Anatomy of a shell - <AUTHOR> https://drewdevault.com/2018/12/28/Anatomy-of-a-shell.html <comment><USER2> Some other interesting projects around the strict posix shell are Morbig[1], a more trustworthy static parser for the posix shell, and the work of Michael Greenberg[2], who is trying to formalize the semantics of the posix shell.

[1] [https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01890044](https://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/hal-01890044) [2] [http://www.cs.pomona.edu/~michael/](http://www.cs.pomona.edu/~michael/)

But my personal takeaway from this sort of research is that the posix shell is a truly insane language beyond even its readily apparent shortcomings. It's worthwhile to figure out the exact semantics of a language with so much existing code and have a precise interpreter for it, but frankly I think the more important task is to move away from such terrible languages. Bourne- derived shells have some great ideas, but these could be formalized into more sensible languages. In particular, I think the best direction is to embed shell languages inside good general-purpose languages. I'm biased to that end since I've written a shell embedded in Racket. But there is no shortage of better shell languages that benefit from better language design, such as Powershell and Elvish.

<comment><USER3> I agree that not just bash, but POSIX shell is beyond salvaging, at least for many use cases where it should be applied.

The way I think of it is that I can't tell my (former) coworkers or my sister to learn to program shell in 2018 "with a straight face". More than 50% of them had Ph.D.'s in some other field like statistics, math, biology, or physics -- i.e. the kind of person who has no problem with Python. But they would struggle with shell or make.

They're the kind of people Mike Bostock (author of d3) wrote this post about Make for [1]. He's absolutely right that they should use Make, because like shell it's a great tool to combine different programs that weren't designed to be combined.

But I feel like this is basically a losing battle -- I don't see that shell or make is an exciting thing for most people to learn, even though it would make them more productive and increase the quality of their work. I think that a language free of legacy would go a long way.

I guess I can see POSIX sh being used when confined to the lower level of an OS, by specialists. But I think it has a lot more potential than that. I'd say it's more important now than 10 years ago, because there's so much more software out there and systems are increasingly built of large heterogeneous parts.

\----

FWIW I mentioned Morbig here [2], along with several other shell parsers, like ShellCheck in Haskell and shfmt in Go.

[1] [https://bost.ocks.org/mike/make/](https://bost.ocks.org/mike/make/)

[2] [https://github.com/oilshell/oil/wiki/ExternalResources](https://github.com/oilshell/oil/wiki/ExternalResources)

<comment><USER4> I don't see sh as a losing battle. I actually think it's quite good for the niche it aims to serve - a niche that very much exists, sh is a square peg and should only go in square holes. I think most folks have had their impression of POSIX shell tainted by bad shells like bash and - sorry - oil encouraging complex, non-portable shell scripts. I intend to write more blog posts in the future helping people gain a closer understanding of POSIX shell and how/where it's useful and how to use it.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I think there is a stark difference in how we're thinking about it. I can't imagine dissuading someone from using local variables "with a straight face". I didn't get your solution below because "local_variable" is actually a global.

I could see that perhaps low level scripts need to be portable to different Unixes. But again I would say that's maybe 5% of what shell is good for.

Also, someone once said "it's easier to port a shell than a shell script". So that's why I'm paying careful attention to Oil build dependencies. For example, Rust and Go are significantly less portable than C, and Oil is self- contained C if you look at it the right way :)

\----

EDIT: Also I think there's no problem adding local variables to POSIX, since all shells implement the same way as far as I can tell. That would be the much better solution, rather than trying to convince people to use only globals.

There are many useful / real shell scripts that are thousands of lines long, so you really need locals.

<comment><USER4> >I didn't get your solution below because "local_variable" is actually a global.

A global in a subshell, so the caller's globals aren't affected.

>Also, someone once said "it's easier to port a shell than a shell script".

Yeah, but it's pretty damn presumptuous to make someone install some random shell on my machine to build your code, imo. The same goes double for e.g. GNU coreutils extensions, since I have to set up some kind of separate root for you where true --version works (ditto for assuming /bin/sh is bash, or even dash so you can use 'local'). It's like encouraging people to use a fucked up version of libc where the args to strcat are reversed. Fuck that. The standard exists to _define_ the environment. Sometimes it's within reason to have dependencies outside of that - but the shell is a good example of where the case for it is very weak.

For the record, my motivations for working on Simon's mrsh project is basically 50:50 between "I want to support POSIX-compatible shell scripts" and "I want a POSIX shell whose interactive mode isn't dogshit". Both are equally important to me.

>EDIT: Also I think there's no problem adding local variables to POSIX, since all shells implement the same way as far as I can tell. That would be the much better solution, rather than trying to convince people to use only globals.

That's all well and good. The Austin Group has public meetings, a public bug tracker, and a public mailing list. Go there and make a case for it! But be prepared for "all shells" to include more than dash, bash, ksh, and zsh.

>There are many useful / real shell scripts that are thousands of lines long, so you really need locals.

Length of shell script is not directly correleated for need for locals.

<comment><USER2> > it's pretty damn presumptuous to make someone install some random shell on > my machine to build your code, imo

Is it more presumptuous to make people install a language you used than to make them install a library you used? Either way people need to get your dependencies if they want to run your code.

> The standard exists to define the environment.

Standards are great, but not all environments need to be standard. Most shell scripts don't need to be ported to dozens of different platforms, and most shell script authors would be much better served by a language with fewer weird gotchas, saner semantics, and the benefit of a lot of language research that's happened in the past few decades. For instance, as I've been porting my personal shell scripts to Rash (my shell in Racket), I've been able to use all the patterns I use in posix shells but with benefits of better readability, easier reasoning, better means of abstraction, etc. It's been a solid win that I would recommend to anybody. Sure, if someone else wants to run my scripts they need to install Rash. But few people (in practice: nobody) are really interested in running my personal shell scripts besides myself. If somebody does want to run them, installing the dependencies is not very hard.

There is a small set of scripts that needs to be portable and be written in a shell-like language. Until standards catch up, posix is perhaps the best thing we have. But most of the time when people write shell scripts they could be writing in any language but choose shell because they want to automate something they do manually or they really want a processes-and-files DSL. Choosing a better shell that fits the processes-and-files domain and allows easy interactive use with better features and less insanity in these situations is a slam dunk.

<comment><USER4> >Is it more presumptuous to make people install a language you used than to make them install a library you used?

A C compiler is also required by POSIX.

>There is a small set of scripts that needs to be portable and be written in a shell-like language

I reject the assumption that the smaller of the two sets is the set which should be portable.

Your Racket-based shell requires a supported Racket platform, which is honestly a pathetic group: Linux, macOS, and Windows, on x86_64, i686, and ARM(?). Maybe if your software is written in Racket in the first place this makes sense, but otherwise it doesn't. It's not about you: it's about everyone. I have a RISC-V machine on my desk and if I wanted to get your stuff working on it I'd have to start by _writing a new JIT for Racket_. On the other hand POSIX & C runs just about everywhere. You mentioned using these for your personal scripts - fine, whatever floats your boat. You'll regret it if you ever think about playing with BSD, POWER9, or the platform of tomorrow (spoiler: I guarantee you that platform will support POSIX and C).

It's funny that everyone in this thread who's come out against POSIX shell in one breath is pushing their own shell in the next ;) maybe when those shells start to number their users in the double digits, we can talk.

>easy interactive use

A comfortable interactive shell experience is a good thing, and has nothing to do with POSIX.

<comment><USER2> >You'll regret it if you ever think about playing with BSD, POWER9, or the platform of tomorrow

But the platform of tomorrow is clearly a resurrected Lisp Machine! In all seriousness, though, I'm pretty sure Racket runs on BSD, and it would probably not be that hard to get it working on any Unix. (In fact, portability is one of the main thrusts right now in core Racket development.)

>Your Racket-based shell requires a supported Racket platform, which is honestly a pathetic group: Linux, macOS, and Windows, on x86_64, i686, and ARM

>It's not about you: it's about everyone.

