The 'untranslatable' Japanese phrase that predicts love - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180103-the-untranslatable-japanese-phrase-that-predicts-love <comment><USER2> "Premonition of love". Oh, there, I translated it.

It's not untranslatable. It's just not a popular culture thing anywhere except Japan.

Sure, it's different from "love at first sight" because you feel you _will_ love them, not that you already do.

Personally, sounds a lot like "lust" or just "interest" to me.

<comment><USER3> I had never heard this term until I read this article, but have often thought of a very similar feeling in the past. Maybe it's the same?

The problem is, what I'm thinking of with myself is something that I was not consciously aware of at the time, but that definitely occurred. So I can't relate to the idea of "I will probably fall in love with this person." Rather, it's there's this reaction I have, that's probably some initial attraction, or picking up on subtle cues of their attraction, or mutual attraction, that I'm not aware of at the time.

Generally speaking, I feel like I want to impress this person a lot, and feel kind of inferior or insufficient or something, like I want them to like me. It's not a manipulative feeling, like I want to manipulate them, but rather a genuine feeling of wanting to be a better person, or more attractive, in response to them. It's almost as if my brain is trying to be sexually and romantically attractive to a person I don't even know I'm attracted to.

However, in these situations, I would never really think anything about being attracted to them. If someone brought it up with me, I might even think it's absurd, and not even in a defensive way, but just in the sense that it never ever occurred to me to be in a relationship with them. I don't think to myself "oh that person is really attractive," or "they're the sort of person I'd like to be with." It's something I'm really unaware of, sometimes even for months of knowing the person. It's a very visceral, primal kind of thing.

This article seems to be describing a very similar idea, but at a later stage, where I might be becoming aware of feelings but am not entirely sure of the consequences of it or something.

<comment><USER2> I've certainly met girls that I thought, "I could fall in love with this person." But it wasn't a premonition, just an observation of how great they were, and how well I thought (from a single observation) that we could fit together.

It certainly wasn't fate for any of them, as I didn't date a single one, and I'm quite happy with the woman that I _did_ marry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think there are some characteristics that will induce koi no yokan:

\- jishin ((quiet?) confidence)

\- ii kanji (feeling of good)

\- yasashii kanji (feeling of gentleness -- maybe something like "has empathy")

\- atama ga ii (smart). This is only popular in certain circles and is more typically valued by women in men than the other way) -- most Japanese men seem. It to want their wives to be smarter than they are (although a small portion do).

\- a few more?

I just want to express how difficult it was to write the above. I started in English, but then realized that it was only accurate if I used Japanese. The translations are rough, and they are things that strike me as fairly easy to understand in a Japanese context for me, but less so in an English/US context -- maybe due to a wider range of values held in the latter.

On a personal level, a woman I dated when I was younger when I lived in Japan had koi no yokan for me. I regret not marrying her -- she knew us better than I did.

I would love to hear other people's additions and opinions on this matter.

<comment><USER5> There are words that better express the nuances of the Japanese terms:

Jishin–(self-assured-ness) ii kanji–(feels right) yasashii kanji–(nice to someone) atama ga ii–(smart)

<comment><USER4> I humbly suggest that your translations of the "kanji" terms do not to justice to the potential range and scope of their meanings.

Jishin also has a range of interpretations that may not be identical for those in non-Japanese contexts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sounds pretty superfluous to me. Somewhere between like, having a crush and love, I don't quite see a place for "premonition of love."

Given no other culture has it (as far as mentioned), I'm tempted to believe it's a cultural quirk or a tradition, rather than a universal phenomena.

<comment><USER4> I lived in Japan for about 8 years and I have studied and worked with its culture for many years longer.

I think you're comment is overly dismissive.

First, other cultures probably do have it, but it's just not named as a phenomenon. I personally don't believe the nihonjinron theory. That said, the language and culture is very linguistically and sociologically distant from the west, so some terms don't translate naturally or easily.

Second, you will see this phenomenon in cultures and subcultures that are more collectivist than individualistic. Most countries in the west trend towards individualistic, while most in east Asia trend towards collectivist. Note that how this individualism and collectivism manifests themselves is a fascinating topic, so exceptions are easy to spot depending on the granularity that one looks at a given culture.

Third, the Japanese concept of love can be a bit different than that in the west. Many Japanese marriages are more like brotherly/sisterly love than "romantic" love -- in fact I find that these marriages are often the most stable I have ever seen (this has a lot of caveats, but I'm typing on my phone). Other Japanese marriages are based on a principle of something like "good enough" \-- that is, they set a reasonable bar for want they want, and they will happily take anything above that bar. This is a pretty healthy approach imho, as long as the bar is not regularly set too low. A lot of what is wanted is pretty health stuff like a pleasant disposition, empathy, self- confidence, etc. I think people in other cultures wan this, too, and in many situations they can and do get it. That said, sometimes other competing values in the west get in the way of otherwise healthy relationships or marriages from developing.

Anyway, i encourage you to look into this more. It's a fascinating topic, and it's not nihinjinron propanda, imho.

<comment><USER6> Arigato, for the thoughtful reply!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A good start would be to look at the word written in Japanese.

恋の予感

恋 is love

予, from 予約 meaning reservation/plan

感, from 感じ meaning feeling.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wouldn't take advice from the Japanese on relationships.

[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2011/01/16/national/media-...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2011/01/16/national/media- national/japans-tribe-of-lonely-people-continues-to-grow/)

<comment><USER9> I don't think this article had advice per say on relationships, just a shallow shallow glimpse into what they view as love and the process of getting into it

<comment><USER10> indeed, and perhaps practical insight into how a culture different from one's own, thinks

"a word [or phrase] is the skin of a living thought"\--not sure who said this, i think it was Oliver Wendall Holmes</comment></comment></comment>


Tumblr: Please, let me pay - <AUTHOR> http://log.maniacalrage.net/post/3948497854/please-let-me-pay

<comment><USER2> Web's toy are free ... web businesses are not</comment>


In The Race For More Spectrum, AT&T Is Acquiring T-Mobile For $39 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/20/in-the-race-for-more-spectrum-att-is-acquiring-t-mobile-for-39-billion/ <comment><USER2> From the press release: "The U.S. wireless industry is one of the most fiercely competitive markets in the world and will remain so after this deal."

Did they accidentally release this 12 days ahead of schedule?

<comment><USER3> They have always been "one" of the most fiercely competitve markets in the world. So has everyone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In terms of freedom, T-Mobile was the only large carrier to oppose warrant- less wiretapping of Americans. In terms of cost, T-Mobile offered the best non-contract prices, and I could use my Nexus One or iPhone on their network for a reasonable price.

</comment><comment><USER5> for some reason i'm more concerned than excited.

<comment><USER6> Me too, the even more plus plans from T-Mobile are great and most likely exist because of the parent company. T-Mobile also has great customer service and is my favorite US cellular provider. AT&T is worse in nearly every way except coverage area and now we'll have even less competition in the US, where prices are already too high.

</comment></comment><comment> X-Istence More discussion on this sad story can be found here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2346908>

</comment><comment><USER7> Now they will be AT,T&T-Mobile.</comment>


Ask PG: Has comment voting gone down since you hid scores? - <AUTHOR>

I used to be able to judge whether or not my comments were well argued or useful by the comment score. Lately my comments have gotten very little points.<p>Is this because they are crap, or because voting has gone down since points were hidden? <comment><USER2> I did a quick check a few days after the change and IIRC voting was down by about 20%.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I wonder if the positive skewness has also gone down.

I'd guess there's less "piling on". Previously if a comment had a high point score, you would stop to read it, and thus probably vote on it, causing it to have an even higher score. The new system lacks that positive feedback cycle. Top comments still are more likely to get upvotes because of their page position, but there's no easy way to distinguish how much better comment #6 is compared to comment #7 so comment #6 will get glossed over more under the new system.

<comment><USER3> It could also skew the other way. Previously, I would often refrain from voting up a good comment if its score was already "high enough", so that my vote on an equally good but lower-rated comment would have relatively more weight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have you considered the possibility to add more than just up/down votes, but also "agree". I notice that oftentimes people downvote valuable comments just because they disagree, but are too lazy to write a reply (but they don't upvote them when they agree). thanks.</comment>


Show HN: Review my Startup - Sqardius - <AUTHOR>

Sqardius allows you to share and view pictures around you, and save them for others who will be there later.<p>Here the link: http://www.sqardius.net <comment><USER2> I'd like to give as much helpful criticism as possible, but I can't say much about the general idea, doesn't ring with me, but I'm not a photo/sharing social media person so I'm not the target audience here. Otherwise, I would try to get a native english speaker to correct the english mistakes, that always takes a bit away from the professionality of an app. Also IMO I think bootstrap is too ubiquitous (don't know if end-users think this yet), doesn't add any unique/cool feel to your idea that a good design might. The fact that about/contact/blog all link to a completely different looking site is confusing and disorienting, you might want to consider taking them out.

Best of luck with the idea though - always glad to see people making things :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply, now that you mention it, I think you are right, I'll try to correct them very soon, thank you

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A clickable link: <http://www.sqardius.net></comment>


Announcing the Android Parcel Project  - <AUTHOR> http://commonsware.com/blog/Android/2010/05/11/announcing-android-parcel-project.html

<comment><USER2> I have to assume the name is homage to the Alan Parsons Project, and for that alone I give it a nod.</comment>


Towards parallel kernel test runs - <AUTHOR> https://people.kernel.org/metan/towards-parallel-kernel-test-runs <comment><USER2> Is it really worth optimising the test runs in this way? The potential for making a mistake in the test resource specifications is huge.

