Little Forms – an open source minimalistic GUI widget library written in plain C - <AUTHOR> http://runtimelegend.com/rep/lforms/index <comment><USER2> Blendish ([https://bitbucket.org/duangle/oui- blendish/overview](https://bitbucket.org/duangle/oui-blendish/overview)) is pretty amazing and lightweight (by itself).

It works with NanoVG, so it is useful in environments where you're already running OpenGL.

<comment><USER3> Thats a very nice find, thanks for the link. I'm not entirely sure about putting everything into a header file -- and marking load of pretty big functions as 'inline' but well, it simplifies the build a lot it seems!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really like this guy's approach to open source projects: [http://runtimelegend.com/abitopen.txt](http://runtimelegend.com/abitopen.txt)

Assuming this approach would relieve a lot of the stress I've experienced on my more popular projects. I'm seriously considering it.

<comment><USER5> Most of the benefit of open source projects is that they are open to collaboration, I would avoid even using a project with policies like that if I knew about them.

<comment><USER6> understandable, athough I can also understand his position.

Actually I think he himself just wants to not collaborate, but I don't see anything saying that you can't copy his code and then collaborate with others.

There are also other benefits of open source other than collaboration, such as security from being able to review the code, and being able to run in a totally free system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just. Amazing!

As someone who is Gtk, Qt, C++ averse, I thought I'll have to settle on something like FLTK. This is another option in my basket.

Is it tied to X or fairly independent? Because Wayland is an upcoming standard which aims to be a lot more cruft-free.

<comment><USER8> Why are you Qt averse? Is it the C++ or something to have to do with Qt itself?

<comment><USER9> I'm not the user you're asking, but:

\- It used to be that Qt was _massive_ ; because it existed before ubiquitous, usable STL implementations, Qt had to essentially also ship its own C++ standard library. Which meant that you couldn't use standard C++ strings, you had to use QString, and so on. This is less true with Qt 4 & 5, but reputations stick around.

\- Often-times C++ APIs are a pain, even if you are using C++, many people have the opinion that the API exposed should be C.

<comment><USER10> STL strings are also next to useless. startsWith(), endsWith(), split(), case- insensitive find, stringify a number, numericify a string, easily construct a formated string, properly handles unicode (wstring does not), all require extra code. QString has a function for each of those.

And the STL data structures are sometimes kind of unwieldy:

       if (dict.find(key) != dict.end()) { ... }

is lame compared to the easily understood:

       if (dict.contains(key)) { ... }

Not to mention all the stupid inconsistencies:

        // std::vector has no sort function, haha!

        std::sort(std_vector.begin(), std_vector.end());

        // std::sort doesn't work on std::list, haha!

        std_list.sort();

And my favorite annoyance, the fact that std::vector::size() returns unsigned int, despite the fact that for practical purposes you aren't going to get anywhere near even 2 billion elements without running out of memory (or other performance problems), so I'm stuck writing

       for (unsigned int idx = 0;  idx < v.size();  ++idx) {...}

or omitting the "unsigned" and getting lots of compiler warnings. I get why they would have done it; I would have done it too. Until I used Qt, then I like how everything is simply int. I suppose if you are doing physics simulations or something you might need something different, but it's the rare GUI program that needs unsigned int for size.

<comment><USER11> vector::size() actually returns _size_t_ , which is exactly the right way to go about, because why should a size() function be able to ever return negative numbers?

<comment><USER10> Good point about size_t, although technically it's std::size_t.

I agree, STL has done the "right" thing with sizes; of course negative sizes are meaningless. The problem is, Qt's way is so much nicer to use, even though it is obviously "wrong." Type three characters, done. Putting "int" in your headers, it's obvious what's going on--you're getting a number back. I suppose std::size_t is obvious, but it's hard to read, and I hate typing underscores. Again, more correct, but I hate doing it, which is just another reason why Qt is such fun to use compare to STL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another lightweight ANSI C library is [https://github.com/vurtun/zahnrad](https://github.com/vurtun/zahnrad). It is platform and render backend independent, has no dependencies and is configurable.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wanted something like this and was reading about GUI toolkits when I decided to take a moment to check HN. Talk about good timing!

On the other hand... I kind of want vector graphics, and cairo would be really great for that, and if I use cairo, well I might as well use gtk, and... hmm. I see why these things end up with lots of features.

</comment><comment><USER14> Plan C is just great. I always can get excited about software if its written in C. I still havent figured out why though.

<comment><USER15> C syntax is simple and elegant. Same can be said to Go and Lua, the later two have additionally very good inbuilt string support. The BNF of these languages fits on one page

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> wow, I dreamed I was in 2015 with powerful pocket size computers showing flashing GUIs with multitouch support. Darn.. I just woke up, I'm back in the 80's</comment>


Show HN: Txto – Never lose your text messages - <AUTHOR> http://txto.io

<comment><USER2> Looking at the site, I'm not sure how you get the text messages from the phone. This is interesting… The example in the video is a great use case, but I'm wondering how often that love story happens for an individual person. Would the text messages from a couple married for 10 years with a few kids be fun to read in a scroll? Maybe this is for new couples mostly. However, I do like the idea of being able to search through my text messages. What is the compatibility with non SMS messages? There are a lot of non SMS messaging platforms being used, some use SMS as a fallback. Very cool and interesting, the video was great, good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm wondering about the legal implications of this. While IANAL, SMS are (at least in Germany) also covered by the right to privacy of correspondence. Uploading them to your servers would violate that as long as you don't have the explicit permission by the other recipient. (+ you seem to be reading/accessing the contents?!)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is something that we take seriously. We use SSL and data encryption for the storage, and everyone can delete his data in one click at any time. We do read the content of the texts. The printing part is automated and externalized. (it is like printing photos).

However, your are right we do not have the explicit permission of the other recipient. It's kind of tricky to ask for this permission. Any thoughts?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Definitely put a 1-2-3 type basic explanation of how a user would use the service on the front page, possibly below the fold. I can't see how the service works and don't want to register before having some basic understanding of what it does beyond a vague, one-sentence description.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting product. Is your main focus the analytics and backup or your physical product?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are still trying to figure it out. Right now we do both. We have people who come to buy the scrolls as a gift. And some other people really love the analytics and backup thing.

<comment><USER5> Fair enough, good luck! Also you have a typo on this page: [https://www.txto.io/apps](https://www.txto.io/apps)

synchronize is spelled incorrectly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'am the co-founder of Txto. I'd love to have your feedbacks. Thanks guys!

<comment><USER6> Bah mon gars tout n'est pas encore traduit...

[https://www.txto.io/faq](https://www.txto.io/faq) dans How does it work, les images sont en francais</comment></comment>


Apple plans to spend $1B to support advanced manufacturing jobs in the U.S - happy-go-lucky https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/05/04/apple-plans-to-spend-1-billion-to-support-advanced-manufacturing-jobs-in-the-u-s/ <comment><AUTHOR> > Cook told "60 Minutes" in 2015. "I mean, you can take every tool and die > maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we're > currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football > fields."

In that interview he also said that the jobs weren't coming back.

This is one of the most powerful statements uttered on American labor and employment trends in recent memory.

I have shared this quote with every middle/lower-middle class person I know who voted for Trump and their responses have all been the same, horror.

Financial interests convinced liberals and conservatives alike that globalism was a good thing (for altruistic or selfish reasons respectively). Instead it just gave Capital access to cheap labor and totally fucked the American worker.

<comment> david-cako What's the answer? Protectionism?

That's the thing I don't get, so many people will advocate "fewer regulations", yet are perfectly content with prohibitive tariffs from the place that allows people living in section 8 to afford iPhones.

You're 100% right, but i just don't see a good answer other than coming to terms with the fact that cheap labour overseas and automation WILL back us into UBI in the very near future. It's the cost of doing business. No different than the argument that it's more economical to work an extra 30 minutes and pay someone else to cook for you.

Why such a large percentage of the middle class thinks that THEIR livelihoods are threatened by having the rich pay up, I don't know.

<comment><USER2> But it's not completely a labor play. Some of it is to skirt environmental protections. I'm not going to assume, but if you consider yourself both a globalist and an environmentalist, how do you personally resolve those two beliefs? Anyone reading this who does, how do you resolve those beliefs?

I can vote for all the environmental protections that I want, but what good does that do if it just forces companies to manufacture goods in places that have worse environmental protections than we do?

I ask this as someone who believes in both movements, and don't have a great answer to resolve this internal conflict.

<comment><USER3> The answer is not very hard. People like to attribute everything to regulation but the reality is that most parts of living standards improve when incomes grows.

As China becomes richer they will go threw the same stuff that Britain and later the US did.

Maybe I don't fit the bill as 'envoirmentalist' but I like to live in a place and country with a clean envoirment.

China will have to fix its own problems, and Im sure they eventually will.

<comment><USER4> Polution and slave labour in China.

Unemployment in the US.

Globalism sounds great.

<comment><USER5> Globalism is, and will continue to, happen no matter what the US does. The US needs to figure out how to make it work for the long term. Protectionism won't work. You might as well be a cooper or haberdasher trying to pass laws to keep people using barrels and hats.

People keep trying to either spin globalism as evil or good, but it's neither. It's just something that was going to happen no matter what. The US does not have a say in whether it happens. If the US doesn't figure out a way to make it work for them, then they'll be replaced by whichever country does.

The answer is _not_ passing laws for tariffs or thinking the US can race to the bottom with low wages and manufacturing. The world desperately needs advanced technology and medicine, and the US should be focused on that, not stupidly trying to compete with literally every other single country on Earth on things any country can produce.

