VIM Destroys All Other Rails Editors - <AUTHOR> http://www.adamlowe.me/2009/12/vim-destroys-all-other-rails-editors.html <comment><USER2> Ugh. Not sure about you, but I think HN should be a IDE/Editor blog post restricted site.

There was recently a thread on erlang-general that was almost 100 replies long. It started out as "Is Erlang a Good First Language?"... then slowly dissolved into "IDE Bashing". I had to switch my mailing list options to digest I was getting so many emails each day with personal rants.

The thing is, Emacs and Vim are awesome, and they are "huge" programs. Also, they are "extremely" flexible, so one persons preferences might be way different than the others. For example, the blog post here uses MacVim and GVim? That's crazy talk (IMHO).

RTFM!

<comment><USER3> That's horrible! No one should ever have to use digest mode, especially since it makes the list even worse for everyone else. Maybe you should get a better email client? I know some people that use Gmail as a mailing list client independently from their normal mail.

<comment><USER4> "Maybe you should get a better email client? "

I hear Emacs is an E-mail client ...

<comment><USER5> And it manages mailing lists quite well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Poor article in the sense that it does little more than list out the plugins, rather than providing some commentary on how each plugin improves productivity.

<comment><USER7> I was disappointed as well.

I do recommend the articles listed on the Rails wiki's 'Text Editors' page for Vim, though: <http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/text-editors>

(Listed here in case that page is changed: <http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2008/10/10/coming-home-to-vim>, <http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2008/11/17/vim-follow-up>, [http://biodegradablegeek.com/2007/12/using-vim-as-a- complete...](http://biodegradablegeek.com/2007/12/using-vim-as-a-complete- ruby-on-rails-ide/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The headline is cheerful, ironic attention-grabbing; the writer acknowledges text editor choice is a preference, then lays out briefly how to set up vim for RoR development.

<comment><USER9> No offence, but this comment sounds more like a one generated by a bot of some kind.

<comment><USER10> I'd love to see the code for such a bot! Well, me and a thousand NLP researchers, I'm sure.

[edit] NLP being Natural Language Processing, rather than Neuro-Linguistic Programming ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The thing that always gets me when trying to use either vim and emacs for IDE- like programming (and don't get me wrong...I have used vim for regular editing for years), is that someone says, "yeah, (vim|emacs) destroys all other editors and IDEs. You just need to install this list of 400 plugins, write some elisp to configure it, learn each of these 200 keystrokes, understand where the plugins overlap and contradict, and you're golden".

Versus, download Eclipse/Netbeans, open, and start coding.

I _want_ to use vim as an IDE...I just don't have the time.

<comment><USER8> When I tried Eclipse, I found it as foreign as emacs, just GUIer. IDEs and editors require learning and configuration once you get much past notepad or pico.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I too use tabstop=2

But `cat` uglifies it, so I added this to ~/.bashrc:

        alias tab='sed "s/\t/  /g" '

You needn't say "cat myfile | tab"; you can just use it exactly like cat: "tab myfile" (I'm not saying that _you'd_ not instantly realize that - but that I didn't).

<comment><USER3> You needn't ever say "cat myfile | ..." _period!_

The shell has stdin redirection built in via '<'

<comment><USER5> Unless you want to read your pipeline from left to right, like everything else you read.

<comment><USER3> What if you want the subject on the right, like all non-pipeline commands you read?

      foo myfile
      bar < myfile
      (bar | baz) < myfile

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The main reason for the post was that at Hashrocket we benefit from real-time streaming Vim plugins courtesy of Tim Pope and wanted to share how awesome it can be as a Rails editor. I plan to follow up with more on the individual plugins themselves. It would've been a small novel to try and cover each of the plugins themselves in any detail. Most have a solid README on the project page for starters.

</comment><comment><USER14> I thought the article was worth while if only for pointing me at various plugins I wasn't aware of. If you're a vim hardcore then this is probably nothing new... but for others who are not it seemed useful. I agree that having some more info on why these plugins are useful would be nice, but following the links was easy enough to see if the plugin was interesting.

</comment><comment><USER15> I expected to see a bit more of how to use all those plugins. But I suppose a list of them is better than nothing.

</comment><comment><USER16> \+ for mentioning all tpope's plugins/bundles.

\- for some poor suggestions.

<comment><USER17> Pray tell, what are your suggestions and criticisms? A friend of mine after a horrible computer bitswap, bit into vim after TextMate. I wanted to follow, just to learn. This is actually fantastic for me -- there are various . configs I knew nothing of, but now can grep/google for info.

Please advise.

<comment><USER16> He had some things incorrect that have been mostly fixed now. Don't worry too much about it.

FYI, I suggest leaving tabstop=8 if you indent with spaces like a good boy.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the good feedback to the post. I responded to the latest feedback from you and discussed with the Pope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cream is a good VIM editor on Windows.

<comment><USER19> I never seemed to understand cream.

The idea is to take vim and basically castrate it by getting rid of the standard keybindings and ways of doing things to make it 'easier' for non-vim users. It even appears they got rid of modal-editing.

The issue with this then they don't learn how to do things the vim way which defeats the purpose of using vim, just go use notepad++ or any other gui editor you get the same experience.

<comment><USER20> Agreed. You can go into "expert" mode and use it with the normal vim bindings, though. Used in this manner, it does provide a bit of a better introduction to vim, as you learn the various modes and keybindings, but still get a reasonable UI for configuration and whatnot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> VIM DESTROYS ALL EDITORS PERIOD</comment>


GHC 7.8.1 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2014-April/024137.html <comment><USER4> I don't recall ever being excited about a compiler release before, but this has got me excited. Typed holes, overloaded lists, pattern synonyms, new IO manager, new code generator, interruptible FFI calls, parallel compilation, and tons of other new features.

One thing I'm particularly excited about is the switch to use the system's dynamic linker instead of a custom one in GHCi. The custom linker GHCi used before didn't support some features used by C++ code, which meant that some of my FFI-based projects weren't usable in GHCi. This also affected other things that used a GHCi-like code path like Template Haskell and the GHC APIs used by ghc-mod/hdevtools. This will be _huge_ for usability for me when working on projects that link to C++.

Hat tip to all the GHC developers for a truly amazing release!

<comment><USER5> The dynamic switch isn't without its pain points. In particular, the way we currently implement it leaves some things to be desired, and it's lead to some other rather unfortunate ramifications for Windows right now.

Truthfully, me and Simon now have reservations about if this is the right way to go, and we should instead invest more infrastructure into our own Linker (which, independently, got some nice bug fixes this time around - <USER2> and weak pointers now work, for example.) ELF support is quite complete (and very stable) for example. It's just a question of what's the most work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [..] [http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.8.1/html/users_guide/type-...](http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.8.1/html/users_guide/type- class-extensions.html#overloaded-lists) [..]

This extension allows programmers to use the list notation for construction of structures like: Set, Map, IntMap, Vector, Text and Array. The following code listing gives a few examples:

['0' .. '9'] :: Set Char

[1 .. 10] :: Vector Int

[("default",0), (k1,v1)] :: Map String Int

['a' .. 'z'] :: Text

[http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.8.1/html/users_guide/type-...](http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.8.1/html/users_guide/type- class-extensions.html#overloaded-lists)

<comment><USER7> Woah! I did not know that was going to be included! Here's to hoping it makes as much a splash as OverloadedStrings did!

<comment><USER8> As a non-fan of OverloadedStrings, I'm not sure how I feel about this.

<comment><USER9> What are your objections to OverloadedStrings?

<comment><USER10> It can give unexpected/wrong results when working with Unicode strings.

<comment><USER11> Can you elaborate? Perhaps you are talking about the Char8 ByteString instance? It was a mistake to declare that instance, I think.

<comment><USER10> _Perhaps you are talking about the Char8 ByteString instance?_

Yes. _Data.ByteString.Char8.pack_ does not form an isomorphism with _Data.ByteString.Char8.unpack_. It is thus not interchangeable with String.

Example:

        Prelude Data.ByteString.Char8> putStrLn . unpack . pack $ "Российская Федерация"
        >AA89A:0O $545@0F8O

And here the correct result with Data.Text:

        Prelude Data.Text> putStrLn . unpack . pack $ "Российская Федерация"
        Российская Федерация

<comment><USER12> That's an issue with Data.ByteString.Char8, not with OverloadedStrings.

<comment><USER10> When you use OverloadedStrings in conjunction with Data.ByteString.Char8 it becomes OverloadedStrings' issue as well. Compile-time transformations are not supposed to break your program.

<comment><USER7> I don't think of it as a compile-time transformation but instead a weakening of the semantics of string literals. Without we have

        "foo" :: String

and with we have

        "foo" :: IsString a => a

much like

        3 :: Num a => a

It inherits all of the same weaknesses and strengths that we have with the Num typeclass.

<comment><USER10> Ahh, very good. Then perhaps our target of inquiry ought to be the IsString class. Ought it have some laws we can expect instances to follow, akin to the Monad laws? At the moment, we can write:

        instance IsString () where
        fromString = const ()

And there's nothing wrong with it!

<comment><USER7> Totally agree that it's a weak class. I'd love it if `IsList` were a subclass of `Foldable`!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been playing around with the new PatternSynonyms extension. In combination with the existing ViewPatterns extension, I'm going to really have to change the way I think about API design. This is actually pretty fantastic.

