Xcode now costs US$ 4.99 - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id422352214 <comment><USER3> Seeing this reminded me of a Microsoft focus group I was invited to be a part of a few years ago. As a CTO who had decided to build everyone on top of free software, they wanted to know what it take to make me to switch to a Microsoft stack. I told them they were 10 years too late. You see, I made the decision to use LAMP stack not because it was cheaper, but because it's what I knew. And the reason I knew LAMP stack was because that's all I could afford when I was 15. The question for Apple isn't whether businesses or experienced developers can afford their development tools, it's the teenagers they should care about. And while, $5 is still well within the average teenagers reach, it's still a lot more friction than free. This decision seems short sighted to me even if the effects of it aren't immediately apparent.

<comment><USER4> Right... and 5$ is hard to pay when your a teenager, just because you don't have a credit card yourself.

<comment><USER5> Teenagers might not have credit cards, but they receive iTunes gift cards as gifts, which they can now use on Xcode.

<comment><USER6> I'm trying to think of what would've happened if I had to ask my parents for their credit card every time I had to download some tool when I was a kid just messing around with programming.

I probably wouldn't working in the field today, that's for sure.

<comment><USER5> I definitely agree with you, having grown up on free tools, but $5 is a lot easier to ask a parent for than $99/year to get access to this kind of stuff.

<comment><USER6> The $99/year thing is not _terrible_. I remember saving money from my paper route to buy tools/lib licenses to some specialized things I really wanted.

Selling your parents on a single $99 purchase is a lot easier than trying to sell a $5 purchase every week. 'Tis just the way it is.

jarin below mentions he wouldn't hesitate buying his kid Xcode for $5... that only works if the parent is in the field also. How many, say, accountants or lawyers would buy their precocious coder-child a bunch of tools or understand the importance of it?

<comment><USER7> > _"I remember saving money from my paper route to buy tools/lib licenses to > some specialized things I really wanted."_

Today, a teenager would say, "What's a paper route?"

<comment><USER6> s/paper route/burger flipping/g?

<comment><USER8> Problem is you need a car first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm an academic who develops Free / Open Source software and distributes libraries and binaries for the Windows, x86 and x86_64 Linux and Mac platforms along with the source. One important library generates C code based on a domain specific language, links a shared object and uses that; on Windows and Linux, we ship a cut back gcc and libtools to do that; libtools doesn't work on the Mac (at least last time I looked into it), so we asked Apple for permission to distribute their linker back in 2005, and they said no, so we have been telling Mac users to sign up for a developer account and install XCode (stupid since they had to download multiple gigabytes for a fairly small binary).

Even getting XCode for our own use to put on our Mac build server will be difficult now; $4.99 may be a token price, but any price in the academic world means that things have to get charged against a cost centre; policies mean it probably can't be charged as IT overhead (like Mac build servers and operating systems can) because it is specifically for development, so it needs to be justified as part of a grant. For things like that, the University will probably want Apple to go a months long process to become a designated approver (Apple hardware is not normally purchased direct from Apple), and to pay for things like that by purchase order - the administrative cost of which would be greatly more than $4.99.

The end result of all this is that Apple will probably not be a supported platform for our software any more, and users will be asked to use a virtual machine or move to a different platform if they want to use our software.

Apple is already one of the most difficult platforms to develop on, largely because of the way their linker and object loaders work; it is one of the few platforms (I think Irix is another) where objects to be opened with a dlopen like mechanism are in a different format to normal shared objects; making the barriers higher for academic users trying to develop multi-platform software will simply result in academic and other free software being less available on Mac; some academic users like being on Mac, but I expect that as it becomes progressively more of a disadvantage and Apple becomes more of a pariah, this will change.

<comment><USER10> Are you really saying that you can't afford to pay $5 from your own pocket for XCode 4?

What price, other than $0, would be acceptable for a tool that took years of effort by a team of programmers and cost Apple tens of millions in programmer's salaries to develop?

<comment><USER11> The point is not that it's $4, or $10,000 or $0.25. The point is that now that money has to come from somewhere. This throws up a sizeable obstacle for anyone looking to do development on the platform and will especially hurt FOSS.

If you can't see this, I don't really know what to say. Apple literally makes billions of dollars on software, you'd think they'd throw the developers that literally helped build their ecosystem a freaking bone. I suppose that's too much to ask from Apple.

Cue the "vote with your wallet", "no one is forcing you to use it" rabble...

<comment><USER12> No, cue the _you're assuming you won't get Xcode 4 with Lion_ rabble. Seriously. Don't jump to conclusions yet.

Can you clarify the $5-hurts-FOSS argument? I don't mean to sound crass, but there are people who pay more than $5 for coffee. If a one-time charge of $5 to build OS X versions of your FOSS project is a, as you say, "[sizable] obstacle" to entering FOSS development, that's a genuine surprise to me. Especially since Xcode 3 is still absolutely free. If I were a committer on your project I'd buy it myself and donate it, for crying out loud.

They anticipated this, undoubtedly, and put the button right there: "Looking for Xcode 3 because $5 is too much? Here it is!" You're really only paying for the improved GUI. Does your FOSS project use Xcode as its primary development platform, or is it just using the compiler toolchain?

This revolt to $5 is absolutely stunning. Even more worth thinking about is that all the commenting about it on HN equates to far more than $5 in billable time...how many copies could the revolting have purchased?

<comment><USER13> The reason that people are pissed is that it's one more annoying hoop to jump through, especially for people without iTunes accounts.What about people kids without credit cards or Paypal?

All this for what? A paltry $10 million or so for Apple which is already rolling in tens of bilions of cash(partly thanks to developers, you always see Jobs touting the app count). Is it even worth it for Apple?

The company is smacking of greed and squeezing the last dollar these days with all these moves like a forced 30% cut of services and now this, which can damage the ecosystem.

>No, cue the you're assuming you won't get Xcode 4 with Lion rabble.

That makes it even worse, Apple can't be making more than $5 million from this.

<comment><USER14> No, the reason that people are pissed is because they want to be pissed.

There's no real reason to rage about this, other than a self-created illusion that the only thing stopping some hypothetical FOSS developer somewhere in Romania from creating the next Apache is the inability to pay Apple 5 dollars.

<comment><USER11> Right, because no one should be worried when Apple makes overtures towards monetizing what has been traditionally the only working compiler tool chain for OSX. Thanks, I guess I was just over-reacting. :P

It's amusing how any time Apple does something like this the apologists come out of the woodwork falling over each other to defend them.

<comment><USER14> Believe me, Apple has given me plenty of reason to be angry at them before (I've been a victim of their arbitrary App Store rejections). I'm just saying we should all keep a little perspective on this particular issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is somewhat strange pricing - it seems ridiculously cheap if they're trying to make significant profits off of it, but pricey enough to prevent tinkerers who don't really know about coding but feel like trying it from getting a start in xcode.

<comment><USER16> It is the difference between free and not free.

They are trying to drive developers to use the App Store? Sounds ridiculous coming out of my mouth.

They are trying to kill off OSX hobbyist experimentation in favor of iOS? I think I'm getting warmer.

<comment><USER17> Is this supposed to be satire?

Being a hobbyist and learning to program in the 80s meant my dad shelling out hundreds of dollars for THINK Lightspeed Pascal, and yet, somehow I and many others managed to learn to program and become hobbyists and finally professional programmers.

They'll sell you a full-featured, modern IDE with all the pro features uncrippled for a measly _$5_. That's not a death blow to hobbyists, that's maybe one of the cheapest hobbies on the planet.

<comment><USER16> It was free, so I don't how you can call it anything but erecting a barrier to entry to developing POSIX apps on the Mac. You don't just need $5, you need a credit card number.

Like many other things in computing, the price to play has gotten steadily cheaper over time. When it gets more expensive we should ask why.

It makes sense for Apple's future of curated computing, but it's definitely another dick move.

<comment><USER17> > When it gets more expensive we should ask why.

They just plowed thousands of engineering man-hours into significantly overhauling both the infrastructure (huge amount of work around LLVM) and interface of Xcode for the Xcode 4 release, addressing a substantive number of long-standing complaints along the way. This release is by far the biggest overhaul of the product in the last decade. All of those engineers cost a lot of money. They aren't working on this out of charity. That's why.

I simply do not understand why people are hung up on an IDE that is the product of thousands of engineering man-hours costing as much as a _single_ foot long sandwich slapped together by a bored teenager in 60 seconds.

<comment><USER6> A single footlong sandwich may be a significant sum for people not in Western, industrialized countries. But that point is secondary to the fact that even $5 is a barrier for beginners.

I think people are objecting because they themselves happened into programming as a passion and career - I know I did. They found some tool, probably for free (QBASIC for me) that got their feet wet initially, and that's how they got their start. A beginner who is neither sure nor convinced that programming is a good thing to pursue is unlikely to spend even a footlong's worth of money on it, and we've lost yet more potential future engineers.