<comment><USER6> Protectionism has proven to work well in some cases in history.

You are also misunderstanding by conflating globalism with free trade. The two are related, but not the same. You can be for free trade of goods and services, but not for unelected central powers (i.e. an EU, a central bank).

Mainstream academic economists are typically free trade, but we have no science to test this theory so just br careful about drinking too much of the kool aid. LarGe corps, banks, and US gov generally want globalism. Keep in mind why they want that (profit and power). We still have a lot of people suffering in 2017 and no longer a good excuse for it (i.e. resources scarcity cant explain malnutrition anymore).

<comment><USER7> The EU is unelected? Member countries send their own representatives to the EU Parliament; they send council members to the European Council.

The ECB is nominated by the EC.

The U.S. Federal Reserve commissioners and chairman are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

<comment><USER2> Many would consider that unelected. I'm sure you draw the line somewhere too: I doubt you consider every government employee elected just because you can draw a chain of responsibility back to some elected official.

<comment><USER7> Please don't backpedal by going into the definition of the word. The rhetorical value of "unelected" was to paint the EU and Federal Reserve as unrepresentative.

Hell, by your logic, the U.S. Senate before the 20th Century wasn't elected because they were elected by state legislatures instead of popular elections.

<comment><USER6> You are simply and flatly factually wrong about this, sorry. I encourage you to check out the textbook definition of the Fed as well as technocracy. You can also Google 'differences b/w a technocracy and democracy.' The Fed is widely accepted by every piece of academic literature Ive ever come across to be a technocracy, and that is the word we use to describe it. Also, the EU can and should be thought of at least being largely technocratic as well.

<comment><USER7> You're the only person in this thread to talk about "democracy vs technocracy," debating a point I never made.

<comment><USER6> When you were arguing about how the EU and Fed are, in your opinion, elected, I thought you would be able to make the connection. They aren't considered elected officials in the standard sense we think about it--in a democratic sense--and no one thinks that. They are unelected by any plain interpretation of _democracy._ That's the reason the word technocracy is used to describe them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is also geopolitical reasons for this. There is a high chance that east asia will be embroiled with some war coming soon, which will disrupt both manufacturing (either in china or Taiwan), or transports of goods.

Even if the North Korea problem gets solved, the China problem is still there and it wont be solved anytime soon.

If you have some streamlined manufacturing here, it is easier to fork it in case the main area of supplies goes offline due to regional wars/embargoes/troubles.

Right now relying only on east asian manufacturing is a single point of failure for apple.

<comment><USER9> I don't understand why this is being so heavily down voted. It's a major risk theme amongst asset managers: what happens if a major war in the South China Sea disrupts ASEAN and Chinese supply chains and/or trade relations.

<comment><USER10> Seems like a wild bet to make when the region has been embroiled in conflict far worse. People were still manufacturing in China during the American (Vietnam) war.

<comment><USER11> I believe that in the 60s, Japan was the source of many of the kinds of imports that we're now getting from China.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Apple says that it intends to bolster the U.S. manufacturing sector by > creating a $1 billion "advanced manufacturing fund" — with some of that > initial money going toward a company the tech giant is prepared to partner > with, chief executive Tim Cook said.

Amazing what passes for news these days. This sounds no different from what they normally do with their supply chain. Anyone remember GT Advanced Technologies? Apple wanted their sapphire glass for the iPhone 6 and fronted $439m for a factory in Arizona. The deal went south and Apple ended up owning everything and 700+ people were laid off. Apple turned it into a data center.

<comment><USER13> > The deal went south

It wasn't that the deal went south, it was that the company was unable to produce & deliver the product that they said they could, at the price they agreed to. GT bet the company on being able to fulfill their contract with Apple, and failed.

<comment><USER12> > it was that the company was unable to produce & deliver the product that > they said they could, at the price they agreed to

How is that not the deal going south?

<comment><USER13> Maybe it's not, but I think of "the deal went south" more as "negotiations broke down", instead of "it cost more to make the things than one party agreed to pay for them."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I read the headline and thought:

\+ Advanced manufacturing jobs are done by robots.

\+ $1 billion builds one moderately sized manufacturing plant (Tesla's Gigafactory is $5 billion [1])

\+ There's a scene _Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery_ I wish the press would review before reporting so breathlessly.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1)

</comment><comment><USER15> Setting up a fund to create jobs is a pretty telling indicator that those jobs don't exist, and aren't expected to.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think "Advanced Manufacturing Jobs" are going to be roboticist, machine learning and mechanical engineer related. Foxconn is moving this direction and I'm betting Apple thinks they can do it as well as them. Plus possible tax breaks based on Trump's comments.

<comment><USER17> Apple isn't probably thinking about doing this themselves. Note that Cook is going to "support," not actually build themselves.

They are most likely to invest in Foxconn to help them open up shops in the US.

<comment><USER16> Definitely possible, Apple uses vendors in a way that would be difficult to do themselves. However, if I'm right about the types of jobs this will create it does fall in line with Apple's expertise more than a human built process. Just as they are building their own silicon they may want to own pieces of build process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is the way to bring jobs back to the US. Start with investing "small" sums of money to create an enterprise that will require manufacturing expertise in some area. The ecosystem will then expand. Other companies can then take advantage of the same expertise. Also, the radius of expertise will grow as supporting jobs crop up.

</comment><comment><USER19> Or, to put this into perspective, that 1/250th of their cash on hand. [http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/02/investing/apple-cash- quarter...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/02/investing/apple-cash-quarter- trillion/)

<comment> J0-nas To be fair, while they are "richer than god" most of their money is either in some non-us bank to avoid taxes or invested...

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guess it's part of a plan to pay lower taxes on their oversea cash when they will bring it into the US. Create jobs, get tax breaks. Apple has stashed about $250 billion overseas and paying a billion to reduce the tax burden is most likely the cheaper option.

</comment><comment><USER21> Anyone else find it odd that all these headlines states only how much these companies are going to spend on manufacturing, but none of them say what they're actually going to be making?

<comment><USER22> Is it really that odd? Its a way for companies to prevent getting hit by a Trump tweet that deplores them for not hiring enough Americans. So now, everyone wants to portray any US investment they make, any US workers they hire, loudly and with big but vague/unspecific numbers.

<comment><USER23> Exactly this, which is also why every single automaker now publicly announces their retooling costs and shift changes for new model years. "We're spending $4B to improve manufacturing and hiring 10,000 workers" is a politically friendly headline even if you've done the same thing every year for the past few decades.

<comment><USER24> If that is true why was that message not popular under Obama as well?

<comment><USER25> Well, Obama didn't do a lot of shitposting on Twitter. Trump shaming companies on a daily basis is probably part of the reason.

<comment><USER26> Maybe obama should have too instead of planning to take 400,000 dollar wall street speeches.

<comment><USER26> Even elizabeth warren and bernie sanders are upset with obama taking 400k from wall street and not prosecuting them in 2008.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-400-000-speech-wall- str...](http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-400-000-speech-wall-street- elizabeth-warren-2017-4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This isn't just out of Apple's good heart:

[https://theintercept.com/2017/05/04/theres-nothing-apples- ce...](https://theintercept.com/2017/05/04/theres-nothing-apples-ceo-cares- about-more-than-not-paying-taxes/)

</comment><comment><USER28> So.. 0.3% of their cash pile?

<comment><USER29> I had the same thought. It's outlandish that a $1B investment in anything could be viewed as insignificant.

<comment><USER28> It makes me wonder.. how much Apple invest in China currently?

<comment><USER30> Apple's latest 10-K has them with 7.807 billion of long-lived assets in China; the majority of that is going to be manufacturing equipment.

They anticipate $16B of capital expenditure in 2017, where the breakdown there is between US Data Centers, the new campus, and manufacturing equipment requires someone who actually does analysis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> $1 billion. I wonder what % of their marketing PR a billion is. Because that's all this is. PR to buy a few good mentions and to enable Apple to say, "Yeah we're doing something..."

</comment><comment><USER32> So what'll that be?... 5 new jobs created? Look at the Tesla Gigafactory, they brag on how dense it is and how automated it is... that means less jobs.

I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm just saying bringing manufacturing back to the US doesn't mean jobs, it couldn't and still be profitable. Any new factory in the US will have to be so heavily automated it couldn't possibly provide any jobs

</comment><comment><USER33> Robots will assemble iphones in the US.

</comment><comment><USER34> So, engineers for the robots?

</comment><comment><USER35> Or, less than one-half of one percent of their cash reserves. That's generous and I'm sure it will be effective and not at all just a marketing gesture.

</comment><comment><USER36> Trump spoke to Tim Cook last night

<comment><USER37> While I don't doubt Trump will rush to claim credit, Apple has been looking at ways it can hedge against China and get "Made in America" gravitas for a long time, and steadily experimenting on that front with things like the Mac Pro.

<comment><USER36> it was a joke, i thought people would have like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Finally! This is long-overdue indeed.

On a related note, I was pretty shocked when I first knew scientific glass blower was a very special skill set and is dying.[1]

[1]: [http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-caltech- glassbl...](http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-caltech- glassblower-20160613-snap-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER39> It's so incredibly obvious that the best course of action is to let all these companies bring home all those foreign revenues so long as a significant portion of it is reinvested in the US is a reasonable period of time, excluding investments in financial instruments (stocks and bonds) and non- productive assets like land.

Any money that is stuck abroad will be reinvested abroad, making foreign economies more competitive relative to the US economy. Anyone arguing for taxing profits from abroad heavily I can only assume has a very poor understanding of macroeconomics.