        {-# LANGUAGE ViewPatterns, PatternSynonyms #-}

        import Data.Set as S

        -- patterns that a library might provide
        pattern x :< m <- (minView -> Just (x, m))
        pattern m :> x <- (maxView -> Just (x, m))
        pattern Null   <- (S.null  -> True)

        -- a really dumb test function using those patterns
        doubleMin :: (Ord a, Num a) => Set a -> Set a
        doubleMin (x :< s) = insert (2 * x) s
        doubleMin x = x

Ignore how dumb my test function is, and just focus on how lightweight it becomes to match views of the data structure. Figuring out what patterns to include my libraries is going to be a fun new design point.

<comment><USER14> I haven't had a look at the extension definition itself, but I find this really hard to read. Can you or someone else give an explanation of what's going on? It seems to me that the brackets are all wrong, I would've expected

        pattern (x :< m <- minView) -> Just (x,m)

but that's just basically view patterns/pattern guards. Basically I can sort of see what's going on here, but only in this specific case; I can't see how one uses this elsewhere.

<comment><USER13> The choice of character for unidirectional patterns isn't the greatest, I'll agree.

The PatternSynonyms extension enables two new top-level declarations, both declared with "pattern".

        pattern NestedJust x = Just (Just x)
        pattern NestedNothing = Just Nothing

That's the easier syntax of a bidirectional pattern synonym. They can be used both as patterns and as expressions.

        foo :: Maybe (Maybe Int) -> Bool
        foo (NestedJust 7)  = True
        foo (NestedNothing) = False
        foo _               = False

        bar :: Maybe (Maybe String)
        bar = NestedJust "hello"

There are a couple terrible examples. Bidirectional pattern synonyms must be valid as both expressions and pattern matches, or you get a compile error

My example was using unidirectional pattern synonyms. They allow any pattern match whatsoever as the body; the expression restriction is dropped because they aren't allowed to be used in expression contexts. They are defined using <\- instead of =.

        pattern MinView x m <- (minView -> Just (x, m))

That's functionally the same as the :< example above, but possibly a bit simpler to read, because the precedence of the symbols is more obvious. It defines a pattern synonym named MinView that is translated to the view pattern in parens.

It's quite possible you were conflating view pattern syntax with pattern guard syntax as the source of your confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For those who write large scale applications, web or otherwise, the mio io manager improvements should be especially exciting. See [http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1k6fsl/mio_a_highpe...](http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1k6fsl/mio_a_highperformance_multicore_io_manager_for/) for a prior discussion.

<comment><USER16> I was reading the paper and got stuck somewhere when I saw this:

> With Mio, realistic HTTP servers in Haskell scale to 20 CPU cores, achieving > peak performance up to factor of 6.5x compared to the same servers using > previous versions of GHC. The latency of Haskell servers is also improved: > <snip> under a moderate load, reduces expected response time by 5.7x when > compared with previous versions of GHC

> Available with GHC 7.8.1

Nice job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really want to get into Haskell, but I just don't understand it. The tutorial on the official site doesn't do it for me. Can anyone suggest alternative resources for learning? I'm used to C-like languages.

Thanks for all the responses. I'll start with LYAH.

<comment><USER18> I sincerely recommend against LYAH! It takes sooooooooo loooooong to get to the interesting bits that actually make Haskell worth learning an has so many try-to-be-funny examples that it makes you run away screaming... I tried going through it but it was literally oscillating between putting my mind to sleep and making wish to grab a chainsaw :) And the "humor" and "pretty pictures" don't help either... they were more like poignant guide to ruby, something that you either love or they annoy the hel out of you (this was for me), but either way they don't help the learning experience at all.

I suggest HFH ("Haskell Fast & Hard") as _the_ introductory tutorial to start with instead. You can pick from 2 formats:

\- [http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Haskell-the-Hard- Way...](http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Haskell-the-Hard-Way/) \- static all-in-one-page format with pretty pictures

\- [https://www.fpcomplete.com/school/to-infinity-and- beyond/pic...](https://www.fpcomplete.com/school/to-infinity-and-beyond/pick- of-the-week/haskell-fast-hard) \- split version, but with the ability to open snippets in their web based IDE

...after this, Real World Haskell is probably the next step: [http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/](http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/) (I'm still at this step).

<comment><USER19> I accidentally upvoted you, but I disagree. LYAH is a great book to actually read through, and I enjoyed the humor. real world haskell introduces things without explaining and it's quite confusing and inconsistent.

<comment><USER20> Why would downvote for disagreeing? GP is actually a well written comment, and very much deserves the upvote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm intrigued by "full iOS support." Does this mean it's now possible to write iOS apps using a Haskell backend?

<comment><USER22> I'm also intrigued. How would one program for iOS in a practical sense with Haskell? A great deal of iOS programming, as I understand it, is navigating the APIs and libraries provided by the SDK... is this a simple task in Haskell? The FFI is something I haven't really dealt with much yet. I guess people could/will start writing wrapper libraries?

<comment><USER23> Haskell has one of the best FFIs I've ever seen; calling C code from Haskell is quite trivial, and you can write all of the necessary wrapper code and objects (such as automatic memory management or object destruction) in Haskell using common wrappers.

I'd also highly recommend c2hs for writing new wrapper libraries.

<comment><USER24> Part of the problem is that iOS APIs tend to be Objective-C, which is somewhat harder to wrap in Haskell.

<comment><USER25> Not really, it's quite easy to call Objective-C methods (or more correctly, to send messages to Objective-C selectors) and perform other Objective-C-related tasks from C. See: [https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/...](https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/ObjCRuntimeRef/Reference/reference.html)

This is actually what the Objective-C compiler does. It translates your Objective-C code to C method calls.

<comment><USER26> It's not _that_ easy. I mean, just sending a message could entail one of objc_msgSend, obj_msgSend_stret or objc_msgSend_fpret, and which one you want to use is not always as clear-cut as you might prefer ([http://www.sealiesoftware.com/blog/archive/2008/10/30/objc_e...](http://www.sealiesoftware.com/blog/archive/2008/10/30/objc_explain_objc_msgSend_stret.html)). And then there's the hassle of defining classes dynamically, which entails six function calls just to create a class with one empty method, and one of those essential functions is not actually provided for you AFAIK unless you're using Apple's compiler where it's a builtin, so you'll need to write it yourself.

It's not ridiculously hard, but it's somewhat less easy than normal C FFI.

<comment><USER27> The other hard part about it is that Haskell's FFI doesn't support variadic functions in a friendly way, which makes argument passing that much trickier.

<comment><USER26> There is a similar problem with objc_msgSend in C: Methods with certain argument types can't be called with a normal objc_msgSend(). Instead, you need to create a specifically typed function pointer and assign objc_msgSend to it. I think a similar solution would be necessary with Haskell.

<comment><USER27> I'd appreciate seeing a link to an example of this. I put a decent amount of work (a few years ago) into writing some bindings in Haskell to the objc runtime, but ended up shelving it until I could come up with a satisfactory solution to the variadic function dilemma.

<comment><USER26> Here are a couple of Stack Overflow answers that illustrate how you do it in Objective-C:

[http://stackoverflow.com/a/2573949](http://stackoverflow.com/a/2573949)

[http://stackoverflow.com/a/18689338](http://stackoverflow.com/a/18689338)

If you're interested in the nitty-gritty of how objc_msgSend works, bbum from Apple wrote up a great low-level walkthrough a few years back: [http://www.friday.com/bbum/2009/12/18/objc_msgsend- part-1-th...](http://www.friday.com/bbum/2009/12/18/objc_msgsend-part-1-the- road-map/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I know enough about Haskell to be excited, but recently, I implemented a few systems with F# and am really happy with the language. If we forget about the .net/MS thing (and all the hatred that comes from that), are there real true advantages of going Haskell for a greenfield project over F# ? (I have a couple heavy algorithm heavy Haskell projects done, but having worked with F# more and more, I feel like it is so much nicer as a modern, not bend over your back to deal with the purity/lazy aspects language than Haskell).

</comment><comment><USER15> One really cute feature that some systems folks might like is there's now support for calling the CPU/hardware prefetch instruction where applicable. [http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.8.1/html/libraries/ghc- pri...](http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.8.1/html/libraries/ghc- prim-0.3.1.0/GHC-Prim.html#g:28)

<comment><USER29> Even better, if you use vector library, prefetch instructions are automatically (and nearly optimally) inserted for your loops written in higher-order functions like fold.

Details here: [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/simonpj/papers...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/simonpj/papers/ndp/)

<comment><USER15> Nope. That's not in the release version. Simd is still second class in ghc. Should be viable for ghc 7.10 though. Note well, the prefetches in that paper aren't optimal. In many cases prefetch is over issued.

You should only use prefetch when benchmarks show that the hardware prefetch isn't performing up to sniff. Or when your access pattern for data doesn't have good locality and doesn't resemble a linear arithmetic sequence. (Just rules of thumbs mind you. For more precise heuristics, please read your CPU vendors optimization manual. The intel manual has quite a few tricks that should apply to most modern CPUs overall)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> A bit off topic- why is GHC so large? I recently noticed it was over three times the size of gcc (for amd64, in an .xz archive).