Also, the fact that Apple has poured a significant investment into building these tools says nothing - they've been pouring a significant investment into their dev tools for years and offered it for free. Their competitors have also poured enormous sums into dev tools that are available for free. When the status quo of the industry is free tools (and the few that are for-pay are getting cheaper every year), one _can_ question why Apple is the odd man out in a sudden reversal.

<comment><USER17> > A beginner who is neither sure nor convinced that programming is a good > thing to pursue is unlikely to spend even a footlong's worth of money on it, > and we've lost yet more potential future engineers.

Sure. And Xcode would probably scare them off anyways, because it's decidedly not set up to be friendly to beginners. This is a non-issue. Beginning programmers on the Mac should under no circumstances go grab Xcode unless they want to feel utterly bewildered.

The $5 charge is utterly beside the point, here. One wonders how you imagine anyone ever gets into a hobby with more than a $5 barrier to entry.

> Also, the fact that Apple has poured a significant investment into building > these tools says nothing - they've been pouring a significant investment > into their dev tools for years and offered it for free.

They seem to have drastically increased the amount of effort they're putting into it, probably because of the increased iOS dev audience. That extra effort probably justifies the minor $5 price increase.

> Their competitors have also poured enormous sums into dev tools that are > available for free.

Which competitors would those be? Microsoft isn't giving their professional tools away for free, just a drastically cut down starter edition. Sun plowed a ton of cash into NetBeans, but following their financial lead seems ill- advised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If there are any younger hackers out who don't have any other way of purchasing this and can't (or don't want to) ask their parents, email me at sqs at cs dot stanford dot edu with your HN username and a link to something you're working on, and I'll gift it to you.

It sounds like you might have to first verify your Mac App Store account, though, and if you have no CC, that requires you to email Apple (I just Googled around, and that's what some sites said). So, you'll have to do that first. Just search for "mac app store gift card no credit card" and you'll see what's up.

</comment><comment><USER19> With this and the huge margins apple are already taking over the developers' revenue I really feel like we as developers are getting less and less respect from Apple.

I really think that what made OSX great was the fact that Xcode was completely free. We are the ones that make a platform a great one because of the app ecosystem that comes with it.

Putting prices -- however small they are -- on these dev tools put a barrier on the accessibility of the platform as a application dev environment.

I'm honestly really happy to have focussed my efforts towards web based apps instead... If its the future of computing -- iOS apps, and on device apps instead of web based -- it sure doesn't look so bright.

<comment><USER20> What got me into programming in the first place was that XCode was free. I just don't get why you'd charge this small an amount for something that you have to buy a thousand dollar computer from them to run it on. It's hard to see this as anything but a tiny little insult.

<comment><USER19> I guess your comparison between the Xcode price and the one of the apple computer on which it runs is legitimate.

The problem here is not the cost of the package in itself -- it is indeed cheap in comparison to the aforementioned computer -- but in the fact that apple chose not to include this cost _in_ the retail price of OSX.

All the bruden is dropped on the devs who then needs to re-sell their apps, generally on the app-store where they are taken another cut.

Apple's strategy seems to give the maximum to the user, while charging the devs that then charge the users. They lock-in their user base, letting the devs deal with prices increases on both sides.

<comment><USER21> Come on. Let's not assume too much here. If what is said is correct, that this pricing is because of the accounting rules, then the cost of OS X 10.5 and 10.6 includes XCode 3. XCode 4 will be included in the cost of OS X 10.7.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Once the old free Xcode 3 has vanished, this neatly puts an end to stuff like Homebrew or MacPorts. I really don't care about paying the $4, but for many people without credit cards or unwilling to use iTunes/the app store, OSX just has become a lot less useful.

<comment><USER23> Fortunately Homebrew and MacPorts can just ship a gcc and get on with things.

<comment><USER9> You can compile, but you can't link with the standard GNU toolchain to get a usable library (at least last I heard), because binutils simply doesn't support the Mach-O format (see <http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2009-09/msg00121.html>).

<comment><USER24> I believe Apple's version of binutils is cctools, which is at <http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/cctools/cctools-782/> . It includes ld and as. As you mention, the standard GNU source for binutils won't build, as it doesn't understand Mach-O, but MacPorts would seem to be free to use cctools for linking/assembling.

If this turns into a "real issue", such that XCode 3 was rescinded and XCode 4 remained paid only - as opposed to some stupid accounting problem which might mean it would be bundled free with Lion, with XC3 hanging around for (Snow) Leopard - then I suspect we'll soon see MacPorts or their kin come up with a downloadable toolchain based on this existing Apple open source work that would allow them to continue virtually unchanged.

<comment><USER25> While it's not really useful for regular building, it seems like Joe Damato has made some progress on getting some of the binutils code working.

<http://twitter.com/joedamato/status/41235981722066944>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Apple seems to be adopting an attitude that "you stand to make more with us than without" towards developers and I suppose this makes them feel entitled to tax us. The amount of money they will make out of this will be peanuts, far less than they will need to spend in marketing to developers to keep them off new and rising platforms. As a professional developer, the price doesn't bother me, just the attitude. When I decided whether to try iOS or Android first, the decision was a close one. Things like how they treat the developer community actually mattered.

Apple: you stand to make more with us than without us. Your dollars spend the same as the ones from Android's marketplaces. Be careful when you tread on free. Free makes us friends, pals, maybe even lovers. When I have to pull out the wallet, I stop to ask myself "how much is this relationship worth to me?" Give me XCode and I'll come help you move a couch one day, sell me XCode and you go on a balance sheet where the most cost-effective option wins.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm surprised this made it to the number 1 spot on the front page. From the Hacker News Guidelines:

      You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put
      gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it.

Xcode 4 is available as a free download for Mac and iOS developers with a paid membership [1], just like the versions before it. Those who aren't paying members of ADC can get Xcode 4 via the Mac App Store, paying $5 to offset the bandwidth costs for the 4.24 GB download -- an option that didn't exist before. I'm also willing to bet that the new version of Xcode will be included on new Mac OS X install/restore disks, as Apple has always done.

[1] <http://developer.apple.com/xcode/index.php>

(The comment was edited, as others have noted that they can't download from the ADC site with a free ADC account.)

<comment><USER28> Wait...so it's only $5 in the app store? Are they just trying to cover the costs of 4+GB of bandwidth?

I don't know what's worse: Making Xcode cost $5, or offering an app for $5 in the app store and free for download.

However, I know that the first thing I'm going to do when I get home is come back here and click that link before they revoke that link.

<comment><USER29> If you have a Apple developer account then you can download it for free. If you have a free account (so you can submit bug reports, and downloaded the old Xcode 3.x) then you can not download Xcode 4.x.

Note, Xcode 3 is still available for download from connect.apple.com or by following the link on the Xcode 4 websites on developer.apple.com, <http://imgur.com/8LHXW> was updated on Monday!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Xcode 3 appears to still be a free download. Xcode 4 is free if you're a registered developer (which costs $99/year), or $5 from the app store.

gcc is obviously still free, if you get it from anyone other than Apple.

<comment><USER31> In my experience, Apple's gcc is still the recommended version.

Hopefully solid non-apple gcc packages come out. I don't like the idea of paying $5 to apple to develop generic unix applications on OS X.

<comment><USER32> Apples GCC is available for free, or llvm/clang. The $5 is for the IDE. And this is for the preview only so far, as far as I can tell.

<comment><AUTHOR> They are not available for free because they come bundled with US$ 5 worth of IDE and cannot be separated.

<comment><USER32> Yes they are, see my other post. _delirium has a point though, but I'm sure it will be solved somehow. Hopefully from here.

<http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Sarbanes-Oxley?

<http://www.google.com/search?q=Sarbanes+Oxley+Apple>

<comment><AUTHOR> Then why not US$ 0.99?

<comment><USER34> Possible theory: Cost of bandwidth for downloading 4.2GB is > .99? Honestly, I have no idea, though.

<comment><USER35> Amazon S3 transfer costs are (worst case) $0.14/GB, or < $0.60 for 4.2GB. Apple certainly pays a lot less than that per bit.

<comment><USER36> Is Apple a cash strapped startup or what? They easily get a lot of value via hardware sales from apps being made for their platforms to start worrying about bandwidth costs.

Imagine if all OS X and iOS apps disappeared today? How many would still buy Apple hardware?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I love how half the comments here run along the lines of "Apple is evil because they're charging $5 for this piece of software" and the other half are "Apple is evil because they're giving this away for $5 to suck people into the iOS/OSX ecosystem."

Gotta pick, guys.

How about: $5 is essentially free for something that is a major piece of software. It's a venti latte at SBUX. It's not going to represent a real obstacle to anyone actually interested in learning to code for the OS (any more than a $25 O'Reilly book would probably be, or $10 used one) and it's also not going to keep anyone locked in because they spent a bunch on the tool.