Sure, you might save a few minutes per test run, but at the cost of buggy, unreproducible tests that fail at random due to interactions with other ones running in parallel. Tests need to be reliable and developers need confidence that the tests work and that failures are real.

<comment><USER3> I can't imagine it being _that_ difficult to verify correctness of the changes -- just compare the results of the original test suite, and the results of the parallel one -- and try this repeatedly until you're confident you've avoided any missed specifications

If the parallelism actually speeds things up, repeated runs shouldn't be too painful :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The naive solution is obviously to run $NCPU+1 tests in parallel. But there is a catch, some of the tests utilize global system resources or state and running two such tests in parallel would lead to false negatives."

Couldn't multiple test environments run even these tests in parallel?

</comment><comment><USER5> Why doesn't Linux tests auto run in qemu or even UML. UML sounds perfect for unit testing the kernel without having to install it. I feel like there's a chance to narrow the gap in a lot of CICD practices missing in the kernel.

<comment><USER6> UML is different enough than normal Linux to make this have dubious value.

KVM is fast. I personally test with virtme, but I haven't set things up to automatically run the selftest suite.

[https://github.com/amluto/virtme](https://github.com/amluto/virtme)</comment></comment>


Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued - <AUTHOR> http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ <comment><USER2> > Editor's note: At nearly 7,000 words, you probably don't want to try reading > this on an iDevice. Bookmark it and come back later.

Love it, and have bookmarked. Without a thoughtful message such as above may have started and given up half way through (much less than that if I'm honest).

</comment><comment><USER3> I've read and recommend to many of my developer friends over the years. I wish I'd read it 30 years ago. Applying the knowledge in this article can easily earn you an extra $100K over your career.</comment>


Ask HN: What Agile / Kanban / Scrum Tools Use Gamification for the UX? - <AUTHOR> I am looking for Agile, Kanban, or Scrum tools that present a fun and gamified UX experience. This is surprisingly hard to search for. I recall a SaaS tool about a year ago that presented a fantasy theme for small teams. I cannot find that product, nor is there really a segment of Agile etc that focuses on Gamification. There are Agile games, though they are for instruction, and learning the Agile concepts. Any help appreciated, and of course hn is where I turn because this is probably where I read about it awhile ago though the search feature is NOT turning it up! <comment><AUTHOR> I found it in an old browser bookmarks list: "Codecks is a project management tool inspired by collectible card games. [...] Well designed collectible card games provide a great sense of the current state of your game. Let's apply those design cues to project managent."[1]

This is a project written for the Game Design industry based on shortcomings in existing software and that aims at just the right amount of complexity and is able to excite creative visual thinkers and productivity fans alike.

I hope this link helps future searchers! I did see that Codecks was mentioned on hn previously with zero comments.

[1] [https://www.codecks.io/features/vs- jira](https://www.codecks.io/features/vs-jira)</comment>


Dad and The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stephenwyattbush.com/2012/04/07/dad-and-the-ten-commandments-of-egoless-programming <comment><USER2> > Critique code instead of people – be kind to the coder, not to the code

A fellow co-worker taught me by example to try to always phrase each code review comment as a question.

Instead of

> This loop never terminates

Write

> Does this loop terminate?

Instead of

> There's no test for this condition

write

> Is there supposed to be a test for this condition?

I'm probably not thinking of good examples but for some reason, more often than not, the direct comments came across as "you screwed up!" where as the questions instead made it feel like I was discovering my own mistakes rather than have someone tell me I made one.

It's probably subtle and maybe some people will think it's dumb but I really appreciated it. It felt like it went a long way toward me feeling like saw my own mistake and fixed it before I checked it in instead of the direct approach which made me feel stupid and embarrassed.

I've tried to adopt that approach (though it's a struggle to remember to apply it).

<comment><USER3> I feel obligated to mention that this strategy, while it often works to some degree, sometimes doesn't work. For people like me, phrasings like that sound passive-aggressive.

I prefer the strategy of wrapping my sentences in things like, "I think" or "I prefer".

So, I'd write, "This loop doesn't seem to terminate." or "I think that this condition needs a test." It's an implicit admission that I could be wrong and an invitation to push back. Just as often, I'll walk over and say, "Could you explain why you did that to me?" This is especially acceptable when it's agreed that a good review requires the reviewer understand what's going on.

<comment><USER4> I feel the way I communicate has been influenced strongly by voice training - I've noticed in particular I say "I feel" a lot in similar circumstances. (Apparently, valuing emotions above thought is some paragon of femininity? I'm not sure I agree with that.)

I am reluctant to go for the direct "wtf?!" response, because as above, it bruises egos and people get defensive - and that is unhelpful to actually resolving issues. I tend to phrase it as "Perhaps I'm confused, but...". (One advantage of this is that sometimes, I _am_ wrong, and this gives someone an opportunity to explain why, and in the process hopefully re-examining their thought process and testing it just in case.) I think I caught that pattern, as well as excessive usage of "though", from a good friend. One interpretation of this is that perhaps I've spent nigh-on 2½ decades being confused. <g>

There is, however, a place for the genuine WTF. I reserve it for "there's no way you could be that stupid" situations, like someone cheerfully telling me about the 256-bit encryption they used, and my discovering it's RSA-256.

The management-by-Perkele has however seemed to work to keep the Linux kernel clean up 'til now, although they don't really want to _insult_ people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Always good to see Jerry Weinberg's work mentioned. I tried reading 'The Psychology of Computer Programming' when I was in college, it didn't grab then. Finally read it 15 years later, and realized that the material there would've especially helped in my first couple of jobs.

Also... my dad was 45 when I came along. I didn't get to spend much time with him before he was gone, but every moment was valuable and is cherished. I still try to make him proud, and suspect your dad would be proud.

</comment><comment><USER6> The best part of this list is that with some tweaks, the commandments can pretty much apply to any field of personal and professional pursuit.

One rule I might add (and one that is also easy to apply elsewhere): Remember that far more time will be spent _reading_ your code than writing it.

Grokking this not only has practical implications for how you write code (suddenly, the importance of style guides becomes clearer), but it makes you realize that this is how projects get built: programmers re-using libraries that contain encapsulated, clear functionality. Realizing that someone has to read your code -- even if that someone is mostly just _you_ \-- requires a modicum of empathy...and more often than not, this aids in the design process.

A common complaint about learning via something like Codecademy is that you might learn the syntax and how to solve problems...but you don't get much guidance on how to apply that knowledge to real projects. I think part of this is because with Codecademy, you're only writing code for the auto-checker to compile and test. Once you start writing code for _humans_ to comprehend and re-use, it becomes easier to see how code becomes a real-world project.

</comment><comment><USER7> Jerry Weinberg wrote those "commandments" in 1971. (It's sad that the article gives a link to his book but never mentions his name.) It's interesting how well they've kept their relevance over the years, despite the huge changes in the practice of programming. However, we who do the programming still keep on forgetting these things and need to be periodically reminded of them.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have these on display at my desk. I've always wanted to know how to encourage cultural adoption? What are the arguments against these rules? There must be some.

My reasoning about these rules is that they derive from the idea that as teams of programmers, we're professionally motivated (and being paid) to produce the highest possible quality results. To that end, these rules compensate for human biases and faults to maximize quality.

Many of the practices you've read about some companies enforcing, such as "there are no bad ideas" or "no stupid questions" can be related back to these rules under the same reasoning. None of us do a perfect job of compensating for our human faults and biases, so some rules help to improve our performance.

My dad also passed away very early, soon after I finished college, and I credit him for making these rules so easy to follow.

<comment><USER9> > What are the arguments against these rules? There must be some.

I don't actually find this set terribly objectionable, at least when they're treated as guidelines rather than rules, but I'll have a go anyway.

Excessive focus on issues like this is seen as a symptom of a managerialist culture. While few developers I know would object to the ideas that everyone has something to learn, and that apprentice and journeyman coders should be supported and encouraged, there is -- sometimes justified -- suspicion that the real agenda is to commoditise developers and turn programming from a craft into a factory-floor activity. Or, to refer to another article that's on the front page this morning, to turn antiwork into work.

The kind of things that get put in place to "compensate" for ego are rules which value maintenance over re-writes, and third party components (even if they're only a tenuous fit for the problem) over in-house development. While I agree that there are biases to be aware of here, dismissing every proposal for a re-write or new internal development as egotism ends up shutting down discussions about the actual trade-offs.

<comment><USER8> >While I agree that there are biases to be aware of here, dismissing every proposal for a re-write or new internal development as egotism ends up shutting down discussions about the actual trade-offs.

I'm not sure how this behavior could be attributed to any of these rules. Could you elaborate further?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I read things like this, it strikes me particularly that my dad is one of those rocket people the author is talking about. I'm glad he's done what he has to put things in space so that maybe someday people can go places other than the Earth on a slightly more than part-time basis.

All dad-boosting aside, this is a brilliant list, and I'm glad to have it, OP!

</comment><comment><USER11> The trouble with egoless programming is that you don't get promoted.