<comment><USER22> This might be interesting to you: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4858585/why-is-ghc-so- lar...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4858585/why-is-ghc-so-large-big)

<comment><USER31> Now I'm kind of curious. The GHC is listed there as being 113 megabytes. When I try to install it on Arch Linux, the size is listed as 736MB! What in God's name is Arch doing to nearly septuple the size of this package— and more to the point, does anyone know any way of getting it to _not_ do that? I'd very much like to learn Haskell, but taking up that much space on my laptop's SSD is a dealbreaker.

<comment><USER5> That's because they're measuring the tarball, which is a worthless metric anyway (for example, we just switched to supporting .tar.xz, which reduced the size of Linux binary distributions close to 50% for a ~65MB total. But that doesn't tell you anything about what's inside.)

The unpacked binary distribution is closer to 1GB, which sounds about right. I speculate Arch Linux is doing a regular build with nothing special.

If 1GB is undoable for your laptop (which I find odd, as someone even on a 100GB device), then that's unfortunate. You're best to wait for some other build with things removed or to just build it yourself (for example, no dynamic linking).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I want to find a job as Haskell programmer!

<comment><USER9> I've projects I'd be willing to delegate, if I can pay you sufficiently little...

<comment><USER33> Sharing izietto's wish, how might one contact you?

<comment><USER9> You can shoot me an email (email@example.com) or hit me on irc (davidthomas on freenode - I typically lurk in #haskell and #snowdrift, amongst other places). I don't want to get hopes up too high - <USER3> little isn't going to be much in the short term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is GHCJS easy to install now? I'm very excited about that.

<comment><USER15> Luite is probably going to announce something like that in a few days. Ghcjs getting ready for general release was blocked by ghc 7.8.1 not being released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Great! Can't wait until the next release of the Haskell Platform now.

<comment><USER13> Don't.

There's no benefit to handcuffing yourself to the platform. Just install ghc and cabal, and enjoy yourself.

<comment><USER36> ... and use cabal sandboxes! Otherwise the "enjoy yourself" bit may be a little short-lived ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> What will be the easiest way to get GHC 7.8.1 running alongside the official GHC packages for Debian (specifically Jessie)?

Should I download a package from [http://deb.haskell.org/](http://deb.haskell.org/)? If so, where can I find 7.8.1?

<comment><USER38> The binary distributions install alongside your system packages or other bindists quite nicely (they might overwrite the /usr/bin/ghc symlink, but that's it) and you can select which ghc version you want to use when using cabal with the `-w` flag. Each will keep a separate package db, etc. So be bold!

<comment><USER37> Thank you for your comment. I've ended up installing 7.8.1 from the binary distributions from the GHC site: [http://www.haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_7_8_1](http://www.haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_7_8_1)

As easy as:

      tar -xJvf ghc-7.8.1-i386-unknown-linux-deb7.tar.xz
      cd ghc-7.8.1
      ./configure --prefix=/opt/ghc-7.8.1
      make install

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is great news for all 5 haskell programmers!

Just kidding, Haskell is a great language, it's unfortunate that the tooling is still way behind (at least on Windows) and that it isn't used much.</comment>


Encryption is a necessity - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2016/02/16/help-us-spread-the-word-encryption-matters/ <comment><USER2> _Companies should be encouraged to aggressively strengthen the security of their products, rather than undermine that security._

On the other hand, I think they should most certainly not be encouraged to secure products _against_ their users:

[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to- read.en.html](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html)

What worries me the most about this seemingly frantic push for more encryption is that it will accelerate the proliferation and acceptance of locked-down, user-hostile devices. Security is important but so is freedom, and I feel like we've already sacrificed too much of the latter for the former...

<comment><USER3> > accelerate the proliferation and acceptance of locked-down, user-hostile > devices.

We're already there. Can you read the Windows 10 telemetry?

<comment><USER4> On that subject, I'm kind of surprised that it's been out for months and nobody's reverse-engineered it publicly yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, why not massively fund Thunderbird with a focus on usability and end-to- end encryption then? :-( Or maybe invest in Signal to they can finally start to fix and improve at a remotely competitive pace?

<comment><USER6> Thunderbird works pretty well with S/MIME to encrypt/decrypt emails. It does not work as well as Mail.app on iOS/OSX, but it works.

<comment><USER7> it's

A) Not transparent

and

B) No longer supported by mozilla.[0]

[0] - [http://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-scraps-thunderbird- deve...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-scraps-thunderbird-development- email-client-not-a-priority-anymore/#)!

<comment><USER8> Why isn't it transparent? Isn't the code open source?

<comment><USER7> Not transparent to the user. Good security is one you don't have to have a PhD to configure. How much encryption is in iMessage? (Lots) how much did you do to configure it (none)

Transparent encryption (or, encryption for everyone even my mother) is the best way for it to be effective. So when I say transparent. I mean it should not be obvious to the end user and that user should not have to spend significant time configuring it.

<comment><USER9> At the end of the day, we need a way to handle key management for asymmetric encryption like pgp.

How do we allow people to share their private keys across multiple devices?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I agree...and with services like Keybase.io it's getting easier to use.

<comment><USER11> [EDIT: Thanks, I have one now :)]. Does anyone has an invite for Keybase by the way ? I've signed-up a while ago but the queue is probably to long. It seems a really promising service.

On my case, I've just migrated my domains to use letsencrypt, even if it's just in beta, it's so so much easier compared to 100% manual previous solutions ! Even if it's not domains with a huge trafic, I feel I'm doing my part to help !

<comment><USER12> Sure, I just sent you one to the email address on your profile.

<comment><USER13> You don't have another do you? I've been waiting for my invite for over a year now. :-/

<comment><USER12> Sorry I just saw your reply. Glad you got one.

I still have a bunch more, if anyone else wants them.

<comment><USER14> If it's not too late and you still have some, any chance you can send me one? would appreciate it!

<comment><USER12> I tried but looks like someone else already sent you one.

P.S. Great looking Hakyll site!

<comment><USER14> I was invited many months ago but I messed up the username. After investigating I realized that there's no way to fix it, and keybase staff says the only way is to delete the account and get re-invited [1].

I forgot to delete the account, but I did so now, so if you're still willing and would be so kind as to try again, I would greatly appreciate it! If not, no problem!

Thanks for the compliment!

[1]: [https://github.com/keybase/keybase- issues/issues/803](https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues/803)

<comment><USER12> I tried again as you said, but it still complained. What I ended up doing was to send the invitation to your gmail address without the two dots (as it's an alias for your original address), and apparently it worked.

I also emailed you the invitation code they generated, from my personal email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Encryption and security has always been a balance between convenience and capability. Although HTPPS and such are mostly transparent to end-user, we can see that slow adoption of public key encryption (GPG) indicates that people either need to be educated or the user experience needs to improve drastically. It's taken many years but there's a long road ahead.

<comment><USER16> > Encryption and security has always been a balance between convenience and > capability.

You could say the same thing about PCs and the internet, especially during their rise to prominence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you are not sure where you are with the subject of encryption, backdoors and privacy I suggest watching this video. It is also a great resource to share with people who are not so technical.

This video is a production of the Washington DC Chapter of the Internet Society. It is meant to be a starting point for discussions about encryption, privacy, and cybersecurity.

The Internet Exposed: Encryption, Backdoors and Privacy – and the Quest to Maintain Trust

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2D5dVtHXV8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2D5dVtHXV8)

</comment><comment><USER18> Video on a Mozilla page isn't playing on Firefox. Just saying...

<comment><USER19> It's a poor video, you're not missing much.

Painfully, it suggests "public vs private" hinges on encryption. The implication is that without encryption, your co-workers will see everything you do!

Public and private are distinct choices. Things can be private and unencrypted. Lack of encryption means lack of security in the event of a breach, it has nothing to do with choosing public vs private posts and web searches.

Works fine in my FF.

And for what it's worth, I think Apple should assist in revealing the contents of the phone if they can. I'm surprised people are defending Apple. My understanding is the request is about making the phone open to brute force attack, so it's not like encryption is under threat. It's poor password choice that's under threat. Apple does not need to compromise any other phone in doing this.

<comment><USER20> Without encryption, anyone on the same network - including your coworkers - can certainly see everything you do. Tools like Firesheep make it dead-simple to do.

What you're talking about is encryption of data _at rest_ , which is a specific subset of encryption. And even then, what makes you think the breached data won't be available to your coworkers? The stuff on Ashley Madison certainly did.

<comment><USER19> There still needs to be a breach, and intent. The video simplifies everything down to the equivalent of shouting your private message across a room when encryption is absent, which it certainly isn't.

If you want to sell encryption, please keep it real. A hand written letter to your mother in the post is private unless intentionally and illegally intercepted. By the logic of the video, the letter is passed along and read by your neighbors before reaching its true destination.

<comment><USER21> > The video simplifies everything down to the equivalent of shouting your > private message across a room when encryption is absent, which it certainly > isn't.

Uh, if you're on wifi or a mobile connection, depending on the configuration, it pretty much is _exactly_ like shouting a private message across a room

<comment><USER19> Except it isn't.

I could press a glass against the wall and listen to people having a private conversation. Does that make their conversation public "like shouting it across the room"? No. Of course it doesn't.

Get your analogies straight.

I could use my zoom lens to spy over your shoulder as you type your message into your super-encrypted phone. I will now publish the video on youtube, your private message now public. Serves you right for "shouting your message across the room".

<comment><USER22> That's not how WiFi works, it's not like a wall or anything. Your device _literally_ "shouts" (transmits in RF) your private message across the room (and into adjoining rooms). Anybody that can connect to the WiFi network (or has a decent machine and half an hour to kill) can read your message (the encryption in WiFi is fucked).

