Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/26865/Samsung_s_future_is_Tizen_not_Android <comment><USER2> While I'm sure Samsung would love to replace Android with Tizen, I doubt they will actually be able to do it. While Apple and Google make it appear easy to create an OS that users enjoy using, the reality is that it is incredibly difficult.

Just look at Windows Phone - I'm fairly sure that Microsoft is more able to create a technically superior OS to Samsung, and I think the amount of money Microsoft has poured into Windows Phone advertising shows the amount of marketing talent that is likely being used. Yet Windows Phone is a dismal failure even with Nokia's huge manufacturing bulk behind it. The only sensible conclusion I can come to is that making a desirable mobile OS is far more difficult than it appears, and that there are numerous 'below the water line' effects that make a mobile OS popular.

I very much doubt that Samsung is going to be able to transition the bulk of their Android users to Tizen. I also believe attempting it will be a mistake with both HTC and Sony having very strong challengers to the S4 this year. Any deficiency in the S4 to try and swing customers to Tizen will just mean an erosion of market share as consumers move to HTC/Sony/ZTE etc.

I expect Tizen to get decent traction in China, India and SE Asia in the lower-price tiers, but I can't see it unseating Android in any shape or form.

<comment><USER3> "Yet Windows Phone is a dismal failure even with Nokia's huge manufacturing bulk behind it. The only sensible conclusion I can come to is that making a desirable mobile OS is far more difficult than it appears, and that there are numerous 'below the water line' effects that make a mobile OS popular."

I don't have any empirical data to back this up, but in my personal opinion a large reason why Windows Phone just isn't doing so well is because of brand association with 'Windows' and 'Microsoft'.

Microsoft's general appeal to the public is not one of hip and chic and new, which is what Windows Phone marketing has generally been about. Microsoft is associated with corporation and money and monopoly. The appeal of Windows OS to users is that people just use it and it works and sometimes it does things they don't understand and they get viruses and they get angry at it and they have to use Excel and Word. Even if Windows as a product is stellar the old moniker still lurks and it's very difficult to move away from that. People buy Windows because it's Windows. Good or bad. Doesn't matter. And Microsoft clearly has the OS marketshare muscle to force people onto Windows 8 despite it not being very favorable to many at all. Microsoft is just seen as an unappealing 'businessy' corporation for the general public. It doesn't at all attract the young or relatively middle aged chic users that it wants so hard. Windows is just seen as a business brand in general.

Apple already has a well known established brand and image, and Samsung is relatively faceless to the western market (and quite respected in the east) so much so that it can shape its brand image still (Going for the Apple look). Microsoft is simply just too well known to market Windows Phone as Windows Phone.

I honestly believe that if they just set up a different Mobile branch with a new name, rename Windows Phone to something else, and removed some of the "Windowsy" stickers on the Phone's OS, it would sell very very well. As an operating system the core apps work very well together and it's honestly better than Blackberry's and stands as a fair contender with Android in terms of polish. The only real problem is that it's just called Windows Phone.

That, and Microsoft just loves to drop support for older phones (2+ years old). That's a big no-no. Fucking over your already small userbase because you're churning out bigger and more powerful phones to go after the cash prize of young consumers does not bode well. It shows your greedy cunty side and will obviously detract already existing customers... which makes developers not so willing to make apps on your platform, however open and easy and inviting it may be. You are not Android. You do not offer the upgradability option like Android.

But unfortunately Microsoft's goal is to unify all of their products under a few 'key' Windows things. Skype is increasingly becoming more Microsofty and hotmail was turned into outlook. Neither of those things as brands are exactly super appealing. Microsoft is trying to centralize everything a la Google with it's wide plethora of apps and services while simultaneously creating a walled garden of windows only products like Apple.

When I think of outlook I think of being at work and dealing with business emails. I hate that. I don't want to tell you what I think about when I think of Internet Explorer. Associating that with Windows Phone doesn't make me happy. I don't want to take my internet explorer experience with me on the go.

When I think of Android I think of an open platform and flexible. Google's default apps are very open and clean and simple. Chrome mobile is just primary colors and white and sharp with some text. It doesn't fuck around but it doesn't look businessy either. Same goes for the gmail app. The plethora of adequate white space between apps and their overall simple and clean design shapes Google's image as an open and simple company. In general, that's always been how Google has marketed itself and it's products. Windows is trying to copy that same design style to some degree in Windows Phone, but it just doesn't work. That's not the company's history.

Now, going back on topic. Samsung is going to spend a few years actually just making Tizen work as an OS and polishing it, unless they somehow hijack a lot of grunt developers overnight or something. iOS has gone through a lot of polish and testing and Android has taken years to work as well as it is currently today. Yes yes, TouchWiz _is_ Android to many Samsung users. But under the hood Android does quite a bit more than what TouchWiz lets you believe. And there's lots of things that you only learn about once you let something loose in the wild.

Sleep deprived walltexts. I am sorry HN.

<comment><USER4> "Microsoft is associated with corporation and money and monopoly."

This is a good point, but I think it'd be closer to the mark to say that Microsoft is associated with _work_.

People are often forced to use Microsoft products when they are at work. They frequently have little say in how these products are selected or configured. They're told that The Company has made those decisions for them, so they should just shut up and learn to love them, all hail The Company.

This is not an association that will make people leap joyfully to buy the same products when they are deciding what to spend their personal money on.

This is part of why I have been baffled at MS's insistence on branding Windows 8 and Windows Phone, both of which they desperately want individual consumers to buy into, as "Windows" products. Windows is work. Products to be sold to individuals need to be positioned more like play to be appealing.

<comment><USER5> Spot on. For most people, Microsoft products are what your boss tells you to use. Psychologically, there is just no appeal in buying them outside of work.

Microsoft was smart not to call XBOX "Windows Console" or such, but probably silly to call their mobile OS "Windows Phone".

<comment><USER6> I wonder if they had called it "XPhoneOS" and targeted some type of gaming integration/compatibility with XBOX/XBLA if they would have had better luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is unlikely.

Samsung and Intel need to learn how to cooperate on Tizen. There is no agreed Tizen road map. No unified governance.

HTML5 is an unproven, and some would say disproven, mobile app platform. Browsers, compilers, SDKs, and frameworks are immature. There are no success stories despite several tries.

Samsung, and its likely carrier partners, have no ecosystem comparable to Apple's or Google's. The only 3rd party ecosystem success story is Amazon with the Android-derived Kindle Fire.

I believe it is possible to compete with Apple and Google, but Tizen is not close to being able, as it is today. At this point Tizen is well behind Windows Phone, Blackberry, Sailfish, B2G, and even Ubuntu in being ready to compete.

Having a decades-long duopoly will be boring in many ways, so I hope somebody gets their act together. But it's serious business. Hobby projects will go nowhere.

</comment><comment><USER8> "For most Samsung smartphone owners, TouchWiz is Android, and since Tizen could easily get a TouchWiz-like user interface, the average consumer wouldn't notice a thing."

You've got to be kidding.

Do you remember the demo? www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ1y7CpIaVA

Smooth. :/

To be fair, I'm sure they're working on the UI, but UI is something that's _hard_ to get right. It took android what, 4 years to reach a point where it's actually nice to use.

...and you think maybe consumers are just stupid and won't be able to tell the difference between a smooth responsive and well designed UI and a rubbish new UI (as all new UIs are, to start with)?

yeah...

<comment><USER9> I am one of the few people who's had the (mis)fortune of developing for Bada, one of Tizen's predecessors.

For a while, I was using a Wave 3, which was basically a nicer Galaxy S2 running Bada (I could never quite understand why Samsung went to the trouble of designing a very nice metal unibody handset and then saddling it with Bada).

People in the office who weren't developers would on occasion pick up the Wave and _genuinely believe_ it was running Android. Samsung had ported TouchWiz over to it, and whilst there were some clearly noticeable differences in terms of performance _most people didn't care enough_ to pick this up. I think you give people too much credit.

All I know is that back then Samsung put _a lot_ of effort in making Bada look, feel, and behave like TouchWiz on Android. I haven't looked at Tizen recently, but I don't see why they wouldn't do the same here.

<comment><USER10> True. My brother had a the first Wave and I'll say that, in terms of built quality, it was one of the Samsung's best phone ever. It was built like a tank and had a unique look to it. Bada in itself was not bad, if you could ignore the lack of apps. The OS blatantly copied the best of both iOS and android. A lot of people really did not care, at that time, whether it was Bada or android; they just bought it because it looked good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Dear millions of people that have our Galaxy line devices as the center of your digital lives would you kindly switch to this new os, while we convince all the devs to support yet another OS and iron all the kinks. It will go smoothly.

Microsoft are playing the OS switching game for a few years now and this is working great for them.

While I do think that Tizen may be a future, there are huge investments in Android already to make it the future. While their support for Tizen makes some sense as a way to keep google's feet close to the fire and have alternative in case G start to move the OS in wrong direction, a major push to replace Android will be stupid.