(If $5 is not an inconsequential amount of money for someone, then yes, they should go use Linux and gcc / java / whatever. Or maybe they should concentrate one making a few bucks mowing lawns or something, assuming they're in the developed world.)

<comment><USER14> I think this whole complaining about $5 thing really reeks of a sense of entitlement. Either use Xcode 3 (which is free and works perfectly well), or find some way to save up 5 bucks (or 10 bucks if you need to go get a Visa gift card).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Actually, Xcode has cost a minimum of $700 for a while now (cost of a Mac Mini).

I'm ok with a 0.7% price increase (if I wasn't a registered developer, that is).

<comment><USER38> Unless you're on a Hackintosh

<comment><USER14> Well then spend a few bucks out of the hundreds of dollars you saved on hardware.

<comment><AUTHOR> But only if you have an account at Apple's store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm guessing that this is a regulatory compliance thing :/

<comment><USER40> I'm with you. When you give software away instead of charging for it, while simultaneously making your money off an associated product, you are required to do all sorts of backflips over how you account for revenue.

This is why certain updates for the iPod Touch cost money while they are free for iPhones: It is entirely driven by how Apple writes up iPod Touch vs. iPhone revenue.

<comment><USER41> Except that's not true anymore:

"Apple has for the first time made this full iOS upgrade free to all of its iPod touch customers, rather than charging the customary $10 fee that provoked groans in the past."

([http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/apple- ios-4.0...](http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/apple- ios-4.0-formerly-iphone-os-4.0/))

This leads me to believe that the whole accounting rules canard was just a way to make more money. Why did they start charging for XCode? Because you'll pay it.

<comment><USER40> I wouldn't be so quick to call it an accounting rules canard, there was a ton of analysis of the rule when the iPod Touch upgrade fee was first announced and there was very little doubt this was the case. And while I can be critical of Apple policies, I stop well short of suggesting that they would lie about an accounting rule. That's the kind of thing that gets people sent to jail, and certainly Microsoft would have held a press conference the next day explaining that Apple was lying.

That being said, they haven't said that the XCode charge is a subscription accounting thing, so there's certainly no logical reason why you may not be correct in saying that they are charging for XCode because they can. I'm guessing otherwise, but this is armchair speculation.

UPDATE: I was wrong about subscription-based accounting affecting how Apple accounts for expenses. Here's a link I found:

[http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/23/standards-board- approves...](http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/23/standards-board-approves- changes-to-subscription-revenue-accounting/)

<comment><USER41> So said accounting rule changed then? Honest question. And in any case, if that were really true, why not charge a penny? Or the download cost? I don't buy it.

<comment><USER42> > So said accounting rule changed then?

Or Apple's accountants changed. They seem to be very strange people, and I say that in a bad way.

> And in any case, if that were really true, why not charge a penny? Or the > download cost? I don't buy it.

If they think they need to charge for Xcode 4, they probably think amounts under that would be seen as non-compliant. Facetime was $.99 and shipped with new macs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is probably due to Apple's interpretation of tax laws or at least that tends to be what comes out when Apple charges a token amount for something.

</comment><comment> clark-kent I dual boot Ubuntu/OSX 10.5 on my macbook pro, I once tried to switch from Ubuntu to OS X 10.5 for Ruby development.

First I found out Homebrew and macports needed Xcode. I downloaded the 3GB+ monster that is Xcode. Ran the installer, only to find out my OS is outdated. I need to upgrade to 10.6 which costs $30. Checked online to find links to older Xcode versions but the only link available was the most recent Xcode version which doesn't work on 10.5.

And I'm not even a Mac developer, I'm just trying to install Ruby. I tried to install Xcode from my OS X CD, but I really couldn't find it. I installed the utilities pack and it turns out Xcode wasn't there. I got fed up with Apple and switched back to Ubuntu.

I honestly think Apple is driving hackers away from their platform. I don't like the idea of paying for something I don't need. My OSX 10.5 works great, I don't need to upgrade. Why won't Apple put a download link to older Xcode versions and let the OSX upgrade and Xcode 4 sell on their own merits.

I know the link to Xcode 3.2 is still up but it doesn't work on OSX 10.5

</comment><comment><USER44> $5 is super cheap and affordable.

My time _isn't_ though.

And I'll waste a lot of it now because I'll have to hunt out a corporate credit card and/or fill out an expense claim to install it on the (company owned) macs we use at work for dev.

$5 may as well be $1000 dollars for the effort I'll have to go through to get it now.

And all so I can get GCC installed so I can use homebrew to build the open source libs I need for doing web / backend dev.

Hoping Apple releases a "lite" version that contains the bare minimum needed to do that without all the extra IDE fluff I never use.

</comment><comment><USER45> For the convenience of being able to download Xcode through the mac store and get the updates automatically, I'll gladly pay $4.99.

<comment><AUTHOR> While I agree it's still quite cheap, I wonder why Apple suddenly decided to start charging almost nothing for something that used to be free.

I don't see the price tag having any impact in the iOS/OSX software ecosystem, so, why are they bothering to charge for it?

<comment><USER45> One guess would be that they didn't want a 3gb app constantly being downloaded by people who wouldn't use it for more than 30 seconds. I realize bandwidth is incredibly cheap, but we are always hearing talking of Apple trying to offset costs, maybe this factored into the thinking?

<comment><USER46> Seems like a reasonable guess. However, considering how large the update downloads are for even minor upgrades of Apple software I always assumed Steve secretly owned stock in a CDN.

<comment><USER47> Steve (Apple) did... in Akamai.

[http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/1999/press_0...](http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/1999/press_081899c.html)

It was at one point worth about 2 billion dollars, but I'm guessing it all got washed out after the dot-com bust because word of it was never mentioned again. :-)

Anyways, they aren't doing this because of CDN costs, it's negligible -- they are Akamai's largest customer and are also building their own network as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes sense. Perhaps that's why OSX is the only modern Unix (sorry AIX, HP-UX) that has no package management system... ;-)

I am quite sure the number of Mac users who download Xcode is negligible compared to the number of Mac users who download movies from that very same CDN. And the size of Xcode is comparable to HD movies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Visual Studio: $549.00

Flash Builder: $699.00

TextMate: $56.00

Coda: $99.00

BBedit: $99.99

Xcode 4: $4.99

<comment><AUTHOR> Eclipse: $0

NetBeans: $0

DevShed C++: $0

Emacs: $0

The complete GNU compiler collection: $0

Xcode 3: $0

<comment><USER48> I love emacs and use it every day. And I'm glad that it's free software. But if Apple offered to keep my Mac's emacs install up to date for $4.99 I would pay in a heartbeat.

I have to periodically check whether my version is out of date. When it is, I have to find the download URL, click on it, remember to come back when the package has downloaded, and run the installer. I have to do this on all of my machines.

Sure, this isn't all that much work. But $4.99 isn't that much money, either.

<comment><USER49> Just curious, I'm assuming that switching to Linux to get automatic updates for all packages would cost you more than $5 in pain in other areas. Is that assumption correct?

<comment><USER50> I switched from windows to linux as my main OS a little while back. Currently, I run only linux, but I have previously run a dual boot setup with windows 7. That was just a speedbump.

Now, if I want to update anything I type the following in the command line:

sudo apt-get udpdate sudo apt-get upgrade

... And that is all. Unless you meant some other kind of pain and suffering?

<comment><USER49> I was referring to the pleasure (in the utilitarian sense) of apt-get being offset by the pain of not having MacOS-specific software and features. I am a Linux user myself, but recognize that not everyone's computing needs are met by it (just as my needs are not met by Windows or MacOS).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> It's disingenuous to say that XCode _now_ costs $4.99. It still comes with the OS, and I see no problem with them charging a very nominal fee for an early upgrade (for the rest of people who aren't already registered iOS or Mac devs).

This is the first time Apple has offered a major XCode upgrade midstream between OS releases, so there isn't really any precedence for how they should handle it.

As for me, I'm sticking with XCode 3 for the time being. XCode 4 just isn't ready for prime time, in my experience. It is, however, a great leap in usability, so I'm sure anyone who found XCode difficult to learn will appreciate XCode 4. Those of us who are comfortable in XCode 3 are less enthusiastic.

</comment><comment><USER52> Guys.

This is going to be included on the Lion disc, and we're only paying for it separately this spring due to an accounting rule.

I'll bet $4.99 of my own money on it.

<comment><USER53> What's the accounting rule? I'm curious.

<comment><USER54> US accounting rules sometimes require companies to charge for updates if they provide a significant feature left out of original products. An alternative solution can be to restate past earnings, something Apple would likely prefer to avoid.

Apple has sometimes been infamous for charging for updates typically expected for free. The most frequent example has been major iPod touch firmware upgrades, which cost a small fee up until iOS 4. In 2007, the company went so far as charging $2 to enable 802.11n Wi-Fi on some Macs.

