Dave Winer: Why I stand up for Stallman - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2011/10/31/whyIStandUpForStallman.html <comment><USER4> I also stand up for Stallman. Yes, people think he is a weird guy. But we are all weird, and he's weird and has changed the world for the better. I don't see what there is to hate.

People worry that he might not be the best interface between Free Software and the rest of the world (because it's hard to relate to him), but who cares? If you can do a better job, do it. The only thing that's bad for the Free Software movement is worrying about who the leader is. It's you. Now get back to work and make us some awesome software.

<comment><USER5> Why do people from the U.S. use the word "hate" so lightly?

<comment><USER4> What makes you think I'm from the US?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I stand against Stallman. I'm no bully. I don't personally know or insult him. But I do disagree with his position on software (I agree with some of what he says, but I think we end up falling in opposing corners nevertheless).

But standing against someone and pointing out why you disagree I think is quite in the spirit of Stallman himself.

With that said, I don't know the extent of the abuse that Stallman has received from others, but its not obvious to an outsider what the abuse is. Some mocking over a rider? You should hear the abuse I've gotten over some of my haircuts.

I will say that while I disagree with RMS I do think his influence has been large and positive for most of his career. I don't think he's a particularly good spokesperson, but he makes up for it in other ways. I've even listed RMS as one I think is on the short list of potential Turing Award winners (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2305496>).

I stand against Stallman, but I'm glad he's there to stand against.

<comment><USER7> Not to get bogged down in words, but you are saying, "I stand against Stallman," but isn't it better to just focus on the ideas? He is a man of ideas, after all.

If you disagree on the ideas, you could still be friends with the man (and he is an incredibly nice and friendly guy who treats people better than he gets treated, that's for sure.)

Just curious: by any chance, are you "standing against Stallman" while simultaneously using his work? I could not do my job without using Stallman's work in some form (in many forms in fact).

<comment><USER8> _If you disagree on the ideas, you could still be friends with the man_

Can you? Is it possible to be friends with someone who says that anyone who disagrees with his ideas is _evil_?

I'm an atheist, yet I have no problem with being friends with people who are religious. I do, however, have a problem with being friends with someone who ends every conversation with "... and you're going to burn in hell for an eternity". RMS' refusal to accept the possibility that any position other than his own might have value puts him firmly into that camp of people I don't want to have anything to do with.

<comment><USER7> > I don't want to have anything to do with

Gotcha, and I'm not trying to be argumentative, but do you use his work? And if so, are you okay with using his work, but disagreeing with his ideas?

<comment><USER9> I don't want to speak for anyone, but while Stallman definitely thinks that using work created from a differing ideological perspective is seriously problematic, one shouldn't assume the same from people who disagree with him.

<comment><USER10> For someone who claimed in a parent comment, "...puts him firmly into that camp of people I don't want to have anything to do with", I would.

"I put [X] firmly into that camp of people I don't want to have anything to do with, but I am fine with using [X]'s work for my everyday activities."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you agree with Schopenhauer on "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." and if you accept that the space Dave operates is populated by hackers, entrepreneurs and lots of other people looking for the next big thing, then his point is particularly poignant:

      > Okay, you say it's weird. And I say weird is good. People
        who show originality openly, without fear, are people I
        admire. And people I stand up for.

Well put Dave. I agree.

edit: Fixed grammatical error.

<comment><USER12> The way that that quote gets used doesn't make sense to me. Even given that all truth does pass through those three stages, that doesn't mean that something passing through the first two stages is especially likely to be ever accepted as self-evident.

<comment><USER13> Right. They laughed at Einstein... But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

<comment><USER11> Both were quite successful at doing their own thing.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozo_the_Clown>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> John Gruber is even more guilty of this.

Parrot / breakfast point and laugh:

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/26/rms>

Linking to a site set up purely to mock Stallman:

[http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/27/stallman- dialogu...](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/27/stallman-dialogues)

The latest episode of his podcast, about Stallman, is called "They Had to Burn the Sheets" (I haven't listened to it, but going by the title I think it's a safe assumption that it continues the theme):

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/27/the-talk-show-64>

<comment><USER15> Gruber is so openly contemptuous of Stallman that I find it hard to believe that Winer is focusing on Kottke instead. In the episode of the Talk Show you linked to, Gruber's co-host Dan Benjamin keeps trying to rein Gruber in from being unfair to Stallman. He shuts down Gruber from talking about the infamous foot-eating incident on multiple occasions. And yes, the title is indeed about Stallman; Gruber repeats some anecdotes he heard about Stallman's hygeine. He makes Kottke look downright generous.

If you read what Winer is saying with Gruber in mind, it makes sense. But Kottke's entry strikes me as much more innocuous than Winer is making it out to be.

<comment><USER16> maybe, like many of us, winer doesn't pay attention to gruber.

<comment><USER15> In that case he should stop paying attention to Kottke too, problem solved.

<comment><USER17> I've been reading HN for years, but I honestly have no idea who Kottke, Gruber, or Winer are.

Who cares about this nth-level gossip about people who like to gossip about other people?

<comment><USER18> Bloggers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I also stand up for Stallman:

<http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-also-stand-up-for-stallman>

<comment><USER20> Regarding your blog entry, I don't think it's instructive to compare the way adults respond to an extremely blunt spoken person to your child being bullied. Stallman's an adult who doesn't pull punches -- he described Steve Jobs as "evil" right after his death. Is it bullying for him to get counterpunched, or just robust dialogue? I vote door number two.

As for your kid being bullied, you need to be all over that issue as a parent. No kid should have to endure it as the price for attending school.

<comment><USER21> I have no problem with people counter-punching Stallman on the issues. If you think that the closed iOS/Apple ecosystem is good and not evil, please, I want to hear your argument. But I heard very few people making that argument. The arguments tended to just be character assassination. Stallman lacks social graces, he doesn't recognize that it's necessary to be polite when someone dies, therefore his views are automatically irrelevant.

So I do think it's bullying, unless you're going to address the substance of the argument rather than its tactfulness.

<comment><USER22> I think the argument, with regards to Jobs, was rather that Stallman was inappropriate on writing his statements so soon after Job's death. Edit: To clarify, the bulk of the arguments where not against his ideas but rather directly concerned with his behavior. I don't consider it character assassination. The counter-argument was that he was correct, which does not actually excuse the way he stated it. You can say something correct in the wrong manner.

Now, regarding the rider for speaking engagement, I would agree that the outright mocking seen there was uncouth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> tl;dr summary

1) I was a popular guy in school. Ridiculously popular.

2) Although I was popular (even if I didn't hang out with the other kids), I am still a good guy because I hung around the weird kid in school. He still acted weird, but I was a good guy so I stuck it out.

3) Did I mention he never stopped being weird? Did I mention I was popular even though I didn't hang out with all the other people?

4) I was popular in high school so I fully expected to be popular on the Internet. I blazed a path and these people didn't even care, or like me! _Editors note: Note the lack of introspection. Perhaps they don't like you despite the path you blazed (or claim to have blazed)?_

5) I released my life's work under the GPL and the internet ganged up on me for it. Even strangers in real life picked on me. Why aren't I still popular?

6) Kottle highlighted a single odd entry in RMS's rider which made me ill. I'll defend RMS by saying "YEAH, so he's weird!"

errata: Winer went to a high school which had recess.

<comment><USER24> This is so over the top that I can't decide if it's a deliberate troll or not. But if you really think this kind of ridicule and lashing out is an appropriate response to a blog post about _needless ridicule_ then... well, I don't know. Shame on you I guess. This is just sad.

<comment><USER4> Not every application of the written word needs to be documenting an event or opinion. This post isn't a good summary of what Winer wrote. It _is_ , however, good reading.

Winer can be a little annoying from time to time. This post harps on that particular aspect of Winer without saying, "you know, Dave Winer annoys me." If you read through it, you laugh a bit, and think "yeah, this post sounds like it's about RMS but it's really about Winer", and that's interesting insight. parfe could have said exactly that, but why use one line to say what you literally mean when you can convey that message and entertain at the same time?

<comment><USER25> actually, i was pretty shocked when i read kottke's post. the parrot thing was supremely reasonable - it wasn't even remotely prima donnaish, despite the parallels kottke tried to draw. all it said was "i like parrots; if there is someone around who has a parrot i can visit, that would be nice". he even emphasised the fact that people should _not_ go out and buy parrots just to keep him happy, and explained (gently!) exactly why that would be a bad idea. whichever way i slice it, i can see nothing more in that post than kottke picking on stallman simply because he's an easy target.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> _Anyway, much later in life, I was treated like Sam_

I had a hard time taking his post seriously after this. As someone who was the "weird kid" growing up this sentence is so insulting, and so far past egotistical, that I'm not even sure there's a word capable of describing it. It's like someone trying to sympathize with a famine victim by complaining that they missed lunch yesterday.

</comment><comment><USER27> Did Kottke even read the link about the Van Halen brown M&M thing? Because it wasn't some crazy whim; it had a perfectly reasonable justification. Saying that Stallman's parrot thing is "right up there" with the brown M&Ms doesn't make sense, if you're trying to laugh at Stallman.

<comment><USER28> Anil Dash, in comments section of Winer's post, makes the same mistake of having an idea withouth having enough knowledge:

> ... using that power to cow conference organizers and academics into > submission to an arbitrary set of whims, the same as a rock star refusing to > eat certain colors of M&Ms ...

