendesk- and-the-art-of-trademark-maintenance/)

<comment><USER3> Gusto co-founder here! We actually changed our name because ZenPayroll no longer adequately described what we bring to our customers. We're not just payroll and payments. Gusto is all about empowering companies to put people first.

<comment><USER4> I see the MBAs have gotten to you.

<comment><USER5> What do you mean by that? It's catchy and fun but not really informative or helpful by itself.

<comment><USER6> > _What do you mean by that?_

To some on HN, MBAs are uninformed miscreants who ruin everything. Everything but engineering is a waste of money.

<comment><USER5> I know. Cheap shots should involve more work, though.

<comment><USER4> If it involves more work, it's not a cheap shot :)

Really though, I don't have anything against what he said, nor against MBAs (...well, some MBAs maybe). It was just poking fun at vacuous sounding corporatespeak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like ZP (now Gusto), I really do, but their support over time has been lacking (and it feels like it's degrading), and as a customer I'm growing increasingly concerned that they're growing too fast to keep up.

Granted - I'm a tiny account (3 employees). That said, it's frustrating that it takes weeks to get answers to questions (some simple, some less so). When I finally do get someone's attention, the resolution is generally a good one, but it just feels like they're flat-out understaffed on the support side - which is disconcerting when dealing with things like payroll, taxes, etc.

I certainly wish ZP all the best, and perhaps this expansion into new lines of business will help them hire more support staff... but a part of me feels like, "guys, get your house in order first before your start expanding."

<comment><USER8> Hi Kevin! I'm the community manager over at ZenPayroll. Thanks for taking the time to post.

I can't tell you how sorry we are to hear about this issue and there's no excuse for the delay in our response. Please rest assured that your business (no matter how small) is incredibly important to us. In fact, because your company is small, we especially want to be there to help!

We have been particularly busy lately on the support side, especially with the launch, but again, that's no excuse. We hold ourselves to a certain standard of delight on product, support, and overall customer experience and we didn't deliver on that for you. We should and can be better.

We want to let you know we've done a ton of hiring lately, in addition to opening up an office in Denver that is focused specifically on support and care. As a result, these kinds of wait times should not continue going forward.

One of our team is looking into your case and should be responding shortly. We are always committed to getting better and appreciate you giving us the chance to prove that. Thanks and again, we've very sorry about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, my company has 3 overlapping products now.

Zenefits, zenpayroll, and indinero (bookkeeping / accounting). They all offer some sort of employee onboarding and have their hands in payroll to a certain degree.

We seem to spend a lot of time syncing our employee records between all 3, it is not great.

Of those, I probably need zenefits the least of all of those, and I would consider switching to gusto's service just to eliminate the complexity.

<comment><USER10> IDK how small your company is but I HIGHLY recommend switching to JustWorks. We were able to remove a lot of duplicated services by just using them. It's got a brilliant interface and is super user friendly for our employees.

We simply didn't need the level of functionality required in other software applications, which were clearly built for small to medium sized companies with an actual HR department. We wanted to hire employees and contractors, manage their payroll, manage time off, and give employees other basic benefits, like Healthcare and transportation.

Only downside to JustWorks is that it costs more than Zenefits which is free. Can't speak to Gusto's capabilities and pricing though.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the kind words, GolfyMcG :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> First off, congratulations to the team. This is a big change and I'm sure a huge amount of work went into making this happen.

I wonder what this says about the company's focus. They started out focused on payroll, with the BI press release saying they had 20k customers out of millions of small businesses. So obviously a lot more to be done and they are off to a good start. Which raises a few questions:

Do they consider payroll "solved"? Payroll seems to be a pretty massive problem with as much to be done as when they started.

What are they bringing that Zenefits doesn't? Zenefits does payroll and benefits as well, so if you are going to take them on directly I would have hoped to see a lot more about differentiators.

On the one hand, very exciting. On the other, I'd be worried that they are letting a huge competitor drive their actions. Payroll (to an outside) still seems to have massive potential.

<comment><USER13> Wasn't payroll solved decades ago? How have companies been paying their employees? We paid our employees through BofA and it was cheap and easy.

<comment><USER14> It could be cheaper and easier. We used Wells Fargo's payroll service because it was quick to set up, but a big pain to use. .NET-style web interface from 10 years ago, impossible to get the report you wanted (or you have to pay for it if it was long enough ago, like many bank shenanigans), hard to understand, and worst, they'd send a sheaf of paper twice a month that I promptly shredded.

Using ZenPayroll now and processing payroll is painless and cheaper. The benefit will multiply once we use some of their newer services as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One of the founders gave an amazing talk at Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series:

[http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3432](http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3432)

Worth listening to if you are interested in starting a company.

<comment><USER16> What was amazing about it?

<comment><USER15> I think every person pulls something unique out of a talk depending on their experience and challenges they are currently facing. For me the biggest thing that has stuck with me was this quote:

"Solve a problem by creating a business rather than creating a business to solve a problem."

I really took that to mean that you need to be more passionate about the problem that passionate about the business. I even used that quote in my YC Fellowship application video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really like the Zenpayroll product, but I wish they would focus on expanding into more states before adding benefits etc and trying to compete with Zenefits. This would prevent companies who have employees in multiple states outgrowing them and needing to switch to ADP.

<comment><USER3> On the payroll side, Gusto is actually a full-service payroll provider in all 50 states, meaning we do all your tax calculations, direct deposits, tax payments, and quarterly tax form filings.