<comment><USER40> The money isn't "stuck" abroad, it is hidden there. Don't pretend that it is the big bad tax man that is stopping these companies from being altruistic, this is 100% about maximizing profit.

The idea of reinvesting money domestically is good in theory, but how do you actually ensure that the money stays here? Is Apple Et Al. going to build, staff and operate these factories with local labour? Or, are they going to sub-contract out to the lowest domestic bidder who will just end up outsourcing the work overseas where the factories and labour is already established and cheaper?

<comment><USER39> Take the spirit of my comment and exercise the principle of charity:

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

I already suggested that we attach restrictions on what constitutes a valid reinvestment in the US. If you considered the spirit of my comment, it should be obvious that I would support restrictions that would prohibit the loophole you suggested.

Maybe we can even make it so the money can only be brought home piecemeal, one investment at a time, with each investment going through a process that demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of each repatriated tax dollar is going to benefit the US economy.</comment></comment></comment>


The joys of delicious Nickel Carbonyl - <AUTHOR> http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2004/03/28/thing_i_wont_work_with_2_nickel_carbonyl.php

<comment><USER2> Someone here was recently bemoaning the decline of copy editors and this article seems like a great example, because it has nickel spelt "nickle" 4 out of the 9 times it appears.

</comment><comment><USER3> I always wondered why fume hoods don't have a grating and pull from the bottom as well. Seems like there'd be a great many situations in which this would be handy.

<comment> alan-crowe But what do you do with the sinkers? You can hardly send them up the chimney and expect them to disperse into the heavens.</comment></comment>


How to balance full-time work with creative projects - <AUTHOR> https://thecreativeindependent.com/guides/how-to-balance-full-time-work-with-creative-projects/ <comment><USER2> I think side projects, software at least, are a lot like the Civilization games.

You can't wait to start. The first 10% is awesome. 10-40% is complex and the difficulty ramps up. 40-100%, all you can think about is starting over on something else. At around 80%, you just quit and actually do start over.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. My creative outlet is music, as it has been for 20 years, and I can tell you that your timetable holds true there as well. I've written a boatload of material but released very little (at least as a solo artist) because I never felt that a song was complete unless it felt utterly orgasmic to listen to. It took me a very long time to come to grips with the fact that even my idols have very few of these "perfect" songs. They probably felt like me quite often, but the difference is that they released anyway. So now, at that 80% point, I release the song. The ones that are special and can go to 100% become obvious as the song progresses, but they are rare.

The point is that it's better to share a lot of imperfect creative works than to never release anything because it's imperfect.

<comment><USER4> Your idols will have been supported by creative contributions from tens of other people including uncredited co-writers, producers, session musicians, mix and mastering engineers, marketing people, and sometimes record company executives.

Even with all of that backup, they still can't produce more than solid one hit out of maybe thirty songs.

<comment><USER5> There are certain artists who are fantastic, but I guess it's not easy to be objective with something g like music. What one person likes another hates. As for support, production quality alone is huge. Nearly everything I listened to today has sooo many vocal layers. Comparing a song I'm writing in the kitchen and recording on voice memos to a singer with his voice layered 4, 8, 12 times perhaps multiple background singers (very subtle) or heavily effected with vocoders/etc... of course your recording sounds like an average voice over mediocre instrumentation. The pros don't sound polished on voice memos either, which is why you never hear of any pros releasing them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My experience is that if you can afford it, allow yourself 2–3 months sabbatical, and after some time (for me it is about 2 weeks), you'll start to produce creative projects.

I personally write down all ideas and when I have time to implement them, choose what looks the most interesting (and feasible).

With this strategy, in the last couple months, I was able to implement:

[https://2018.bloomca.me/en](https://2018.bloomca.me/en) – just a website showing how bloated web is

[https://real-local-food.com/](https://real-local-food.com/) – project about local food

[https://nameless-hamlet-12227.herokuapp.com/](https://nameless- hamlet-12227.herokuapp.com/) – check your allergies application, built for a hackathon.

Now, you can notice they are not perfect, and by no means are finished, but before I was not able to produce that much.

edit: formatting

<comment><USER7> what do you do with insurance if your employer doesn't cover it while you are on sabbatical.

<comment><USER8> Get EU citizenship somehow and move to a civilized country?

<comment><USER9> Which EU country? In Germany, if you quit, you have to pay insurance while you get a new job (unless you're in unemployment benefit, which you don't get for a few months if you just quit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I tried to balance, but months would go by and I wasn't making progress that satisfied me.

I quit my job last month, and so far, it seems it was the right decision.

What really pushed me over the edge was just realizing how bored I was at work, and it wasn't just a slow period - it was systemic. The projects I'd fantasize about spaced out commuting home genuinely excited me, but then I'd snap out of it as soon as I got home and realized I had 4 hours to eat, bathe, and maintain relationships with friends and significant others. I was scared to think about losing my paycheck, especially because I'm not pursuing these projects as potential revenue streams - really just for the sake of exploring and learning new things. I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where my only financial obligation is rent, and as a software engineer, a few hours of freelance work per comfortably covers that.

I'm not advocating everyone go quit your jobs, because I realize everyone's situation is different. But life is too short to be bored as shit.

<comment><USER11> Same here, except it's not friends, it's kids. I spend a fair amount of my work day completely bored by the grind of software development and thinking about my hobbies (which right now is mostly screenprinting and music). But by the time I get home, cook dinner, clean up, and put the kids to bed, it's between 8:30-9:30, which means I have 1-2 free hours to do anything else. Having a creative outlet helps a lot, both because I have an urge to create, and nobody else gets to tell me what to do or how to do it. It's much more rewarding than video games or TV.

Not sure quitting my job is in the cards at the moment, but my son's preschool is closing down for the summer in June, before he starts kindergarten in the fall. I've considered taking the summer off to stay home with him for a few months and just do creative projects.

<comment><USER10> If you took the summer off, would you possibly work on a creative project with your son? It can be so nice to share something you love with someone you love, and motivating too.

<comment><USER11> I don't know about something big...he'll only just barely be 5 then, and his attention span is pretty limited. But I can see trying to something that we can work on where we can make small amounts of progress every day.

<comment><USER10> That sounds lovely. I wish you the best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really miss working on personal projects. Having young children at home makes it pretty impossible. The only time I have to work on personal projects is after the kids go to bed, and by that time my brain is done.

I have pretty much resigned myself to not doing any personal projects until they are older. If only I realized how much time I had in the before-time....

<comment><USER13> In the past I tried creative night shifts too, sometimes till 3AM but in the morning I was wrecked. So what works now: I go to sleep same time as my kids and wake up much earlier.

Benefits:

1) kids get good habit going to sleep at the right time

2) you get a proper sleep

3) at least my morning mind is much more fresh after some exercise

4) your creative wandering is time limited by how early you wake up - that is most difficult especially in the winter, but it is just a matter of habit and doesn't sacrifice health so much.

5) I am unlikely to procrastinate in the morning if I wake up with a planed task in mind

<comment><USER14> I have to try this. But how does it work out for you when you "have to" be up late, e.g. at social activities? I imagine yawning my way through a late dinner, falling asleep at the cinema.

<comment><USER15> Realistically, that sort of thing suffers. My wife keeps an early schedule and anything past 7 or 8 is iffy. She can usually do it, but there's a non trivial chance that she'll be too tired to function properly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The best way is simply not working full-time. Work part-time. I know you'll now come up with all sorts of excuses why it's hard/impossible. But hey, you want to do a creative project. That implies you are a creative person. So get creative. I assume the partial loss of income is not a problem. Can't be in our industry. So go negotiate with your boss. Negotiate hard. Your boss can't agree because he needs someone to occupy a desk - work half a day. Trade other benefits. Get your colleagues on board. No luck - change jobs, become a freelancer. Hack, you could even become a freelancer at your own former employer. There are plenty of options. Get creative!

<comment><USER17> > The best way is simply not working full-time

I would LOVE this, but I can't get insurance or benefits this way (in the US).

<comment><USER18> You can buy your own insurance and save for your own retirement.

<comment><USER19> > You can buy your own insurance

Depending on where you live in the US, this can be more costly than it's worth (compared to group coverage).

<comment><USER18> With group coverage you are paying much more than you think. The cost to your employer could have been paid to you as wages. The best option for buying your own insurance is to buy the absolute minimum coverage with high deductible and HSA option. Then put money in the HSA and save on income taxes.

<comment><USER20> > The best option for buying your own insurance is to buy the absolute minimum > coverage with high deductible and HSA option.

It's probably the highest expected return, but the greatest exposure to downside risk (conversely, buying the near maximum coverage HMO plan is probably the lowest average return, but least exposure to downside risk.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm a person who can't sustain my mental health if I'm not building things. Quite literally. And I know there are plenty of others like me who face the idea of a typical 9-5 life with crushing existential dread.

I appreciate the article, and I'd also caution anyone who opened it looking for magic tricks or simple solutions. There really aren't any. I work part- time and make substantially less money than I could working full time. I say no to friends who want to hang out. And sometimes I start to hate my creative work or get burnt out on it.

But I do it; I keep doing it.

I'm in a band, I make my own music, I built an art car for Burning Man this year, I write and design things. And it keeps me happy and keeps me going.

All I'm really trying to say is that it's like health. The trick to being in good health is that there is no trick. Eat well and exercise. The trick to having creative pursuits is to sacrifice the time to sit your ass down and get to work.

</comment><comment><USER22>
      - I work fulltime
      - I commute 30 minutes each day during the week
      - I am a fulltime dad
      - I exercise 5 times per week
      - I walk my dog 2x daily
      - ~10 hours/week on chores/yardwork/construction
      - I still manage to have a side project.