[http://scripting.com/stories/2011/10/31/whyIStandUpForStallm...](http://scripting.com/stories/2011/10/31/whyIStandUpForStallman.html#comment-352247635)

<comment><USER29> There is so much wrong with Anil Dash's long-winded comment. The first thing he gets wrong is expecting Stallman to handle traveling around for his cause just as well as others have done. Wrong. The personality traits from which people find themselves leading a cause are not the same ones which make people great traveling guests. Another big thing he gets wrong is understating GNU's role in Free Software Operating Systems. After reading that I'm convinced that he doesn't understand how important development tools are when creating a new platform.

FWIW I don't always say "GNU/Linux". I usually say "Linux". I certainly am not opposed to saying "GNU/Linux", however. I wish more people, Anil included, understood the pivotal role the GNU toolchain provided, but I don't think saying "GNU/Linux" is the best way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Richard Stallman is one of my heroes in tech. He's a deeply fascinating and amazingly obstinate thinker who should be Walter Isaacson's next book project.

But does he really need anyone's help fending off bullies? A guy who described Steve Jobs as being guilty of "evil" after his death would eat bullies for breakfast. If he ate breakfast. Which he doesn't. And don't ask him why.

</comment><comment><USER30> The glaring mistake that Dave Winer makes here is a misjudgement of RMS' intentions:

> _I looked at him, and asked him if he seriously was going to do this, in > front of Stallman. Yeah, he kept at it. That's how pervasive this culture of > disrespect is. To Stallman's credit, he not only stopped it, but dug in. He > wanted to understand what was at the root of this._ <

Dave, he didn't defend you because someone was being mean to you. He didn't jump in because the tone of the discussion was disrespectful. He defended the GPL, plain and simple. You as a person were entirely unsubstantial to him. RMS sees the entire world through a very narrow filter. You were just lucky that your idea was in alignment with that filter at the time. If the roles were reversed, Richard Stallman would not stand up for you as a person the way you just did for him. He only stands up for the GPL. I believe he wouldn't even stand up for himself. Yes, he's _that_ single-minded.

<comment><USER31> He only stands up for the GPL as a means to an end...

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm not sure Stallman needs "standing up for." The Kottke post from Winer had a quote from Stallman's rider, and that's about it. <http://kottke.org/11/10/richard-stallmans-rider> .

Some people think Stallman's weird, but I'm certain he's decided his beliefs and attitudes are worth it. He made that decision on his own, as his own person, and I'm not sure he needs Winer to come save him from the big bad bullies.

<comment><USER33> That's the part that puzzled me. The comment was only that the parrot clause was "up there with" other extremely specific rider clauses. And the Van Halen clause is these days pretty widely known as an interesting system hack rather than mere eccentricity or weirdness. The Kottke post didn't come across to me as mocking at all, actually. (Unless you see "crazy" as exclusively of negative valence, I suppose.)

<comment><USER25> could you explain to me why you think stallman's parrot clause is crazy, or even overly specific? all he's saying is it would be _nice_ if there were a friendly parrot he could see. the specific parts are telling people why they should _not_ go out of their way to buy a parrot simply to make him happy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> For Dave Winer to stand up for Stallman, requires someone to pick on him and Stallman not being able to defend himself. I don't see either of it happening.

Stallman wasn't going to alter his behavior because of Kotte, and Kotte probabably isn't as affectionate with parrots - but that's OK with me.

There is no Pick-On-Stallman movement. He has his beliefs and it presents an alternate model for software cooperation. For some situation, it clearly works, while for others, not so much.

Of all the freedoms, the freedom to express an idea is one of the most important. As long as it is done in a manner that protects the weak. Stallman simply doesn't qualify. We recognize ad hominem for what it is, and Kotte's jibe is just that.

<comment><USER29> Disagree; there have been notable people in the FOSS community calling for a new leader of a Free Software movement and referencing stuff like this. I think it was worthwhile for Dave Winer to write this post and state his opinion that this kind of stuff shouldn't get in the way of Richard Stallman pursuing his dreams.

<comment><USER34> Why shouldn't the FOSS community, to the extent it supports FSF - not allowed to have their say about who leads them and who speaks for them? If there are alternate leaders let them step up and be counted.

Dave Winer can only stand with Stallman. FSF or not, Stallman will continue to speak his mind, and amen to that.

<comment><USER29> I took a look at the leadership of the FSF and found that it was much more well-rounded than I expected.

<http://www.fsf.org/about/board>

I don't know, if three or more of the board members besides FSF thought it would be best for one of the current board members to be president I wouldn't be opposed. That may be a few years down the road.

But I don't think Stallman should be replaced just because he's an odd fellow. If the change happens it should be for better long-term leadership.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> From another post of his: _"About open source and whether I have the standing to discuss it, I've made a huge contribution to open source with the 2004 release of Frontier under the GPL. I was releasing code long before the terms free software or open source existed. Even so, as you'll see, I don't believe in the boundaries, I think ideas should freely cross the boundaries, and they do."_ [http://scripting.com/stories/2008/08/10/howViralIsGpl.html#p...](http://scripting.com/stories/2008/08/10/howViralIsGpl.html#p3)

I had no idea what substantial contribution this guy provided. Turns out his company, UserLand, eventually GPL'd a content management system called Frontier <http://frontierkernel.org/>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UserLand_Software#Frontier>

While I personally have not heard of it, the author believes quite strongly in its importance.

<comment><USER35> Dave Winer is widely regarded to have invented both RSS and blogging.

<comment><USER36> The first blogger I ever encountered was, of all people, Bruce Campbell. He was doing regular, personal updates to his website way back around 2000.

The term "blogging" came a good time after this.

<comment><USER37> A couple of sources on the history of blogging. Bernstein's reminiscences of the personalities show that little changes...

<http://tawawa.org/ark/p/jorn-barger-community.html>

<http://www.markbernstein.org/Jul09/Flames.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I was actually heartened by the fact that most of the posts I read on HN about Stallman's rider had the same reaction I did: hey, all that sounds pretty reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER39> It is a truth universally acknowledged, that any blog post by Dave Winer must reference how he "blazed a trail" or some variation thereof.

<comment><USER40> This comment contributes nothing to the discussion.

Dave's gone ahead and written a stand-out post that reflects upon bullying in general, and in tech in particular.

Why not take the reasonable viewpoint that whilst we might not agree with everything RMS does or says, he deserves enormous respect for dedicating his life to a quest that has benefited most of us in one way or another.

<comment><USER39> Actually, I'm kind of burned out on the "bullying" meme. But the _point_ of my comment had nothing to do with RMS, it had to do with Dave's level of self- aggrandizement. That some people on HN buy the "I invented RSS" lie is visible upstream.

<comment><USER41> I'm with you. Winer is exhausting because he spends so much time trying to make sure his reader understands how impressive he is.

It gets dull.

<comment><USER42> Unlike the circle jerk that goes on in this forum, right?

<comment><USER42> (Are you instilling an entrepreneurial spirit in your children?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I do respect everything I know about Dave Winer, except for one thing, his greatest perceivable flaw: He is too sensitive. Way too sensitive. He has blocked dozens of people on Twitter, including Kevin Marks(!). In his post he used phrases like "makes me feel ill," "here's what really pisses me off," and "I was so shaken to see." He strikes me as the kind of man around whom you'd have to walk on eggshells in person. That's not good.

Both he and Stallman have accomplished many great things. They've left (and continue to leave) their mark on the world. It's not a stretch to say that in the tech sphere, they are public figures. (Most of us here, I'd wager, don't even merit a Wikipedia biography). The more well-known you are, the more people talk about you and up goes the probability that some of it will be offensive. If you're Bill Gates, you might even take a pie to the face. It that sort of behavior acceptable? Of course not. But if you're going to put yourself out there, you need a thick skin. Stiff upper lip, Dave.

</comment><comment><USER44> I also stand up for Stallman but not when the temperature is above 72 fahrenheit. I find standing quite difficult.

</comment><comment><USER45> I think Winer misunderstands Kottke's feelings about Van Halen.

There's a sentence you didn't think you'd read today. But seriously.

</comment><comment><USER46> I don't know anything about the author and found this piece lacking in a lot of important details. Such as what people are bullying him about? Without those details the piece read like it was authored by someone with a victim complex.

Edit: I see below some of the reasons.

</comment><comment><USER47> I just don't like when people resort to pity to get their point across. That's some cheap rhetoric stunt. And that's exactly what Dave Winer tries here: poor Sam in high school, poor Winer tortured by them trolls. Don't lower Stallman there. He's not some poor victim Sam from a broken home. He's a man with his beliefs who made his life choices. That's not something a lot of people out there can profess. He's not asking for nobody's mercy. He's no Sam. He's no winer. He needs no stunts.

</comment><comment><USER48> There is a lot to read in here - and it all looks like good stuff - <USER2> wouldn't be funny if his (RMS's) warning panned out - time will tell. To those who say one has choice - to use or not to use - well maybe - I believe that one of our basic rights in the USA - to vote - to elect who will represent me at the highest levels - is tabulated using closed source soft/hardware - <USER3> a shame - sometimes there is no choice.

</comment><comment><USER49> _And if you disagree, have the self-respect to express it with dignity._

Someone should tell that to Stallman who often proclaims people who disagree with him are evil.

</comment><comment><USER50> "Anyway, much later in life, I was treated like Sam, in the blogging community. From my point of view, I expected the newcomers to like me, because I had blazed a trail for them, and wasn't asking for anything in return."

Does Winer ever pass up a chance to promote and feel sorry for himself?

