Social Anxiety - <AUTHOR> http://inessential.com/2015/10/23/social_anxiety <comment><USER2> As someone who really has social anxiety, this is not it. I have absolutely no issues understanding non-verbal communication. I'm simply _scared_ of certain social situations, for no rational reason. There are relatively mundane group scenarios that will leave my heart pounding and my hands almost shaking, though I do my best to hide it, and over the years I have become pretty adept at just dealing with it.

With that said, I do not mean to diminish the difficulties the author here has experienced. I just think that anxiety is not the most descriptive label for them.

<comment><USER3> We're talking irrational fears?

For the longest time I had a fear of unfamiliar shower heads well into adulthood. [http://i.imgur.com/qcVVJwCl.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/qcVVJwCl.jpg)

Like if I'm in a hotel room and need to take shower, I have to take a deep breath and stare at it, telling myself "it can't hurt me" over and over again. The same kind of nervous I get in a plane that's about to take off. I still get a bit nervous to this day at 38 years of age. I suspect something happened to me at a young age but nobody seems to know what it could be. I've noticed that my 5yr old daughter is also scared of them when they make those whoosh- sounds just before water comes out. Maybe I was traumatized from that too.... I dunno...

<comment><USER4> I'm always curious about stuff like this so I don't mean to be rude, but in all seriousness, how do you think a shower head will hurt you? I understand it isn't rational so maybe the answer is "I dunno" but figured I would ask.

<comment><USER5> I suspect it is a sensory-processing thing. I'm reading waaaayyyy too much into this, but people on the Asperger's syndrome spectrum--even slightly--and more likely to be in the HN commenter crowd--have peculiar sensory issues. Often you see it with things like aversion (or preference) for certain food textures, so it doesn't seem out of left field to hear that anticipatory auditory and sensory stimulus (like the death rattle of a showerhead, or the subsequent burst of lukewarm water) would be a trigger. And that it would be passed down genetically or by behavioral role models...

<comment><USER6> part of the struggles we're having with my autistic son center around toilet training -- I think in large part because the bathroom is full of things that make running-water type noises, and those freak him out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hmmm. Much of what is described here is not social anxiety. He is really describing what seems to be Asperger's. The two are very often co-morbid and can be confused as being the same but they are not. While they often occur together, they do not always occur together. You can have one and not the other.

I have social anxiety but not Aspergers but I have spent time with others who have Aspergers. The thing about staring into someone's eye and not understanding social cues/norms is a trait of Aspergers and not social anxiety.

<comment><USER8> Can you describe what social anxiety by itself is like?

<comment><USER7> It's a morbid fear of social interaction. Some situations are worse than others. And, for me, it isn't caused by confusion over what to do in social settings (although when I was younger I had confusion due to lack of experience in social settings).

I don't have any difficulty with social cues or understanding innate human interaction. I am popular in the workplace because I'm forced to interact with others. Almost all my friends are from work. By contrast, none of my neighbors know me and probably think I'm odd because they never see me. That's because, when I have a choice, I will always pick avoiding social interaction due to fear. Whenever I leave, I check the peephole to make sure no one is around. I have gone a week or more without leaving my home. If not for needing food and to go to work, I could probably go months without leaving. And this is driven by fear of human interaction.

I can appear completely normal in social interactions. I understand eye contact and not to linger too long. I understand the need to balance talk and listening when having a conversation. I get jokes and subtle humor. Fist pumps get me excited. No one had to teach me these things. And most of my co-workers think I'm completely normal in social settings, though on the quiet side. But when given a choice I withdraw due to fear. In High School, I spent every single lunch hiding in the library or a bathroom stall. I did not know what the cafeteria looked like. I didn't go to a single party or a single date due to crippling fear. But this fear was not the result of feeling confused over social cues or behavior.

<comment><USER9> This all sounds very familiar. Thanks for writing this, I think I'll make an appointment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In my twenties, I discovered that a large part of getting over this stuff was learning to completely dismiss yourself as an actor while talking to other people. Forget you exist. Focus your thoughts entirely outwards. Don't worry about playing "hot potato" with the conversation; let yourself become a black box with no inputs back into that anxious, tumultous part of your brain that has to analyze every little detail of every social encounter. Allow the conversation to happen outside your head.

For me, once I figured this out, all that stuff about body language, social time, and not feeling "weird" just naturally fell into place. These behaviors were mostly functions of a mind trying to micromanage every single little thing. I'm still very bad at actually getting into social situations, but when I somehow end up in one, it's almost always OK.