The same could be said about pioneering new architectures. I think you're doing great work on eg. getting RISC-V available on your build platform. But by the time I will realistically buy a RISC-V machine to replace the server I run most of my shell scripts on a lot more software will be ported to it, probably including Racket. I'm under no delusions that the masses will be flocking to my shell, but there are so many shells that are better than Posix for (at least what I perceive to be) most shell scripting. If any of these better shells becomes very widely used I'm sure it will be ported to $platform_of_tomorrow (oops! I mean "$platform_of_tomorrow"!) before it is very widely deployed.

>A comfortable interactive shell experience is a good thing, and has nothing to do with POSIX.

At least we agree there!

As an aside, I think your projects (sway, wlroots, sr.ht) are really cool, and I like your blog, despite our disagreement about things like sticking to Posix shell and C. Cheers!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> FWIW yash is an impressive and mature project that seems to overlap with the goals of mrsh:

[https://yash.osdn.jp/index.html.en](https://yash.osdn.jp/index.html.en)

 _Yash, yet another shell, is a POSIX-compliant command line shell written in C99 (ISO /IEC 9899:1999). Yash is intended to be the most POSIX-compliant shell in the world while supporting features for daily interactive and scripting use._

I've installed the Ubuntu package and poked around at it a bit. Its source code seems well-written, and it even contains its own line editing library (i.e. the functionality of GNU readline).

It looks like it's still being developed, and magicant is the original author: [https://github.com/magicant/yash](https://github.com/magicant/yash)

I mentioned it here (and just added a proper link): [https://github.com/oilshell/oil/wiki/ExternalResources](https://github.com/oilshell/oil/wiki/ExternalResources)

I wrote some notes about POSIX here: [http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2018/01/28.html#limit-to- posix](http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2018/01/28.html#limit-to-posix)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for sharing! A brief review of the home page shows that it is not compatible with the goals of mrsh, though. It seems Yash aims for high compatibility with POSIX, but adds extensions - mrsh is _strictly_ POSIX, such that in some cases it even detects bashisms and aborts the shell. The goals of mrsh are:

\- Support the proliferation of portable shell scripts and discourage the use of non-standard extensions

\- Provide a "POSIX shell as a library" to have a useful standalone parser and pluggable event loop

\- Provide a moderately comfortable interactive shell experience OOTB

Personally, I'm going to eventually use the second goal to make a new shell based on libmrsh which has a fish-like interactive experience but with a strict POSIX syntax.

<comment><USER5> On one hand I applaud, but on the other strict POSIX shell seems overly limited.

My personal grudges:

\- no local variables (even dash implements them)

\- no process substitution [0] so one has to use temp files, temp named pipes or possibly joggle fd numbers. I once did an external implementation of process substitution, so it's doable with POSIX shell, but then pointless.

\- set -o pipefail

I understand that you know about and get over those limitations. But isn't it too cumbersome when Linux world settled on bash and BSD on ksh? Especially since ksh is a bit like a subset of bash. At least the things I mentioned are common for both.

It's sad that shell makes it so hard to make more complicated pipelines than | the | old | classic. Fds, processes and pipelines should all be first class. Maybe that's the point to make it harder to make those complicated scripts in something other than shell. In other languages it may be easier to make correct pipelines, but with heavy boilerplate. Then it's probably easier to count on libraries instead of pipelines, even if those libraries spawn processes in background.

I'm hoping for oil shell more as it means to address all those issues and more with an escape hatch to convert old scripts. Although I'm not so sure about the implementation details. For those in the know it made more sense to me after I read that OVM itself would become a VM for oil. So that there would be a single VM to run and not two as it is now. At least that's how I understand it.

POSIX shell is kinda magical, because it's nominally portable. However the rabbit seems to have died in the hat, because it's really that old. Shell was conceived in a different era with different limitations. I think that we should go further.

[0] take-in-and-out <(process-out) >(filter-this | grep that) | grep msg

<comment><USER4> >no local variables

They're not standard, so don't use them. Instead I often find a subshell to be sufficient. You can declare a function like so:

        my_func() (
            local_variable=10
            echo $local_variable
        )

This is also a good strategy for helping you make purer shell functions.

>no process substitution, so one has to use temp files, temp named pipes or possibly joggle fd numbers

I don't find myself doing this often enough to care. It is possible, and if you're writing something which heavily relies on this perhaps you're better off with Go or Python.

>set -o pipefail

I agree, we've been talking to the Austin Group about getting this standardized.

I think we should go further, too, not by attempting to replace the shell with something that tries to do shell scripts better, but by making full-blown programming languages in which shell things are nicer to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shameless post of a little shell I've been working on: [https://github.com/nixpulvis/oursh](https://github.com/nixpulvis/oursh). It aims to be support a POSIX and modern language.

And some writeups, if you're into shells:

\- [https://nixpulvis.com/ramblings/2018-07-11-building-a- shell-...](https://nixpulvis.com/ramblings/2018-07-11-building-a-shell-part-1)

\- [https://nixpulvis.com/ramblings/2018-10-15-building-a- shell-...](https://nixpulvis.com/ramblings/2018-10-15-building-a-shell-part-2)

</comment><comment><USER7> Love this initiative. It's absolutely valid to plant a flag at the extreme end of the standards-vs-featureful spectrum.</comment>


OCaml-multicore now at 4.04.2 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ocamllabs/ocaml-multicore/pull/167 <comment><USER2> This is a pretty nice step forward to enable OCaml as a general purpose language that supports modern CPU architectures. A good intro here: [http://kcsrk.info/ocaml/multicore/2015/05/20/effects- multico...](http://kcsrk.info/ocaml/multicore/2015/05/20/effects-multicore/)

</comment><comment><USER3> So, it's still a separate branch? What's notable about this version of ocaml- multicore?

<comment><AUTHOR> There seems to have been some good work being done on the GC.

* Project lead(?) claiming 1ms pause times: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ocaml/comments/7yqa92/comment/dujyj...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ocaml/comments/7yqa92/comment/dujyj44?st=JF2P3P3D&sh=88cd0822)

* General status update: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ocaml/comments/7yqa92/comment/dujgx...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ocaml/comments/7yqa92/comment/dujgx0g?st=JF2P7JII&sh=07586a42)</comment></comment>


The fake French minister in a silicone mask who stole millions - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48510027 <comment><USER2> Here the full french TV documentary that exposed this (has auto-translated from auto-generated subtitles…):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuaKp1D2vv8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuaKp1D2vv8)</comment>


PEP 403: Proposal to Add Block-like Feature to Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0403/ <comment><USER2> This is a thing that Python badly needs; especially for callback-heavy frameworks like Twisted. Unfortunately, the proposed syntax seems deeply un- Pythonic to me (to be fair, it's based on decorators whose syntax is also deeply un-Pythonic).

The most natural syntax I've ever seen proposed for this features is a trailing "where:" like this:

        x = ((p + q) / r, (p - q) / r) where:
                p = -b
                q = sqrt(b*b - 4*a*c)
                r = 2*a

Unfortunately, that choice was nixed because of a fear that people would expect "where" to behave like SQL's "where". The second best English word would be "having", which fails the same test, and I can't really think of any more. :(

<comment><USER3> "scope(d)"? Would make perfect sense to me.</comment></comment>


The perfect tweet - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bufferapp.com/post/2828118377/the-perfect-tweet

<comment><USER2> I for one find Guy Kawasaki's tweets a bit spammy. They all have linkbait titles and for some reason redirect all stories through alltop.com. Maybe most importantly, his stream conveys no personality whatsoever. Hardly the perfect tweet or twitterer.

<comment><USER3> Hmm, very good point. I think the topic of a good tweeter is very polarizing. Some are there for engagement, some for news and interesting articles. As concerns the latter one, I truly think there is no better tweeter than Guy. If one is in it to have more conversation and news only every now and then, then I agree this wouldn't make so much sense then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good post, It is true that most of the influential people on twitter either have some software tweeting for them, or are paying someone to sit down all day and do it. The later is obviously much less cost effective. But I think you hit a good point that tweeting often is not enough. It's a the kind of spray gun attack we have come to frown upon by email marketers. Tweeting something important to your followers and keeping it simple, is far more effective than just tweeting. It only becomes really powerful when you combine the two.</comment>


Rules for a loving couple who write (or build a startup) at home - <AUTHOR> http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/rules-for-a-loving-couple-who-write-at-home

<comment><USER2> This is brilliant! I write and work from home with my hubby, who also works from home. Couldn't be a more perfect - and true - post for us.