</comment><comment><USER51> Someone brings up RMS on a tech forum... <http://i.imgur.com/xblF4.gif> ;)

</comment><comment><USER52> It is a very common flaw in reasoning that one party assumes that the opposition disagrees because they are scared or secretly agree. Atheists are all secretly christians, homophobes are all secretly gay, liberals are scared of "the truth."

People who mock Stallman for taking his shoe off and eating things he picked off his foot in the middle of a presentation are not terrified of him shattering their paradigm. They just think it's gross.

<comment><USER53> But people who use it as if it somehow disproves his position on the ethics of software are stupid or dishonest. Simple as that.

<comment><USER52> Except that kottke didn't say anything at all about Stallman's ethics, position on software, or the FSF. He just said it was ridiculous for him to put two paragraphs about parrots in his rider. Simple as that.

<comment><USER54> He didn't say it was 'ridiculous'. He said it was 'crazy and amazing'. Not quite the same thing; even 'crazy' can be a compliment in some contexts. ("Here's to the crazy ones...")

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Kottke called Stallman's rider (the whole thing) "crazy and amazing". Then he quoted the parrot thing, probably because it tickled his fancy. I don't agree that that constitutes "ridicule", in Winer's words.

<comment><USER55> I was disappointed in Kottke with the fact that he didn't know why Van Halen had requested brown free bowl of M&Ms in his contract. (It was so he would know if the stage crew read the contract which contained safety info on their equipment, to help ensure that no one was harmed during the show, as they had some of the most complicated and dangerous stage equipment at the time)

<comment><USER56> It is very likely that Kottke does know about the reasons behind Van Halen's free bowl of M&M's since the link in his article is to the Snopes page that exists for the sole purpose of explaining those reasons.

<comment><USER55> Ahh, didn't even notice that, and I have to admit that Kottke's article didn't seem very hate mongering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Could someone more knowledgeable about internet community infighting explain what the hell Winer is talking about when he makes vague reference to being ostracized, persecuted, etc?

Was there some epic battle that is so well-known that Winer doesn't feel the need to explain or even give footnotes for?

<comment><USER58> I wasn't involved at the time, but what I've gathered over the years is that the early history of blogging and rss involved competing standards and personal and technical rivalries. My understanding is that Winer is an ardent self-promoter, quite opinionated, and rubs some people strongly the wrong way. He's created a bunch of cool and interesting stuff, and proudly claims credit for stuff some people don't think he deserves credit for. I don't really know who's right and who's wrong, I suspect there's at least a little fault on all sides.

I think if Winer had explained or given footnotes, it would have distracted from the point of what I thought was a very powerful essay, but then I agree with him about Stallman.

<comment><USER59> Dave Winer can claim credit only for the 2.0 version of RSS. The earliest version of RSS was invented by Dan Libby at Netscape. In 2006 I wrote up a thorough overview of the history of RSS up to that point:

[http://www.teamlalala.com/blog/2006/10/24/rss-has-been- damag...](http://www.teamlalala.com/blog/2006/10/24/rss-has-been-damage-by-in- fighting-among-those-who-have-developed-it/)

<comment><USER60> Nevertheless, Winer's point about Stallman is valid and I personally agree with him.

I don't care who you are, or where you're from. Even if "I disapprove of what you say, ... I will defend to the death your right to say it" (- Voltaire? no primary source)

The internet would be a lot smaller and less interesting if we only let "normal" people in!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> So basically you stand up for Stallman because he reminds you of a kid in high school who used to get bullied? Not such a great reason. If I like Stallman I'd stand up for him because I believe in his ideals, respect his work, and want him to continue doing good. But then I'd remember he isn't doing much good.

Stallman needs no defending. He's a big boy that leaves himself open to attack. Public figures always have to deal with that sort of thing but I'm sure they don't lose any sleep about it.

But whatever, that doesn't bother me. What bothers me is people equating weird, eccentric, odd behavior and different views as automatically good. Novelty isn't always good. Different for the sake of different isn't always good. I'm going to wear my pants on my head and you shouldn't make fun of me because I'm different and eccentric which should translate into you thinking I'm a genius, right? No! Not at all. Stallman is certainly different and very possibly completely wrong. It's fun to make fun of his quirks even though we shouldn't (I'd like to add I never have made fun of him for quirks, only for actions and ideas) but why are we jumping in to defend this guy because he's different? There are a ton of people who think differently but we can't be applauding people for being different as it isn't that hard to do.

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm not sure if 'stading up for Stallman' is what I do as I am insignificant in that context. I certainly agree with him in almost every matter he talks about. I do not care to explain nor getting into discussions with those who either disagree with him or think their view is more sophisticated/moderated/reasonable/whatever.

Stallman has very clear views about the matters he talks about. Personally I think his contribution to the world is a great inspiration. But I fail to understand why we would need to stand up for him, those who do not understand him, or reject to try to view things from his point of view are the ones that are missing the most.

As for all the critics, eerr... you give credit to whomever you want. I don't care if every last celebrity 'bullies' him, I'll still give more importance to what he says BECAUSE OF WHAT HE SAYS.

</comment><comment><USER63> i guess the advanced high school was so advanced they still had recess...

<comment><USER64> So, uhm, what's this meme all about? It has been mentioned here twice. What's recess got to do with how good a school is? I'm from Germany and I have never heard anyone suggest that breaks are a bad thing. This seems completely bizarre to me.

<comment><USER65> "Recess" has rather specific connotations in American English. It is _not_ simply another word for "break". It connotes a supervised, semi-structured playtime for young children, generally outdoors, in the presence of teachers.

By the time one hits high school (9th grade) in the US, such things do not occur. You may have free time between classes, but it is not referred to or treated the same way as the period known as "recess".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> OT: Is there a way to remove all my comments from HN? I would like to give up.

<comment><USER67> _Is there a way to remove all my comments from HN? I would like to give up._

Don't you see a delete link next to your recent posts? There is a time limit on how long you can delete or edit your posts, but you should still be within that limit for your most recent posts, all of which you can find if you look at the "threads" link at the top of the page when you are logged in.

<comment><USER66> Thanks, I've removed all my recent posts. Is there any way of removing all posts and all profile data?

<comment><USER17> Emailing pg and asking nicely seems to be the only solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Some folks miss the point. We only make fun of Stallman in an attempt to change his behaviour in a way that benefits both him and others. For instance, rms smells bad. If he could be persuaded to smell _less_ bad, then everybody would benefit.

Ridicule is a valuable social mechanism for giving negative feedback to those who behave inappropriately. For those who say "but can't we give this feedback in a non-hurtful way?", the answer is no, for the same reason that your brain can't make pain non-painful -- some people are too damn stubborn to listen to non-painful feedback.

Here is a video of Richard Stallman, in the middle of a talk, eating something he's just picked off his foot: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ>

<comment><USER19> Your argument reminds me—painfully—of arguments in favour of physical bullying. "Hey, a few clouts to the head and he'll get the idea."

I don't hit my children, no matter how stubborn they are.

<comment><USER68> Straw man.

Edit: I'm not saying that the original argument is correct, as it really isn't, but your response was a straw man.

<comment><USER17> Indeed. My original comment may have been somewhat over the top, but I _would_ still argue that yes, a bit of ridicule can sometimes do someone good. That's a very long way from saying anything about violence.

<comment><USER10> You are trying to use "a bit of ridicule" to change rms's personal habits, then saying "That's a very long way from saying anything about violence".

I fail to see how this contributes to anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Googling:

"dave winer" jerk --> 75,700 "dave winer" ass --> 248,000 "dave winer" asshole --> 9,440

For some strange reason, I find myself not interested in reading Dave Winer denouncing others for "bullying", all the while reminding you, _sotto voce_ , of how wonderful Dave Winer is.

<comment><USER70> There used to be a "Winer number", which was the number of times Winer had gone apeshit on you, typically in response to an innocuous comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> RMS is not a "weird guy", he's an obnoxious dickhead. If you disagree, you haven't been in a room with him for longer than 5 minutes. Sure, he's made very important contributions to FOSS, but -- I invoke Godwin's Law! -- Hitler made many important contributions as well, but I don't see many people standing up for him.

<comment><USER72> Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, William Faulkner, Van Gogh, JD Salinger, Denzel Washington. I've heard these guys are all massive assholes. Fortunately, I can still derive massive entertainment value and/or some form of personal or professional amelioration from their creativity. Same with Stallman. I use emacs every day, and GCC and GLIBC is the heart of just about every serious developer's toolkit.

The man's life is his affair; look to his work. I didn't like Hitler's work or its underlying philosophy, let alone the man.</comment></comment>


Microsoft open sources Trill to deliver insights on a trillion events a day - <AUTHOR> https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-open-sources-trill-to-deliver-insights-on-a-trillion-events-a-day/ <comment><AUTHOR> Github repo -> [https://github.com/Microsoft/trill](https://github.com/Microsoft/trill)

Trill Paper at VLDB -> [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/2016/02/trill-vldb2015.pdf)

Article from IEEE Data Engineering Bulletin -> [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/wp-content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/trill-debull.pdf)

MSR Tech Report -> [http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/214609/trill- TR.pdf](http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/214609/trill-TR.pdf)</comment>


Millionaires Flee Their Homelands as Tensions Rise and Taxes Bite - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/millionaires-flee-their-homelands-as-tensions-rise-taxes-bite <comment><USER2> You can tax the shit out of people if you provide something in return. Millionaires don't flee the Netherlands or Sweden.

<comment><USER3> I do not know about Sweden, but from Norway they do.