I think this is why alcohol helps. When you're inebriated, you simply don't have the concentration to reflect every thought back inwards.

<comment><USER11> This sounds like a great advice. I've felt what you're talking about, I just wasn't able to reproduce it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A line that struck me as familiar: "I should add that my hearing's getting worse. Which doesn't help at all."

I wonder if the author is sure his hearing is actually getting worse or his perception is getting worse?

I once thought the same thing. tldr: Nope. My hearing is fine. Anxiety causes my brain, afaict, to always be on the lookout for threats. No sound was being filtered from my conscious. The perception was that I "couldn't hear". I could hear fine, but I couldn't filter out unimportant from important. The result is something that seems like bad hearing.

Taking anti-anxiety drugs solved the problem for me. Like magic I could hear fine. Conversations, even in noisy situations, became easy to perceive and follow.

I couldn't find any documentation on this at the time. The doctor didn't think much about the idea. I wonder if anybody else had the same experience?

<comment><USER13> This is a very interesting hypothesis. I've noticed my hearing has degraded in recent years and I'm definitely prone to anxiety in social settings - particularly in settings of new and/or recently acquainted people.

But, I've also been listening to deadmau5 for several hours each day since the summer of 2012.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was like this, to an extent, as well in my early twenties. What I realized was that I _didn't_ want to be like this, and like anything - it takes practice.

I consider myself smarter than the average Joe off the street, and you do too. Otherwise you wouldn't be reading HN :) So social cues, reading a crowd, and being engaging, it all takes practice. Yes, some people develop this naturally and don't need to consciously practice, but others don't. So just like programming, stop saying "No, I just don't get it", and instead reason why you don't and next time nail it.

<comment><USER15> I had a life-changing moment at 12 or so when I saw a local "human interest" TV show about a kid who had trouble reading body language so he decided to manually figure out body language and social queues, just like you describe. As I saw this I thought to myself "You can do that?!" and set out trying to train myself. It's definitely possible if you put your mind to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm self-diagnosed only, but have believed for a while that I may have a form of Aspergers. Pretty much ever since I knew what it was. And certainly have, since early 20's, had a mild form of social anxiety.

These days I'm several years removed from the peer pressures of having a robust social life, though I can't complain about those years. I did have a great core group of friends throughout college.

The "condition" certainly in many ways has been a curse over the years, but at the same time, now that I think I understand it, I feel it's a blessing. I have many things I want to accomplish in life. The blessing is, given that these days I'm highly focused and motivated with my projects, it would almost be impossible (and imagine I likely would have abandoned them) had I felt those efforts were in any way infringing on the social needs (status?) a typical person seems to seek out.

But I can see how, without those same motivations / aspirations I have, it could easily be considered a disease and something a person would have a hard time coping with.

</comment><comment><USER17> It makes me happy that the author is better understanding himself and not hiding behind blanket terms like "social anxiety" as if he were forever prisoner to the label.

> I think probably because I stop caring about being weird or not — and > there's a big, obvious lesson right there for me.

I think this is the key for most people.

Everybody is different. I started dating this girl who's a real sweetheart, but called herself awkward and weird. I said, "But that's not what I think. And so if that's what you think and that's what I think, then isn't it arbitrary?"

Labels are incredibly arbitrary and I wish people would treat them with more care. Hey, person reading this, you're an asshole! It's ok -- it's a meaningless label and bears no consequence on reality.. unless you let it.

The more you tell yourself you're "this" or "that", you're simultaneously blocking yourself from who you really are. If the canvas (mind) is blank and you're filling it with negativity, what do you expect to happen? Your expressions only follow what's felt within.

Everyone has a unique purpose, vision, and perspective here; as a result, when focused, everyone has a different way of applying themselves to the world. Years of learning X things combined with Y perception creates a unique human.

However, it's not about being unique either. That's just a label and means nothing in reality. The pursuit of specialness is properly defined and labeled as vanity. There's something better than that in all of us -- some drive to help other, to improve our own lives to improve others' lives, to guide others into doing the same, the desire to connect, the desire to love, the desire to impart wisdom onto others. There's always some good inside of us that wants to be _expressed_.

