Show HN: Royalty-Free Video Game Music Library - <AUTHOR> http://luckylionstudios.com/royalty-free-video-game-music-library/

<comment><USER3> Another title change?? This one, again, seems totally inappropriate - shouldn't "Show HN" posts be exempt from mods changing the title since one would imagine that the creator of what is being shown has a better idea of an appropriate title than a mod? Seems to me like its one step away from editing the very content being linked!

</comment><comment><USER4> Please charge more. My current (indy) project just selected the stock music for our project. I'm happy to pay $30 / piece. The site that we licensed our music from had pricing options as well. E.g. $30 for the full track, down to as low as $7 for a short loop or a stinger.

Also if you can make it easier to find what I'm looking for then I'll look first at your site rather than others. E.g. is the piece fast/slow tempo, instruments used, genre or style, etc.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER5> Consider making some tracks free to use and share (with your name and contact info and "I make music for money for you" being mandatory to be kept). You can use a creative commons license for that. I haven't listened yet but doing this might mean ending up in free/open-source games and thus maybe being bundled into linux distributions. Great free advertising.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm curious about your choice of pricing.

My uninformed guess is that you can charge substantially more than this and still provide great value. Consider that $5 is about the cost of four minutes of programmer time.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, he could most likely get away with charging higher. How do you suggest a company test out pricing though? I mean I think that's exactly what Amazon has done and they get criticized for doing so (since they do it in a A/B fashion)

I guess he could just bump all the songs to $10 and see if sales increase/decrease/etc over a period of time. Pricing is definitely an interesting problem, for all startups.

<comment><USER8> Personally, I wouldn't shy away from A/B testing prices (I do it), if you have enough transactions going on to run a successful experiment.

Running pricing cohorts takes more time, and doing other experiments at the same time will taint the pricing experiment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nicely done!

A lot of the commenters here think you're charging too little and I agree.

Have you thought about having two pricing tiers: one for non-exclusive use and much higher one (maybe $100 per track?) for exclusive use?

If I were a game developer and I thought I was making the next Angry Birds, having a recognizable theme that I knew no one else would have would be an easy to understand added value.

<comment><USER10> > Have you thought about having two pricing tiers: one for non-exclusive use > and much higher one (maybe $100 per track?) for exclusive use?

I think you've vastly underestimated a reasonable price for exclusive use, given the inability to sell it to anyone else, the amount of time needed to produce an original piece of music, and any sensible salary for individual composers.

<comment><USER9> Since my day job involves working with composers as they record original works, I _know_ $100 per track is very low considering the time/creativity/experience required.

However, I respect that different people are at different stages in their careers. This may be a rung on the ladder on the way to commissions or a side project while in school.

I was simply taking the current price of $5 per track and thinking that it may be unlikely for any given track to be licensed by twenty different game developers for non-exclusive use. It might yield more revenue to have one buyer at $100 per track.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The website could use some optimization but it's a great start. I like the music that you've posted so far. One question, though: Would you consider doing short musical sound effects ("jingles" for lack of a better word)? For example, for level-ups or small achievements within a game. A lot of music is available for games but it seems tough to find decent-sounding musical effects that can be used in this way.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually on my to-do list. I want to create a series of shorter "jingles" that can be packaged and sold as bundles in various styles (so you'd have a more orchestral set, an electronic set, etc). It's definitely something I want to have available sooner than later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very cool resource and there are some great tracks here. I'm excited to see how you expand the library to accompany all kinds of different projects, even beyond games.

I'm quite a fan of royalty-free music, actually I just finished up a project using 100% royalty-free music from Kevin MacLeod (<http://incompetech.com/>). He uses a creative-commons license for all of his work, but makes the bulk of his money through private projects brought on from exposure.

Our project was for an immersive reading experience for The War of the Worlds, which meant we needed lots and lots of different types of music for all the story arcs. Shameless plug if you want to check it out: <http://e-mersiv.com/apps>

Again, I think you could definitely have a market for more than just game devs out there, your pricing model is attractive enough to be used for short videos, ebooks, etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> The idea is extremely appealing. Do you have any idea of the market size?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have hard numbers but given the popularity of web and mobile game engines, like Unity3D, there are numerous people entering the game development space. Music seems to be one of the most often requested areas and most indie devs either try to make it themselves or buy really crappy music. I figure I can offer them affordable yet high-quality music. I've been talking to a handful of social/mobile studios as well and have some ideas on how I'm going to change the business model to support them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm currently working on an indie game that we hope to release within 6 months or so. Sound effects we were pretty sure we could handle, but music is another thing altogether. From what I can see here, this fits the bill very well - <USER2> music is appealing and generic enough to be put in numerous types of games, yet not so generic as to be devoid of the ability to set a mood. I like it a lot.

Also, I do agree with some of the other posters - you should charge a bit more. Seems like a steal at $5.00.

Have you considered allowing 'library license' purchases, where you pay a bit more than list but get access to the entire library and future releases as well?

As an aside, I am getting a lot of 'File Not Found'.

<comment><USER7> Haha, was just going to say the same. Got some "error establishing database connection". Looks like we broke his server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I couldn't browse at all - kept getting knocked back the loading bar. I'm using Firefox on linux. As others have said already, I'd suggest making a javascript-free version for people like me who aren't able to listen for whatever reason (and I see quicktime mentioned on the page - please please no quicktime, I refuse to install it).

For my purposes, a plain HTML page with download links to a low quality sample for me to listen to would be enough. (and obviously a shopping cart or some other way to buy the full quality versions)

Having said that, I love the idea and hope I can listen to some of your music soon.

</comment><comment><USER16> As a musician and former gamer, I think this is a great idea and interesting discussion about pricing and business models. Have you thought about a commission/share model? I don't know the real market, but I think most musicians won't think about the games industry as a business, so you have probably less competition there. On the other hand, lately I've seen more and more indie games, so demand seems to be growing.

With such a low price, I'll have my concerns with the lack of exclusivity. Maybe you could add a premium price to remove the audio from further selling?

Regards!

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a custom audio service on the site as well which I recommend for people seeking exclusivity and the more traditional commission approach. The prices are still lower than most composers can offer, but they're obviously a good deal higher than what I can offer for the non exclusive library tracks.

I've also considered the buyout approach for the library, and it's something I may eventually include.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great idea! One recommendation: Currently, your site loads a complete instance of the audio player for each track, which causes Flash's memory usage to shoot up by a couple hundred MB (Chrome on Windows). Might I suggest something like Yahoo's WebPlayer instead? It handles long lists of audio files more gracefully, with a single Flash object. That alone should greatly impact your page load times and responsiveness.

<http://webplayer.yahoo.com/>

</comment><comment><USER18> What formats do you offer?

Especially, do you offer a MOD formats (1) or only streamed audio? Because better games prefer to sync with the engine, and separate spacial tracks with OpenAL.

(1) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOD_%28file_format%29>

And as told: us$5 is much to low to be taken serious!

</comment><comment><USER19> Bookmarked it. I understand that you're a musician, and that's why you decided to start with music, but do you guys have any future plans of also providing other resources, such as sprite sheets, and that sort of stuff? This site has a great potential of being a one place stop for indie developers to help them get started.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that's a great idea and a service that needs to exist, but for me personally I think that would be biting off a lot more than I could chew.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have purchased a few tracks from Lucky Lion studios in the past for some personal projects (<http://codeincomplete.com/>) and been very happy.

I highly recommend them.

Good luck(y lion)!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Thanks for the support, I've actually played Snakes!

<comment><USER20> Cool. I also just used a couple of your tracks for a little outrun-style racing game

<http://codeincomplete.com/posts/2012/6/22/javascript_racer/>

I would agree with the comments that you could charge more (certainly for the longer tracks)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> $5 is a steal. I'm sure you could charge a lot more and still keep customers happy!

</comment><comment><USER22> I wish you the best of luck but how do you plan on contending with some of the large stock music sites? I won't give names.

Are you going to open up to other composers to sell through your service?

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow those tracks really are cheap. $100 per track would still be cheap.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a great idea! One of the bigger stumbling blocks for me, as a hopeful one-man-studio, is that I am crap at making music. This could be the answer to that. Best of luck to you!

</comment><comment><USER25> I am a hobbyist game developer, and this seems like a good resource (I have bookmarked it). Do you compose all the music or take in tracks from others as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> I compose all of the music at the moment, but as the business grows I would like to potentially bring in other composers and sound effect artists to offer a wider selection of styles.

<comment><USER26> Sent you a message regarding this. Cool idea man, I like the tracks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Having trouble previewing songs on my iPhone, but this looks like a great resource. Will check out again when in front of a "real" computer. ; )

</comment><comment><USER28> These are great! Have you any plans to provide a package including everything for a single price? I'd definitely be interested...

</comment><comment><USER29> Thank you, this is extremely useful.

I'm a programmer, I can handle some light graphics work. But I can't do music.

</comment><comment><USER30> Ough this sounds fantastic but you should have installed WP Super Cache!!

Bookmarked to check back later.