<comment><USER12> Not true in my own case. I believe that being appointed team lead was a direct result of applying egoless programming principles.

<comment><USER13> Is "team lead" a real position defined by HR that comes with a pay raise higher than whatever the most senior dev title is? If it is, that's awesome. I've never actually seen that in any place I've worked. It's always more responsibility without pay, which I consider a net negative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _' No matter how much "karate" you know, someone else will always know more.'_

As stated, there is always at least one person for whom this is not true. However, even for such a person it is likely the case that there are still people who know things they don't, and the rest of 3 continues to hold:

 _' Such an individual can teach you some new moves if you ask. Seek and accept input from others, especially when you think it's not needed.'_

</comment><comment><USER15> Am I really that rare that I treasure people above all others who will speak to me directly if they don't like something?

With the themes in this article and others like it, are they how you should behave if you want to meet your own goals, or about how people you're subordinate to prefer you behave, in order to not rock the boat too much?

<comment><USER16> The thing is, EVERYBODY thinks this about themselves by default, not just you. Nobody is sitting there thinking that they wish people would just sugarcoat everything for them and be as passive-aggressive and indirect as possible. Likewise, everybody probably feels like they have to be this way when interacting with other people, and that that can be burdensome sometimes.

It can be very, very different when you're actually in that situation though, and your boss is giving you the Torvaldsing that you always thought you wanted. If there is even a teensy part of you that thinks your boss is a jerk, or that they don't respect you, or that you know more about whatever it is that they're Torvaldsing you about, that part of you is being given a golden opportunity to assert itself really hard. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but it's human nature and why spark the flint if you don't have to. I thought I was completely immune to this kind of defensiveness for most of my life, and it wasn't until I got into my 40s that I realized that it was always there.

Another way of looking at is, what is gained by being as blunt as possible, as opposed to the rules in this article? I'd say nothing. Nothing recommended here makes communication any more ambiguous or time-consuming. In fact it's about being more clear about what exactly you are discussing.

<comment><USER17> There are different approaches to being direct - one can be brutally blunt while still having the recipient maintain dignity. I prefer this approach in general - the trick is if the person does not take it well, then you stress that it is not personal, or meant that they are necessarily a bad developer.

It is shocking to be on the receiving end, but it forces the person to think about it more and internalize it better. I have seen it give great results for people's subsequent code, including my own. The developers have all thanked me for it and feel the approach has helped them grow immensely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I agree with everything on this list, but in case someone takes things too literally, I would change this:

Fight for what you believe, but gracefully accept defeat.

to this:

 _Advocate_ for what you believe, but gracefully accept defeat.

Sometimes "fighting" for what you believe can turn in to just fighting.

</comment><comment><USER19> Great list.

When I first became involved in programming as a career, I got this unexpected and uneasy impression that people in the industry (extrapolated from my real- world experiences early in my career) were generally passive aggressive about how they handled conversations about code and how they agreed or disagreed with others about how the code should "be". I think those groups of people would have benefited greatly from this list. Simultaneously it would have prevented alot of the angst I experienced as a young developer.

</comment><comment><USER20> '''Don't feel a "winner" when having corrected, don't feel a "loser" when having been corrected, and banish all feelings of mutual competition.''' [http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EW...](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD683.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> A little late to the party, but I would like to ask:

is there still some research going on in the areas of psychology and programming? Not AI, but how the state of the programmers mind affects collaboration, the quality of the code and the general outcome of projects?

Any hints and links would be very appreciated, thanks!

Have a nice sunday!

</comment><comment><USER22> Highly recommend picking up the book (The Psychology of Computer Programming)

I have a low attention level, and one of my favorite things about this is you can really jump around and pick up the chapters from anywhere.

Also despite the title of the book, its actually a very light and entertaining read.

</comment><comment><USER23> This has been posted before. A moderator might want to add (2012) to the title.

<comment><USER24> Thanks, we added that.

Reposts are fine on HN when a story hasn't had significant attention in the last year or so.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I came here only for the promise of elves typing a keyboard at superfast pace...

</comment><comment><USER26> Something for everyone in that.

</comment><comment><USER27> It seems to me this list, while having positive ideas, reeks of condescendence. it's mostly about how you are "much better than everybody, that's why you have to play cool with everybody"

What is missing is a healthy dose of "why do you think your ideas are better than everybody else's?"

Readability is mostly _subjective_. Code quality, maintainability, etc, are mostly subjective as well.

So don't give me that BS "I'm just trying to get the best code possible" when it's your opinion

Sure, I'm not saying that something like xx = strinvcatpfr(yy * zky_eng) can't be improved, but beyond a certain point it's mostly about taste and endless nitpicking

<comment><USER28> I wouldn't say that those things are "mostly" subjective, that sounds like a defensive argument.

I'm pretty sure there are good objective metrics both for readability and maintainability, they might not be the only aspects but calling it subjective is going too far.

For instance maintainable code could be said to minimize side effects, be somewhat modularized and be as compact as possible while being readable. I find it hard that anyone could claim the opposite and be right "as a matter of taste"

<comment><USER27> "I'm pretty sure there are good objective metrics both for readability and maintainability, they might not be the only aspects but calling it subjective is going too far."

I think you explained better what I mean.

I'm not denying the good objective metrics (for example, one of the aspects would be following Pep8 in Python)

But _beyond_ that it's mostly about subjectivity.

So, evaluate on the objective metrics as much as possible, but don't waste my time saying that "A is better than B" when it's mostly a subjective aspect

<comment><USER29> This is very true. My brother just told me about a class he took on C# in which the teacher gave him a C on an assignment because of 2 things: 1) he had a using statement that reached far into a library, and 2) he used the "var" keyword. The program was correct otherwise.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Blackberry App World launched - <AUTHOR> http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/appworld/

<comment><USER2> Which is all well and good, but I can't seem to access the damn thing.

Or rather, my device isn't supported. Curve 8330, bought it on Monday and was rather looking forward to this.

Perhaps it's the fault of my carrier... I have a hard time thinking they're restricting the 8330 from the App World, as it's a rather recent handset.

<comment><USER3> FWIW, I'm on the same phone and can access and run the app.

<comment><USER2> Hm. I shall have to call Virgin Mobile on the way home and find out WTF.

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> BlackBerry is doing something I wish Apple had done. Their $200 application fee (Apple = $100) entitles you to only 10 applications. Your next 10 require an additional $200 payment.

Had Apple done this, I think you would see far less junk apps that are repurposed fifteen ways to Sunday. A lot of indies and students would probably think twice about releasing useless crap if submissions were limited and had value.

Most .99 apps that are not on the Top Charts make less than ~$75 a month.

<comment><USER5> I think it'll kill the market. You need that experimentation zone. We just released our app on there. But I'd never release any hobby projects to their store. It's not just the price point that stops me. I can afford that if I must. But it means there won't be any open source/hobbyist community developing. And that's what I want to be a part of.

<comment><USER4> Being limited by a $200 application fee to get 10 more slots is NOT going to kill a market for quality-focused developers (indie or not). I'm sorry but that's hardly the case... In fact, we would happily pay ~$10k to publish to iTunes if it meant half the stuff on the store would not be there.

That said, I really wish Apple had let apps run wild. As an alternative, developers could apply for iTunes Publishing and give up 30% + extensive review process. This would let Apple pick and choose without criticism, while "experimenters" could keep the clutter off the store but in a true free market economy where if it was truly that great — it would be recognized with or without Apple's support.

My guess is the Blackberry market will be nerfed by inconsistent hardware that will require extensive testing to ensure a consistent experience for all consumers. Have you developed a Blackberry web-app? Have fun, it's a nightmare... especially when almost all the user-agents report a unique browser specific to the phone. And that's when things were relatively simple.

It's in this regard (and others) that the iPhone wins, and while critics will find fault in a closed/commoditized hardware device — it's truly one of the primary reasons for so much interest in the iPhone (though possibly not recognized given the influx of 'new' software developers). If we had a thousand+ configurations to deal with like Windows Mobile or Blackberry, we would likely not be publishing out of our apartment unless we had funding of some sort.

Look, I'm all about experimenting and hobbyist developers and there's really not much stopping you now... build a few apps, install them on your phone and friends w/ ad hoc distros. But there's really no reason that many of these apps need to clutter a market place. It's like putting a .99 store in a respected city mall, which would never happen be/c there is a gatekeeper preventing crap from leasing space and degrading the shopping experience for customers who go to the mall with an expectation.

That said, I really wish Apple never let iFart on the store. Complete free markets tend to be overrated and resemble anarchy.

<comment><USER5> Yes well said, I reconsider my stance. Apple's store is full of crap, and Blackberry's won't be. Apple want to control their platform completely, but frankly, like you say, they don't seem to have a huge quality barrier, we've all seen the store fillng up with crap. And the store cannot scale to the number of apps in it already.

Your points and experience developing for BB were interesting to me thanks. We came from doing an iPhone app, doing an Android app and then dealing with the multitude that is BB dev, so the points hit home.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Despair of Learning That Experience No Longer Matters - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/news/benjamin-wallace-wells/the-despair-of-learning-that-experience-no-longer-matters?mbid=social_twitter&currentPage=all <comment><USER2> " "Hurt my back at work, lost my job, got evicted, couldn't get another job." "

This is the key here. We need to create safety nets that allow people to get back on their feet and become productive members of society. Whether you are rich or poor, this is in your long-term best interest.