<comment><AUTHOR> I remember exploring Page99Test a while back. Hope it's going well for you.</comment></comment>


Human-powered aircraft - first sustained flight - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100922155112.htm

<comment><USER2> See also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1717023>

</comment><comment><USER3> The HN headline is extremely misleading. It's the first sustained flight of a FLAPPING WING human powered aircraft.

The Gossamer Condor demonstrated sustained flight in 1977. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Condor></comment>


Choking game, also known as the fainting game - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choking_game <comment><USER2> Two of the people I've known in my life have died this way[1]. There are many ways to die, and we all die eventually, but dying from intentionally inflicted asphyxiation has always struck me as exceptionally stupid and tragic.

I understand that people place a different value on their life, and things like skydiving are thrilling and life changing with a chance of death if something goes wrong. I don't always share the same risk/reward profile that is neccesary for someone to asphyxiate for thrills.

[1] One as a child doing this using a plastic bag and one as an adult presumably practicing the erotic version.

<comment><USER3> Skydiving isnt more dangerous than riding a motorbike daily.

Also even though a agree with your bigger point its not really what happens here. People are just being stupid here, not even understanding they are playing with their life.

<comment><USER4> What is the chance of death per hour of skydive?

I bet it's considerably higher than per hour of crusing around on a motorbike...

<comment><USER5> Actually it is much lower, because people who skydive tend to carefully check safety and many motorbike drivers don't - and other road users do not take care either.

<comment><USER4> Skydiving in the USA has one death per 130k jumps. Since a jump from a typical 14k feet takes about 60 seconds of freefall, that means there is a death every 2,200 skydive-hours.

There were 390 motorcyclist deaths per billion vehicle miles in the USA in 2006. Assuming motorbikes average ~40mph (between city and highway), that works out a death every 64,000 motorbike-hours.

So skydiving is significantly more dangerous per unit time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I was around ten years old, way back in the early 80s, friends of mine used to do this. I never took part, because skating the edge of death didn't seem like any fun to me. To this day, I've never been unconscious other than to sleep. If I had to have my leg amputated and there were a local-anesthetic- only option, I'd choose that (not that I'd likely be able to convince a surgeon to do it).

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually did partake, as a 90's kid, but I didn't know how dangerous it could be. To us, it was a harmless game the older kids had played in their time. I tried Googling this at the time but the information on it was scarce.

The Wikipedia article has fleshed out since then to include some risks, and links to asphyxiation for a more thorough analysis. We had no idea why it happened at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "that since 1995 at least 82 youths between the age of 6 and 19 have died in the United States as a result of the game"

That doesn't seem too dangerous to me, compared to many other dangerous activities teenagers do.

<comment><USER8> This falls in my perspective of having solved so many problems, we re-weigh the ones that are left.

The number of children who died on farms back in the 1800s early 1900s probably eclipses this number by a few orders of magnitude.

Not saying this is a bad thing. But I think about it a lot as a new-ish parent trying to navigate the layers upon layers of extra safety that my parents find a little absurd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had a few friends in high school that did this. I only witnessed it twice, and both times made me pretty uncomfortable.

The very first time I saw one of my friends do this, I didn't believe he had actually passed out, so I lightly tossed a tennis ball at his crotch and he didn't react at all. I felt bad when he woke up in pain though, but I honestly thought he was faking. He was out for maybe 20-30 seconds.

The second time this girl we all knew did it, and we freaked out because everyone normally woke up in under a minute, but she didn't wake up for almost four minutes.

We started discouraging people from doing it after that.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow I totally forgot I had this done to me as a freshman in high school by an older kid who claimed he had practiced it at his martial arts class. Interesting experience - kind of psychedelic and dream like. Heard music and saw weird dancing elephant visuals. Woke and was extremely confused - completely forgot what I had agreed to. Apparently I was sort of shaking and seizing for some amount of seconds.

Glad I wasn't killed now that I think about it. Definitely would chalk it up to curiosity and a bit of peer pressure.

</comment><comment><USER11> This appears to be a variation of "do a bunch of sit-ups quickly, with your back against the wall, stand up, hold your breath and let a comrade push on your solar plexus". Not sure about feeling high, but the faint rate is around 100%.

<comment><USER12> The version I 'heard of' involved a joint also.

<comment><USER13> Yup, the Super Toke. It didn't really make you higher, but it did give you headrush for a completely unrelated-to-pot reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> oh i remember this all too well. when i was in high school, there was a kid in the same grade as me who ended up dying because he did this. and then me being the curmudgeon that i was, decided to go on MySpace af the time and essentially say that the kid was stupid for doing something like that and deserved what he got (not sure that I feel that way anymore, as it turns out, aging is a great way to develop empathy!) and then suddenly started receiving threats on my life from his "friends". good times!

</comment><comment><USER15> Moral panic.

</comment><comment><USER16> What does this have to do with anything Hacker News-related?

<comment><USER17> > _What does this have to do with anything Hacker News-related?_

Nothing, although some people will come up with explanations to say that _"this article is interesting and that's why it was upvoted"_ but the reality is, today is Sunday, and Sundays are always characterized by random _—usually non-tech related—_ articles in the front page. I personally don't mind it, this is a good way to learn about topics that usually people don't talk about. To me, it feels like clicking the "Random Article" link on WikiPedia [1].

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if this is one of those things that kids should be taught to do safely, rather than just saying "don't do that."

Being hypoxic briefly isn't likely to kill you. But doing it over and over and over, or using a plastic bag, or... fainting and hitting your head. Those are reasons you might die.</comment>


What It's Like to Live in the World's Most Polluted City - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160425-new-delhi-most-polluted-city-matthieu-paley/ <comment><USER2> Bangalore is no different. I hate to sound stereotypical and complain about the utter lack of infrastructure here but I have no choice. I grew up in Bangalore and only a decade ago, things a were a lot better.

The city drew millions of people from across the country in the last few years and simply hasn't keep up. Add to that an incredibly unstable state government and you have a city that can no longer service its residents. There's garbage everywhere, rude people, broken roads (which when left that way, attract more garbage because no one really cares anymore) and a complete lack of civic responsibility. The monsoons have made it worse! People get stuck in traffic jams for hours. Even in nicer neighborhoods, we lose power for half a day because of the rains.

I'm a proud Indian but I lose complete hope when I observe the current state of Indian cities.

<comment><USER3> I call myself a Bangalorian now, but I have been here for 16 years. Not born and brought up in Bangalore, so some of you will cringe at my claim at being Bangalorian. I love this place because it gave me a career. There is no other place in India that I would be willing to move to. BUT, I am now worried about this city and the future my children have here (if they choose to continue to live here). Just yesterday, after a dinner with a couple of friends, we ended up discussing if there is a better place to go to in India. The answer, as always, was -- no. If I want a better life (which includes decent job opportunities), the only way out is to move to a place outside of India. I wish this was not the case.

<comment><USER4> curious, what are the regional options? singapore comes to mind but is extremely small and i presume therefore limited/difficult. are malaysia/indonesia/vietnam open to skilled immigrants?

<comment><USER3> I am into software product development and hence malaysia et al don't look promising. The alternatives I have considered are: Australia, Luxemburg, US, and UK, in that order. However, these are not regional options.

<comment><USER5> Wait, Luxemburg has a software industry?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have been living in Delhi for around one year now, and as one of the other comments pointed out, this city is filthy and extremely polluted even by Indian standards (Note: I am an Indian and have traveled to and lived in many Indian Cities).

Here are some things that in my opinion make this one of the worst places to live:

\- Filth, Garbage, lack of sanitation. Most of Delhi is filled with garbage. There is Garbage lying everywhere. People throw in out of their cars on roads while driving. People dump plastic bags filled with garbage to nearby streets on a daily basis.

