Ask HN: Why don't people talk specifics about money and salaries? - <AUTHOR> Growing up neither my parents or friends of my parents talked about specifics around money. Not only how much everyone was paid, but also how much they paid for a car or a house.
When I went to negotiate my first salaried job I had no idea how much to aim for. Was $30,000 a reasonable salary? $60,000? I realized then that everyone's aversion to talking about money had left me in the dark as to how the business world worked.
Why is everyone so hesitant to share their salaries and other financial information?
Note: I know that it is against company policies, at many companies, to disclose your salary. Is there a reason besides this?
Edit: Has sharing financial information, either personal or about your company, ever caused you problems later? I would love to hear some good stories. <comment><USER2> Simple: it only benefits you, not your employer. Here is a personal example from a not so distant past for me. The economy tanked when i graduated from university with my Comp. Sci. degree. It seemed as though every company in the area was on hiring freeze. Relocation didn't seem like a good option at the time. So, i was offered 35K at the place i was interning, when i was supposed to start out at 50/55K considering experience. During my stay there i busted my butt, was praised for my work, got amazing annual reviews, promoted to senior software engineer and over 2 years got bumped to 60K. My manager actually told me i am the best resource on the team. Anyway, i was lead to believe that the company just didn't pay much their software devs. Until one day i was talking to a friend of mine, a very talented web designer who was actually hired at our company to do web design but them got bumped to our engineering team. He told me he was offered 75K and knew that some folks on our team made 85K. My jaw dropped. I left the company 3 weeks later. The new place doubled my salary. I was counter-offered at, again, a much lower number than others on the team. Would any of my hire-ups wanted me to know this? Of course not. They'd lose me earlier. This is how you retain people.

<comment><USER3> Hey, I downvoted you because of fat fingers and a tablet. I hope someone else will upvote by way of undo, as that is what I intended.

I've been through the same experience. Not once, twice.

On both occasions I resigned the instant I discovered the discrepancy. On both occasions the reaction by the companies was to suddenly offer a wage correction. But the disrespect had already been shown in my opinion.

I'm in favour of transparency now. I'm also in favour of clearly understood titles/levels, with knowledge of how to progress and what it means to be at a level (not a hierarchy, but a personal learning progression).

Whether or not this works for non-engineering roles I've yet to find out.

<comment><USER2> No biggie. :) I absolutely agree with you. It is a matter of disrespect. When you're promoted you'd better expect same salary as those at your level. Benefits can accumulate with seniority, but salary should be equal for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The answer is actually pretty simple, it causes a lot of problems and very little is any "good" comes out of it.

The problems seem to originate from two things; first people often judge their own 'worth' by comparing their work output to others, and two, people who don't understand the details of a particular job seem to think it is much easier to do than it really is.

So in the first case person A, who thinks highly of themselves, and very poorly of a co-worker person B, finds that the co-worker is getting more compensation than they are. This triggers a management issue where someone has to explain to person A the discrepancy. There are a number of real explanations (like Person B is actually doing a harder job and/or providing a more valuable role) that Person A, may be unable to accept.

Or person B may have a role that is significantly different, like they are in marketing (vs engineering) or finance or analysis. Can you compare salaries for someone who cranks out a thousand lines of code a day with someone who can tell you precisely which of those lines of code are making the company money and which ones aren't? Both are great skills, that latter is harder to find, you might pay them a bit more. But explain that to the person writing code? Not easy.

When I was at Google it was proposed a number of times (by engineers) that everyone's salary should just be part of the info available. They didn't do that, but I could see someone like the 37Signals folks or some startup doing it from the start.

I've not worked at a company where that was the case so I can only speculate on what it might be like. For folks who were internally OK with their own perception of self worth it wouldn't matter, for the sociopaths it would give them a new game to 'win', for folks who were not OK with their own self worth it would be devastating.

I do know that individuals can change this, so when your out socially talk freely about specific amounts of money you earn, or save, or spend. But be forewarned that it will make _them_ uncomfortable. But if you can get a community built up where its considered the 'norm' then converting your workplace to use it (assuming they have enough of that community employed) can work.

<comment><USER5> I find a lot of government and academic work operates in the way you described. A lot of times, the job titles are known and have a pay rate or pay scale associated with them.

Everyone knows, for example, that a software consultant level 3 has a pay rate of $XX.

The biggest negative to that type of system, that I've experienced, is that it's hard to incentivize great employees when they are already at their max pay range. For example, you can't give them more money for great work. Also, since everyone knows what everyone else is making, it tends to sometimes create resentment if you think someone else, with the same title or pay scale, is doing sub-standard work compared to you. This generally makes the person less likely to work as hard as before or contemplate other opportunities.