<comment><USER3> Yes, and the culture of deriving (and judging of others) personal value through paid work needs to change. Not having a job shouldn't make you a bad or lesser person.

<comment><USER4> Its not as simple as that. Humans are social, and want to feel that they are "useful", that their presence / skills are needed. Not having a job takes that away from them, which can snowball into psychological issues, and possibly turn them "bad".

When a chunk of society becomes jobless, we've got problems ...

<comment><USER3> But that's my point. If there were non-job activities that society considered equally useful (e.g. Charity work, spending time with the elderly, community service type stuff) then not having a job wouldn't necessarily take away the feeling of being useful.

<comment><USER5> To confirm your point: I've met many people who were stuck in a cycle of being troubled (often mental health issues, but physical too), and as a result being unemployed or barely-employed, and a result of _that_ ending up even more troubled (again both mentally and physically; inaction is often unhealthy).

Then they found the church I was a member of (at times I was the one who brought them).

The first thing that often noticeably improved their general well-being was being _seen_ as a person. People would come talk to this newcomer and involve them in some of the weekly activities. Another aspect of church that improved their life was regaining a sense of rhythm that they had lost: a weekly Sunday service + activities after, a weekly 'small-group' meeting at someone's house (and a big source of new friendships), the usual religious holidays, etc.

But the thing that seemed to most improve their situation was becoming _active_ as volunteers. This would speed up the making-friends process, give them a sense of purpose, take them 'out of themselves' (and their troubles) by focusing on others, and their new responsibilities provided an increase in self-worth (and sometimes even an income, if they were among the 'paid volunteers').

I've seen people that I couldn't imagine 'getting better' regain a sense of normalcy, confidence and even happiness in astonishingly short periods of time.

Now obviously there's also a lot I saw in churches that I didn't like. But I've not found an alternative, at least not as visible as churches, that seems as effective, to the point where I'm almost inclined to encourage 'troubled people' to maybe give church a shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think a lot of these "deaths of despair" are the result of America's racist mythology running up against the realities of wealth inequality in a Late Capitalist society. For a long time, the white working and middle classes have been duped into believing themselves in solidarity with the (predominantly white) wealthy elite, only a few steps way from achieving their rank and status.

But as the vicissitudes of our economy make this delusion more and more untenable, instead of freeing themselves from the racist mythology, they internalize the circumstances of their economic position as a failure to achieve what is "expected of them." This of course leads to all of the despairing acts described in the article.

The situation reminds me a lot of the arguments made by first wave male feminists, about how patriarchical structures are as oppressive to men as they are to women. Considering we haven't moved the needle very far in that domain, I'm not optimistic that we can shed the burden of our racist mythos any more easily.

</comment><comment><USER3> The article is a bit light on substance. The author is writing about a hypothesis that the researchers have emphasized is still in development, and includes (to his credit) what seems to me a pretty strong critique of their work from a statistician at another university. And throws in some anecdotes (which I find more compelling - the "got injured at work, lost my job, lost my home" story is one we hear all too often in the US, because there's no safety net).

</comment><comment><USER7> They're right. The ones that are in despair, I mean. As much as I love computers, they have been involved (I do not believe them responsible, being only tools) in a great swindle. Around 1980, computers entered the workplace. Around 1980, median wages froze. And they have remained frozen since. Cost of living has not frozen.

Between 1950 and 1980, the median wage of the lower 90% of the US economy rose by 75%. Between 1980 and 2010, that median wage rose by 1%. Meanwhile, the median wage of the top 10% during that period rose by 495%.

Every single iota of productivity enhancement which was realized through computers, software, and automation technology was sequestered by the upper class and trapped in the financial services market, never to re-enter the economy.

When your workers productivity increases by 3-7% every year, it is very easy to be amenable to raises which keep apace with the value of the work being done. When computers show up and your employees experience the productivity multiplier of software, leaping 50 or 60% or more in a year... what then? Giving a 50% raise sounds like patent madness. Yes the work they did produced 50% more value, but if they claim to be entitled to any of that value they created, well, you can just say 'the machine did the work' right? So that's what was done.

We've seen this before. When large factories and assembly lines sprang up. Society and employers told workers 'the machines are doing the work' and the fact the workers were creating more value was not reflected in their pay. Eventually there were situations where when a law was proposed in New York which restricted bakeries not permitting them to work people more than 60 hours per week (10 hours 6 days a week), people balked at the radical progressiveness of such an idea. Many businesses were getting entire families (children included, laws against child labor were similarly overturned and said to infringe upon the rights of both employers and workers) working 16 hour days 6 days a week and paying them so little that the family could barely afford housing and food.

People eventually, of course, got fed up and we got labor laws and other protections via the New Deal. For some businesses, that amounted to their labor costs raising 600% overnight. And they were fine.

The idea that 40 hours of work in a week should be paid enough that that single income should be able to raise an entire family on comfortably, including saving for retirement, medical care, leisure activities, education, etc was seen as the bare minimum of sensible fairness. Somehow, despite the widespread adoption of technology which enables 1 person to do the work of 20 or 50 workers just a few decades prior, the number of hours people work is ballooning. Raising children without multiple incomes is tantamount to economic suicide.

Because of the radical jumps in productivity, combined with social forces in the executive management class, compensation has been completely divorced from any relationship with the value of the work performed. This is seen in especially outsized ways in the technology industry itself. A small company can make a new product that costs a few hundred thousand to create, but which creates tens of millions in value shortly after its release. Would any executive in the world consider paying the workers in that company anything other than market average rate?

We are still largely mired in the patterns and systems developed to deal with manufacturing work. That mental work is a profoundly and fundamentally different animal has not been integrated into either the work world or society at large. We still presume people to be capable of 8 hours of exertion, despite mountains of research showing human beings not capable of that with mental tasks without severe degradation of their work product. We still presume that dumping people in the same open floor plan office, rife with interruptions and noise, shouldn't negatively impact productivity despite research showing it is pure poison. Management still presumes that employees which become invaluable become expendable. Aside from the costs involved in finding and hiring a replacement, they see it dangerous to permit an employee to become 'important' to the organization. We still presume that we are dealing with tasks which the vast majority of people in society would be capable of doing simply by following instructions, despite this not being the case for any creative or deep technical work.

I think we might not see another New Deal, however. It would be better for the companies, no matter how they would wail and cry, if we did. Instead, I think the fact that all this technology which makes people individually very productive and capable of creating great value is all very inexpensive and ubiquitous will eventually cause the lens to be turned upon the companies themselves. What are THEY bringing to the table? What are THEY offering workers? When it comes increasingly tenable for individuals or loose confederations of individuals coordinated via software and the Internet, and as the myth of employer loyalty finally dies with the Millenial generation, people are going to realize that companies have screwed themselves. They spent the 1980s abandoning every single benefit they provided to workers (welching on pensions, leaving behind providing insulation from market fluctuations by reflexively laying off workers, shrinking vacation time, abandoning raises that outpaced cost of living increases resulting in required job-hopping, etc) while computers were spreading everywhere, and while the Internet was growing in its nascency. At their very fundamental core, companies exist to do one thing: distribute. Distribute work to workers, and end product to customers. But the Internet and software solved distribution. It's a worthless problem to solve now. All that overhead of office buildings, multiple layers of inefficient management, etc which could be paid for by the large price anyone used to be able to command for solving those problems of distribution are now pure dead weight.

When the tide turns, it will probably happen so fast that people won't be able to believe it. Things tend to do that with software and the Internet. Lumbering corporate giants certainly won't be able to adjust to compensate. They will see their employees abandon them in legions, and things will reorganize. Businesses which actually critically rely upon physical co- location of workers (a much, much smaller number of businesses than most people expect) or physical proximity of workers to customers will fare the best. Maybe. Uber is already showing how even in an industry which absolutely requires physical co-location of worker and customer, the right piece of software is all that is needed.

<comment><USER8> > Between 1950 and 1980, the median wage of the lower 90% of the US economy > rose by 75%. Between 1980 and 2010, that median wage rose by 1%.

That excludes the non-wage compensation. Health + dental + vision insurance, stock options, stock grants, employee stock purchase plans and 401(k) matching (among others) became a fairly important piece of the compensation puzzle, especially in white collar jobs.

The monetary value of some of those components (healthcare) rose quite substantially.</comment></comment>


Columbus's Ultimate Goal: Jerusalem (2006) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/columbus.pdf <comment><USER2> Ms. Delaney has also written a full-length book, "Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem", which I haven't read all the way through but which appears to be a more thorough treatment of the material covered in this article.

(Disclaimer: personally acquainted with the author.)

</comment><comment><USER3> For some reason, in the English wikipedia article for Christopher Columbus [1] you can read: " _Christopher Columbus... was an Italian master navigator who..._ ".

On the other hand, the article about the theories of Christopher Columbus' origin [2] says: " _The exact ethnic or national origin of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) has been a source of speculation since the 19th century_ ".

Considering this, and the fact that Italy became the nation we know around the 19th century, I wonder why the (semi-protected) article reads like that. I think it should be updated.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus) [2] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_theories_of_Christopher...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_theories_of_Christopher_Columbus)

<comment><USER4> I don't know about Columbus in particular, but most famous people like him have people from different countries continuously edit warring over which country gets to "claim" him. I'll check the talk page ... yep, half the talk is arguing about this.