<comment><USER30> PS I'm also a composer, when can I upload tracks for others to buy? :o)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Cool! Would love more chiptune songs!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's definitely one of the more popular genres so I'm planning on bulking up in that area for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> as a developer+designer team, this resource is going to be tremendous for us! thank you :)

</comment><comment><USER33> what an awesome idea!

</comment><comment><USER34> I hope you're a good composer becase you're definitely not good at making websites :(

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the website could definitely use some improvement. Revenue is trickling in currently, hoping I can contract someone to spruce it up. I've been told HTML5 audio players would make a big difference in loading speed.

<comment><USER5> I highly recommend making a version that does not rely on Javascript for simply listing the tracks.</comment></comment></comment>


Elon Musk Is the 2017 Motor Trend Person of the Year - <AUTHOR> http://www.motortrend.com/news/2017-power-list-and-the-person-of-the-year/ <comment><AUTHOR> Also, the video of the presentation: [https://youtu.be/SijPcSOhev4?t=1517](https://youtu.be/SijPcSOhev4?t=1517)</comment>


The Purge - <AUTHOR> http://adilmajid.com/purge.html

<comment><USER2> Your blog's design reflects the minimal frugal lifestyle. I would be interested in hearing how you deal with your digital possessions. Computers have an awful tendency to fill up with clutter over time. I'd love to hear how you deal with it

<comment><AUTHOR> My system for avoiding clutter on desktop is mildly effective. I do all of my hoarding in Evernote - articles, photos, emails, notes, etc.

It definitely makes Evernote less useful since its so crowded (especially since their search is so-so at best), but it helps keep my clutter collected in one place.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Suggestion on which framework to use - <AUTHOR>

I am planning to write an app which should run on iOS, Android and also on a web browser. The app needs to use camera as well as GPS. I also want the app to be available from appstores. I understand that I need to use HTML5 and other mobile web technologies. IS there some framework that can make writing such an app easier, preferably, having only a single codebase. <comment><USER2> Have you looked into Titanium Mobile? [http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-mobile- applica...](http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-mobile-application- development/)</comment>


The Deep Space of Digital Reading - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-deep-space-of-digital-reading-rp <comment><USER3> Ever since I lost my physical library of books to a fire, I've been an e-reader zealot. There are so many advantages: instantly start reading virtually book you want, effortlessly take digital highlights and annotations, carry a whole library in your pocket while you travel, read at night while your partner is asleep... I could go on.

As an e-reader evangelist, I've encountered all kinds of resistance. In fact, it's the norm. There is a widespread emotional, aesthetic attachment to physical books. To me, it's purely irrational. My favorite author, Nassim Taleb, tries to explain it:

> Whenever I sit on an airplane next to some businessman reading the usual > trash businessmen read on an e-reader, said businessperson will not resist > disparaging my use of the book by comparing the two items. Supposedly, an > e-reader is more "efficient." It delivers the essence of the book, which > said businessman assumes is information, but in a more convenient way, as he > can carry a library on his device and "optimize" his time between golf > outings. I have never heard anyone address the large differences between > e-readers and physical books, like smell, texture, dimension (books are in > three dimensions), color, ability to change pages, physicality of an object > compared to a computer screen, and hidden properties causing unexplained > differences in enjoyment.

The only shortcoming of e-reading, in my opinion, is the inability to display the books you've read and the books you want to read somewhere in your home or office. You can tell so much about a person by their library. I've been testing some solutions to this problem.

<comment><USER4> > The only shortcoming of e-reading, in my opinion, is the inability to > display the books you've read and the books you want to read somewhere in > your home or office. You can tell so much about a person by their library. > I've been testing some solutions to this problem.

1\. Can't re-sell, 2. tend to be significantly more expensive to begin with (no used market), 3. annotations, footnotes and such tend to be much worse, 4. often have severe formatting/editing issues (see: all the 1-star reviews for many books on Amazon, which are often full of "book's fine, but don't get the kindle version, it's terrible"), 5. lending can be tricky 6. two-pages-at-a- time and page-flipping is a really stellar interface that e-readers don't even come close to beating, 7. relatedly, use of spatial memory help with real books in a way they don't in ebooks, 8. on that line of though, shelved books aren't just for showing off: they can aid memory, and their arrangement can even help with finding related content and with learning (my literature is arranged chronologically for those reasons—I learn and reinforce some information just by existing in the same room as my books, basically), 9. can only have one book active per device. Switching is a PITA.

Ebooks' main selling points AFAIK are 1. space (admittedly a huge advantage!), and 2. full text search (OK, but not _that_ great—there's such a thing as an index in most books for which this is seriously important, which will usually be _better_ than full-text search). They're worse in just about every other way (though, again, the space thing is _really_ nice)

<comment><USER5> > 1\. Can't re-sell, 2. tend to be significantly more expensive to begin with > (no used market)

Huge loss to society. We've lost a lot of things that we loved over the millenia, and we're still around. But I regret the eventual extinction of used (and new) bookstores. So many hours, sniffing those books and listening to the bell ring when the door opens ...

My coffee cup is sitting on a purpose-built book shelf housing a set of The Great Books, both bought used at the dearly departed Shorey's Books in downtown Seattle, decades ago.

There is no serendipity at Amazon.

<comment><USER6> When I moved in 2006, I gave away my set of _Encyclopedia Britannica_ to a neighbor. 1957 edition with the dedicated bookcase purchased at a yard sale for $15 in 1989, just because 'Wow' and its own bookcase and some things don't go out of date. There's no Kindle edition of the '57 Britannica and if there was, it would not be $15 to me and free to my neighbor.

These days, my culled books go to a local charity's thrift shop or to Habitat's ReStore or to my public library for its book sale or to someone I know. Not the bitbucket.

<comment><USER7> They won't take encyclopedias. I've tried. (I have two sets.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is a good point in this article about the perception of effort and how that affects comprehension, rather than the medium.

I've met and worked with many people who think that just because it is being read through a computer that they don't have to read it carefully.

As a so-called 'digital native' with an unapologetic love for text, I find it extremely frustrating that people don't take online text seriously. Some people even like to speed-read, racing through text faster than they can recall the pronunciation of the words.

You might think you can speed read and still understand the content - most of the speedreaders I know hold that belief quite dear - but you aren't getting the whole story. A single missed word can profoundly alter the meaning of a sentence. I've seen many conflicts and miscommunications caused by lazy reading and misinterpreted messages.

If I took my time to write a clear, concise, meaningful message/email/post/document/etc, please pay me the courtesy of truly reading it.

/rant

<comment> david-given > Some people even like to speed-read, racing through text faster than they > can recall the pronunciation of the words.

That's totally normal! I don't think I know _anybody_ who doesn't read faster than they can talk.

I agree with you about the problems involved speed reading, but... what you're describing here isn't speed reading --- it's just reading quickly. Speed reading's an entirely different discipline (and which is known not to work well).

<comment><USER9> > _and which is known not to work well_

This is commonly said about speed reading, but it seems to me like a bit of a misunderstanding about what speed reading even is. Speed reading isn't about trying to retain the same level of comprehension on a single pass through a text as a normal speed pass through it. It's nothing more than an optimized skimming technique if you only take one or two passes through a text. But the idea is to leverage the time saved through 'speed reading', by putting that extra time into additional passes later on, thus making it more of an efficient spaced repetition[0] system than a reading technique. The idea being that you build your comprehension up with each pass, until you surpass the comprehension you would've had of it if you only took one normal speed pass through it, and in the end still use up about the same amount of time or less as a normal reading.

Continuing with the spaced repetition idea, speed reading also helps that along more than normal reading by making the things you've read more difficult to recall, which is good if you plan to review them again later to strengthen the memories. The book "Make It Stick"[1] has a pretty good overview of different scientifically proven learning techniques that are pretty interesting, and a lot of them overlap with the effects of speed reading + multiple passes.

Personally, since I'm dyslexic, I prefer applying this approach to audiobooks and listening to them at 3-4x speed, then re-listening to ones I liked later, all while taking notes as I go. And I have to say, that works out for me pretty well. My biggest issue is keeping track of _which_ book I learned _what_ from.

[0] [https://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition](https://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition)

[1] [http://makeitstick.net](http://makeitstick.net)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I read a lot of text on screen. One of my main enjoyments of HN is it is text heavy so my screen space is not wasted with subpar graphics.

I also read in print I enjoy the tactical feel and the lack of a back light. I also tend to buy beautiful physical books that stand out as objects on their own.

PDFs, I only read now on an IPad given the high dpi.

If I have a point it is in my reading I switch back and forth so generously it is hard to tell the difference.

</comment><comment><USER11> I find LED screens hard to read on for long periods of time, but I don't have this problem with e-readers.

At this point, I think the attachment that people have to analog books is purely emotional. There is no practical reason to have books over e-readers.

People mention things like the feel of the book, the feel of the paper in your hands, etc. Well I don't particularly like the way paper feels, particularly old paper when it starts to change color and get stiff and slightly misshapen. But even if you do like that sort of thing, in the end that's not what you're after, you don't read books for the feel of the paper or the smell or whatever, you read books because you want a good story or good information.