For workers' compensation insurance, we're also nationwide.

For health insurance, we're currently available in California only, but we're already expanding to get nationwide.

<comment><USER18> For health insurance you're just providing an exchange, not a brokerage right? Or both?

Also, any thoughts/plans to move into the PEO space?

<comment><USER3> We're providing a brokerage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if they already knew about [http://www.gustoemail.com/](http://www.gustoemail.com/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Good for Zen... er Gusto. I interviewed for an engineering internship there when I was in college and really like everyone I talked with. They seemed to have a great culture and to be solving some pretty cool technical problems. I hope things continue to go well for them as they expand into the benefits market.

</comment><comment><USER21> Interesting choice for a company trying to break into the HR space. It's not clear how to pronounce it.

Is it -g'oo'stow- or -guh'st'oh-?

<comment><USER22> Strange. I didn't think it was unclear at all.

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gusto](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gusto)

guss toe

<comment><USER13> Anyone with any exposure to Spanish or Italian would think goo-sto.

<comment><USER23> The pronunciation in English in the US (their target market) isn't ambiguous, though.

<comment><USER13> Considering the number of Spanish speakers in the USA, particularly in the population centers, and that the word is much more common in Spanish than it is in English, I'm not so sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Huge branding change. Gusto does seem to me like a much better name than ZenPayroll. Wonder how much they paid for gusto.com...

<comment><USER25> I was really confused initially, I thought these guys [https://www.gousto.co.uk/](https://www.gousto.co.uk/) were already called Gusto.

<comment><USER26> Even if they were, the market is clearly different, so they could be both have the same mark.</comment></comment></comment>


Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II - <AUTHOR> https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/ <comment><USER2> The very best thing you can do on climate change, right now, for free, is stop suggesting people "do their part" by flying less or eating less or making any other kind of individual sacrifice. Erase that proposition from your brain and never mention it again.

Climate change is a collective action problem. It can't be solved by voluntary sacrifice or any other kind of uncoordinated action. Suggesting that it can is harmful in two ways:

1\. It puts the focus on solutions that don't work and won't even help.

2\. Framing it in terms of sacrifice—which, again, won't even work—makes people less inclined to help in ways that _might_ work, like lobbying for more effective policy.

"Eat your vegetables" is not the answer. People won't—no matter what. You might, your friends might, but _people_ won't, and that's what matters.

Deny this fact at everyone's peril.

<comment><USER3> Counterpoint:

Switching from an omnivorous to vegetarian diet could reduce a person's carbon footprint by about 30 percent, says Martin Heller, an engineer at the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan.

[https://www.popsci.com/vegetarian-environment- health](https://www.popsci.com/vegetarian-environment-health) (I've picked this as the first hit on google, but if you want to find other sources go for it).

The point about vegetarianism is that eating meat is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO inefficient that climate change _won 't be solved until_ we _ALL_ stop eating meat (or at least the majority of the planet).

Yes, there are corporate plutocrats that are destroying the planet. No, that does not let you off the hook. If you see a collective action problem and decide that, since it's hard, and other people suck, you don't have to participate, then you're just as much a part of the problem as the sucky people.

<comment><USER2> Imagine your neighbor's house is on fire. You run outside and see him throwing dirt on his porch with his kid's plastic shovel. You gawk at this decision for a second, then run back inside and call the fire department.

When you come back out and shout the fire truck is coming, he yells at you for wasting time inside instead of picking up his other tiny shovel and throwing some dirt.

Except... the problem clearly won't be solved with twice the tiny-shovelfuls of dirt. It needs a qualitatively different type of action.

On climate change, you have two choices:

1\. You can moralize about the sucky people who won't grab a shovel, essentially complaining that the problem isn't of the form you'd like; or

2\. You can do the thing that's most effective.

You can also help your neighbor shovel dirt until the fire truck arrives. That's fine, it doesn't hurt. Just understand it doesn't make a difference.

<comment><USER4> Except there is no fire truck that's coming. We still need to convince our governments to take action. And how can we do that if we individually are still throwing kindling on the flames.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a topic that has a lot of noise but there are two relatively easy to explain things to tell people (I am discounting the usual 27% of the population who will never be interested):

1\. There is a policy that is simple to explain and has some bipartisan appeal: Fee and Dividend (also known as the Clean Energy Dividend). It puts an increasing price on carbon per ton at the source (e.g., oil well, port of entry, etc.) and distributes 100% of the proceeds to the people. That's it. No tricks, no back-door subsidies. And because it is redistributed it's also not a tax in the usual sense, which helps win over those who are open to climate policy but anti-tax.

2\. Things are indeed more dire than even most climate aware folks realize. Watch climate scientist Kevin Anderson break down the numbers -- it's sobering how disconnected our climate discourse is from reality:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX1r8OAmz9I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX1r8OAmz9I)

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, Table 14.1 is terrifying:

> Considering both historical and projected non-CO2 effects reduces the > estimated cumulative CO2 budget compatible with any future warming goal, and > in the case of 3.6°F (2°C) it reduces the aforementioned estimate to 790 > GtC. Given this more comprehensive estimate, limiting the global average > temperature increase to below 3.6°F (2°C) means approximately 230 GtC more > CO2 could be emitted globally. To illustrate, if one assumes future global > emissions follow a pathway consistent with the lower scenario (RCP4.5), this > cumulative carbon threshold is exceeded by around 2037, while under the > higher scenario (RCP8.5) this occurs by around 2033. To limit the global > average temperature increase to 2.7°F (1.5°C), the estimated cumulative CO2 > budget is about 590 GtC (assuming linear scaling with the compatible 3.6°F > (2°C) budget that also considers non-CO2 effects), meaning only about 30 GtC > more of CO2 could be emitted. Further emissions of 30 GtC (in the form of > CO2) are projected to occur in the next few years (Table 14.1).