(As an American, I find this phenomenon extremely silly and very foreign feeling. I don't really care whether "my" ancestors get credit for something or not, especially given that national boundaries and people move around all the time. I find it vaguely nationalistic in the ugly sense. Maybe it's because there were plenty of great Americans who were clearly not born here in the first place?)

<comment><USER5> > (As an American, I find this phenomenon extremely silly and very foreign > feeling. I don't really care whether "my" ancestors get credit for something > or not, especially given that national boundaries and people move around all > the time. I find it vaguely nationalistic in the ugly sense. Maybe it's > because there were plenty of great Americans who were clearly not born here > in the first place?)

Most of the countries in the America are largely populated by immigrants and their descendants, and have a relatively shallow history of culture [1], which gives them few opportunities to engage in these arguments, and little reason to care about the result.

[1] I should note here that the fact that the modern countries do not derive authority from any pre-existing indigenous polities gives them little influence in the development of culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very tangential: wondering what Montaigne had to say about the New World led me to his _OF CANNIBALS_ (somewhat in the genre of Tacitus' _Germania_ ), in which I learned that Seneca had foreshadowed Monty Python's Black Knight.

"sed etiam si cecidit de genu pugnat": And when he falls he fights on his knees. ( _On Providence_ II.VI)

compare [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRwCPUEND1U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRwCPUEND1U)

</comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting that the author seems to think that focusing on the religiousness of Columbus somehow mitigates the horror of what he did, as if any religious person of the time would have behaved the same way, but there were other religious people with him who objected strenuously to his treatment of native americans and slavery.

<comment><USER8> Columbus' poor treatment of the natives is a popular myth. He actually rigorously promoted their well-being (to the disappointment of his men), to the point where his soldiers chained him and sent him back to Spain on a boat to be rid of him.

This author (a practicing anthropologist) has a book going into more detail about his treatment of the natives.

<comment><USER7> > As governor and viceroy of the Indies, Columbus imposed iron discipline on > what is now the Caribbean country of Dominican Republic, according to > documents discovered by Spanish historians in 2005. In response to native > unrest and revolt, Columbus ordered a brutal crackdown in which many natives > were killed; in an attempt to deter further rebellion, Columbus ordered > their dismembered bodies to be paraded through the streets.

[https://www.history.com/news/columbus-day- controversy](https://www.history.com/news/columbus-day-controversy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well, it's not surprising giving the time period and the Chivalric ideas that went with it. (Late Medieval period) The Reconquista had just finished up in Spain, and the Ottomans were now bursting on the scene in the Eastern Mediterranean. Columbus was a bit of a Zealot and believed that god spoke to him personally.</comment>


Is CouchDB in Trouble? - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetnews.com/blog/skerner/is-couchdb-in-trouble-.html

<comment><USER2> The linked article is directly contradicted by the very same email thread it quotes from. In fact, John Lenton's reply to similar CouchDB bashing in that same thread pretty much says it all:

 _That's not a fair thing to say. We (the Ubuntu One team, working with the people from CouchIO/CouchBase/MemBase) couldn't get CouchDB to scale the way we wanted it to work; millions of users, many oauth tokens and several databases for each. It's not reasonable to say that it doesn't scale at all, and that's not the case; there are plenty of people using CouchDB to store billions of documents, and we don't want people saying that Couch is "fundamentally flawed", because it isn't; it just wasn't right for the Ubuntu One use-case. Please don't denigrate people and projects unjustifiably; that helps no-one._</comment>


My son died in 1994 but his heart only stopped beating this year - happy-go-lucky http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39422660 <comment><AUTHOR> I want to raise awareness that you don't have donate an organ to save lives. Blood cancer patients all over the world are frantically looking for bone marrow and blood cell donors. The chances for a match are very low, but if they find one the chances of success are high. So you can understand the desperation.

The thing is, an actual bone marrow extraction is only required in 10% of all cases, most of the time you only have to donate blood cells. It's painless and pretty much non-intrusive.

Check out [https://www.dkms.de/en](https://www.dkms.de/en) or [https://bethematch.org/](https://bethematch.org/) for more information about the subject. Costs for the match test are unfortunately not covered by health insurance here in Germany, but it's only 30€ or something in that order.

If you ever wanted to save a life, get tested.

<comment><USER2> I would love to donate blood, but it seems I'm too sensitive to blood. Not sure why. But there have been cases where I have passed out after giving blood tests or cutting myself. Would love to hear ideas how to overcome this.

<comment><USER3> I donated a lot when my father died. Just make sure you're not looking at the bag filling with your blood. We're programmed to think that our life is dripping out through that cord but be positive and aware that this helps someone and also regenerates your blood so it has its benefits.

Don't look and prepare mentally that you're not going to die there. I know it sounds absurd but the "fight or flight" situation kicks in and, like with panic attacks, the fear of actually dying probably leads you to pass out probably.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that's really a fight or flight response since passing out would leave one extremely vulnerable to harm from predators, the environment.

<comment><USER3> You never had a panic attack. When the brain overloads in such situation will take the most extreme action it can, shut you down, put you to sleep so you can't feel anything probably. It won't happen to everyone but it does to many. I've had some panic attacks 5 years ago that got me close to that point. I didn't pass out but I was right there, in all instances I ended up in the ER though.

I have a friend who's girlfriend was driving one day and the car slipped off the road going towards an electrical pillar (it didn't hit it though because my friend managed to grab the wheel). Near the collision point with that pillar his girlfriend passed out, in an instant. We laughed at that situation for years. They ended up in someone's yard, killing a poor dog in his little house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Humanity at its best: Your son gets killed in a foreign country and, rather than being angry with the people of that country for producing some murderers, you actually help seven other families with organs from your now dead son. And, the family (or is it just the father) still come back to the same country to celebrate with the children who received the donated organs. I salute that family.

<comment><USER6> It's interesting too, because in many countries, there's VERY strict patient confidentiality that would prevent the family of the donor from ever meeting recipients.

<comment><USER7> If both parties agree to meet, doctors can enable that, even in countries with strong patient protection laws. People in the US do this sometimes, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You don't need to have someone die to create a life-giving chain of organ donations. Take a look at:

Why I gave my kidney to a stranger — and why you should consider doing it too [https://www.vox.com/science-and- health/2017/4/11/12716978/ki...](https://www.vox.com/science-and- health/2017/4/11/12716978/kidney-donation-dylan-matthews)

<comment><USER9> Wow, very gutsy.

Donating has its risks, after all there's a reason we have two, when only one does the job. I know a person who donated one kidney to his son and was told to essentially change his lifestyle at least when it came to physical work.

<comment><USER8> It is cool that donors automatically go to the top of the donation list if they need a kidney in the future.

<comment><USER10> I mean, they paid into the system and went from 2 to 1 to zero kidneys. Seems fair to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My own son had his eye saved by an organ donor when he was an infant. We live in Canada which is still opt in so someone made the decision that they wanted to give up a part of themselves after they died. For that I am grateful.

<comment><USER12> That's inspiring. If you don't mind divulging more details, can you tell us how your son's eye was saved? Do you mean they transplanted an entire eye, or was there a critical part of the eye donated by someone else?

Also interested if your son has heterochromia as a result. I'd imagine that's the case if there was substantial change to the original iris?

<comment><USER11> They transplanted tissue on top of the eye as part of implanting an Ahmed valve. My son has primary congenital glaucoma. There is no obvious signs like heterochromia, the entire transplant and most of the valve is between his eye muscles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, that's amazing that they were so willing to try and help others. However, reading this 7 days before I take my 4 year old and twin 1 year olds to Italy was not the best timing on my part.

<comment><USER14> Just stay (sadly) away from Sicilia, Campania, Calabria, Puglia.

Edit to avoid misinterpretation and backlash: those are the 4 regions (out of 20) where the Mafias (Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta, Camorra, Sacra Corona Unita) kill the most.

<comment><USER9> The mafia, even if it is as once was, does not target "civilians." You have a much greater chance of being slashed by a 14 yo gang-member in USA

<comment><USER15> Worth noting is that, although the USA does have a crime epidemic, the typical murder doesn't take the form of random shooting or a mugging gone wrong. Think young men who already know each other shooting each other.

<comment><USER16> Do we really have "a crime epidemic"? These data don't show that [1].

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

<comment><USER17> Of course we don't, it's just perpetuated by the media. Every single incident is blasted into our faces, until we're all living in fear of everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm amazed that Reg has 21 year old twin daughters at age 88! I'm sure raising kids at 60 will keep a man young.

</comment><comment><USER19> I remember that from when it happened, it was widely reported at the time, even in the UK. Hard to believe that it's 30 years ago now.

Edit: Sorry, Nicholas was born 30 years ago, it was 23 years ago when he died.

<comment><USER20> 1994 was 13 years ago.

<comment><USER21> Nobody correct him/her.

<comment><USER19> So it was, once.

<comment><USER22> And for a whole year!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Andrea Mongiardo, 22 years following the transplant of American seven-year- old Nicholas Green's heart in 1994, has died aged 37 of lymphoma"

[http://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/4998](http://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/4998)

</comment><comment><USER24> What a well written article. Half way through reading it, my eyes started to swell up with tears ... the image of the father, who was driving the car, turning around to see his son, just sleeping moments before, now laying there dead with a bullet through his head.