Its definitely doable, I think you just need to be a little bit mentally ill. :)

<comment><USER23> How many hours of sleep, nightly?

Lately I've been meeting many "hustlers" who are swearing up and down I only need 6 hours, or even less, which I thought would be obviously absurd, but this stupid meme keeps cropping up. The 80s sales gurus were teaching us this in highschool with their pep talks, and now the new-rich millenials are devouring it and sending it straight down the line on their instagrams.

<comment><USER24> In the 80s they had cocaine. One is forced to wonder if modern "hustlers" are omitting something in their advice.

<comment><USER25> Adderal, its everywhere, and not much in the way of side effects. Taking it while you are in the thick of a task is the way to do it; once it sets in you are working at 150% pace with undivided focus. This is the drug of the future. Much more sustained focus from caffeine, and no stomach discomfort or nausea that you might encounter with high caffeine doses. This drug, along with ritalin, are designed such that you can't get a high enough concentration of the drug in your blood to trigger any physical dependence or tolerance. Plenty of my friends have prescriptions, and doctors generally prescribe enough to be on the drug every waking hour for a month, whereas they might only need to take it a couple times a week for focusing on a specific task, so people whose ADD symptoms are milder tend to build up a surplus.

<comment><USER23> I don't agree that it's the miracle drug you're indicating.

First off, the effectiveness in diagnosed add / ADHD people vs people just using it doesn't seem to be 1:1. For example, it gets me focused on relevant tasks, whereas my non ADHD friends could easily get sucked into the infamous "clean the entire house" funnel. Or, it just makes them anxious.

I also suspect it dramatically reduces my emotional reaction to things, including art. I feel like it robotocizes me. Sure, I'm more effective, but time seems to just slide by without having any real impact on me. The weeks I don't take it seem to automatically be more "colorful" in my long term memory.

It's certainly made my life a hell of a lot easier as someone with ADHD, but I wouldn't sing its praises as a side-effect-less drug. If anything, the side effects are insidious in a dangerous (emotionally) and undetectable way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think what people should be doing is rethinking "full-time" work. 40-hour weeks don't make sense in today's society. Start negotiating the "standard" 9-5 contracts that are out there today, instead of just blindly agreeing -- ask your employer if you can do 4 days a week for the appropriate amount of pay.

In addition being on-call (thus sacrificing even more freedom and your time) and required to manage operations is cool only if your company pays you extra for that extra time you're losing. Since this is a more contentious issue I'll elaborate - in the past, companies hired night-shift employees and split the work, not giving a ~10k bump in pay to the day employees and expecting them to keep laptops close to them while they were off-premises.

BTW, if you think you're underpaid as a tech employee, you're almost certainly wrong -- don't forget that the big tech firms colluded to keep wages low not too long ago.

Time is the one resource you never get back (well so far at least).

Anyway, nerds/engineers never think of this stuff, it's why CTOs are the least paid of C levels [0].

[0]: [https://www.comparably.com/blog/what-the-c-suite-earns-a- loo...](https://www.comparably.com/blog/what-the-c-suite-earns-a-look-at- executive-pay-in-tech/)

<comment><USER27> You mean overpaid, right?

<comment><USER26> Yes, I meant overpaid -- apologies for the typo.

From what I can tell, despite the enormous amount devs are being paid, It seems like we're still on the underpaid side of the balance, especially depending on where you are.

<comment><USER27> I agree. Otherwise the biggest capitalists who claim to love competition just s'damn much wouldn't have created a cabal to keep salaries down.

<comment><USER26> Yes, also somewhat anecdotally if you look at the value being generated at these companies versus what they're paying out it's astronomical.

I know we're way past piece work economies but the ratio _has_ to be off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've found it to be very hard. Very, very hard. It got to the point for me where my "creative projects" took over and started to become what I spent most of my mental energy on, so a fulltime job became extremely difficult. These days, I only work 10hrs a week doing independent contracting, which while it's not much time, it's been surprisingly exhausting considering the time crunches and other strange pressures that come with it.

That said, my "creative projects" are a pretty involved - two of them include FOIA lawsuits.

<comment><USER29> ok there's no part of this comment that I'm not interested in you expanding on if you would!

Does the 10 hours a week support you financially? Is that because your cost of living is low?

Tell us about the creative projects and the lawsuits!

<comment><USER13> > _Tell us about the creative projects and the lawsuits!_

He was on HN FP recently: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18257867](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18257867)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Don't try to make money with your creative projects and they'll be a joy. If you're trying to make money with them then have a plan in place to turn them into your day job so you can make time for fun creative projects eventually.

<comment><USER31> Which of this suggestions is your case?

Edit: formatting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I honestly don't know how people can produce something decent while working fulltime.

I am usually home at about six. I then cook, do dishes and hurry to get to sports training, am back at 22:00, hit the shower and go straight to bed.

I also have a buttload of stuff I want to learn, and so many projects I want to do that I never get to really work on anything.

<comment><USER33> I stop by the grocery store and grab cooked food from the deli counter. It takes about 5 minutes. I eat my food on paper plates, and workout in my room. I'm probably gaining 1.5 hours per day on you. It's more expensive this way but time is money. If I consider it time I paid myself it's worth the expense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm sorry but it's not possible. When you work full time, you have little time left, maybe 4 hours a day. These are not prime working hours, they are leftovers. You make very little progress which discourages you even more. You feel guilty about watching TV. You try to do something on the weekends but let's be real, the five days in between are really going to break your flow.

I feel like the idea of a "side hustle" is selling false hope.

Maybe people call something a "side hustle" just so that they can brush of criticism with "it was just a side hustle".

I've convinced 3 people (2 friends, one person on hacker news) to quit their jobs to work on their ideas, pursue self-study and figure stuff out. They've all been very thankful and the progress on their respective journeys has been much faster.

You can't build something cool without devoting yourself entirely to it.

<comment><USER35> I disagree and actively disprove of this. I have four hours at home.

Hour1: Eating / TV / Hanging out with wife

Hour2: Development, studying, cultivating

Hour3: Gym

Hour4: Relax, mental health, maybe some more development

While I agree that my progress is significantly larger on the weekends, the five hours from the weekdays gives me a good amount. Keep in mind too, this is about side projects, creative ideas. Not about "starting a business" or some startup venture

<comment><USER36> I'm insanely curious how can you spend an hour at gym. Showering alone takes 30 mins. There is also time commuting to and from gym. Do you work out for only 20 mins and is insanely efficient doing this task? Most people work out ~1 to 1.5 hours and combined with inefficiencies, commute and showering it's a 2 hour commitment.

<comment><USER35> I have a gym in my apartment, so typically a 45min workout and a 15 min shower

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Technology is supposed make human work less. Ironically as the technology advances the working hours has also increased. Bertrand has written nice short summary [http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html](http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html) in the 1930's which is sadly very much relevant today.

</comment><comment><USER38> Personally, I think the "burn the ships" strategy is probably more viable for a serious endeavor, if you can afford (financially or otherwise) to do it. Save up 6-12 months of living expenses, make a plan, launch a barebones version, then make the jump and quit your job.

Speaking only personally here, but I think trying to just schedule in productive creative time doesn't really work. There is no real enforced urgency and it's too easy to think, "Well, I worked hard at my day job today, so I deserve to relax." There is no "survival" mental state. But YMMV. I think it depends on whether you're a "disciplined slow-but-steady worker" or if you thrive on being obsessed with what you're working on.

<comment><USER18> This sounds like a good recipe for disaster. There's no buffer room in this plan. You've got 6-12 months to make your company profitable or it either fails or you get into massive debt.

<comment><USER38> I don't know, worst case scenario you learn a ton and...go get another job? Life is short and time is valuable. There is a very real cost to _not_ putting your 100% into something.

<comment><USER24> There's also a cost to putting yourself 100% in to things, that's why they have this whole "moderation" concept.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> As with everything, your milage may vary with these suggestions. I am not the writer, but am just a man with a side project, which is getting more and more of my time.

Change "I can't" to "I don't." -- This section bugged me. At first, I thought it was great. Looking back, this is great advise for a smaller project, or someone just starting. However as your project gets bigger and larger you need to have time for mental health. By saying "I don't do anything Tuesday evenings" can isolate your friends or family. Sometimes after a hard day of work you just want to play a game or two with your friends, but it can be hard to make that push knowing you're actively "sabotaging" your progression. Having a routine is nice, and I find it the only way to progress myself, but sometimes it feels good for your friends and family to "bug" you. I personally believe breaking a routine for your mental health will be beneficial in the long run.

I do love the words about finding creative peak hours, building slowly and in general good habits. For what it is worth, I am using a "circle development cycle". You can imagine it as a circle progress wheel, making initial progress on several things and going back to improve them several times. The initial pass may be an uncolored landscape, where by the fourth pass there are natural mountains, cities and ect... This way I am cultivating new creative ideals while progressing on things as a whole. My "done" state will arrive sooner, but by delaying the "perfect" state's date.

Anyways, this is a great article and just wanted to share my smaller findings while I apply what the author suggested to myself

</comment><comment><USER39> Wow, the comments in this post are timely. I'm considering taking a month off to move to an unfamiliar, non-destination area to work on my creative project (songs) for 8+ hrs a day with no other commitments.

<comment><USER40> Will you have a support network of friends or other people to regularly and daily spend time with? A month might not be enough time to slip into a loneliness caused depression...but set yourself up for success if you do this.

<comment><USER41> Hey, what happened to rivalseek? Is it not going to be continued? I never tried it, but comments said it was very good - maybe you can share your method if there is no plan to continue?

