No-cost desktop software development is dead on Windows 8 - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/05/no-cost-desktop-software-development-is-dead-on-windows-8 <comment><USER3> I think that non-windows devs don't realize how much Windows devs LOVE Visual Studio. They will spend however much money it costs to use it. Also, VS is like $500-600? Devs pay that for IntelliJ all day long, so why not VS?

Honestly, for a tool you would use all day long at work, $500 is cheap. If you NEED Visual Studio for C++, then it's worth the money.

Sure, on Linux and OS X you get free dev tools like XCode and GCC, but MSFT spends a lot of money building these tools, so if they decide they no longer want to subsidize them by offering them free, it's their business.

They want devs making Metro apps, not old Win32 C++ apps. If they don't get Metro apps to be built in a big way, Windows 8 tablet edition for human beings 2012 is never going to take off.

It makes sense for Microsoft.

<comment><USER4> developers only like visual studio because either they haven't had much experience with anything else, they use languages that require massive amounts of IDE to be practical or they paid for it which results in 'money bias'.

Its rarely because they knowingly like it.

That's the opinion I've managed to deduce after working with over 200 heavy vs users over 10 years.

<comment><USER5> I beg to differ. I've written code on Windows, OS X, and Linux, with tools ranging anywhere between Xcode, VS, and plain old vim.

Visual Studio is a fine IDE that has a lot of things going for it. Hell, now that I write Obj-C for a living I wish Xcode was more like VS (especially when it comes to stability).

In contrast, I'd rather marathon American Idol than use Eclipse for a single day.

<comment><USER4> Xcode is horrid. I used it for a year or so in 2008 on a project so I agree there.

Eclipse is fine when you get used to it. It has a fairly hefty learning curve but when you get there, it's awesome.

<comment><USER6> XCode has matured very recently. It's gone from worst IDE to arguably best in a very short amount of time.

Recent additions include integrated Git, code intelligence so good that it understands C++ templates, in-IDE static analysis, one-keystroke to fix typos in identifiers, etc.

<comment><USER7> Hmm...

No scripting. Cretinous window layout facilities. No search and replace in selection. No mixed source/disassembly view. Registers view disappears when as you debug. No keyboard shortcut for rectangular selections. Code browsing menu 'thing' doesn't show structs. That stupid log navigator is too damn narrow, and has a proportional font. Pasting of rectangular selections doesn't work. No column/line number display. Lacks numerous basic simple text manipulation commands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good. Microsoft can officially go to hell with respect to desktop development after the day I've had today dredging through a debugging job from hell.

75% of my time writing software is:

* Watching VS crash miserably. It's just seriously unreliable.

* Digging through MSDN trying to find out cryptic errors.

* Desperately trying to debug issues with various black boxes (today was 4 hours on a w3wp crash due to a CLR.dll bug related to stack usage resulting in an interesting session with EDITBIN).

* Dredging through hotfix lists trying to find out which one solved a problem.

* Sitting on the phone for HOURS to MS support who barely speak a work of English these days and don't give a shit - they just want you to fuck off so they can close the case. This is usually because two products won't talk to each other (IE and ClickOnce for example).

* WAITING LITERALLY FUCKING HOURS for things to compile and rebuild.

* Endless fucking updates that take several minutes to apply, sometimes an hour plus. I WANT TO USE MY FUCKING COMPUTER.

Not much:

* solving problems of my own.

Sorry for the rant but that's why it's really dead.

Good riddance.

It's all a "me too" as google and apple have app stores.

Bring on the web for everything.

<comment><USER8> You are clearly a troll who has either A) Spent no time using VS in real life or B) well...see A

<comment><USER4> Indeed I'm trolling so bad because I've only clocked approximately 18000 hours of using it in real life since the first beta drop of VS.Net 2002 to 22:15 this evening...

Yes that's really three zeroes rounded down heavily (8 hours a day, 23 days a month, 12 months a year for 10 years)...

<comment><USER8> Being that there was never a VS.Net 2002...It was merely Visual Studio.NET

But I digress.

Even if I assume honesty from you, what does it say about you that you would use a tool for 18K hours and then berate it in such a way because you had a bad day today? I have been using VS in its various forms since 1995 and while it can be buggy and can crash - it is still a venerable tool. I use XCode, MonoDevlop, RubyMine and Eclipse as well and they all have problems. Claiming VS is 'seriously unreliable' basically makes people ignore everything you say after that because millions of people know better. Crash yes, on occasion...unreliable is different.

<comment><USER4> It is referred to as VS.Net 2002 after VS.Net 2003 came out with .Net 1.1 if you want to be pendantic.

If you really want to be pedantic, Visual Studio .Net 7.0.

It's not just today - it's been 10 years of hell. Unfortunately it pays the bills (just about).

It's not venerable tool. It's like sitting in front of a pressing machine that pokes you in the eye once an hour, but not quite enough to do you serious damage.

I've been poked in the eye 18,000 times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems Microsoft only has one reliable tactical move: leverage the installed base of Windows users. They always fall back on this strategy whenever they want to prop up some other product.

For developers, they often provided carrots to encourage them in a certain direction. This tended to work sort of well, as there are always large numbers of new CS students expecting the Microsoft-recommended stack to provide a reliable career ticket. Maybe after they saw what Microsoft just did to Silverlight developers and they're not so eager to follow that path.

I never thought that they'd go so far as to actually take the stick to native Win32 developers. How can they not realize how much of their app ecosystem is still built on native code and how much easier it is to get started with that type of development on other platforms?

(In every one of these forums one or two people pop up to say how great this will be for developers and you can still use the free Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition to write native code or managed code to write C++. This is not correct, that product is crippleware and the managed code stuff is not anything like native C++.)

</comment><comment><USER10> Directly contrary to the thesis of the article: Microsoft is _absurdly_ generous with software licenses if you're going to build on their stack. Even without getting a deal from the inside, you can get on their e.g. BizSpark program, which gets you essentially _every software product made by Microsoft_ for free for three years.

<http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/>

The only requirements are you have to be working on the MS stack, privately held, and making less than a million bucks.

<comment><USER11> You're right it is _absurd_ \-- to think it's generosity. Whilst most development stacks these days are free in-beer-and-use for life - <USER2> gives you unlimited access to try out all their wares hoping you get hooked on as much of it as possible so when the 3 year is up, you're up for the lump some of your IT development infrastructure. It's a lot harder to move off a platform once you're hooked on it so by doing this Microsoft expects a life- long re-occurring income as your infrastructure upgrades and grows.

This 3 year "absurd generosity" is nothing more than a classic bait and switch Marketing strategy - although it does have the pleasant side-effect of not immediately obvious, and is sometimes mistaken for generosity.

<comment><USER12> By the time your biz has been developing for Windows for _3 years_ you should be able to afford the tools. It's not bait-and-switch, it's helping customers use a product to make money with which they can pay for the product - more a "pay only if it works for you" model. Fair enough.

<comment><USER11> > It's not bait-and-switch, it's helping customers use a product

It's only helping customers _choose their product_ and "3 years free!" makes the MS Stack look like a better choice than it really is against the "really is free for life" stacks. This all happens at the most critical time for a business - when stakeholders decide what platform they're going to adopt.

Meanwhile whilst your busy building your business on their stack MS is free to raise their prices - and SQL Server is amongst the most expensive licences and hosting there is, which has recently seen liberal price increases - whilst at the same time offering a sweet migration path to their expensive subscription- in-the-sky services (aka Azure).

<comment><USER13> So do you feel the same way about Basecamp or ZenDesk or Salesforce offering 30-day free trials?

They also have the ability to crank up the price whenever they feel like it. They're also offering their product 'for free' at the most critical time for a business - when deciding what product to use.

The only way what you say makes sense is if people buying into the program are dumb enough or ill-informed enough to not know that there are open-source alternatives available for what they want to do.