<comment><USER19> You've missed my point, again.

We live in a world where eavesdropping on a private conversation is possible because people aren't talking in a cone of silence every time they want privacy. The unlawful intent to listen in needs to be there, and then some sort of action is required to hear the conversation, such as holding a glass to a wall.

Exactly the same with digital messages. Sure, they can be listened to, but not by just anyone accidentally, as the video seems to suggest. Unlawful intent is required, and specific actions with specific software to listen in.

I'm all for encryption, but let's get something straight: unencrypted messages are not dripping down the walls for anyone to read who passes by.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Benchmarking Time Series Workloads with Kudu, InfluxDB and ClickHouse - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudera.com/benchmarking-time-series-workloads-on-apache-kudu-using-tsbs/ <comment><USER2> It would have been great to have range-partitioned PG12 in as part of the mix here. I don't think it would have fared too badly.

(cue someone from TimescaleDB chiming in)</comment>


Good Math, Bad Math: Binary Heaps - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/04/binary_heaps.php# <comment><USER2> Nice! I'd love to see a follow-up that deals with the "Sideways Heaps" that Knuth discusses in his last "Computer Musings" lecture (on video at [http://scpd.stanford.edu/scpd/students/Dam_ui/pages/Archived...](http://scpd.stanford.edu/scpd/students/Dam_ui/pages/ArchivedVideoList56K.asp?Include=musings))</comment>


It is the best of times. - <AUTHOR> http://vantagon.com/2012/04/it-is-the-best-of-times/ It is the best of times. The sociopolitical upheaval caused globally by the unraveling of the world's most threatening economic crisis has given us a new context by which to measure what stands and what doesn't.
It is the best of times. Mainly because in our desperation to find quick fixes to our most pressing concerns, we do not succumb to mediocrity, but rather look for truly disruptive means to amplify our reach and expand our productive capacity as a species. It; is; the; best; of; times.
When most people would say all we do is destroy perfectly working institutions and bankrupt perfectly working business models, I would argue that all we do is get rid of what appeared to be working, but it was actually existing under the radar of a global society that was disconnected from everything.
As we began leveraging information networks worldwide, and technology enabled us to become inter-connected sources of information, the outreach and our own capacity to distribute, process and execute information has substantially increased like never before.
Now, what this precisely does for us, is to build a contextual capacity by which we can measure what stands as worthy and what does not; what will we tolerate and what we simply won't- a method of discerning what simply won't cut it. Imagine it as if we've had this sea of inefficiencies and lack of productivity, but we couldn't see it. Data yields conclusions, and during the industrial age, we did not have access to data.
Now that we do have access to data, we are beginning to inter-connect it and yield conclusions. The World Bank releases data and maintains an API to let developers access their datasets and build applications. Conclusions. In the information age, we obtain them by converting implicit knowledge into an explicit, actionable form- mobile & social applications being the full embodiment of this.
FACT: The economic breakdown of 2008 has produced such a increase in the global debt level that it will take 10 to 15 years to reduce it back to where it was before the crisis.
Then, what if we eliminate or change all the institutions that are stuck in the industrial age? all these wasteful and outdated entities that got us here -yes, forget the classical tale of greed; although part of the problem, greed is not the main cause, but rather a symptom enforced by institutions with no accountability or sustainability. We must classify all these institutions, notions, regulations, industries and their corresponding processes as bullshit and start anew.
Generation Y was brought up with web-enabled tools that made transparency and efficiency a key part of every piece of action embedded to their fingertips. Now it is time to apply that concept to industries where we never could have imagined it working: Banking, Congress, fundraising, Government spending, taxes, inter-company intelligence.
All it takes is vision; for someone, somewhere to dream up a system, a model, a method to change what is already established. That which we usually take for granted, which we ignore it's broken, which we think we cannot change.
But we are driven, as a group of passionate professionals, to find these other people who dream with reinventing the established notions that rule and define society. We are driven to work with them in enabling a better tomorrow, based in innovation, sustainability and the transmigration of values from technology into every sphere of society.
Because the tools we use define what kind of people we are. It's no surprise nowadays that a government that prohibits the use of Twitter is not recognizing their citizen's rights to free speech and access to information.
That's an assertion we can all agree upon now, but for this contemporary association to occur, we first had to dream up of a system that would let people share their knowledge with no restrictions, other than in batches of 140 characters.
The next big thing could come from anywhere, anyone. This is why it is the best of times. It is time to reinvent. It is time to chase your passion and have a shot at a bold mission for yourselves. We are Vantagon, and we exist to empower your vision.
< DESIGN / CODE / AMAZE > <comment> hippee-lee I could not access this. It says you have to have an account.</comment>


Where will all the web developers go? - <AUTHOR> http://morethanseven.net/2008/11/30/where-will-all-web-developers-go/

<comment><USER2> They'll have to do the same thing that everyone else who's worked in the computer industry for a long period of time does: they retrain in the latest and greatest technology every 5-10 years.

Some of people I've worked with have great stories about programming in PL/1, on punch cards, and then dropping the box of cards and sending their program sprawling across the tiled floor. Or writing a compiler in Fortran and having to manage their own overlays because only one pass could fit in memory at the same time. It's a world I can't really imagine, because it had mostly disappeared before I was born. But they retrained in various minicomputer assembly languages, and then C, and then C++, and sometimes Java, and one was even learning Python last I saw him.

It's unrealistic to expect you'll never have to learn anything new in this field. Heck, I've only been doing this for 8 years (with a 4-year break for college) and I've had to reinvent myself twice already (from a Java Swing programmer to a server-side webdev, and then again to a client-side JavaScript developer, and may soon be leaving that behind for mobile). Software engineering can be a harsh field like that. But the flip side is that you get to work in an exciting, dynamic, wide-open field. If you want consistency, be an accountant.

<comment><USER3> That's the theory, but it's not what happens in practice.

In reality, how many older programmers do you know who are still coding professionally? Of the guys I worked with just a decade ago, most have moved into management, or out of the field entirely. If the people in my circle are representative, coding isn't a profession with any longevity.

Of course, it makes sense: it's simply not realistic to expect that you can continually re-invent your professional life on an eight-year cycle. Even if you have the tenacity and mental skill required to do it, the drive eventually goes away, because it's a futile game. You become a modern-day Sisyphus, struggling to push your rock up a hill, only to watch a new generation of people come along and push it back down. And given that our colleagues in other fields -- law, medicine, engineering -- grow more respected with time, it's not unreasonable to want something more.

<comment><USER2> Several, actually. About 20% of the programmers I've worked with have been over 50, with the majority of the rest being in their 30s. Two of the over-50s (I think one's close to 60 now) actually made it to VP of Engineering in various companies and then dropped _back_ to a programmer role because that's what they wanted to do.

The ranks do thin out, and I think programming is largely a young-person's game. But the people who are really passionate about it when they're 20 tend to be the ones that stick around for a lifetime.

And at least in Massachusetts, older programmers _are_ respected. Maybe it's different in Silicon Valley; I've heard the culture is much more youth- oriented there (one of the reasons it appeals to me, actually). But here you're expected to pay your dues, and senior software engineers really _are_ senior.

<comment><USER3> If only 2 out of 10 programmers are still doing it when they're 50, that's a pretty pathetic retention rate.

(I realize that I'm extrapolating from an anecdote. The numbers are on par with my own experience, however, and are part of what prompted my comment.)

<comment><USER4> ... assuming that the number of 20-year-olds going into programming 30 years ago is the same as today.

<comment><USER5> Precisely. Computing has been changing rapidly throughout history, but the advent of the PC was a _big_ change, because it created a massive cohort of people like me who had encountered computers even before high school.

How old is that cohort? Let's see... if you were fourteen when the Altair came out in 1975, today you would be... 47.

<comment><USER3> There have been massive fluctuations in interest in computer science since the 1970s, so it's a poor assumption that 50-somethings would be under-represented in the industry.

If programmers were staying in the field, we should probably see a distribution where there is a good representation of 20-somethings from the early 80s (the last major boom) -- those people would be around 40 today. I don't see that; I see a lot of 20-somethings, and a few 30-somethings, and it's been that way for as long as I can remember. There seem to be other forces at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Robotics and virtual worlds?

To me, the "web" (as in web developers), is really about UI programming (html), system communications protocols (e.g. XMPP, SOAP, HTTP), and data persistence (rdbms).

Earlier on (a decade ago), there seemed to be a lot of effort spent implementing these three aspects (many home grown libraries for these three parts). Now, each of these three aspects have many prepackaged frameworks to make things much easier. IMHO there's nothing fundamentally different in these protocols than their forefathers that ruled the systems in decades earlier.

I suspect there will be a transition to new UI mechanisms (virtual worlds), data persistence systems (note the recent rise in alternative databases), and protocols to support all of that (probably related to distributed computing and SOA).

Robotics seems ready to support a large influx of software developers. This field would almost certainly require a different architecture than the traditional 'web' system as the inputs and outputs and real-time aspects seem to be significantly different for this platform. Ergo more home grown solutions initially with frameworks and toolkits to follow.

Ultimately, I think it will be more about AI and higher level information architecture problems.

<comment><USER7> This is really smart. I wonder why you had the bejezus downmodded out of you? Well, I gave you a point.

You're right, new fields like robotics will require a lot of programmers.