Expression is limited when a mind clouds itself with arbitrary labels that promote fear. One day, we'll all learn that all negative behavior stems from fear. One form of this fear is fear from your own labels or others' labels (also known as others' judgment). I ask you who's reading this, if you have a good heart with good intentions, who cares if I think you're an asshole? Do you really think it makes it true? Now you should be on the way to confidence and a healthy lightheartedness.

</comment><comment><USER18> What a great read. Very relatable.

I think one of the most difficult aspects of having moderate-to-severe social anxiety is that people often misinterpret the anxious quietness as standoffishness — then of course after you've experienced that enough times you learn to compensate by being overly friendly or enthusiastic which ends up weirding people out just as much.

<comment><USER19> When you're attempting to be social and someone brings the attention to how weird/awkward you are and then pauses like they expect you to respond to it when you're just trying to float around in the background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There are a few things that have helped me deal with social anxiety: 1\. Talking more with people that work in stores when I'm paying for something - Cashiers are great people to practice talking to. You don't have to do it for very long, and if you say something stupid, you rarely see them anyway, so no harm done. 2\. Noticing what socially adept people talk about - I think about the subject matter that social people bring up after I've seen them engage in conversation. I've realized that most of the time it's pretty trivial stuff, and that most people don't hold that against them. 3\. Avoiding people that hold you back - people that often say that I'm shy, or coming out of my "shell", just make me more self-conscious and awkward. I'll end the conversation quickly with such people and will not pursue interaction beyond the bare-minimum pleasantries. Even if they are well-meaning, they have a negative effect on me, so I'll avoid them unless they are closely related.

<comment><USER5> These are great tips.

Classic cashier talk at movie theatre or game:

Cashier: "Enjoy the show/game!" Me: "You too!"

Me, later: D'oh!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I haven't tried it personally yet but I recently read an article about a startup trying to help folks with Social Anxiety. If that's something that affects you, check it out: [https://joyable.com/](https://joyable.com/)

<comment> socially-awk I find the idea of providing mental health to people as a startup somewhere between horrifying and intriguing.

They are essentially offering to provide a doctor-patient relationship with "coaches" to make it so that "in just 12 weeks, you can lead the life you deserve".

I suspect no serious practitioner would be willing to state it quite that boldly.

Their copy reads like homeopathic/vitamins/magic/juju gobblygook filled with cherry-picked facts, figures, and good intentions.

On the plus side, the site has clear pricing information!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > _" I wonder if all I've done here is to describe why introverts frequently > describe being social as tiring. Extroverts have no problem with any of > this"_

This is good, but he loses me with this line at the end.

Extraversion is defined as "being predominantly concerned with obtaining gratification from what is outside the self."[1] Someone can have high social _need_ without high social _skill_.

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

</comment><comment><USER23> Stopped reading as soon as he shifted from a description of his horrific symptoms, to bragging about his intelligence and creativity. The dichotomy wasn't endearing, but I got it.

</comment><comment><USER24> The author's initial belief that they were somehow special (even if special in a bad way), plus the author's fascination with their own nature (to the extent that they write a blog post about it and how unique their insights are) smacks not of social anxiety but of narcissism.

What is the point of posts like this? So we can all get together and say, "oh boy, I really relate to that"? There doesn't seem to be any insight or useful takeaway from this article besides being relatable for a certain class of people who feel misunderstood.

Most of the things in this article that the author describes as being harrowing cognitive loads, like how long to make eye contact for or hold a handshake, are things that I have heard very socially skilled people talk about in a humorous manner. They have those same reservations and insecurities, the difference is they don't obsess about them. Look around. There is no such thing as "a normal amount of eye contact". Everyone is just winging it.

<comment><USER25> The point is that it gives you an opportunity to better understand someone else's subjective experiencing. That can be an enriching experience whether you relate to it or not. If you do relate to it, it might be comforting to know that you're not alone. If not, it might help you be more empathetic toward others. At the very least, it is interesting to many people to understand how others see the world.

Regarding eye contact and such, there is no officially mandated normal amount, but there are certainly social norms, which some people are able to follow much more instinctively than others. That said, I agree that a large part of the issue can be that people with social anxiety, or just insecurity, tend to worry about it more than others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Folks, this is why you invented texting, email, online community, almost the entire web world and mobile revolution is due to people having social anxiety like you.

Yet software eats world, digitization eats world, you conquered, and there is a purpose you're born this way, that's why you strive.

Having some arrogance will help in your situation. Take pride of what you're, change world to suit you, don't change yourself to suit the world. The funny thing is, the world is moving towards this direction already.