</comment><comment><USER12> On a more technical aspect: does anyone knows whether the HTML5 apis tizen offer will be fast enough to cover all the needs for "nativ" apps ? I was building a HTML5 phonegap app very recently on a samsung galaxy Tab 2 and couldn't help notice how sluggish the overall feeling was, even for extremely basic UI animations (had to switch to 3D CSS transformations to make sure 3D hardware was used). If I understood correctly, Tizen will use HTML5 for pretty much anything. So i'm a bit scared of the performances..

<comment><USER13> APIs are neither fast nor slow. I guess your asking if their WebKit port is going to be fast? Probably not, WebKit on ARM is still not that fast. I don't know what JS engine they'll use, likely JavaScriptCore but that's not very fast on ARM either.

<comment><USER12> i did ask for apis, because i thought that laybe, as javascript is at the core of their UI, they would hardwire stuff directly to native code to speed things up. that's just wild guess, because it seems so suicidal to me to have a whole OS GUI written in html5/js right now.. especially when you know that Samsung is selling so many cheap smartphones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can't imagine a worse android experience than what TouchWiz offers. And if you remove the android ecosystem from that they will have _nothing_ an enthusiast or power user would ever want in a Samsung phone.

Building cheap entry-level phones seemed like the right thing to do, Tizen won't be polished in the beginning (as no OS is) and people buying high-end devices today expect that it is. I'm assuming they don't want to associate Tizen with budget or low quality phones but I really can't see how Tizen will be anything but a spectacular failure in america and europe at least.

<comment><USER15> _I can't imagine a worse android experience than what TouchWiz offers_

How so? To be fair a lot of the features of TouchWiz ended up being borrowed and integrated directly into Android (just as there was borrowing from SenseUI). These competitive forces have helped Android evolve.

<comment><USER14> Sure TouchWiz has features, it's the implementation and UI that stinks.

I have a friend that always said that "Samsung can't do software" and I thought that was a bit hyperbolic. Samsung is a huge company and just because one parts screws up doesn't mean, well, anything really.

But I guess I just had barely used any samsung devices that required software. I can honestly not mention a single piece of samsung software or device that wasn't seriously hindered by the software. From TVs that show hideous grey bars (when the aspect ratio doesn't match) that will blind you in dark scenes (just because the TV frame is grey (note that you can't even change this in the menus)) instead of black bars like all other TVs, to well, TouchWiz...

Take the sound notification you got in samsung phones (was this around the time of galaxy SII? (and not the 90's that you'd expect)) where the phone would make a sound notification when the battery was charged to 100%. With no way to turn it off. I dare say the most common use case when charging a phone is during the night, a lot of people have their phone alongside their bed and this meant that they would be waken a few hours later.

All samsung devices with software in it has at least a few of these annoyances that makes it obvious - no one, has ever, used this thing outside of a lab.

But that's just small details.

TouchWiz is horribly slow. No, it really is catastrophically bad. I tested the Galaxy tab 10.1 in a few stores, in everyone the interface was seriously slower than any of the competitors (with the same hardware). But I figured that this was because of people installing and abusing demo devices. Then I was to help a friend with their brand new tab 10.1, I even witnessed the unpacking and out of the box and it was just as horrid as in all the stores. The brand new top of the line $500 tablet behaved as a bloated, cheap, first generation device. And it hasn't gotten better with time.

Samsung _completely ruined_ the Galaxy S. Compare it to the Nexus S, pretty much the same hardware and the Galaxy S was by comparison barely usable unless you installed a custom rom on it. At which point it suddenly became a great phone.

The touchwiz calendar and messaging applications (in galaxy SIII) looks like they have been designed by a 10-year old starting to learn photoshop (seriously, I just can't believe my eyes everytime i use a Samsung android phone). The UI isn't even remotely consistent with... anything.

Everything they tweaked and touched has been for the worse. Yes they have their own features, mostly features that are fun the first five minutes (if you are a ten year old) but at best doesn't annoy you after the first week.

<comment><USER15> I'm not really looking to defend Samsung -- their TVs and blu-ray players have terrible software (though on the gray bar bit, clearly that was an entirely intentional choice. Plasmas do that specifically because otherwise you will very quickly have a center portion of the screen that is dimmer than the outer portion, so the gray balances the wear. While LCD is supposedly immune to this, I once had a set that suffered the aspect ratio "burn-in" issue, retaining the obvious demarcation over weeks of use and multiple restarts), however having owned the Galaxy S II and now GS III, I have absolutely no issue with TouchWiz. Further it's notable that Samsung had a hardware accelerated browser that functioned much better than Android's offering before Google did.

You're kind of veering to the point of insulting people who might actually see credibility in TouchWiz (the whole "if you're ten years old" thing), which, I guess...whatever. But as someone who has quite appreciated Samsung devices I just don't have the complaints.

<comment><USER14> I actually forgot that it probably had to do with a plasma tv, that's true, there is a reason for it.

"You're kind of veering to the point of insulting people"

Not my intention, but I guess it's my way of responding to the gimmicky features Samsung pushes - instead of focusing on usability. Something that I think the galaxy S4 promo videos demonstrate quite clearly. It's great that they try but in the end it ruins the experience (it shouldn't need to, but it does in my opinion).

If Galaxy S4 was a stock android device I'd buy it. With TouchWiz... I just can't...

<comment><USER16> So what is touchwiz?

I've a Note and never really noticed what it is or does. I replaced the launcher with Apex, just because and... I'm just not sure what touchwiz is at this point or how it might be making my experience worse?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The platform lock-in has never been about the OS, it's always been about the apps. Why do you buy a Nintendo system? Because of the OS? No, because of Mario. Why do you buy Windows? Because of the OS? No, because of Office or some PC game or maybe Visual Studio.

Samsung can't rid itself of Android until it has a way to run android apps on Tizen or possibly just to pay devs millions of dollars to port their apps.

<comment><USER18> It is right in the article that android apps run on Tizen.

<comment><USER19> I see. We're witnessing OS/2 mobile edition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yes, it's clear this is where Samsung's going. Neither Google nor Samsung mention Android much these days. BUT Samsung will have to lift its developer relations game 10x if they want people writing apps when it starts to come out. As for a compatibility layer, that's a lot easier to say than do, so native apps will still be critical.

Look at <https://www.tizen.org/>

Tizen 2.0 SDK is out? Where's 1.0? Tizen isn't out yet.

Why are you talking about SDKs on the hero banner anyway? What's Tizen? Why should I care?

Developer docs are out of the '90s: [https://developer.tizen.org/documentation/dev- guide?redirect...](https://developer.tizen.org/documentation/dev- guide?redirect=https%3A//developer.tizen.org/help/topic/org.tizen.gettingstarted/html/cover_page.htm)

iFrames?

End of the day, developers will flock to where the users are. But a new platform needs to win developers to bring the users on, even with Samsung's distribution channels.

I really want to see some solid competition to Android. I can only hope all this is early beta stuff because they'll need to speak developers' language if they want people writing apps. As for the emphasis on HTML5, the hobbyist HTML5 niche is well-occupied by Firefox OS. And BB, Windows, and Ubuntu are also pushing HTML5.

</comment><comment><USER21> There's a risk that the assumption is Google cares a lot about Android. I think Google just cares about there not being closed platforms that threaten their ability to drive search/advertising revenue. If Samsung drives Tizen and happily supports Google's products I'm not sure either cares.

<comment><USER22> and with Rubin out, the de-emphasis on Android has begun.

Google is likely trying to move back to a position of neutrality. It will put apps for its services on any phone / platform that 'matters'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The day Google gets HP to launch a nexus phone, all other manufacturers will have no change in Android high end market. Since the nexus one ALL nexus devices are buggy and crippled.

<comment><USER24> Up-voted. For my now-stolen and ever-crippled Nexus-One.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't know if Samsung would move to Tizen but I can certainly understand the desire to completely control both the hardware and software.

</comment><comment><USER26> I for one welcome this move. It seems Tizen somewhat follows Maemo's way. Let's hope Samsung is not going to stuff it with loads of bloatware. I wish as well the ecosystem is more like Firefox OS's than iOS's in terms of openness -- I don't know what to think about current Samsung moves regarding Android.

<comment><USER27> Owning a Samsung 'Smart TV' that, as soon as it is connected to the internet, forcefully downloads the worst crapware I've seen in my life with no option to hide or remove that stuff (according to research online and customer service) I'm convinced that I do not want a Samsung controlled device again and don't share your high hopes, even if we're talking about totally disconnected branches of a huge company.

(Incidently I got a S3 before this weekend as a corporate phone. I didn't even once boot it before flashing ClockworkMod / CyanogenMod)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Samsung should have made their Bada smartphones eligible for an upgrade to Tizen as the OS is supposedly capable of running Bada apps. This would at least establish a user base. Instead all of Bada adopters got screwed badly. I don't think anyone is going to fall for the same trap again.

<comment><USER9> A lot of the Bada models are pretty low specced. They're all using single cores with low amounts of memory. Tizen may be backwards compatible with Bada apps, but I doubt the vast majority of Bada handsets out there are capable of running Tizen without problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The title should be rephrased "Samsung wants its future to be Tizen, not Android".

I doubt they will succeed, though.

</comment><comment><USER30> Don't forget Samsung produce more than just phones, even if Tizen doesn't take off for phones, Samsung do a lot of other embedded Linux stuff.