My friend moved to Prague. He said it is difficult to raise children in Norway if you are a christian. He could not afford to buy a car. There is long waiting list for a house. And Norway is taxing expats even after they leave country (for three years).

<comment><USER4> >He said it is difficult to raise children in Norway if you are a christian.

What?

<comment><USER5> Exactly?! - this doesn't jive with my (prejudiced) view of Norway as the "Bible Belt" of Scandinavia.

<comment> barry-cotter Isn't that like saying the most depraved of devout Mormons? It's technically a defined concept with a sensible meaning but the connotations are misleading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Makes perfect sense to me. There has been an immense amount of wealth created in developing nations over the last couple of decades. Quality of life, safety, infrastructure and political freedom, however, are still the same or getting worse. Combine that with ever-increasing official and unofficial extortion by the state, and there is no doubt that a millionaire would prefer to live in a first world country.

</comment><comment><USER7> At least in the case of China, it's probably less about taxes and more about the fact that rich people have a bad habit of dying mysteriously:

[https://twitter.com/novogratz/status/1087548420129214464?lan...](https://twitter.com/novogratz/status/1087548420129214464?lang=en)

<comment><USER8> It's less about taxes, but it's also not about dying mysteriously.

The main reason is to have a backup plan in case things go wrong: there aren't a lot of reliable legal protections to begin with and the political situation can change any time.

Better have your wealth stored outside of the country and an additional citizenship so you can leave when necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Related observation. Wealth used to especially escape countries to small neighbours. Examples:

* Belgium: Luxemburg

* France: Monaco, Luxemburg, Switzerland

* Germany: Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Switzerland

* Italy: Vatican city, San Marino, Switzerland

* Spain: Andorra, Gibraltar

* UK: the channel islands

<comment><USER10> Luxembourg and Switzerland have really hit the jackpot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gC29ArkGG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gC29ArkGG0)

</comment><comment><USER12> It's always been like that, hasn't it? I seem to recall it being one of the reasons why liberalism has had such staying power.

It was how the Dutch became a powerhouse on the line of Spain, England and France in the colonial age. Because they let their people be, and didn't take their wealth, it became an attractive haven for rich families who then did business.

I'm not sure the latter is as beneficial as it was then, as you can now turn money into more money without investing in local business, but the former is going to remain true forever. People who have the means to do so, will always chose the freer country.

<comment><USER13> It's still true. Alluring taxation approaches rapidly turned Hong Kong, Singapore and Ireland into very wealthy nations. All three used very low tax systems to draw wealth and investment to their shores in various ways. Works very well for small, stable nations. It loses effectiveness with increasing population scale. The approach is better to the extent you have a population to tax system benefit imbalance (Ireland having < 5 million people and drawing hundred billion dollar companies to invest).

Ireland went from being an always-underdog to Britain, to having nearly twice their GDP per capita. Finland and Sweden in 1990 had a GDP per capita 100% higher than Ireland; now Ireland is ~50%-60% higher. It took only 30 years to transform Ireland into a far wealthier nation and it was mostly due to the very attractive tax structure for large corporations. It made them very well positioned to ride the globalism economic boom.

<comment><USER14> Do you happen to know who/what lead that policy change in Irish government, and why it was not opposed by neighboring EU countries?

<comment><USER15> The history section on Wikipedia is good; [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_tax_in_the_Repub...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_tax_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland)

It seems to have got started in the early 80s, when Ireland was still a very poor country. The major changes were in 1995.

Tax policy is still mostly a reserved matter in the EU and there is a taboo on trying to dictate rates, but this is changing - in part due to the obvious huge tax avoidance problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > _In October 2018, it released a blacklist of 21 jurisdictions, including > Malta and Cyprus, that it believes are undermining international efforts to > combat tax evasion._

Every possible means should be brought to bear in punishing these enablers of tax evasion. Steal from the rest of us at such a scale? Prepare to feel pain.

<comment><USER17> If I donate to a nonprofit, itemize my deductions, and get a tax reduction based on my donation, am I not "evading" taxes?

Sure, donations are perfectly legal and an above-board way to evade paying taxes to the USA, but it's still tax avoidance and I _could_ choose not to itemize, especially if my donations were 100% pure of heart.

Similarly, emigrating to Malta, or Bermuda, etc. is perfectly legal and if I do so for the weather, or to avoid paying taxes, is not one just as legal as the other? Even moving from New York to Texas so my combined state and city income taxes drop from 10% to 0% has a whiff of tax avoidance.

Simply put, people vote with their feet, and the rich have the best shoes money can buy.

<comment><USER18> At a high level, what makes tax evasion wrong is when people are able to benefit from the commons — stable currency, weights and measures, a climate of rule of law and the commensurate security of property — without paying into it. People who have successful businesses and are worth millions of dollars would be robbed and cheated every single day if it were not for the vast array of institutions — expensive institutions — that facilitate the climate of trust and security characteristic of developed countries today.

<comment><USER17> The majority of us would agree that 100% taxation is unworkable, as in, every single cent of income I earn is seized by the state.

Given your comment, I assume you think 0% taxation is also infeasible.

So we agree that somewhere above 0% and below 100% taxation there is some optimal amount. However, given the circumstances of the country and our personal philosophies, we may disagree on that optimal level.

The fact that free people can move to lower (or higher!) tax jurisdictions, and judge the quality of those services based on how much they pay and what they get in return, is a good thing in my opinion. The competition keeps politicians from elevating taxation to that unworkable 100%.

<comment><USER19> > The fact that free people can move to lower (or higher!) tax jurisdictions, > and judge the quality of those services based on how much they pay and what > they get in return, is a good thing in my opinion.

I think few would disagree that if you move to a new jurisdiction to benefit from a different tax scheme, that's fine. But therein lies two problems: First, so few people are able to move; the wealthy are disproportionally able to have their pick of tax jurisdictions so they can extract benefits from one society and then jump ship when it suits them without returning benefits to that society.

Second is when people move on "paper" to benefit from another jurisdiction but don't physically move in reality. Thus they continue to benefit from the society they nominally "left" but don't pay into it. That's the kind of tax avoidance / evasion that most people have a problem with.

<comment><USER20> > Second is when people move on "paper" to benefit from another jurisdiction > but don't physically move in reality. Thus they continue to benefit from the > society they nominally "left" but don't pay into it.

What jurisdiction allows this?

The US is particularly draconian by taxing worldwide income; every other country that I know of will tax your income if you live there.

<comment><USER15> Many jurisdictions have residency rules that allow people to _partially_ move - e.g in the UK if you have a residence overseas and spend less than half a year in the UK, you don't count as UK resident for that tax year.

Although really most of the tax avoidance schemes rely on moving one's income and assets to a company and then playing games with the "residency" of the company.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Programming as a super power - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/alfredth/archive/2010/01/20/programming-as-a-super-power.aspx

<comment><USER2> I suspect that programming will become part of tomorrow's test of basic literacy. That programming skill could entail writing formulas into a spreadsheet, whipping up a script to process a bunch of one-off data, writing macros to automate repetitive tasks, creating digital art projects, whipping up mobile device apps, whatever.

But to have a computer and not be able to do anything beyond what can be done with already-installed programs is to be essentially crippled in your ability to use the most powerful mass-market innovation facilitator in history.

<comment><USER3> Briefly terrified by a future where people are as easily convinced they're good at programming as they are today with writing.

<comment><USER2> Briefly terrified by a past in which almost no one could read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, yes, as bvtff implies, most people don't write that well. I suppose they do better than if they hadn't had the English classes, but still...

</comment><comment><USER5> With great power comes great responsibility.</comment>


All you need to know about Regular Expressions (Regex) - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/codechunker/introduction-to-regex-expressions-for-java-developers-11jn <comment><AUTHOR> This is such an awesome article that goes into the world of regular expressions in java.

The article has detailed explanation on what you need to start off as a guru in Regex. Check it out.</comment>


Unauthorized subscription to Google Cloud using my credit card 15k$ - <AUTHOR> I would like to report an unauthorized subscription to Google Cloud  as a result of which I was charged for 15k $ based on invoice. I send mail to email@example.com and now I am waiting for response. I have not slept well this night so nervous about this I ask google to  cancel this subscription and cancel the charges as soon as possible.
I had a credit card (with a max debit of 500$ = 2,000PLN)  connected with the Google Account
On March 7, 2020, an unauthorized person broke into my google account  and using my credit card bought a paid subscription (access) to Google Cloud Platform, he created some additional payed activities (listed on the invoice) I have not received any notification about the start of the subscription, card payment or access information at the address. The scammer has marked all messages from this platform as spam. That's why I didn't see the notifications and I wasn't aware of the whole process
On March 30, I received an email from Google saying that Google suspends the possibility of making payments for products and services using this account. As I didn't make any weird purchases with this card on Google portals, I ignored this message
On April 1, I received an invoice for March for  15k $ = 65,131.19 PLN(attachment invoice) Today, on April 1, I restricted my credit card at the bank, I also reported unauthorized subscriptions to Google. Unfortunately, this can only be done by electronic means and not by phone. Thus, I have no confirmation that someone will take care of this matter. I am afraid of issuing another incorrect invoice. I also can't disconnect a credit card from a google account. This is blocked by Google.
To prevent further unauthorized movements, I also changed the password to the google account to which the credit card was attached and reserved the card itself in the bank. I already opened to claim for this unauthorized payment. Please help <comment><AUTHOR> Google respond

/We were unable to confirm that your purchases were fraudulent. It often happens that this type of shopping was made by a family member or friend./

I do not understand. I have never created the Google Cloud account and noone from my family also. I have created new request because it is not possible to respond to previous one. I'm terrified with this respond. I will never add my credit card do google account again. What I can do more??