<comment><USER11> I don't use either myself.

But no one is confusing their free-trials as anything other than a marketing strategy to maintain a low barrier to entry to get more people to first try then use their product.

i.e. I've never heard anyone say SalesForce is absurdly generous because of their free trials.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This seems like a huge over reaction, and bordering on misinformation.

First of all, for the longest time there were no free versions of Visual Studio for producing any kind of application.

Second, even the recent "Express" versions have always been severely crippled. Where were the "No-cost 64-bit development is Dead on Windows 7" when the previous Express versions were released?

The Express versions are more like promotional tools than real versions of VS. For any serious development you'll probably need to buy a VS license anyway.

<comment><USER15> Exactly, Express didn't allow you to manage class library projects, which rules out almost all serious development anyway.

<comment><USER16> I've built class libraries just fine with Express. Personally, what is a problem for me is that it can't handle multi-language projects.

<comment><USER15> Apologies - I thought this was a restriction on early versions, maybe they changed it with later ones

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I started off as a hobbyist developer who thought you had to use Visual Studio to develop for Windows. So I pirated a copy because I couldn't afford the real thing. As soon as I figured out that there were cheaper or open source alternatives, I uninstalled and went that route. The Express versions made me look at Windows development again.

Even though I can afford the Professional version now, I really don't like to see the way that they are going. I think its boneheaded and might close them off to a new generation of programmers. Open Source and IOS development are already seen as the "cool thing". I don't see how this move gets Microsoft back into the good graces of a younger generation of programmers.

</comment><comment><USER18> I see this as just another side-effect of letting a marketing guy (Balmer) take the helm instead of a developer (Gates). As soon as visual studio became segmented into different versions it no longer represented a product designed to increase developer adoption of Windows. Instead, it became a potential profit center. A short-term financial gain at the long-term expense of Windows applications and market share.

Companies that are willing to take long term risks are not valued in a world of high frequency trading. Balmer is hoping that by force feeding Windows 8 Metro apps down developer throats he will convince Wall Street that Microsoft isn't dead yet.

</comment><comment><USER19> "It's very likely that most productivity applications will stick with the desktop for some years to come. The same is true of utility programs, AAA- gaming titles, and a large swath of current Windows software..."

My bet is most of these developers currently pay for Visual Studio professional versions anyway. So, not much different for them. Seems like the new restrictions are just for hobby development - they'll be forced to make Metro-style apps, which is what they (MS) wants.

<comment><USER9> How do you think these professional Windows developers got into it before they turned pro? Hint: most of them didn't learn it in college.

<comment><USER20> Downloaded VB6 for free from Kazaa?

Not me of course...

I actually remember trying to decide between eclipse and VB6. What whim made me end up choosing the latter now completely escapes me. I think it was because it didn't have those weird {} braces. Ah, C#, the irony.

<comment><USER21> Note you could buy a copy of VB for about $100. Which wasn't a bad deal considering it came with a thousand pages of manuals & tutorials.

<comment><USER20> At the time I was a hobbyist straight out of uni where £100 was rather a lot of money (yeah, they always convert dollars to pounds over here, greedy buggers). And I didn't need a manual as I picked up a 'learn VB6 in 30 days book'. Classic.

The trouble with all these 'cheap cause you use it all the time' tools is that to start with you don't want to use them all the time. So they're relatively very expensive.

For example I was just re-learning programming to prove a point to my boss that the internal IT program sucked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If my VS 2010 Express Edition works, why should I care?

Not having the 2011 IDE isn't going to affect my productivity anywhere near the degree that a lack of coding expertise does...it's not like I need to rush out and upgrade just for the sake of upgrading. If I have an excuse to skip an upgrade cycle next year, that's fine with me.

Over the long term, I expect Microsoft to continue to provide appropriate tools for the amazing price of free as in beer...again, it's just hard for me to see what someone is complaining about when 2010 Express Edition will continue to be available.

Finally, Reading through the comments, there's very little, "I use VS Express and now I'm screwed." I've played around with Windows Phone SDK, and it's easier to produce something that looks good than with WPF or Forms. Though I hate to say it, switching to all Metro for anything desktop related will probably make me more productive not less.

(edit) If I want to write a command line utility, I'll continue to use powershell.

</comment><comment><USER23> I used be one of those suckers who would fork over $hundreds to Microsoft every few years to keep up with the latest-greatest VC++ and SDKs. Always annoyed me how Microsoft would cripple its affordable tools in ways that I feel actually hurt Windows in the long run. It definitely made me shelve my own Windows projects and get into web development instead, and there's no regrets there.

</comment><comment><USER24> What's the larger strategy here: "Lose"?

I don't understand why they would do this. Seems like people will just shrug and migrate towards the free tools that will help them solve a variety of problems in more interesting ways (e.g. gcc, python, ruby, JS, etc.). Then they'll start migrating towards platforms that make it easy to create those solutions (Linux, OSX).

</comment><comment><USER25> I've found myself a nice sweet spot - Windows Driver Kit (WDK) - it ships with Compiler (MSC 15.0) that can target MSVCRT.DLL

It's unusual to use something like the WDK for Desktop Apps, but it works.

The compiler is a bit outdated, and there is need for some trickery to get stl7 (internal naming) to work, but if something is missing you can install latest WSDK with it and reuse missing libs/headers from there (platform sdk)

At work I do use VS2010 with .sln/.vcxproj, but for my projects I just stay away from this - either makefiles, shell scripts, or some other tool, but not .sln/.vcxproj

Then again, I don't do much UI stuff, and If I do - I do it in code.

Debugging is there (but a bit harder, then again much more powerful) with WinDBG. There is also OllyDBG.

So WDK + SDK (missing pieces) and I'm set. And since I avoid heavy C++ projects, prefer to stick to C it's not problem for me. Occasionally I have to fix simple problems, like variable not declared at the top of the block, which never "C" compilers are okay, but MSC 15.0 is not (the one from WDK 7.1)

</comment><comment><USER26> Reminds me of OS/2: a great OS with expensive development tools, and some of us remember how it ended... except that Windows 8 is not so great in comparison with contemporaries.

I hope Ubuntu exploits this opportunity.

<comment><USER9> I remember reading a Jerry Porunelle column where he described the difference between talking to IBM and Microsoft at COMDEX that year (1991?). IBM was charging something like $400 for its driver development kit at the time. He said "if I go over to the Microsoft booth and tell them I want to write device drivers for Windows, they'll stuff diskettes in my bag".

But I'm sure IBM was thinking "if you're making hardware devices why couldn't you afford $400 for a OS/2 driver developer license?" Like Microsoft's dim early understanding of open source software, completely missing the point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> For those just reading the headline and not the article, it is important to note that Visual Studio 2010 Express will continue to be available for free. (But it won't take advantage of changes to the compiler or the environment.)

<comment><USER9> Only a fool would base their development environment on the hope that an outdated compiler version will still be downloadable from Microsoft's website into the future.

That thing is crippleware anyway, it can't even produce native 64-bit executables. Raise your hand if you're still on a 32-bit operating system.

<comment><USER22> Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition is still available from Microsoft here:

[http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en- us/products/2008-ed...](http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en- us/products/2008-editions/express)

The reason Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition is no longer available for download may be found here:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/780741/where-is-visual- st...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/780741/where-is-visual- studio-2005-express)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I agree with Ars that the VisualStudio changes are bad, but is there any confirmation that the SDK change isn't temporary/won't have an official solution by the time of shipping? Microsoft has distributed the C++ compiler for _years_ ; it'd be very odd for them to do an about-face now. This reminds me off the uproar when Xcode 4 was suddenly a $5 purchase...except that it wasn't for users on the newer OS, when it actually shipped.