(sorry for offtopic)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is hard until you really got hooked into something very different from the day job. I have been working for banks for more than 10 years. Tried many side projects. One that really got me in is entirely different from computers, Leathet crafting. 3 months. From 0 to 1. Now I have a design and a successful Etsy shop called tauruscamp.com

<comment><USER43> Your wallets are really cool, congrats!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Can only do this if able to build up a state of flow around it. Start small, as small as possible. Not everything good has to be big.

All the comments like "dump everything and dive in head first for X months" sound like some weird cult of extreme heroism to me.

Everything is a process, not some abstract form that can magically be reified into existence by wanting/trying harder. We are animals and have to build up the habit and curiosity in tandem, else risk burnout.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm stuck in the first paragraph: "What type of work or situations might you seek out that wouldn't leave you in a bad mood after working?"

I would go work in many menial jobs, but the problem is that this jobs pay very little and then you're worried and stressed and can't move on with side projects. If you go to a nice corporate job (not as a career but just as a source of income) you're usually left grumpy as he describes.

</comment><comment><USER46> Re: the "go easy on yourself".

I think it's hugely important to set aside relaxation time and, though it may seem counterintuitive, be active during that time about being relaxed. To me, that's usually a visit to the zoo, a walk by the ocean, or sitting in a coffee shop reading. Having the mindset of "I'm going to disappear for a bit" lets you focus on unwinding.

At the same time, rather than beating myself up or getting depressed when I'm not doing as much on the side as I would like, I've found a "healthier" approach is a more heated, angry frustration, similar to when you keep dying on the same level in a game. That kind of stimulus brings out something competitive in me and as a result I become more determined to overcome and "beat it". It's similar to the restlessness other commenters have described on the 3rd week of vacation, except it also continues to build while I work 40 hour weeks.

</comment><comment><USER47> We have time for what we prioritize. That doesn't mean it's easy, but it is possible.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'd argue that this has a lot with to do with set point theory.

As humans, our curiosity arouses around novelty. The object will tend to lose its novelty over time, and we'll tend to progressively lose interest in it up to the point where we go back to 'set point'.

Hint: look for mechanisms in your side projects to add novelty to the system so that your interest doesn't plateau.

When we built [https://sametab.com](https://sametab.com) as an internal side project, we used to constantly brainstorm new ideas about how this could eventually become. The more ideas we were founding the more the project looked new and appealing at our eyes.

</comment><comment><USER49> The advice in this article is very on-point. I would add that a creative project can also be done at your current job. If you have the freedom to take on new responsibilities, it will be generally seen as a positive (who doesn't like employees that work late and on the weekend?). You might even get a promotion. How that compares to doing something on the side is up to you, but I would recommend not seeing work as just work, but a place where you can experiment in an existing enterprise.

</comment><comment><USER50> Hard to do if your job workload is elastic and/or has on-call. Unfortunately these days, most employers are looking to squeeze 110% of your time and energy.

<comment><USER51> These days? That's how it always worked so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I consider freelance as a side project (miserable, I know) and I'm able to devote ~15 hours per week to it. Plus I take several hours for English, coursera and functional programming exercises.

My next goal is to leave my job (it takes 11 hours per day including commute and lunch time) - it will free ~2.5 hours a day! So actually freelance is a side project which should help me to say goodbye to my full-time job.

</comment><comment><USER53> The article and all the comments seem to assume work and creative projects are mutual exclusive, that we have to find a balance. I am wondering if it is possible to have a job that allows people to be creative? Like, as happy as doing side project? If no, what kind of experience did you have that suggest it is not possible?

</comment><comment><USER31> Since many(if not all) of this comments are completely empirical and based in personal experiences, all I can take from this comments is that one of my 2019 resolutions is to start a plan and save money to quit job and focus on a project of mine.

</comment><comment><USER54> It's not possible. And even if you try, no competitior will even take you serious as you are just at 10% speed/willpower/energy. Just quit you job and start in a manner that makes sense :-)

</comment><comment><USER55> For what it's worth, I've been attempting to switch the pathway in my mind about creativity and side projects from depression to rage/wrath. I've played the victim for so long that people really don't want to hear about it anymore. I've basically exhausted every opportunity for procrastination and ineffectualness and still find myself stagnant in my early 40s.

In my case, I wanted to build a gaming PC so I could learn Unity. I forced myself to do the research and find articles about which parts to buy and how to assemble them. I don't even want to think about how long that process took. Maybe 6 months? A year?

Finally I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably make a mistake, but I have some money saved which means that I could afford to. I broke down and bought all the parts one day a couple weeks ago:

[https://techbuyersguru.com/1500-ultra-compact-mini-itx- gamin...](https://techbuyersguru.com/1500-ultra-compact-mini-itx-gaming-pc- build)

Note: get a normal 2.5" SSD (I got a 1 TB Crucial/Micron because they're based out of my town) because you need the M.2 port if you want to use an HTC Vive with their new wireless adapter:

[https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2RP77A2...](https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2RP77A2945)

I also upgraded to a Corsair 600 Watt power supply and paid $10 more for a Be Quiet! SILENT WINGS fan.

It turned out that all of my questions about where to plug in cables were answered by the manuals or labeled. You can use the included 8 pin to split 6+2 pin power supply cable on the GTX 2070 for example. Building a PC turned out to be easier than when I was repairing Macs at a previous job. I didn't have to mess with the BIOS, I only had to download ethernet and wifi drivers to USB stick for the motherboard after I installed Windows 10.

The point I'm trying to make is that all of the details above turned out not to matter. They only added a slight bit of money and time. In the face of the months I lost sweating over parts, they were inconsequential.

That's how all of the projects in my life have been. I'm classically trained for STEM where there is no room for error. I go to the ends of the Earth to make sure that there are no bugs. But it costs me heavily in terms of my own time and reserves of motivation.

So that's where the rage comes from. Think about all that waste, and that for the most part there is nobody to blame but yourself. Channel that into brutality, and wage war against the hangups and demotivational sessions where you talk yourself out of doing something. Discipline is a negative word and I don't like it, because people use it to make themselves sound better than you. I prefer words like wrath, because you can draw on neglected aspects of your psyche and feel untapped energy reserves. We're so far to one side of a healthy bell curve that it's good for us sometimes to draw from the other side.

If you want an exercise to feel this, do a plank right now on your elbows and toes, keeping your torso parallel with the floor. Start a timer on your phone and you'll feel an anxiety (like holding your breath too long) around the 30 or 45 second mark. When your stomach is about to fall, use rage to bring yourself up to parallel. Each time you begin to fall, roar silently in your own mind with profanity. Feel the endorphins course through your veins. Anyone can do a minute - but going beyond yourself you can do several times that.

Your strength emotion may not be rage (maybe it's gratitude, or forgiveness), but you can still find whatever it is and recruit it to force yourself to take a first step, even if it's devoting a period of time each day towards the first step of your goal. Do it every day for 2 weeks, even if you don't like how it feels, and you will find that channel in your brain become automatic (like part of your subconscious) and probably even forget it by the time the next step is needed.

</comment><comment><USER56> I could combine multiple creative projects with day job, but that all ended when I turned 30. Had to quit my main job to fully focus on the startup i work on.

<comment><USER57> Joining a startup was death for my creative side projects. I get to be much more creative at work now than I used to but it's still work, and a lot more of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I really like the layout of the website.

</comment><comment><USER59> Quit your full-time work if it's not creative

</comment><comment><USER60> Well, get out, plow on some field. That will give you _some_ balance regarding the mental vs. physical stress dispute. Didn't read the article though.

</comment><comment><USER61> find a satisfying, well paid job and those "creative" feelings might just go away.

<comment><USER62> That's basically impossible. Almost every full time job that pays well is some variant of patching together code that other people wrote with very little work on interesting problems.

Unless you somehow consider "why is my CRUD app not working after my teammate introduced this shit library" an interesting problem, in which case I'm very jealous.

<comment><USER61> I like to tie things together and watch them work. Not very hard to find a job that makes me happy.

And I live in a 2nd world country, so it isn't very hard to find a relatively well paid job from abroad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> No time. Interview prepping so it has to be leetcode day in and day out because that's what the industry expects...

<comment><USER36> A good side project is like leetcode on steroids, so this is not very true.

<comment><USER64> Do you have some examples of good side projects that fits your description?

Leetcode specifically targets a specific problem (per entry). Side projects might contain one or two, but usually I'd guess it's a small part of the total worktime.

<comment><USER63> Exactly. There's no way I could work on enough side projects to cover all the algorithms and data structures and concepts that interviewers expect me to have at my ready.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Over the past five years, I've sort of reinvented myself though side projects all while staying quite professionally productive. I wrote a little about my project process almost a year ago and thought I'd repost it here in case any one else finds it helpful:

\---

(From early 2018 [1])

My driving force is to create things and that directs how I go about personal projects. I don't have much in the way of an official process, but the typical project cycle goes something like:

1\. Start with any idea or question that is most interesting to me right now, for example: converting audio propaganda to waveforms.

I usually try to align the project with some longer term personal goal. One of my current longer term goals for example is to start a business. To do that, I want to become better at selling things. Therefore, my current medium term project is to try selling letterpress prints of the waveforms from propaganda.

2\. Research the idea, start learning required skills, and begin prototyping. Often—as in the letterpress project—I go in with no idea what I am doing. I always try to keep my specific goal in mind and make sure I am delivering something, either as learning or as actual prototypes. I'm also trying to become better at collaborating with other people on this and outsourcing the work here (which is itself another longer term goal)

This stage usually spawns a number of new ideas that I add to a personal backlog. If one of these is more interesting than what I am currently working on, I change the project's focus or abandon it altogether.