As for Tizen's success on phones, apart from lower end devices (where you probably don't want many custom apps just a solid base, symbian style), I see the appeal of all you're devices (TV, Fridge, Car, etc) running a consistent UI with plenty of magic and auto-configuration running behind the scenes and I'm not seeing many low end devices with Android yet.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm not sure how successful these phones will be if they don't have Google's permission to provide Google Play, and I can't imagine Google would give them that.

<comment><USER32> The Kindle Fire is doing just fine with Amazon Appstore in lieu of Google Play.

<comment><USER33> The Kindle Fire is not a phone. Not having Google Maps/Gmail/Google Now/Google Chat/etc isn't that big of a deal on your reader or tablet, but it's a lot bigger deal on your phone.

<comment><USER31> Also current users of Samsung phones would be pretty upset if they bought a new one and couldn't download the apps they've already purchased via Google Play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I expect Cyanogenmod and it's variants especially Paranoid Android to gain traction with HTC and Sony phones. Tizen is the WebOS of 2013, nobody wants a Tizen.

<comment><USER35> Samsung seems to be actually making hardware for Tizen, though, unlike HP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm sure Samsung wishes that, but you haven't even seen Tizen as a consumer product and you've already decided a winner? That seems like a big overreach. We've seen mobile operating systems that actually looked or worked better than Android or even iOS before, and yet they still failed miserably.

</comment><comment><USER37> One of the major factor that makes ios and Android so popular is no. of apps in their respective stores. Even if Samsung comes with their own OS building such a huge repository of apps takes time. So i don't think so that Samsung would launch it's OS without comparable no. of apps in Tizen too.

</comment><comment><USER38> I am an early adopter when it makes sense. Smartphones have never made sense to me as a replacement for my desktop machine. I only recently switched to a smartphone because my trusty Nokia finally died. It made phone calls very well, by the way, and worked OK for texting and keeping a calendar, which are the three things that I mostly use the "smartphone" for.

So, I recognize that I'm not like most here, but maybe that gives me "the Emperor has no clothes" view of all this. I have to say that I'm not at all impressed with Android or Google Play. First, the UI isn't all that great. The gestures are not all intuitive, and sometimes are the opposite. (For example, why does holding my finger still on a zoomed page mean "zoom back out" when there's another gesture that I understand that will do the same thing?)

Second, 4G isn't available a lot of places I go, and I live in one of the 20 biggest cities in the U.S. Surfing the web on a Samsung phone feels a lot like surfing the web using Windows 98 over a 56k phone line 15 years ago.

Third, more than half the time when I download apps from Google Play, the download fails and I have to retry. Along the same lines, Google wants to update shit I don't use and never will use (Gmail, Youtube, I don't know what all - 9 apps recently) - which brings me back to the slowness and unreliability of downloading generally. And I now have to dive into the details of how to unlock the thing so I can remove the apps I don't want and don't use, taking the risk of bricking the handset. I don't want to know this stuff. I have enough stuff I have to know.

Fourth or fifth or wherever I am, the app store is messy and the apps want permissions I can see no good reason to give them. (For instance, why would a calculator app need access to my f'ing phonebook?)

I welcome any and all competition to the way things are now. The smartphone world right now feels a lot like AOL in the late '90s. "Oh, no one's going to leave Google or iOS when they have all these cool apps they paid money for!" That's bull and the handset manufacturers and phone companies and OS / app store owners know it, which is why they made unlocking phones illegal.

As soon as someone figures out how to make it reliably easy to unlock phones and put another OS on it that still works with your phone company's system, the handset becomes a commodity. (Too bad the BSD folks aren't too interested. The entire phone network was built on UNIX (TM). Should be a relatively simple thing to make it work.) And as soon as someone makes an app store accessible to anyone regardless of phone OS, people will go there to get apps for their OS. The walled garden play has been tried before and inevitably fails in the end because people want control of their devices.

This is one of the communities that should be making it happen, but what I hear mostly is "Oh, it can't be done! You don't know how hard it is!" There are a lot of us waiting for someone to break the oligarchies that have sprung up to take control of this market. Please do it. You might even get rich in the process.

<comment><USER39> _Along the same lines, Google wants to update shit I don't use and never will use (Gmail, Youtube, I don't know what all -9 apps recently)_

Starting with ICS, you can uninstall the updates for those apps, and then disable them in the Settings -> Applications menu.

That said, Android works a lot better overall if you use Gmail at least.

 _As soon as someone figures out how to make it reliably easy to unlock phones and put another OS works with your phone company's system, the handset becomes a commodity_

Oh how I wish this was possible. Unfortunately, at the hardware level, there is soooooo much support needed for each processor chip. Even among chips that share the same processor core (such as a ARM Cortex A9), all the peripherals and especially the power maagement is different. This prevents the building of a common hardware code base like we have in the PC world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Wasn't it last year that Samsung was replacing Android with Bada?

</comment><comment><USER16> I'll buy a high-end Samsung Tizen device.

Given my record though, that'll be the kiss of death for the platform.

</comment><comment><USER15> Samsung's future is to always try to minimize dependencies and to maximize options. Replace "Samsung" with any company at any time and you have simple good corporate governance. This is not insightful, and there seems to be a new harvest of "the Balkanization of Android begins!" articles, despite there being absolutely nothing new in that respect for years.

For those not aware, Samsung has always pre-loaded their own app store, their own messaging, their own chatting, etc, to negligible results. Further Samsung has _always_ "de-emphasised" Android, as like others they want to commoditize their compliments, and it makes no sense to talk up the features that most of their competitors have as well.

And for what it's worth, Android itself is the _least_ dependency Samsung has on Google. The Play store, gmail, maps, Google Now, and so on -- these are all non-Android specific information services that most people can't go without, and most users would simply reject any device that doesn't have it.</comment>


Need to refresh your math skills? From basic algebra to calculus and beyond. - <AUTHOR> http://www.khanacademy.org/#Linear%20Algebra <comment><USER2> For most people, they come out of high school not just poor at math, they come out "Math Broken" as one of my friends puts it. The second you mention anything to do with Math, their eyes glaze over and their brain completely disengages. I think there are a lot of things that contribute to that, but generally Math is not taught in a very approachable way. The KhanAcademy is I think a very good start in solving that problem.

I came across this site through an article that was on HN sometime last year, around November or December IIRC. Since then I've watched roughly 100 videos on that site. Some of the Finance videos, Trig, and Pre-algebra as a refresher, and I'm now roughly 60 videos into the Linear Algebra videos. Even though I'm in the midst of my master's program now, I've set a goal to watch 2 video's every day as time permits.

I am so impressed with this site, and with Salman Khan. The math is very well done, but it's also very approachable. Most of the videos are roughly 10-15 minutes in length and are highly topical. That makes it easy to jump in and pick up a refresher on something you haven't seen for a while. It's also great for getting into something you haven't ever seen before. Personally I haven't ever had Linear Algebra before, and if you've looked at many of the textbooks, they are pretty dense, particularly if you are self learning. I've found this site to be a great resource in getting oriented and it has really helped me get some traction.

I have recommended this site to dozens of people, and while most of them don't share my love of mathematics, they have been able to get some traction in various problems by using this site as a supplement.

Anyway, as a daily user of the KhanAcademy, I can't say enough good things about the site. I don't think it's a stretch to say it has the potential to revolutionize how math is taught.

The one downside to the site I've noticed is the lack of problems sets. There is a tester that will walk you up through the different topics, but unlike the video's you can't just start where you feel you need to, you have to work up through the early material, and that's fairly time consuming. I have a number of other resource's I'm using for problem sets, but it would be nice to have a few problems to work through for each video.

Overall an absolutely fantastic resource. Rating: 10/10

<comment><USER3> I agree with everyone else that it's a fantastic resource and the material is brilliantly presented, but I don't think it will help with the "Math Broken." I'm absolutely not knocking the resource or the site, I can't say enough good things about it, but if someone is already glazed over at the very mention of math, I don't think the videos here will help.

If you think otherwise then I'd really appreciate a suggestion, as I have someone I'd like to point at it ...

<comment><USER2> I agree, I don't think it's the panacea for that problem. It's a start though. The toughest things to get over imo, are the meme's that people will never use math and/or that math is not useful in the real world. The KhanAcademy handles the problem of insecurity about math and a gentler introduction to the topics once someone is interested enough to consider learning it. How you instill that initial desire and overcome their deep seated biases and insecurities about it are a much harder problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _With just a computer and a pen-tablet-mouse, one can educate the world!_

I'll say. Someone's been very busy. Thank you, Khan.

This appears to be an excellent resource. The 10 to 15 minute "bite-sized" pieces make it easy to check something out in your spare time. Most definitely bookmarked.

I also like how he has added a lot of business/finance stuff, which should probably interest a lot of people here. Looks like a slight change of plans today - I have to check more of this out.

[EDIT: I watched several videos in the Venture Capital and Capital Markets section. Definitely worth my while. This teacher appears to be able to make any topic, regardless of complexity, easy to understand. He even has a "happy cursor", which reminds me of football quarterback Peyton Manning's feet when he's getting ready to throw a pass. Funny how you can tell when an expert is in the zone. I'm going to put together a schedule to watch a whole bunch of these videos.]