Read more: [http://www.macnn.com/articles/11/02/24/may.be.trying.to.avoi...](http://www.macnn.com/articles/11/02/24/may.be.trying.to.avoid.complicated.finances/#ixzz1GAPA2z5R)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> The only reason I install Xcode is so I can compile macports. Now maybe it will be worthwhile to package a free standalone compiler so I won't even need to do that.

I'm so tired of Apple.

</comment><comment><USER56> Based on the general sentiment in this thread, I guess the HN community doesn't want people to be able to charge money for software.

For some reason I am experiencing cognitive dissonance...

<comment><USER57> Well, HN seems to also attract a lot of people like me who just want to hack, entrepreneurial nonsense be damned. And I will gladly make my software free and "throw away" all the profit I could make, because I believe I am contributing to a better world.

<comment><USER56> Not sure why merijnv was downvoted - seems like a pretty reasonable point of view to me.

May I ask how you fund your activities?

<comment><USER57> As of yet I'm a student (nearly finished with my masters in CS), so most of my work is either research related code or things I write in my spare time. I mostly fund my activities from my part-time sys admin job (which is rather low intensity, so I can do some coding during slow times.)

I plan on starting on a PhD when I'm done, and basically continue like this. How I continue to fund this after the protective bubble of academia I haven't really considered yet, but that's a few years of for now anyway.

<comment><USER56> Thanks for being so open. Like you, I would love to just hack on things that make the world a better place. Unlike you I don't have a protective environment from which to do so. I have to fund myself somehow.

It would be a lot easier to do this if people were generally willing to give a few dollars for things that were arguably far more valuable to them than a cup of coffee, but sadly the 'software should be free' meme undermines that.

I think that a general acceptance that software is worth _a little bit_ rather than free would allow _more people to hack for the benefit of the world_. I think the free model benefits those who are well funded from other sources, further concentrating power in the hands of the well off.

Obviously I'd like a unicorn as well, but maybe two wishes is too much to ask for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> This is just the beginning. Apple is in the position of "Your going to take it, and your going to LOVE IT." What are you going to do? Not develop for iOS/OSX with Xcode? Bwahahaha. Don't forget apple is a large public corp. I don't think making less money is in the plans.

This is just a small part of the plan. Just wait until you have to be in a Apple approved facility, wearing apple approved developer uniforms to independently program anything for Apple.

<comment><USER59> Ahh, cynical sarcasm. What would a long list of comments be without you.

<comment><USER58> It would be so barren and lonely. Good ole Apple tax.

MOOOOOAAAR!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Why put a barrier, however small, to people contributing to the app stores?

</comment><comment><USER61> It may be just JetBrains fault. Apple could get into trouble in EU for "dumping" their products for free to kill competitors. Making a marginal profit may cost them in terms of the number of developers, but saves the hassle of being hauled in front of an EU commission.

<comment><USER62> This is the first comment I've seen that actually makes sense. Given Microsoft got hauled in by the EU for millions (billions?) for giving away IE, simply charging a modest fee for your product provides a safety buffer to counter any such claims.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I don't like the idea. But the price makes sense: (try to figure out how they decide this price)

1\. Xcode is 4.2GB in size. 2\. Bandwidth costs about $0.10/GB, so that's $0.42 per download. 3\. Every update requires re-downloading. 4\. We'll update more than 10 times before Xcode 5 comes out. 5\. So let's charge $4.99!

(Of course they pay less than $0.10/GB for bandwidth at their scale. Don't panic about the exact number.)

</comment><comment><USER64> I don't see how people can complain XCode 4 (with IntelliSense!!) for $4.99 is disrespectful. Sure it's not _as_ generous as free, but it's still pretty damn good value. A lot of people will probably buy it now for the Intellisense (or 'Codesense') functionality, who otherwise wouldn't have much cared.

<comment><USER65> People aren't complaining about XCode costing money. The problem is more that up until now, XCode has been the only way of getting a C and C++ compiler.

<comment><USER66> An open source compiler, too. Right now OS X doesn't ship with a compiler, so while the source of the compiler is available, there is no way to compile it without Xcode installed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I wonder why they charge for the tools to develop on their platform.

Charging for the forums/bug tracker is probably a good way to keep people out who aren't that serious about development, but I don't get why they charge for XCode. It's not like they'd make any relevant amount of money off XCode.

<comment><USER68> To be fair, this is a $5 fee for a full-featured version of their development tools. Compare that to the cost of a full-featured Visual Studio.

<comment><USER69> One difference is that MS also has a free command-line compiler.

<comment><USER70> gcc/clang are completely open source. In fact, the ones online are far more recent versions than what apple has been shipping. I believe apple still ships gcc42 as of the last free xcode.

<comment><USER68> Are there really that many compelling additions to gcc since then? This is a serious question, not a rhetorical one.

<comment><USER70> the optimizers are significantly better, enhanced profiling, standards compliance more strict, c++0x additions, and improved compile times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> _"... I can't help but laught [sic] when I see my clasmates use Visual studio. ..."_

Stupid tax for both platforms.

</comment><comment><USER32> I wonder if Xcode will still be part of the OS X install disk, I hope so.

</comment><comment><USER72> So now we have to get our devtools chain somewhere else? I couldn't care about Xcode itself, the only reason I download it is the chain.

With that in mind, they've replaced gcc with clang in XCode 4, didn't they?

</comment><comment><USER73> I have to wonder if the cost isn't somehow related to the ginormous file size. I have to imagine that millions of people downloading a file this big constantly is expensive in terms of bandwidth.

Maybe they want those downloading to truly have an interest in doing something with the toolkit and not just downloading it to look at/tinker with. A $4.99 hurdle is probably just enough to cull out a significant amount of downloads by people who probably wouldn't actually use it anyways.

</comment><comment><USER74> You do not need to update to XCode 4.0 to develop for either OSX or iOS (even 4.3 SDK is available for XCode 3.2.6). There may be some great new wistles and bells in XCode 4.0, but it is not essential. For a hobbyist learning OSX or IOS development, it is probably better to wait anyway since all of the existing tutorials, Courses and books are still focused on XCode 3, and changing the IDE this much will probably just confuse.

</comment><comment><USER75> I suspect Apple is trying to build up the Mac App Store. I doubt they care about the money they get from Xcode or Facetime ($0.99).

Perhaps it sets up an expectation for the consumer - a small utility should cost about $0.99 and that a larger application should be about $4.99.

This gets consumers in the habit of paying for software they might expect to be free, motivating developers to use the Mac App store and builds up an ecosystem to match the iOS app store.

<comment><USER76> I agree: They are charging to set an expectation for consumers and app developers that quality mac apps should not be free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> If you are a member of one of Apple's dev programs, Xcode is still free: "Xcode 4 is a free download for all members of the iOS and Mac Developer Programs. Log in to your account to begin the download."

<http://developer.apple.com/xcode/index.php>

<comment><USER78> Those programs are $99/year, though.

<comment><USER77> I am well aware of that, having been a member of the iOS program from the beginning. The point is, for those of us developing for iOS or for the Mac App Store, there is no change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> Everyone of course realizes that the $4.99 pricetag is only for non-ADC members. The whole thing is still available completely free on the Developer site for members. I don't really think we need to get all upset over them charging five dollars rather than requiring an ADC membership for $99/year.

</comment><comment><USER80> "Xcode 4 is a free download for all members of the iOS and Mac Developer Programs. Log in to your account to begin the download."

\- from the Xcode download page.

Slightly annoying that it costs money now, but $4.99 for a full featured IDE (even one that used to be free) is still a pretty good deal.

</comment><comment><USER81> I haven't seen this in the comments yet (might have missed it), but I had always assumed that I was ALREADY paying for Xcode w/ my $99 developer connection fee. $5 is a small amount, for sure, but just seems like yet another way that are trying to squeeze me.

<comment><USER53> If you have the $99 developer account, Xcode 4 is free. Just log in to your account and download it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> I'd make a lengthy comment, but the value of the time spent might exceed all the money I would ever give Apple for xcode.

</comment><comment><USER83> $544.5 cheaper than Visual Studio. Oh my.

</comment><comment><USER84> There was a time when the dev tools were included with the installation disks. Is this not the case anymore?

</comment><comment><USER85> The caption says that pg "discovered [a] spam filtering algorithm." I find it interesting that while this is probably the result of a staff member's ignorance with technology jargon, the word "discovers" actually expresses my interpretation (call it "philosophy" if you want) of the interaction between algorithms and "intellectual property."

</comment><comment><USER86> People still use Xcode?

<comment><USER59> Here's a hint: They didn't build Angry Birds with Visual Studio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Someone asking for money in exchange for a good or service? How horrifying.

</comment><comment><USER88> wtf?

</comment><comment><USER89> buying Xcode to actually raise the market value of a iOS device (more software offerings): $4.99 having to own a mac to do that: priceless

...or actually, $1,999.99

i think i will pass.

<comment><USER56> Right, because you don't expect to get anything out of it.