<comment><USER8> bsaunder's comment makes sense to me. Programmers from the 90s who wrote largely Windows desktop stuff had to reinvent themselves to be effective with the web and we can expect to have to do the same every few years. It's really not about Windows programming or web programming, it's about designing structures to store and expose information and that much isn't going to go away - there's only going to be more and more information. I don't see such a great growth in robotics but I'm perfectly prepared to be proven wrong in that. The line "Ultimately, I think it will be more about AI and higher level information architecture problems" strikes me as spot-on.

We've still got rather a lot of work to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been in this game nearly a decade and I have yet to see a decline in the amount of knowledge still available to gain. Learning one thing seems to have the tendency to present 10 more learning opportunities for my troubles. My philosophy is, if I find myself in a job where there isn't much more I can learn, it's time to find a new job. Or a new career. Or perhaps just a new hobby.

I don't know many web developers who are strictly that. Most web developers have other programming-related passions so in the event that they somehow "master" web development, there are countless other forms of programming to learn. Something tells me I'll be doing this for a long time. That, or I'll become a Monk. I have always enjoyed the quiet and I hear they take vows of silence.

</comment><comment><USER10> Programmers have the potential to generate a lot of cash in a short period of time, whether through consulting, full-time employment, or through the development of their own software. While you can invest your time in learning new skills, you can also invest your money in assets that are more stable than various programming skills. You can buy property, businesses, stocks, and funds that can support you later on should you tire of learning the most marketable skills of the day. Perhaps this is where many of the web developers will go -- somewhere else less stressful.

I do believe however, that attaining true expertise in one programming field is largely transferable to another field, so perhaps time spent learning programming skills holds it's value relatively well.

<comment><USER11> Doctors and lawyers can generate large amounts of cash, too, but they continue doing so at an accelerating rate until well into their 60s.

<comment><USER10> This is true, but there is more up front investment in both time and money required to become either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sure what this was really getting at. Replace "web developers" with nearly any profession and the issue is the same. They'll deal with it the same way everyone else has and does.

</comment><comment><USER13> they won't go anywhere, they'll just grow up and realise that with wife, kids and a mortgage they better go out and get a 9 to 5 job.

<comment><USER2> He's talking largely about web developers who already have a 9 to 5 job:

"Work seems to exist in lots of places; big in-house teams, small in-house teams, agencies, startups and freelancers...I'm a little odd here in having previously worked mainly for agencies followed by a stint of freelancing, and now work for a decent sized in-house team at Global Radio."

Most web developers are professionals - they draw a salary while working for someone else. The folks who're bootstrapping a webstartup while living in their parents' basement are a pretty tiny minority, though perhaps overrepresented here.</comment></comment>


The Kids Who Beat Autism - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/magazine/the-kids-who-beat-autism.html <comment><USER2> It's probably due to me recently become a parent myself, but the thing that gets me the most (and I'll admit I can barely read it without tearing up), is the last bit about Jackie and her son Matthew, who has not responded to the treatment at all:

 _Jackie's son, Matthew, now 24, has not had that conversation with his parents. In fact, he barely has conversations at all. At the group home where he now lives, near a horse farm in the Berkshires, the staff can generally interpret the sounds he makes. Sometimes he types clues on the iPod Touch his parents gave him, because he long ago learned to spell the things that matter to him. But mostly he seems absorbed by his interior life._

...

 _The idea that Matthew won't recover no longer pains Jackie. "At some point," she told me, "I realized he was never going to be normal. He's his own normal. And I realized Matthew's autism wasn't the enemy; it's what he is. I had to make peace with that. If Matthew was still unhappy, I'd still be fighting. But he's happy. Frankly, he's happier than a lot of typically developing kids his age. And we get a lot of joy from him. He's very cuddly. He gives us endless kisses. I consider all that a victory."_

I'm without words. Remarkable people.

<comment><USER3> Out of personal experience, this is the only way to live with it. Otherwise, someone will be unhappy and most probably this one will be a child that has no way to express the immensity of its distress. When we got the diagnosis for our son, first night, we were sitting with my wife outside, while he was sleeping. She told me "I do not want to force him to be something he is not. I do not want him to be a robot." And we decided to try to instead understand how it is to be him and find the best and most normal communication channel in his world. In the process, I think we all developed and we are extremely lucky to now read this article and know that he is very close to be one of these few cases that are "cured". I will just leave this here, in case someone is going through the same situation. You will find a million different treatments and theories. Always be present at the treatment and see how it makes you feel. If you feel alright, keep on. If something is feeling wrong leave. Do not overload the child with specialist time, especially as he/she progresses the time the child wants is with you. Work with the child like if you push one of those super market trolleys with one wheel stuck, you have to move and bend your own body. Finally, try to introduce the child to unexpectedness and randomness. Do it gently. Flip a coin (randomness), hide the coin in your palm and let him choose which palm it is in (unexpectedness of someone else's decisions), play rock-paper-scissors. Don't do it all at once. It took us one year form hidden coin to rock-paper-scissors. And finally read. You will discover more about yourself in the process. Finally, be prepared to face discrimination. It's not the worst kind, but very painful and disappointing. This world will always resist difference in some form, and given the lax network of people with this difference, discrimination against it is more efficient and frustrating.

Edit: if the above sound simple, don't think I would ever imply so. When you feel too tired to do anything, have some rest (if you can) and know that probably everyone, but at least we, felt despair many times.

<comment><USER4> Reading this I cant understand some people remove there unborn because it is diagnosed with a disorder like down.

Sure life can get difficult but reading your stories it seems that there is no difference between a 'normal' child and one a little different.

<comment><USER3> Definitely, the fact that our love for our child is put to test does not in any way mean that it is greater than the love a parent of a neurotypical child has. But there are differences, like many more sleepless nights, a sweeping change in social life, an increased anxiety for the future of the child when we will not be around and of course the discrimination part I mentioned in the end. As an example, families with a child on the spectrum have limited mobility, not just because of the associated difficulties, but also because a range of countries will just not accept them (e.g. Australia and Canada), or will do so with much more difficulty. Therefore, while I understand where you are coming from, there are practical, even ratified differences which make some potential life paths even harder or impossible. Furthermore, these difficulties are often supported by the same politics/politicians that claim to care about all lives. On my part, I share with you the all encompassing respect and appreciation of life, as I live a happy life next to a different child that constantly amazes me. I would be reluctant to attribute someone else's choice to their personal disrespect for life, as long as there is a societal discrimination that might affect such decisions.

Edit: I wish to be a little more explicit. The choice discussion is void in my eyes, since society has already made implicit choices around this subject which form significant input to the individual decision processes. By sending conflicting signals and putting forward choice on the one hand and respect for life on the other, we are just shaking off a collective responsibility and handing it over to an atomic existence that we already alienate in this manner. Let's fix the social norms and then we can discuss more meaningfully. If in the middle ages people with Down syndrome were properly integrated in the society, the current state of affairs is telling of the brutality and barbarism of our modern societies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> But what exactly constitutes "beating" Autism? Is this actually desirable?

I was diagnosed with Asperger's in the mid-90s. I wrote about the experience anonymously for Boing Boing at one point[1].

But the TL;DR is that having lived in both "worlds", the experience of being "cured" was not worth it. The emotional costs were much too high - I just traded ASD for PTSD. I used to be a happy kid with few friends who tinkered with computers. Now I'm a very social guy who will shake your hand, look you in the eye, ask all the right questions to make you feel special. And I'll be miserable the whole time.

[1] [http://boingboing.net/2013/01/05/pedagogyofthedepressed.html](http://boingboing.net/2013/01/05/pedagogyofthedepressed.html)

<comment><USER6> I feel you. The weirdest thing about it for me is that I try to hide this even from myself. I'm trying to be normal all day and think I don't even suffer from autism that badly, but every now and again it just cracks.

In a way I'm like everyone else. I care about friends and family; I try to be productive and make useful things; I like learning about new technologies. At the same time I'm also different and people notice it. They don't ask me when a group in class is going out to celebrate the holidays. I'd chicken out of this social happening and probably say no, but what bothers me is that they don't even ask.

Some vocalize that they notice something is off and I might tell them about autism and give them an outline of what it means. If I tell them I often also ask if they can put it into concrete examples of what I do differently. They never can.

But I'll carry on. I'm normal enough, I can pull through life and make a living. Hope to meet a SO some day who understands me. That probably means she must have her limitations too and I'll have to live with that, but in return she might understand mine and that's worth all the gold in the world.

Hope this isn't too weird a post for Hacker News, I needed to write this after reading about a fellow person with autism. Keep hacking.

<comment><USER7> >In a way I'm like everyone else.

When I was diagnosed with ADD as an adult, the doctor said, people with ADD are just like everyone else, only moreso.

A lot of what I feel, and the comments I see from those diagnosed on the autism spectrum, sounds like good old introversion. An introvert in a social setting is very much wearing a mask, trying to hold on long enough before all willpower is drained. I guess an extrovert probably feels the same about reading Large Scale C++ Software Design on a Saturday night.

<comment><USER8> Across the spectrum of neurodiversity (incl. ADD & autism), a large gap exists in language for:

\- common emotional experiences, good and bad

\- coping patterns for profiling & impedance matching other humans

\- dysfunctional behavior patterns that should be avoided

Sadly, because most of these behaviors have been observed from the viewpoint of medical pathology, many "dictionaries" have a negative slant.