Screw the social norm, screw those extrovert psychopath, they're the root cause all human evil. Stop whining about who you are, you only need to prevail.

</comment><comment><USER27> Anxiety is a complicated subject, and can be interpreted differently depending on the sufferer's knowledge of certain areas of neuroscience and psychology. I've been lucky to study anxiety deeply enough that it no longer has control over me. As a sidenote, anxiety comes from the German word for anger, and is the result of unaddressed internal dialogue within the sufferer, closely related to cognitive dissonance, or witnessing too many paradoxes throughout the day. Avoid paradoxical thinking - it gets in the way of the task at hand, which is usually something mundane like getting in a lift, or even walking the dog.

<comment><USER28> According to Wiktionary, anxiety comes from Latin "ango" ("to anger" \- which also has the same root!), which in turns comes from Proto-Indo-European "*h₂enǵʰ". Closely related German words are "eng" (narrow) and "Angst" (anxiety).

<comment><USER27> Thanks for clearing that up :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> socially-awk Except for the effort with non-verbal communication, I feel like I wrote this.

I read non-verbal communication about as well as spoken word. I hate getting just the voice. Phone conversations are the worst.

Here's the thing... other people really do judge you. Some people make everyone else in the room feel at ease. I'm not that way. Sometimes I can fake it, but generally people don't seem to enjoy conversation with me.

It's very stressful alternating between saying nothing and too much, which unfortunately makes it harder to practice this skill of conversation that some people just find so easy.

<comment><USER29> Just stop caring what people think. It's up to them to signal you to stop. Talking about synths too much and they get uncomfortable? "Oh sorry I'm just really passionate about synths and I can fly off the handle sometimes!"

<comment> socially-awk Just stop breathing.

That roughly how the first part of your advice comes across. You are not the first and won't be the last. I bear you no ill will for saying it, but it's on the level of telling a depressed person to just stop feeling sad.

I don't know if I'm diagnosable as actually having Social Anxiety. Heck, I never even heard those words until some drug commercial came on TV, so I'm a bit suspicious of the label.

I do know that I see social experiences as different than most people. I've always been that way. Just a bit different in the head I guess. I like different things, think differently, and behave differently. It's part of who I am.

I'm very much the old-school nerd. The one that everybody rolls their eyes at when he starts speaking. I care about things they don't. I don't care about things they do. So it's work for me to communicate with others in a way that doesn't make them roll their eyes. Yes, it's a skill. I'm better at it than I used to be. I could probably be even better at it. But it sure won't be because I stopped caring. If I do that that I'd become an oblivious blowhard.

<comment><USER29> I can tell you're autistic just by the way you are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> A somewhat related article that I just happened to come across yesterday, including a novel treatment for social anxiety that is apparently helping some people by exposing them to uncomfortable situations that are much more uncomfortable than the ones they have been having trouble with.

I don't know if it would help this person, however.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/what-is- so...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/what-is-social- anxiety/411556/)

<comment><USER31> The treatment that article describes is called exposure therapy. It's pretty much the standard of care for treating anxiety disorders. If you're afraid of flying, you fly. If you're afraid of people thinking you look weird, you walk down the street with your clothes on inside out and backwards. If you're afraid of inconveniencing people, you drive really slowly and just imagine what the people behind you are thinking.

Eventually all this rewires your brain so it figures out you are not in fact going to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger every time someone laughs at you. It's a lot of work, it's painful, it's hard to stick with, and it works really, really well.

<comment><USER32> The problem is it still doesn't become "fun". It always feels like work for me to talk to people I'm not already comfortable with, so I generally avoid it out of laziness. And I don't see enough gain in forcing myself to. You can't collect people like you can collect money. I think the biggest issue I have is socializing feels like a wasted effort to me. Like I put energy into something that is fleeting and then gone. There were times in my life when I had really good friendships, but now it feels like too much work and uncertainty to establish new ones.

<comment><USER33> I used to feel much like this. After dealing with my social anxiety, I looked at it in a different light - that there isn't any pressure to make friends. It's more about just enjoying the time you are with other people.

It might involve a little joke, or an observation you share or is shared with you, that means nothing but a chuckle, or you get a smile and nice feeling, and move along.

When suffering from social anxiety, this can be difficult as my brain was too occupied worrying about what the other person was thinking about me, and that anxiety leads one to not be very capable of being themselves.