<comment><USER89> I have friends that released games on the apple store, and others that developed on a debian box and released on 'alternative' stores _.

I can't post values that aren't mine. But i can say that none made much more than others ...from what they tell me.

_ one would probably compile on a friends mac and sell on the apple store, but since he would have all the hassle of also setting up a bank account in the US he never bothered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> I think Apple should by Text Mate and charge $4.99 then it would make sense. I like TextMate is much better especially for writing Ruby on Rails

<comment><USER91> If Xcode isn't worth $4.99, then how outrageous is Textmate's $56 license? I use neither, since free tools are available for what I do, and they get the job done quite well.

<comment><USER90> Sorry that's not what I meant. I meant Apple should buy TextMate and offer it for $4.99 as I find it better (for Ruby on Rail in my case).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> I'm sure Steve Jobs is going to reply to one of the hundreds of emails he'll be getting on this subject, hopefully his answer won't be "Because. - <USER2> from my iPhone"

</comment><comment><USER93> This is ridiculous! It is a travesty! How dare Apple to expect me to pay $0.99 for Facetime and $4.99 for Xcode! Combined, those cost almost as much as this Venti Frappuccino I'm drinking right now! It's absurd!

;-)</comment>


WHO official predicts swine flu 'explosion' - <AUTHOR> http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/21/who-official-predicts-swine-flu-explosion/ <comment><USER2> You'd wonder if they bought Roche shares at the rate with which they keep pushing this.

According to this article: (in dutch, sorry)

[http://www.ntvg.nl/content/geen-bewijs-voor-minder- griepcomp...](http://www.ntvg.nl/content/geen-bewijs-voor-minder- griepcomplicaties-door-oseltamivir)

There is hardly any evidence that that stuff is even effective.</comment>


Every Major is Terrible - <AUTHOR> http://xkcd.com/1052/

<comment><USER2> Also submitted six hours ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3938361></comment>


There Isn't Much Left of Marissa Mayer's Yahoo Golden Parachute - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-24/there-isn-t-much-left-of-marissa-mayer-s-yahoo-golden-parachute <comment><USER2> Not to beat a dead horse at this point but the fact that her termination pay is a much more manageable number and Starboard went nuclear when they did is, IMHO, very much related.

Also interesting to note that Mayer became CEO due to another hedge fund(Dan Loeb's Third Point) going activist on Yahoo back in 2011 and helped to hand pick Mayer as the new CEO. Loeb is now gone and Mayer doesn't seem to have any ally's anymore on the board.

You live by the sword you die by the sword......</comment>


Show HN: I made a super easy way to verify users' mobile numbers using SMS - <AUTHOR> http://digitimate.com/

<comment><USER2> Awesome. The flow is really great and simple. The only problem is that you're giving things for free and losing money. People will not trust your service for something important since you can stop it at anytime (if you start to lose a lot of money).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi- thanks! I open sourced the code so that no one is locked into the service. You can run your own instance if you like very easily.

If it becomes very expensive for me, I'll try to just operate it at close to cost. I don't think this is a huge market, and I just made this as a weekend project because I needed something like it and thought others might find it useful.

Also, the site says you get up to 30,000 verifications for free, so that puts some cap on how expensive this could be.

Does this help you trust it?

<comment><USER2> Yes. I will probably use it for a project I have here when I succeed in developing the moral strength necessary for marketing it (but it is not a big deal anyway, my comment was more general than about my specific case).

Thank you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. If you do, happy to help you get it set up (though hopefully it should be easy enough that it's trivial to do yourself).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was really thinking about implementing a small project that uses such software , and your free solution is a huge gift , it's very generous of you to do so , but if you could find anyway to compensate the money you will be losing through this , it would be great .

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

If there's interest, I'll probably make a way for you to use your own Twilio account and phone number for anyone that wants to do it that way.

For now, I'm just making it free though. I'll be really happy if someone uses it as a part of making something cool or useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks Charlie! Lets me check one item off my backlog of things to do. Genuinely super easy to use. Future feature request: Can we get a /status page to check whether the webserver and db are still up?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea. Added an issue to track it here: [https://github.com/digitimate/digitimate/issues/4](https://github.com/digitimate/digitimate/issues/4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I got a C# client on there for you to review. (May want a separate repo).

<comment><AUTHOR> Sweet! Thanks. Just replied on GitHub.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How can you give away 30,000 SMSs when Twilio charges half a cent each?

<comment><AUTHOR> If it really helps some cool new services get off the ground, I'm happy to spend a little money on it and in the FAQ it says that if you verify more than 30,000 numbers, we'll ask you to help defray the cost. I don't expect lots of people to verify exactly 30,000 numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice, I got a text message in under a second to Sydney, Australia.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool :thumbsup: I only tested with US phone numbers so good to know.

<comment><USER7> Watch out though it costs you more for those international texts.

To prevent abuse, how about requiring a mobile number and confirmation code to use the api. I.e. it uses itself to verify people who want to verify other people :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a cool idea. I'll probably do that if it starts to become expensive for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Charlie Cheever can afford to give away 30k SMS verifications.

</comment><comment><USER9> Very cool, will be looking to use this

<comment><AUTHOR> cool. if you do, let me know if it works well for you.</comment></comment>


Find Chinese Bots in Seconds - <AUTHOR> The Peoples Daily posts periodic "news" updates discrediting Hong Kong Protesters or condemnations of those supporting the protestors such as this example where the EU and Canada are admonished:
https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/1163022758445342727
I was silly enough to respond but within minutes received angry responses from 10 bots. Each of these accounts looked suspicious because of the following reasons:
* The account was new * The account only posts responses to Hong Kong posts * The user name contained a very long hash such as "Jin1q2321Z23_f" * no followers * not following anyone
This was fun, but could provide a useful set of data for those working at Twitter, Facebook or Instagram who are combating this type of fake news. These accounts could be automated but I would not put it past the Chinese to employ fake news agents as the Russians did in 2016. If you work at Twitter or Facebook please help fight this type of behavior because leading up to the Tiananmen square massacre China attempted to discredit those demonstrators in a similar way. <comment><USER2> Highly doubt Twitter staff are going to fight this because as long as China is paying/advertising on their platform, Jack Dorsey is going to keep quiet, continue to provide value to Twitter's shareholders and welcome Chinese trolls and bots with open arms. See my thread here:

[https://twitter.com/improvehk/status/1156853415999180800](https://twitter.com/improvehk/status/1156853415999180800)</comment>


Songbird Drops Support For Linux - <AUTHOR> http://digitizor.com/2010/04/03/songbird-drops-support-for-linux/

<comment><USER2> Not a huge deal. It's sad to see a promising project go, but let's face it - it was bloated and not receiving the attention it deserved, not living up to its real potential. At the moment, clementine seems to be the best linux music player.

<comment><USER3> I like Amarok.

<comment><USER2> Amarok 1.4 was amazing. Unfortunately, they haven't reached parity with the KDE 4 remake. That said, Clementine is basically a rewrite of Amarok 1.4 to QT 4, meaning it doesn't affect KDE users, and it actually looks native for Gnome users.

<comment><USER4> I agree, and I'm going to check out Clementine now. I forced myself to upgrade Amarok after they took 1.4 out of Portage. I've found it really doesn't play well with pulseaudio (forcing me to get rid of that), and there are some very weird quirks, but it's getting better. Just wish they'd put back the sorted- playlist-but-random-playing-order again (it was there in one of the older 2.x's...), instead of just randomizing the playlist.

Edit: And after checking out Clementine, I have to agree with the commenter below that it's not quite there yet.

<comment><USER5> Just checked out clementine as well. It's missing my killer feature still. Music queuing. The Queue this song group of features really fit the way I prefer to listen to my music. It's getting there though. I've been dissapointed with Amarok2 it felt like a step down from amarok 1.4. That might be just because it was heavily rewritten for kde4 more so than intentioned though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article is fair enough but how badly can you monetise a blog? forcing me to view two adverts and scroll before I see any content, I really dislike blogs that do this, make a quick buck rather than build an audience over time.

<comment><USER7> Why even link to the digitizor article? It contains no more information that that in the Songbird blog; it's just a poorly-paraphrased rip with scant commentary even, other than a "this blows" attitude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yea, not as bad as it sounds at first.

The linux support was always kind of bad and now the route is free for a community build/fork. I understand it is already on its way, see <http://talksongbird.com/node/19>.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think songbird is pretty out competed on the linux platform. There are a bunch of really great media players on linux, and songbird (the last time I looked at it) could not match them.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't get it, it isn't like they're trying to relicense the software or something, the point of OSS is that you are free to examine/enhance/use the software as you see fit. "Unsupported" software is really the norm as far as I'm concerned. As an Ubuntu user I've never used songbird as rhythmbox has always been "good enough" and amarok has been an interesting "upgrade".