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to add a very personal comment to this discussion. I have very bad vision. So much so that in school, I couldn't see the board even when sitting as close as possible. As a result, I'd end up creating notes from a synthesis of what the teacher was saying and what I read in the book as the lesson was going on. This usually didn't work out, and my math skills suffered.

This website helped me fill in the gaps of knowledge I had. Actually being able to see the problem being done while given instructions was a great help.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like the style and I appreciate the idea. In fact, I've been working on something in the same direction. So, here are a couple of things that I prefer to do differently. First, these are video _lectures_ but without actual students present. As a result, he is essentially talking to himself. I noticed that this causes him to skip some details that students might be wondering about. I prefer to start with actual lectures and initially put them on the web as pdfs ([http://users.marshall.edu/~saveliev/Teaching/Fall09/m430/upd...](http://users.marshall.edu/~saveliev/Teaching/Fall09/m430/updates.html)). Then I transcribe them to an online version ([http://inperc.com/wiki/index.php?title=Introductory_algebrai...](http://inperc.com/wiki/index.php?title=Introductory_algebraic_topology:_course)). This is the second problem I have with his approach. Video just isn't enough. I don't' have to explain to you what video doesn't have and html does: searchability, cross-linking, speed of download, the ability to _read_ and work at your own pace, etc. Certainly, my way is much slower.

<comment><USER7> One thing that video has that HTML doesn't: single-file archive ability. Sure you can have a single HTML file as long as you keep it text-only, but most of these topics are going to be diagram (and math figure) heavy. There's just no good way to archive the content for later perusal. (Granted YouTube doesn't want you to directly download the videos, but it's not like it's that hard to circumvent -- and once you have the video you can easily find a player for it on any platform)

[Note: I don't count .webarchive or .mht files as 'good enough'. .webarchive files are Safari-only, and I don't even know of a tool to be able to extract data from them. .mht files are 'sorta' supported (IE, Opera, Firefox w/ an extension), but I don't like the idea that the data is Base64/MIME-encoded. Personally I like .maff (Mozilla Archive File Format). It's only supported in Firefox with an extension (and nowhere else unfortunately), but it's basically a Zip file with the HTML/CSS/images inside of it.]

<comment><USER6> Well, the site runs on MediaWiki, so you can save the printable version of each article. Even if you print the whole thing, the end result wouldn't be that much different from a bunch of video files for each 15-min lecture.

<comment><USER7> The point being that as long as there are external files (css,images,etc) in the page you will have to save it as 'Webpage (complete)' (or the equivalent in your browser) which saves the HTML file and creates a directory for the external files. If you are saving a bunch of sites/pages this way you end up with _a lot_ of directory/html-file pairs. And were you to ever move these around, you would need to make sure that the directory/file pair moved together. It makes much more sense to have it all in one file (and as with MAFF a file that doesn't necessarily need a browser to extract the contents).

Linking to this to the subject matter, most of the lessons have to do with math and science, in a way that requires diagrams and specific notations. Both of which cannot be represented in plain-text or HTML without external files.

<comment><USER6> Good point. I wish the printable version would automatically create a pdf.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I found that the best way for me to internalize a particular subject in hard science is to follow its history by reading the original papers. It's a hard way to do it, but it helps you understand the motivation, the progression of ideas, and the rigor that went into it. Anything else doesn't quite work for me - I feel like I "sort of" understand, but five minutes after I close the textbook (or the YouTube video) the understanding goes away with it.

I watched some of these lectures - they're excellent, but a bit too hand-wavy. Without getting through the rigor there's no hope to gain a complete understanding of the subject matter that stays with you forever.

<comment><USER9> "I found that the best way for me to internalize a particular subject in hard science is to follow its history by reading the original papers."

I've often wondered why math programs (and books) aren't structured this way, explaining the historical context, reproducing the original papers (or explaining the arguments or proofs in the paper if the original happened to be in Latin or whatever), with a section on how the paper helped move the field forward and so on. It doesn't necessarily have to sacrifice rigor to do this, and a s amatter of fact I suspect a "walk the path (taken by the innovators)" approach coupled with strict rigor would make for some awesome books (and get more people interested).

<comment><USER3> Frequently the historically motivated path is too long or creates too much baggage. It's not always the case, granted, and sometimes the historical development does give you the motivation, but you're still asking for a gifted teacher, and that's rare.

A gifted teacher can teach with or without the historical perspective, and in my experience a clean, direct presentation _with appropriate motivation and context_ is usually better.

Again, not everything works for everyone.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. I'd have appreciated physics more if it had been taught with a more historical approach. When I asked the profs why, the general answer was 'takes too much time'.

(I 'spect part of it is that history is a 'humanity' ... but also that it's because they didn't get the history either, and didn't have time to learn it well enough to teach it.)

The physics department (major US university) actually hired a history of science scholar, and I heard grumbling that he should be paid for by another department.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Salman Khan is an extremely talented teacher. I would go as far as to say he is Feynmanesque in his ease with the subjects and ability to come up with good examples for abstract concepts.

</comment><comment><USER12> I used their videos on youtube while taking a linear algebra course last semester when I needed an extra lesson on a particular topic. I highly recommend them. Everything I saw was presented in a clear, well articulated matter that made it much, much easier to understand than just reading something out of a book.

<comment><USER13> _His_ videos. They were all created by one guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel the need to point out that when I submitted a link to khan academy, no one up-voted it. Why is this?

ref. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=911882>

<comment><USER15> I did not see it that time? May also be the title given to the post. Humans are fickle. ( will up vote you now ;)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found this while doing some research on collision detection algorithms. All math classes should incorporate game programming, I sure would have paid more attention.

<comment><USER3> Isn't this a classic case of "What works for me _must_ work for everyone." ??

Not everyone is interested in games, not everyone is interested in programming. One source of motivation should not be forced on everyone, there should be a wide range.

<comment><AUTHOR> Possibly. Any "real world" application would have been better than just theory. But games seem like a natural extension of math lessons, and who doesn't like games?

<comment><USER3> Well, just to provide a single example, my wife is totally disinterested in games. Absolutely doesn't care, to the point where if someone tries to motivate topic X via games she ends up feeling that topic X cannot have any value to her at all. By contrast, she is very interested in math, and wishes that at school it had been presented as other than a collection of facts to memorize and processes to learn and apply.

I know of others who have a similar attitude to games, and now, as I approach 50, I can't care much about them either.

Games aren't "Real World."

If you want "Real World" motivation then find some stuff from the real world.

To add some context, I am _passionate_ about putting things in context and making them relevant. I visit schools to talk about uses of math, and explaining how these subjects are anything but isolated and irrelevant stuff to learn and hoops to jump through. I've given talks in venues such as the West Yorkshore Playhouse, the Royal Exchange in Manchester, the Criterion Theatre in the West End of London, Navy Pier in Chicago, and others around the world. I give examples from GPS and SatNav through intercepting drugs couriers and on to gene splicing and DNA analysis. I talk about finding cliques and connections in social networks, and then apply that to detecting plaigarism and ranking web sites. I talk about weather forecasting, roulette, life assurance and debt management.

I mention them in passing when relevant, but I don't talk much about games.

<comment><USER16> How do you motivate basic maths, though? Not everything can be directly connected to drug couriers and what not.

Ultimately I suspect the only way to succeed in maths early on is to consider it to be a kind of game. That is, puzzle solving for fun.

<comment><USER3>
      > How do you motivate basic maths, though?
      > Not everything can be directly connected
      > to drug couriers and what not.

So far I've always succeeded, and I don't even think I'm especially gifted. On current experience, if you name a topic or technique, even in basic math, I can probably relate it to and motivate it by (comparatively) real world requirements at an appropriate level.

      > Ultimately I suspect the only way to succeed
      > in maths early on is to consider it to be a
      > kind of game. That is, puzzle solving for fun.

I agree entirely that people who are going to go and do science or math probably have an element of problem-solving enjoyment, and for them, such motivation not only will work, but is the most appropriate. Getting such people to puzzle over why something happens, and getting them curious about how it works is probably the best thing you can do for them.

When I'm talking to people I show them a couple of things and gauge their reactions. Here are two:

<http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=604347>

Any given person will react in one of two ways. One is to half-shrug as if to say "who cares?" and then move on, the other is to look closer and say "Do that again." People in the former group are most likely to need motivating with things that matter to them _which might (but might not!) include games._ The others can just have their curiosity poked and you're off and running.

YMMV, personal opinions only, _etc, etc._

<comment><USER16> If you can make it happen, I am only glad for it. I think it is a shame that so many people miss out on maths. I haven't tried to teach it yet, so I can't really say. I've tried at times to come up with real world applications for the maths taught at school, but didn't come up with much.

I think one exercise I would give my pupils would be to determine the real prices of mobile phones.

Enjoyed the shoelace link, will try it the next time I tie my shoes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I make this comment every month:

There needs to be a comprehensive site that aggregates all the educational videos on the net (lectures, conference talks, screen casts, simple instruction,etc.).