On the positive side though, you don't generally have as many arguments over wages and definitely no surprises when you find out someone's salary. Plus, everyone is well aware of the rungs of progression in their current position, so you tend to know when promotions are warranted and what you'll get as a result which takes a lot of the "I hope they recognize how hard I work" or "I hope I can get $XX more dollars after my next review" out of improving your career. You know exactly what that next rung provides you, and so does everyone else. Therefore, it removes a lot of stress of uncertainty but also possibly diminishes some of the more "go getter" type spirit since you know exactly what it takes to progress, so why go above and beyond?

Here's an example of what I'm talking about, in Ontario (Canada) all public sector salaries > 100K are published publicly. The < 100K public sector salaries are basically public too, just not published on a website :)

[http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/20...](http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/2012/)

<comment><USER4> Interesting, this would be an issue of course _"This generally makes the person less likely to work as hard as before or contemplate other opportunities."_ if it was endemic can you say more about that? Do you see people at the top of the $X range who are 'coasting' (some folks called it 'retired in grade') or a lower performer pulling down the whole group who don't want to work any harder than the guy making the same salary and 'getting away with it' ?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, in my experience with it, I think the biggest problem was if you were "maxed" out. Taking my example again, say you were Software Consultant Level 3, but there was no Level 4. At that point, the person either just accepts it (and maybe loses some drive) or they look for options for a new ladder such as changing title (manager, supervisor, etc.) or a whole new company altogether.

I think the same thing happens in all work places, but if salaries and titles are more open ended, you never really know what you can achieve so you might stick it out longer. In this type of workplace, you explicitly know, and you explicitly know when you have no where left to progress so you make your career choices knowing exactly where you stand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is interesting, because it's mainly an American thing. My friends in Sweden, Norway and Germany never hesitate to speak about compensation. Here in the UK, it's sort of in between.

My theory is that American's believe the ability to assess your own salary and worth is largely part of the attributes of success and worth. Other countries believe more in the employer to define this.

Cool fact - In Norway, everyone's income is public domain: <http://skattelister.aftenposten.no/skattelister/start.htm>

<comment><USER7> That's funny because I came here to see if anyone was pointing out how common it was in Sweden for people to avoid the subject.

I'd say it varies from person to person though because me and another guy at my department managed to get others to open up just by being open about it ourselves and joking.

The sad thing that some people can't endure that without turning it into a pissing contest for some sort of imaginary alpha-male position.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I'd say parent has it wrong. In Denmark it is certainly taboo to discuss salary and I would be rather surprised if there were cultural differences on that point between Denmark and Sweden.

It's very much about context - there are situations/people with whom I wouldn't mind discussing it, but there are also situations where it would be clearly awkward.

<comment><USER7> These situations do occur where I work because our company is the result of multiple mergers over the past 4 years. So I work with people who feel like they've been there from the start but my entry salary was just as high, or higher, than theirs because I was hired in the new company form.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In the US, mostly worries about social problems from disparities. Parents may not want their kids to know if their family is substantially wealthier or poorer than their friends' families. Heck, adults might not want to know it either. At some level of very-wealthy or very-poor it becomes obvious, but there's a broad set of salaries in the middle that are broadly lumped in as "middle class". Many people in that tier think of themselves as just middle class, and socioeconomically roughly on par with other middle-class people. To maintain that polite fiction, it can help not to know that you actually make 2x as much as your friend, or vice versa (in many middle-class communities, salaries of both $120k and $60k can be found).

Companies similarly worry about a hit to team cohesion that could result if team-members find out that some of them are paid much more than others.

<comment><USER10> Your kids probably know better than you if you make more money than their friends' parents. With sleepovers and carpooling and all the time and activities they spend on both sides, there's really no way to hide this, especially at a $120k vs $60k disparity.

<comment><USER9> I've actually been surprised, more often than not, when I've found out how much people make (including some family friends I knew as a kid). It doesn't correlate all that well with how much I would've guessed they were making. One big reason is that people have wildly different savings rates, and I don't generally have a way to guess that: someone who "looks like" they're living at $70k/yr might actually be making a lot more and banking it for early retirement.

Another reason was that, even when only estimating spending, as a kid I tended to over-emphasize "conspicuous consumption" and gadgets: assumed the people with bigger TVs, new game consoles, better cars, etc. were wealthier. What I massively underestimated was the cost of "nice" vacations (esp. compared to relatively minor items like game consoles), so it was really the people who liked to travel a lot who spent more, but I never saw their spending happen when I was around.

edit: To add one more confound, I think I also put too much emphasis on "class" associations: I assumed parents working blue-collar jobs made less than white-collar, which was not always true, esp. when you took into account that some blue-collar families had 2x incomes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We could talk all day about the various sociological explanations, but there is one very clear economic incentive for the salary taboo:

It enables companies to pay employees as a whole much, much less.

Doesn't need much more explanation than that.