3\. Polish, release, and share. If the project is still interesting, continue iterating. Otherwise, go back to step 1 and repeat.

I try to keep this cycle short but that isn't always practical, so I compensate by having multiple project going on at the same time. These roughly fall into a few different timescales: one-off (a few hours in one go), short (1 or 2 weeks freetime), medium (a month or so with interruptions), and long (3 months+ of very off-and-on work).

This process has let me create, explore, and learn quite a bit without getting burned out. It has also taken me in directions I never expected.

I don't know any of this would work more broadly. Again, my driving force is to just to create things. I'm operating in a bit of a vacuum with no real audience in mind or much in the way of external pressures.

\---

Main takeaways:

\- Side projects should be for you.

\- Mix short and long term deliverables and goals.

\- Have variety and continually iterate to avoid burn out.

Since writing the above in early 2018, I actually did learn letterpress in order to complete the propaganda waveform project[2], which itself led to me traveling to Switzerland for a letterpress poster design class, which led to all sorts of adventures in Switzerland and Italy and tons of new project ideas. I'm also continuing to explore selling more (including selling printed posters)

Again, this general mode of working has let me explore a large number of side projects while doing good work in my day job. There is really nothing special to it. However side projects have been incredibly important to me and I hope these points may be useful to someone else too

[1]: [https://github.com/mattbierner/blog.mattbierner.com/issues/1...](https://github.com/mattbierner/blog.mattbierner.com/issues/11)

[2]: [https://blog.mattbierner.com/anwar- wave/](https://blog.mattbierner.com/anwar-wave/)

</comment><comment><USER66> This came at just the right time for me!</comment>


It's time to grow up. - <AUTHOR> http://appreneur-diaries.com/its-time-to-grow-up

<comment><USER2> It's nice that you blog your thoughts, but I think posts like this are more suitable for twitter than HN. What are others going to learn from this post? You are just announcing that you are doing something else, there's nothing interesting that others could garner from this. If you posted about specific things you learned that weren't already part of the HN reader canon, then maybe it would be worthwhile to post.</comment>


Show HN: Magic / Stanford Nerd for Biz - <AUTHOR>

Just launched le Geek, a Magic-like service for business knowledge. In a sentence:
Text a high quality MBA student, and get help for all things business related (e.g. expert calls, career/interview advice, advertisement).
http://www.textlegeek.com/
Feedback from the HN community would be much appreciated! <comment><USER2> Do you know StudyPool? You should check it out. [https://www.studypool.com/](https://www.studypool.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! Thanks for the note, I hadn't seen this website before. Having said this, it's really not the same for a couple of reasons: \- The interface is different. Le Geek is SMS-based. The UX is therefore much simpler. \- The product is different. Studypool is focused on academics (ie. you're paying tutors to help out on an assignment). Le Geek offers many more services than just academic help. Services such as expert interviews (think GLG at a fraction of the cost), career advice (many users in Beta were asking for mock interviews), advertisement..etc. \- Geeks are grads from the top 3 MBA schools in Europe</comment></comment>


Exherbo: The first Linux distro with native cross-compiling package management - <AUTHOR> http://exherbo.org/docs/multiarch-pr.html

<comment><USER2> Exherbo seems like a really well-executed and technically sound distribution. I'm a Gentoo developer right now, but I am seriously considering leaving the Gentoo council to join Exherbo.

Great job guys!

<comment><USER3> Ok, but why not work on improving Gentoo so it can do this as well?

Context : I like Gentoo enough that I'm working on a publicly available pkgbuild set of every current stable amd64 ebuild (using the default flag combinations ) because I'm sick of hearing people say they switched to Arch because they "hate building from source" and they "never customised the flags anyway so why bother".

I think the biggest problem right now is the constant shunning of variations like Exherbo. So we have ChromeOS, CoreOS, Exherbo, Funtoo, Gentoo, Sabayon, and others I'm to tired to list, all using ebuilds ... But no real effort among any of them to work together at all. I honestly think we need to rally around the ebuild format and get some cohesion going. /rant

<comment><USER4> Exherbo is the singular item on that list which does not use ebuilds; the lack of progress and technical stagnation of Gentoo is what led to the Exherbo founders starting their own distribution and develop a new package format. The package formats have diverged greatly to deliver important features (such as this one, among many others) Gentoo was unwilling or incapable of delivering.

It's unlikely changes like these would ever be introduced in Gentoo, for multiple technical and more importantly social reasons. Gentoo has a big problem with accepting sound technical ideas because they come from politically incorrect people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Personally I think this is rather exciting.

FIrst of all it could make things a lot easier for many people and/or companies doing embedded development and relying on cross compiling.

And secondly Exherbo is sending a significant amount of patches upstream and follow up on them to make sure they're accepted by the upstream projects. This should benefit all of us and not just the minority using Exherbo Linux.

So all in all I see plenty of reason to be excited about this development even if you're not an Exherbo user.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been using it for many years now and it's a very nice and solid distribution.</comment>


Duetto compiles C++ applications to JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://leaningtech.com/duetto/ For the length, I omitted some words. The whole sentence here:<p>Duetto is a software that compiles C++ applications to binary code and Javascript, allowing you to write high-performance, client-server distributed applications in a single C++ codebase.
With Duetto, all your C++ applications can go to the web! <comment><USER2> The claim is that they will have something usable in 6 months. I'll revisit it then and see if they make that promise :)

<comment><USER3> "Hey I just made a website,

And my tech is crazy,

But it's not yet ready,

Come back in 6 months maybe?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In other news: JavaScript is the new X86 assembly language.

Of course, X86 is "not that bad" according to Linus et. al. But it is awfully full of cruft, and could be a lot better. Yet it's fixed and will probably remain so. I wouldn't be surprised if there are x86 CPUs of some sort in 500 years.

It's the awesome power of installed userbase.

JavaScript is the same. It's not _that bad_ of a language... using node.js converted me from a hater to a mild-disliker. But it's got some really ugly stuff and is missing some very important things.

But it's probably going to become one of the biggest and longest lasting languages due to its massive installed userbase.

</comment><comment><USER5> Will Duetto compile to plain JavaScript, or to asm.js? It seems like emscripten + asm.js is already on par with other VM-based languages. (Native Client is faster, but it's not a VM, and it makes compromises for this speed, e.g. it allows modules to segfault and kill the process they're running in to avoid bounds checks.) An approach that compiles to plain JavaScript is unlikely to be faster.

The Duetto folks mention asm.js in passing on the news page, but don't specifically state that it is their compilation target.

<comment><USER6> Since they specifically mention compiling to normal js objects and not using the typedarray heap approach that is used by emscripten and asm.js, likely not asm.js.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could someone explain to me why this is useful? I'm not trying to be snarky, I really don't understand who would want this.

<comment><USER8> I have a survey compiler that compiles to c++. Using this, I could compile the generated code to JS and get an html like app for free and in no time at all.

emscripten is something on similar lines. If you pass --html to the compiler, it generates and html file which when you browse will run your program.

Further, I have seen that you can pass a JavaScript file to emscripten. I asked on the emscripten irc, if I passed Jquery UI or Dojo toolkit as the JavaScript file to be embedded, could I have a UI Widget System embedded. But one of the logged in persons said, no one had asked about something like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wait with some interest to see if delivers the goods. If it does then that will be massive for me personally, as I spend most of my time building C++ code.

Great that they want to release it as open source as well, although I'm guessing they're going to be charging for it. And if they aren't, then they _really_ should be.

<comment><USER10> > Great that they want to release it as open source as well

That is indeed good, but I was worried to see

> Duetto is based on the LLVM stack, and uses patent-pending algorithms to > ensure the highest performance.

on their site. Not sure how it could be open sourced if it's patented.

<comment><USER11> Patenting by itself is no harm. Many open-source licenses grant an explicit or implicit patent license to the source code. So, open-source + patented is certainly possible.

A recent example is the case where Google bought patent license from MPEG-LA for VP8 codec. And then Google sublicensed it, giving a royalty-free patent license for every user of VP8 codec, along with the source code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Would be interested to hear how it differs from emscripten.

<comment><USER13> This blog post from one of the people working on Duetto explains: <http://allievi.sssup.it/techblog/?p=798>

Basically, the idea seems to be to translate more C++ features directly into high-level JavaScript equivalents, rather than into code that primarily operates on byte arrays, as I believe emscripten does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> More information available on the author's blog: <http://allievi.sssup.it/techblog/?p=798>

</comment><comment><USER15> if i had $100 , i wouldnt put my money on this.Im not sure about who uses this framework thingy.Old C++ gurus turn themselves into tech-entrepreneurs and use this framework to build web 2.0 app ? Or Rails guys may say "heyy look at C++ , it's strongly-typed and we can build web-apps like gurus? "

or did i missed some-points ?

<comment><USER16> I think the target user is more like "we've got an existing codebase in C++; now we can run it in a browser".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I look forward to seeing this. Don't just focus on the gaming community.

<comment><USER18> gaming == money. That's why you see so many gaming companies in the mobile market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> why.

<comment><USER20> to quote Daniel Tosh: "Nobody rocks like C++"</comment></comment>


At 50 Years Old, the Challenge to Keep Up with Moore's Law - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2015/04/20/400988928/at-50-years-old-the-challenge-to-keep-up-with-moore-s-law

<comment><USER2> From the article: "Last year, Intel spent $11 billion on research and development and another $10 billion to update the chip factories."</comment>


INDO web-based operating system and framework - <AUTHOR> http://indojs.org

<comment><AUTHOR> INDO is a client-side JavaScript operating system and framework for building modular web sites and apps.