\- Pollution. Its monsoon season here in Delhi right now and for the first time in a year, I was able to spot a few stars in the sky last night. The rest of the year, the air is filled with a haze of noxious gases. I have seen vehicles emitting large plume of white smoke and no traffic policeman cares to stop them and ask for their pollution certificate. Garbage dumps mentioned by the OP are literally like mountains with smoke emanating from various parts all the time.

\- Lack of space. Ok. There is no space in Delhi. For one to walk or jog.

\- Angry culture. I am sad to say that I have never seen more road rage incidents anywhere else. People have very little patience and respect for fellow individuals seems to be missing more often than not.

<comment><USER7> Delhi resident here. Last winter, I developed severe breathing problems and had coughing fits. The doctor flatly told me "get out if you want to live well".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Also: limping, injured cows and dogs (with broken legs and bashed in skulls) hobble along the middles of the roads, red lights usually have no meaning, there is literally no concept of a stop sign. Life is cheap. The population is excessive. There's a basic break-down of order. At night cars with wealthy "gangsters" roam to pick up street children to rape them and then drop them off at some random place. The children often don't know what happened (think Slum Dog Millionaire).

Source: from there originally. Been there once in the last 10 years. Saw little had changed. Vowed never to go back.

<comment><USER9> Never heard about the gangster / street children phenomenon. Do you have something I can read up on, or an extended anecdote to share?

<comment><USER10> Lived all my life here in (various parts of) India but never seen or even heard about the gangster / street children phenomenon. Some more info on this would certainly be useful.

<comment><USER8> I shouldn't have written "gangsters." I meant "people." I've been listening to too much rap music.

India is a pervert's paradise. There are 10s of street children on any large street who will let you do anything in exchange for a meal. Sadly, for a short while, I lived at a place near where these kids were regularly dropped off. That's how I learned about it. The police won't talk about it (it'll make them look bad, plus they may actually be facilitating the process). The press won't talk about it I don't know why.

Everything in Slum Dog Millionaire is true. It happens. But before that movie, 50% of India didn't know it (the "better" half).

Women are raped inside police stations every day in India. By policemen. Who often get promotions after the act. There will still be Indians who will claim ignorance.

I was once in a commercial truck, and we were stopped in the middle of the road by the police. All our permits were in order. We still had to pay off the police to be allowed to move on.

The last time I was in India, the day I left the country, 50 people were killed by some group somewhere. In the news headlines, there was a statement from the Chief Minister of that state, from the Home Minister of India, and that's it. The news then moved on to what the Bachchans were up to that day. There were no names of the people killed. No clue who did it. There's no wikipedia page mentioning the massacre. If 10 people are killed in a Western Country, you can bet there's a wiki about it. With their names. And with a lot of closure on the incident.

It'll change. It'll take time. I'm hopeful. The internet will make a difference. Hopefully people will slow down breeding (my grandparents collectively had 20 cildren, I'm childfree for life).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm Indian and I live in Delhi. Yes it's pretty bad and it's a consequence of the massive population that exists in Delhi. Having said that...we are trying.

Delhi has much stricter vehicular pollution norms than other Indian cities...and it adopts them first. All public transportation in Delhi runs on compressed natural gas. The first city in India to introduce Singapore style partitioning of vehicular traffic (the odd-even scheme was accepted enthusiastically By the common man at the cost of inconvenience). The Delhi Metro rapid rail is a feat of engineering having covered the entire city in record time under existing buildings that are hundreds of years old. There is general acceptance of traveling in the metro (where seeing people working on laptops is common).

In general as opposed o places like Bangalore the drive to create sustainable civic infrastructure is a commonly held belief and translates into local politics.

It will take time...but we are getting there.

<comment><USER12> Did they also add sewer and fiberglass lines alongside the metro lines? Just curious.

<comment><USER13> >fiberglass lines

*fiber optic

<comment><USER11> Yes I figured. Which is why I was replying about bandwidth

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The article mentions waste water treatment plants, but no sewer system to transport the waste.

Anyone know why?

I've heard people say "too many people", but too many people means a huge labor force that is low cost.

I would think that building a sewer system would be pretty straightforward. Massive countries like China have pretty good wastewater treatment (relatively speaking) in the cities. So do other developing countries.

Why is it such an issue in India?

<comment><USER9> Some of it is cultural. (I can't speak to their engineering practices or limitations, anyway.) Toilets aren't a given in India. They're generally available in cities. But, for example, on some locomotives, the toilet is a literal shithole cut in the floor, for you to you void directly on the tracks.

source: was tourist

relevant article picked at random: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india- is-b...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-is-building- millions-of-toilets-but-toilet-training-could-be-a-bigger- task/2015/06/03/09d1aa9e-095a-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html)

<comment><USER15> This is actually pretty common, worldwide. The trains in the Netherlands technically 'flush', but they flush right onto the tracks.

<comment><USER16> Yep. Thats why there are signs telling you not to use the toilet at stations.

On the other hand the streets in the Netherlands are littered with dog poo..

<comment><USER17> Same in India, there are signs and rules against such usage.

But like many such things in India, very few actually care: [http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/you-may- be-f...](http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/you-may-be-fined-for- using-toilets-at-stations/article7510828.ece).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Having lived in Delhi all my life, I can confidently say that it's really as bad as it looks. There's a huge divide though. Like, the middle class (to which I belong) and the rich live in relatively cleaner areas, go to places where there are no piles of trash lying around (and if there are, ignore them). I think the city can't fix unless it keeps ignoring it and make the poor suffer. There is no sense of community here. "It's not my problem" is the prevailing attitude.

<comment><USER19> > There is no sense of community here. "It's not my problem" is the prevailing > attitude.

In Hindi there is a saying, _Apna Kaam Banta, Toh Bhaad Mein Jaaye Junta_. Translation - If my work is done, I don't care - the rest can go to hell.

<comment><USER20> I wonder how much of this attitude spreads into work mentality. In my time as a consultant, I heard a lot horror stories about failed offshored IT projects. (My own experience with offshore service centers is quite good though.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've had a lot of difficulty talking to people here about the climate change - specifically people from business communities.

There seems to be a prevailing attitude of "We are now in a phase of development as an economy. First world countries had an opportunity to grow without regulating pollution. Regulating us will inhibit our ability to catch up".

For some reason the literal end of the world isn't a strong enough argument for them. When I mention it, I am frequently told that it doesn't matter because no matter what is done, the outcome in terms of climate change is going to be the same at this stage.

<comment><USER22> Climate change occurs because of greenhouse gases, not because of particulate matter, which is the kind of pollution in delhi. More advanced countries like USA and china still produce the same percentage of energy from coal as India. They produce an order of magnitude more of greenhouse gases. 25% of human produced greenhouse gases is just USA. India hasn't even made a mark in the environment. Yet India is unfairly criticized, somebody talk to climate change ignoring China and climate change denying USA first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The pollution there is a nightmare. I spent maybe four days in Delhi and had a cough that followed me for almost a week afterward. Even by Indian standards the place is filthy.

</comment><comment><USER24> Its not even just the industrial waste and litter in Delhi though, the city is streaked with red spit from Paan(betel nut) chewers. It is everywhere, its disgusting. Then there is also the fact that around half the population don't have access to a bathroom on the subcontinent, so people urinate and defecate outside everywhere. You are never not far from bodily fluids in Delhi. More people have access to cell phone than bathrooms in India. All this aside though it is truly an amazing and fascinating place to visit. It's unlike anywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER25> Puts in perspective our problems.

Not that our problems aren't worth fixing, it's just a stark reminder that some places in the world remain uncivilized.

</comment><comment><USER26> All the pictures are from the dumping ground! Guys, it's an official dumping ground for the whole city. Many years ago it was far away but Delhi kept on growing. Current state is result of swallowing many villages/farms and neighboring cities for decades. This article takes a part of Delhi and paints it entirely like it.

I am surprised by other commenters are well.

<comment><USER6> Well, if you leave out the Lutyens' Delhi, pretty much all of Delhi is like that.

What shocks me the most is that how people here just accept the despicable state of their surroundings and just go on with their lives. I know of folks that own Audis and Mercs, but live next to a dumping yard. Now what is the point of having all that money, when you get see/smell only filth most of your life.

I had visited Delhi for the first time around twenty years ago, and it seems that despite of all the measures like CNG driven public transport and Metro, the situation has only gotten worse.