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm sorry you went through this, it sounds really stressful.

Because you didn't have an account with Google Cloud I'd treat this like any other fraudulent transaction: get your bank to reverse it. The process is called a chargeback, in my experience it works pretty well, you can see more info here: [https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/consumer- topics/finan...](https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/consumer- topics/financial-services-insurance/banking/chargeback/)

Call the credit card department of your bank, the number is often printed on the card and will be different to the bank's regular account helpline. Tell them your card was stolen, you've reported it stolen, you've tried to resolve things with the merchant (Google) but they haven't replied. Tell them you'd like to reverse the fraudulent charge.

Someone from Visa or Mastercard will contact you a few days later to get a statement of what happened: make sure you tell them that you didn't have an account with google cloud before (your card details got stolen not your Google Cloud account got hacked) and that you make a good faith attempt to resolve things with them (show Visa the emails you sent Google). The bank should give your money back in a few days.

<comment><AUTHOR> The scammer created the account on google cloud using my google account and attached credit card. To be more clear my credit card was not charged. One day before Boniowice came Google block my credit card for payment with following explanation "Due to suspicious activity, we suspended payment options for products and services using this account to allow unauthorized activities" So I was not charged yet, but I received invoice to pay with information that it will be done automatically.

<comment><USER2> If you get charged then dispute the charge with your bank. If not then you're off the hook financially.

Either way, I'd back up all my google data now.

TechBro8615 is right, this isn't a 100% clear case for a chargeback, but it's worth a shot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here is what you need to do to prevent such events in the future:

\- Use password manager with the master password at least 16 characters long (it makes brute forcing activity economically unreasonable)

\- Change passwords on all your accounts and setup 2FA

\- If you use cloud providers for enterprises, always setup limits and notifications, also you have to purchase paid support (it costs around 100 to 500 per month) to talk with human when something happens

\- Can't afford the paid support? Probably you should reconsider the need for enterprise cloud provider and something like linode/DO will be good enough for your goals

\- Consider paying for your email and setting up a custom domain to control your identity

Good luck with your case.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for recommendation. Just to clarify I have not subscribed the Google Cloud Platform. Scammer did it. I was not aware of such a platform. I have never used it in the past. This is not a matter of paid support. I dont need this support cause I had never necessity of usage this platform in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Additional info: The scammer created the account on google cloud using my google mail account and attached credit card. To be more clear my credit card was not charged yet. One day before issuing ana=invoice Google blocked my credit card for payment with following explanation "Due to suspicious activity, we suspended payment options for products and services using this account to allow unauthorized activities" So I was not charged yet, but I received invoice to pay with information that it will be done automatically using my credit card which is block.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 7 days passed and Google or Google Cloud still not respond. Do you know any mail address to Google Cloud Platform to send claim? I was not able to identified, so I used standard google claim form but I am not sure if it is proper one.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I forget to mention that I check my mail adress at [https://haveibeenpwned.com/](https://haveibeenpwned.com/) and unfortunetley I was identified as a pwned.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone here has similar problem? I already used unauthorized payment report in google. Where else I can send the mail. Do you know any mail address of google claim office?</comment>


The World's Worst Cocktail: The Alexa Martini - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2017/02/alexa_martini <comment><USER2> As Tom Lehrer wrote about his college years,

"Hearts full of youth, Hearts full of truth, Six parts gin to one part vermouth!"

</comment><comment><USER3> How could it be so wrong? All of the top results for google are correct 6 parts gin 1 part vermouth.</comment>


Five Reasons why Google's Linux Chromebook is a Windows killer - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/five-reasons-why-googles-linux-chromebook-is-a-windows-killer/8887 <comment><USER2> Really? $28/month x 36 months = $1008

For a dual core netbook that relies on a round trip to the internet to do word processing.

$950 on NewEgg gets me iCore5, 6BG of RAM and Half a Terabyte of local disk.[1]

How is an underpowered, less functional, more expensive computer a Windows killer?

ref:

[1] [http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006740%204022&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&SrchInDesc=6gb&Page=1&PageSize=50)

<comment><USER3> I've been using a CR-48 for a few days, and I don't think this type of platform is a Windows-killer. But it fills a huge hole in my life - I finally have a computer with a cell connection AND a real keyboard. Tethering my laptop to my cellphone was the best solution I had. This was awkward, especially in tight places like trains. And phones and tablet interfaces are great for reading, but when I type, I want to type at full speed. The Great American Novel will never be written by pecking letters into an iPhone.

If it had a reasonable way to code, I would abandon my laptop altogether.

<comment><USER4> You realize you're $20 away from having a cell connection for your laptop, right? That's how much it will cost you to walk into your nearest mobile phone shop and buy a prepaid USB dongle. And it will come topped up with a month's worth of data.

You can data by the month for $15 whenever you need it and (depending on your network) get the added bonus of having unlimited access to every paid wifi hotspot in the world for that month.

Definitely worth keeping one of those in the laptop bag for the times when you can't find a good coffee shop or an AP named "Linksys".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it just me, or is Google's Chromebook fighting yesterday's war? Chromebook for me doesn't make sense, not with Android. I'm sorry, the zdnet article is crap.

Chromebook is not a Windows Killer, and none of the five reasons cited would not compel the grandmother who lives next door or that man who doesn't care about the religious nature of Microsoft Office versus LibreOffice. Nor do I see a compelling reason for a business owner to make a switch.

Normal people just want things that work when they turn them on. And they don't want complicated.

<comment><USER6> > Normal people just want things that work when they turn them on. And they > don't want complicated

Is that not the Chromebook's design? They have produced a product with curated hardware (QA tested and none of the sharp edges of Linux), an operating system that has a browser with one of the best UIs as the primary interface, and a pretty secure and automatically updating operating system that will help protect against malware. From the second he gets it, a user can turn it on and start using the Chromebook.

The only worry I see is not having standard apps like Microsoft Office and Google hopes that Docs will be able to replace that.

<comment><USER7> _The only worry I see is not having standard apps like Microsoft Office and Google hopes that Docs will be able to replace that._

Because they have Office, Microsoft is in a better position to make a Chromebook than Google is.

<comment><USER8> If Microsoft made a "Chromebook" but with some Windows lite OS and Office included, it could cost a lot more, you can be sure of that.

<comment><USER7> Well, I said they'd be in a better position. I didn't claim that they wouldn't #^%$@& it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of the perennial "year of the linux desktop" proclamations that were so prevalent (and mostly wrong) about 5-10 years ago.

See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Linux#Year_of_Desktop_L...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Linux#Year_of_Desktop_Linux)

</comment><comment><USER10> The author has been writing about Linux for years. I can see why he's hopeful again. Chromebooks should make a dent in the Windows market, maybe grabbing 10%. Windows won't die, and it doesn't need to.

Breaking the Windows desktop monopoly is all that matters. Consumers benefit when there is more choice in markets.

</comment><comment><USER11> So, a laptop where the OS, browser, search engine, email client, calendar, word processor, spreadsheet, etc. are all controlled by a single company that gathers loads of personal information about you? No thanks.

</comment><comment><USER12> The only problem I see is pricing. 12 months is $336, one can buy a full featured laptop for the money. A laptop will work for say 5 years (or more). While 5 years of Chromebook is $1,680. That's top of the line anything plus the unrestricted power and environment.

<comment><USER7> _A laptop will work for say 5 years (or more)._

Yeah, but for the last two years, it will be a bit too far out of date. With Chromebook, Google would have sent you a new one by then.

<comment><USER13> Maybe in 1998. Computers don't go "out of date" as fast as they used to. I bought my desktop in 2004 and it wasn't top of the line then. What's it got? Dual core 3.2 GHz, 2G RAM, 400 Gig HD. 7 years old and it still comparabe to what I'd get if I bought another one today.

<comment><USER7> This is why the industry needs stuff like Thunderbolt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nothing is a "windows killer" in the same way that nothing is an iPhone killer, or a Nokia killer for that matter. In almost all cases slow changes in the industry are what kill kings off. While there is no doubt that Windows will remain relevant for the foreseeable future, if for no other reason than corporate infrastructure and lack of (any need for) innovation in most cases. But when my mom started preferring to use my Cr48 over her windows laptop "because it works...better", and my niece refers to the iPad as "[her] computer" it to me that most people are just more comfortable with slim client. Atleast in my life. Windows isn't going to die anytime soon - but it looks like its choking.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think chromeOS may be a victim of unfortunate timing.

At some point between the surprisingly successful Asus Eee launch & the iPad, preferably early, would have been the perfect time.

Now, probably not.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure if the Chromebook would be successful even back then. I remember the appeal of the Eee was its really low price, and thus consumers were willing to compromise. In this case, I'm not so sure. The Chromebook costs close to what a normal budget laptop would cost and is a lot less functional.

<comment><USER15> I think the reason Google is trying this rental approach is because it's a way to angle in to a market with relatively little room. They think they might have an advantage in the laptop-as-a-service category, more so then in the low-end-laptop category. That would have been different in 2008.

BTW, I don't think it's smart comparing chromebook prices to amazon bargain bin prices. These aren't the same market segments. Laptop rentals for home and small business is a substantial existing market. A quick look at the deals going now shows prices generally ranging from $15-$45 per _week._ These are not particularly high end machines.