</comment><comment><USER25> That was a really nice and touching story to start off my Friday. Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER26> I had the opportunity to see Nicholas's parents speak a few years ago, and their talk convinced me to opt in as an organ donor. When I first got my driver's license, I had opted out of more or less out of spite— the CA DMV's form seemed intentionally misleading, which bothered me. I suppose it still bothers me, but it changed my mind to hear firsthand about the impact that my body could have when I'm done with it.

</comment><comment><USER27> On a somewhat related note, I highly recommend listening to "Gray's Donation" ([http://www.radiolab.org/story/grays- donation/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/grays-donation/)). It is an extraordinary episode.

<comment><USER28> Started listening and I recall having heard most of this one in the car. Great story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> That's the power of defaults. Italy changed to an opt-out program for donation, rather than opt-in.

</comment><comment><USER30> HN title is confusingly incomplete

<comment><USER31> The article title is almost identical too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wow, what a clickbait.</comment>


Announcing NoNoSQL - <AUTHOR> http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1273859940.html

<comment><USER2> _Because if your way of interacting with the database is encoded in a consistent JSON format, then the server can analyze it easier to decide what to do. That should make sharding and clustering a lot easier._

This wording makes it sound like this is an advantage for the server, that it enables things you otherwise wouldn't be able to do _in the server_. But even with SQL, something, usually the server, parses the text/string based query into what is essentially a format similar to this. Sharding and clustering would be "easier" too if you didn't need to do them in your application, if the server side stuff just handled it. Removing the need to parse SQL can remove the need to do that from your stack, but the server usually handles this anyway. The way we think about sharding and clustering now usually puts that functionality into the application or into middleware where you need to be aware of it. There's nothing stopping a server from taking a text based SQL query and offloading all those scaling features from the app itself.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Enter the ZSL: "I'm leaning toward BSD license but if your company uses any Ruby it'll be AGPL."

<comment><USER3> Ha, maybe that'll be it. Although the Zed Shaw Celebutant License was better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You should look at Metaweb query language (<http://mql.freebaseapps.com/ch03.html>) -- it uses JSON in a reasonably intelligent way to do precisely this.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Now why do this? Because if your way of interacting with the database is encoded in a consistent JSON format, then the server can analyze it easier to decide what to do."

It could also parse the SQL query.

<comment><USER6> To be fair, JSON is much, much simpler to parse than SQL.

<comment><USER7> I've written a SPARQL query parser, which is somewhat similar to SQL. Parsing the string into your internal memory representation is not the hard part of writing a query engine. It's really not difficult to transform SQL into the JSON/SQL shown in the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What makes this so great is how many people will take it seriously and angrily comment about this absurdity. Zed Shaw is the only person I know of that will troll by writing extensive amounts of code. It's rather incredible.

</comment><comment><USER9> Very interesting. I would love it if mysql server natively supported a json interface like this. The db would become a web service... how trendy!

</comment><comment><USER10> Like the use of Grace.

</comment><comment><USER11> why not couchdb?</comment>


Google Would Remind My Grandpa of the Arrogant White Invaders - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5500578/google-would-remind-my-grandpa-of-the-arrogant-white-invaders

<comment><USER2> Don't be fooled by these arguments. Issues of race (we should be completely blind to race in our moral evaluations of people) and "pride in culture" (which is disgusting and second-handed - people should make themselves, not passively copy their neighbors or ancestors for every step of their lives) are not important in this China vs. Google thing.

The essential issue is that of individual rights. I say that individual rights are universal (and you should, too!) This is because rights are necessary to sustain human lives; individual rights stem from man's nature, which is defined by biological and mental characteristics that are unique to humans (the conditional nature of man's existence and the conceptual nature of human thought.)

Chinese people are humans just like the rest of us, and for them to live fully, happily and most healthily, their individual rights must be respected. By removing themselves from China, Google is removing their moral sanction of a regime that violates individual rights. By doing so, Google's actions advance the cause of individual rights, so you should be proud of them!

(I should add that I'm not against people that choose on their own accord to take part in some cultural tradition, as long as they _themselves_ actually enjoy it, and that the tradition doesn't necessarily violate the individual rights of another.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting article, and things we should be thinking about.

I think he derails, though, when he loses track of what governments are _forcing_ us to filter versus what Google (or whomever) decides that they don't want to deal with.

</comment><comment><USER4> I look forward to learning modesty from the Middle Kingdom.</comment>


Twilio launches program to teach developers how to become evangelists - <AUTHOR> https://www.twilio.com/blog/2013/12/apply-for-twilio-heroes.html

<comment><USER2> Despite popular conception, "evangelist" as a word isn't actually rooted in religious etymology: it comes from the Greek "euangelistes" \-- literally "bringing of good news", where the "good news" part is rooted in the Greek "angelos", meaning "messenger."

[http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Evangel...](http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Evangelism.html)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing the link! The etymology is fascinating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On a related note, I met a Twilio developer evangelist named Rob Spectre at a PennApps hackathon and he was a very helpful / encouraging person.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting program but I suggest some changes to the description to clarify who should apply and what the expectations of applicants are.

First off, it isn't clear if this is for training Twilio evangelists, or more general. I think it is more general, but lines like "access to Twilio swag" suggest it might be otherwise. The application page ([http://ahoy.twilio.com/heroes](http://ahoy.twilio.com/heroes)) is 2/3 about Twilio, which adds to this impression. Adding some text emphasizing that you do/don't need to evangelise Twilio would be good.

Next up, what kind of commitments are you signing up for? An hour a week of Hangouts, or is there more involvement? What time do you expect to run hangouts? Are you reviewed at the end of each track, and are there conditions you must meet to start the next track?

</comment><comment><USER6> Where did the term evangelist come from, in a tech context?

<comment><USER3> It is a term that fundamentally bothers me in terms of technology. In my mind, evangelism is about spreading the good news of God, especially related to preaching of the Christian Gospel. I understand the term being applied metaphorically to software and technology, but it rubs be the wrong way personally in that context.

<comment><USER7> So "Muslim evangelism" would be a contradiction in terms? I don't think so.

<comment><USER3> That would not bother me. Its the word being used for a decidedly non- religious context that seems to trivialize the word. A programming language or system is a tool and is likely to be supplanted in the years to come. This is not the same as a religious or life philosophy that could well guide a man or woman for his or her entire remaining life. Software just is just not as important in the grand scope of things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find it interesting that "salesperson" has connotations that are so negative for so many people that we find ourselves using euphemisms.

<comment><USER9> They're not called salespeople because they're not salespeople.

<comment><USER8> An evangelist is selling something, even if they aren't negotiating price. Maybe "marketing person" would be more appropriate than "sales person"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Incredible program, incredible company.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words, I'm really excited to get this shipped. We've been iterating on a version of this program for a while and we can't wait to see what kind of force multiplier effect there will be when you help developers learn how to teach and support other developers.</comment></comment>


Show HN: I made a CRM system to make sales fun - <AUTHOR> https://wobaka.com <comment><USER2> As someone who evaluates CRMs pretty much for a living I'm sad to report there's nothing new here. Great UI - Kudos. But, this is way more expensive than Pipedrive whose UI is arguably as user friendly. I think you've got potential here... but you're priced same as close.io with far fewer features and a similar UI.

<comment><USER3> You evaluate CRMs for a living?

If I may, an off-topic question. I am completely unsatisfied with any addressbook software and have been looking at a ton of CRMs for personal use. I would prefer something open source, but anything self-hosted would do.

The one feature that most CRMs are missing is CardDav and CalDav syncing. I need my contacts on my phone. Do you know of any opens source or otherwise self-hosted CRM that supports CardDav and CalDav for contacts and appointments?

Thank you!

<comment><USER2> Streak or Copper would be my go-to for this, but they sit atop Gmail and Google Calendar which doesn't give you the open open source solution you want. I'm sorry to say that I don't have a FOSS recommendation.

<comment><USER4> Personally, I'd actually like a CRM that sits atop LinkedIn. That's where the leads and data truly exist.

Any recommendations?

<comment><USER5> LinkedIn already has that -- it's sales navigator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's pretty! The Basecamp styling is really clear, and it's nice to see the interface on display

There's a few unanswered questions that I hope it's helpful to point out;

* Importers -> If I want to switch, how long will it take me to move from a potential system (Excel, Google Sheets, Salesforce, etc) into Wobaka?

* Integrations -> If I send an email can that come from my Outlook Gmail and be shown? Can I see emails from my colleagues towards a contact if they want to?

* What does a workflow look like? A gif of going from New Contact -> Adding them into an Org I'm talking to -> Sending the first message would do a lot here.

* How do I engage with my colleagues? Can I tag them in tasks, or pass things along to them?

<comment><USER7> > The Basecamp styling is really clear, and it's nice to see the interface on > display

Promising. Anyone who seems to take inspiration from Basecamp is worth at least 30 extra seconds consideration in my book.

Basecamp is the company behind Rails and they were IMO _one of_ the driving forces that made Ajax accessible and web application developement enjoyable.

Their UX was (and probably is) good, and their business philosophy flies right in the face of "unicorn or nothing" which means I wish more people would learn from them. Heh, I realize I'm probably not meant to say that here, but based on previous experience I expect it to be tolerated : )

\- Signed: a Java (and other languages) developer that is happy for Rails

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > We believe in a different type of CRM

Marketing page doesn't convince me that it's a different CRM. Lists usual stuff. Actually quite lacking if the business cannot apply their customizations/business rules/validations/workflows.