Yes some nostalgia books might be good for paper format for collectors or people who have preferences (like those people who like to vinyl instead of MP3s , but for ever-day, practical reading, digital readers are better in nearly every respect. They are cheaper, they have adjustable fonts, you can make a backup copy of the book and store it in the cloud so you don't have to worry about ever losing your book. You can adjust the font and font size. You can tap twice on any word and instantly get the dictionary definition. If you have a kobo you can save we articles on the kobo for later reading. It automatically keeps your page for you. Bookshelves take up an enormous amount of room, having that in the space of a small notebook is an advantage. It's much more environmentally friendly. By any measure e-books are better.

The only mildly sensible detraction I've seen on here is the inability to show off your bookshelf or share books, which frankly I don't care about. I don't care about showing off to other people, that's not why I read, and I can share books just fine without pulling it off a bookshelf and showing it.

<comment><USER12> You're confusing your own motivations with the motivations of others.

Why do I read literarary works? For the information inside.

Why do I read physical books? I like all of the things you mentioned people shouldn't care about. The look, the feel, the physical manifestation, and most of all the smell of a stale book after a few decades. It's lovely.

Books fundamentally serve a different purpose for me.

Is this preference arbitrary? Yes. Is there anything at all wrong with it? No. The only thing wrong with mass produced books is the carbon footprint. These days we don't even need to cut trees for decent cellulose paper so the argument of deforestation people like to use is only a matter of current industry practices and not the book itself.

Instead of condemning the preferences of myself and others, why not try to understand us?

<comment><USER11> >Why do I read physical books? I like all of the things you mentioned people shouldn't care about. The look, the feel, the physical manifestation, and most of all the smell of a stale book after a few decades. It's lovely.

I doubt this is true for everyday reading. Because if that were true you would just open up old books and sniff them and rub them in your hands from time to time. And yet I have never once seen anyone do this. Lets face it, we read books for the words not for the feel for the books.

People are just going back to "feel" based sentiments now to justify what they see as a major change in a cherished hobby which they dislike. And while feel based arguments for preserving books aren't completely without merit, they only apply to a narrow type of book and a narrow type of reading (beautiful classic books) and not to actual every day reading.

I understand the nice qualities in old classic books. I get the nice feeling of opening up a really old book that has been around for a long time - <USER2> that really is a limited scope sort of use that doesn't capture every day use of books, and it's not really connected to the reading - it has more the value that an antique or a collectible has.

I think the best example is two copies of Shakespeare I have. One is an old classic version of Shakespeare in hard cover printed on high quality paper with ink illustrations. The other is a college paperback copy of Hamlet with torn covers and introduction pages. The prior might not be a good candidate for replacement with an e-reader but the latter certainly would. But if your goal was just to read Hamlet, both would be just as effective. This isn't to say there isn't a place for the great feeling you get with the hardcover beautiful Shakespeare book, just that the feeling isn't necessarily connected to the actual reading of Hamlet.

<comment><USER13> You are basicly doubling down on the same fallacies the previous post was pointing to.

> I doubt this is true for everyday reading

For some of us books are not everyday reading...

> Because if that were true you would just open up old books and sniff them > and rub them in your hands from time to time. And yet I have never once seen > anyone do this. Lets face it, we read books for the words not for the feel > for the books

Following the same line of thinking, since I never saw anyone eating raw salt I should conclude that people don't really like salt ? You are trying to reduce reading a book to sum of arbitrary components...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Huge obnoxious pop-up when I tried to view the page.

<comment><USER15> If that was the one advertising the $29 special offer one year print subscription then I think they probably need the money.

I just subscribed to the _print_ edition because I like glossy magazines with high resolution illustrations. I can take it in and show it around to students and other teachers.

Because I'm in Europe, I got to pay $30 postage (always an issue) and had, as always, to sign up through a registration process, select product and postage and then finally nominate PayPal at the checkout.

The subscription is non-repeating, so a definite limit: I get 6 glossy magazines for about £7 each.</comment></comment>


The Selection of Go at Apcera - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/derekcollison/go-conference-japan <comment><USER2>
      "Google starting to kill off projects, would Go be on that list?"

Key difference here, unlike Reader, golang is fully open source. So even if they did (which is unlikely because it is good and used by Google itself), it could survive that and still thrive. I feel it's got enough critical momentum even at this point (and even more so in the future).

This is one of the main reasons why I believe in its future and feel passionate about it. They started off right by making it open source. I would have very mixed feelings if it were closed.

<comment><USER3> Remember Unladen Swallow? It was open source. It had non-Google contributors. It was going to be the future of Python. Google was a heavy Python user and _needed_ Unladen Swallow to succeed. It had a specific, ambitious goal. And then it just fizzled out because Google reassigned its people.

Will Go survive (and thrive) if Google pulled its support?

<comment><USER4> Unladen Swallow never released a version 1, let alone 1.1. Also, clearly, Google did did not _need_ Unladen Swallow to succeed...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Were Node.js and Go the only two choices considered? Erlang, Haskell, etc seem like they would fit the choice criteria, save for dependency management which is generally handled externally via rebar or such. Works pretty well though. Moreover, Erlang has solutions for the listed pain points of Go -- an excellent scheduler, fast GC thanks to per-process stacks, mature libraries including HTTP, crypto, etc.

Perhaps if they had spent more than 15 minutes deciding on the language...

<comment><USER6> Go 1.1 which will be out soon (maybe this month?) addresses a lot of these pain points to varying extents and is completely backwards compatible with 1.0.X code.

Also, I don't know if Erlang would have met their performance needs? [http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?te...](http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=go&lang2=hipe)

<comment><USER7> Erlang is faster than most people give it credit for. I imagine performance might also have made their bullet points, coming from Ruby: [http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?te...](http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=yarv&lang2=hipe)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One thing that worried me was the slide with just this text on it:

        Team selected Go in 15 minutes

Is that really long enough to make a decision? I'm not saying it was necessarily the wrong decision. Just that 15 minutes isn't a whole lot of time.

<comment><USER9> And then they had to write their own interface to OpenSSL, their own logging framework, their own ORM, their own HTTP server, and their own implementation of map. That seems like a lot of "non-value-added" stuff to have to reinvent.

<comment><USER10> (I work at Apcera)

We didn't write our own HTTP server, but rather a framework that sits on top of it and makes it easier to use.

The logging library is quite unlike anything else we're aware of, and the goals of it were language independent. The author of it is giving a talk about the library and our experiences with Go at GlueCon next month.

The ORM is the one which is more a result of what we wanted not being represented by existing libraries, and the community being still smaller compared to Node.

However, with all those still considered, we've gained a lot of velocity with Go, better concurrency without doing full async development, etc. Personally, I've hated testing async code in the past with both Node and EM+Ruby.

<comment><USER11> Any chance you'll release the ORM?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm using Go at my new startup. I've only been working with it for a couple of weeks but I'm loving it so far. They just got so many things _right_ with this language.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is really a minor point, but lots of people seem to hate function level scoping, including these guys. Having started out in languages with function level scoping, and only later used block level scoping, the former strikes me as the most ordinary thing in the world.

Am I missing some compelling advantage of block level scopes, or is it just a matter of taste/familiarity?

<comment><USER14> If your functions get big, you will start getting naming collisions and bugs.

<comment><USER15> That's a sign your functions are too big.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm curious why Java isn't customer neutral. Clojure (and Scala) both seem to be more mature, and concurrency is a core part of clojure (with a rich ecosystem and runtime in the JVM).

<comment><USER6> Many people, right or wrong, do not feel comfortable running the JVM for patent, ideological and/or security reasons.

<comment><USER17> Security reasons? What?

<comment><USER6> I have heard some security researchers are not pleased with Oracles security fix response time.

Other people feel the JVM is highly targeted. Or has more security bugs than it should. Or is too bloated for the limited services they use it for and could be smaller and this present a smaller target. etc

I'm not saying these concerns are necessarily valid, but I have had customers who had no JVM rules...

<comment><USER17> You are confusing the Java applet sandbox with the JVM. Serverside JVM applications don't try to safely execute arbitrary JVM opcodes from random Internet hosts.

<comment><USER6> "You are confusing the Java applet sandbox with the JVM" I tried to be clear I was expressing common views customers and people I have interacted with have expressed, not my own. In the context of marketing, perception matters.

But I hope you are not saying the server side JVM has never has security bugs..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looking at Choice Criteria slide one might ask: why not Erlang?

</comment><comment><USER19> Enterprise ODM + logging etc. Any of that being open-sourceD?

<comment><USER10> (I work at Apcera)

Soon™

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> In the page 10 of presentation I saw "Callback Spaghetti" for NodeJs. I think he means "Callback Hell".

There's several good approaches that helps you to manage and write better JavaScript codes (even NodeJs) to prevent callback hell problem, it's not a problem of NodeJs or JavaScript, it's you that should manage this situation.

<comment><USER21> |it's you that should manage this situation. With Go, you don't need to worry about this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The prediction that go will become the predominant language in IaaS and PaaS seems to be a stretch... python has a HUGE lead and is well entrenched.

</comment><comment><USER22> On slide 15, he says of Stacks : "I spent 3+ months designing this in C in the 90s".

Anyone know what that means? Is he talking about segmented stacks?