INDO is open-source and can be found on github: [https://github.com/inc/indo](https://github.com/inc/indo)

Examples: [http://shiftpop.com](http://shiftpop.com) [http://qubaz.com](http://qubaz.com) [http://0send.com](http://0send.com) [http://daw.gs](http://daw.gs)</comment>


Elon Musk, of PayPal and Tesla Fame, Is Broke - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/sorkin-elon-musk-of-paypal-and-tesla-fame-is-broke/

<comment><USER2> This article is so typical of sensationalism reporting. Individuals Like Mr. Musk, are able to take advantage of the separation of entities that a corporate charter provides. So while he probably stopped paying himself a good salary due to impending litigation. The source that has been providing the revenue has not dried up, all he has to do is turn the spicket back on, when he is ready.

</comment><comment><USER3> _He subsists, according to court filings, on $200,000 a month and still flies his private jet._

So, for various values of "broke", then. Moreover he seems to have no cash at the same time as he is going through divorce proceedings where the spouse wants $6 Mil in cash. A cynic might say this is awfully convenient.

Oh well, Tesla is cool, SpaceX is cool, I hope he sticks around.

<comment><USER4> What I can't understand is why the NYTimes author didn't pick up on this or comment - it seems to me like he just wanted to avoid paying as much as possible to his ex-wife and decided to tie it up in company assets so it was harder for her to get hold of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> he's broke again? wasn't he just broke the other day and also a few weeks back? he's had more ups and downs than a Tesla tachometer.</comment>


CrowdSwitch scalable mesh hardware design files open sourced - <AUTHOR> http://isogrid.org/blog/2018/01/06/crowdswitch-hardware-design-files-open-sourced/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi! I'm the dev behind IsoGrid and CrowdSwitch. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions!</comment>


How do you find the time? - <AUTHOR> http://words.steveklabnik.com/how-do-you-find-the-time/ <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the resubmit. Just surprised this didn't garner any previous discussion.

The part that resonated most with me was: "What bone you were meant to have, no dog will drag away." It made me think that it's worth considering which bones are yours and which you only think you'd like to have and improve on. Maybe it's worth re-evaluating what you do spend time on versus what you never feel bad spending time on?</comment>


Ask HN: Were you ever scared of pushing to production? - <AUTHOR>

If so, do you remember getting over it, or did you just eventually stop feeling scared? Are you still scared of it? <comment><USER2> I think this is why having real-world experience in non-programming realms is valuable. When your life has been on the line in some physical adventure, things like pushing to production are easier to keep in perspective.

I have run in the woods with bears, climbed steep and sketchy mountains, rock climbed, tried hang gliding and paragliding, kayaked in rough waters. Most of that was quite safe, with well-qualified people, using the right equipment, with the right training and with the right progression of risk. That said, I have definitely held my life in my hands a few times,put my life in others' hands, and had other people's lives in my hand.

When you've had these experiences, technical risks are easier to manage. They don't become easy, but you go through the same mental checklists. "Can I close my eyes and pull my kayak skirt off if I flip in these waves" becomes "have a followed my backup routines, so if this push fails will I be able to recover in a reasonable timeframe?"

I've been a hobbyist programmer for most of my life. But now I'm dabbling in more meaningful and important projects. This is the perspective that makes me comfortable jumping into technical projects, without being paralyzed by the fear of breaking something important.

<comment><USER3> As an old co-worker used to say, "We're not saving lives, we're just building websites." I don't care how much money your site loses per minute its down, or how bad your company looks because you lost some of your uptime stat. Its a far cry from someone dying because of what you did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I still get nervous, but I've learned to manage it.

Some things that help:

\- Keep your changes small. You should be able to fit the entire diff in your head and completely understand the purpose for every changed line. If you can't, split it up.

\- Automate the process as much as possible. Invest in learning whatever tool works best for you (Fabric, Rake, Grunt, etc).

\- Use a staging environment. This is especially helpful for catching issues like missing dependencies, DB migration problems, etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you aren't at least a little nervous during a production push, then somethings wrong, I think.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. Once I had buy-in to start TDD at my last job, the push to production went from "cold sweat" to mild indigestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> More so recently because I'm working with more complexity now: an inexperienced team on top of a code base being shared among 2 teams. Ultimately, you have to counter your fear with preparation to reduce the risk of something going wrong. We use Jenkins CI for running unit tests and doing deploys to a sandbox environment similar to production. However, I have to additionally review my team's diffs to catch problems that were missed by automated tests not being written or by requirements / design being wrongly interpreted.

So I guess the goal is to improve the preparation of a production push.

</comment><comment><USER8> I was scared in the last email I sent to over 30 people. Like /u/taternuts said, you have to be a little scared. But yes, you will get over it, but if it's a big push to prod - you will still be scared.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, I used to lose sleep over it. Now I've got a big release going out tomorrow, and I'm not the least bit scared. Will something go wrong? Maybe, I can't be sure. I tried my best to get everything right and ready, but no big deal if something goes wrong.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yes, the worse part is the nagging feeling that there is some nasty bugs lurking underneath that you forgot. Somehow there will always be bugs and sooner or later, we all have to face judgement.

</comment><comment><USER11> _Currently scared_</comment>


Being like The Sex Pistols can help your startup? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.smartupz.com/2010/03/being-like-sex-pistols-can-help-your.html

<comment><USER2> Arguably, Malcolm McLaren was the entrepreneur in the Sex Pistols story.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_McLaren#The_Sex_Pistols>

<comment><AUTHOR> Wasn't he more like a VC or Angel Investor?

<comment><USER3> No, Malcolm was the mastermind. He saw the punk trend, was a fixture in the scene, and figured out the right positioning for a new group and drove his product into the appropriate market channel. He wasn't the public face of what he built, but he put the Sex Pistols together and made them tour and got his wife Vivienne Westwood to style them.

<comment><AUTHOR> What is exactly what I expect from the VC (early stage VC). Find group of talented people, with good idea, then help to position the product on the market using portfolio companies as helpers and his brand for PR. Style everything, and then sell thru the IPO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lesson 1: it's more important for your bass player to be outrageous than skillful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well... the names like Sid Vicious or Johnny Rotten say a lot... ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the idea a lot... And I think we can draw some interesting parallels to other kinds of artistic activities. Let's see... My mother's a scupltress. Anybody :)?

<comment><USER4> I bet a sufficiently motivated essayist could draw comparisons between, say, hacking and painting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had too much to say in response to this, so I just wrote it in a blog post.

[http://robertelwell.blogspot.com/2010/03/please-kill-me- how-...](http://robertelwell.blogspot.com/2010/03/please-kill-me-how-being- like-sex.html)

<comment><USER7> I think your rebuttal is missing a very important point. Though you may not agree that The Sex Pistols were the best product, there is little doubt that they were the brand that is heavily associated with the genre.

In another start-up comparison, The Sex Pistols weren't the best technical solution, but they got users.

<comment><USER6> Users don't matter if the product breaks and never gets fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Obviously a very content free article. As a proud punk, i call it bullshit. Although hacker culture is a lot like punk culture. But thats true of almost any creative subculture filled with misfits with attitude problems.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sex Pistols were a boy band. A marketing creation.

<comment><USER10> Bah.

"Never Mind the Bollocks" still sounds good to this day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sex Pistols rebuttal: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhlx0-LLDE0></comment>


Show HN: CodeStream in-IDE Code Review and workflow tool - <AUTHOR> https://codestream.com <comment><AUTHOR> author here.

CodeStream aims to simplify and amplify your code review process with the following changes:

      - all in-ide
      - open source
      - cloud or on-prem
      - supports vscode, vs, atom, jetbrains (more soon)
      - end-to-end workflow tool
        - grab a ticket from trello/jira/etc. and it'll create a branch for you
        - while you're editing, comment on code without having to copy/paste to slack/etc.
        - get feedback on a wip with press of a key (codestream packages diffs for you)
        - teammates request changes? amend your review
        - when you're ready, create a pr on github, gitlab, bitbucket, and merge.

any feedback appreciated.</comment>


Ask HN: Does a fledging startup need AWS - <AUTHOR> I'm about to start work on beta release for my startup and trying to decide whether to go with AWS (EC2 instances and RDS) or some other vps (maybe digital ocean or even lightsail). Obviously the reason is to minimize spend - we have runway of about 6 months. For people who've done this: did you eventually migrate to AWS? How painful was the migration? <comment><USER2> Things to consider will you need a lot of custom database management? Are you comfortable deploying MySQL or another DB from command line? Are there tools in AWS that you will benefit from using - will they save you time compared to building them yourself, e.g. SQS versus managing a queue system.

If you are prepared to manage these are yourself, feel comfortable doing so, and your tech stack won't benefit from the AWS tools too much, using a VPS might be the way to go.

That said you're going for MVP - and you have 6 months to do it. Get going, move fast and break things!

<comment><AUTHOR> I've done a fair amount of "command line" ops so I'm comfortable with it but the question what will migration be like when we do move to an iaas?

<comment><USER2> It depends what your infrastructure consists of. If it's a db with infrequent writes it's going to be a lot easier to move than a db with a lot of writes.

You could also host on VPS and use parts of AWS e.g. S3 if you require asset storage, like photos, videos or other files.

Do you have much insight into what your infrastructure will look like at the start?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you suggesting that you have done zero development yet? Develop locally until you need things to go "live". Don't buy AWS on day one, you won't utilize it. Save the money. There are many great ways to develop locally, even with teams. You can go far by utilizing dependency management services, like npm, etc. You can go far by utilizing local database init scripts, etc, for consistent dev environments after a fresh repo clone.