Let that go and I found my brain freed up to actually be me in the moment. I found that my prior rationalizations ended up just being that. I found people actually are quite enjoyable, as is small talk. What I didn't like previously in those moments turned out to really be all about me.

<comment><USER32> I used to be very scared of talking to unfamiliar people, but I no longer feel the fear. I'm thoroughly desensitized to it from lots of socializing in the past, and being employed at various companies for years where I need to talk to coworkers. I guess it's been replaced by an aversion to the whole situation, a mild distaste for meeting people. It's like I have a lot of mental baggage holding me back, which perhaps came from lost friendships and relationships. Maybe it's also remnants of the strong anxiety I used to have.

<comment><USER33> I know that I also dont maintain a lot of close friendships outside my family and SO. I am relatively self contained and don't seek a lot of advice or counsel. In that sense I'm very much a lazy friend as well, I don't want to put a ton of effort into them. I don't know if that is similar to what you are describing.

Perhaps being somewhat more self contained than others is a learned behavior to have helped us deal with being socially anxious. Would make sense. I accept it and it doesn't bother me about myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Fantastic job, if only verbal communication were as easy as written. BTW I have already deleted and rewritten this comment several times.

</comment><comment><USER35> I read the whole thing. Honestly, so what? You're beautifully awkward. You drum to your own beat. Thats actually cool. Unlike you, I consider myself very socially adjusted. Just because you're not doesn't mean I wouldn't want to chat with you, or be friends. In fact, I'd find you more interesting. Most people aren't judging. If they are, its a reflection of how critical they feel others are of themselves. Own it

<comment><USER36> So what?

Because it's incredibly exhausting and frankly depressing to spend years worrying about why nobody likes you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have a theory that at some point in their development everyone has this type of anxiety however most people in their early youth have selected for themselves a particular strategy to avoid being perceived as 'weird' which they adopt for life. Many people adjust this as they go throughout life, or adopt several strategies, but others simply stick with whatever worked for them at an early age.

The rationale is that it's always better to be perceived as anything but "mal- adjusted and weird". Here are some strategies which are considered considered better than "strange": "tells too many bad jokes", "too negative", "drama king", "never stops talking about his own achievements", or even "jerk".

"Oh he's just another class clown, or just another person who habitually points out flaws in others", or just another <insert stereotype here>. Basically as long as you can make yourself conform to an easy to understand conceptual framework then other people mentally model you together with an archetypal social role so to speak, and then you'll be perceived as normal.

While it's easy for me to summarize the negative sounding "non-awkward" strategies I must also point out that for every negative one there is a nice strategy available too. Choose wisely.

The nice versions require more patience, and practice to execute convincingly and there greater room for error. The primary benefits of selecting a nice strategy usually only surface over the medium to long term whereas the benefits to being a bully for example show up immediately (you're mean not weird, you're less likely to be picked on yourself, nobody thinks your shy, etc)

Any of these strategies once incorporated can make you seem well adjusted and can with time become second nature. Once you have one of these in your repertoire then you can just reach for it whenever you would have otherwise experienced anxiety over possibly being considered weird.

This whole situation presents a problem for people who feel like they might want to develop a more moderate or atypical personality. They hear the advice "just be yourself" and they think "oh, that means the world is my canvas and I can just paint whatever I feel like" but no in actuality "just be yourself" only works if you've already trained yourself to project one of these preordained social personas. In that case you can gradually begin to incorporate your own style into it but anything else going to end up being labeled as weird.

It's not a hopeless for those who want to have a distinct personality, all you have to do is FIRST learn to successfully wield at least one of these socially preordained strategies and then later layer your distinctness on top.

Of course nobody is willing to admit any of this, because generally speaking to let the cat out of the bag does two things:

1\. it makes people feel silly or embarrassed, and lowers their feeling of self-worth (even though it shouldn't)

2\. to speak of it makes you sound.. well 'weird'

</comment><comment><USER38> I have a default of dreading social interaction, even doing things with people I've known for over half my life, but I have noticed that there is a pattern where I dread something before doing it, and then I enjoy it. So the dread is irrational.

You know what's worse than people thinking you're weird, or dumb, or dorky? So many things. A million things. Words only hurt if you let them. (Of course there is a limit to this idea, but not in this context really.) So whatever the dread is directed toward, it's a fake idea.