</comment><comment><USER11> I was just wondering the other day what ever happened to Songbird. It seemed to have a strong teem behind it and a lot of potential, but they don't seem to make much noise anymore.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's ironic that I just installed Songbird to try it out. Oh well, it's no big loss.</comment>


Colorado's Effort Against Teenage Pregnancies Is a Startling Success - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/science/colorados-push-against-teenage-pregnancies-is-a-startling-success.html <comment><USER2> So you're seeing that giving kids birth control reduces teen pregnancy? Shocking.

Everyone knew this would happen, but some believe that giving teens birth control is encouraging them to have sex, so initiatives like this are almost always blocked. It's very much a political problem.

<comment><USER3> >but some believe that giving teens birth control is encouraging them to have sex

I don't understand, encouraging them to use contraception while having sex (and perhaps lead to more intercourse)? or encourage more unprotected sex?

<comment><USER4> _and perhaps lead to more intercourse_

In America, the popular public society-wide meme opinion is "sex is bad outside of procreation." You're not allowed to encourage it, you're not allowed to make it safer, and many doctors aren't even comfortable talking about it.

Running a "birth-free sex" program is an affront to the victorian sensibilities of genital shame and a general war on happiness. The one true path is dedication to god and hard work, not personal enjoyment of anything. And we're going to have our 80 year old half-senile business moguls fund all politicians to ensure sex is always dangerous, unsafe, and bad for you.

<comment><USER5> Heh, i recall reading the experience of someone from some Nordic nation or other who went to USA to visit his in-laws to be.

"Back home" they were sharing a bed and sleeping in their undies each night.

While visiting it was pajamas and sleeping in different ends of the house.

<comment><USER4> That's reasonably common in the US if the parents are religious. If the kid and their significant other are visiting parents and aren't married then they aren't allowed to sleep in the same room (because they might do _shenanigans!_ ).

<comment><USER5> I see i forgot to include that i think the couple was both well into their 20s, just not married (yet).

<comment><USER4> They are still children in the eyes of their parents. :)

Doesn't matter if it's 20/30/40, you still need to be protected from the temptation of living in sin.

<comment><USER5> * They are still children in the eyes of their parents. :) *

True, and something that transcends cultures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a counterpoint, 85% of the gains were found in neighboring counties without the program. Teenage birth rates are plummeting everywhere.

Questionable source, but data and linked study appear correct: [http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/385884/no-one- program-d...](http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/385884/no-one-program-did- not-reduce-colorados-teen-pregnancy-rate-40-percent-callie-gable)

<comment><USER7> Indeed national averages during that period trend similarly.

[http://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/birth-rates- chart-200...](http://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/birth-rates- chart-2000-2011-text.htm)

<comment> irq-1 The 2007-2013 numbers for 'All' show about 40% drop, but: it's a longer period (than 2009-2013), and there's a very sharp decline between 2007 and 2009, which would make the national numbers worse when compared to the same period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if there was also an increase in STDs. The article makes no mention.

<comment><USER9> I was thinking the same thing. They have less of an incentive to use protection with this device implanted. Let's wait and see until the STD numbers surface.

Ultimately, what's cheaper? Having a baby or taking care of an STD? Perhaps the benefits outweigh the costs.

<comment><USER10> Taking care of an STD will be cheaper for the individual and the state, without question.

<comment><USER11> I'm not entirely sure about that.

The long term effects of certain STD's will require hospitalization, doctor's visits, and medication. If these programs target teens and poor people, this demographic would also struggle to pay for those things as well -- and they would need to use them for a more protracted period than 10-18 years.

Also: Birth control might give a false sense of security leading to more casual sex and a surging rate of STDs. That last theory makes STDs noticeably absent from the article.

<comment><USER12> "The long term effects of certain STD's will require hospitalization, doctor's visits, and medication."

Without a "think of the children" argument, is that necessarily bad, if poor judgment has consequences? Shouldn't poor judgement have negative lifestyle outcomes?

My hiking hobby exposes me to some medical risk of lyme disease, skin cancer, ankle and knee damage, but its not like I'm about to stop. Now that you're done yawning about my dangerous lifestyle choices, likewise if casual sex is medically dangerous then ... why exactly should anyone care?

<comment><USER13> > Shouldn't poor judgement have negative lifestyle outcomes?

That's absurd. Having unprotected sex would not constitute "poor judgement" if there were no possible negative outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> IUDs have an excellent success rate and safety profile. They can cause problems, but from a societal perspective, it may be worth it.

Really we need non-invasive male birth control, as soon as possible.

<comment><USER15> I would argue invasive is fine, what we need is reliably reversible. Vasectomies can be reversed, but it's a big if at any juncture.

<comment><USER14> Even injection at the site will result in high rates of patient non- compliance. There's been some work done in India with temporary implants. However, I believe if we are to reach zero unintended pregnancies, the male procedures need both medical and reversibly surgical options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is interesting because I always claim that the reverse is true where I live. Like, getting pregnant is glorified to young girls. The conspiracy theorist in me says that the gov does that to occupy peoples lives. It's like, they have nothing better to do so lets make having a baby seem like the greatest thing in the world. So in my view, this goes both ways.

<comment><USER17> The conspiracy theorist in you may want to look to society, hormones, and evolution as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder what these sorts of barrier-free contraception methods are doing to STI rates.

<comment><USER19> Nobody ever mentions the problems with environmental pollution and human cancer with chemical contraception. It's very conspicuous. If it were any other product the downsides would be heavily discussed. [http://i.imgur.com/S8RCxEe.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/S8RCxEe.jpg)

<comment><USER20> I tend to distrust quotes that use terms like "the barren left" \- it's clearly not aimed at me, someone who Steven Mosher would probably lump into that category.

Isn't the dumping of antibiotics causing similar problems? The problem doesn't seem to be birth control itself, but improper disposal of household chemicals, really.

Also, do you have a citation for the cancer thing you mentioned?

<comment><USER19> [http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8759578/ns/health- womens_health/t/...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8759578/ns/health- womens_health/t/hormone-pills-added-list-carcinogens/)

Also, the problem is literally in urine. I don't understand your line about disposal. You want all women on the pill to always pee and poop into jars for proper permanent disposal? And no, "disposal" of antibiotics is not a big ecological problem whereas pharmaceutical hormones clearly are.

<comment><USER20> Ah, I didn't know that the hormones were excreted via urine.

Also, that link mostly talks about hormonal menopause therapy, and oddly only mentions the BC pill in passing, noting that only high-dosage pills seem to be linked to cancer.

In the end, tbh, it's up to a woman and her doctor to decide how to balance the risks of pregnancy and cancer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Here's the link to the study referenced in the article.

[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1400506](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1400506)

<comment><USER22> I don't think 2-3 partners is really low. I find it hard to imagine most people being successful at seducing a very large number of people. Probably in most cases it is <= the number of boyfriends the girl has had.

I could also point out that my church _would_ consider 2-3 partners something akin to "running wild". One partner, one time could be a lapse in judgement. Multiple partners or one partner multiple times indicates a pattern.

<comment><USER23> >I could also point out that my church would consider 2-3 partners something akin to "running wild". One partner, one time could be a lapse in judgement. Multiple partners or one partner multiple times indicates a pattern.

Thankfully, this type of puritanical thinking is on the decline in America.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> >Colorado's Effort Against Teenage Pregnancies Is a Startling Success

Any time I see a headline like this, I have to look for the discussion about what unintended consequences were observed. There usually are some, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Some commenters have already mentioned negative health effects, spread of STDs, environmental impact, social consequences. I found no such discussion in this article.

<comment><USER25> Probably because it's entirely outside the scope and would only be useful to people trying to derail the conversation.

It's not like IUDs suddenly stop other safe sex practices. It's not Sex MMO where your "Contraceptive Equipment Slot" only can fit one item per party.

<comment><USER26> Why would it be outside the scope? It's intuitive that decreasing the "price" of one form of contraception would decrease demand for weak substitutes, so it is one possible and very negative effect of the policy.

<comment><USER25> Honestly I'm not sure where to begin in the time I have here to write with you...

Consider that IUD usage overlaps only partially with other practices for starters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In my opinion this is obviously a pretty good thing to do, and it is fantastic to see it is happening. Dear world: let's see more of this kind of thing, please.

> But the experiment in Colorado is entering an uncertain new phase that will > test a central promise of the Affordable Care Act: free contraception.

</comment><comment><USER28> How is this startling?

<comment><USER18> Condoms are free.

<comment><USER29> Condoms have lower compliance and higher failure rates.

<comment><USER30> Check out this series of charts. Each method of contraception in its own chart, and "perfect use" and "typical use" are both plotted.

Out of 100 couples using a condom as birth control, 55 will have an unplanned pregnancy in 4 years with typical usage (8 out of 100 with perfect usage).

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/14/sunday- review/...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/14/sunday- review/unplanned-pregnancies.html?_r=0)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Perhaps they should discourage teenagers from sleeping with each other. As far as I know, teenage pregnancy is not an issue in conservative Middle Eastern cultures for instance.