<comment><USER29> If so this _really_ sucks for build machines- don't want to have to get a VS license just for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Hopefully university CS courses will stop utilizing Visual Studio now.

<comment><USER31> I'd rate that as highly unlikely. Microsoft's DreamSpark initiative makes this software free for many schools.

<https://www.dreamspark.com/>

<comment><USER32> I get everything for free.. Server software, IDE, ... and I feel dirtier, and dirtier every time!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Or they can just use MinGW again just like when there was no free version of VS.

<comment><USER34> I used to be devoted VS2010 user, but when C++11 came out, I realized that Microsoft had no intention of incorporating all of the changes into its products in the near future. Accordingly, I moved to MinGW with gcc 4.7 and use Code::Blocks as my IDE. Although I'm giving up a considerable amount of usability, the trade off was well worth it.

<comment><USER35> > _Accordingly, I moved to MinGW with gcc 4.7 and use Code::Blocks as my IDE._

I note that eclipse + MinGW works quite well, though I wish the debugger was a little more configurable. I haven't used Code::Blocks, so I can't compare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is bone-headed, as are the restrictions on WinRT... Makes me more likely to focus on other platforms.

<comment><USER37> Why are restrictions on WinRT boneheaded? Windows on the desktop and Android on mobile shows us how spyware and viruses are a very big problem without those restrictions, compared to, say iOS. Not to mention battery life and security.

<comment><USER38> What's with the Android FUD? Care to back up your assertion that Android is inherently less secure than say, iOS?

<comment><USER37> Too easy.

How about this news from an hour ago?

[http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/2400009...](http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/240000992)

Or this posted 6 hours ago?

[http://www.cbronline.com/news/uk-regulator-shuts-down- androi...](http://www.cbronline.com/news/uk-regulator-shuts-down-android- malware-network-240512)

This was posted yesterday.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/05/23/researc...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/05/23/researchers- say-they-snuck-malware-app-past-googles-bouncer-android-market-scanner/)

Let me know if you need more references.

Note, I didn't say Android is inherently less secure than iOS. Apps policy is the difference and the topic of discussion.

What's up with the needless FUD accusations?

<comment><USER38> You said:

> Android on mobile shows us how spyware and viruses are a very big problem > without those restrictions, compared to, say iOS

Which I took as saying Android is inherently less secure, but I agree after your clarification that isn't what you were actually saying.

That said, this doesn't show Android is more susceptible to viruses than iOS devices, and iPhones are not immune to botnets either ([http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/03/09/8000-iphone- andro...](http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/03/09/8000-iphone-android- users-duped-joining-smartphone-botnet/) \- though this only affected jailbroken iPhones). Previous jailbreak exploits that worked through Safari could have been disastrous as well - it's not that iOS is more secure, but I do agree it seems to be less targeted. As the popularity of iOS seems to be on the rise I believe this will change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I hope nobody minds too very much if I inject just a little bit of reality here: we are just about the only profession/trade/occupation on the planet that seems to believe that our tools should be free (as in beer). Carpenters, mechanics, hairdressers, even window-washers all have to pay for their tools (and the associated supplies and tool maintenance), and most of them don't get anything like the ROI that a door-to-door ASP.NET site peddler would get pounding the pavement in downtown Lesser Podunk after buying the ultimate all- in version of VS. Maybe it's time we dropped the entitlement attitude.

<comment><USER40> >>we are just about the only profession/trade/occupation on the planet that seems to believe that our tools should be free (as in beer).

That is because software development tools like all other software is just data, once written and debugged. Data can be copied at zero cost, which can not be said about physical tools, at least for now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is not a real issue.

Visual Studio 2010 will continue to work just fine. As will 2008 or even 2005. Anyone with a business license, even a $50 sole proprietorship, can get every piece of software Microsoft makes for zero dollars via free MSDN subscription [1]. This includes licenses for Office, XP/Vista/Win7 home/pro/ultimate, Visual Studio Ultimate, SQL Server, and so on and so forth. The licenses are free forever and ever.

[1] BizSpark program. It's fantastic. <http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/>

</comment><comment><USER42> Its an interesting trend. The Ars prose was a bit more breathless than I'd prefer but there is an underlying 'computer as appliance' trend that has been steadily growing for some time. Some folks talk about the 'Post-PC' era but I feel like its more like things that didn't use to require a computer are being aggregated and replaced by something that contains a computer. TV/Book/Catalog/Phone/Game thingy. The canonical example is an iPad.

That said, there are more folks who could care less about writing code on a PC doing work or using one, than people who do write code. That fact coupled with the cost of tool maintenance leads Microsoft to choose the route they are on.

Computers, and dedicated personal computers, will continue until the heat death of the universe as far as I can tell but the number of folks who need the 'general purpose programmability' seems to have flattened out.

</comment><comment><USER43> As opensource library developer I think this sucks hard. They should at least let the command-line tools working so people can test if software still compiles/runs with their compiler without having to buy a license just for that (Borland C++ is this way these days). VS 2010 staying free is nice, but certainly it's missing some new C++11 features and obviously the amount of missing features will only increase over time.

Also I'm wondering something about Metro... so far I haven't found a wrapper for OpenGL, but only Direct3D. Yet another attempt at killing a competing standard?

</comment><comment><USER44> From a business perspective this makes sense.

C++ is a slowly fading language. Most universities/colleges are abandoning it and those that still cling to it are in an anti-MS mindset. Therefore, not to much to loose here.

<comment><USER9> FWIW, I've been hearing this since about a year or two after Sun released Java. I'll consider believing it when I see a major web browser or office suite written in something else.

<comment><USER45> Could have sworn that OpenOffice was Java, but turns out it's C++ after all.

In that case, I suppose this is your best hope: <https://github.com/mozilla/servo>

(Not quite a web browser _yet_ , last I checked its exhaustive feature list was "drawing rectangles". But getting there, slowly.)

<comment><USER9> Yeah I'm keeping my eye on Rust. I like what I'm seeing so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Is this saying that no way to develop c++ applications with VS 11 Express? If so, it is horrible for beginners, and I don't see how MS is going to benefit from this move.

</comment><comment><USER35> Every other release from microsoft gets committed to obscurity and ridicule. (ME, Vista, )

I was wondering how Win8 was going to self-destruct, thanks for letting me know.

</comment><comment><USER47> You already have tons of other super-lightweight great tools enabling you to create great client applications using only javascript and html5 already so server side languages are pretty soon mostly restricted to creating rest services consumed by the same javascript applications. Also when you can just use node.js to create the rest services the need for a tool like visual studio is really fading.

</comment><comment><USER48> Why are people complaining? This is exactly what one would expect with the MicroSoft OS option. This is their business model -- to make money and then use that money to deliver a user experience. Long term Windows users should not be surprised or offended by this.

</comment><comment><USER49> If it encourages people to dump Microsoft and develop on other platforms, I'm all for it.

</comment><comment><USER50> I am happy about this. Now c++ developers will hopefully look at the other options (Qt Creator, please try it) and normal users will look at other operating systems (ubuntu).

</comment><comment><USER51> I hope they at least let us write console apps. How many lines of code is a Metro "Hello, World"?

<comment><USER52> Four.

        <!doctype html>
        <meta charset=utf-8>
        <title>Metro app</title>
        hello, world<br>

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Yeah, that's kind of useless if you are a hobby developer releasing a free product.

</comment><comment><USER54> This is an absurd article. Microsoft spends tons and tons of time and money making this product that is Visual Studio. How dare they want people to pay for the full version. Express is a demo, nothing more and nothing less. Be happy they provide it at all.

</comment><comment><USER55> It seems that Microsoft is going full Apple.

</comment><comment><USER56> Why is Microsoft so hell-bent on destroying the desktop OS that made them what they are today? The Metro stuff is fine for tablets, but it's a TERRIBLE user experience on a traditional desktop computer.