<comment> martin-adams I found the same. It says it makes it fun, but what specifically does the software do differently to justify this statement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really like the site. How did you come up with 7 days as a trial period? Seems like it may take longer than a week for someone to really see the value. I could be totally wrong though.

<comment><USER10> We've been through several CRM evaluations since Highrise went into maintenance-updates only.

During that time, we've seen some terribly unintuitive software and other offerings that look as though they'll be great but lack some key feature.

Every CRM has a gotcha that you won't find until you use it in anger.

IMO, seven days is not enough but I also think no evaluation is long enough unless you have the resources to run it fully in parallel to your existing process.

<comment><USER11> Exactly this. We actually ended up rolling our own internally, as a quick project. It's just as bad as everything we hated, and has some of the features we loved. At the same time, it costs nothing now - so we've committed to using it.

<comment><USER12> if your time is worth nothing then it's OK I guess. In the other hand if it is feature frozen and the trend is for infinite months it would be a wonderful investment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The copy says "tired of bad, boring software"

Bad, yes. But boring? I really don't look for fun and excitement from work software.

Excel wouldn't become any more useful if it was painted pink and had wacky icons

</comment><comment><USER14> I went through your tweets and visualized how Wobaka slowly grew into production. I also have a similar side-project (customer support system, tbh), and you launching your product helped me gain confidence that I can do too! Unfortunately, I cannot sign up for a demo because no cc info (3rd world problems). Anyway, congratulations! It looks simple and beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would still go with a major CRM. It's not so much about having a great product as it is about having software that a lot of people already know how to use. Even if people don't like the major players at least they're familiar with them, so recruiting and training is a lot easier even if the product is not a good as it should be.

<comment><USER16> This reasoning has certain merit, but I still get sad every time I hear it. With this kind of attitude we would have never gotten out of the caves.

<comment><USER17> Not everyone is an early adopter

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I found it a little hard to understand the differentiators. I think in a space like this, where there are already a host of established players, you should have the differentiating feature up front and easily consumable. I'd love to hear more about what other CRMs were missing (in a particular use case) and then hear what you did to fix it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That makes sense, will work on it :)!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks really nice but I wonder if you went too far with Basecamp's look.

The brand colors look so similar that you could get the impression that it's a Basecamp product. It almost looks like you took their background color and changed it by the smallest amount possible just so it wasn't an exact match if you compared the hex colors.

<comment><USER20> The background colour also looks like this site, Hacker News.

<comment><USER21> It's a color, they're not exclusive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The title of the Show HN grabbed me and the design on your homepage had me leaning in.

I think it's hard to differentiate on design fully as a basic CRM. One idea you could look into as both a feature set and a focus of your marketing is leaning into the idea that you're the ideal first CRM and you make migrating to Salesforce dead simple.

You can snag ppl like our company who have been told you'll eventually need to be on Salesforce but aren't ready for all of that overhead. Then once you've got a community of users, you have a chance at adding more and more functionality that will get people to stay with you instead of migrating.

I've always thought there was a market opportunity around that.

Good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

That's interesting. I'll always help you export your data whenever you want manually until I've built a good export tool :).

<comment><USER22> i love love businesses that start with services before automating with technology. Fully support this approach - def don't build until you need to and have requirements from your experience / your customers. I also really encourage you to think through the messaging that i described (your best 1st CRM with zero pain migration to Salesforce)!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> No API information.

This is what I look for first when evaluating CRM software, which gives me an idea of the underlying schema and how to extend or integrate the software.

Most smaller CRM's do not support multiple price books, for example, that can be critical to businesses that have price differences between sales channels and regions.

A typical use case, customer story, for your solution would be helpful.

Cheers

<comment><USER24> Agreed! Having APIs helps me integrate better into our current work flows.

Also, I'd love to see some analytics / visualization features (or integrations into Looker/Tableau)!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll be making some basic analytics features this autumn. Pipeline overview over time, per-user metrics, maybe extrapolated deals etc, nothing super fancy :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment> luka-birsa Went to check the landing page, looks nice.

Does not answer why I would choose this over all the other 1000000 of CRM offerings (just in our office we tried Zoho, Close.io, Salesforce, Pipedrive,....).

Plus, not fully sold on the "Built to last - Wobaka is like your favorite craft beer or artisan coffee. Made with love and hand-picked ingredients. No mega-corp here." pitch.

Great effort tho.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I know there are many CRMs out there. I'm trying to build one that I enjoy using and that is specifically made for small businesses. This way I can remove a lot of the stuff I don't care about and still have a nice and efficient system that is easy to stay on top of :).

<comment><USER25> I'd echo the parent comment. I hope you can get some paying users to sign up. The first place I would spend money is on a top-notch copywriter. I really like some of the copy but it feels disjointed as a whole.

When you say that it's for small businesses and it's really efficient and light, I think people will identify with that. As long as features keep getting added to platforms, we will always need a super lightweight version. Again, I hope you get some paying users right away!

I think I'm just missing something and I see these as clashing messages that don't get fully explained: this platform will make you smile and you'll have fun using it, this platform is faster than other platforms, and it's built for small businesses. I'd ask you "How?" for all three of those.

Just some thoughts from a marketer who thinks about positioning and looks at lots of landing pages. I hope you ignore all advice, trust your gut, and have tons of success :)

<comment><USER26> At $49 per month with no free tier the author is setting themselves up for failure.

Get people on board with free product than offer value add. A CRM requires trust.. so spend money on the brand or give a free tier and build trust.

<comment><USER27> Free tier comes with A TON of support demands from people who many not ever become customers. That'd lead to failure a lot quicker. Seems better to have a a few paying customers who are invested in the product providing feedback than hundreds or thousands providing 'feedback' that will never lead to a conversion

<comment><USER26> I understand where you are coming from. Currently the website doesn't sell the product as is. I think you'll have trouble finding that paying customer. You need a good unique strategy if you want to break through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Congratulations on your product launch! I am not your potential customer but as a fellow software developer I would like to know the technology/programming languages driving your product if you don't mind.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

It's Clojure + ClojureScript, using a view library called Rum :).

<comment><USER28> Wow! I love Clojure. Unfortunately never got to use at work and of course never built anything serious with it.

Would you like to share more about your experience building a live product with Clojure? Did you face any challenges due to the smaller community and smaller set of libraries compared to something mainstream like Python or Go?

<comment><AUTHOR> I love it :)!

I've built products with Python, Ruby and Node before and Clojure has been super fun!

Not missing anything particular. Since it has interop with both Java and JS you can often find libraries if you like to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Looks nice. For anyone looking to self-host or develop their own CRMs, I can't recommend [https://erpnext.com](https://erpnext.com) enough. It's written in Python and is FOSS.

</comment><comment><USER30> Misspelled [https://wobaka.com/img/feature- tasks.png](https://wobaka.com/img/feature-tasks.png)

<comment><USER31> Also, at the very bottom, "Wobaka cost way less than lost deals" cost should be costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Same price for 5 ppl as for 500? WTF?

<comment><USER33> This is going to be a tough lesson to learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> IANAL but I don't see a "Legal" or "Privacy Policy" in the app itself. Maybe someone in the know can say if it's required or not. I do skim through these document if they exist and I can't find it here. At it's current state, it screams like an open source project since it says "Made with coffee by @drikerf"

</comment><comment><USER35> Out of curiosity - can you share if you received any new paying users through this Show HN, and if so, how many? I realize there's a 7 day trial so even number of trial signups would be interesting. Trying to gauge the HN effect for a product like this.

</comment><comment><USER36> I clicked because you said that you made something I'll "enjoy using." It made me interested to see what a CRM is. I can tell by visiting your site what purpose it generally serves, but nowhere did I find mention of what CRM stands for. Maybe you don't need to spell it out for your target market, but I think it would still be nice to establish the acronym for unfamiliar guests. To be fair, maybe I'm in the minority, as a quick web search provides me plenty of results clearly stating that it's "customer relationship management."

In any case, good luck with your business!

</comment><comment><USER37> Great design! Is this some known scheme/template or is it all custom? Because it resembles Notion's design a bit. Did you start from a reusable framework (e.g. bootstrap)?

<comment><AUTHOR> No framework, just CSS :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Is the name a play on Wookiee Chewbacca? Asking for a friend.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, I honestly don't know where I got it from. It used to be a word game I made in 2012 and I've just had the domain since :D.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Congrats on building this. It looks great. Two bits of feedback: I didn't see any mention of an API. Comments indicate an uploader function, but to get into anything close to enterprise you will need an API yo manage the data. The API will need to be able to get data in and out. After that, larger customers will expect customizations. Big companies always want to customize the software.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Thanks for the feedback!

There will be an api later on. I'm building this for small businesses, so I don't want to bother them with enterprise features they won't use :).

<comment><USER40> I think you may be underestimating the need for an API. We're a small company (17 employees) and we wouldn't consider it without an API.

Remember lots of systems generate leads/customers, so if you don't want to provide tools for all those various systems, you need to offer an API.

Also on your sign up page, there's a typo:

"Wobaka cost way less than lost deals" should be "Wobaka costs way less than lost deals"

Unless Wobaka is plural?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I fixed the typo now :).