E.g. ADD could be a "deficit" of attention, or it could be a "surplus" of attention, e.g. someone switches into a context for a few seconds, then switches out because they are already finished processing it. It's like the duty cycle of an electronic component, forcing the duration to be longer would lead to sensor overload.

Someone could be labelled introvert because they can only spend a short amount of time with other people. But perhaps they have low psychic barriers for the energy of other people and are being bombarded with emotions. Is that anti- social or super-social? What if there was standardized terminology for configuring emotional firewalls?

The language of disability is often defined by majorities. One ADD person with four non-ADD people may be viewed as "rude" for interrupting before sentences are complete, whereas one non-ADD person among four ADD people may be unable to keep up with five concurrent and tangential conversations where completed sentences are entirely optional.

<comment><USER9> > The language of disability is often defined by majorities. One ADD person > with four non-ADD people may be viewed as "rude" for interrupting before > sentences are complete, whereas one non-ADD person among four ADD people may > be unable to keep up with five concurrent and tangential conversations where > completed sentences are entirely optional.

Thank you for making that comparison. I still struggle to hold back from finishing others' sentences, even though it seems like I finish them "correctly" more often than not.

I'm also reminded of how how middle eastern peace talks are complicated, in part, by the major differences in conversational styles. One side expects to be interrupted, while the other finds it incredibly rude.

<comment><USER8> There's a great improv book that helps with inter-universe clock sync and emotional reactions to resync operations :) [http://www.amazon.com/Impro- Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-John...](http://www.amazon.com/Impro- Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178/)

<comment><USER9> Seconded. I've been meaning to re-read my copy for ages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the keys to treatment is catching it early. As the parent of a child with autism, I am always surprised when I talk to people today who still aren't aware of some of the signs that point to the possibility autism. I had assumed they were common knowledge by now.

Things like toe-walking, repeating words or sounds (echolalia), limited or no eye contact, and an unwillingness or inability to point to objects are fairly easy things to observe in your own children or even kids you see around town.

The list in the link below is a good overview, and the few I listed above are considered 'classic' symptoms to look for.

[http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/autism- spectru...](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/autism-spectrum- disorder/basics/symptoms/con-20021148)

<comment><USER11> For any parents starting to get worried: toe-walking is completely normal for many children below 5 years old and even older[1]. Usually they grow out of it as they get older. So I would definitely not consider that a sign pointing to the possibility of autism.

[1] [http://www.webmd.com/children/news/20120723/childrens-toe- wa...](http://www.webmd.com/children/news/20120723/childrens-toe-walking-not- sign-bigger-problems)

<comment><USER12> But it can be one flag (of many) pointing to a sensory processing disorder and should be noted if other behaviors are seen.

My son toe-walked. We did some mild sensory-processing screening and therapy which helped. It also turned out that his tendons were too short and he needed serial casting to get them stretched out far enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The photo caption at the top of the article: "Mark Macluskie, 16, who is no longer autistic."

That's wrong. He's learned coping strategies that let him deal with the negative characteristics of autism, enough that most people don't perceive him as autistic. That's excellent, an ideal outcome. I've done the same with my own autism. I haven't stopped being autistic. There are other traits, many of them positive, that will always be with me, just as they are for Mark.

There's this awful mindset that autism is a sickness, and if you stop acting sick, you no longer have autism. Mark's mother says, "Even doctors say, 'Well, he must have been misdiagnosed, because a person can't stop having autism.' It's so frustrating. Mark worked so hard. To deny everything he did to get this far isn't fair." I know she means well, and has done well by her son, but this shit makes me want to flip a table. Autism is not a mark of shame. There's nothing wrong with being a high-functioning autistic. We need to stop spreading this malignant notion that autistics are damaged by definition.

</comment><comment><USER14> IIRC, these kinds of approaches are collectively termed "positive psychology":

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

The theories in this field suggest that many disorders can be explained as the absence of certain knowledge and skillsets: in the case of autism, language skills and nonverbal social skills; in the case of depression, stress management and exercise habits, among others.

Another way to look at it is that there are actually several underlying causes of autism, not all of which must be present for symptoms to appear, and only in certain cases can it be reversed. It appears that a particular and persistent functional deficit in the children treated was that they did not understand how to get other people's attention: maybe various events or genetic factors in early childhood can inhibit the way this is normally learned, and maybe that learning process can be retriggered.

<comment><USER15> ABA is in NO way part of positive psychology. It is an offshoot of Skinner's school of behaviorism.

<comment><USER16> A positive psychologist might use behaviorist techniques, cognitive techniques, or even psychoanalytical techniques if they think it will contribute to their patient becoming less incongruent.

Positive psychology is a preference of goal states; behaviorism is an early theoretical approach (the first scientific approach to psychology) to studying minds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I debated posting this, but there is one part of the article that really resonated with me:

 _I asked him if there was anything he missed about being autistic. "I miss the excitement," he said. "When I was little, pretty often I was the happiest a person could be. It was the ultimate joy, this rush in your entire body, and you can't contain it. That went away when my sister started teasing me and I realized flapping wasn't really acceptable._

I have a son that "flaps" and we have been concerned about autism for about a year and a half now, since he turned two. He has _some_ autism signs, but our developmental ped says not the _classic_ signs. He can do eye contact, he is social, but he didn't speak, he did have the "daydream gaze."

We've been doing speech therapy now since he turned 2 and we've added an additional speech therapist since he turned 3. His progress has been remarkable, I can have a real conversation with him sometimes (granted, I have to infer a lot, but it's huge from where he was!). He has issues "taking turns", waiting in lines for camel rides at the zoo or getting on the carousel is really hard for him.

So, the flapping thing. My kid is _great_! I love him as he is! I want the best for him, I want him to be as "normal" as possible. But if he says what this kid says, that he was happier flapping, then I really hope he doesn't lose that. I love him as he is and I want nothing more for him than to be happy. We are extremely fortunate that he's not been diagnosed with debilitating autism and might have what's known as sensory perception disorder instead. But in the end, it doesn't matter, he's a great kid and he's happy and I want to keep it that way.

<comment><USER18> >"When I wanted to flap, I'd put my hands in my pockets. I think I came up with that on my own. It was frustrating for those two years. It was like smiling and then someone telling you that you shouldn't smile, that smiling was wrong. Remembering to put my hands in my pockets made me less excited because I had to think about it so much. But as time goes on, you get in the habit. So by the time I was 10 or 11, I wasn't even feeling the urge to flap."

I didn't understand what flapping was until I read your comment and searched the op for clarification. Coming across the above quote was...I'm not sure what it was. I do feel a bit more sad about the situation after reading it though.

Please (and I recognize this is likely moot as you seem quite aware) consider what "normal" means and what its worth might be.

<comment><USER17> > I didn't understand what flapping was

Right! I'm assuming everyone knows what flapping is, but it's not obvious! It's literally flapping your hands in ... anticipation? excitement? sensory overload? I don't know, but I think my son does.

> Please ... consider what "normal" means and what its worth might be.

Yes, I put "normal" in quotes for a reason as I don't particularly care too much about "normal." For me and my son "happy" is more important than normal for the most part. But, there is a _huge_ issue. I chose to have children later in life (I'm 43 right now and my son is 3). So there is pressure on me and my family to make sure that whatever happens that my son is cared for and kept happy.

I can't guarantee that I can ensure he's financially taken care of after I'm gone. I _hope_ that issue is far down the road and I hope it won't be an issue, _but_ what if it is? Do I work on helping him to become "normal"? Or do I _hope_ that I can provide for him _no matter what_?

So do I make the decision at all costs to make sure he's provided for by becoming "normal" or do I dash that to the wind and hope I make enough money to provide for him when I'm gone, but keep him happy?

There is a good reason to making sure that he can be productive in society at the cost of losing himself (if that's possible, no one knows that it is) vs. keeping who he is at all costs. Does that make sense?

I hope it's clear that I love him for who he is no matter what, but that I want to make sure that he has a "good" life for the rest of his life. Hopefully this is all moot as he's doing very well with speech therapy and occupational therapy.

<comment><USER18> >I hope it's clear that I love him for who he is no matter what...

Yes, that's very clear. I think considering who his father is, either way, he'll be just fine. I wish you both the best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I noted earlier that a friend of mine is an ABA therapist and has been working with autistic children for over 20 years.

He once told me that I was in what he termed 'a risk group for having a child with autism'.

I was taken aback and he went on to explain that while there is no hard and fast rule, it had been noted that there was a prevalence of fathers with particular types of job, namely engineers and computer scientists, amongst the fathers of the autistic children they cared for.

Often the fathers (and on rare occasions the mothers), were also 'within the same spectrum', even if it just manifested itself as social introversion or 'geekyness'.

In retrospect I imagine this isn't often discussed with the parents since throwing 'genetic blame' around isn't exactly productive and it is widely believed that there is no singular 'cause of autism' anyway.

<comment><USER20> My son has been diagnosed with Asperger's, and after learning more about it, it is painfully clear that both I and my wife and several other close family members have many of the same traits, just not extreme enough to be a "problem".

That is to say, the official DSM-5 definition of autism includes "Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning." I definitely feel like I share many of the traits, but they just make me socially awkward rather than significantly impairing me.

So I'll be shocked if there doesn't turn out to be a very significant genetic link. I suspect difficulties so far in finding it have to do with lumping too many people in as "autistic" while excluding too many people who are "sort of autistic." The classes still need a better refactoring. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good article.