I don't even understand this "everything must be a super simple little app" approach that both Apple and (and now because they're a big copy cat) Microsoft are taking. Is this really what the populace wants? I understand that constraints often yield the best designs, but this is a little crazy.

And as far as the dev tooling - that was one area that Microsoft was notably competent. I really can't see how this will benefit them in the long term. Seriously, what is the upside for them? A few more Metro apps? They'll win the battle but lose the war.

<comment><USER57> It's a disease. Once everyone realized that touch (and mobile more generally) interfaces were going to "replace" the desktop for many day-to-day uses, they all went nuts trying to rearchitect and "evolve" the desktop in that direction.

Thus Unity, and Gnome 3, and Lion, and Metro. And most of these things don't even suck, they're just needlessly different.

What irks me and others, I suspect, is that the standard WIMP desktop was a _mature, well-understood, and very usable_ metaphor. There's nothing wrong with it.

<comment><USER58> For you. For me. Not for grandpa. And there are more grandpas than hackers right now.

Immediate visibility of functionality, dropping the filesystem metaphor, standardizing and simplifying the installation of software, and enforcing a consistent UX works better than WIMP for a significant portion of people who would rather not expend effort on making their tools carry out their will. (Only, of course, if their wills are relatively simple. But the intuitiveness vs. power tradeoff is a technology problem, and one there is going to be market pressure to solve.)

<comment><USER57> This sounds like a statement out of 1985. It's belied by simple facts: penetration of smartphones and tablets into the "general population" is no better than it was for web browsing and general desktop computing 10-12 years ago. It's selling more devices, mostly because they're cheaper but also because they're inherently personal. Kids that would have shared the family PC in 1998 now expect their own 4S to carry.

And that's not to say that there aren't usability enhancements in the new devices that are worthwhile. But don't pretend that smartphones are "opening computing to a whole new world", becuase they aren't. Like the desktop PC before them, they are the tools of the middle class.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Microsoft still gives away the compilers, SDKs, .NET Runtime/SDKs, no?

Is the expectation that an IDE as powerful as Visual Studio be given away for free? Or just that the Windows Store not charge a fee for utilizing their distribution infrastructure?

There _was_ a time before Express editions.

edit: I failed to scroll through the rest of the article, feel free to ignore me. I would delete but I don't like stranding replies. Apologies.

<comment><USER28> If you read the article, you will find that MS is currently declining to ship compilers as part of the Windows 8 SDK, which is why Ars is so concerned. But I'd also point out that Visual Studio Express 2010 is indeed free, and far more flexible than its 2011 replacement. This represents a massive policy shift.

<comment><USER60> From [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/hardware/hh852363.as...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/hardware/hh852363.aspx) (under the section "Updated or Removed Features"):

          The Windows SDK no longer ships with a complete command-line build environment. The Windows SDK now requires a compiler and build environment to be installed separately.

Below that they also list a dozen tools and a bunch of documentation and samples that they also no longer include in the SDK. My guess is that they're just trimming down their SDK downloads. Their SDK has been getting more and more bloated over the years with utilities and samples and stuff that most devs don't need.

Completely dropping their command line tools doesn't make sense for anyone who runs build servers; it doesn't make sense for their Powershell tools; and it _really_ doesn't make sense when you consider their recent moves in Open Source. My guess is that the command line tools will be separate downloads from the basic SDK and you'll still be able to write C# code in Notepad++ if you like. The basic SDK will be targeting people writing Metro apps (which they want to encourage by default), but they aren't going to just drop everything else. This is a company that lives and breathes backward compatibility, after all.

It's just a case of poor messaging by Microsoft. Remember last year when everyone thought that all Windows 8 apps were going to be Javascript/HTML 5?

<comment><USER28> That's also my guess, which I indicated elsewhere in the thread. I'm definitely withholding judgment until we get a wee bit closer to the release date and have a better idea what Microsoft's actually trying to accomplish here. The lack of simple compilers in any capacity is bizarre, if taken as a final statement, since it'd _really_ throw the wrench in pretty much every Windows build farm ever. I suspect this is simply that, right now, given that VS.NET 2k11 Ultimate beta is free anyway, they don't yet have the compiler or doc downloads. I expect them to show up soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> excuse-me " productivity applications will stick with the desktop "

So by definition tablet and phone apps are unproductive? Actually that's probably true!

</comment><comment><USER61> This really isn't a big deal for me. Mainly because I have no urge to develop for Windows now, nor will I have the urge to do so then. That makes things so much easier.

</comment><comment><USER62> nice, foss wins:)</comment>


Entity/Component Game Design: A Primer (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://piemaster.net/2011/07/entity-component-primer/ <comment><USER2> If you want to successfully build a game, I recommend staying away from entity/component or any other overcomplex system ... until such time as you are an expert game programmer and _know_ that's what you really want (such a time is likely never to come, for one reason or the other).

I have worked on games and engines using several different systems, and the only ones I ever enjoyed treat entities as plain regular structs that you operate on with procedures.

The games I have shipped all treat entities this way. And I never thought "I wish I had made the entity system more complex". The top N problems on our list, where N > 10, are always about graphics drivers or APIs.

Entities are hard enough when they are just structs. Don't insist on making them harder, or you are likely to shoot yourself in the foot when it comes to performance issues, later.

<comment><USER3> Have you written about this in more detail Jon? I'd love to read about it.

I'm not sure if there's an explicit definition somewhere, but i think an ECS could be as simple as an entity struct that contains an (optional) physics struct, that is then operated on by some physics module.

<comment><USER4> What about entities that need specialized members?

e.g an "isOpen" member might make sense for a "door" entity, but it hardly makes sense for a "bullet" entity.

My understanding is that Quake2 "solves" this issue by making a big structure from the union of all specialized members (see: [https://github.com/id- Software/Quake-2/blob/master/game/g_lo...](https://github.com/id- Software/Quake-2/blob/master/game/g_local.h#L1054) ).

Although Quake2 certainly is industry-proven, it doesn't feel right for every specialized entity behaviour function to depend on members needed by other specialized entity behaviour functions.

<comment><USER2> The way I do it, each entity has one struct. So a Bullet is one strict and a Door is one struct. They both share common base members that all entities share.

But this is all that is really necessary. Once you start getting into components, you add a lot of complexity (even if the pitch is that it's "simple").

<comment><USER4> Interesting.

I'm not fully convinced by components either, I don't like the idea of the bullet behaviour code having to check if "this entity has 'propeller' and 'rigid_body' components", as if the bullet behaviour code had to re-discover what a bullet was made of (BTW, this feels like a re-implementation of coarse- grained dynamic duck-typing for static languages).

This problem is less visible when the game logic is written in Lua, where dynamic duck-typing is the rule. I do write my game logic in C++/D, though, and the problem is perfectly visible.

The way you describe how you would do it raises a few questions ; because now it seems you can't process entities in a systematic/opaque way.

This implies that, say, the renderer has to loop over bullets, then to loop over doors, and so on. Each time a new entity type is added, this part of the code has to be modified, even though most entities might share the drawing code (e.g mesh).

This sequence of loops appears in many places, like collision checking, game logic update, save/load, etc. and all of them have to be updated when a new entity type is added.

Something in my understanding must be wrong, because the way you do it obviously works ; maybe the issues I just described isn't so problematic in practise?

<comment><USER2> No, because they share a base Entity class.

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A post on the same topic that hn liked: [https://unlikekinds.com/t/game- components](https://unlikekinds.com/t/game-components)

(I wrote it)

</comment><comment><USER6> This article is mostly a list of ways _not_ to do entity/component- the sequel (linked at the bottom of the post: [http://piemaster.net/2011/07/entity- component-artemis/](http://piemaster.net/2011/07/entity-component-artemis/)) actually talks about how _to_ do it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Simple bags of data and the functions that act on them. That's a message I can get behind.</comment>


Using jupyter notebooks with a virtual environment - <AUTHOR> http://anbasile.github.io/programming/2017/06/25/jupyter-venv/ <comment><USER2> I encourage the OP and readers to also try pipenv. From the author of Requests it is like a breath of fresh air and gets the combination of pip and virtual environments just right.