Unfortunately the political will here is too weak to effect a disruption to the current state.

<comment><USER17> > I know of folks that own Audis and Mercs, but live next to a dumping yard. > Now what is the point of having all that money, when you get see/smell only > filth most of your life.

The point is that one gets to compare it against the general population and thereby satisfy one's own ego. Generally, cars are a nice instrument for showing off wealth: they are highly visible. Homes are another excellent example.

You highlight very well the absurdity of valuing such monetary wealth in a context where it makes little sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> >"There have been times I've had garbage in my hands and I've had to carry it with me all day, because there are no bins anywhere," he remembered.

Boo hoo. Tokyo has no public trash cans and it is immaculate. The people there just care about the place they live in and don't burn shit to heat their houses.

<comment><USER28> This comment is an example of something we desperately need less of on Hacker News. It's predictable, racist, and has a complete lack of intellectual curiosity. Please do not do this here.

<comment><USER27> I was painting with a broad brush, and for that I apologize. It was a swift - perhaps too pointed - response to an exasperated whine from someone with an expectation of luxury when none was necessary, or deserved. "Why isn't there someone else to clean this up for me?" just wreaks of entitlement. Japan has its share of problems, but their culture teaches the importance and value of clean common spaces, and the individual citizen's part in keeping them that way, from childhood. [1]

1\. [http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/04/04/396621542/without-...](http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/04/04/396621542/without- janitors-students-are-in-charge-of-keeping-school-shipshape)

In India, dung is used as fuel, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes ritualistically.[2]

2\. [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/Indias-Newest- Inter...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/Indias-Newest-Internet- Sensation-Cow-Dung-Patties-180957650/?no-ist)

Politics in india pits ethnic group against ethnic group, caste against caste, in order to keep power and accomplish as little as possible. The economy is improving, but it appears to be stratifying, with radical divergence between the lifestyles of the richest and poorest. The wealthy are able to live in bubbles of luxury private development, blissfully unaware of the suffering just outside the gates. [3]

3\. [http://ideas.ted.com/skyscrapers-but-no-sewage-system- meet-a...](http://ideas.ted.com/skyscrapers-but-no-sewage-system-meet-a-city- run-by-private-industry/)

I'm bringing a lot of baggage, coming from a country where labor isn't cheap and the population isn't over a billion, but there is something to the value of human life here that I thought was universal. Maybe the expectations flip around when there are so many people that it would be cruel not to offer more garbage pickup jobs.

That smells a bit like a broken window fallacy though.</comment></comment></comment>


CircleCI site-wide outage - <AUTHOR> https://status.circleci.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> They've been out for over an hour now. My biggest gripe is that the favicon on the status page still shows green. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Side question, how many of you have a backup deployment strategy (other than simply manually executing your deployment process)?</comment>


Ask HN: I need a friend but I'm having trouble - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I live in Manchester, UK. More specifically, I live in Irlam, a pretty obscure town within Greater Manchester. This would be great, if there were many people interested in tech. The closest I've come to is a friend-of-a-friend web developer but outside of that, I've not heard of anyone within my physical social network.
Needless to say, I feel pretty lonely.
One of the main solutions I can see is to go out to Hackspaces and just get stuck in. I tell myself I'm going to go but I never bring myself to do it. I can be quite shy and I'm pretty frightened. For example, how do I know if I'm good/smart enough to go?
I don't know, I was just wondering if anyone could help me out here and potentially give a second perspective or something. I just generally feel like I'd be much happier with a few like-minded friends rather than ones that can't do much more than turn a computer on and use Facebook. <comment><USER2> Here's something that's easy to forget: Everyone else at a Hackspace or a meetup or a user group is there for the same reason as you. If they just wanted to write a bunch of code they'd be at home in their bedroom. If they go to one of these events, they're hoping to meet like-minded people. The more people there, the better. So they'll be pleased if you attend.

This goes double for the organizers, by the way. Imagine organizing one of these events: booking the space, posting about it online, arriving early to set up ... Your biggest nightmare would be that no one shows up. When you arrive, walk up to the organizer, introduce yourself, and thank him for his effort. I guarantee you he'll appreciate it.

<comment><USER3> As an organizer of a Meetup group, I can say that your 2nd point is on the money.

I had one event where there were just as many sponsor reps as attendees- that felt horrible. I had another where we exceeded seating capacity, ran out of beer and pizza but everyone (including myself) came away thrilled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If there are Hackerspaces nearby then you're in luck, just go along! Don't worry about being smart enough or anything silly like that, there won't be an entry test :) Seriously though, you can just turn up and have a look at what people are doing, that's what everyone does at first. Try and talk to people about the stuff they're working on, it'll be interesting plus everyone loves to talk about their stuff.

And the more you go along to things like that the easier it gets. You'll be surprised how soon you start to feel totally comfortable with it.

Lastly, considering widening your interests. There are loads of very interesting and nice people who aren't into tech. Just because that's (one of) your interests doesn't mean you can't mix with people for whom it isn't a focus.

<comment><USER5> I agree with the above, but it is also ok to just look at other people's work at the event and not talk to anyone if you don't feel like talking at first.

<comment><USER4> I guess so, but you'll get a lot more out of things if you do :) For me at least I find it just gets so much easier the more you do it, pretty soon you'll find that "hi, I'm XX, what are you working on?" comes out as easy as anything. But no one will expect anything in particular from you so don't worry about it.

Another bit of advice that might help, hacker spaces and user groups and the like have mailing lists. You can join those before you go along. It's totally normal for people to post a "Hi, my name is XX and I'm interested in YY. I'm planning on popping down sometime soon so see you guys then" and you will most likely get at least a few welcoming replies when you do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not the brightest guy in the world. But I can tell you that human companionship often comes in forms that you do not expect.

I wouldn't look only for technical people to talk to and hang out with. While I'm sure that shared interest can create a strong bond between you, there is more to life and the soul than computers.

I'd like to recommend three books to you that really changed my perspective on how to deal with people. Arguably any value I have in communicating with people comes from the lessons of, or derived from using, these books.

1) Life Would Be Easier if it Weren't for Other People 2) How to Succeed With Women 3) The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark

The first is the most important, how you convey yourself to others and how they convey themselves to you. However, the book focuses on the dysfunctional aspects of communication. This book has made my more worth living in every single way.

2) How to Succeed with Women. You didn't mention whether or not you have a girlfriend. This of this like Cosmo with useful advice for me. Basically, it is how women look at dating and how men often don't even come close to thinking about what they want.

3) Just a great book on human nature.

Good luck buddy. Got carried away.

</comment><comment><USER7> I can't vouch for the Manchester hackspace but I can say that the London hackspace has been one of the most friendly and welcoming groups I've ever visited. Admittedly I did go with a friend the first time, but everybody there was happy to stop and chat with me and tell me about what they were working on, and there were several ongoing group projects which welcomed extra people (one of which I have now joined). So, I would say that it's worth mustering up the courage to drop in one evening.

You are certainly good / smart enough to go. Like anywhere, each project has a wide range of people, from domain experts to complete newbies. Try to visit with the mindset that a) you will be friendly and interested in what people are doing, and b) you won't be intimidated. :) In practise, I don't think (b) will be a problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the thing that seems most attractive to me. Meeting real people and working together to build something cool. I think that's one of the main reasons why I need this really.

As mentioned above, I have a friend who's well into his photography. If I sat down and said "Right let's build a photography-themed web app", he wouldn't be half as interested as I am.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Go to the hack spaces. Go to every event. Even if you say not a word to anyone. Have a project and work on it. Nerds are not very good at making other nerds feel welcome: it's not that we are unwelcoming, it's just that we forget. Eventually someone asks if anyone has a recommendation for a templating engine, or a knows the syntax for a reg ex.

Then you're in.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm assuming that the people who go to these things won't need to ask things like that but then looking at it from a different angle, it seems unrealistic.

<comment><USER9> Please don't think like that. I'm one of the people that originally started and actively works towards promoting NSCoder Night Santa Monica located in Los Angeles (Tuesday dinners for Cocoa developers).