[http://www.radio-rentals.com.au/products/Computer--- Office/N...](http://www.radio-rentals.com.au/products/Computer--- Office/Notebooks)

[http://www.mrrental.com.au/For-Rent/Catalogue/Computers- Offi...](http://www.mrrental.com.au/For-Rent/Catalogue/Computers- Office/Laptop-Computers.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Chromebook is perfectly positioned to beat Windows 3.1

Or that's what I read.

</comment><comment><USER18> Gmail will need to support flagging e-mails as high importance if they want to suceed in corporations.

Ok, joking aside, as an ardent fan of windows and windows development,I began to write a comment about why ChromeOS / Chromebook will not succeed - however, I've been away on business this past week and I have seen a room full of people in cubes and all they were using all day was Outlook and SAP - so I can see that it would be perfect for them.

It's definitely giving me a few things to think about for the future.

Have Google included support for the nativeclient plugin? If they did, that would be very interesting indeed

</comment><comment><USER19> Wow. Anyone who thinks the Chromebook is going anywhere is smoking serious crack.

A Google-dominated world is no better than a Microsoft one, and this laptop is all about Google lock in. All your icons are for Google products (which are inferior to Microsoft Office). All your data lives on Google's servers. It's not just $28/m. It's $28/m and your eyeballs. Your kids eyeballs, too.

Also, anyone who thinks kids would rather one of these netbooks than an iPad has no idea what they're talking about.

</comment><comment><USER20> For the average end user I don't think a Chromebook is a "Windows killer". For the enterprise, however, I certainly think it _could_ be.

Automatic back-up and updates; connection encryption, program sandboxing, minimal data stored on the actual device itself; "free" hardware updates; customer support from Google...

Chromebooks certainly have a lot of simplicity and they do a lot of work you'd otherwise require a sysadmin for itself.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't mean to be shortsighted but I always feel a little skeptical when "xxxx is a Windows killer" comes from a Linux/Open Source column.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if the cost of this, for a business, would be 100% deductible whereas a bought laptop would have to be depreciated for three years or so?

</comment><comment><USER23> If, instead of getting myself a Chromebook subscription, I put $28 in a cookie jar every month, after 3 years I could buy myself a 13" MacBook (or a MacBook Air!) and have some change left for a beer to celebrate my choice. Maybe that's how the Chromebook will kill Windows.

Now if only we had cookie jars that paid interest...

</comment><comment><USER24> Another Windows killer! How many do we need?

But I would like to see _one_.

</comment><comment><USER25> Windows died 15 years ago.</comment>


The Squirrel Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.squirrel-lang.org/ <comment><USER2> I appear to be a dying breed. A young ( < 30 years old ) programmer, self taught, who loves classic, "mainstream" languages like C, C++, Java...

Why?

Types.

I cannot stand the road that new languages are on, abandoning the type system, or making it optional, or not explicit. Given that I appear to be a minority, I thank you for reading my rant... Have a good day :(

<comment><USER3> Note that _proper_ typesystems are not yet mainstream, though.

You should certainly have a look at "less mainstream" languages whose type systems are more expressive and still simpler to use than those of the "mainstream" languages. For example (list is incomplete, but you'll get the idea):

        * Haskell (very popular, hard to reason about performance, though)
        * OCaml (possible to reason about performance, except for garbage collection)
        * Idris (type system with dependent types!)
        * Rust (type system that allows to reason about memory usage, aliasing, etc.)
        * Elm (meant to replace JavaScript for user interfaces in the browser)

<comment><USER4> I would add Purescript to that list. Most people see it as a Haskell-like for the JS VM, but it also includes row types. Meaning that your types can keep track of granular effects ("oh, this uses IO, but just the random number generator", "Oh this just looks at the foo property"), which is super useful for reasoning with larger codebases.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Purescript[1] is definitely interesting as one the very few languages in the world with row types/polymorphism.

I'm not quite agreed on the effects bit being useful, but it's a good demo of what the type system can do. My main disagreement with the whole approach is that effects don't commute (in general) and so representing effects as such isn't quite valid.

[1] I'm still baffled as to why they named it thusly. I mean, I can _guess_ at motivations, but it really deserves a much catchier name!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I did a fork of Squirrel -> SquiLu [https://github.com/mingodad/squilu](https://github.com/mingodad/squilu) because I found the syntax more familiar and also been made with C++ that make create extensions easier than plain C. Then I started adding more and more C/C++ like syntax options with the idea to have a way to develop fast prototypes in a way that could be migrated to C/C++ when performance was not good enough, the idea is to be able to parse and accept C/C++ syntax but without actually inforce it at scripting level (accept discard/warning) and be able to use a real C++ compiler to do the heavy work.

Example:

        class Klass
        //struct Klass
        {
        	int_t i;
        	//constructor()
        	Klass()
        	{
        		print("Klass constructor", i);
        	}
        	~Klass()
        	{
        		print("Klass destructor");
        	}
        }

        Klass k = new Klass();

        typedef int_t int;

        int test10(int x)
        {
        dente:
        	if(x > 10)
        	{
        		goto dente;
        		goto done;
        		return true;
        	}
        done:
        	return false;
        }

        print(test10(23));

        output:

        test-class-constructor.nut:22:6 warning labels are only parsed right now
        test-class-constructor.nut:25:7 warning goto is only parsed right now
        test-class-constructor.nut:26:7 warning goto is only parsed right now
        test-class-constructor.nut:29:5 warning labels are only parsed right now
        Klass constructor	(null : 0x(nil))
        true

<comment><USER6> But now Haxe [http://haxe.org/](http://haxe.org/) has several advantages that's worth consider.

<comment><USER6> Also worth look at Skew [http://skew-lang.org/](http://skew-lang.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Previously discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9368075](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9368075).

</comment><comment><USER8> How does this compare to Lua? It seems to be going after a very similar market.

<comment><USER9> This seems to be making some good points but I'm only reading it now

[https://computerscomputing.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/lua- and-...](https://computerscomputing.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/lua-and-squirrel- the-case-for-squirrel/)

Huh, it actually seems like an older language, it's been around for a while and it's used in some major studio games.

<comment><USER10> To me, it looks like the only improvement of Squirrel upon Lua is automatic reference counting. Everything else seems like a step backwards.

* C++ < ANSI C

* two null types < one nil type

* separate types for arrays and dicts < tables

* C syntax < plain english

* Builtin classes < make-your-own classes

That's just my opinion though :)

<comment><USER11> How is separate types for arrays and dictionaries worse? They are two different data structures with different uses so should be separate.

<comment><USER10> One of the strengths of Lua is how usable it is for non-programmers. Having separate concepts for (essentially) a hashmap for integers and a hashmap for everything else makes it more complicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> OpenTTD ([http://www.openttd.org/en/](http://www.openttd.org/en/)) is a Transport Tycoon clone that allows you to write an AI player for the game. The AI player is written in Squirrel.

</comment><comment><USER13> [http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/14/148/148909.h...](http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/14/148/148909.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> This language is used in Electric Imp, an "IoT" oriented ARM μController with WiFi, used in Wink products and Lockitron : [https://electricimp.com/docs/squirrel/squirrelcrib/](https://electricimp.com/docs/squirrel/squirrelcrib/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I think Ron Gilbert uses Squirrel in his upcoming game Thimbleweed Park.

<comment><USER16> Correct, see [https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/engine](https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/engine) and [https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/scripting_test](https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/scripting_test).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> How does this compare to Lua which seems to be the go to scripting ish language in games like world of Warcraft

</comment><comment><USER18> I had to do one project in Squirrel when I was in university and I have to say the experience was terrible.

<comment><USER19> Why?

<comment><USER10> Yeah I would also like to know this.</comment></comment></comment>


Simplifying Legalese for the Internet Age - <AUTHOR> http://offprint.in/#!/articles/simplifying-legalese-for-the-internet-age <comment><USER2> Interesting read. I love reading about ToS stuff (though I never actually read any ToS). He says "Of course, there are challenges with implementing this approach..." Seems to me the biggest challenge is these things are written by lawyers. And I don't mean this to bash on lawyers, I just mean things written by lawyers are NEVER going to be simple. Anything written by a lawyer will be written to cover all the bases, not be simple and readable by regular folks. Again, not bashing on lawyers at all, this is just their job. My rather uninformed guess is we'll be reading articles just like this in 10 years when ToSs are 10x longer. I can't imagine there's a way to solve this problem.

<comment><USER3> _And I don 't mean this to bash on lawyers, I just mean things written by lawyers are NEVER going to be simple._

I think that's a little unfair. When we were putting together the terms for a B2C web site I work on, our lawyer specifically and clearly advised us both to use plain English and to make sure any potentially surprising or unusual terms were prominent and early in the document.

The reasoning was simple and logical: ideally you want everyone to understand the deal the same way from the start, but if there is any subsequent disagreement that results in legal action, courts here in the UK are going to look at the contract pragmatically and try to determine what each party believed they were signing up for. As such, they are less likely to enforce a sneaky clause written in Latin on page 174 than they are a non-obvious but reasonable term that is right there in bold on the first page.

Ideally we would have written the terms to fit on a single screen/page instead of the probably 5x that we wound up with, but I'm not sure that's realistic without much more standardisation written into laws than we have today, or at least recognised standard consumer contracts (which seems to be where the article here is going). We settled on having a "key points" summary up-front for those who do want to check the essentials but don't want to wade through the whole thing, and our server logs suggest that a modest but noticeable fraction of our visitors do actually go to that page, spend a minute or two reading it, and then continue to sign up. I just wish some international treaty could harmonize consumer protection laws for the Internet age so a brief summary of key points was all we needed to write and was all our visitors needed to see because everything else would be reasonable by default.</comment></comment>


How I went from idea to profit in under 24 hours - <AUTHOR> http://giantrobotbattle.com/2012/04/02/idea-to-profit-in-less-than-24-hours/ <comment><USER2> You could have revenue in a matter of seconds by offering to sell $100 gift certificates to Amazon for $50 (why hello, many daily deals sites) but that would probably not be a sound business decision.