[https://docs.pipenv.org/](https://docs.pipenv.org/)

<comment><USER3> This looks amazing, thanks for sharing! I wish Kenneth Reitz designed the interface for everything I use :)

<comment><USER4> [https://saythanks.io/to/kennethreitz](https://saythanks.io/to/kennethreitz)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also consider using Conda - to replace and simplify use of venv and pip. [http://stuarteberg.github.io/conda-docs/_downloads/conda- pip...](http://stuarteberg.github.io/conda-docs/_downloads/conda-pip- virtualenv-translator.html)

<comment><USER6> I agree 1000%! I honestly could not imagine using Jupyter without a virtual env. I don't worry about anything related to Python / virtual envs since I started using the Anaconda distribution. Further, every sciency tool is at my fingertips with almost ZERO configuration on my part...

If I had to vote on: "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it." for Python dev, I would choose Conda so hard.

<comment><USER7> How do you develop new packages? I think conda-build develop is not maintained

<comment><USER8> the develop command in conda-build is indeed not really kept up. From [https://github.com/conda/conda- build/issues/1992#issuecommen...](https://github.com/conda/conda- build/issues/1992#issuecomment-322588270) :

Instead, I recommend creating whatever environment you want, activating it, and then running python setup.py develop or pip install -e . so that your package is installed in develop mode in that environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice. Here is my starter [https://gist.github.com/lukasz- madon/ecf5813fddbbee7a261151d...](https://gist.github.com/lukasz- madon/ecf5813fddbbee7a261151d5634778c6)

<comment><USER10> here is a hosted playable version of your starter notebook (on gryd) [https://beta.gryd.us/notebook/published/gryd/notebook- starte...](https://beta.gryd.us/notebook/published/gryd/notebook- starter.ipynb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've also got a small CLI on PyPI to do the same: [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/callisto](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/callisto)

</comment><comment><USER12> Thanks for the writeup , and others for interesting suggestions. Always on the look out for people thinking about making scientific python more reproducible and accessible!

For myself, i just activate the venv and then open a notebook in that terminal and it seems to work? never had to install any other libraries to handle the VENV + notebook combo.

</comment><comment><USER13> Thanks for this. I've been running separate instances of jupyter on different ports. This is more elegant.

</comment><comment><USER14> I use virtualenvwrapper with my notebooks.</comment>


Martin Shkreli: Controversial 'pharma bro' refuses to testify over HIV drug - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-05/ex-drug-executive-martin-shkreli-fifth-amendment-us-congress/7142232 <comment><USER3> First, IANAL.

Second, I don't understand how raising the price can be illegal. If the company owns the product, then they should be able to set its price. Even if it makes people mad, or even if people die, his company has been granted ownership of this drug, and therefore should be able to set the price as they see fit. (I'm not arguing that this is a good thing. I think he is a horrible person. I'm just trying to objectively consider the legal side as I understand it.)

Third, this is not an example of the failure of capitalism. Pure capitalism would allow other companies to provide the same product, and competition and the free market would determine the price. If anything, this is an exacerbated example of government-sanctioned monopolies of specific products, as provided under patent law. (I'm trying to determine a better word to describe it... perhaps fascism?)

<comment><USER4> A pharmaceutical company has to work within a set of laws that limit what it can sell. These were developed in large part because "pure capitalism" didn't work for most cases of drug development. The elixir sulfanilamide poisoning crisis is quite instructive, as is the history of snake oil, quack medicine, and radium cure-alls.

These regulations mean pharmaceutical development is far from being a free market.

Some drugs, like colchicine and progesterone, were developed decades ago. The FDA would like them to be analyzed under the latest regulations, and is willing to grant market exclusivity as a way to entice companies to do this.

A generic producer must also prove that their formulation is identical to the formulation which was granted FDA approval. Turing used a closed distribution model, where only patients could get access to the drugs, not potential competitors.

As such, the companies did not "own the product", as you suggest. Not even the pseudo-ownership of controlling a limited patent monopoly.

You can interpret this a lousy decisions by the FDA that have nothing to do with capitalism. Which is correct. But the FDA itself was put in place for two reasons: 1) pure capitalism has a track record of failing in this area, and 2) traditionally the companies in this field knew to be greedy but not too greedy, so the rules weren't set up for 'horrible' rule-lawyers. Because if they were too greedy, the lawmakers could and will change the laws again.

So no, it's not illegal. But since the profits are made inside a highly regulated marketplace, it's best to not piss off the people who decide the regulations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The American people are fed up with the blatant profiteering of pharmaceutical company CEOs like Martin Shkreli. It must end."

The real problem is all of the regulations you need to go through with the FDA to get a drug approved. If it didn't take millions of thousands of dollars and a team of lawyers to get drugs approved in 10 years, the free market would force the hand of these companies and everyone's costs would decrease.

The government is equally greedy and more greed will not fix the problem.

In fact, most countries have cheaper drug costs because of the R&D that is done in the US. Preventing profit (like what Sanders will inevitably do with his health care plans) will be pretty bad for important drugs worldwide.

<comment><USER4> Your comment isn't all that relevant as Turing did NOT spend 'millions of thousands of dollars and a team of lawyers to get drugs approved'. Daraprim is a generic which had been available for over 60 years.

There were no R&D costs in this case.

Instead, Turing was the sole provider of Daraprim. It switched to a closed distribution model so other generic manufacturers couldn't show equivalence, which is needed for FDA approval, then jacked up the price.

At least, that's my understanding. In any case, it's far from what you suggest is the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's routine for riders to be put on bills to benefit the rich or big business - I'd like to see a rider to make a law to throw this guy in jail and take his money. Our society is supposed to serve our community - and this fellow has proven his disdain for our community values. Some claim that he is doing nothing illegal - well, we should change that - it should be illegal to act against our society.

<comment><USER7> What you suggest is a bill of attainder, and is expressly prohibited by the Constitution, for very good reasons.

<comment><USER6> It's fine to quote theory, but there are plenty of examples of laws passed which apply to a single person or small group. My impression is that they are written in such a way as to make them seem to apply to a general case - <USER2> just happens to only apply to one person.

<comment><USER7> Laws that practically apply to a small group or single person are not unconstitutional as a class, even in theory. So the practice you point to.is irrelevant.

Laws which declare a particular person a criminal and/or impose criminal penalties like fines or imprisonment on them, OTOH, are unconstitutional, and that's not just theory that is neglected in practice.

<comment><USER6> You say: "Laws that practically apply to a small group or single person are not unconstitutional as a class" \- but isn't that exactly what would be needed to define the actions of this scumbag as illegal and punishable by fines and imprisonment? This doesn't seem irrelevant to me.

I've read some of the laws protecting billionaires. And they can be very specific, applying only to people who live in a particular town and who have entered specific agreements. So, if we can use these laws to absolve the rich, we should be able to use them to define criminals against our society.