</comment><comment><USER23> As a cloud platform startup, I'm kind of surprised they didn't just go with NodeJS due to it's huge popularity advantage meaning they'd have many more customers. Even investors are asking for it nowadays. If you are writing internal software for your own company, OK, pick what you want. But if you are building a cloud platform that will presumably have customers with their own wants/needs/demands/codebases, I think they would have been better off with a platform written in the same language and engineers steeped in the same language as everyone wants right now.

<comment><USER6> I'm not familiar with their product, is their back-end choice going to limit their customers?

I think that a lot of developers that didn't start with front-end work find Javascript disgusting, maybe this team is in that group. When I worked at a consulting firm (that used a lot of C#) and we talked about node.js when it came out, everyone agreed they hated the idea of having to write more yucky JS than they had too. I think node.js was high on hype for a while and is less loved (esp outside of CA) than you might expect.

I've ported node.js apps to Go 1.0.1 and even back then the result was better performing, used less memory, about the same LOC and IMHO much cleaner, straight-forward and maintainable code.

<comment><USER24> _I think they a lot of developers that didn't start with front-end work find Javascript disgusting, maybe this team is in that group._

I am not a Javascript fanboy, but the syntax of GoLang is not better either.

<comment><USER6> I disagree, Go is slightly more verbose, but it leads to very clear code that is easily understood. Go code is beautiful.

Javascript's dynamic typing, extensive use of callbacks, its approach to OO, inconsistent braces and semicolons, etc are all felt by a lot of people to be messy.

For me lack of something like gofmt and a compile time errors also greatly detract.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to conduct an efficient code review? - <AUTHOR> http://redbeacon.github.io/2014/10/30/How-to-conduct-an-effcient-code-review/

<comment><USER2> really nice approach to code reviews!</comment>


Tesla Earnings: ' What Those Fools Don't Realize' - <AUTHOR> https://seekingalpha.com/article/4069096-tesla-earnings-heres-fools-realize <comment><USER2> What was the context of the "What Those Fools Don't Realize" quote? This is a particularly click-baity title, given that the quote is never referenced.

<comment><USER3> During the conference call, Musk remarks about how he hates when people spread comments about Tesla surviving because of EV credits, and then goes into his argument prefaced with "these fools don't realize"

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I appreciate the info.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm unable to see the article without installing the app

<comment><USER5> Disabling JavaScript seems to fix it. It's a shame that it's necessary; it's a nice article otherwise.</comment></comment>


When Capitalism Meets Cannabis - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/business/27pot.html?ref=homepage&src=me&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> I thought it was a great article, it will be a long time before authors can resist Cheech and Chong references, a bit like how motoring writers cannot review an Aston Martin without mentioning James Bond.

What the people retailing pot will find is that an easily-growable agricultural commodity is subject to perfect competition and prices will be driven down to a very low level.

Applying the 'sell shovels in a gold rush' rule, I think being a medicinal-pot lawyer or consultant is probably the best way to profit from this. Each time the government gets nervous and changes laws, these people will be needed to help shop owners navigate the new laws. The shop owners themselves are facing a price-sensitive consumer, regulations and retail leases. I wouldn't be surprised if the eventual winning business model looks more like a Walgreens and less like Starbucks.

<comment><USER3> Like the prices of wine all get driven down to a very low level? I suspect there will be lots of expensive premium varieties.

<comment><USER4> Most people drink wine because it tastes really nice, most people smoke pot to get stoned. I've listen to my pothead friends discuss pot, and not one of them has ever mentioned its flavour and bouquet. Equally I've never heard wine connoisseurs talk about which wine is better for getting you really drunk. If people drank wine simply to get drunk then no wines would cost more than 2-3$ a bottle.

<comment><USER5> Maybe you don't have enough friends who smoke pot. Not only will marijuana consumers judge by flavor, they will also judge by harshness, and, probably most importantly, by the style of intoxication the strain creates (for example racing, innovative thoughts vs. warm, bodily comfort).

<comment><USER4> Oh they discuss harshness and intoxication. However I imagine that those two aspects will be a lot easier to control and manipulate via simple chemical means if marijuana productions ever becomes properly industrialized and placed in the hands of smart and educated engineers. I just don't see a pot smoker paying $20 for a joint that tastes a bit different from $2 joint assuming they both get him equally intoxicated.

<comment><USER5> No, I don't think taste is the biggest selling point, but just as there is a dizzying array of potential flavors in nature, so too is there a dizzying array of marijuana intoxications. Just because most types of 'drunk' are similar does not mean most types of 'marijuana high' are similar - thus while a wine type might trade on its flavor, a marijuana strain would almost certainly trade on its style of intoxication.

That is, you can make niche highs just as you can make niche wine flavors.

<comment><USER4> It has admittedly been several years since I smoked pot and things may have changed, but within markets where the sale of marijuana was open and legal (or at least tolerated) I simply don't recall seeing any significant price differentiation. Sure there where countless variations, but they all cost more or less the same, and certainly nowhere near the price differences one sees in wine.

Now perhaps once the major PR and ad companies get behind the concept we'll see luxury pot brands charging premium prices, and perhaps we'll even see pot snobs who look down on anyone paying less then $15 a joint. With the right marketing campaign you can sell basically anything for basically any price, so I suppose the $500 oz. will probably become a reality if pot is fully legalized, and there will no doubt be plenty of suckers lining up to buy it.

In fact, I was probably wrong when I said that legal pot won't see the same prices as high end wines. The reason we haven't seen those sorts of prices is because the semi to illegal nature of it has meant a lack of fully protected brands and trademarks and advertising. Once we have those then there will be real money to be made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You'd have to be pretty naive to think being legal would then suddenly mean you can easily make it. Burgers are legal. The vast majority consume them. Now open a burger joint and corner the market! Oh wait.. Health code regulations? Employee benefits? Payrolls? Tax? Inspections? Fire code? Have to be better and/or cheaper then the big chains? Who would have guessed running a successful business wasn't trivial!

People who were in the game before competed against anyone who couldn't run a small time dry cleaning shop. They were in it because it was illegal and those good at business was instead running legal businesses.

<comment><USER7> I am completely out of touch with the black market, so I don't know for sure, but I was always under the impression people involved in the black market were there for the potential for large profit, not because they can't run a business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The already existent, well developed multi-billion dollar black market is a much more pure expression of capitalism than what the article describes. This is more like 'when capitalist bureaucracy is applied to retailing cannabis'.

</comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me of the whole should-you-build-on-someone-else's-platform thing, with the unpredictable, ever-shifting platform rules being in this case the mishmash of federal/state/local laws. The next family values president could put all these people out of business (and in jail, for that matter) with the stroke of a pen.

<comment><USER10> Can one be put in jail for doing something not-illegal? I mean, sure, if they don't _stop_ , but actions strictly prior to a law being passed don't seem questionable.

IANAL, however, just an idealist, forever at odds with the Real World™.

<comment><USER11> It's certainly possible in this case: There shouldn't be any problem with "actions strictly prior to a law being passed" -- the US Constitution frowns on _ex post facto_ punishments -- but everything described in the article is only legal under state, not federal law.

An aggressive attorney general could therefore decide to prosecute them as federal criminals. It's happened before; see, e.g., Gonzales vs Raich.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why do cannabis dispensaries need 24-hour webcams, and other MUCH more sensitive businesses (say, firearm sellers) don't? (AFAIK).

I'm against excessive regulation, and this seems more egregious than most.

</comment><comment><USER13> "The new rules, many of which will take effect over coming months, treat dispensaries a bit like pharmacies and a bit like casinos. Felons will soon be prohibited from owning dispensaries."

Are people with DUI's or other alcohol related offenses banned from owning bars? I don't know personally. If they are then I am okay with this.

<comment><USER14> Felons are prevented from owning bars, a felon could not get a liquor license.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I had no idea Walgreens was around from before prohibition, nor that they expanded 20-fold during prohibition.

 _But when was the last time your pharmacy had a milkshake night?_

Well, I don't think there were doses in the milkshakes, but I used to go to drug stores in Indiana for a malted.

<comment><USER16> Walgreens is one of Jim Collins "Good to Great" companies; there are other interesting things about their business model to know too. For instance, they "pioneered" the "blanket every other major intersection with a retail location" model that Starbucks uses (unlike McDonalds, which is a franchise system, SBUX and WAG do this because there are logistical efficiencies they can exploit).

<comment><USER17> That's a great book, even better than the first one. They made us read it at founder institute.

Those logistical efficiencies must work in the convenience store biz as well. Honolulu has all of these ABC stores. I even saw 2 almost across the street from each other.

<comment><USER18> ABC stores aren't necessarily owned by the same company:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage_control_stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage_control_state)

<comment><USER19> it's interesting (from the article) that during the temperance period, alcohol too was sold from stores called 'dispensaries'

> At the beginning of the temperance movement in the United States, many > states curtailed where and when alcohol could be sold. Before this time, > most alcoholic beverages for off-premises consumption were often sold just > like any other item in stores or in saloons/bars. Because of heavy lobbying > by temperance groups in various states, most required off-premise beverages > to be sold in dedicated stores (primarily called dispensaries)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think very local control is much state or federal control of marijuana sales, medical or otherwise.

      http://www.theanswerisliberty.com/2010/06/can-democracy-and-recreational-drug-use.html

<comment><USER20> ...much better than state...

or could be worse, idk :)

<comment><USER17> I think if the decision makers face the consequences directly, they'll be inclined to make better choices and also learn more quickly from their choices. Legislators don't necessarily have to live with the consequences of their choices. The local condo board does.