Can I strongly, strongly, strongly suggest that you rethink the pricing and value proposition here? You're chasing away good clients because anyone who has ever done mobile or programming thinks that custom development offered for $99 implies not-great-things about your programming savvy or likelihood of following through on this deal. The "wantrapreneurs" (hate that word) you appear to be targeting will disproportionately have wildly inaccurate expectations of what you're selling for $99, because you appear to be promising them the fantasy of having their business come from idea to actual fruition at the cost of $99.

I am having difficulty finding strong enough language to communicate the unwiseness of this business model vis-a-vis accurate worries like "If you're not careful, you may end up spending an exorbitant amount of hours on a project, driving your hourly rate into the basement." All the words I'm reaching for seem hostile and yet they do not nearly capture the scope of how bad of a decision this is.

<comment><USER3> I really want to agree with you, but I think he found a profitable little niche. The type of apps (actually concepts) he's building for $99 will end up being very cookie cutter and should take a good developer less than an hour (and sometimes 15 minutes).

I think this could scale well too if you find decent, dependable developers that want to make a quick buck here and there...

<comment><USER4> This could end up as great lead generation for a mobile development shop. Once the customer sees what $99 buys, it's likely that he or she will want changes and probably some design work.

If you can pull together a group of designers and developers and provide the hosting and make the ever-so-painful submission process painless, you are basically creating an app-as-a-service business where the $99 prototype is the loss leader that gets you your customer base.

<comment><USER5> It's probably the opposite of good lead gen. It's attracting a disproportionate share of pathological customers, for one thing, but also: for many, perhaps even most, of the potential follow-on customers, their first experience with the business is going to be of disappointment over what $99 actually got them.

<comment><USER6> Is it doing the developer community a favour by teaching people that for $99 you're going to get an absolute minimum product?

I'd be fascinated to see what kind of programming you'd get from places like Mechanical Turk. Has anyone done a $2 FizzBuzz request, and then compared all the resulting code?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Proper accounting is to recognize the revenue and costs of a sale in the same period.

So you don't get to claim any profit until you complete the work you were paid to do.

How do you plan on finishing the apps fast enough to consider this a win?

To me this is the opposite of a good side project. You want your projects to generate passive income, not income that requires a non-trivial amount of work to recognize. If you can write apps, you should write apps yourself and generate ad revenue or sale revenue.

You should definitely reconsider this idea before you have oversold yourself to the point of never being able to meet your responsibilities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Passive income is definitely a goal of mine. Getting there requires a lot more work than just 'making an app' and throwing it at the app store and hoping someone gives me their dollar.

As I mentioned in the post, I want to learn more about making money: what motivates people, what can I sell my labor/ideas for, how to make conversions, etc. It's definitely something I think I can pivot on later once I've gotten enough attention and traffic. Alternatively, maybe I'll figure out how to optimize the workflow.

You're right, it definitely has a scaling problem. :)

Lot's of people spend upwards to $99 for a startup weekend/hackathon to create apps over the weekend for nothing more than a chance at prizes and fun. Why not sell roughly 4 hours of my time for $99?

<comment><USER7> It's an interesting idea at least that will have no problem finding customers, and you seem to understand the problems.

My only strong suggestion is to only take on 3-4 of these projects before completing them 100%, then doing a complete retrospective assessment of how it went. Keep everyone else in a queue. Do not accept money from everyone.

Maybe you'll hit a formula for "local business news feed & map view to locations for $99" where you can put out these apps in 1/2 an hour instead of 4.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea. I've got several different points of data I can use, it would make for an interesting blog post next week. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool story but the word profit is not the right word to use in this case. You generated revenue which is much much easier to do than turning a profit.

</comment><comment><USER9> They idea is nice but, i am afraid that as most of this articles the title is a little misleading... you had a sale but not yet delivered a product, that is what the customer paid for. So you still have to work and even with all the limits you pose this might take 3/4 hours... and supposing you work at an hourly rate of 20$/h witch i think(but i'm not sure) it's quite low you might "spend" 60/80 $ of your time to develop it. this gives you a profit of 10/30 $ depending on how fast you are.

Anyway this is a nice project and i really hope you or someone else will prove my calculations wrong! Good luck ;)

</comment><comment><USER10> I've noticed that you are LLC. Therefore, gravitronic and chimeracoder are absolutely correct in their remarks re accounting methodology (glad to see other GAAP versed folks here) - unless you do cash based accounting, which is highly unlikely. I would recommend that you check with your accountant how this works.

However, putting aside accounting stuff, I do not understand what you are trying to achieve? What are your use cases?

There are apps for prototyping (Balsamiq), there are DIY browser based web apps for getting one's app in the AppStore (AppMkr, etc)[with some ads, ya, but that's prototype, correct?].

You production process is not automated and does not scale.

So, what's the point?

<comment><USER11> It could scale if he sub-contracted work to local college students looking for mobile dev experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've given this some thought, subcontracting isn't something I'm super familiar with but it's definitely worth looking into. Things are way too early to tell yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a strange definition of "profit", as it counts customer revenue before they've signed off on the deliverable --- or even before work has commenced. It seems to imply that the author's time has no value.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am highly disappointed that the domain name failed to be relevant.

</comment><comment><USER13> Whether or not you are profitable depends on the cost of the labor you put into each app. Can you actually be profitable if you spend 2 hours per app that you would have billed to a big client at $100/hour?

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of this is an experiment. You're right, I can potentially bill a client $100+ an hour as an iOS developer but there's other costs that a lot of people ignore including time spent finding a client and time spent courting them.

The income isn't optimized (yet) but it's a start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think this is an awesome idea. - while I agree with patio11, that there is risk - I think the author recognized this risk clearly in the post.

What would be interesting, as an experiment, would be to see if there is a way to build a larger app from a bunch of $99 app legos.

Break your app down to a range of small blocks that will all link together.

Buy out each block as you go and have money.

Maybe there are larger blocks available. Say - proof of UX concept for 99, core functions for 500, 99 additional change/feature, etc...

</comment><comment><USER15> I really like your idea. However, you didn't provide us with a link to signup if we're interested.

On that note, how does the app release work. Do you leave the client up to their own devices to submit the app? Do you provide them with all the assets upon completion(tar of code, etc)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Depends on what the customer wants to do. When you're dealing with mobile apps, it's tricky to do distribution (especially with Apple) so if they want to put it on the app store, I'm more than happy to help them upload it or they can give me credentials to upload myself. However, that's only IF they want to upload it. These are very unpolished after all.

Every customer gets an archive of all assets once development is complete.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well done! Now you can keep earning revenue, figure out what customers value, find more profitable projects, etc.

Working on products that nobody wants is the kiss of death for many projects- by actually finding customers, you've greatly reduced that risk.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised no one else wrote this but why not increase your price to $199?

That is still dirt cheap for anyone who wants to get an app made.

You'll do half the work for the same no eyes.

<comment><AUTHOR> That might be in the cards. I'm trying to make the inflection point between dirt cheap and impulse purchase and $99 seems to catch a lot of attention.

Like I mentioned, a lot of this is trial and error, but we all have to start somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> How did you publish your landing page ? how did you spreed the word on your service ?

</comment><comment><USER19> I bet I could go from idea to revenue in under 1 hour.

<comment><USER20> I am interested in hearing this story. Please do so, make a post, and submit to hackernews.</comment></comment>


Prototypes are Objects - <AUTHOR> http://raganwald.com/2015/06/10/mixins.html

<comment><USER2> This is an old debate that has been resolved (at least back then) since what is called "the Treaty of Orlando" at OOPSLA 1987; here is a public paper written afterward:

[http://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Publications/Treaty-of- Orla...](http://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Publications/Treaty-of-Orlando- Chapter.pdf)

Abstract:

> For the past few years, researchers have been debating the relative merits > of object-oriented programming languages (OOPLs) with classes and > inheritance as opposed to those with prototypes and delegation. It has > become clear that the OOPL design space is not a dichotomy. Instead, we have > identified two fundamental mechanisms, templates and empathy, and several > different independent degrees of freedom for each. Templates create new > objects in their own image, providing guarantees about the similarity of > group members. Empathy allows an object to act as if it were some other > object, providing sharing of state and behavior. Smalltalk, Actors, > Lieberman''s delegation system, Self, and Hybrid each take differing stands > on the forms of templates and empathy. Some varieties of template and > empathy mechanisms are appropriate for building well-understood programs > that must be extremely reliable; others are better suited for rapidly > prototyping solutions to difficult problems. The differences between > languages designed for each of these application domains can be recast as > the differences between support for anticipated vs. unanticipated sharing. > One can even ascribe the ascent of object-oriented programming to its strong > support for extension instead of modification. However, many kinds of > extension still remain difficult. The decomposition of an object-oriented > language into template and empathy mechanisms and the degree of support for > extension provided by the forms of these mechanisms provide a solid > framework for studying language design.

<comment><USER3> "Empathy? Empathy? We don't need no stinkin' empathy!"

Uh, perhaps you meant "delegation"? No one uses the term "empathy" in reference to any OOP languages AFAICT except the authors of that non-text searchable paper written in 1987 that you reference. Even if _they_ used the term "empathy" it would have been better to use "delegation" in describing the paper, because to not do so reduces the empathy of your audience.