<comment><USER8> You could ban the things he's done, and throw him in jail if he does them again. You can't throw him in jail based on new laws for things he's already done (post-hoc law), or based merely on who he is (bill of attainder).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Web Cookie Is Dying. Here's The Creepier Technology That Comes Next - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/06/17/the-web-cookie-is-dying-heres-the-creepier-technology-that-comes-next/ <comment><USER2> This addon prevents fingerprinting:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en- us/firefox/addon/firegloves/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- us/firefox/addon/firegloves/)

Although for me it's breaking some sites.</comment>


Ask HN: Quitting my corporate job to help my dads failing small business - <AUTHOR>

My father owns a small tile (floor tile) store that has been hurting every since this whole housing mess. He's finally decided to close the doors and find himself another project to work on.
I've personally decided to quit my corporate job at a pretty sweet airline and go home to help him out...but I honestly have no clue what I'm going to do to help.
Would love some feedback on two main things:
#1 did I just make a big mistake quitting?...(though I will admit I've been losing interest in the job)
#2 How could I use the little web design/dev experience that I have to help him out?
Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!
UPDATE To clarify, I've already put in my notice of resignation and my father's business is still open.
As for me draining my fathers income, I've got a part time job lined up that I was doing in college. It's remote tech support for hosting services so it'll cover my bills...though I will admit my parents fridge may take a few blows with me back.
Really appreciate all the feedback!!! <comment><USER3> Maybe you did make a mistake. Your family had a diversified income stream before. You probably didn't send your dad money, but at least you weren't draining him, and if the worst happened, your income could have been a great help to the family.

Now all your family's eggs are in a single basket ... which is already leaking. Strategically, this was not optimum for your family.

Your dad is emotionally invested in his business, which has caused him to hold off shutting it down. Finally, he made that difficult decision, and you've come to muddy the waters.

I'm uncertain what kind of web site can realistically be expected to pull a failing floor tile store into success. Perhaps you and your dad can examine the local economy around your dad's store and start fresh with a new business, in a new industry, combining your skills.

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you quit your job already ? I strongly advise that you figure out a game plan and instead of acting with emotions, use a more practical approach. The thing is that just quitting without any plans might work for you but it is also possible that you could be in similar situation as your father i.e. both struggling financially.

Unless you have _some_ reasonable plan to help your dad out, I strongly advise against quitting your current job. Don't do it.

</comment><comment><USER5> This isn't necessarily something you can fix. And recognize that it may not be something that wants fixing. Your father's reasons for leaving the tile business may be analogous to your reasons for leaving a corporate job - <USER2> frees him up to do something else.

You'll probably have lots of jobs in your life. But you only get one father and a limited amount of time to spend one way or the other. What is the right choice for you, is the right choice for you. The right choice for him, is right for him.

Talk with him about it.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the advice, the thought of this being one of the last chances to really spend time with my father has definitely been a big factor in my decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> #1 No. But you wouldn't have made a mistake by staying either. Who you are is what choices you make, and what commitments you keep. Whatever choice you made would have been the right choice for the person you would have become.

#2. Just remember cash paramount. You can go years with little profit, or even no profit. You cannot last one day without cash. Your first consideration is bringing new streams of cash in.

<comment><USER7> About point #2:

Using your web design/development experience, start a blog relating to reviewing tile quality, articles about color suggestions based on room color or size, etc.

Find out what you can from your dad about best practices in installation and maintenance on tile and other options for floorting, etc. and offer advice to do-it-yourselfers.

Start an email newsletter, slowly, slowly build up an audience, and offer a way for potential customers to contact you for work.

People trust hiring someone who exhibits more authority in their niche.

After building up a blog, you can also look to use websites like ServiceMagic (now HomeAdvisor) to find projects. My dad has used this site many times to hire contractors and has always had a good experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really like the idea!Funny thing is I always advised people to do this when I worked at a web hosting company but somehow never actually got my own father to implement this in his business...time to practice what I once preached.

Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wait did he close doors and you're helping him with a new project?

I would learn marketing asap I can point in the right direction if interested - I've created measurable marketing returns for small businesses , but never a silver bullet approach. feel free to shoot me an email at davidcristello (at) gmail (dot) com

</comment><comment><USER9> Realize that his business may not be failing due to the housing crisis, but to other factors that you may not know. Find out more before any decision is made. Sometimes, business owners dig themselves into a hole they can't get out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very true, I had thought about this before but somehow let it slip my mind over the last few months.

Thanks for the insight!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> #1 No. The moment you stop waking up and looking forward to work its the moment to do something new.

#2. If you're going to be selling a service or product obviously make an e-commerce store

</comment><comment><USER11> You can use your skills to go online and build alliances with builders. Using your existing contacts, you can start a drop shipment kind of process for your online business.

Good Luck!</comment>


Groupon Announces Fourth Quarter 2011 Results [First earnings since IPO] - <AUTHOR> http://investor.groupon.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=647356

<comment><USER2> In previous quarters there was concern that accounts payable exceeded cash on hand, meaning they were quickly running out of money. This appears to have reversed in a big way.</comment>


Three effective tips to get started with conversion rate optimization - <AUTHOR> http://www.wingify.com/conversion-blog/three-effective-tips-to-get-started-with-conversion-rate-optimization/

<comment><USER2> >For example, commonly used examples of less effective call to action are "click here", "submit", "read more," etc.

>Instead, you should use more descriptive and persuasive text that tells your visitors where they are going and why they should go there.

Interesting how on their homepage the most noticeable buttons say "Learn More" and "Get Started Now", both generic and not very descriptive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Homepage is a very bad example of conversion optimization, there are so many possible _next_ things to explore for a visitor. If it were a landing page, I would have been very concerned. On homepage, having descriptive buttons can be suboptimal in some cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great advice! DropBox could use some of this. I was initially confused and rejected DropBox because I misinterpreted their download links. I only dwelt 2.7 seconds before hitting Back, but I suppose I'm somewhere in the middle of the bell curve on that.</comment>


VentureHacks wants to help you get "venture-hitched."  - <AUTHOR> http://foundread.com/2008/03/21/venturehacks-wants-to-help-you-get-venture-hitched/ <comment><USER2> This is a really interesting idea, but I feel that much like with other rankings by user recommendation, it inevitably leaves the door open to people who will learn the system and then work the system.

Also, I'm just not so sure about the idea of a middle-man in this type of situation. Perhaps I'm idealistic, but I have always believed that if opportunity doesn't knock, you should build a door.</comment>


Ask HN: From tech startup to finance. Bad move? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN
I was the first engineer at a tech startup in SV and, after building and leading an engineering team and scaling the company to ~40 people, I was passed on for a promotion, since the founder decided to bring in an experienced VP of engineering to take on the majority of my activities. I don't have anything against this new guy (except that he is not a very talented leader IMHO), but what disappoints me is that I have been completely excluded from every "leadership/management" task without being given any constructive feedback, and I am just expected to quietly switch to an individual contributor role after 3+ years of leading major initiatives.
The whole thing has been very ego-crushing for me, so I made my resume circulate through the help of a well connected recruiter in order to keep my options open. I got in touch with two very famous hedge funds for a backoffice role (cloud computing stuff: modern infrastructure management, rearchitecting of legacy applications, containers, ...) and the interviews have been very mature (no Google style). I got an offer from both places, they are localed in NYC and Chicago so I would have to move.
I have fundamentally two questions:
- What to do with the reasonable number of options I have vested
- Is this really a good career move? Am I just going to be extremely disappointed in a few months? FWIW, I worked in big enterprises before, but software was their core business, never trading/finance
Current employment numbers (startup):
- Salary: 160k
- Bonus: ~10k a year
- Equity: ~1% as ISO (after dilutions), of which I currently vested 80% (the startup is definitely on an upwards trajectory, at the moment exercising those options and paying the AMT tax would cost me around ~100k or more)
New offer by the hedge funds (they are pretty much comparable):
- Salary: 200k
- Bonus:
- 200k a year (minimum guaranteed by the contract, every year)
- 50k sign-on + relocation bonus
Thank you! <comment><USER2> I work at a hedge fund. In the front office of a smaller shop, but I am pretty sure I know both firms you interviewed with. First off, congrats on both offers, these are not easy interviews or easy jobs to get.