And the consequences will undoubtedly be worse. To someone. And ideal to others. But if they can each live in a community with rules they prefer, there's no problem.

That is a major challenge and opportunity of good government. Drawing the lines so that people are free but not stepping on each other's toes.

<comment><USER13> If marijuana or any other drug for that matter were 100% legal tomorrow nothing at all would change from the way it is now. The people who want to use it will still use just like they do now. The fact is that even being illegal most places it is incredibly easy to get.

<comment><USER21> For marijuana this may be true--marijuana is easily identifiable and it only takes a little bit of networking to "know a guy". For other drugs this is emphatically not true--LSD, for instance, has faced supply-side crackdowns to the point where it's very difficult to find on the street, and additionally, no easy way to distinguish supposed LSD from other hallucinogens.

<comment><USER13> I agree that other drugs are definitely harder to obtain, however I still believe that the people who would try and use harder drugs would remain the same. I just don't think the demand is that high for hard drugs such as LSD, cocaine, heroine, etc would increase with additional supply. Its just not that common for people to want to to them. Therefore, if they were legal there just wouldn't be that much of a market for those drugs and again there wouldn't be any noticeable difference in the day to day to the non-user.

<comment><USER21> LSD isn't a "hard drug" in the slightest. But more importantly, cocaine and heroin don't have constricted supply--you can get plenty of both. I don't think there's enough LSD to satisfy demand at the moment, especially not with authenticity concerns.

<comment><USER13> You are right I shouldn't have lumped LSD in with Cocaine and Heroine. I have heard before that LSD doesn't even have any real side affects. Is that true?

<comment><USER12> I got interested in that, the most authoritative source I could find on the fly (the NIH) seems to say it might cause flashbacks, but "LSD is not considered an addictive drug since it does not produce compulsive drug-seeking behavior.":

<http://www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/hallucinogens.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not relevant to hackers.

<comment><USER7> Sometimes thoughts like that cross my mind, but don't forget the target audience of this newsfeed is _entrepreneurs who happen to be hackers_ , so practically any article about markets (esp. up and coming markets) is potentially relevant.</comment></comment>


Show HN: a site to help people find a good text editor (or IDE) - <AUTHOR> http://editors.sashahart.net

<comment><AUTHOR> I built a pretty comprehensive database of text editors and IDEs (with a ton of data on each one) and then exposed a subset of that data from this little one-page webapp, in order to help people find a tool worth learning for things like programming or system administration tasks. There's no commercial motive in any of this, it was just something I thought was needed.

What you see is not a curated list, in the sense that it contains a lot of stuff I would never use. But my eyeballs have been on everything in the database, a lot of manual work was involved.

Nor is it a listing of every editor which ever existed (for example, the platforms included are limited, especially I haven't included phone apps or e.g. MS-DOS editors; I don't include websites which purport to be text editors, and I try to avoid linking projects which their authors declared dead, and some which looked to me like possible scams or malware drops). And it doesn't include everything I gathered, just data for which I had reasonable coverage across editors (a lot of things you'd want to know are amazingly hard to find out for more than a few editors).

If you want programmatic access to the data, just use the JSON file, it isn't close to everything I have but it's enough if you find the app isn't giving you the kind of query power you want or something.</comment>


Ask HN: we lunch, now what? - <AUTHOR>

I don't know if this question was already asked.<p>What do you think are the steps to follow, and also the steps to avoid? <comment><USER2> After you lunch, you should take a nap, and then get any remaining work done. Later, dinner.

I'd avoid swimming directly afterwards.</comment>


OpenMoko UI Train Wreck (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.vimeo.com/1366042 <comment><USER2> This is a great illustration for folks that don't understand why the iPhone works so well. When you can compare it to a phone that has similar functionality, but fails miserable to measure up, you start to sense how important the small decisions are.

It isn't good enough to have a list that scroll up-and-down when you drag your finger, but it has to do it at the right speed. It isn't good enough to toss up a keyboard when it is too small and the delete key is impossible to touch.

I'm sure the OpenMoko team didn't have the resources of Apple, but to make great things you don't need to. You simply need someone obsessed with doing average things amazing.

<comment><USER3> There is no "OpenMoko team". If something doesn't work right in OpenMoko, it's your fault for not fixing it.

<comment><USER4> And what about hardware issues? The bezel that gets in the way. The slow processor. The pressure sensitive (vs. capacitive) screen.

The idea of a completely open cell phone platform is nice in theory, but based on what I saw in this video they're going to have a hard time getting a critical mass of users/developers to shell out $400 for it and actually improve the thing.

<comment><USER5> Don't underestimate open-source fans. I know a bunch of guys who just can't wait to get their hands dirty with this phone. I believe OpenMoko will be a success later on.

<comment><USER6> One word: Greenphone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the comments on the article. "haha, let's laugh at those crazy 'open source' developers; Apple is cool because the ads convinced me so!!11!!". I will be laughing at them when they are forced to pay $500 for every piece of software because there is no Free software anymore.

Instead of posting an "lol" comment, it would be more helpful to patch the problematic areas of the Openmoko codebase. That way every person in the world would theoretically benefit from the 10 minutes of their time. Sitting and watching the video is worthless, and I wish I could post a sarcastic video about _that_.

Basically, as I mentioned above... if open source doesn't work for you, it's your fault for not fixing it. The developers will love you forever if you help them fix it. So will everyone else. So get off your ass and start helping, or at least stop criticizing the people that are donating their time to help keep software Free.

<comment><USER7> The problem with that attitude is that the only customers that would be interested in the freerunner are the ones that _know enough_ to fix the problems. It takes little effort for anyone to go "omg the UI sucks compared to the iPhone's!", it takes a _lot_ more to actually fix all the UI problems, nevermind all the other issues.

And honestly, let's think about the other open source projects out there right now, shall we? The FSF loves pointing out the community behind freerunner is also behind Linux..yeah, when has that ever been a flawless experience for anyone with an excellent UI to match? Never. Because to the users and the hackers and the developers, it doesn't matter that much. When you're comfortable installing the likes of arch or gentoo, the command line is your friend and it all makes sense and you know how to fix issues. If you've only spent your entire life using Windows and you don't know how to do much, it's unusable. I have tried SO many times to get some people to switch to newbie- friendly distros like Ubuntu because I was sick of maintaining their Windows machines, and it's still impossible for a lot of them. The people who care about the freerunner wouldn't care so much about the major gripes _most users_ would have about the phone. That is why this will never stop being an extremely niche product.

My two cents: Despite the feeling that I probably do have the know-how to fix some problems if I got a freerunner, I wouldn't buy a freerunner because I want a phone that just works with everything that I want with a minimal amount of hassle. Yay open source..I use Linux, but my main desktop will be OS X for convenience because Linux will never be able to match that. Just like how I got an iPhone..not because the ads told me they were cool..but because the phone just works and has everything I want. And in the very rare occasion I don't, and someone else hasn't come to the rescue, I could just open Xcode and hack something together. The freerunner can't even come close to it even if I hacked together a phone by myself with everything I want in it. I'm paying the price for convenience? Sure. But how much _more_ time would I be paying in if I had a freerunner I could hack, but where nothing worked the way I wanted and it had no hardware I was interested in? Too much, especially some stuff that's totally out of my control and/or ability.

Oh yeah, this is all _assuming_ the developers will love you forever if you fix a problem for them. If they don't..well..I suppose you could fork.

I'm trying not to criticize the people who are doing this, really, I love them for it. But if certain entities can get off their unjustified high horse(s) and get out of their fantasy worlds ( _cough_ fsf regarding the iPhone 3g _cough_ ) that would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The problem with OpenMoko IMHO is too much hype and lack of direction.

The idea to have an open phone, is great, in principle, but executing it is much harder.

FIC is a hardware company and OpenMoko Inc. spun out of it, they made the hardware, and then hired a bunch of open source developers to make the software work on their somewhat broken hardware. As if that wasn't bad enough, they started drinking the kool-aid and spreading the hype about the OM phones being iPhone killers and gave their dev team _impossible_ goals. When v1 (the 1973) came out, it was pretty much useless but it sold out just because the community was so excited about it.

Fast-forward to v2, still a lot of iphone-killer hype (like that idiotic fsf article) and no working software, OM changed directions multiple times and the Qtopia abortion is a result of that, and almost everyone is disappointed, but for the first time you can actually make calls (if you run a non-smartphone distro). The community is now beginning to form and take ownership of the fact that the OS won't go anywhere unless they make it. But the prohibitive price is probably preventing the community from reaching a critical mass.

<comment><USER9> That idiotic FSF article was the reason I recorded the video. I was extremely upset at the article for exposing the OpenMoko project to too much expectation too early in the game.