I'm hesistant to talk about it, even in the relative anonymity of my HN username, but swathes of this article read like a script covering the past few years for us.

Thankfully, we've had great success, but not without constant effort and patience on all fronts - at home, out and about, when researching, when dealing with our county and state resources, insurance company and of course all the people who have _very_ strong opinions on all things autism.

In a nutshell, I'm all for the sort techniques the article describes alongside a sensible definition of 'normal' and most importantly selflessness in seeking what's best for your child.

If anyone reading this has an inkling to chat, feel free to use the email in my profile.

<comment><USER22> Having kids is a gamble. Having a child diagnosed with Autism (as my won was at the age of 2) is a gamble as well. We lost the first bet, but like you, seem to be doing better on the second one.

We (my wife and I) wagered nearly everything - our financial resources, career changes, intense daily effort for years, endless therapies (PLAY, ABA, RDI, OT, PT, Aqua, you name it), and the gamble has "paid off". Upon first meeting few would pick up on our son's 'quirkyness'.

Our ABA records indicate it took my son 600 tries to learn the color red. Today, its his favorite color... and I'm perfectly fine with that. The process changed my son... but he's happy, well functioning, has friends, has opinions, has ideas (some kinda wacky!) but I'd do it all again in a heart beat.

Overall, the effort has cost us (financially, health, atrophied tech skills , even socially), but it's all worth it for him. There's no comparison between hearing a roaring belly laugh from him vs. him perseverating on some toy car.

Keep it up and I wish you the best!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The field has made significant improvements past ABA with PRT (pivotal response therapy[1]). PRT extends upon ABA by, instead of rewarding with "tickling him or giving him an M&M," using the patient's restricted interest as a reward itself. The "three small laminated coupons" method in this article is somewhat related to the PRT methodology.

Drs. Lynn and Robert Koegel of UC Santa Barbara[2] run a center for ASD treatment using PRT. The idea behind the center is significant parent PRT education.

I feel the urge to bring this up because whenever ASD is written about, no one seems to be up to date on the research. The vaccine/vitamin/mercury bullshit doesn't help.

Throwing this article[3] in here because everyone is talking about a "cure" for autism, while research is providing compelling evidence that there isn't much to be medically cured, really.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pivotal_response_therapy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pivotal_response_therapy)

[2] [http://education.ucsb.edu/autism](http://education.ucsb.edu/autism)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity)

</comment><comment><USER24> This is wild. It seems to support that argument isn't "thing" that you "have". Instead it's a description of the state of a brain. And, perhaps most importantly, that brain state isn't necessarily fixed. Autism isn't a fundamental property of the brain state. It's only a description of the current state. And with great effort, and a lot of luck, that state can be changed. Wild.

<comment><USER25> > it's a description of the state of a brain

Most people with autism have bad digestive tract problems and other inflammatory issues like asthma. Autism is a systemic disease, not simply something in the brain. This is also true of other "mental" illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression.

<comment><USER26> Autism isn't a disease...others don't even classify autism as a 'mental' illness. Those on the high-end of the spectrum may feel they just have a different brain, and a gift.

<comment><USER27> Whether autism is a 'disease', 'illness' or 'disorder' is somewhat of a semantic issue at this point due to the fact that 1) those words can and are used interchangeably depending on social context, and 2)lack of understanding in the underlying mechanisms. Given Autism is a spectrum disorder, there are going to be those who take umbrage with being labeled, but also those who are clearly disabled and unable to care for themselves.

Some cases clearly present as a disease state, with autoimmune issues, neurological issues, etc. Whether these are comorbid conditions or really part of autism itself isn't clear at this point. The fact that children also commonly 'regress' following periods of normal development also argues in favor or some sort of disease state, for the same reason we call Parkinson's a disease.

I have a strong hunch that "Autism" as we know it will continue to be teased apart into a variety of more specific diagnosis. We've already seen this to some extent where other developmental disorders once lumped in with ASD have been specifically named following etiological discovery.

From my own experience: My son is autistic. I suppose he'd fall under the 'low functioning' side of the spectrum. He can't talk, doesn't understand language receptively very well, is incapable of controlling himself when excited, etc.

Anyway, I try to be involved (or at least aware) of every aspect of his education, and in doing so regularly visit his classroom. What strikes me most is that there is such large variability between 'autistic' individuals. There are some commonalities, unquestionably, but there are just as many differences. However, through regular observation I have noticed trends amongst the kids, or 'clusters' as I call them. I am sure social factors play a substantial role in the variability, but trying to see past that, it seems to me like there are different 'types' of autism.

Of course, I'm no autism researcher (though I've been involved in research at the MIND Institute), and don't pretend to be any sort of neuroscientist with only a BS in biochemistry and a few classes involving neurobiology years ago -- but I'm not the only one who notices this. It almost seems 'common knowledge' to the Occupational/Speech/Adaptive ...etc therapists and educators who deal with dozens of kids on a daily basis. That these subgroups of autism aren't more commonly researched/published really surprises me, and trust me, I look for them.

In time we'll uncover much more about neurological/genetic/epigenetic/microbial factors involved in these 'types' and probably result in a number of different formal diagnosis/treatments. I would not be surprised if those considered 'high functioning' are found to differ enough to warrant a separate diagnosis from those on the 'low functioning' side.

edit: a word

<comment><USER28> I think you really hit on something with the "regress at some point" idea. Our youngest daughter has severe (low functioning) autism. Starting around 1 year old, her behavior and language seemed to start regressing (she was talking in 3 word "sentences" prior to that). At first, we had a "diagnosis" of Pervasive Development Disability - Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) before officially getting one of actual Autism. It has taken years of therapy (ABA), and many doctor visits (I assume MIND institute refers to UC Davis Med Center MIND..., which we've certainly been to) to get her at 10 years old to function at roughly the level of a 3 year old.

That regression seems to divide the Aspergers from the hard-core Autistics. Our son has Aspergers, as well, but is quite intelligent. Getting him to shut up about his own little world can be a challenge, though. He is learning to cope, and dealing with his issues is far preferable to low functioning autism. (unless of course one likes having ones house tore up most of the time, "potty breaks" in random spots around the house, and trying to keep a child from running out of the house who may or may not be dressed...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A friend of mine is an ABA therapist. I sat in on one of his sessions once with the parents' permission (takes place in the family house).

I was amazed at how exhausting it is for all concerned, including the child. The costs are also astronomical since the process is extremely human resource dependent for a long time. For most families who are lucky enough to afford or be funded for an ABA program, the children often start aged 2+ and continue on until mid-teens.

Families are forced to give up almost everything to take part in these programmes. They have my utmost respect.

</comment><comment><USER29> My mom helped a kid with autism using the Son-Rise program. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son-Rise](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son-Rise) program. It worked well for him.

</comment><comment><USER30> So if you have high IQ you have more success in devising coping strategies - not exactly rocket science.

You don't cure Autisiam/Dyslexia or these sorts of learning disabilities you develop strategies to cope.

</comment><comment><USER31> A related story, the amazing Dr. Temple Grandin[1] whose life was documented in a BBC Horizon documentary a few years ago: "The woman who thinks like a cow"[2].

[1]:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin)

[2]:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6aClN6VsTE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6aClN6VsTE)

</comment><comment><USER32> OMG! This article is a complete breath of fresh air. Autistic people are considered disabled or retarded but they are not. They are actually quite intelligent. In fact, too intelligent that it gets in the way of social development (or rather WE determine them to be socially undeveloped). Their minds race in only certain directions and leaves behind development in social interactions. This lack of social development overshadows and hides all of the other things they are good at.

Autistic people have a difficult time of inferring social behavior. It does not come naturally to them. The behavior needs to be spelled out and explicitly stated.

Autistic people are programmable individuals, but the only problem is that normal people lack the interface to communicate with them.

I am glad to hear of the positiveness expressed in this article, but I do not like the over-sensationalized title "kids who beat Autism". No one ever 'beats' autism.

</comment><comment><USER33> From the article it seems like some of the symptoms are associated with inadequate sensing or awareness of social cues. That makes me wonder if taijiquan is a good exercise to help with that, as it trains sensitivity to small movements, intentions, and body structure. I'm not sure how well kids pick it up, though.

</comment><comment><USER34> Three days ago I had the most amazing experience playing in playback theater for a room full of (~100) grownups of the autistic spectrum (living in hostels in the community, mostly with high verbal skills). The stories they chose to share were about couples. A loss of a lifelong partner, I want to see my best friend every day. I remember a story of a young man (in his twenties). He was advocated by his girlfriend to go up and share his story. She didn't talk but her body language was very convincing taking his hand waving it up in the air, smiling, looking directly at the host. He was very shy, and the host decided that it was not that she was pushing him to do something he didn't wanted, but that she was in some way representing him, and that shy people should also get their chance of telling their story. It took a while to understand his story, but in a nutshell her parents invited them (for dinner?) , and his parents did not. He couldn't answer some of the questions (such as what did they do at her parents house), so the host and him stood up hand in hand walked to his partner and she somehow helped him to feel good again (I think she said it was dinner, but they had this connection that was more than that). We played-back the story on stage (improvised play) in which they meet at work as they do every day, and then he talks with his parents over the phone and they invite them over for dinner. I can't describe the joy on his face. He no longer looked down, he was so happy. We were so happy! After the show, we met with one of their instructors and he explained to us that they rarely if ever get a chance to tell their story to someone that would actually listen, not to mention see their story on stage. After the show ended I went outside of the building to take a taxi and I felt in an instant how the war depression is weighting on me again (I'm from Tel Aviv/Israel everyone is depressed from the endless blood cycle). And then it hit me, that for the first time in a month, I was in a room with people that weren't depressed by the war. We are coming back a few months from now to another group and I can't wait.