<comment><USER18> For better or worse, that site is google.com

<comment><USER17> It's a start, but there needs to be 1000x better organization and curation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My math skills were always bad. I mean, even though I had one of the best scores in school, I could never explain why it works, e.g. why _9^1/2_ is the same as _sqr(9)_.

Since I want to self-study the _Quant Finance_ , I decided to refresh and develop my math skills up to the Calculus. This website is amazing! Not only it's a good refresher, it's the best source of knowledge created by one man.

<comment><USER20> Interesting. I usually learn best by explaining / teaching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> How sad that people pay up to 40k to the University of Phoenixes out there, or, worse, take on 40k of unforgivable and practically un-repayable federal student loan debt, when this type of material is available for free!

</comment><comment><USER22> Unfortunately decimals seem to be harder for computers than people :)

<http://screencast.com/t/ZjUwOWRl>

</comment><comment><USER23> Excellent website, I'm impressed.

</comment><comment><USER24> This thing really could have helped me prepare for chemistry for exams in school. I matches my curriculum to the mark. definitely going to share with my juniors.

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow, that's some deep material. Thanks for the link, Chaos.

</comment><comment><USER26> Buying good textbooks to learn from is a lot more cost effective than spending on the high-speed internet connections that is needed to download even a short video in any reasonable time. This "resource" is only useful to already have high-speed internet access.

<comment><AUTHOR> A month of high speed internet is cheaper than a single text book in many countries. Considering there's probably 40 textbooks worth of material on this one page alone, nevermind the rest of the internet, I'd say priorities should be on providing internet access.

<comment><USER27> OLPC + Khan Academny videos = win.

<comment><USER28> Only if they were in Spanish - here in Uruguay we have the OLPC deployed for all schoolchildren, but most students don't have the level of English required :)

<comment><USER27> Well your Spanish is good ...?!

It's not a huge stretch to imagine someone sitting and redubbing one of these though is it?

<comment><USER28> Well, it sounds like a long project to me :) .

It would be a nice project, though, maybe I'll propose it (and contribute to it).

Guess the first step would be contacting Khan.

PD: Spanish is my mother tongue.

<comment><USER27> Good on ya!

I was thinking more akin to having a site that would facilitate the redubbing allowing you to upload a dub via the site which would then be patched onto the video. You'd need some verification and voting on best dubs.

<comment><USER28> You're right, I'm dumb :) .

Even some subtitles might help, and that's a much smaller project :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Thoughts about qui.tw (geolocation shortener) - <AUTHOR> http://qui.tw Pick a point on the map and get a short url. Started as late night project to learn about couchdb and ended up doing the extra bit of work to release it. Had small but positive feedback and now wondering. Should I spend more time on it to take it further/improve it? <comment><USER2> Nice idea to begin with...I guess you can creare short URL's for trips, multiple landmarks, etc...

Why do you associate this with Twitter though? Twitter is not the only site that shortners are used.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, good point about the twitter association, I guess that's just the first use I thought of and it made the design sort of playful. For trips and multiple landmarks I'm wondering how I can keep the UI simpler than google maps so it can still make sense to use qui.tw vs google maps + any url shortener.

<comment><USER2> Well, if I want to show multiple landmarks, you still lose me to Google Maps + any URL shortner combo, don't you?

You probably can't beat Google maps on simplicity without comprimising functionality. I would just accept that and copy what Google has. Just my 2 cents.</comment></comment></comment>


Using likely () and unlikely () - <AUTHOR> http://www.250bpm.com/blog:6

<comment><USER2> Aside from this contrived nuclear meltdown example (which could be more efficiently handled using interrupts rather than polling), when would you ever encounter a situation where a few nanoseconds/picoseconds would make enough of a difference that you want to force a pipeline hit on the unlikely code path and a pipeline miss on the likely path?

And really, considering how rare (and implausible) such situations are, why not just put a comment in the code to communicate your intent to maintenance engineers?

Rejiggering the 99.999% case to accomodate the 0.001% case is a major cause of unnecessary complexity.</comment>


TurboTax Sucks Ass - <AUTHOR> https://www.turbotaxsucksass.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> From Hasan Minhaj and the team at Patriot Act on Netflix:

"TurboTax and other tax prep companies misled millions of Americans into paying to file their taxes even though they could do it for free. That sucks ass. … We think it should be easy to file your taxes - even if you still use TurboTax. … File for free by clicking the links below."</comment>


Google Pixel phone leaked before unveiling - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/03/google-pixel-phone-leak-carphone-warehouse <comment><USER3> It's a rectangle with a screen in the middle. Like an iPhone without the button. I didn't need to see a leak to know that, and don't see why this is news. The smartphone market has become really boring in the last few years. Does anyone care anymore?

<comment><USER4> If you read they article you'll see they are mentioning feature/specs as well, including "fingerprint scanners on the back".

<comment><USER5> IMO the idea of "_____ on the back" is terrible usability. My grandma has an LG something or other with the volume and power buttons on the back, and every time I use it, I have to flip the phone over to see which button I'm pushing. That's fine, I don't use it often. But she uses it every day, and she still does that. Granted she's super old, but phones aren't made exclusively for Millennials. My car has controls behind the steering wheel, but for every control behind the steering wheel there is a control on the dashboard too. Nothing is exclusively hidden out of sight.

<comment><USER6> I have a Nexus 6P, and the fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone is brilliant.

It is very easy to find without looking, and you can unlock the phone one handed. I actually can't imagine why one would want the fingerprint scanner on the front of the phone.

<comment><USER5> Well there's already a button there that I'm already in the process of pushing. I don't even have to think about if I'm using the fingerprint reader in an iPhone, I just click the button I was already about to press and it automatically unlocks the phone as well.

What's the point in having a giant bezel to fit a front button like the Pixel if you're moving half of the function of that button to the back? Now I have to specifically place my finger somewhere just so the fingerprint can be read.

I unlock an iPhone one-handed all the time. Just tap the home button. Done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> But will it fit in my hand??? Still looking for a reasonably-sized replacement for my 2013 Moto X.

<comment><USER8> Is your 2013 Moto X broken? If not, why replace it? Is it more up-to-date software you want? If so, go for one of the alternative Android distributions (eg. Cyanogenmod: [https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Ghost_Info](https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Ghost_Info)). Is the battery bad? That can be replaced. Is it not fast enough? It might be with an alternative Android distribution on it. That phone is only 3 years old so it does not sound like it is in dire need of replacement (if it isn't broken to begin with, of course). I still use a 2011 Motorola Defy, others use devices of similar age. If it still works fine why replace it?

<comment><USER9> What's the best way to get the battery replaced on one of these?

<comment><USER7> There's a pretty good discussion about it here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MotoX/comments/4pabyq/my_moto_x_201...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MotoX/comments/4pabyq/my_moto_x_2013_battery_replacement_wasnt/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This doesn't really tell us much, other than that it looks like a phone and seems to run software. There's going to be much more to it than this, I suspect.

<comment><USER11> I suspect not.

Edit: Also, I hope not. Mobile phones don't need anymore gimmicks, we just need removable SD cards and batteries brought back and we'd all be set.

<comment><USER12> > I suspect not.

I think there will be other announcements. The Android SVP is certainly hyping the event: _" We announced the 1st version of Android 8 years ago today. I have a feeling 8 years from now we'll be talking about Oct 4, 2016."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Most other smartphone manufacturers, including the world's largest, Samsung, use Android but do not actively develop the software, only modify it, relying on Google for primary development."

I never really understand this. Surely Samsung has the technical expertise to develop an OS to suit their own hardware?

Is it really worth relying on Google to make Android, and then "modify it" to suit their needs?

It is clear the benefit of Apple having control over the entire product - <USER2> do other large smart phone companies not do this?

<comment><USER14> Because it's (relatively) easy to develop a good OS, or one better than Android, but it's going to be very difficult to get the 3rd party apps to support your platform before you have enough users. And you wont get the users without 3rd party app support.

<comment><USER15> You mean like how easy it was for Firefox?

<comment><USER14> I said "relatively". That is to say: relative to getting 3rd party app support from everybody.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Disappointing change of direction by Google. When they started on Android they envisioned phones becoming like PC's (i.e. you would buy the hardware and install whatever software you liked). I realise that phone manufacturers stood in the way of that somewhat but at least they didn't go full Apple, until now.

<comment><USER17> How is it going "full Apple" when there are still going to be millions of Android phones manufactured by other companies? Did Microsoft go full Apple when they released the Surface tablets?

<comment><USER16> I couldn't comment on the Surface tables but I think that Google were doing alright with the Nexus devices. Now it feels like they're keeping stuff away from manufacturers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Happy to see 128GB versions at launch. I like to keep my stuff (including music etc) on my phone and I've had to resort to phones with microSD slots to date. If this is a "sensibly" specced phone, I might skip modding my N5 with 128GB flash.

EDIT: appears to also have microSD slot!

</comment><comment><USER19> Wouldn't having the fingerprint scanner on the back be annoying sometimes? For example, when your phone is just laying on the table and you want to quickly unlock it without picking it up.

</comment><comment><USER20> Those bezels though... In later updates they need to have a look at what LG did with the LG G2 and G3.

</comment><comment><USER21> Since it carries the Pixel name I assume it's gonna be overpriced.

</comment><comment><USER22> It seems a cross between Samsung and iPhone.