But it's not just that article, a lot of defensive open source fans are saying, "I am happy with my FreeRunner" and trying to look at it in a positive light. But when they talk about it to those uninitiated into the situation, it ends up as praise with faint condemnation. "I love my FreeRunner, and it's free! It's _wink wink nudge nudge nod nod knowhatimean_ not ready for primetime, but I'm enjoying the device." And this subjective experience might be true, but it's extremely misleading to someone who wants to actually use a smartphone in day-to-day operation.

The hardware is the most disappointing part to me. Everything else can be fixed. I really harped on the keyboard because I just can't envision how anyone looks at that thing and doesn't laugh, but it can be trivially fixed. The hardware problem for the planned revisions is not something we can wave a magic software wand at, though. I would have preferred it if they included a better touchscreen with hardware multi-touch and a flush glass surface and dropped the GPS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This should be a bad hardware vs. good hardware debate, not a closed source vs. open source debate - people who try and turn these problems with an obviously poorly made product into an sort of 'open source debate' are missing the point.

<comment><USER9> It's unfortunate that "but it is free!" is the number one feature bullet point, even if we wave all the software problems and assume great software for user experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Isn't this a great example of a problem that needs to be solved? How can great UI design and open source be combined? I guess it's hard because great design means making (tough) choices for your users by limiting the feature set an thus the openness of the system.</comment>


Show HN: Add Snow to Your Website - <AUTHOR> https://eager.io/app/snow/install?hn=1 <comment><USER2> Aren't there a lot of scripts out there to add snow to your website? Most of which don't require registration, don't have silly 'pro' versions and don't seem like an excuse to sell people something for maybe a couple of weeks of the year?

Why would I use this when I can find a free script that doesn't require any sign up and does the exact same thing with more options?

P.S. The snow graphics are blocked by UBlock, if you're using it.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can get the pro version for free with a tweet. You can also find the source of both plugins here:

[https://github.com/EagerApps](https://github.com/EagerApps)

Eager itself is a platform to allow non-technical website owners to install the all of the open-source and SaaS tools which technical people already have access to. If you already know how to add JavaScript to your page, Eager is more about convenience, not necessity.

<comment><USER2> So where's the use case for that? Sites offering tools like forums, guestbooks and counters worked because you couldn't host those things on 90s era free hosting where access to any form of server side programming was impossible.

Javascript snow (and other visual gimmicks like this) are client side; even Geocities would have let you host it yourself. Most hosted services let you add some form of Javascript/HTML code somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I loved the preview on my site, but why on earth do I have to signup, and install something else called Eager and then install Snow? How many scripts does it take to let flakes fall down? Isn't this easily done through CSS and keyframes?

EDIT: Yes it is, there's a CSS only solution here, no trackers whatsover: [http://codepen.io/NickyCDK/pen/AIonk](http://codepen.io/NickyCDK/pen/AIonk)

<comment><USER4> It's also a fun little project to roll your own in JS. Here's mine: [https://jffry.github.io/blizzard.js/demo/](https://jffry.github.io/blizzard.js/demo/)

~2kb raw, ~900 bytes minified, ~600 bytes min+gzipped

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Add Snow to Your Website

Sadly, I immediately translate this to "add _trackers_ to your website", whether it is true or not.

<comment><USER6> I don't know why you were downvoted, they literally state in their terms of service they will do this:

""" Apps installed with Eager may, for example:

Add cookies to your domain to track visitors. """

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify, Snow and Snow Pro don't to anything of the kind. You can view the source here:

[https://github.com/EagerApps/Snow](https://github.com/EagerApps/Snow) [https://github.com/EagerApps/SnowPro](https://github.com/EagerApps/SnowPro)

<comment><USER7> They don't do anything of the kind _right now_ but the terms and conditions permit you to change that at any moment you wish to.

If you don't want to do this and will not do this then make it plain in your terms and conditions.

<comment><AUTHOR> The reason that is in the terms and conditions is because Eager exists to allow people to install all sorts of third-party SaaS tools. If you install the Google Analytics app, they are going to track you, that is what we're trying to convey. Every app Eager has built is open-source, and is going to remain that way.

The nice thing about delivering software directly to the client as we do is you can examine the exact code which gets sent, and confirm that it is what you expect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There is _zero_ reason to do something like this (if you're doing it at all) with a chunk of javascript hosted by a another party.

<comment><AUTHOR> Eager is to give all of the non-technical website owners access to the JavaScript tools we use every day. If you do know how to install a script manually, there is certainly less of a reason to use it.

<comment><USER7> If you don't know how to install a script manually you _definitely_ don't have any business to install remotely hosted javascript, especially not from a source that has terms and conditions that all but guarantee abuse of the fact that you installed their scripts.

I'd also advise anybody installing such scripts (even locally) to read them to make sure that they only do what they say they do.

<comment><AUTHOR> We view Eager as a safer alternative to installing something like a WordPress plugin. Non-technical people certainly use them extensively, yet they introduce very large security holes. We are trying to provide much of the same power, but without the danger of a server exploit.

If you do read the Eager terms of service, you'll see that we explicitly guarantee that we won't sell any tracking information. We don't build every Eager app, but the ones we have built are open source, and don't track or report anything to us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://s_news_ycombinator_com.p.eager.works/eagerProxySrc=w...](https://s_news_ycombinator_com.p.eager.works/eagerProxySrc=www.google.com/)

<comment><USER9> This doesn't work, it reports:

This may not be the page you're expecting (request failed security checks).</comment></comment>


One API to Rule them All (Embed.ly) - <AUTHOR> http://api.embed.ly/

<comment><USER2> Its very interesting and would certainly like to put it on some of my sites, but the lack of a paid plan is turning me off for 2 reasons:

1: Without a revenue method, how will they survive? I dont want to spend time integrating with something thats going to possibly go away.

2: If it does stay free, it makes me feel like I should expect little "powered by embed.ly" things being inserted into the code I get back some day.

Anyways, to summarize: Id like to use your product, but wont do it unless you charge for it or somehow make a server version that does not need to call out (similar to how Maxmind GeoIP is setup).

There are very few "free" services that I rely on, and the ones that I do are typically large open source projects (ie- apache, linux, etc..) or free offerings by huge companies that wont go anywhere (recaptcha)

So basically, if your intention is to keep it free, why not make a downloadable database of codes we can update from time to time with cron? It would be more economical in every sense and doesnt force our webapps to stop working if your servers go down.

</comment><comment><USER3> who is the customer for Embed.ly?

I imagine this is useful for people who make mashup style apps that plug into various different services, but is that a big enough market size?

If I'm just plugging into one service, it's better to use the direct API than go through a middle man. If I'm using a dozen different services, I see the point of Embed.ly, but I don't see a huge business opportunity. Perhaps I'm missing something?

<comment><USER4> It can also be useful for very useful for aggregators.

Hmm...HN + Embed.ly + Userscript?

<comment><USER3> I totally see that.

I guess my point is - are aggregators and their ilk going to make for good paying customers? there's not much money to be made in aggregating since the barrier to entry is so low (because tools like Embed.ly exist!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does a service like this exist to do the opposite?

That is, a service that let's you submit / post data to one place and have it then pushed to multiple services / APIs as a result?

I think Wufoo does this for forms. But they wouldn't be a feasible solution for development.

<comment><USER6> Posterous will do this for multimedia - you email it as an attachment or upload it (or there is API access, I believe) and it will upload it to the appropriate site(s) based on the accounts you have set up (photos to Flickr, videos to YouTube, etc).

It will also create a Posterous blog but you don't need to make it public.</comment></comment>


Python 3.5.0 - <AUTHOR> https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-350/ <comment><USER2> Python 3 keeps getting better and better. I've been writing more code in Python 3 than 2 for about three years now, and I absolutely love it. When I have to write code in 2.7 now, it feels like shifting from fifth gear down to second.

<comment><USER3> Is Py3 ready for prime time? Do all the right libraries have support now?

<comment><USER4> Yes -- I write ~95% of my python code in 3, and scrapy is the only library I commonly use that doesn't support it. Here's a listing of package compatibility: [http://py3readiness.org/](http://py3readiness.org/).

<comment><USER5> and the other one: [https://python3wos.appspot.com/](https://python3wos.appspot.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> By far the most exciting news here, to me, is PEP 484 typing module. Typing support would eliminate one of pythons biggest weaknesses. Furthermore, having it optional means it can remain as easy play and prototype with while becoming "more professional."

The other features are all well rounded, with co-routines having quite some potential, though I'd have to play around with them first to assess.

Now if everything would please start moving on to Python 3 pretty please ;).

<comment><USER7> I like the thought of coroutines, but it's definitely been especially slow for the ecosystem to adapt to asyncio so far. (And for good reason. It has new syntax that doesn't play well with non-asyncio). Adding even more syntax for the same things may slow down adoption more? Admittedly, it's much better syntax.

The optional typing is a tricky subject. I'll have to wait until there are tools actually using it to see. One of my biggest hesitances with it is that until runtime checking or really good static analysis exists, annotating things incorrectly can be too easy. I am cautiously optimistic though. The theory is fantastic, just have to wait for the follow through. The best way to sort-of statically type things right now(imo) is through namedtuples (which I make use of heavily for lightweight, strict datatypes)

Formatting for bytes and bytearray is actually one I run into a ton trying to port py2 code to py3. Pretty excited about that.