</comment><comment><USER32> Don't IUDs have a lot of negative impacts on a woman/teenage girl's health? I seem to remember there was a study about bleeding, irregular menstral periods, and an increase in urine tract infections. It seems irresponsible to give a device like that out to any teenager that wants one. Not that pills are any better.

It doesn't matter what direction the arrow on the graph is pointing if the way you got there is by potentially hurting people.

<comment><USER33> Not your job to police women's bodies. If she is fully informed and wishes to use one then this is her personal decision. Not yours.

<comment><USER32> That's completely fair! I'm not trying to make the decision for anyone and I'm not sure where you got that from my post. But isn't it a bit irresponsible for something as large/respected as an entire State to put their backing behind something with pretty well known, negative tradeoffs?

Is it OK for a large body of authority to support something that will harm you as long as they leave it to the individual's choice to use it or not? Where do we draw the line on this?

<comment><USER34> Do you like jails? Do you like cars and roads? Do you like electricity? States and countries put their backing behind many things with well known, negative tradeoffs.

Update: for example, a paper on the psychological damage done by jailing people: [http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/prison2home02/haney.htm](http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/prison2home02/haney.htm)

<comment><USER32> Your argument is ridiculous so I'm just writing to let you know I won't even entertain you. Hopefully nobody else does either.

<comment><USER34> Nice attempt at ducking the argument. Let me spell it out for you (and other readers should they be so misguided).

You argue "isn't it a bit irresponsible for something as large/respected as an entire State to put their backing behind something with pretty well known, negative tradeoffs?"

The state supports many things with that have negative aspects. I listed a few obvious ones in my previous comments. In fact everything in life involves a tradeoff. One can study these things and develop some quantitative measure of the negative and positive effect.

Here are some studies on IUD complications: [http://www.popline.org/node/490794](http://www.popline.org/node/490794) (youths) [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010782406...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010782406002897) (following birth) [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673600...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673600026994) (UIT infection specifically) [http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/718183_5](http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/718183_5) (general)

You can see that the complications are generally regarded as being quite minor or low probability. For many people this is a tradeoff worth making, given the near 100% success rate in prevent pregnancy.

Now this refers to IUDs. The Colorado program also provides hormonal birth control, via a long lasting implant. I'll let you do your own research on these.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Since all my comments so far have sounded like I oppose giving out contraceptives (since I am very much a proponent of moral living), let me clarify. I think it is great to help lift people out of poverty. Since there is a trend among poor teenagers to have more unplanned pregnancies it makes sense to address that problem, and this is one possible step.

I do not think it should replace teaching abstinence. But I also don't think that teaching abstinence using scare tactics in school is all that effective. Religious and moral teachings are much more so. So it still comes down to the responsibility of parents to teach their children correct life principles.

Let the government give free contraceptives to at-risk populations. But also encourage parents to teach good morals.

<comment><USER35> I've heard that unwanted pregnancies are more frequent in the "wait till married" crowd. That is because they are unlikely to have condoms with them when their emotions overwhelm them. They don't account for their changed decision making process when aroused. (Source: Dan Ariely's Irrationality MOOC).

<comment><USER36> That's what I've seen from personal experience. Thinking along the lines of: Birth control's for sluts, and I'm not like that, so I don't need that, this is special, etc.</comment></comment></comment>


A Shock-Absorbing Wheel for Bikes and Wheelchairs - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/05/an-amazing-shock-absorbing-wheel-for-bikes-and-wheelchairs/ <comment><USER2> Could someone explain this bit to me:

"In traditional wheelchair designs up to 30 percent of expended energy is lost because they lack suspension."

It sounds an awful lot like bullshit.

I know nothing about wheelchairs, but I just can't see how you're going to increase efficiency by adding suspension.

In bicycling, suspension reduces your efficiency when you pedal. It's why XC and all mountain MTBs have various mechanisms to lock out suspension during pedaling (some of which are quite clever), and high-end dedicated XC bikes have no rear suspension at all.

I don't think there's anything magical about moving that suspension into the wheel that would suddenly add efficiency.

As others have noted - this will never make it into mainstream cycling. The most noticeable weight on your bike is the weight on your wheels. If you added 2 lbs of weight to your frame, it would be much less noticeable than adding 1lb each to your wheels.

Even if the article's claims of somehow increasing efficiency by adding suspension were true, I'll be they'd be more than negated by the added weight on the wheels.

<comment><USER3> >"In traditional wheelchair designs up to 30 percent of expended energy is lost because they lack suspension."

>It sounds an awful lot like bullshit.

It's not necessarily bullshit and in fact could be quite true. This is one reason why cars drive on air inflated rubber tires instead of solid metal ones. It's also one reason why trains are more efficient than cars, they have a VERY smooth "road" to travel on and thus don't lose any energy to up-and- down movement.

If you believe that suspension losses are trivial then I invite you to find a road with rumble strips (to wake up sleepy drivers who slowly veer off the road) and to ride it on a road bike with skinny tires at a very high pressure. Then ride it again with a non-suspended (or locked out) mountain bike with it's much larger tires. Then ride it again with a mountain bike with a suspension.

Here is an informal study doing precisely that for different sizes of road bike tires: [http://janheine.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/suspension- losses/](http://janheine.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/suspension-losses/)

You'll find that the pedaling losses from a suspension might get swamped by the benefits. So it turns out that the optimal solution is relative. Furthermore a person in a wheelchair isn't going to have the same kind of 60-120 RPM cadence (1-2Hz, but then double it since there are two legs, so 2-4Hz) that a cyclist would. You can do a lot of higher frequency bump reduction for wheelchairs and not sap the users energy for the wheel-push stroke which takes multiple seconds.

What this really has to do with is the size of the surface texture relative to the size of the wheels and the ability of the tire to deform. A lot of wheel- chairing happens on sidewalks which are fairly smooth but have expansion joints every 3-10 feet. Or on blacktop which is smooth relative to a car's tires which are air inflated but not relative to a wheelchair's which are solid rubber. Or what about older concrete, or tile, or one of any of the other myriad surfaces which aren't perfectly flat?

> Even if the article's claims of somehow increasing efficiency by adding > suspension were true, I'll be they'd be more than negated by the added > weight on the wheels.

It all depends on the kind of riding you do. I ride long distances on the road for training (not racing) so I don't have need of a wheel that has low rotational inertia. As such I could accept a weight penalty for the sake of comfort. I own a titanium road frame which is "heavy" by road standards and I put a tandem fork on it for extra strength, and I ride 40 spoke wheels. The idea that weight is paramount bar none might be true for professional cyclists but not for everyone. To a great many people it's only a small factor when making decisions.

EDIT: formatting and moving the link

<comment><USER4> _a car 's tires which are air inflated but not relative to a wheelchair's which are solid rubber._

Plenty of wheelchairs have pneumatic tyres, including the ones in the article.

<comment><USER3> Point taken. I was thinking of the wheelchairs I've seen people pushed around hospitals in which don't necessarily correspond to what people buy for themselves for the long term.

<comment><USER5> Those are absolutely terrible wheelchairs, built to the specs of 50 years ago, heavy and uncomfortable. They are very difficult to get around in. No one should have to use those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So.

Suspension wheels have been around for quite a while now. The most well known is the Pantour.

[http://www.atob.org.uk/bicycle-accessories/pantour- suspensio...](http://www.atob.org.uk/bicycle-accessories/pantour-suspension- hub/)

The Pantour does suspension inside the hub. That's not a lot of room so we're talking a centimeter of suspension. But that's all that many bikes can take anyway, since they have rim brakes and more suspension than that would move the rim too far from the brake.

A similar approach, albeit more high-tech and intended more for efficiency, was recently showcased by Gosiko.

[http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/03/05/nahbs-2013-gokisos- amazi...](http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/03/05/nahbs-2013-gokisos-amazing- suspension-bicycle-hubs/)

Though Softwheel gets credit (?) for using what amounts to shock absorbers, a much lighter and more robust approach has been done for a while now, using leaf springs:

[http://www.gizmag.com/loopwheels-suspension-bicycle- wheels/2...](http://www.gizmag.com/loopwheels-suspension-bicycle- wheels/27129/) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O11hFiu43RQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O11hFiu43RQ)

Here's a few problems I see with the Softwheel, at least for bikes (I have no idea about wheelchairs).

1\. It would appear to be very _very_ inefficient. As the wheel is turning, each suspension spring is constantly being pushed and pulled. One would think that a single suspension, like a suspension fork or the Pantour hub, would be much more efficient.

2\. It's likely heavy. Rotational inertia could be a problem.

3\. It's likely not very strong. Perhaps the suspension compensates for this a bit.

4\. It'd only work with disc brakes.

<comment><USER7> 1 is the real deal breaker here. People fill their tires to 140 PSI just to get rid of a little bit of the friction caused by the tire deforming as the wheel turns. That has to be nothing compared to actual shocks. It must feel like riding through dry sand.