<comment><USER23> Probably that's how the project was briefed to the designers, so...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Do we really need more phone?

<comment><USER25> More than the previous model, probably not, but for the many of us that are a few generations behind, yes. I am in the market for an upgrade from my Note3 and I'm paying attention.</comment></comment>


I learned two things today - <AUTHOR> http://swiz.ec/oBnpln

<comment><USER2> Wax pencils work fine in the shower and are fairly easy to clean off later.</comment>


The Guy Who Brought Whiskey to Japan & Entrepreneurial Haiku - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/languatica/2012/04/05/the-guy-who-brought-whiskey-to-japan-entrepreneurial-haiku/

<comment><USER2> About the "haiku" at the end of the piece...

From wikipedia: "The essence of haiku is "cutting" (kiru).[1] This is often represented by the juxtaposition of two images or ideas[2] and a kireji ("cutting word") between them, a kind of verbal punctuation mark which signals the moment of separation and colours the manner in which the juxtaposed elements are related." Haiku is not three-line bromides with a syllable count.</comment>


Mars has 5M cubic km of ice - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/917346134871375872 <comment><AUTHOR> That's enough to cover the whole planet to a depth of 35 m/ 115 ft. Not exactly what I would call bone dry!</comment>


Quick Specifics on a Newly Formed Startup - <AUTHOR> http://davidcummings.org/2010/12/28/quick-specifics-on-a-newly-formed-startup/ <comment><USER2> Hmm, a startup where the founder doesn't seem to be of a technical nature and is in charge of a remote, low-cost outsource team from South America.

If my experience with handling low-cost outsource teams from S.E. Asia and India are anything to go by, I would question the quality of the product developed. Especially if the founder isn't of a technical nature.

I'm not saying that all developers in India or S.E. Asia or South America are crap, it's just I have rarely been allowed to actually see a candidates resume or do an interview with them before having to work with them and I have extremely high standards when it comes to staff (like understanding source control, MVC, automated testing and understanding design patterns and how they can be used to solve problems effectively).

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't spend so much money before hacking a prototype, showing it to people and making sure someone actually needs it

I hope he got it covered.</comment>


What Google engineer James Damore got wrong - happy-go-lucky http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170811-what-google-engineer-james-damore-got-wrong <comment><AUTHOR> So Damore wrote a treatise on how the "diversity mindset" \-- with it's presumption that both (all?) sexes are equally biologically suited for technical pursuits -- might actually have a biological component which is being overlooked or, worse, willfully ignored, and the response to that is, no, this isn't possible, and that the systemic cultural influences are beyond his comprehension? So, the answer to his call for further discussion is to double down on the original argument? Am I reading that right?</comment>


Legal contracts for freelance developers on Github - <AUTHOR> http://blog.danielbeardsley.com/2011/05/open-source-development-design-contract.html

<comment><USER2> From earlier today (since it's related, especially the HN comments): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2612245>

Personally, I would be wary of using any contract written by someone who isn't a lawyer. Telling people that you feel "there is no need to state the obvious as many contracts do" doesn't instil a lot of confidence either: how do you _know_ what needs to be explicitly stated and what doesn't?

<comment><AUTHOR> I mentioned that because I'd seen a lot of contracts that included drivel about how the developer is free to have other contracts, free to set their own hours, ... stuff that is implicit.

Getting a contract like this worked over by a lawyer would be a great help. That's why I open-sourced it, hoping to get more exposure and some feedback from knowledgeable people.

<comment><USER3> It may be implicit, however some tax laws (I'm Australian, not sure of how this works in the states) can look through contracts and treat them as employment arrangments unless the contracts specifically allow for the ability to subcontract out work, the ability to work for other people and for the responsibility regarding rectification of work. I'd be interested to know if the US has similar look through arrangements for contractors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some comments (IANAL):

You might want to retain copyright until the work is paid for in full.

You can't really "issue" a contract. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_of_the_minds>. This messes up your definition of "Developer". Just state the two parties by name.

The copyright assignment makes no sense. It basically reads "the client has copyright, except when he doesn't".

Termination: so I give you 14 days notice within the 30 day payment window and then all your outstanding invoices are cancelled so I never have to pay? Great!

I don't think you should have to get a lawyer, but you do need a contract to be unambiguous. I don't think that yours is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points, This is why I put it on github, to get feedback and improve.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Github repo: [https://github.com/danielbeardsley/service_contracts/blob/ma...](https://github.com/danielbeardsley/service_contracts/blob/master/development_service_contract.md)</comment>


The great airline scam of 2009 - <AUTHOR> http://thedailyt.com/2009/09/the-great-airline-scam-of-2009/

<comment><USER2> In terms of actually checking bags, I'm not sure whether the old way or the new way is better. It sometimes seems like the few staff members are pretty spread thin when it comes to actually taking bags.

On the other hand, I normally travel with only carry on bags. There's often little to no line at the "no baggage" check ins, which makes it a much faster choice for getting through the airport.

Can anyone else confirm/deny these observations?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't seen a specific "no baggage" check-in point anywhere I've been, but that sounds like a good idea.

I remember when the check-in machines first appeared they also printed your baggage tags for you to stick around the handle yourself but they seem to have moved away from this system for some reason. That seems to me something that could speed up the drop-off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I almost invariably travel hand-luggage only, but I frequently find that I can't check-in online because I have an "unusual passport."

Really annoying, especially when some airlines then charge for not having checked in online.</comment>


Mozilla and NSF offer $2M prize to decentralize the web - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/06/21/2-million-prize-decentralize-web-apply-today/ <comment><USER2> CJDNS is a self-organising IP address allocation and routing layer. A node's public key acts as its IPv6 address, and routing uses a DHT of those nodes.

This style of network has the property that you can take two independent CJDNS networks, link them together, and all nodes are mutually addressable/routable. This is in contrast to The Internet, whose addressing is centralised on IANA.

cjdns is moderately active, though most links between nodes are via an overlay on top of the public Internet. The goal is to have physical/wireless links between geographically close nodes.

Use [https://peers.fc00.io/](https://peers.fc00.io/) to find a cjdns node geographically close to you.

Decentralized protocols such as ipfs/scuttlebutt work particularly well on cjdns, as a file shared on ipfs in one network, will automagically become available on another network, once those networks are linked.

cjdns: [https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns](https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns)

<comment><USER3> CJDNS + IPFS to me is a grand vision for an idealized, completely distributed web. Combine that with some sort of distributed naming system (Namecoin, etc.), and you have a system that requires literally zero central authorities to operate. You just generate your own IPv6 addresses that are derived from a private key you generate yourself, and it works out of the box with all existing applications that support IPv6. No more IP registries (ARIN/APNIC/RIPE/etc), no more BGP. It's a network that can sustain itself by millions of individuals users routing internet traffic by peering directly with other users and datacenters.

As I understand it, there was some way to de-anonymize traffic to a certain extent (which is still far better than the current situation), and that turned off some of the "purists" which is just a shame. From a practical perspective, even with some issues, getting rid of BGP is more than enough of a benefit.

I can't express enough how brilliant CJDNS is to me, it's really a magical idea. Which is not to say there won't be potential issues (even potentially existentially damning issues), but wow. I'd love to see this project move forward and get more attention. It's the first thing I've seen that really made me think about how we could design a better internet than the one we have today.

FWIW, I'm already happy to just nominate the CJDNS project as a potential winner of this prize, already.

<comment><USER4> Is the CJDNS protocol written up anywhere so it can be reviewed? I'm curious but don't see any explanation of its operation anywhere.

<comment><USER2> [https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/blob/master/doc/Whitepape...](https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/blob/master/doc/Whitepaper.md)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the headline here is misleading. What they are offering is a prize to decentralize the _internet_ \- the actual network to which people connect in order to use the web. Judging from the other comments here, I don't think a lot of people have actually read the article.

IPFS and blockchain are technologies that are built on top of the internet - they assume a network connection already exists.

<comment><USER6> > IPFS and blockchain are technologies that are built on top of the internet - > they assume a network connection already exists.

I wont speak for blockchains. Call them by the boring name as "Append-only databases with a consensus mechanism on what to add, with a proof-of-something to affirm that work of some soft was done".

IPFS is different. They have already planned that IP4 isn't the next thing. Or IP6, or IP8, and on. They created what they call a MultiAddr that encodes the protocol definition to explain to peers and IPFS what protocol stack to use, and then lay IPFS on top of that.

Obviously when a new protocol comes into play, they add a new multiaddr type for the new protocol, and off you go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It can be done. It has been done, many times, from 1980s amateur packet radio to 2000s WiFi meshes. It's not inherently difficult. The hard problem is doing it with enough bandwidth to support cat videos. Netflix, and bloated web pages.

Suppose you had a distributed emergency IP radio network available that could provide 56Kb as long as at least one solar powered node per square kilometer was working. It would deliver VoIP and SMS, plus slow data connections. It would have HF links for long-haul connections even if telco services were unavailable. Who would use it?