The overwhelming majority of newcomers I talk to were intimidated to show up because there were people (like me) that had at least dabbled with Cocoa for _years_ , but they had just started that month/year/hadn't started at all but wanted to start someday and they felt like they would be out of their league and unwelcome to the group.

But you know what? We all have stupid and awesome questions to ask each other. We _all_ have something to offer to the group no matter our experience level. Just showing up and opening up is a huge deal. We have people with all kinds of programming experience spanning decades (including one guy that started _programming in general_ a scant couple months ago). We don't even always talk about programming. It's a very casual event where we talk about film editing (this being LA, lots of people are employed in that industry), baking bread, making ice cream, exercise, photography, and more. The only thing that ties us together is that we all are interested in Cocoa. Nobody is ever obligated to talk at all about anything (other than a brief introduction, but we all share in that even if it's our 50th time at the event) or bring anything to the table if they don't feel comfortable doing so, and I'm hoping that newcomers find this environment to be friendly. The fact that we've had several new people that keep on showing up makes me think we're doing it right :)

I know I am a very antisocial person and I really don't enjoy spending time with total strangers, but being an organizer of this event has made me further appreciate the benefits of networking and coming to terms with my being antisocial. Not everyone out there is expecting to hang out with people who are stupider or smarter than them or that you _need_ to do this or that to participate. You won't know that until you actually go and try to at least introduce yourself to people. Don't worry about it :)

In the event anything really doesn't work out, start your own group. That was my reason for joining in on trying to organize our NSCoder group. Los Angeles is huge and lots of events I wanted to go to would have involved being stuck in an hour of traffic to get there. Lo and behold, there were other people that thought the same as me and our group was born. We had 15 people show up yesterday night, I think we were pretty successful in that regard :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I live in Manchester, UK.

I don't know how easy it is for you to get into the city centre on weeknights, but Manchester has plenty of user groups nowadays - some of which are rather well established.

I'd recommend you start with something like the tech-generic Geekup <http://geekup.org/events/> which tends to get a wide variety of geeks, and then from there you may also want to get involved with the more specific user- groups. You should also join the mailing list and introduce yourself - do this today!

Admittedly I've not been to a Geekup yet myself, but I know plenty of people who go through some of the other groups I attend and they're all very friendly.

You didn't mention your age. Being under 18 may influence which groups you can attend (a fair few are held in pubs/bars) but a fair few groups regularly meet at MadLab which I don't think has age restrictions.

I can understand your trepidation (been there, still experiencing that!) but you won't regret attending any event. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, it's only one bus from work and I can be there for about 18:00, so I don't think that's great a problem. I heard there are some things going on around the Northern Quater.

Apparently I've done this already so I must have been this far before. Looking at the time, I think I could make it but I don't think there's anything worse than turning up after everyone else!

I'm 19 so I don't think I will have MUCH trouble regarding that. It depends if an over-21 or 25 bar is used. I think maybe MadLab is the place I was talking about above.

Again, much appreciation for your advice and taking the time to help me out. I can't thank you enough.

<comment><USER11> +1 for GeekUp - I lived in Manchester for a while and went through a bit of what you did until I discovered the thriving user group culture among the Northern Geeks; some are listed on this page: <http://www.manchesterdda.com/usergroups/>

I would very highly recommend the NW Ruby user group, even if your not a Rails dev (I'm not!), they were a really friendly bunch the couple of times I turned up.

GeekUp also has a mailing list, join it! There's a lot of inane chat but also regular announcements about tech-related stuff going on in the area - that's how I got to hear Richard Stallman giving a talk at the University - and even the inane chat will help you get to know some of the personalities so it might be a bit easier to overcome that shyness when you meet them in person.

Oh, and the Manchester Geek Nights organized by Thoughtworks seemed pretty good, free to attend and a good mixture of some tech talk and socializing: <http://www.superdevs.com/groups/manchester-geek-nights>

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hey ;-)

How can we contact you - can you put an email address or equiv in your contact

I work for a start-up based in the center of Manchester and always looking for interesting people to hang out with (or to employ ;-)

Alternatively there are several grass roots (hackspace type groups in Manchester) [PHP-North West, GeekUp, Manchester Digitals that are all very welcoming]

Feel free to from me a line (email@example.com or @TimLangley) and maybe we can catch up for a beer / coffee after work one evening

T

</comment><comment><USER13> Everyone who says, "Just go, don't be shy!" has either never been shy, or gotten over it so long ago that they don't remember how it feels.

A good way to dip your toe in the water is to find an IRC channel that meets every so often. You can get to know people there, so when you first show up, you'll already be somewhat familiar with them.

<comment><USER14> "Everyone" is a very blanket statement. How do you know the people suggesting "Just go, don't be shy!" aren't speaking from personal experience?

I think "conquering your fears" is an important life lesson. You shouldn't shelter yourself or others from things they fear. That never seems to help anyone.

I know exactly how the OP feels. I grew up in a small country town and moved to the big city. Going to these sorts of things used to make me break out in a lather of sweat and my heart beat would be going so fast i'd barely be able to speak. Lucky for me I'm a bit of an adrenalin junky.

Social skills are are just like any other skill. The more you do it the better you get. And unless you expose yourself to experiences where you can practice your skill you're not going to get any better.

<comment><USER13> > Lucky for me I'm a bit of an adrenalin junky.

I'd wager most shy people aren't. I'm not. I met a bunch of redditors after moving to New York, but only after meeting them all in IRC first. It would have worked out fine, but it saved me a lot of pain and effort.

Yes, you need to learn more skills, but you can wade in instead of going for the high dive right off the bat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not a single one of my friends is tech savvy. We have a music guy, a general knowledge guy, a sports guy and me, the tech/biz guy. As well as a few other unspecifieds.

I don't agree you need them instead of your old friends. Get a few web contacts, go to a meetup, its not like you live in the Scottish Highlands or something!

</comment><comment><USER16> "how do I know if I'm good / smart enough to go", nobody will care that much as long as you are nice to people ans try to make friends.

Besides, I'm sure you're just as smart as most of the people in attendance.

Trust me, if you go, and make an effort to make new friends, you'll come home with many new people to talk to.

</comment><comment><USER17> I would say the smaller the group the better.

With a larger group there are already smaller groups of people talking together and it is hard to approach and invade their discussion for an introvert. And the discussions are also more likely to be presentation style where everyone sits and listens to an expert.

With a smaller group, e.g. meeting around a pub table, you are almost forced to take part, and are a part of the discussion from the beginning.

I greatly prefer the two groups I belong to that have less than 15 people and meet up in pubs, compared to the larger ones, that have good information but are less useful for me for meeting people etc.

</comment><comment><USER18> None of my regular or close friends are programmers. A couple who are live quite far. I know how you feel. So I started going to the local Hacker News meetups and have met some fun people.

I know I'm not as good or smart as most of the people I meet there but I find people are quite helpful. So, it's best to think in terms of how much you can learn from them and get better.

In fact, I've arranged to meet a couple of hackers tonight just to help each other out with projects and hang out.

The only way to stop being lonely is to go out and seek out new friends and do fun stuff together.

</comment><comment><USER19> I feel for you and hope some people here are able to bump you into the right direction. It should take nothing more than 3-5 contacts and you should be good to proceed (by joining one of them to another geek event, easily extending the network with lots of stress removed).

You're not alone with these fears - in fact, you're probably in a field where this seems to be well-known (and sometimes the stereotype). I moved to Israel recently and, while not the prime example for being an introvert, I tend to sympathize with you.

Except for one contact (via HN, no less) I've yet to convince myself to join a local networking event - and I even declined a nice (via HN, no less..) invitation for a meetup recently, because I felt that I couldn't 'show' or 'offer' something of interest.

Bottom line: You're not alone with your situation and your fears. Asking for help here is already a great step, now just accept some of the offers from people around you.

Contact the guys that are available and set up a date as close to now as possible. That way you won't try to think it through for a long time ("Should I?"..). Jump! :)

</comment><comment><USER20> How to get over shyness:

1) Take up some kind of partner dancing as a hobby eg. salsa, swing, etc. It doesn't matter as long as it looks like fun. This will force you to connect with people and push your comfort limits.