As I mentioned, there will be an API soon (same as I'm using for the frontend). Just have to document it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> In your sample, Bruce Wayne should be in company Wayne Enterprise, nobody knowshe is also in the justice league

</comment><comment><USER42> Looks nice! What about self hosting? I'd copy the Gitlab model. Open source community edition, and a quite pricy Enterprise edition that is full of features that only larger companies need (compliance stuff, audit trails, fine grained permissions, etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi!

I'm making this for myself and other small businesses. So not really interested in enterprise :).

Open source model is interesting though and I've thought about it before. We'll see :)!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Trying to sign up in Firefox and when I click the Start 7 Day Free Trial button, nothing is happening. I get a brief spinner on the submit button, and nothing. Assuming maybe some validation is failing but its not telling me anything.

</comment><comment><USER44> For me, the biggest pain points I face with CRMs are in integrations and customizations. Even Zendesk Sell+Support was awful when integrating to our ecom app. Does this CRM offer anything better in this area?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really atm. I will publish documentation for the API and will also make it work with Zapier. But if you're after lot's of integrations maybe Pipedrive is better :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Looks great, well done for launching it (and getting onto front page of HN!).

What I really like is when there's a video showing what it's like to use the product.

I launched my leave tracking app ([https://leavetracker.app](https://leavetracker.app)) a couple of months ago and once I'm finally happy with the design I'll be making a video for it, I think it can really help with conversions.

I'm always impressed when one person alone builds a product and actually ships it. It's a very different journey to working in a team on a startup. Best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That makes sense. I'll def make a video/gif! The product has changed quite frequently so didn't want to redo it every other day :)!

<comment><USER46> How great would it be if you did redo it every other day, though?

You'd automate the video publish pipeline, of course, and then it would be like a cross between a high-level UX test and a rehearsal for your pitch. You'd get really good at the workflows you demo, which would probably make the demo more impressive, and you'd be more likely to clean up any rough edges or annoyances that you come across repeatedly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Can you tell us about the backend stack of this venture?

<comment><AUTHOR> Backend is Clojure, frontend is ClojureScript :).

<comment><USER48> Nice to see a full Clojure stack! React based? If so, which library did you go with? Nice work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! I use Rum :).

Also Garden for CSS so it's 100% Clojure :D.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> On your sign up page, this one sentence isn't quite clear to me. - "That's a total, no matter how many people your are."

<comment><USER33> I agree, this sentence is strange.

And when a company of 100 signs up...... oops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Is there a guide or a book you'd recommend on designing software like this (in terms of the UI)? You've done very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Design of everyday things is the only book I've read on design and it's great :)!

I also learn from others and save design inspiration all the time and share it on Klart.io/pixels.

<comment><USER50> Thanks a lot for sharing. I have it, but have never gotten around to reading. Will do now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Hey Fredrik, this is great :) Really dig your styling. Have been looking for a less-clunky CRM. Just signed up for a trial.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I hope you'll like it :)!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Kudos for the launch! Is there a way to demo the product? Or see it in live w/o having to pull out the CC?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll make sure to put up a video/gif on some workflow this week :). Also, I'm using Stripe to handle payments and will not charge anything for the free trial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Why the name? To those who know a little bit of Japanese, the name is rather amusing.

<comment><USER53> I know a bit of Japanese and it didn't strike me at all. Is it just the "baka"? :-)

<comment><USER33> Wo = The

Baka = Fool

Src: Typed "wo in Japanese" and "baka in Japanese" into Google.

<comment><USER54> Names can, of course, be whatever they want, so there's nothing to say whether or not the name is "right" or "wrong".

From a language perspective, を is most commonly transliterated _wo_ when used in isolation. When used as a particle, it's generally transliterated as _o_. It also follows the noun rather than proceeds it. So if the intent of _wobaka_ is to mean something like _idiot (as the object of a sentence)_ a number of liberties have been taken.

There's an honorific _o_ お that does precede a noun, which I've never seen transliterated _wo_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Nice UI, very much in the style of Basecamp / 37Signals.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I like their work :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> The look and feel reminds me a lot of basecamp!

</comment><comment><USER57> May I ask how you did the product screenshots?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure! Just screenshot and some editing in Figma

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Any chance the domain is Japanese? haha

</comment><comment><USER59> This looks nice, but when you say "you'll enjoy using" it sounds like the "you" is a salesperson. As an enterprise software PM who works with a lot of CRMs from a partnership/integration perspective, I can tell you that whether or not salespeople like it doesn't matter.

CRMs are tools for sales managers (and folks further up in the hierarchy) to know what's going on in their org. An incidental benefit is that reps have useful views of what's going on with their prospects, but ease of use for them is just not a concern of the buyer (hence the wild success of Salesforce, which just sucks to use).

In some categories of enterprise software, ease of use is a benefit. I was at Box in the early days when one of the big value props is that people would actually use it, because at the time they were using unsanctioned tools like Dropbox. The issue there was that managers didn't have an easy well of telling when people were using those tools, so the idea that good UX would entice users to stick with company-approved software was a good selling point.

With CRMs, that's not the case. As a rep, you're judged on your performance, and the way people see your performance is via the information you put in your CRM. If you're tracking a bunch of leads outside of your CRM, your manager will know (because you have to keep them in the loop on your deals). Thus, there's no reason for sales management to be concerned about ease of use - their CRM is going to get used because the alternative is that the reps are going to get fired.

My impression based on your marketing pages and this post is that you didn't really take the time to understand the CRM market and buyers before you built this. Your $49/month for a whole team pricing structure makes no sense - companies are absolutely willing to pay more (and are very willing to pay per user). Having a price point that low is more likely to scare off serious buyers than entice them. The fact that all of your messaging is directed at a rep is a huge problem. You need to focus on things that matter to your buyers (reporting, lead routing, pipeline management, etc.). "Wobaka is the CRM system that will make you smile" is a bad tagline - the folks buying this don't care if the people using it smile. They care about money. If your product doesn't make money (by improving time to close and/or likelihood of close), then they're not buying it whether people smile or not.

The good news is you've solicited this feedback early, and the fact that you have a well-designed UI definitely isn't a bad thing. If I were you, though, I would stop development and spend most of your time getting this in front of people in sales management to see what their feedback is. Find out what problems they have with their existing CRMs and try to solve those.

</comment><comment><USER60> Seems inspired by Notion.

</comment><comment><USER61> A while ago I used Hubspot CRM for a bit. I think it's slow and quirky, and to me it's a big red flag how hard they make it to get the data out (or, well, 2 years ago at least).

But Hubspot gets one thing right that I never understood other CRMs can't do. If Hubspot sees an email from email@example.com, they automatically make a new contact for that name, and a new organization for that company (derived from the @company.com), enrich it all with available data (employee size etc), which I guess they get from some Clearbit-like data. This is super useful, because it means all relevant organization about a new lead who just reached out is just there. The only manual logging I ever have to do is eg log calls or write internal notes. No bookkeeping whatsoever.

Similarly, if I want to log someone I met at, say, a conference, I just enter their email address from their business card (or whatever) and -poof- the contact and organization are there. Maybe I'll add the phone number if they're oldschool like that, but that's it. All the otherfields are immediately in "good enough" mode.

A while later I tried Close.io, who advertise _loudly_ in the blogosphere about how much other CRMs make you click and type, and I had to make every contact and organization by hand! How is that automation? I simply don't understand how any CRM in 2019 can ship with so much manual data entry. What am I missing? Is my use case such an edge case?

If you'd add stuff like this, then maybe I'd be interested in switching over. But having to manually maintain every single piece of data, when much information is publicly available from various sources, is just not worth my time.

And if you _have_ this feature, I'd highlight it proudly on the website :D

To other HN'ers, if you have suggestions for CRMs that get this right, I'm interested.

<comment><USER62> The few bits of automation hubspot do have, you end up fighting to behave well. It's so hard to organise data in hubspot that you'll end up negating any benefits from the automation. In my experience, it all becomes messy quickly.

I'd probably rank it as the worst bit of software I've ever used. The apis are inconsistent and incomplete. You can have multiple email addresses for a contact, but you can never extract them over the api and the only the primary is treated as a first class citizen. The interface somehow manages to portray the least amount of useful information in the largest amount of space I've ever seen. Updating anything is so painful that it's hard to motivate yourself to do it.

/rant

<comment><USER63> Disclosure: I am one of the HubSpot founders.

Sorry for the poor experience you've had with the HubSpot CRM. We are working hard to make things better -- especially the APIs and how we present information in the Contact view.

Thanks for the candid feedback.

<comment><USER62> Thanks for commenting, in spite of my rude assessment.

Things have gotten marginally better over the last couple of years since we started using it, but it's still not a great experience. Every part feels a bit kludged together. Take email integration. Really you should be doing something like closeio which just reads and syncs emails. Instead you rely on a plugin to bcc on send (miss the boat and the whole email chain is gone forever). But I don't want to use the plugin (for reasons I don't recall, oh maybe because I had to remember to keep turning it off all the time when emailing domains outside what we wanted in the crm). But then there are the obtuse track vs log flags, and depending on what you do, you may or may not receive the responses later in hubspot so someone else maybe can't deal with it while you're off.

There's a lot more candid feedback I could give, but the response from the support team so far is basically, "put it in the forum". Which seems to be the place ideas go to die.</comment></comment></comment></comment>