<comment><USER8> PyCharm already takes advantage of optional typing using Python 3 annotations. The typing module will allow more types to be expressed, and I assume they'll update to take advantage of annotations that involve the typing module.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So far, this is my favorite 3.x release. Typing annotations, async/await, unpacking generalizations. Lots of cool new features. Too bad that PEP0498[1] didn't make it in this release, we'll have to wait for 3.6.

[1] [https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0498/](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0498/)

<comment><USER10> > 'f' may not be combined with 'u'.

I thought that Python3 removed 'u' strings, was this just a bit of humour in the PEP?

<comment><USER11> We added u'' formatting back in 3.3 to ease 2->3 porting. u'' is equivalent to simple ''.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> PEP 0448 in addition to already implemented PEP 3132 make it very tempting to switch. If PEP 0448 had unpacking in comprehensions I'd switch. (Doesn't seem be a follow-up PEP just for that functionality yet.)

[https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0448/](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0448/) [https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3132/](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3132/)

I'd be really nice to use this.

      >>> [*range(i) for i in range(5)]

Instead of this monstrosity right now.

      >>> [x for y in (range(i) for i in range(5)) for x in y]

Python 2.7 has some minor features that 3 dropped unfortunately, which still makes me hesitate.

Such as filter keeping the type. In 3 it returns an iterator.

      >>> filter(lambda x: x in 'ABC', 'ABCDEFA')
      'ABCA'

Or this mostly cosmetic feature.

      >>> filter(lambda x: x[0] > x[1], ((1, 2), (4, 3)))
      >>> filter(lambda (x, y): x > y, ((1, 2), (4, 3))) # equivalent, error in 3

Also dropped. (It's slower than using the dedicated base64 module though.)

      >>>'Python'.encode('base64')
      'UHl0aG9u\n'

Also, I like print.

<comment><USER13> > Such as filter keeping the type. In 3 it returns an iterator.

> >>> filter(lambda x: x in 'ABC', 'ABCDEFA') > 'ABCA'

it was a special case for a few types, didn't (couldn't) work for all types e.g.

        >>> filter(lambda x: x in 'ABC', set('ABC'))
        ['A', 'C', 'B']

> Also, I like print.

I like Python 3's print. It's kind-of a pain because my day-to-day uses Python 2 and the context switch is annoying, but 3's is way more flexible and readable:

        print <<f, foo, bar # (or is it >>file? I can never remember)

versus

                   actually makes sense, no sigil soup
                           ||
                           \/
        print(foo, bar, file=f, flush=True)
                                   /\
                                   ||
                       separate statement necessary in P2

and because it's an expression it can be used in more context than Python 2's print statement.

I feel you on the loss of argument unpacking, it was a very convenient feature (though not too common IME)

<comment><USER14> In case you haven't seen it, in Python 2.7:

      >>> from __future__ import print_function
      >>> print("hi")
      hi
      >>>

My team is starting to use it as we look to migrate various command line utilities to python 3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's New in 3.5 document: [https://docs.python.org/3.5/whatsnew/3.5.html](https://docs.python.org/3.5/whatsnew/3.5.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'd love to use Python 3. Alas, I work in the defense industry and am working on a _new_ development project in Python 2.6. Why? Because that's the version that's already installed on the client's systems, and getting anything new installed is such a nightmare of Vogon-esque policies and procedures that I've learned not to even ask.

I'm constantly having to hack around bugs in ancient versions of libraries that have been fixed _years_ ago for the same reason.

I have a feeling the slow adoption rate of python 3 is not due to developers "rejecting" it.

<comment><USER16> If that's because you work on Redhat, see if at least the epel repository is available to you. No idea if or when it'll have Python 3.5 but it's usually ahead of the base repo.

<comment><USER17> for folks using RHEL/CentOS >= 6.5 then [https://www.softwarecollections.org/en](https://www.softwarecollections.org/en) might be the way to go, once 3.5 is available there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The scandir update also changes the underlying implementation of os.walk giving loads of production apps a huge speed increase by making use of additional data returned by the os calls.

<comment><USER19> Could os.walk have been changed "under the hood" without a PEP? eg. using — just for example — fast_walk_in_c in _os.so

(I understand that adding os.scandir might require a PEP)

<comment><USER20> No, a PEP was required because there was a lot of discussion on the API, and also non trivial choices on the implementation (pure C? pure Python? C+Python?). To have an idea of the amount of discussion, read the "Rejected ideas" of the PEP:

[https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0471/#rejected- ideas](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0471/#rejected-ideas)

<comment><USER19> Why would changing the underlying workings of os.walk require a PEP?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Great! 134 comments so far and only 1 or 2 about "Python 3 will never prevail", "Python 2 is better" and the usual rant. Things are getting better !

</comment><comment><USER22> I love all the performance improvements to the standard library. That Serhiy Storchaka has made an impressive amount of contributions, a doesn't seem to be working for anyone?

</comment><comment><USER23> Question - is there any web/api framework that leverages asyncio ? This implicitly also means first class DB/ORM support.

Flask, sqlalchemy ,etc seem to be using gevent and py 2.7.

<comment><USER24> Yes, there is. [https://github.com/KeepSafe/aiohttp](https://github.com/KeepSafe/aiohttp)

It's hard to write an asynchronous ORM though. Your options are either to use some existing synchronous ORM (like SQLAlchemy) in a thread pool (`loop.run_in_executor`) or use more low-level db driver: [https://github.com/aio-libs/aiopg#example-of-sqlalchemy- opti...](https://github.com/aio-libs/aiopg#example-of-sqlalchemy-optional- integration)

<comment><USER25> The asyncio example/benchmark snippet I linked above uses peewee-async:

[https://peewee-async.readthedocs.org](https://peewee-async.readthedocs.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's about time I switched to Python 3.

</comment><comment><USER27> PEP 0475 makes me happy, I've had to workaround interrupted syscalls a few times.

</comment><comment><USER28> Does this mean that asyncio will be deprecated as there's now 2 ways to accomplish much of the same thing or do they truly have different semantics?

<comment><USER11> Probably you're confused by PEP 492. It's not replacing asyncio, in fact it's about adding new language features to make programming with asyncio (and other frameworks, such as Tornado) more convenient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> My experience:

I've tried Python 3 and enjoy it very much. A few things drove me nuts at first, trying to figure out why syntax that worked in Python2 is not longer working in Python3. But a little bit of googling and I was on my way with Python3.

I have a project that I started a long time ago in Python2 using web.py. I tried to migrate to Python3, but unfortunately, web.py is not supported. I know Flask has python3 support and I could migrate to that but I'm not ready to move my whole code base over yet.

From someone who tried to migrate to Python3 with no compelling reason to, hit a roadblock, I immediately shelved the problem till later as I'm not missing anything critical from Python3 to warrant the effort.

I wonder how many other projects go through this? Especially much larger, more complex code bases.

<comment><USER30> By the way have you tried out CherryPy? Another web library to consider when dealing with Python 3 projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've recently joined a Python project, my first time working with the language. We're currently using Python 2.7. How do experienced Pythonistas decide if/when to upgrade to 3.x? I figured it was a no brainer given that it has been 7 years with a number of big releases, but Flask's warning on this topic put me off:

[http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/0.10/python3/](http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/0.10/python3/)

<comment><USER7> Those flask docs look out of date. I don't think you'll hit those troubles in python 3 anymore. It's imo a very mature ecosystem now.

<comment><USER32> That's very out of date going by: "Python 3 currently has less than 1% of the users of Python 2 going by PyPI download stats." The web ui download starts stopped being updated in 2013 if I remember correctly and api was disabled shortly after due to migration to CDN. So these stats are ~2 years out of date.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Very pleased to see PEP 465. In many ways I think python is one of the most exciting languages in terms of where it is going and what it is trying to do.

</comment><comment><USER34> Awaiting an official release (and my PR being merged), I made a Docker image which is simply an upgrade of the official one: [https://hub.docker.com/r/ctolsen/python/](https://hub.docker.com/r/ctolsen/python/)

Also, pytest users might want to use their dev version for now until they fix a 3.5 issue.

</comment><comment><USER35> The new Windows installer is nice. It has needed updating for a _long_ time so glad to see it get some love finally.

</comment><comment><USER36> Could someone explain how to properly install Python 3.5.0 on Ubuntu so that it replaces the system's default Python 3.4.0 as the new default? Installing is the easy part, but I haven't figured out how to also make sure all the libraries that come with Python are also replaced with the 3.5 versions. Thanks!

<comment><USER37> I think the only correct way to do this is via 'apt-get upgrade'. In other words, you probably don't want to replace the system Python manually, because a lot of utilities depend on it, and you might bork your system. Using virtualenv is the generally-recommended way to run a different version.

<comment><USER38> I've often wondered why utilities that are particular about python versions don't just specify which version they want in the hashbang line. Actually it seems some utilities do exactly that:

        $ head -1 /usr/bin/lsb_release
        #! /usr/bin/python3 -Es

Obviously, all utilities should do this, and should probably be more specific than that. Distros could have a tool to patch this automatically, and then they wouldn't break when the user chooses to upgrade system python.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> There are some other nice nuggets in there.