[I am thorry, I could not resithd, but muth go now becauth I have an appointment with the delegation of the ambatthador at the the U.S. empathy].

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mixins need to be used with great care in dynamically typed languages. It's extremely easy to introduce dependencies on symbols in the class you're getting mixed into, and in larger projects it's not difficult to get name clashes between methods defined in different mixins, so that earlier mixins get clobbered by later mixins.

From my experience, I'm not a big fan of mixin-heavy development. Mixins need a lot of discipline. A mixin probably shouldn't exist if it doesn't have at least two, if not three different target classes it is mixed into.

I've seen mixins used for almost evil things in Rails. When mixins start adding before filters to controllers, disturbing amounts of magic can occur. You can end up needing to research a whole dependency dag and details of its implementation before you can understand a single method that may not refer to a mixin by symbol at all.

<comment><USER5> TFB(ook) by TFA(uthor) of TFA(rticle) discusses the issues with open recursion, and describes a pattern for using ECMAScript 2015 symbols to address this exact problem:

        const books = Symbol("books");

        const BookCollector = {
          addToCollection (name) {
            this.collection().push(name);
            return this;
          },
          collection () {
            return this[books] || (this[books]= []);
          }
        };

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "JavaScript's choice to build OOP out of simple parts–objects, functions, and properties–makes the development of new ideas possible."

They did things like every other language basically. Everything is a pointer, and types are just abstractions we placed on things. So Functions, Objects, Properties can be passed around just like any other variable or even merged together fairly easily. Some languages hide this from you.. some require that you ask very nicely if you do things like this(pascal).. and others simply don't care what you do(c++).

</comment><comment><USER7> While the observations I am about to make likely will be down-voted by some/many in this forum, perhaps even be viewed as heresy, I am compelled to present them on the chance that it helps some to understand what JavaScript objects truly are.

TL;DR JavaScript "objects" are nothing more than a Hash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_table">Hash) map.

From the article:

> Prototypes in JavaScript are "just objects," and since they are "just > objects," we can add, remove, or modify methods of the prototype by adding, > removing, or modifying the functions bound to properties of the prototype.

They are not "just objects." In fact, symantically they are nothing more than a hash map (a.k.a. hash table, dictionary)[1]. The above quote from the article clearly indicates this fact as, if we peform three simple keyword substitutions, the sentence reads thusly:

Prototypes in JavaScript are "just hash maps," and since they are "just hash maps," we can add, remove, or modify values of the prototype by adding, removing, or modifying the values bound to keys of the prototype.

Attempting to think of JavaScript objects in the same manner as what most mainstream "OO" languages semantically provide is simply wrong. "Prototypical inheiritance" is nothing more than a shallow copy of an associative array. By its very definition, that is _all it is_.

Now, IMHO there is nothing wrong with a hash map. There's nothing right about it either. Those sentiments imply judgement, whereas what I have said above is simply analyzing the nature of the subject. The fallacy in calling JavaScript "objects" objects lies in deceiving one's self into thinking that the same semantic guarantees OO languages provide can be done in native JavaScript. The quicker a developer accepts that JavaScript objects are simply hash maps, the quicker they can understand the semantic contract being proffered by the environment _and_ be able to work with it as best as possible.

1 - [http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_object_definition.asp](http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_object_definition.asp)

<comment><USER2> I would argue that objects are nothing more than a uniquely identified run- time entity. With that identity, they can easily have their own encapsulated state (since their identity can be used as an address or key into a global map), and can be associated with behavior that is selected dynamically. Compare this with the dual of an object, the value, whose identity is determined by its structure alone (e.g. 1 and 1 are the same values), and so does not allow for state, nor does it allow for dynamic behavior selection without first turning them into objects (aka boxing). The implications of object-ness lead to certain styles of computation (noun-based) just as they do for values (expression oriented and functional).

Objects existed in PL before the more limited kind in Java or even C++, not to mention the powerful but very Java-unlike object systems Self and CLOS that directly influenced JavaScript's design from the beginning.

The only fallacy, I think, is ascribing a notion of objects based on a couple of mainstream data points. Objects are much richer than that.

<comment><USER7> (Side note: it turns out I can't delete the other message. I must have hallucinated having that ability last night.)

> I would argue that objects are nothing more than a uniquely identified run- > time entity. With that identity, they can easily have their own encapsulated > state (since their identity can be used as an address or key into a global > map), and can be associated with behavior that is selected dynamically.

I largely agree and believe this is pretty consistent with the commonly accepted definition of an object in the Comp Sci sense. There are a couple examples which immediately come to mind (Smalltalk, Objective-C) along with other languages (Ruby, Perl, Python) having the ability to selectively provide equivalent behaviour.

Where I previously said "largely agree", the point where I disagree is when you state "objects are nothing more than a uniquely identified run-time entity." Objects also have associated with them a set of messages which are either intrinsic to the environment's definition of what minimally constitutes any object's behavioural contract, identified by the definition of the object's type, or some mixture of the previous two along with a mechanism to resolve message dispatching.

> Compare this with the dual of an object, the value, whose identity is > determined by its structure alone (e.g. 1 and 1 are the same values), and so > does not allow for state, nor does it allow for dynamic behavior selection > without first turning them into objects (aka boxing).

Here, I think we disagree as not all languages treat values as being disjoint from objects. I realize you mention boxing, which languages such as C# and Java perform for _their_ definition of "plain old data" types, but this is not the same as languages such as Ruby, which represents all values as objects intrinsically.

> The only fallacy, I think, is ascribing a notion of objects based on a > couple of mainstream data points.

The fallacy which I mentioned is in thinking that a person has the same checks in JavaScript applied to collaborations as is expected in other OO languages/environments. I view this as a direct consequence of JavaScript objects being hash maps. Supporting this view is:

> A JavaScript object is an unordered collection of variables called named > values. (source: > [http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_object_definition.asp](http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_object_definition.asp))

<comment><USER2> > Where I previously said "largely agree", the point where I disagree is when > you state "objects are nothing more than a uniquely identified run-time > entity." Objects also have associated with them a set of messages which are > either intrinsic to the environment's definition of what minimally > constitutes any object's behavioural contract, identified by the definition > of the object's type, or some mixture of the previous two along with a > mechanism to resolve message dispatching.

Good well-developed object abstractions have that feature, but that the intrinsic "objectness" that leads to such a feature being desirable does not. Plenty of us remember working with proto-objects that did not have these features, but the nature of our objects drove us to re-discover this feature on our own (e.g. by rolling your own v-tables for a pointer to a struct in C!).

> Here, I think we disagree as not all languages treat values as being > disjoint from objects. I realize you mention boxing, which languages such as > C# and Java perform for _their_ definition of "plain old data" types, but > this is not the same as languages such as Ruby, which represents all values > as objects intrinsically.

Again, I'm going for a definition of objectness. That Ruby treats values as objects isn't necessarily a good thing, and programmers will definitely want to often treat these as values anyways even if the language is resistant to that; e.g. somehow getting 1 == 1 to evaluate as true rather than false! Valueness is just as important as objectness, and in most programs we use both to certain degrees (even if our languages support one over the other).

> JavaScript applied to collaborations as is expected in other OO > languages/environments.

We can argue whether it is a good design choice compared to other OO languages/environments, but it definitely makes them "objects."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> for any particular reason are you returning "this" in your rename function?

<comment><USER9> Probably for chaining

<comment><USER10> Definitely for chaining.

<comment><USER11> Chaining. Definitely for chaining.

<comment><USER12> Chaining. Chaining. Definitely for chaining.

<comment><USER13> TypeError: Cannot read property 'reply' of null

<comment><USER10> //TODO: Make reply a method.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Bithub – Social community rewards - <AUTHOR> http://bithub.com <comment><AUTHOR> More info about the Bithub can be found at [http://bitovi.com/blog/2014/06/bithub-social-community- rewar...](http://bitovi.com/blog/2014/06/bithub-social-community-rewards.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> I was hoping for a BitCoin + GitHub mashup; this is Bitovi sponsoring rewards for community participation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Despite initial appearances and the description, it looks like this is only really for a handful of Javascript projects such as CanJS.

<comment><USER4> Check out the blog post on it: [http://bitovi.com/blog/2014/06/bithub-social- community-rewar...](http://bitovi.com/blog/2014/06/bithub-social-community- rewards.html)

A multi-tenant version is in the works and there's an email address for interested parties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> login, follow, post contentsz and get votes.

but WHY???

<comment><USER6> A free vacation.</comment></comment>


Mongoose 2.0 is ready just in time for Node Knockout - <AUTHOR> http://mongoosejs.com/docs/schematypes.html

<comment><USER2> Support for DBRefs is fantastic news! Not having this has been my number 1 frustration using node & mongo.</comment>


C is again the most popular programming language - <AUTHOR> http://www.jucktion.com/tech/technology/programming/c-overtakes-java-as-the-most-popular-programming-language-for-may/

<comment><USER2> _The ratings are based on the number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses and third party vendors._

This is misleading.

 _The popular search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Amazon, YouTube and Baidu are used to calculate the ratings._

In other words, TIOBE just queries a 7 sites and collates the results. Not particularly rigorous or authoritative.

</comment><comment><USER3> These TIOBE-based posts will never end, will they? Oi wei.

</comment><comment><USER4> Logo is in the top 20 on this survey? Logo? And Pascal, as a separate category from Delphi?</comment>