Dates by when cumulative carbon emissions (GtC) since 1870 reach amount commensurate with 2.7°F (1.5°C), when accounting for non-CO2 forcings:

                    66% = 593 GtC    50% = 615 GtC    33% = 675 GtC
         </comment><comment>--- </comment><comment></comment><comment>---- </comment><comment></comment><comment>---- </comment><comment></comment><comment>---
          RCP4.5             2019             2021             2027
          RCP8.5             2019             2021             2025

By next year, we'll (most likely) have burned through our chance of holding climate change to 1.5°C

<comment><USER7> It's rather sobering. It's also my impression that most people who "believe" in climate change haven't near come to grips with the scale and urgency of the problem.

I've been thinking of writing an essay along the lines of the world being "default dead". Basically, unless we come up with something to suck carbon from the air and replace our energy use, I believe we're sunk.

A lot of people seem to believe that if we just stopped or "reduced" we'd solve the problem. But if we continue for just a few years as normal, then even a total cessation of emissions wouldn't solve our predicament.

Reducing, eliminating: these are important things. But, we're basically dead by default, and need to do something more to actually reverse what we emitted.

<comment><USER8> I was talking to my dad last night and he was saying how important it is to maximize your 401k, etc. and all I could think was "but even I have money it won't effing mean anything when billions of people are starving and you need to defend any means to produce food with force".

But hey, you know, reusable grocery bags and telecommuting 1 day a week should do it. I guess.

It's like we found the asteroid headed for Earth and decided to pretend it doesn't exist.

<comment><USER9> Or some rich and powerful people decided to tell you a metior was about to pummel the Earth and you better accept a reduced standard of living while they fly to and from climate conferences in their private jets.

If your political beliefs tell you to not save for your retirement because the apocalypse is coming, that should be a serious red flag.

<comment><USER10> It's quite clear that if climate change is real and a pressing concern, the people flying around the world trying to stop it would not be major drivers of the problem.

Unfortunately for humans, all the evidence seems to indicate strongly that climate change is more than a conspiracy to get a few people marginal relative wealth increases. Especially since it seems the ones trying to convince the world to change haven't been very successful.

Also, I'm pretty sure the GP wasn't saying "I shouldn't save because politics," but rather, "A 401k sounds great, but if everyone's starving and the world is in chaos, what's the point?"

<comment><USER9> >people flying around the world trying to stop it would not be major drivers of the problem.

Thats missing the point. The fact that these people arent willing to sacrifice the slightest convenience for the planet strongly suggests they dont actually believe what they are saying. Obviously no one person can ruin the planet.

And: >"A 401k sounds great, but if everyone's starving and the world is in chaos, what's the point?" Is just a nicer way to say: >"I shouldn't save because the apocalypse is coming"

>marginal relative wealth increases

Understatement of the century. >Former vice president Al Gore had a net worth of about $1.7 million at the turn of the century and 13 years later, his wealth has grown to more than $200 million. [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320452/Al-Gore- Rom...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320452/Al-Gore-Romney-Rich- grew-net-worth-200m-decade.html)

<comment><USER7> The article says Gore made his money in business, by starting a TV network and from stock options earned while sitting on Apple's board. The options were from before the massive rise in Apple's stock.

You implied Gore made his money from climate activism, but your own source contradicts you. The options are:

1\. You have such confirmation bias that you don't even read articles you post as evidence, or 2\. You know you're arguing in bad faith, but you hope to persuade people who don't read the link

I'm sure Al Gore has made _some_ money from climate activism, but the vast bulk of his fortune came from elsewhere. So the comment you were replying to was accurate in describing it as a marginal increase due to activism.

<comment><USER9> Here's the first hit from a web search for "al gore solyndra"

[https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_1961299](https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_1961299)

Tldr; The Washington Post attributes most of Al Gore's net worth to investments in taxpayer subsidized climate startups.

There certainly are bad faith people on hackernews, i just hope you yourself arent one of them lol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Keep in mind that projections are typically underestimated and don't take into account potential tipping points. I encourage everyone to read the chapter on Potential Surprises. [1]

Meanwhile, arctic sea ice is disappearing [2] and I didn't see any mention of latent heat or phase change energy of the arctic waters. Once the ice is gone, we're done.

[1] [https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/15/](https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/15/)

[2] [https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/11/](https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/11/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Don't expect much action on this at the Federal level. Here's the President's recent climate assessment: "Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?" [1]

[1] [https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10654002541519544...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1065400254151954432)

Edit: this seems to be a controversial comment. It is getting a lot of down votes and a lot of up votes. I'm a bit confused by this. The report is a US government report, largely prepared by agencies that are under the Executive branch, and says that climate change is a big and growing problem.

It is the Executive branch that will handle any Federal action in response to this. The President is the head of the Executive, and will largely determine how the Federal government responds, either directly by executive orders and by setting White House policy, or indirectly through the President's choices of heads of the agencies.