2) Start going to social dances after you know a few moves. Usually the class teacher will be able to tell you where you can dance socially. This will get you in the habit of asking women for dances.

3) To make friends, you need to invite people to do things away from the place you know them from. So if you meet someone you seem to get along with, say something like "Hey, I'm thinking of going to see this movie this weekend. You interested?" Since you've been asking women to dance, this should be much easier by this time.

And don't think you won't meet programmers dancing. I once asked my teacher once why so many of the regular guy dancers were programmers or accountants. She said that it wasn't just limited to my city but all over the world, programmers and accountants make up a disproportionate amount of the male dancers.

</comment><comment><USER21> Hey James, Your question encouraged me to look into this myself as I'm working in Manchester a lot at the moment.

I came across this which might interest you: <http://madlab.org.uk/events/>

I even added a calendar event to my Outlook to remind me of the Android meetup but I'm not sure if I will pluck up the courage to attend!

</comment><comment><USER22> Shyness is hard for me to over-come. I feel a lot of pressure to conform to expectations of me when I meet new people. It doesn't help that I think I'm weird and so very different than everyone else. I might say something stupid or strange and no one would want to talk to me. Often I just don't even bother going out. I'm that shy.

Here's what I've learned from meeting lots of smart people over the years:

Just be yourself. It's simple advice I know, but here's where it hits home: nobody can fault you for learning. If you try and act really smart and knowledgeable but someone catches you faking -- that's bad. But if you're just honest about what you do know then people will trust you and want to help you.

It's a big hurdle and not one I always make successfully; but I know it's always worth a shot. You just have to get out there and try it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Regarding the idea of going to Hackspaces i'd say that the idea is nice and that you should just go and see if you like it (lucky to have one nearby). If you are referring to this: <http://hacman.org.uk> , they seems to have an irc channel, chat a bit with them about what they do and i guess that you'll feel way less frightened.

Afraid of not being "good" enough? Not a problem, more things to learn for you and i don't see why "less experienced" people should not be welcomed.

You didn't say in your post if you are interested in a particular technology, in addition to hackspace i'd search for local usergroups (ruby,python,etc...) and check if they meet in RL sometimes.

Shyness in some cases can just be a question of habit and perspective, both things can be changed/altered.

</comment><comment><USER24> I know robgough already mentioned it (hi Rob!) but go to <http://geekup.org/> \- the next one in Manchester is on the 12th. It's was designed exactly for folks like you (well, not exactly, but you're not expected to have lots of geek cred or anything!) and there's also an online mailing list so you can get to know some names first. There are meetups all across the North.

Also, check out #nwrug on irc.freenode.net (oh and #geekup actually - but I don't go in there much). I hang out in there and it's mostly people from around Manchester or Leeds. It's ostensibly a Ruby channel but, to be honest, it's rarely discussed. It's great having new people come in and get to know us - happens all the time. If you end up in there, I'm 'petercooper' there too.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hi! If there are hackspaces where you live, that sounds like an awesome place to find like-minded friends! Try not to worry about being shy or frightened - a hackspace is likely a place where many people have felt that way, and that's ok.

Also, have you reached out to your friend-of-a-friend web developer? Sounds like someone you could be making your friend. If s/he's also in/around Irlam, I guess s/he also could need a like-minded friend. Either ask your mutual friend to bring you both out and socialize, or be brave and reach out directly. Tell him or her how you feel about not having someone to discuss these matters with, and ask to meet up!

</comment><comment><USER26> Being shy and lonely sucks, but can chose to rise above it. My approach is to pretend (to myself only) to be an interviewer. Go up to people at gatherings and ask questions and be interested in the answers. You'll be surprised how quickly people open up and you will learn heaps of interesting stuff. BTW there's more to life than technology. I have been introduced to some amazing technical people through non-tech social contacts. When asked about what you do, you could briefly describe it and follow-on with a comment about not knowing many others in high-tech. You'll be surprised what the connections being offered.

</comment><comment><USER27> Just go, seriously go and walk up to whoever is in charge of whatever event you're at and say that you have a huge interest in the field and you'd love to learn more, people that host those type of events usually really love enthusiastic people.

As a side note, don't mention just wanting a friend, people don't respond well to desperation, so don't act that way and you'll have an easier time making new friends.

</comment><comment><USER28> Checkout meetup.com and find local tech meetups, there's also the Manchester Linux User Group. A lot of these events are either pure socializing or talks followed by pubbage, so there's not really much to worry about when it comes to being "good" enough to go.

Twitter is also a good place to meet people.

</comment><comment><USER29> Same problem, but I live in hellhole, in Manchester you should be able to find many contacts...

</comment><comment><USER30> If you're ever in London, feel free to drop by Picklive in White Bear Yard for a hack and a coffee :)

</comment><comment><USER31> I used to be very introverted and would always keep to myself. Then one day, while playing a game of pick-up basketball, a guy started asking me about the idea of being a CS major in college. I then went on to discuss the pros and cons of being a CS major, how easy it was to start a business in technology vs other industries, and how it appealed to my need for creating and achievement. By the end, he thanked me for helping him make a very important decision in his life. Afterwards, I realized how being shy was holding me back from positively influencing other people in the world.</comment>


Jepsen IV: Hope Springs Eternal [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedotpost.com/2015/06/kyle-kingsbury-jepsen-iv-hope-springs-eternal

<comment><USER2> Kyle Kingsbury is a national treasure.

I'm essentially done having technical debates about why I don't particularly care for some more modern persistence solutions - I just point them at his blog. The time he has saved me from explaining why user accounts and hashed passwords shouldn't be held in Mongo or CouchDB is likely immeasurable.

<comment><USER3> He did couch?

<comment><USER4> It appears not he, personally, but in his honor: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7521897](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7521897)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A link directly to the video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5c81QJ- uRo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5c81QJ-uRo)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the link. I think Kyle has a candidate for his next profile photo: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5c81QJ- uRo#t=212](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5c81QJ-uRo#t=212)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kyle Kingsbury is one of my heroes.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great video, would be interesting to take some of his test failures like faking time, killing processes, and changing network cards, and integrating this in your integration tests for your applications.</comment>


Co founder problems - <AUTHOR>

Person A & B decide to start a company. Both didn't sign any document for the company. Never signed it.
A does: business plan, exe summary, ROI, pricing, gives input for the website
B Does: All tech work with patent, reg the company with delware state, get bank AC, Gets IRS numbers etc.
        On the any of the doc, Person A names is not there.
A decide to move on to diff direction.
So Person B decide to give some stocks to A, Person A rejects saying, needs more numbers of stocks.
As a Person A can i file a lawsuite againt person B company?
What are the best ways to win the case or based on your experience what / how person B will do for the case? <comment><USER2> My (non legal) advice.

Learn the lesson and move on.

Or rather talk to Person B and try tyo work something out (no threats!).

A lawsuit just sounds an expensive waste unless the company is pulling in a fortune. As far as I can make out you haven't put an awful lot into the site (sorry if that sounds harsh but speaking, perhaps, from B's point of view). He probably see's the code as the be-all-and-end-all of the business and so cant understand why you value your input so high in comparison (what percentage did he offer?)

I'd be inclined to forgoe lawsuits unless big money is on the table. And remember the mistake for next time :)

</comment><comment><USER3> What percentage is Person B offering? Person A really does not deserve any shares. If you had signed documents, it would have been proper to vest shares, and it does not look like Person A has done enough work to warrant vesting. So Person A should be happy with the shares he recieves, wish Person B the best luck, and hopes the lottery tickets will be worth something someday. If Person A files a lawsuit, the chance of the company failing goes from 95% to 100%. So what's the point?

</comment><comment><USER4> > business plan, exe summary, ROI, pricing, gives input for the website

sounds to me like person A didn't do much & should be thankful to get anything

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, in my opinion there will not be any winners here, only losers (except for the lawyers).

But if you want to get what's yours (and to me it looks like a buy-out offer is the best that is in the cards) it helps if you have as much documentation as you can find, then visit a lawyer that will take your case on a no-cure-no- pay basis. Otherwise you might be out a large amount of $ just to find that you won't get anything at all (or just enough to pay your lawyer...).