A lot of times people try to address social anxiety by giving advice like "people don't think you're weird, they don't even think about you". There is truth to that, but also, people will think you're weird if you act weird. So you have to get used to the idea that people are going to think that about you, if you're a weird person- and weird people know who they are. (Funnily enough, if you don't care whether they think you're weird, you'll start to act less weird.)

However, the downside of not caring what people think of you is that you have no interest in being the life of the party or anything like that. So you can actually travel through the other side of this situation back into not being social.

Ultimately the key is being able to control your own thoughts, to interrupt the fear thought and shut it down, recognize it for the nonce that it is. I'm not sure what the process is for getting to that point, but you need to be able to do it.

</comment><comment><USER39> So beautifully explained. So true. For me.</comment>


Epic CEO Explanation for How Consoles Deserve 30% Cut but Apple and Google Don't - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/2020/08/sweeney_hand_waving_game_consoles_app_stores <comment><USER2> > provide marketing campaigns that help publishers get their games in front of > users.

It would be more accurate to say those campaigns help get their games in front of _other games_ in front of users. Advertising is an arm race, a consumer is looking for a game to play, the only question is which game will catch their eye first. But if you phrase it this way, it becomes obvious advertising and app stores (that function mostly as advertising in this case) don't provide nearly as much value as they claim, and are mostly parasites.</comment>


TypeScript to C++ - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ASDAlexander77/TypeScript2Cxx <comment><USER2> Other TypeScript to C/C++ projects which did a lot more:

* [https://github.com/ovr/StaticScript](https://github.com/ovr/StaticScript) * [https://github.com/ts-llvm/ts-llvm](https://github.com/ts-llvm/ts-llvm) * [https://github.com/nervosnetwork/minits](https://github.com/nervosnetwork/minits) * [https://github.com/andrei-markeev/ts2c](https://github.com/andrei-markeev/ts2c) * [https://github.com/yakir22/ts2cpp](https://github.com/yakir22/ts2cpp) * [https://github.com/duncanhorn/ts2cpp](https://github.com/duncanhorn/ts2cpp) * [https://github.com/sebbekarlsson/typescript](https://github.com/sebbekarlsson/typescript) * [https://github.com/andrejusk/typescript-compiler](https://github.com/andrejusk/typescript-compiler) * [https://github.com/sebbekarlsson/tscc](https://github.com/sebbekarlsson/tscc)

and etc

<comment><USER3> Notable that the first three are TypeScript to LLVM, they are aimed for AOT compilation of TypeScript instead of source translation to C/C++. Together with a good FFI this could work better than source translation.

The compilers with C++ target on that list don't "do a lot more". The others are not directly comparable.

<comment><USER2> yakir22/ts2cpp compile to C++, has GC, FFI and etc. Canvas example: [https://github.com/yakir22/ts2cpp/blob/master/TestScripts/Gr...](https://github.com/yakir22/ts2cpp/blob/master/TestScripts/Graphics.ts)

<comment><USER3> I stand corrected. The readme gave the impression of a much less mature project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like people looking for this solution might appreciate Haxe which is a strongly typed ECMA influenced lang that compiles to C++ and many other targets.

[https://www.haxe.org/](https://www.haxe.org/)

<comment><USER5> Haxe has been around for a while. I don't understand why it's never become a mainstream technology.

<comment><USER6> My guess is that it's mentally associated with Flash, and as such always had the image of being something built for maintaining old projects rather than create new ones.

<comment><USER7> Some of the biggest early Haxe users like Tivo were explicitly looking for a vehicle to transition off of Flash. That part of it definitely makes sense.

But more generally it is incapable of the kind of end-user tooling that attracts early adopters. This is because it targets everything, and so really using it means knowing the platform you target and being able to debug at both levels - it does what you would expect a best-effort compiler to do, but it does not try to magically cover up what's going on. You can be put at sea pretty quickly if things break several layers down.

And that makes Haxe a great technology and a less great product. When it's paired with a framework like OpenFL it seems to get a lot of interest though. I see it as a long-term "survivor language" since its premise is still valid - it will be able to keep hanging on, gradually accumulating more of a basis for itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I went ahead and skimmed the sample output C++ files for their test sources, but I have not yet seen everything in the project. I can not find an import for a garbage collector, so does this compile Typescript to non-GC'ed C++?

<comment><USER9> Looking at the example code in the readme, it looks like it doesn't even bother freeing memory. This project looks like it's just "write (a memory- leaking subset of) C++ in Typescript syntax". Maybe neat for educational purposes for people learning about the languages or learning about parsing, but doesn't seem directly useful.