<comment><AUTHOR> maybe mvp isn't there right word. we have demos we've developed locally and we're going to start pilots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should just start with a managed setup; a VPS could work but AWS gives you an overhead to manage and be aware of.

While your building up; you may switch to AWS once you need more scaling ability. But if you pick some hosting provider like Internap you can get hardware pretty fast and will be cheaper in the longrun than any public cloud.

Sad; classic hosting is now trying beat the public cloud. The public cloud is trying to get everyone on it and kill classic hosting.

It will never die however; because even Amazon needs a datacenter.</comment>


Investing in freelancers - <AUTHOR> https://freelanceinbox.com/job

<comment><USER2> New place to post freelancer jobs apparently. Looks like a decent community, and if they're paying me to try it, why not?

<comment><USER3> Says you as a freelancer have to pay??? Is that a subscription or a commission fee?

$69 dollars a month for a potential fee of 300-3000... hmm. Could be good but sounds like a lot if all you get is 300 leads.</comment></comment>


Dfinity opens up its 'Internet Computer' to outside developers - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/30/dfinity-demos-its-tiktok-clone-opens-up-its-internet-computer-to-outside-developers/ <comment><AUTHOR> Dev docs intro: [https://sdk.dfinity.org/docs/developers- guide/introduction-k...](https://sdk.dfinity.org/docs/developers- guide/introduction-key-concepts.html) \- looks similar to what [http://neon.planaria.network](http://neon.planaria.network) was trying to do.

Pretty cool that Dfinity compiles down to webasm. Elixir actor style messaging passing makes sense too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just riffing here... the ergonomics appears to be similar to Meteor in regards to the DDP protocol but with a "decentralized computation overlay" on top of the whole internet.

I definitely see a use case for this. It appears what (BSV) is trying to do too (I know there is drama associated with that). It's nonetheless appealing as a goal. Especially with all the censorship going on right now.</comment></comment>


Growler: Asyncio Micro-Framework in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pyGrowler/Growler <comment><USER2> Awesome work! I just watched your PyOhio talk[0], and seems really promising. I use Flask daily, and while performance has not been an issue yet, I know the key word in that phrase is _yet_.

Would love to play with the code. Could you add a CONTRIBUTING.md? I could try to figure out how to get started on my own, but having a few pointers would be really helpful.

I see there are no issues on GH. What are things you're hoping to add soon/are not implemented yet?

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs7XOn1TXVQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs7XOn1TXVQ)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

The biggest missing piece is simple, well-tested middleware.

My focus has been on very general middleware; a kind of 'meta-middleware' that actually spec out a common behavior to minimize surprises and boilerplate. For example, my Renderer & RenderEngine classes[0] don't do anything on their own, but are intended to be used by other, more specific renderers (eg MakoRenderer, JinjaRenderer). I think some common functionality really need to be standardized and not done ad-hoc, as conflicts could arise. (more description on how Renderers work below)

The next one of these I'd like to solve is authentication: a standard interface for passwords/oauth/etc. I've kinda used [http://passportjs.org](http://passportjs.org) before, might be a starting point; I don't know what a pythonic version would look like.

## Non-Middleware

\- Figure out equivalent of JS EventEmitter interface. Currently I have no good way to do something like res.on('send-headers', cb) ~ (thinking res.events['send-headers'].add(cb)) with events as EventManager object. Maybe decorators here?

\- ETAGs

\- HTTP/2

\- pytest-growler for automated fixtures

\- I don't think an admin panel is necessary (can't beat django) but would like some CLI tools for site creation, testing, and deployment.

Renderer Explaination: (too many 'render' words)

The author creates a RenderEngine as the actual middleware: app.use(MakoRenderer("/path/to/view")). All this middleware does is attach a callable Renderer object to res at res.render if it doesn't exist, then add itself to res.render - this allows multiple RenderEngines in the same app (if the author desires) - and none of them will clobber one another. Upon calling the Renderer: res.render('foo', data_obj), the callable scans through the engines until one with 'foo' is found, then the rendered text is sent. It's non-(obvious|trivial) situations like these I want in Growler proper (some batteries included) - the rest can be extensions.

[0] [https://github.com/pyGrowler/Growler/blob/dev/growler/middle...](https://github.com/pyGrowler/Growler/blob/dev/growler/middleware/renderer.py)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Impressive stuff. But um, about that project name; ever watched "Bo Selecta" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%27_Selecta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%27_Selecta)! ?

<comment><AUTHOR> No. But if it's related to the urbandictionary definition...

I'm taking back the word!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> a quick request (and something similar was discussed here - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11626454](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11626454))

could you add a representative example to show how we can use your framework with Postgres ? For example, psycopg vs psycopg2 vs psycogreen vs psycopg2-cffi vs aiopg ... I dont even know which one will work properly using your framework and how (and maintain async characteristics).

<comment><USER5> (Comment from a bystander). You probably want aiopg in order to maintain the async characteristics and use the "friendly" asyncio syntax.

There is also peewee-async ([http://peewee- async.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](http://peewee- async.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)) if you want an ORM using asyncio. (I've been meaning to try this myself, but haven't had an opportunity).

<comment><USER4> absolutely.. i am concerned about frameworks not fundamentally thinking about DB. With async, there is that additional problem of "this does not work in async mode". So I would hope the developers include database hookup as part of their unit test suite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How is this different to Twisted?

<comment><USER7> It's asyncio native. Also I think syntactically it's different.

<comment><USER8> Like Flask + Express, specifically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Could you clarify this vs aiohttp (aiohttp.web)?

[http://aiohttp.readthedocs.io/en/stable/](http://aiohttp.readthedocs.io/en/stable/)

Here's a good example of use: [http://igordavydenko.com/talks/lvivpy-4/#slide-1](http://igordavydenko.com/talks/lvivpy-4/#slide-1)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have not used aiohttp, but it looks like their application must be initialized with a list of middleware_factories. I do not see any logic in choosing middleware - just a straight shot.

Growler apps just add functions to an internal list, and these may be 'mounted' on particular end points/http requests.

Also, in aiohttp it is up to your endpoint to create the response object and return it. While in Growler it is created by the application (or rather the GrowlerHttpResponder) and passed around the middleware - getting enhancements (res.render('foo') is not standard) and having callbacks registered (to, say, log ALL headers sent - something you want done only at the time of sending headers).

I think it would be possible (or at least I would like to get to the point) where you could actually mount other apps from other frameworks into a Growler app. So if there is blog software you like written in aiohttp, there is special middleware to transform growler requests into a aiohttp requests.

      import growler
      import aiohttp.web
      aio_blog_app = aiohttp.web.Application()
      ...
      app = growler.App("main site")
      app.use(GrowlerAiohttpMiddleware(aio_blog_app), path='/blog')
      ...

THAT would be kinda cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does this work with uvloop?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes!

An initial test last night of a trivial growler app (i.e. one method that replies with a simple string) saw a median response time drop from ~200ms to ~80ms.

(using apachebenchmark, n=1000 c=100)

<comment><USER10> How well would it work with, say, PostgreSQL? Would you need to use async wrappers like aiopg in your views?

<comment><AUTHOR> For optimal performance, yes use aiopg or equivalent (it looks like there is an asyncio sqlalchemy project which might be nice.)

Any middleware may be a coroutine object, so it's as easy as `await res.render("whatever")` in an async function

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you want this feature, but multithreaded and with hot-deploy + filesystem database clustered you can try: [http://github.com/tinspin/rupy](http://github.com/tinspin/rupy)

<comment><USER12> Slightly disingenuous not to point out that's a Java app. I suspect the choice of language is a factor for a fair few people, maybe even the majority.

<comment><USER11> Yep, languages are like religion. But you can't hotdeploy any other language properly.

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure what exactly categorizes as "hot deploy" but how about erlang, elixir?

<comment><USER11> Rupy can switch code on the fly, meaning you can have users hitting your server and they will run the old code one request and new code the next. No other system I know of works like this, hot-deploying on a remote machine over HTTP seamlessly. Maybe erlang can do it but then again I can't write a 3D game in that language so Java still has the upper hand for my requirements.

<comment><AUTHOR> Off the top of my head, if you write a custom MiddlewareChain class that exposed its own management port, you could inspect and modify the state of the chain at any time, checkboxes to disable middleware, change endpoints, insert debug middleware, etc.

I like this... definitely worth thinking about. Thanks, all!

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, if you're talking about specifically replacing a source files (i.e. modules), one could hack around with [https://docs.python.org/3/library/importlib.html#importlib.r...](https://docs.python.org/3/library/importlib.html#importlib.reload). I think it would work with enough indirection/factory functions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Predictive modeling with R offers insight into elections, World Cup - <AUTHOR> http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2010/06/political-science-with-r.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Predictive analytics has been gaining traction beyond its traditional base of late. Interesting post detailing how predictive models are used to predict the outcomes of a wide array of events, from financial markets to World Cup results.</comment>


Google Gives Free Security Keys to Activists, but Not If You're in Iran or Syria - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kxy4p/google-titan-keys-iran-syria-cuba-crimea-sudan-north-korea <comment><USER2> Buried in the middle: "The reason for limiting the distribution of the company's tools, it appears, is due to embargoes with those countries, as well as exportation legalisation, which regulates the sale or distribution of certain technologies, including those dealing with cryptography."

<comment><USER3> Exactly this. Huge repercussions from the US government, not some kind of nefarious political play by Google.

<comment><USER4> Note they're not saying much in protest of this mandate, though...

Wonder if they're this quiet about Chinese relations?</comment></comment></comment>