It also helps to get an idea of what you think this company is worth. If it is worth more than several tens of thousands of dollars then you have to explain why you never had any kind of contract drawn up.

In the current situation, having an argument with your partner is actually a pretty good moment to figure out where you stand, after all he's still around to argue with.

Imagine how it would have turned out if one day he'd died and you would have had to prove to his estate that you own part of it...

Have a man-to-man talk, lay out the land for him, be fair and pay up what's a reasonable amount (and be reasonable) then go do something else, or alternatively offer to buy him out.

If there is no friendly response weigh your options and if you think it is worth it get a lawyer.

good luck, you'll need it.

This will take a lot of time.

</comment><comment><USER6> Person A wasn't on any of the incorporation documents? Sounds like Person A wasn't paying attention, and just got either a very cheap or very expensive lesson.

I would negotiate for more shares, but then take what you can and move on. If this is the way Person B does business, why would Person A have any faith that it will go anywhere? Especially since Person A is no longer working on the company and chances are wouldn't have left if it was the next Facebook/google?

If Person A had signed an agreement, it probably would have had a bunch of stock upfront, but then each of you would have a pile that vests over time, so that if you had left the day after signing the documents, you wouldn't be owning 50% of the company and not putting in any time.

Person A decided to move on to a different direction. Person A let the company be incorporated without their name involved. Person A should move on and let Person B fumble along.

</comment><comment><USER7> Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and am not providing legal advice. I am, however, closely related to a partner at a CPA firm who deals with this sort of fall-out all the time.

The lack of documentation is hugely problematic, and will only be settled by negotiation or court.

In this case your equity stake in the company is going to be parsed by the court according to your initial contribution to the company (not total contribution, INITIAL contribution)... particularly money. They're going to try and figure out who put money in and when. They'll use that to arrive at an equity figure and current valuation. This is a really expensive forensic process, so.. uhm.. be prepared.

There are some pretty interesting tax implications here as well. In some cases the court will grant additional equity to a founder based on some metric for amount of work, or expectation of the role at founding. This can have some interesting tax implications, as the IRS will view that additional equity as income (and thus the starting capital for the company becomes a huge deal).

That's just the tip of the iceberg here, sadly. I've seen this go in a variety of directions based on verbal agreements, agreements with folks outside of the company, and the general mood of the litigators working through this.

One thing you SHOULD talk to a lawyer about is how long you have to make the claim. Often folks will just sit on the sidelines and wait to see if the company goes anywhere. Once it does, they THEN move after their 'rightful' equity as there is some actual cash to be had. Spending thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollards on a lawsuit for a company that will likely never make a dime doesn't seem very smart.

</comment><comment><USER8> _As a Person A can i file a lawsuite againt person B company?_

Aside from exceptional situations (e.g., being declared a vexatious litigant) you can always _file_ a lawsuit.

From what you've said, though -- and with the standard caution that I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and I'm sure I don't know all the details -- I think it would depend on what happened when "Person A & B decide[d] to start a company". If Person A can show that there was mutual intent to create an equal partnership, he would probably get something out of a lawsuit; a lack of paperwork does not invalidate an agreement (provided that Person A can show that such an agreement existed). It's even possible that a court would decide that Person B had acted to willfully defraud Person A by incorporating the company on his own.

Of course, all this would go out the window if Person B could show that the partnership between himself and Person A had been terminated (either by mutual agreement, or by abandonment).

Short answer: Go talk to a lawyer, and provide him with far more details than you've provided here.

</comment><comment><USER9> If person A truly wants to move off in a different direction, take the stock and run. Don't waste your time and energy on a lawsuit, particularly a venture that has no capital. Put it into your new direction.

If you really, absolutely can't get it out of your craw, wait until B's venture is funded and then sue.

</comment><comment><USER10> _Person A & B decide to start a company. Both didn't sign any document for the company. Never signed it._

Uh Oh, Spaghetti-O ! Been there, done that. Somebody's gonna get fucked...

 _As a Person A can i file a lawsuite againt person B company?_

Yes, you can. Of course, your estimated costs and chances of a satisfactory outcome are questions that only a lawyer can answer. I can tell you (again, from experience) that it will be long, costly, and painful for everybody involved (whether you ultimately receive satisfaction or not.)

If you feel you've been wronged, and that you've exhausted all of your other options, lawyer up.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not an attorney and I don't know all the facts...but:

Lawsuits = $

Before this snowballs and the attorneys end up being the only ones winning... why don't you see if the venture succeeds?

Person A (if he was smart) would keep his mouth shut until the venture ends up making big $... thn he would go to court

Person B (if he was smart) would be flexible with person A and/or create a vesting schedule where nobody has any stock in the company unless they work on the company for a year and achieve certain deliverables... if person A does not achieve any deliverables, Person A's stock does not vest and he has 0% equity stake in the company.

 _overall_ Don't be greedy...person A or person B... go out for some beers and just move-on.</comment>


Gusto founder drove across America in an RV to meet customers - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/gusto-tech-exec-drove-across-america-2017-5/#he-sold-his-first-startup-and-launched-gusto-which-makes-software-that-puts-payroll-benefits-and-other-hr-needs-in-the-cloud-it-serves-more-than-40000-small-businesses-2 <comment><USER2> I want to know who they rented the Winnebago from, so that they paid only $4,000 for a 10-state trip.

<comment><USER3> And were able to paint it.

<comment><USER4> Article seems to state they got a vehicle wrap for it. Probably not part of the 4000$ rental, but can't imagine it being more than maybe 1000$ to "print"? Random large-ish dollar amount I came up with on the fly.

<comment><USER5> Thinking that's low. A car is $2500+ to wrap. Lots more area on that RV. And it's not a DIY job for sure.

<comment><USER6> An RV is mostly flat. That will save a lot of time ($$).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone who wasn't sure who this is, it is the company formally known as ZenPayroll (who changed name presumably to avoid confusion with Zenefits).

<comment><USER8> I always thought it was because they branched out from just doing payroll.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You couldn't stop by San Diego? Would have loved to have met the team. I seriously love Gusto. (not a paid advertisement.)

<comment><USER10> Would love to stop by in the future! We might make the road trip an annual tradition, and change the route each year. :)

I'll be in San Diego this summer for a friends wedding. Can you send me a note at firstname.lastname@example.com? Would be great to meet up while I'm down there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's also an investor (Paul Singh, ex-500Startups) driving across America in an RV to meet startups. For those who don't know about his excursions head over here:

[https://www.resultsjunkies.com](https://www.resultsjunkies.com)

Jovial mood: I wonder what's the probability of an investor on road meeting a startup on road. I mean on physical roads. And is that measure of probability meaningfully any different from the reality of fundraising? Think not :-)

<comment><USER12> We left DC last March, nearly driven 40,000 miles and visited 51 cities so far. Sadly, no big PR wins for us. We write checks though! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> FreshBooks did this almost 10 years ago [1], and I'm sure many companies have done it both before and since. Perhaps the most impressive part is coordinating such a flattering article with Business Insider.

[1] [http://www.prweek.com/article/1253860/freshbooks-hits- road-d...](http://www.prweek.com/article/1253860/freshbooks-hits-road-drive- closer-its-customers)

<comment><USER10> Josh here from Gusto. The more tech founders/CEOs doing this type of trip, the better in my opinion. I was born and raised in Silicon Valley and I love living there, but it can often be an echo chamber. We didn't start Gusto to focus on Silicon Valley. We started it to help companies across the country (and eventually around the world), and our customers are all across the US today. The road trip was one way for me to go out and meet some of them. I slept in the RV, saw many cities that I had never been to before, and met some amazing companies.

We want spotlight these small businesses as much as possible, since they often don't get as much attention. You can read about some of them at www.gusto.com/extramile

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'll save you a click. This is an obvious advertisement for Gusto with lots of pictures and few words.

If you upvoted this, why?

<comment><USER15> I didn't upvote it, but I appreciated hearing about the article and reading it. Startup types are routinely told to speak with their customers, and here was a novel, fun and attention-getting way of doing exactly that.

<comment><USER14> Thanks. That puts this into context.</comment></comment></comment>