That the President a mere two days before the report was released (and almost certainly having been told well in advance what was going to be in report) is implying that climate change is not happening is on-topic and relevant.

<comment><USER13> I will explain my upvote: the single greatest enemy of solving Climate change, literally anywhere in the world, is the Republican Party. If you imagine a world in which the Republican Party does not have the ability to affect U.S. policy, you can imagine a world in which a) we are already deep into U.S. efforts to lead the way on preventing large rises and b) where the terms of the debate about where to go from here are very different. Right now, Republicans control the government, so you are correct that we should not expect much change at the federal level before 2020 unless something radical and highly unlikely happens.

I don't know why you're being downvoted, but I think it's important to say this clearly: anyone who believes that global warming is real, that science is a rational basis for knowledge, and wants humanity to address warming as soon as possible, is in profound, fundamental conflict with the Republican Party about the most important crisis of our time.

The significance of this report is to convey the gravity of the crisis and to raise a sense of emergency among the public. If the report succeeds, it will be generating the political will necessary to strip Republicans of power and force through a science-based policy.

<comment><USER14> I imagine it goes something like this:

"Wow, that really seems to be a problem. Wait, that's _me_ they're mad at? And all my enemies are the ones baying for blood? They're probably lying, they are the other team after all. Nevermind."

I didn't downvote, but unless you have a plan for wiping out half the electorate you'll have to work with the other party. Activating everyone's mental immune systems with a nice pathogen-like protien coat of enemy rhetoric is not a good way to do it. It's like stirring peanut butter into the vat at an antihistamine factory.

<comment><USER13> 1) I think that when one of two parties is condemning the world to grave harm on the basis of corruption, graft and ignorance, it's worth explicitly calling that out as a bad thing irrespective of how that party responds.

2) The Republican Party doesn't represent the will of half the electorate at a national level—they received a minority share of the vote in the last presidential, house and senate elections, and only by virtue of the antiquated, undemocratic, and intentionally manipulated system we use do Republicans hang on to power. In a modern democracy with the electorate we have, we wouldn't be in this situation. No plan for "wiping out" millions of people needed.

3) I see the challenge facing us differently. We have to galvanize and activate the political energy and force of people who want the world to be safe and healthy as much as possible in order to forcibly extract concessions on the part of the ruling minority and set the stage for the reclamation of the government. If the large majority that support solving this crisis were mobilized, this would create enormous pressure for things to change.

To put it your way, unless you have a plan for changing the minds of millions of Republicans in the face of decades of increased polarization, a multi- billion-dollar propaganda apparatus working in concert with the president, and a near-endless supply of money from very rich corporations who benefit from our current paralysis, you'll have to settle for applying as much pressure on Republicans as we can.

<comment><USER15> Why didn't your party fix all this when they ran the executive branch for the previous two terms, and the Senate for 6 of those years?

<comment><USER16> I'm sure you're aware that it typically requires both houses of the legislature to pass an meaningful legislation. No?

<comment><USER13> Exactly!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Chapter 2 has a plot of our understanding of the impact of all natural and human causes on the change in temperature: [https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/img/figure/figure2_1.png](https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/img/figure/figure2_1.png)

It's pretty clear (according to the models) that the human created aerosols combat a fair chunk of the increase caused by carbon emissions (around 0.7 deg C at the moment, which is substantial; we'd have already been around 2 deg C without it). Is deliberately increasing the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere a viable path forward? Is this economically feasible and safe? Can this be used to bring us back to the pre-industrial temperature levels?

<comment><USER18> There's lots of studies suggesting you can do this at low cost. There are issues, from not solving some problems at all (ocean acidification) to creating others (localized rainfall reduction).

My own thoughts are that we _should_ be exploring doing this as a secondary backstop (it has pretty high ROI), while aggressively cutting emissions as well.

[https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-geoengineering-may-not- coo...](https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-geoengineering-may-not-cool-the- oceans-study-says)

<comment><USER7> In my view, this could be dangerous if we do it before we are on the way to eliminating carbon via an alternative. If we get a symptom reduction via aerosols, we might just burn everything we can, and have some terrible effects on the oceans.

We might have to do it anyway, but I'm hoping we can hold off till we have a replacement, so as to avoid compounding things even worse than they are. Human psychology being what it is, we'll use aerosols to push off solving things.

Anyone know the expected outcome of a seriously acid ocean? My assumption is it would be civilization ending in some way, but maybe that's wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> David Blume [1] has been promoting for years the idea of small-scale alcohol fuel production integrated into a Permaculture farm.

This is a simple, backyard technology that can be adopted incrementally. The fuel is carbon-neutral. If you don't have land, you can join or start a Community-Supported Agriculture co-op, for produce _and_ fuel.

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

</comment><comment><USER6> > To stabilize climate at any particular temperature level, however, it is not > enough to halt the growth in annual carbon emissions. Global net carbon > emissions will eventually need to reach zero and negative emissions may be > needed for a greater-than-50% chance of limiting warming below 3.6°F (2°C) > (see also Ch. 14: Mitigation for a discussion of negative emissions).

</comment><comment><USER19> Here's one reason to be hopeful that there's a (relatively) easy fix for some of our problems.