FEMA tried distributing HF radios to first responder agencies, as a backup in case everything else went down. They can't even get most agencies to turn them on and talk for a monthly test.[1]

[1] [https://www.dhs.gov/shares](https://www.dhs.gov/shares)

<comment><USER8> What if nodes were incentivized to route traffic for others via crypto currency, e.g. proof of routing. Maybe then you could get real bandwidth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> US based only? A pity.

People had a pretty good go at this in the early 2000s, when WiFi arrived on the scene. Most of those networks died and the ones that remain never took over the world [1]. The sticking points in the efforts that I was involved in were:

1) Hassle in obtaining and setting up the hardware (particularly permanent antennas).

2) Lack of density, meaning it was hard to find others to connect to.

3) Address allocation and routing never really worked out, due to the need for central coordination.

I've been thinking about it ever since... Lots of ideas, but no 100% practical solution (yet).

It'll be interesting to see what happens this time, after 15 years of further development.

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

<comment><USER10> Some of these communities are actually very alive: [https://map.hamburg.freifunk.net/](https://map.hamburg.freifunk.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The developers behind Scuttlebutt [0] should apply for this! It pretty much perfectly meets Mozilla's criteria.

[0] [https://github.com/dominictarr/scuttlebutt](https://github.com/dominictarr/scuttlebutt)

<comment><USER12> I am fortunate to consider Dominic a friend (he's slept on my couch, and I have shared beers with him in multiple cities), but I don't think that's quite enough to decentralize to meet the criteria.

I think that the real solution requires caching, lookups, and multiple types of access through fingerprinted (sorry, can't say "secure") forwarding and proxying. It's a big task, but I do think that a small example could be built within the next year.

Heck, even LoRa, with the right software behind it could be a contender, if married to the correct technology.

Hm. That gets me thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This challenge isn't about the _web_ , it's about the _internet_.

Web centralization is another problem and one I'm more worried about. Google and facebook control so much of it and they are so opaque.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think the future of the web will be peer-to-peer communication between browsers. When you open a web site, you will join a pool of users who are already on that site. There will be some super nodes, who act similar seeders, and the rest will be leachers. The more you spend time on a site, the more you will become a seeder.

</comment><comment><USER15> The team working on Lantern/Outernet is working in this area, using a satellite to beam wikipedia to all of the Earth.

[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lantern-a-global- satellit...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lantern-a-global-satellite- data-radio)

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/outernet/](https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/outernet/)

[http://outernet.is/](http://outernet.is/)

</comment><comment><USER16> The OLPC project using wireless mesh networks essentially addressed these very problems.

</comment><comment><USER17> [https://ipfs.io/](https://ipfs.io/)

<comment><USER18> Is this just going to be linked? Or does no one care to talk about it

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does this include software or only hardware applications?

</comment><comment><USER20> Isn't this the problem that Blockstack is solving?

</comment><comment><USER21> Once again, real life imitates the Silicon Valley show...

<comment><USER22> I don't know why you are being downvoted... I immediately thought Pied Piper, then had a bit of chuckle. Jian Yang!!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Isn't the web already inherently decentralized (of course we all know there are forces trying to create their own walled gardens)? In the end, you just have to make something better that requires decentralization, and then it will win. In this way, the "survival of the fittest" for memes holds.

What's a problem that only a decentralized web can solve?

\- Privacy? (Most) People don't care. Irrelevant.

\- Security? (Most) People don't care. Irrelevant.

etc.

Even Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies would be irrelevant if it were not for their volatility, resulting in speculation, creating a feedback loop.

<comment><USER24> I thought the article pretty clearly framed the problem they try to solve as "benefits of connectivity for places and situations that don't have direct or regular connectivity to the internet (and thus no reliable access to centralized services)".

<comment><USER23> I don't see the relevance of this comment to my original point. Also, why do you need a whole new "internet" to make what you describe (and the article describes) as an offline application?</comment></comment></comment>


Classes, styles, conflicts: The biological realm of LaTeX [pdf] (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb31-2/tb98verna.pdf <comment><USER2> I hope the Tectonic[1] rewrite[2] in pure Rust will help to modernize the TeX and help it to evolve even faster (due to more modular structure).

[1] [https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/en-US/](https://tectonic- typesetting.github.io/en-US/)

[2] [http://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic](http://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic)

</comment><comment><USER3> LaTeX and "conflicts"? I'd been a long time and very happy TeX user, got the LaTeX manuals, and guessed that there would be _problems_ , maybe even bugs. So, I just stayed with TeX. To me TeX seems fine!

<comment><USER4> Likewise. I've always limited myself to TeX, including my own preprocessor. After looking at the article I am glad--for myself, not for the apparent state of the LaTeX ecosystem.

<comment><USER3> Birds of a feather. I wrote about 200 macros for TeX. So, I have table of contents, cross references, simple lists, unordered lists, ordered lists, business cards, ways to put TeX output on figures imported into a TeX document, etc. The spell checker Aspell that came with the TeX distribution I use is my favorite spell checker for everything!

I REALLY like TeX.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Make a 3D snowflake for your mum - <AUTHOR> http://express3dgifts.com/apps/snowflake/#.UModyXPjncE

<comment><USER2> This is pretty cool. For some reason I want to click and drag/rotate the 3D model that is onscreen already.

I'd also love to see a picture of what the real thing looks like :)

edit: btw, the font rendering is a little odd on Chrome 23 with Win7 @ <http://i.imgur.com/ZvTAs.png>

<comment><AUTHOR> jspaur: thanks for the feedback--will put a picture of the real deal on there :). As for the rendering--are you talking about the blue outline around the text?</comment></comment>


Explore what is Trending on GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1585-explore-what-is-trending-on-github <comment><USER2> It looks like GitHub removed the old rankings completely. For example, I can no longer see C projects ranked by star count. [https://github.com/languages/C/most_watched](https://github.com/languages/C/most_watched) redirects to [https://github.com/trending](https://github.com/trending) :(

To be honest, I mostly used those pages to satisfy my own vanity. My C project ([https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher](https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher)) just beat Arduino ([https://github.com/arduino/Arduino](https://github.com/arduino/Arduino)) and was gunning for mruby ([https://github.com/mruby/mruby](https://github.com/mruby/mruby)).

<comment><USER3> It seems like Github has been removing useful features with every update. I remember when I could actually see the traffic to my project pages, for example, but they removed that when they launched the new graphs.

<comment><USER4> Github owns gaug.es and it would make a lot of sense if they integrated it into github.com. One of the removed metrics is also clone counts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This has potential of becoming alternate to Hacker News with NSA and funding related stories filtered out.

<comment><USER6> Incidentally, HN is a GitHub blog RSS parser ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Our language library can 't always determine the language for the repository, but that won't keep the repository from trending._

Right, this is why you should do the obvious, common-sense, reasonable thing and let repository owners explicitly declare the language for their repo. Fiddling with byzantine mechanism to try and exclude library files, and other black magic, only to still be left merely _hoping_ that they get it right, sucks.

</comment><comment><USER8> Apparently, the highest trending ruby project for the last month is a Python project? [https://github.com/trending?l=ruby&since=monthly](https://github.com/trending?l=ruby&since=monthly)

</comment><comment><USER7> What does this even mean, anyway? Trending by what metric? Commits? Stars? Watches? Clicks? All of the above? Something else? ???

<comment><USER9> Must have been updated since as they posted at the bottom of the post,

"What makes repositories or developers trend? We look at a variety of data points including stars, forks, commits, follows, and pageviews, weighting them appropriately. It's not just about total numbers, but also how recently the events happened."

<comment><USER7> Aaah, I see. Not sure if the page was updated, or if I overlooked that bit. But at any rate, it's good to know. I mean, I assumed it was _something_ like that, but it's nice to get some clarity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does anybody know how do we get the top languages now? E.g. "Foobar is the #42 language on GitHub".

<comment><USER11> The top ten languages are listed on the side here [https://github.com/search?q=%22&type=Repositories](https://github.com/search?q=%22&type=Repositories)

edit: The actual number "#42" is gone for now, but will be resurfaced in more interesting ways in the future. (SOON)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is pretty cool! I have a dream about making small-medium contributing to tons and tons of random projects, just to learn and get to work with interesting people. The old search feature made it kind of hard to find cool repo's to work on that weren't seemingly saturated with contributors, I thought maybe I was using the "explore" feature wrong or else that you were supposed to find links on places like HN.

I'm hoping this one is better suited for such a purpose, but hoping even more that I find the motivation to follow through on the dream. No better time to start than tonight I suppose ;)

</comment><comment><USER13> I get daily trending repos in my emai from

[http://www.githubarchive.org/](http://www.githubarchive.org/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Coincidentally, we just launched an improved version of our GitHub analytics app with hourly page view charts. We also show rankings by country and language for all repos (not just the top 25 ones).

You might want to check it out if you're interested in finding out why your project is trending: [https://bitdeli.com/](https://bitdeli.com/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Finally, GitHub is as capable as PornHub when finding trending content.

Now we just have to wait for PornHub to introduce forking movies...

</comment><comment><USER16> I can't see the most watched or forked (in the hundreds), grouped by language anymore? Just the top 25?

I'm not a fan of the change.