* The new subprocess.run() function provides a streamlined way to run subprocesses.

Yeah! I've implemented that function a dozen times in projects, I suppose because it was too trivial to put on pypi.

* collections.OrderedDict is now implemented in C, which makes it 4 to 100 times faster.

Nice, I use this one relatively often.

</comment><comment><USER40> I am impressed that it upgraded cleanly over my previous installation of Python 3.5 release candidate.

</comment><comment> mark-r Worth it just for isclose.

</comment><comment><USER41> Python somehow always manages to miss the mark. The new co-routine stuff is a good example. Who can explain to me how I return more than once from the same co-routine? That is what a co-routine is after all no?

<comment><USER32> Check any tutorial about it or even the relevant pep. It's explained in many places. In short:

        def some_co():
            yield 2
            yield 3

<comment><USER41> Hmm,

        It is a SyntaxError to have yield or yield from expressions in an async function.

That's what I mean when I say it misses the mark. There are now two ways of doing the same thing and one of them is more powerful than the other. Using generators I can use both `yield` and `yield from` but if I use what they're calling co-routines then I can only use `yield from`. I see no value in the new syntax.

So an async function is not really a co-routine. It is a regular function that gets to use `await` and that's it. Calling it a co-routine is misleading and confusing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> And yet, Python 2 usage is still strong while Python 3 adoption has actually _slowed down_ , and at this rate, it will probably stop being used completely while Python 2 continues to live on:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3k9yif/larry_w...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3k9yif/larry_wall_presents_perl_6_xpost_rperl/cuwi9zy)

<comment><USER43> What's your point?

You do have a point, right? Coming in to a thread about a python release and trying to stir up controversy?

Or are you just doing it for kicks?

<comment> iso8859-1 His point seems obvious to me: he thinks Python 3 is not worth migrating to, because Python 2 will always have more users. But it disregards that Python 3 may be more comfortable. And it assumes that the Python 3 user base will shrink in the future.</comment></comment></comment>


Mailtrain (the open source Mailchimp clone) is getting automation support - <AUTHOR> https://mailtrain.org/archive/SJoYB3MN/EysIv8sAx/SklBfpME?fixed=true <comment><USER2> I've been following the development of Mailtrain for a few weeks now and I couldn't be more excited for this project. It's super fast, the interface is great and it took about 4 minutes to install locally.

I'm on Sendy right now which has zero segmentation and development seems to have really slowed on much-needed features.

If you do any sort of email sending, this will save you hundreds per month. I've backed the Indie GoGo and I encourage everyone else to do this as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> ...and not so surprisingly ("Mailtrain is going into partially paid mode") hey they all end up the same way (wanting your money) regardless of how or why they started...

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks awesome</comment>


I played with Sony's new Aibo robot dog, and I miss it already - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16876086/sony-aibo-hands-on-video-ces-2018 <comment><USER2> I'm overwhelmed by the humanity and joy my dog brings to my life.

I think the author should consider adopting a real dog.</comment>


Text-overflow ellipsis for multiple lines using JS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/foxieboy/dotstail <comment><USER2> good but would be better if there are more features

</comment><comment><USER3> Good code bro.

</comment><comment><USER4> nice</comment>


Much Funnier Macbook Air Parody - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQkdVymW8C8

<comment><USER2> I thought this was funny.

Of course somebody will come along and be offended because their cousin's sister had bulimia and this kind of thing 'is not funny'.</comment>


Filetype:pdf "for internal distribution only" - Google Search - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1_____enUS361US362&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=filetype%3Apdf+%22for+internal+distribution+only%22

<comment><USER2> My employer prefers the [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=&q=filetype%3...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=&q=filetype%3Apdf+%22strictly+confidential%22) terminology. I wish there was a way to get results that only have the terms in the body and not in the title, would probably be even more fruitful.</comment>


Ask HN: Summer Jobs for High School Senior? - <AUTHOR> I'll be a senior next year. I've been programming since middle school and am familiar with Ruby, Python and C (I actually prefer the latter). I also enjoy math and am teaching myself calculus. I live in a town with virtually no tech scene (the little that there is is all web dev, which I'm not particularly interested in). I'm really more interested in the theoretical side of things rather than applied. I'm also interested in cryptography. Is there anything like that out there for a teenager? <comment><USER2> Email people. Did that as a Junior and landed multiple internships.

Might be harder given the situation, but no harm getting to know your industry.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you talk to customers? - <AUTHOR> How do you go about getting to those customers. You might have few contacts in your target area, but it might take more than a few customers.<p>Do you just call company x,y,z and hope to get to person x or what specific steps do you take to get in front of your customer? <comment><USER2> My company has been able to reach our target customers just by asking-- in a human way. Be nice, listen to your customers' needs, go out of their way to help them and if your solution solves a major problem, they will connect you to other customers. And it's ok to say you're a young company that needs help-- people like helping.

All you have to do is ask.

The same goes for cold calls-- be genuine.

</comment><comment><USER3> > How do you go about getting to those customers...

There are 100s of ways of getting customers. It starts by understanding WHO exactly your target customers are-- and knowing what their world looks like.

Here's the best book on targeting, planning & executing a solid sales strategy-- Mike Weinberg's New Sales, Simplified > [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales- simpli...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales-simplified)

</comment><comment><USER4> As someone with 10+ years of mad success in sales/marketing/hacking growth, from my own startup to Fortune 500 level in several verticals, here's what you have to do:

1\. Yeah, sometimes you just gotta cold call. Even better, show up. Ever watch the original Wall Street? Bud Fox calls Gekko every damn day. To get in front of your very first customers, you need to be doing this too. Go to where your ideal customers are and start talking with them (tangentially) about your product.

2\. MAJOR CAVEAT: This first conversation should NOT be about you, product features, design, how much VC you've landed (or want to land). No 'push notifications' here guys. You should be listening to your customer, asking them about what problems you THINK they have that you THINK your product will solve. If it's not the type of product to obviously solve a problem (maybe you've not figured out what problem it solves or it's something that's more for fun), let the customer play with it and ask the customer high-value questions while they use it.

3\. Here's the secret to successful sales in one sentence: it's not at ALL about you or the product. Remember that, listen, and your customers will start giving clues away about how to sell to them. If you get good at asking the right questions, it's like calling the Nintendo cheat hotline back in the day: the wins come really easily once someone tells you how to do it (I'd like to publicly apologize to my parents for the 1998 phone bill right now).

4\. Always, always, always track the conversations. Every one. Even that 2 second one getting coffee this morning. Look for patterns (what worked, what didn't, similarities between cohorts at different stages in the buying cycle, what questions you asked that elicited the most helpful responses, etc). As Paul Graham says, to get your first users, you have to do things that don't scale. However, assuming you do this successfully, you'll need to rapidly build systems that do scale, so doing this extra work now will pay off like mad. Moreover, these conversations should help you find opportunities for the next iterations of your product. In the book Traction, the authors talk about doing sales and product iteration concurrently, and they're 100% right. If you do one without the other, you're going to struggle.

5\. BE where your customers are. Remember when you had the hots for someone in high school? What would you do? Everyone, and I mean everyone, tries to put themselves near where this person is--maybe you sit nearby in class, or try to pass them in the hall, whatever. Same stuff with landing customers. Pretend like they're your crush, find out everything you can about their industry, their job (what they REALLY do and worry about, not just their title and organization), maybe some things they enjoy. It's okay to be a little creepy when prepping and strategizing sales--more info is better, because it helps you develop a more holistic picture of your ideal customer, and that narrows down the channels you should try to succeed. Just don't be obvious about your prep. Remember: the will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.

6\. Sales come from emotion. One of the biggest problems I see when engineers sell is that they use language that makes sense to them and is technically correct, but makes the customers feel stupid. Metadata to you is a 'wikipedia for your most important software' to the lay person. Make sure you emphasize the BENEFITS to the potential customer--they don't actually care about the feature. If you have a sciences background, you will probably screw this up. That's okay, just keep working at it--if you are cognizant of this and work to correct it, you'll be doing sales like the sales pros in short order.

This is definitely not inclusive, and each bullet point deserves its own book, but in my experience, they'll deliver the most value for where you are at now. Write letters, send emails, show up early and late, go to where they are, and keep the conversations about THEM. Sales are based on trust and likability (and it helps, but isn't necessary, to have a best-in-class product). You can do it.

It's funny you ask this, because I'm trying to find a job leading sales/marketing/growth at a startup company (Series A or after) right now (started applying hard yesterday). Email me and I'll do a no-fee consult (email's in my profile); if anyone else in the community has questions, feel free to reach out as well. Even if you're not in my target company demographic, I believe in good karma. Good luck guys.

<comment><USER5> Checked out your profile, looks like there's no contact information. I'd like to contact you, is there any way I can get your email?

<comment><USER4> Hey--sorry, forgot I hid it for a while. Anyway, it's kate (dot) mcginley at gmail. Talk soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used the write up on customer development interviews in the Running Lean book as a starting point. As another person stated below, its all about listening.

</comment><comment><USER7> Would love to see some responses here from the HN community.</comment>