[https://climitigation.org/olivine-can-reverse-climate- change...](https://climitigation.org/olivine-can-reverse-climate-change-and- ocean-acidificaiton/)

> In this case, we are looking specifically at the rock olivine when it comes > in contact with ocean water and the CO2 dissolved in it. What results is a > chemical reaction that pulls carbon from the CO2 in the ocean and binds it > in a solution that eventually settles into rock on the sea floor. Not only > does the olivine remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but the resulting solution > is alkaline and has a deacidifying effect on the ocean.

<comment><USER20> This is a hopeful direction but it sounds like the jury is out of this can really scale to anywhere the amount we need. But it's cheap and it helps with the oceans so seems like it's part of a solution matrix. Also seems lower risk than spraying stuff into the atmosphere so I hope we can get moving on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The other elephant in the room will be the precipitous decline in fossil fuels in the coming decades , maybe sooner then we think and what this will do to our society in maintaining our present complexity and more importantly food production.

</comment><comment><USER22> Interested in mining carbon from the air?

Check out the AirMiners index of 83+ startups at [http://airminers.org](http://airminers.org)

Please add new companies you find, too!

<comment><USER23> Wait until humans figure out that air itself is a precious and limited commodity. When the air grab starts many will die.

<comment><USER24> Not to worry, I hear the Druidians have plenty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Terriying for us and future generations. Simplest actions we all can take: 1 stop eating meat (especially beef pork lamb) and dairy (especially cheese) 2 lower unecessary travel 3 get energy efficient appliances 4 buy less stuff 5 demand more action from govt and corporate world

</comment><comment><USER26> I would love for all globalist climate change doomsayers to put their money where their mouths are and stop flying across the globe in jets, driving in cars, and eating vegetables and meat from commercial agriculture, but I am not holding my breath.

Let's face it: The science behind climate change is likely sound, climate change is real, and we should probably do things to address it.

What is not science is accurately predicting the future. That cannot be done. Relying on computer models that can't possibly take into consideration every variable that can affect the climate, to me, is a waste of time, resources, and human lives. It is definitely not something we should base our governmental and societal decisions on.

<comment><USER27> What _should_ we base our governmental and societal decisions on?

<comment><USER28> Doing nothing.

His use of "globalists" says all</comment></comment></comment>


IPhone 5 ranks 5th in user satisfaction in US behind 4 Android phones  - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/iphone-5-ranks-5th-in-user-satisfaction-in-u-s-behind-four-android-phones/

<comment><USER2> Ridiculously misleading graph.</comment>


Airbnb JavaScript Style Guide - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/airbnb/javascript <comment><USER2> The best part of this guide is that they included a eslint and jslint rules file.

[https://github.com/airbnb/javascript/tree/master/linters](https://github.com/airbnb/javascript/tree/master/linters)

My team adopted this style guide and was easily able to add it as a eslint step to our existing gulp files and run it automatically. This let us use the guide without making everyone memorize the syntax differences between their personal style first.

</comment><comment><USER3> Regarding using single quotes for strings ([https://github.com/airbnb/javascript#6.1](https://github.com/airbnb/javascript#6.1)), I found it interesting that it's one of the rare sections where there's no rationale offered.

I guess it's just a stylistic choice in the end, but when we set up our own internal/informal style guide, my teammate and I spent a little while trying to come up with a justification for single vs double quotes. We ended up choosing double quotes based on the fact that JSON already made that decision for us: it requires strings be double-quoted.

(Although again, it's far from an important matter, as long as you're consistent), anybody has interesting rationales to share in favor of single quotes?

<comment><USER4> If you use contractions like don\'t inside of a string then you need to escape the apostrophe if you\'re using single quotes, which is annoying and can make the string a bit harder for humans to parse. I like the aesthetics of double- quotes better too, though that\'s not a compelling reason.

<comment><USER5> Well, one simple typographical way to solve this is not to use a quotation character (') when what is meant is an apostrophe character (').

<comment><USER6> "Don't say "Hello""

Proper typography solves all.

My toy programming language uses " and " for string literals. It counts nesting, so you can write "Don't say "Hello"". There is no escaping. In fact, you can quote any piece of code by simply enclosing it in " and ". Code is commented out by turning it into an unused string literal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The fact that `typeof` is no longer safe [1][2] is news to me - it feels like they put in air bags and removed the seat belts.

      [1]: https://github.com/airbnb/javascript#14.1
      [2]: http://es-discourse.com/t/why-typeof-is-no-longer-safe/15

<comment><USER8> The only code affected by this would be code that uses typeof to check for the existence of a variable the same code defines later, which sounds like dumb code to begin with. I don't think there's any valid uses of typeof on possibly undefined variables besides checking for browser built-ins.

<comment><USER9> Using typeof(foo) === "undefined" is actually something that comes from back when it was pretty common to pollute the global namespace. There were actual javascript plugins/libraries/snippets that defined undefined and thus broke code that compared to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks like a lot of good stuff but it's incredibly verbose and dense. It's important to adhere to standards but I'm not entirely convinced this doesn't end up being counter-productive. But as long as it's a guide and not a 100% "you must follow every little thing" and you can change things then maybe it's not so bad.

Still hard to get used to so many using ES6 already. I'm still not a big fan of transpiling but some days I feel like I'm the only one.

<comment><USER11> Yes, there is a mix of pragmatic advice (with citations) along with stylistic opinions. I think the ES5 version is also quite good. Look at the number of forks, though. I might use this as the basis for a style guide for my organization. I think I'll probably fork it, though, and remove the opinionated bits. I did enjoy the writing style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I didn't know you could do this!