</comment><comment><USER35> My 7yr old son is autistic and so much of what this article says and what others have commented, has been the same wild ride for us. He is a happy happy little person that wants to laugh and be loved (and eaten my Zombie Dad once in awhile.)

For the other parents out there, I don't know if they have it in your state but Ohio has things like the Autism Scholarship and grants from different Autism groups. Those really helped with those sessions not covered by insurance or being able to go to a school that provides a little more help.

</comment><comment><USER36> This article is a enlightening counterpart to the 'emerging neuroscience' chorus, who would have us believe that a full model of consciousness and the brain is just around the corner. That those trying treat autism haven't a clue what causes the onset, and why certain therapies are effective tells me that we really are at the stage of the absolutely primitive models of brain activity.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8069310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8069310)

</comment><comment><USER37> Our son was diagnosed with a mild form of Autism right before his 3rd birthday. He had little-to-no pragmatic language, although he was verbal. Thanks to Baby Einstein videos, he could name all of his shapes/colors/animals/etc. He could name every instrument in an orchestra. At the same time, however, he couldn't tell us his name, when he was thirsty, when he didn't feel well. There were tantrums... LOTS of tantrums. It was exhausting and painful because you knew that he was upset about SOMETHING, you just didn't know what.

We were very fortunate to be here in Baltimore, home of the Kennedy-Krieger Institute. Our pediatric neurologist there was very thorough -- and painfully blunt -- in describing what we needed to do, and what would happen if we did or didn't. We located a clinic nearby that works with children on the Autism spectrum. They specialized in Applied Verbal Behavior therapy. Walking into the clinic, you would think you entered a Chuck E. Cheese's. There are toys everywhere. Kids are running around screaming. And the adult therapists are doing the exact same thing! When I visited there for the first time only one thing came to mind: "These people are nuts. They're nuts, and we're going to give them $$$$ and our child and nothing is going to change."

I could not have been more wrong. Within HOURS of starting there he could tell us his name and his age whenever we asked. At first, it was obviously just memorized repetition - he said it the same way every single time. That's how it was with everything he learned at first. When he asked for water, he asked for it the same way every time. But, as time went on and he developed better pragmatic language skills, he began to "speak", not just regurgitate. As far as I'm concerned, the people there are miracle workers. He worked with 2 specific therapists during the 2 years he was there, and they showed him an immeasurable amount of love and concern.

At times, reading articles about Autism therapy -- and the comments that inevitably follow -- can be very upsetting. Often, I read about how ABA therapy ends up being traumatic for the child. While I am certainly no behavioral or Autism expert, I don't think that should be the case. My son's therapists certainly pushed him. There were certainly days that were very hard on him. However, days like this were not the norm. And he truly loved going there, because the way they instructed him was through play. They didn't sit him down at a table in an empty room and force him to do things. They simply met him where he was and connected to him there.

It's also quite upsetting to read the comments by parents -- and those with Autism/Asperger's themselves. Often I'll read things like, "There's nothing wrong with my child! They don't need to be 'fixed'!" I'll read comments from individuals with Autism along the same lines, and it's obvious that they have been judged and discriminated against their entire lives. It's wrong. As a father who loves my son more than anything in this world, I will simply say this: Was there "something wrong" with my son? Unfortunately, yes. From a neurological standpoint, absolutely. However, did I look at him like a broken DVD player and say, "There's something wrong with this. Let's get rid of it and get another."? Not a chance. Without the therapy that my son received, the odds are overwhelming that he would not be able to function on his own in society. He wouldn't have been able to go to school. He wouldn't have been able to relate to others or have friends. When my wife and I died, there's no way he would have been able to function on his own. We didn't get him therapy to help US. We got him therapy to help HIM.

Today, he's entering 3rd grade. He's got friends. He's HIGHLY verbal. In fact, he never stops talking. He's insanely intelligent, with math and reading skills approaching high school levels. It's wonderful to see. The only thing that hasn't changed is how loved he is. Does he still have problems? Definitely. He has anxiety issues, as well as ADHD. Rigidity is a major problem. Those are issues we're tackling now. But, I shudder to think about what he would have missed out on had we not gotten him the help he needed early on.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Off-topic: I posted this yesterday, it didn't get many votes (probably because posting longform articles on autism may not get much readers during the work day)...but suddenly it's ( _my submission_ , not someone else's resubmission) is on HN's front page...Despite it being a day old? I think karma-gravity formula may be off...?

note to downvoters: I'm not complaining about not getting upvotes for a day- old submission. I'm confused as to how my day-old submission is suddenly, as of 10 minutes ago, on the front page?

<comment><USER38> I noticed PG tweeted this article yesterday. Interesting article. Maybe PG voted for it on HN, and maybe his vote has a lot of weight.

<comment><USER39> Good guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The term Autism is as meaningless and vague as the term Hysteria in times of Froid. There is a whole scale of ASDs, which have very different causes and symptoms and hardly could be fit in a single oversimplified category. Especially when used in media.

Some causes are "environmental" and of personal experiences, like childhood traumas or, which is the most common scenario, lack of proper treatment by parents and abusing by others as "being stupid". These conditions could be successfully treated by various CBTs, including those based oon "overcoming ignorance", to which I am myself a living proof.

But there are also various neurological disorders which cannot be lifted by mere CBTs.

So, the meme of autism as in characters like Rocky or Travis (these are the most "realistic" ones) or modern memes of autistic techies or hackers (with a very few well-known exceptions) are, well, a stupid memes. Life of an ordinary person with Aspergers (as they call us) is by no means a movie. It is just a severe condition of confusion, frustration and pain.

Unfortunately, modern media are made out of memes because common folks cannot grasp the subtleties of reality, which is indeed a not easy task.

So, non-neuroligical condition changed by a improvised CBT is not such a great news. These things happen routinely and quetly in the rest of the world.

</comment><comment><USER41> tl;dr: operant conditioning. The method described is exactly how you train a puppy.

<comment><USER42> Downvoters, take note:

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

"Applied behavior analysis (ABA), previously known as behavior modification,[1] is the application of operant and classical conditioning to modify human behaviors as part of a learning or treatment process. "

<comment><USER41> Thanks, I suppose I should have been a little less terse. I suspect the downvoters didn't really get what I was saying. (Or dare I say, their reaction was... pavlovian).

So yes, the approach described in the article is exactly the approach used when training an animal. And no, that doesn't mean the poor autistic kid isn't a human being... it means the principles of reinforcement learning are universal.

Perhaps in this case the approach worked because it was a way to teach the child without the use of language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Suggesting that autism can be healed or that there are children "who no longer have autism" is very misleading. Individuals can learn how to deal with the symptoms of autism and how to appear "normal" to others, but that doesn't make it a cure. It's merely a way to try to fit into society that sometimes works out and sometimes doesn't.

Edit: It would be helpful to know why I'm being downvoted in this thread. What I stated about the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria isn't wrong; that doesn't mean I agree with it.

<comment><USER44> > Individuals can learn how to deal with the symptoms of autism and how to > appear "normal" to others, but that doesn't make it a cure.

How can you know that? I mean, you seem to be just restating the status quo against this article, but they've provided evidence against it, and you're not providing any evidence for it.

It doesn't seem like the kids have to do anything consciously such that they'd "become autistic" again if they stopped.

What's most interesting to me is that they can't tell what's going on inside young kids just by observing them.

<comment><USER43> DSM-5 explicitly states that diagnostic criteria may apply "currently or by history". This makes a cure for autism impossible by definition.

<comment><USER42> [http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical- fallaci...](http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical- fallacies/27-appeal-to-definition)

Even ignoring the fact that DSM has major changes in every revision...

That's totally unhelpful. Use words to communicate, not confuse.

If I say "two plus two is five", and then explain it by counting "one, two, three, five", it's clear that I am using a different _word_ , but I have the same _idea_ as the common "two plus two is four".

When you seek to compate with a definition to empirical data, if the definition doesn't match, that means that _the words we are using need to be clarified_ , not that the empirical data is wrong. (The data might be wrong, but "appeal to dictionary" is not a persuasive argument.

<comment><USER43> The problem is that the only broadly accepted definitions of autism we have are in the DSM-5 and ICD-10.

In a broader sense, this shows a fundamental flaw of psychology. I'm not saying I agree with the diagnostic criteria, but it's all we have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra One family had a boy who, despite growing healthy, did not speak. He seemed to understand what's spoken to him, but never uttered a word in return. Doctors could not help.

Pass fifteen years; one day this family dines, and suddently the "mute" boy proclaims in displeased voice: There's too many salt in the porrige!

His father and mother hug him in tears and ask: Dear son, but why didn't you talk?

"Before today, everything was all right!"

\----

It seems that autists really do have this attitude when it comes to interaction with other people (or avoidance of it).

<comment><USER45> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABfDK1ludng](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABfDK1ludng)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Poor Christian Weston Chandler</comment>


Would an app that gives you advice be a bad idea? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> what type of advice?

<comment><AUTHOR> What type of advice would you like?</comment></comment>