My 2 cents: Try to find someone doing the work you are about to do at the HF and have a conversation with them. I don't see any comment on here yet from someone who can speak from experience at a HF BO. That's a worthwhile coffee or phone call if you can find someone. Don't believe job descriptions, recruiters, or interviewers at the HF about what you will be doing day to day. Speak to someone who is a third party about the type of work in general (try Linkedin, Bloomberg, friends or whatever networks you are a part of to find someone to talk to). Ask them about the work, day to day, pros and cons, career progressions, lifestyle, etc...

Second part of the answer. NYC and Chicago, and the two firms, are VERY different culturally. Think about what city you want to live in and what firm culture you prefer.

I vote NYC over Chicago if you can. And then go for it, you have little to lose - if the work sounds interesting based on conversations with people actually doing it and the city is a place you wouldn't mind trying out living in, what are you worried about? You can always move back to SF or move to a different company, HF or startup in NYC.

As for the vested options Q. You haven't given enough info for anyone on here to answer that prudently.

Some people's sign on bonus will be negotiated to consider vested options at a previous job. Your offer looks standard and that you haven't negotiated anything on that part. Up to you if relevant, just sharing people do this. The HF is fully aware of what options are so you can bring it up with them if you choose.

Congrats again.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think you should make the switch:

[1] Cash portion of compensation is significantly better

[2] Diversification of experience improves. You have big enterprise, start-up and now would add trading/finance to the mix

[3] If you keep a tight rein on lifestyle inflation you could easily save enough money to become your own angel investor in 4 to 6 years from now if you really find you prefer the start-up environment

[4] If you stay the ego-crushing aspects will continue to weigh heavily on you and create daily stress.

</comment><comment><USER4> Take the new job. It's a new field, new challenges, lots to learn.

When you're done there, go to some other industry. Medical devices, alternative energy, aerospace, porn. Live in different regions, different countries.

That's the beauty of software. If you're open to it, you can learn a lot about different parts of the economy.

Or did you specialize in whatever your startup does when you were in school?

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely a sound argument.

I didn't specialize in school, I like to have a very broad set of CS skills, I found it immensely useful being able to know a bit of everything.

At the same time, in the startup I've been able to specialize in particular aspects of modern cloud infrastructures, and that's what got me in the door with these funds.

<comment><USER4> > I didn't specialize in school, I like to have a very broad set of CS skills,

> I've been able to specialize in particular aspects of modern cloud > infrastructures

That's fine, great in fact, but not quite what I meant. It was more of a leading question, at a higher level: you probably didn't specialize in whatever your startup is fixing or disrupting.

My suggestion was at a higher level than what we study at school.

How does a hedge fund work.

How does a medical device work, and not kill its patient.

How does an airplane keep itself flying, and keep its pilots and home office and suppliers informed about and in control of its performance. How do we keep passengers comfortable and entertained.

How does an airplane in flight fit in with all the other airplanes in flight and on the ground.

How does FedEx tell me that my new phone just entered their facility in Wuhan China (which they just did), and deliver on their statement that it will be here Thursday at 10:30am (which I believe will probably happen, plus or minus hours).

In that example, there's at least two parts: The logistics of actually moving that phone and knowing where it is, and the system that's keeping me, the customer, informed.

How do first responders know where to go, and how do we know who to send first? How does a wind turbine work.

"What do people do all day?" (One of my favorite books, and I'm pretty old.) [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/313375.What_Do_People_Do...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/313375.What_Do_People_Do_All_Day_)

For all of the above, and much else, software is both essential and incidental. It's the larger picture, what are we actually doing with software, that's most interesting (to me). We're lucky enough that we can move around and see all of that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 200k salary and a minimum 200k yearly bonus? Just take one of the HF jobs and you can retire in a few years and do whatever you want.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting choices you have in front of you.

Hedge fund pros and cons: * higher pay * more volatile pay * what is your long-term career path at the hedge fund?

Startup pros and cons: * probably a nicer work environment than a hedge fund * you feel disenfranchised

The simpler argument would be to simply take the job that pays the most. I think there are very few exceptions to that rule.

<comment><USER7> > The simpler argument would be to simply take the job that pays the most. I > think there are very few exceptions to that rule

An exception would be where the toll on your physical or mental health is greater than is warranted by the extra pay.

In my book anything that burns you out is not worth any amount of money < $enough_to_retire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You probably will be disappointed but it sounds worth doing for a year. You'll work with some smart people, but the culture is very different from SV startups. But for 450k it seems worth doing for a year.

</comment><comment><USER9> As a side question, can I ask how much experience you have other than your work at said startup? Within a year I'm going to have to make the choice between going the tradition route in tech or joining a high-frequency prop shop. The starting offer seems to be around 130-150k base with 20-80k bonus at the end of the first year (which is implied to scale heavily after the first year, unless things go really poorly).

If you were given the choice, which route would you take?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have about 7 years of full time experience on my resume, being in most places a functioning individual contributor. In the startup I have been able to explore other skills such as management and interaction with other parts of the business, all while being highly technical.

In your shoes, I don't know what I would choose, I don't know what to expect from the financial world. Money surely sounds nice.

As a further data point: if the interviews at Google/FB/... were not so crazy, and if I were given some sort of choice on the area to work on at those companies, I would have definitely tried the interview with them as well, but what I liked about these hedge funds is that I was interviewing for a specific role and so the interview process was pretty much focused around that, without anyone asking me to code an rb tree on a whiteboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can you tell us which hedge funds? I can't imagine hedge funds need much in- house technical work. HFT prop shops, on the other hand, are pretty much all about technical work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately I don't feel comfortable in sharing the names, but if you google "top 30 hedge funds", they'll be there.

From the interviews it seems like these companies are actually looking for people with distributed systems experience (think of SV's devops + architect skills), and willing to pay well for it (I've heard of several people leaving Google/FB/Netflix/... to join these groups).

<comment><USER9> Interesting. I did not realize that hedge funds would need such advanced tech like that. I have no doubt that they can afford to pay for it.</comment></comment></comment>


The Surface 2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/09/24/the-surface-2?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pa-mainsite+%28Penny+Arcade%29 <comment><USER2> The new docking station and ability to drive high resolution displays is a lot more important than sites are recognizing. We can finally truly have 1 machine for everything on the go and docked at work or at home. No doubt it'll likely be more of a pleasure perhaps in a Surface Pro 3 that would be lighter and even more powerful.

I don't really see the current crop of convertible laptop/tablets as solving this problem due to low perf and the fact that I'd never be able to code all day on those cramped keyboards.

<comment><USER3> This. I would go as far as to say this is where the PC is headed. Consumers will have one device like the Surface2 which is a tablet on the go and can be docked on the desk. Its already powerful enough for most peoples computing tasks and this will get alot better in the coming years.

The traditional desktop PC will be (or already is) a niche again like workstations from the past for professionals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been happy with my Surface Pro; the two changes I'm most looking forward to are the docking station and Haswell. The extra pixel density is a nice-to- have, but being able to pop it in and out of a docking station is killer. There are some other minor things I'd like addressed (the impossible-to-use microSD slot, for one. The always lost stylus is another), but I'll rebuy and probably hand the Surface Pro on to the kids.

<comment><USER5> Are you using it for anything in particular which benefits from the touch input? If so, is the stylus an important positive?

<comment><USER6> I own a surface pro and bought it particularly for the stylus and touch input.

I tend to take a lot of notes at work, and also as I am working on side projects and one day I took a step back and looked at my desk and said "Is it really 2013 and I am pretty much scraping away at dead trees with a piece of metal dipped in ink like a caveman!?". I had notes spread out over dozens of binders, notebooks, engineering pads, etc, etc. How is this still a thing?! I also lost a bunch of notes from my schooling simply because the box they were in got lost. It felt to me like the equivalent of conducting all of my correspondence via paper letters, and keeping them in boxes in the basement. Of course, instead I do it through email, all nicely searchable at the drop of a hat.