          // good
          const obj = {
            id: 5,
            name: 'San Francisco',
            [getKey('enabled')]: true,
          };

<comment><USER13> Next to arrow functions and optional arguments, better object syntax is one of the big reasons you should be using Babel today. You know how sometimes you need to precalculate values that are going to be returned in an object, so at the end of the function, you return something like this?

      return {
        foo: foo,
        bar: bar,
        baz: baz
      };

You don't have to do that in ES6.

      return {foo, bar, baz};

Keys without values use variables with the same name as their values.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love these kind of style guides. But I also love to prove them wrong.

Unless you "use strict", it's better to put var in-front of every variable if you put them on separate lines.

      var foo = 1,
          bar = 2
          baz = 3

vs

       var foo = 1;
       var bar = 2;
       var baz = 3;

Forgetting a comma or semicolon in the first example might lead to silent bugs that will take hours to find.

<comment><USER15> Isn't this exact rule already in the guide?

[https://github.com/airbnb/javascript#13.2](https://github.com/airbnb/javascript#13.2)

<comment><USER14> Ahh, someone might just have added it to troll me, or I'm crazy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You can use the airbnb preset with JSCS (javascript code style checker) [1].

Also there's an autofix feature for most of the whitespace rules (`jscs src --preset=airbnb --fix`) so you won't have to fix everything manually.

[1]: [http://jscs.info/overview.html](http://jscs.info/overview.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is the ES6 guide I send around to those who are trying to get up to speed with JavaScript -- its fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER14> About referencing "this": It can be very useful when writing object constructors, if you always reference an object with the constructor's name.

      function Foo() {
        var foo = this;
        foo.bar = 1;
        foo.az = 2;
      }

      var foo = new Foo();
      foo.bar = foo.bar + 5;

Then it will be super easy to rename say foo.bar to something else. It's also self "documented".

</comment><comment><USER18> There's also a jscs default for this styleguide.

        {
            "preset": "airbnb"
        }

</comment><comment><USER19> There is also a link on the page to browser compat style guide of es5 [https://github.com/airbnb/javascript/tree/master/es5](https://github.com/airbnb/javascript/tree/master/es5)

</comment><comment><USER20> Does anybody have experience integrating style guides in your existing code base?

Our old code base doesn't follow any style guide. After adding a style guide it requires us to go back and fix all our old files which is time consuming + kinda messes up with the git history.

<comment><USER21> Yes: Check in a unittest that runs your linter, and check in the config as well (eg jshintrc). Tackle all the flagrant style issues until the test passes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> _" Recommend using .jsx extension for React components, rather than .js"_

I like .js over .jsx because I can require/import without explicit extension.

      import Foo from './Foo';
      vs
      import Foo from './Foo.jsx';

<comment><USER23> Great, so you'll never be quite sure whether that module is a plain ol' javascript, or contains React-extended components... eventually it'll all blend together and you won't have much awareness, say .. a year or so after you've put the code to bed .. what is where and how ..

<comment><USER22> Not really. In a real-case scenario React-extended components stays in "components" directory and is not to hard to be aware that is react-extended component.

But yes, I got your point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why are they worried about working by reference on numbers?

      // bad
      var a = 1;
      var b = 2;

      // good
      const a = 1;
      const b = 2;

<comment><USER25> In JS `const` just means that you can't reassign that variable, not that the value it references can't change:

      const a = {foo: 5};
      a.foo = 42; // This is perfectly valid.
      a = 'nope'; // But this isn't. It raises a SyntaxError.

<comment><USER26> 'const' is misleading, it doesn't set your variables as immutable. Fine for expression, but not for actual practicality.

<comment><USER27> It does set your variables as immutable, just not your values. It makes sense if you see variables in these languages for what they are: references to values.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As an alternative style guide, consider giving standard [0] a try. The hook is: "No decisions to make. No .eslintrc, .jshintrc, or .jscsrc files to manage. It just works." You don't have to configure anything, you just run it on your project and it'll tell you what to change.

[0] [https://github.com/feross/standard](https://github.com/feross/standard)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'd like to see the justifications for some of these, particularly 3.5 which I see as only obscuring that the current context is a function.

<comment><USER15> Major advantage: fewer characters to type and parse (parse with your eyes, that is).

Major disadvantage: in the short term it might be difficult to parse.

Possible additional major disadvantage: programmers may never adapt and find it difficult to parse for ever more.

<comment> atinoda-kestrel Yeah, I'm not sold on "fewer characters" as a win. 'cause then we can have the code golf arguments that inevitably get into the nutty realm.

For visual parsing, consistency matters. In an object literal dec I expect:

      name : value

That's easy to parse visually. Not good is when suddenly we get:

      nameandvalue(){

in the space that our brain expects the former.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30>
       3.3 Use readable synonyms in place of reserved words.

       // bad
       const superman = {
         class: 'alien',
       };

       // bad
       const superman = {
         klass: 'alien',
       };

What is unreadable about "klass"? Rails, for example, uses "klass" and it's never been hard for me (or, I suspect, anyone) to understand.

<comment><USER31> They probably don't mean 'class' in the programming language sense and should therefore use another name.