<comment><USER8> I've looked a little more since I posted and I think your right as far as memory management goes. I hope this is a WIP project and not just a learning project doing what you guess. I think the idea/challenge of implementing a structural type system and then compiling it down to C++ more basic bidirectional checking style is interesting.

<comment><USER10> Doesn't Vala compile to C and handle memory safety somehow? Obviously that depends on some GObject stuff but I think a similar approach could probably be used in this case.

<comment><USER11> > Doesn't Vala compile to C and handle memory safety somehow? Obviously that > depends on some GObject stuff but I think a similar approach could probably > be used in this case.

Well, Vala still has some amount of manual memory management because it translates directly to GObject, not only for system resources but for types as well, so it isn't 100% memory safe, like Java or Javascript.

Vala is/was a great project, unfortunately, the C people at Gnome hated that and some Gimp maintainers refused to hear about Vala, and then it was blamed for I'm not sure what exactly by people who wanted to turn Gnome into a Rust project. The later also failed, because the same C guys don't want to hear about Rust either.

Interesting bits about internal politics at Gnome.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, sadly for Vala and our CPUs, there is too much JavaScript love at GNOME.

However the conversion from some GNOME components to Rust, seems to still be ongoing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A similar alternative (a TypeScript subset that compiles to WASM): [https://github.com/AssemblyScript/assemblyscript](https://github.com/AssemblyScript/assemblyscript)

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks interesting, I think I'll try this out with arduino.

<comment><USER14> At the risk of being downvoted into oblivion, why?

You'd be jumping through so many hoops to set up a build pipeline for transpiling Typescript into C++, let alone writing a BSP library in Typescript to interact with the Arduino SoC. ( Which is vaguely interesting, I'd still call it a fool's errand though. ) You'd surely be much better off investing the same amount of time and effort becoming proficient in writing C for the target platform.

<comment><USER15> > You'd be jumping through so many hoops

Jumping through hoops is a good metaphor for fun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Seems like a syntax-directed translation that doesn't really respect TS or C++ semantics?

</comment><comment><USER17> This is interesting. What would you say would be the intended use case? I can imagine: Trying to introduce Typescript for Hardware Programming and continued development of legacy products written in C++?

Perhaps code related to Operating System drivers, etc.?

</comment><comment><USER18> It would be nice if the README contained more samples of translated code. For example, I'm really curious on how it handles string literal union types or union types of things with different base types.

</comment><comment><USER19> What could go wrong... :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Weird that strings are passed by value instead of reference

<comment><USER21> Looks like they aren't std::string though, so maybe they're refcounted and behave like a shared pointer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can't say I've ever seen the "any" keyword in C++ before

<comment><USER8> It's not a keyword, it's a strict defined in core.h

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> love this!!! keep it up

</comment><comment><USER24> kill it with fire

</comment><comment><USER25> Why?

<comment><USER26> Maybe I want to have a C++ (native) port of my web library. I may want to start by transpiling my TS code (interfaces and classes) to C++.

I also wonder why isn't there to C# yet?

<comment><USER27> You're not going to port existing libraries with this. They will have to be written in a subset that is easy to compile.

GraalVM's native image has the same trade off.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does the Twitch iOS app keep me logged in after reinstalling it? - <AUTHOR> I thought that deleting an iOS app would delete all data related to that app. How does the Twitch app still know my account after I delete it and instal it again? <comment><USER2> Uber got in Big Trouble for this a while back[0]. Basically, device fingerprinting[1]. It seems like it's sort of OK now?

[0] [https://the-parallax.com/2017/04/26/uber-device- fingerprinti...](https://the-parallax.com/2017/04/26/uber-device- fingerprinting/)

[1] [https://nshipster.com/device-identifiers/](https://nshipster.com/device- identifiers/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Slightly related, I was able to take over an account with functionality similar to this in one of the apps from a big tech company recently. I reported it but no response so far.

Are there companies using unique fingerprinting methods to map users for faster logins? I didn't test it further. It happened accidentally.

</comment><comment><USER4> Apple keychain</comment>


Design Sprint – Everything You Need to Know About It - <AUTHOR> https://www.savahapp.com/blog/design-sprint-everything-you-need-to-know/ <comment><AUTHOR> This article will provide detailed information about Design Sprint, when to use it and why to use it.</comment>