So the first thing I will say is that OneNote and the pen are a great writing experience. I do kind of miss the feedback of a pen against paper, but the "inking" in OneNote is top-notch, somehow looking even better than my regular writing. The response is really quick as well, which makes a big difference in feeling like you are actually writing instead of watching a line chase your pen around the screen. I've tried the Galaxy Note 10.1's stylus and S-Note and it is nowhere near as good. Syncing my notes to the Microsoft cloud is of course an added bonus for easy backup.

That said, the widescreen aspect ratio was pretty dumb, especially for something billed as a device for being productive. I really can't understand it from any direction, I mean writing a document will be worse, editing photos is probably worse, I guess maybe people editing video will be happy? A better, wider aspect ratio closer to paper would be a serious improvement.

At the end of the day however, I am able to take notes and do sketches, designs, etc, in a way that has a great writing "feel", offers search via really good text recognition, and offers seamless backup. I got mine discounted at a conference, so I can't say if I'd pay $900 for the ability to do this, but if I was back in University it would be an absolute no brainer. You probably won't find a better "writing" experience on the market, and if you do a lot of that then I recommend it.

<comment><USER7> "How is this still a thing?!"

Because the alternative costs $900 and doesn't fit in your pocket. Oh, I get what you're saying, I loved OneNote back when I had the old TabletPC. It's the best thing going, IMO. But I'm not spending that kind of money to run an OS I have no other use for, just to take notes. Make a $300 machine with a good digitizer that runs nothing but OneNote and I'd buy two.

<comment><USER8> The Asus EeePad was the best thing I ever used as a notebook replacement. I had to buy it from China and change the display text to English when I got it, but the screen felt like paper, the digitizer was Wacom, and the battery life was excellent. It would sync with Evernote (I wish it synced with OneNote). I could read and annotate ebooks and PDFs. There were two styluses, and a place to store them both. You could write normally, since the screen did not respond to touch (only the pen). The black and white screen was okay for notes, but if you hooked it to your PC, it became a full Wacom tablet for Photoshop etc.

Unfortunately, they never released it in the US, dropped Evernote support a while back, and have completely discontinued it. Did I mention that importing from China through a reseller and with shipping included it only cost $250?

<comment><USER9> I think you mean the Asus Eee Note? [http://www.asus.com/Eee_Family/Eee_Note_EA800/](http://www.asus.com/Eee_Family/Eee_Note_EA800/)

And dammit, that looks perfect for notetaking/sketching/etc. :(

<comment><USER8> Yup, EeeNote. Sorry! It really was great, but it lost all use for me when Evernote sync was deprecated. The barrier to getting my files off became too high (move them to a microsd card, then move them to my computer with an adapter I always lose).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've often wondered why Apple doesn't have an "iPad Pro" that includes a Wacom or Wacom-like stylus system. I know that Apple is very much "no stylus" and I'm positive that was the right move for most uses, but there seems to be an obvious market here for creative types that need a _real_ stylus (as in tip angle detection, pressure sensitivity, on-stylus buttons, etc).

<comment><USER11> > _I 've often wondered why Apple doesn't have an "iPad Pro" that includes a > Wacom or Wacom-like stylus system._

As much I'd like one (I have a Wacom too), the reason is because that's a market around 1/10000 the size of the overall iPad market.

MS offers that because it tries whatever it can as a differentiator, but it's not working very well for them.

<comment><USER12> The market for fingerprint readers for smart phones was almost nothing. Just look at the motorola atrix. Now Apple has added a fingerprint scanner and integrated it purely to make it slightly easier to log into your phone, and the iPhone 5s has sold out.

If Apple added proper pen support with palm rejection software APIs to an iPad, you'll bet that people will still buy iPads. Mums will use pens to annotate their extension plans for their new house, maps to the park for child birthdays. Kids will use the pen to become better illustrators which will help them be better communicators later in life. Uni students will use pens to jot down notes quickly and draw math equations with ease.

The pen on a tablet is not a niche. The Surface Pro is a niche product.

<comment><USER13> I had the original Palm Vx. I would never use a stylus because it makes nothing easier, except drawing. The stylus is sort of a gimmick. If you need to get serious work done and you are serious enough to need a stylus, the iPhone and iPad are not for you. As Elton Brown would say 'there is no room in the kitchen for multitaskers.' They do a bad job at many things.

Touch unlock, however, is already in use by someone's grandpa... it's clean, it's easy. It's not multitasking. It's making the current norm safer and faster.

<comment><USER14> Correction: Alton Brown says there is no room in the kitchen for UNItaskers (except fire extinguishers). He's actually a huge fan of multitaskers!

<comment><USER13> You are correct. Yikes, I got that one wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I had a Fujitsu Lifebook P1510 running Windows XP back in 2006... a 9" convertible tablet with a capacitive stylus. It's still my favorite machine that I've owned, and felt like the future (sitting on a couch, browsing the net & playing games).

It saddened me greatly that Microsoft forbade anything under 10" for Vista & Win7. The Surface Pro is the first Windows machine I've actually desired since then -- the only thing that held me back was the 4gb cap on RAM. I already pre-ordered an 8gb model and can't wait to play with it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm wondering how good is Surface as a Wacom replacement? Is it passable, how does its pen work with Windows/Photoshop?

I was looking to buy Cintiq 13HD for $1000, but a fully fledged tablet/laptop that is also a drawing board, for $900?! I mean compare this to Cintiq Companion which is $2000.

<comment><USER17> IIRC it has actual Wacom digitizer hardware in it, so that brings it a lot closer to a Cintiq than a typical touchscreen would be.

<comment><USER16> What about the pen pressure levels?

<comment><USER18> It has 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity. So it's very good at that. Initially it didn't work w/ photoshop so it was useless for many digital artists but they've fixed that now.

<comment><USER19> I just created an account to say that it's actually 2048 levels of pressure (instead of 1024), or at least it is according to the Cintiq Companion website. My cintiq 21UX is also 2048. I'm looking to nab a companion later this year so that I can work and be location-agnostic, so I've been watching the details of it as they've been coming out. on a side note, My only hope is that the battery life is good enough :P People have been decrying the lack of a haswell (the win8 version, not the android hybrid) which I guess makes for a less solid battery life? I'm not up on my cpu tech, so I can't say.

Wow, that was a longer comment than I'd originally intended. Sorry.

<comment><USER18> Thank you for the response. I should have been more specific in my comment. I meant that the Microsoft Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2 have 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity.

You are correct that the Wacom Cintiq Companion has 2048. Another down side for the Wacom Cintiq Companion is that it's quite heavy compared to other tablets. I have a Cintiq 13HD and I'm very pleased with it but for portability I might get a Surface Pro 2.

<comment><USER19> No, no, that's my bad, I didn't read very carefully.

Agreed re: weight, but I think (or at least right now I think I do) that that's not as big a consideration for me -- it seems worth it if it gets me a piece of hardware that's as good as my cintiq. But I agree that could certainly be a turn-off for some.

I'm still waiting for more definite battery data, but I think that might not be more forthcoming until people have had it in their hands for a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I did a bit of research on tablets and hybrids recently since my fiance needed a new machine. I ended up buying her a Sony Xperia Tablet Z (Andriod) since there really wasn't any good Windows hybrids on the market except for the Surface Pro. However, the battery life for the first generation was terrible and Surface RT isn't a smart investment because of the OS [place bet]dead in the next few years _cough_ [/end bet].

However, I personally want a compact machine with the full Windows 8 experience so I've been waiting for the Surface Pro 2.

If this thing has an all day battery life it will be an instant sale for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Devices like the Surface2 with docking capability could very well be the future of the PC. I could totally see myself getting one of these for my girlfriend or my parents as its all they need for personal computing.</comment>