<comment><USER32> Well maybe they _are_ using "class" in the OOP sense, for instance if they're implementing a programming language. Even if they're not, if they use the word "class" in the specification for what they're implementing (maybe they're representing a taxonomical hierarchy in their program and have fields named "kingdom", "phylum", "class", etc), or have the word "class" in a user facing output (maybe they're making an RPG where a character object has fields "race", "class", "level").

It's confufing to use one name inside your code and different one elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm curious as I haven't found a good coding style guide about object inheritance in ES5.

I usually write this even though it's a bit verbose:

      function Child() {
        Parent.call(this);
      }
      Child.prototype = Object.create(Parent.prototype);
      Child.prototype.constructor = Child;

Any opinion on this or link to a good guide?

<comment><USER34> ES6 actually solves this with it's new Class syntax.

      class Child extends Parent {
      }

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> So basically they could have just written "use all of the new features except these three things..".

</comment><comment><USER36> Maybe this is the IPA talking, but I don't think I ever want to work at a company with a style guide again.

This is no worse that others I've seen, but they all codify what some group found useful at some point in time, and then that becomes Company Policy set in stone for the rest of time.

<comment><USER37> The alternative is that every coder has their own style and over time every file becomes random and wildly inconsistent. That doesn't sound good to me either.

<comment> atinoda-kestrel There's a middle ground though.

On my team, the long-standing rule is that you need to make a best effort to stick to the module's existing style. So we're not gonna bust your balls because you don't split at exactly 100 characters or whatever... but if you never wrap your lines and if you insist on indenting things completely differently than everyone else then yeah, you're creating a problem.

It also helps that our "style guide" is pretty minimal. Brace conventions, indentation, spaces before conditions, etc. Things that have a serious impact on readability and ease of debugging and that can easily be auto-formatted. What we don't specify is the higher order stuff -- _provided_ you are internally consistent. We don't mind if API A uses one naming scheme and API B uses another, provided that we don't have a mix of different ones in the same API. Same for how something like object extension is handled. This falls into the realm of "we assume our developers will make the best technical choice", but so far it works.

There's always a complaint that specifying the braces, spacing, etc. is stupid, and if it required a lot of human intervention or was treated as a serious offense I'd agree. For us it doesn't, and it's not. The purpose is to limit the amount of visual friction when switching from one file to another. _What_ the code is doing is the important part -- presentation should be as uniform as possible to limit distraction. Add in the fact that we've got an Eclipse profile with all the spacing, etc. setup the way that we do it, and it's pretty easy to keep things tidy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21545687/javascript-vs- ne...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21545687/javascript-vs-new-object- performance)

-explains why {} is better than new Object().

</comment><comment><USER39> Alternatively, idiomatic.js [https://github.com/rwaldron/idiomatic.js/](https://github.com/rwaldron/idiomatic.js/), an older publication with more people contributing to it.

</comment><comment><USER40> ES5 guide - [https://github.com/airbnb/javascript/blob/master/es5](https://github.com/airbnb/javascript/blob/master/es5)

</comment><comment><USER41> Love this guide. Adhere to it as tightly as possible for most new projects, saves a lot of mental overhead. Use the ES5 version for team frontend projects. :)

<comment><USER42> Amen! Though I am partial to idiomatic.js' whitespace suggestions:

[https://github.com/rwaldron/idiomatic.js#spacing](https://github.com/rwaldron/idiomatic.js#spacing)

Much easier to skim/parse quickly, at least for me.

<comment><USER43> No, no, no, this has to go away. The insertion of spaces before ) and after ( is something I see from time to time in JS code, and it is really difficult for me to read. Three.js unfortunately uses this, and mrdoob even has his own style guide. His style guide is probably the only thing I don't like about his work.

No school I've studied or worked at teaches this style, and JS traditionally has never been written like this[1][2]. And now I see it elsewhere as well. In some Java projects, for example. Where does this come from?

There are currently no known hard facts (conclusions from studies) about which of the whitespace styles have the best readability. So let's just all stick to the most common way of doing things, shall we :)

      [1] JavaScript The Good Parts
      [2] Google JS Style Guide http://google.github.io/styleguide/javascriptguide.xml

<comment><USER44> I agree. 'Cramped' there is more 'readable' to me. This is probably a matter of personal preference.

<comment><USER45> Ah, C layout orthodoxy at its finest: shove as much crap separated only by operators without whitespace on one line as you can. (not exactly what you said, but I'm extrapolating uncharitably)

I guess you could lampoon me as COBOL orthdoxy, liking spaces between symbols, but Lisp was good at using whitespace, rather than commas, between symbols as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Very nice work, but not sure that I'm onboard with switching `var` to `const | let`. Is the only difference between `var` and `let` scoping?

<comment><USER47> Not just scoping. The hoisting rules have changed. There's some discussion earlier in the comments regarding `typeof` no longer being safe to use with `let` and `const` declarations. `typeof` with a `var` before its declaration is fine because of hoisting, but with `let` produces a reference error.

<comment><USER45> I didn't even know there were "hoisting" rules - I put all my variables on one var line at the top of the file, then assign them later. Well, except for lately, function variables in JSDoc work better when the function-var is immediately assigned :-(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48>
        3.5 Use object method shorthand.

I disagree. With anonymous objects it breaks the syntactical uniformity of the expression. I think it is much clearer when each field is given a name(and a value) the same way.

</comment><comment><USER49> Having seen this updated version I'm not terribly impressed at their guide for ES6. No mention of symbols (which are pretty important if you're using classes), generators are ignored almost entirely, a pretty poor explanation of modules, etc.