<comment><USER11> Here's the most forked [https://github.com/search?q=%22&type=Repositories&s=forks](https://github.com/search?q=%22&type=Repositories&s=forks)

Here's the most starred [https://github.com/search?q=%22&type=Repositories](https://github.com/search?q=%22&type=Repositories)

You can filter by language on the left.

<comment><USER16> thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is default list of languages in the sidebar the top 7 trending languages? Surprised to see Clojure and VimL.</comment>


Ask HN: If you could recommend only one ML resource? - <AUTHOR> I have hundreds of self-improvement and technology books on my reading list, and it's so overwhelming that I default to reading none of them. The same is true for online articles, movies, documentaries, talks, podcasts, online courses, etc. Analysis paralysis is real.
I want to understand what ML is all about, and I want to commit to going through and mastering a single self-contained resource about ML (book, website, online course, video lectures, etc).
I prefer breadth over depth, and I'm looking for something that's not too intimidating to complete beginners. The less prior knowledge required, the better.
Hopefully answers below can reach a consensus, otherwise I'm back to square one. <comment><USER2> Andrew Ng's course: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS4cs9xVecg&list=PLkDaE6sCZn...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS4cs9xVecg&list=PLkDaE6sCZn6Ec- XTbcX1uRg2_u4xOEky0)

He is the best introducer to the field.</comment>


Pmarca: The web and mainstream consumer behavior in 2007 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/10/the-web-and-mai.html

<comment><USER2> Some of those numbers seem extremely inflated. Sure, I can believe that 95% of "all users" watched Internet video in the past three months. But 32% of all users listen to music on their cell phones?! Nearly everyone I know has a cell phone, but the only people who use them for music are the iPhone users.

<comment><USER3> 56% use RSS? I doubt that 20% of all internet users even know what RSS is</comment></comment>


Magical Earbuds Let You Tune in and Out of the World Around You - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2016/04/doppler-here-review-superhuman-hearing/?mbid=social_fb <comment><AUTHOR> Am I the only one to whom those things remind the Seashells from Fahrenheit 451?</comment>


Bugs in Visual C++ 2017 Libraries - <AUTHOR> https://www.viva64.com/en/b/0502/ <comment><AUTHOR> Annotation. The title of this article is a hint for the Visual Studio developers that they could benefit from the use of PVS-Studio static code analyzer. The article discusses the analysis results of the libraries in the recent Visual C++ 2017 release and gives advice on how to improve them and eliminate the bugs found. Read on to find out how the developers of Visual C++ Libraries shoot themselves in the foot: it's going to be interesting and informative.</comment>


Prime number generator - <AUTHOR> We have an algorithm to generate prime numbers faster by a factor of between 16 and 20 (depending on size), compared to existing standards. But we're not quite sure who needs this. <comment><USER2> Are they guaranteed uniformly distributed? Specifically, for the 4096 bit primes, given a range of 2^32, are all the primes in that range equally likely?

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.mappamathics.com/#!about- us/c202h](http://www.mappamathics.com/#!about-us/c202h)

They charge a fee for the primes. "We use our own secret algorithm to generate large numbers, which are then confirmed as prime numbers through a standard implementation of the Miller-Rabin test, which we put through 40 iterations"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> www.mappamathics.com</comment>


Minecraft.net is down because of what I believe is an attack - <AUTHOR> http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1360135433/minecraft-net-is-down-because-of-what-i-believe-is-an <comment><USER2> Well, also: [http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1360555436/on-second-thought- pe...](http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1360555436/on-second-thought-perhaps-its- not-an-attack)

<comment><USER3> I laughed that he included my name as someone who helped him, I did nothing.

<comment><USER4> Could you elaborate on that? Is it someone else with the same nick?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So it was not an attack, but now it is one? ( see: <http://twitter.com/notch/status/27984231275> That was posted 30 minutes ago)

<comment><USER3> No, they're both attacks. The original we thought was an attack, then we thought it wasn't, then we found out it was.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for clarifying...I wasn't sure if it was 2 attacks, which makes more sense, or just a random downtime and THEN a real attack...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Were people able to play during this outage? My understanding is that you must log in to notch's servers to play and I find that really asinine. I am not exactly clear on the point, however, because he claims that there is "no DRM", but obviously requiring approval from his server is a pretty draconian form of DRM in effect, whether he is actively deploying DRM-like functionality at the time or not.

<comment><USER7> you can play single-player and on non-authenticated multi-player servers without the central authentication server being up.

<comment><USER6> What's the difference between an authenticated and non-authenticated multiplayer server?

<comment><USER8> One requires authentication from Notches sever.

<comment><USER6> Uh, right, but why would you run an authenticated v. non-authenticated server? Just to prevent pirates from connecting to your server because you support notch? Is it like Battlefield or those other games with ranked v. non-ranked where ranked offers persistent stats? I am curious if there is any benefit in running an authenticated server other than moral support for appearing on notch's list of approved players.

<comment><USER9> Because it offers a centralised way of nuking players off your server. And if they want to play again, a new copy of the game is 15 dollars more expensive than refreshing your IP address.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Back up <http://twitter.com/notch/statuses/27965813137>

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm wondering if the publicity of personal fortunes being made inspired a ransomed attack?

</comment><comment><USER12> The comments thread on that announcement is really quite funny: "Hit them with some Chicken Freestyle".</comment>


Using Emacs for Haskell development - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/serras/emacs-haskell-tutorial/blob/master/tutorial.md <comment><USER2> There's no need to restart Emacs for a trivial config change; you just M-x eval-buffer RET and go on about your business, and I've opened a pull request with a patch which updates the document to reflect that fact. (You do still want to restart after something like a major package update, because not every module author is good about making sure that his code can be initialized more than once per session, and the patch reflects that fact as well.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for the article! I have been happily using just haskell-mode for a long time, but as soon as I get back home from my vacation with my grand kids I will work through the suggestions.

I have been using various Lisps professionally since 1981 and the more I use Haskell, it seems like just another Lisp but with a different syntax, because of the interactive, bottom up development style.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice writeup!

I've always wondered why functional programming-people seem to prefer emacs over vim? I guess it could be the choice for people wanting more IDE-like features, and aren't afraid of a little bloat(cause surely it can't just be the lisp in the configs), am I right?

<comment><USER5> Disclaimer: I'm a Haskeller who prefers Vim.

I think the reason for Emacs dominance is mostly historical: early on it was probably due to good capability for integrating a REPL process. Also since it is written in a lisp and can be grown organically to fit almost any purpose it developed an ecosystem of useful tools more quickly than Vim - attracting more developers who further developed tooling.

Today the only feature you can't get in Vim that Emacs has is structured haskell mode. I haven't used that enough to know if its worth the switch...

I DID try to switch and while none of this is a real show-stopper and it all could be fixed - I spent a dozen hours on trying to get an Emacs setup with all the features I have in Vim and simply couldn't. For example the auto- complete plugins do not list the type signatures in the pop-up window like neco-ghc does and there is nothing that comes close to fugitive. Also Emacs has an hdevtools plugin for flycheck but I doubt its used much because it doesn't even have a way to pass command line arguments so I had to go hack that in myself. Hdevtools is a killer feature, having _instant_ compilation feedback is incredibly useful in Haskell...it makes it so easy to use the type system interactively while designing a new module. I did get hdevtools to work eventually but I would have to learn emacs lisp to get it working right and since there are other gaps I never put in the effort. I could never figure out how to launch a ghci process with custom arguments...I want the damn REPL to be launched with cabal repl so that it has the same environment as my code and ... I'm sure its easy if you know what you are doing, but I spent at least a couple of hours on that alone and failed. I spent probably 3-4 hours getting Evil working the way I want, things like imap keybinds required a lot of research for some reason. I did get it to work though...Emacs without Evil is not even a contender in mind - modal editing is just way to powerful and my left pinky will be out the goddamn door if I make it pound chords all day.

<comment><USER6> I am a vim-er and I decided that I will stick to one editor and that will be vim. I don't want to spent more time on learning one more editor. Emacs may be great but I made my choice and I want to stick to it.

For some time I wanted dive into haskell, and could not afford time, but recently I am getting some time freed up.

Can you suggest, how to set up vim for haskell like any plugins or scripts for better development experience.

As a side not this video([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScS8Q32lMxA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScS8Q32lMxA)) of live haskell coding in vim looks interesting.

<comment><USER7> I highly recommend haskell-vim-now [1]. The author has a nice demo showcasing this setup, along with his virtual pair-coding environment [2].

With one install command, you get a polished Vim/Haskell setup with tab completion, type inspection, Hoogle, hinting, unicode symbols, etc.

Also has a nice dark theme. In fact, I use it as my go-to Vim configuration on new systems, even outside of Haskell.

It also lets you pipe code to the Haskell REPL for live evaluation (via tmux).

[1] [https://github.com/begriffs/haskell-vim- now](https://github.com/begriffs/haskell-vim-now) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sr8cAIwdBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sr8cAIwdBs)

EDIT: Add video

<comment><USER8> That installation script is horrifying! I'm sure it has saved some people a lot of time, but it's a terrible idea to point anyone to it who already has an existing vim config.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> See also [http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Yi](http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Yi)

Hehe. The "linux tiling wm" and "emacs-like editor" fads were cooler the current one ("our own javascript ui framework").</comment>