<comment><USER8> I think the whole bicycle wheel thing is just a ploy to scam clueless investors. No one who had ever tried to ride one of these wheels up a hill would think they were a good idea on a bicycle. And the descending stairs thing? I've descended much steeper on my regular old hardtail.

Since motive force is applied to the _rim_ of wheelchair wheels, it probably works fine for those.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For wheelchairs where the angular velocity is fairly low, it looks like a great product. For bikes, you can see on the demo video how the back wheel is out of alignment. The faster you go the more noticeable it would be. Even if you take care of the original factory calibration, over time I would think it would get worse from uneven performance from the shocks as they wear.

</comment><comment><USER10> This seems like it might work well for wheelchairs, where performance is not a large issue. For bicycles though, it's turning a component that was once static into one that's rotating. This means the rider will have to overcome a whole new set of forces just to get the wheel moving. There's a reason people pay such a huge premium for very light rims and tires, and go through the trouble of not having inner tubes.

<comment><USER11> Is performance really not a large issue for wheelchairs? I would think the elderly would not have the strongest arms, and younger, powerful riders would in many cases prefer speed over comfort. Yes, it might be useful in rough terrain, but that is precisely the terrain where the loss of power due to inefficiencies in the wheel might mean the difference between getting over that bump or not getting over it. I think there is little room between this and just mounting (much) wider tires and using less tire pressure.

<comment><USER5> Performance is a huge issue. A better performing wheelchair makes a difference in our independence and range we can go on our own. It also makes a big difference in the wear and tear on our shoulder joints and hands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Both videos are lame. Lots of shots of people riding around being all inspiring, and almost nothing about how the wheel actually works to absorb shock.

<comment><USER13> And nice music. Don't forget the music.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can't press Ctrl-F to initiate a search on this page without it pulling up a picture slideshow, taking me away from the content that I wanted to search. What a stupendously senseless display of hostility to users.

For anyone else who was wondering, there seems to be no mention of rolling resistance.

<comment><USER15> A commenter on the article stated, "Putting the wheel's axle off center through a system of articulated links is bound to increase effective rolling resistance." and another said "This is going to feel like you're riding on sand."

<comment><USER14> Yeah, that is my suspicion as well. Even just the difference between street tires and mountain bike tires is very noticeable on a bike.

This product might be worth it if you are using a wheelchair over rough dirt/ground, but I doubt this sort of wheel will become very popular with bicyclists _(bicyclists already have shocks built into their bike frames, if that is the sort of thing that they need for their particular application)_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The value of shock absorbing for manual wheelchairs isn't just in efficiency, it would be also quite valuable for making it less painful to go over bumps. Even going down a relatively city sidewalk is exhausting from the bumps and cracks, because jolting adds to the pain of sitting upright if your spine or pelvis are already in pain. Efficiency is also great though!

</comment><comment><USER16> If the suspension elements don't wear perfectly evenly or are not perfectly evenly charged to begin with, it will be like riding on an out-of-round wheel. That is, instead of absorbing bumps, the suspension will feel like you are riding over regularly spaced lumps. It will be fiddly to maintain.

You also use one third of the suspension at a time. Trading what the suspension spokes weigh versus a suspension with a single spring and shock per wheel, is also probably going to be a favorable trade-off.

Some quick Googling shows there are existing suspension wheelchairs that look like they use mountain bike rear suspensionspring/shock components, and it looks like there is sufficient room under the seat to accommodate a suspension.

</comment><comment><USER15> I am shocked at the (very high) quality of comments on the article. (Just scroll down).

Better than HN. I didn't notice what domain I clicked through to, made me do a double-take, am I on Scientific Mechanics or some super specialized blog? Kudos to the Wired comments team.

</comment><comment><USER17> Not really sure what kind of bikes this would be useful on. The most basic form of shock absorption is the tyre, and you can run with higher volume tyres and lower pressure to make it more comfortable. Of course on the road this will slow you down so people don't tend to do it. For the kind of urban obstructions in the video you could ride perfectly well (and with more fun) on a fully rigid frame (like a BMX). For more serious mountain style riding you need rims that will not be deformed by rocks etc and just keep rolling over obstructions.

</comment><comment><USER18> Other than the spiral flexures that NASA uses this seems to be rather unique in that shock is absorbed in two dimensions rather than one. No matter from what direction jerk is applied the wheel will absorb it in the same or a similar direction rather than just absorbing the vector component that is along the direction of a linear shock absorber.

That means it will absorb more of the shock and be more comfortable. If people know of another mechanism that has this characteristic I'd love to know about it.

</comment><comment><USER19> If there was a road bike version at a price I'd be willing to pay I'd be interested in something like this.

On training rides it would be a nice thing to have (and the increased weight would be less of an issue) not least because current road bike rims get buckled if you sneeze while riding on them (I exaggerate (slightly))

<comment><USER20> I would like to put it on a trailer, so the trailer would bounce around less behind you. One of these guys: [http://travellingtwo.com/gallery2/d/44786-2/tombike.jpg](http://travellingtwo.com/gallery2/d/44786-2/tombike.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is it just me, or has Wired completely failed to load on Mobile Safari for months?

</comment><comment><USER22> Unless I missed it in the article, what's the advantage of this vs. mounting the wheel on a regular spring/shock? Other than needing minimal modifications to the base platform?

<comment><USER23> That's a pretty big advantage already, if it's just a drop-in for existing mounts.

<comment><USER24> Though 3 shocks per wheel hits a very different price-point than 2 shocks per vehicle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> as a wheelchair user:

looks heavy, and spoke wheels provide suspension.

also there are tons of wheels built from a similar premise in the past ; they've all failed as long-lasting products.

</comment><comment><USER26> I love this design, it puts the complexity in a part that already is and removes it from the frame. Lowering the total cost.

</comment><comment><USER27> There were elastic wheels 110 years ago:the "roue élastique Roussel" for cars. it also inspired the lunar rover wheels back in appolo times. Hardly news.

</comment><comment><USER28> How do you true those wheels?

<comment><USER29> Low spoke count wheels, like these, have substantially more material in the rim in order to make the rim stiff enough for the large gaps between spokes to work at all.

All that's needed is for all three spokes to have equal tension (and no excessive forces applied) and the wheel should stay true.</comment></comment>


"We're just like YouTube," Megaupload lawyer tells Ars - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/were-just-like-youtube-megaupload-lawyer-tells-ars.ars <comment><USER2> The debate here should not be wether Megaupload is or isn't guilty of infrigiment. But really why the following approach mentioned in the article was not pursued in favor of the blunt takedown and arrest:

 _Megaupload should have been served with DMCA takedown notices (the site did have a registered DMCA agent, as required by law, though not until 2009). If rightsholders believed that was insufficient, they should have conferred with Megaupload's US counsel (the company has retained US attorneys for some time before the current action). And if that wasn't satisfactory, a civil copyright infringement lawsuit should have been filed, one that would not have taken the site down first and asked questions later._</comment>


Twitter restricts new Trump tweet for 'glorifying violence' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/29/21274323/trump-twitter-glorifying-violence-minneapolis-shooting-looting-notice-restriction <comment><USER2> existing discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347155](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23347155)

<comment><USER3> Comments moved thither. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Interesting real-time project management.  Launching soon. - <AUTHOR> https://zingproject.com/

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the point!</comment>


Show HN: Convert any spreadsheet into a fully-documented REST API - <AUTHOR> http://apiwith.us

<comment><USER2> is this gridspree, looks almost exactly like gridspree

[https://assembly.com/gridspree](https://assembly.com/gridspree)</comment>


The Arabic-Afrikaans Tradition of the Cape - <AUTHOR> http://chimurengachronic.co.za/writing-the-city-in-a-different-script/ <comment> guard-of-terra [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_Arabic_alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_Arabic_alphabet)

It turns out some muslim tatars settled in Belarus and were happily writing ruthenian (aka old belorussian, aka old western russian) in arabic script, even introduced some extra letters.

</comment><comment><USER2> Urdu is similar, where the Persian/Arabic script was adopted to write Hindustani, the prevalent spoken language of north/central India. Its beginning to fall into disuse in India but is the national language of Pakistan. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urdu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urdu)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is very similar to Arwi when the Arab moors migrated to Tamil Nadu and Sri lanka. They wrote Tamil in Arabic script. It still gets taught at mosques in Tamil Nadu though no uses it any more. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arwi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arwi)

</comment><comment><USER4> Another example is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiao'erjing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiao'erjing), used for Mandarin Chinese and other Sinitic languages.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am from Senegal, I have seen it a few times when I was younger.

But no worries, we have now changed the Arabic to Roman letters to write our own language since we still do not have our own (popular) alphabet. Same difference.

</comment><comment><USER6> Another [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arebica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arebica) used for the Bosnian language.

</comment><comment><USER7> Likewise, for Spanish [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aljamiado](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aljamiado)</comment>