<comment><USER50> You're in luck! They published this in GitHub so you can suggest changes you think might make things better.

<comment><USER49> Well, style guides are fairly subjective projects compared to most other open source projects, so while it might be worth my while suggesting things, it's not likely airbnb is going to change their style guide because I think differently to them.

Edit: Looking at some issues in the style guide repo, AirBnB seems reluctant to add or change the style guide to deviate from what they do internally (for instance, generators are rarely used, therefore they aren't encouraged).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Styleguides are a matter of taste and there are probably no two people in the world with the same taste. Was there a voting of this?

</comment><comment><USER52> 2.2 seems completely arbitrary to me. If your functions are so big that you need block scope, you're doing it wrong IMO.

<comment><USER53> How else would you use conditions or loops?

<comment><USER54> The style guide doesn't actually use block scope for if/loop.

Many items in the guide are...reasonable, but the explanations are gibberish or don't match the code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> wes-exp Airbnb's technical quality has been obviously crap for its entire existence. Why are we taking engineering cues from a glorified room rental site that is frequently buggy?

<comment><USER55> Don't think of it as advice from a crappy site. Think of it as developers at a big company sharing how they do things. Take what you want from it, or just use it as a conversation jumping off point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> // bad const items = new Array();

// good const items = [];

They obviously spent a lot of time on this guide, lots of investor dollars, and it's of almost no use.

<comment><USER57> Imagine this:

a = new Array(10);

b = [10];

alert(a[0]);

alert(b[0]);

Do you know the difference?

This is just one reason. Also [] will be faster. Just google the differences and why [] is recommended to use.

<comment><USER58>
      > new Array('a')
      ["a"]
      > new Array(2, 3)
      [2, 3]
      > new Array(2)
      [undefined, undefined]
      > new Array(2.3)
      RangeError: invalid array length
      > new Array(2.3, 4.5)
      [2.3, 4.5]

The Array constructor is really bogus. It switches to a different mode if a single number is passed.

ES6 added `Array.of` for this reason:

      > Array.of()
      []
      > Array.of(1)
      [1]
      > Array.of(1, 2)
      [1, 2]

I don't really think it's needed though. Spread and rest already take care of the common use cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I'm a big fan of javascript.

</comment><comment><USER56> // bad const item = new Object();

// good const item = {};

Literally useless differentiation.

<comment><USER60> Seems pretty useful to me. If I see "new Object()", I know the code was written by someone who doesn't know JS very well, so I should look more carefully for bugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I think I'd go nuts in a codebase with their whitespace and brackets rules.

Sure, cramming the opening bracket onto the previous line is just ugly and something you could learn to live with. But there's a special type of rage that can only be generated by clicking on to the start of a line and having your cursor land 1-2 spaces to the left of it.

Why would anybody do that to their code voluntarily?

<comment><USER62> Some style preferences are subjective, but some have very good reasons for being the way they are. Here's a simple JavaScript function that returns an object...

        function blah()
        {
          return
          {
            key: "value"
          };
        }

...except it returns undefined when invoked:

        console.log(blah());
        undefined

Can you spot the bug? With so little code, it should be obvious, right? Before reading on, stop for a minute and really try to find the error.

...

Figured it out?

...

The answer is that JavaScript has automatic semicolon insertion. That means there's effectively a semicolon on the same line as return. ASI is why, in JavaScript, you _always_ put the curly brace on the same line. Sure, you could try to remember the ASI rules, but you're guaranteed to be safe if you just put your braces on the same line. And considering how much code a typical programmer writes, you are almost guaranteed to inflict an ASI bug on yourself if you don't do this.

<comment><USER63> AFAIK, return statements are literally the only place where brace style is affected by ASI.

        var result =
        {
            key: "value"
        };

        return result;

works fine, plus it lets you more easily break on the return statement and verify/modify what will be returned when debugging. It would be kind of awkward to see braces like that in JavaScript, but a style guide could just ban returning object literals and make the ASI issue moot (at least regarding braces; you still have the other gotchas with forgetting a comma in a variable declaration, etc).

<comment><USER45> God I hate the term "semicolon insertion". It's a line oriented language, like shell or BASIC. You only need semicolons when you put multiple statements on a line (like a minifier does). Alas, like Ruby, JS does not require, or allow, an explicit line continuation, such as a backslash or ampersand.

I hate the asshole at Netscape who decided the browser scripting language had to be modeled after Java (C/C++, in other words), especially when it was clearly meant to be a functional programming language that worked with lists and property lists.

Man, I'm feeling "troll-ish" tonight. Not that I'm lying, just being blunt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Use const for all of your references; avoid using var. If you must mutate references, use let instead of var.

In my 15 years of programming javascript I've never once seen this matter.

<comment><USER64> That's because _let_ and _const_ where officially introduced in JavaScript this year, see the JavaScript standard ES6 (or ES2015).</comment></comment>


Show HN: Start an anonymous chat session with your Twitter followers - <AUTHOR> http://getwondr.net

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm one of the founders of Wondr and I'd love to get your feedback. Right now, we get 1000+ downloads daily with only viral.

Basically Wondr lets you start a Q/A chat session for your Twitter followers. They will be anonymous while chatting with you. It allows Twitter influencers to interact with their followers in a more genuine way. It has unique features like queuing conversations in case a lot of people come to the session.

Please try and tell us what you think.

Thank you!</comment>