<comment><USER12> The flip is also true. It allows companies to pay more, too.

If you publish your salaries, and along comes a super-talented programmer who asks for more than standard, but has unique talents that don't really fit on the standard "scale", then you can bring them on board, without creating resentment, etc.

I've worked at a company with standardized salaries, that lost out on hiring the best programmers, simply because their salary system (everybody's titles linked to salary grades everyone knew) was too inflexible.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I'm not really buying that.

So you're bringing somebody exceptional on who will create some amount of value, and you're willing to compensate them appropriately for that. But wait, the rest of your team will be resentful!

There are two possibilities here: 1) You're paying everyone else less than they're worth to you, in which case they _should_ be resentful; or, 2) You're paying everyone else what you think they're worth to you, but you're unable to convince them of that, in which case your problem isn't that your employees know each others' salaries, your problem is that your employees don't trust your judgment-- or perhaps that you _have poor judgment_.

Of course any compensation program which isn't flexible enough to appropriately reward employees for the value they create is flawed, but that has nothing to do with whether or not those rewards are public. In fact, I'd argue that a traditional system where compensation is determined by closed- door negotiations with asymmetric information is uniquely _un_ likely to do so appropriately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I dunno, just an American cultural thing, and varies by country. When I was in China, it was just a natural part of conversation: "Where are you from? What do you do? How many brothers/sisters do you have? How much do you make?"

I'm cringing at all the responses in here saying "this is why", as if it's some universal truth, when really it's just rationalizing the particular culture people have been steeped in. Why don't women walk around topless at the beach? Just culture. Some cultures see it as perfectly normal.

I wish people were more okay with it here in America. I make it a point to answer honestly if anyone broaches the subject, and to ask my close friends. Doing my part to change things. :)

<comment><USER14> > I'm cringing at all the responses in here saying "this is why", as if it's > some universal truth, when really it's just rationalizing the particular > culture people have been steeped in. Why don't women walk around topless at > the beach? Just culture. Some cultures see it as perfectly normal.

Yes, it is cultural, but the answer isn't "it's just culture." There are _reasons_ why it fits in one culture and not in another, and those reasons are interesting.

I realize people saying "it's like this because X" sounds like they are saying something universal. But they aren't. What they are saying is why, given other factors in their culture, things are that way.

Of course it is possible there is no reason for something in one culture. Random things happen. But even if they do, typically those things have effects and other things affect them, and all those things interact in ways that eventually settle down in some fixed point we call "the current culture". And even there, we can say a lot about why that random thing remains and does not vanish, or why it was not changed in a fundamental way, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's totally cultural. In the US, people who have enough money to get by don't talk about making or spending money. And they don't really want to either, because it allows people who make 60K a year and people who make 250K a year to both call themselves "middle class". Even close friends don't necessarily know each other's salaries.

But all is not lost. It's hard to find a startup job where you won't be working closely with people from cultures where discussing your salary, rent etc. is perfectly normal.

That's how I was able to discover that as a woman I was making 75% of what my male colleagues were making. That's a Pandora's box type discovery, and I did stew on it for a while.

But I liked the company, and I didn't want to leave, so I saved that information for the end-of-year talks. They ended up bringing my salary level with the others', and then I was asked politely not to do that again.

It was quite uncomfortable for my boss - despite what you may think, your boss probably doesn't remember your exact salary - and I think my salary was an oversight (I was one of the earlier employees) rather than an intentional slight or because I'm a woman.

But still - what are the chances that could have happened if I hadn't asked my colleagues?

Don't ask, don't get.

<comment><USER16> _your boss probably doesn't remember your exact salary_

I understand that you may be rationalizing it, but I find that hard to believe. I may not have remembered my direct reports' exact salaries, but I certainly knew who made more than who, by approximately what percentage, and why each person was paid what they were.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If your parents never talked about money, you're lucky - you probably grew up having enough of it not to worry. In poor families, money is a popular topic. I suspect that is one of the reasons why the nouveau riche brag (talk) about money frequently, while those who grew up rich are more discreet.

As for salaries - it's a cultural thing, in the US/UK it is common to mention salaries in job offers (so you could compare easily), in other countries it isn't (or wasn't, like here in Austria, where new laws require mentioning minimum wages ...).

<comment><USER18> I grew up in a family where money generally wasn't talked about. It wasn't because of a taboo necessarily, but because of a lack of importance in our lifestyle. We had enough, and we learned to get by on what we had. Now that I'm on my own I feel like that has become the baseline. Until evidence suggests I don't have enough and that I can't get by on what I have, it isn't really that important to me. I don't lack ambition, it's just that money has never been a goal and most likely never will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Secrecy around compensation became widespread when anti-discrimination laws came about because it's easy fodder for complaints and lawsuits.

It's pretty trivial to figure out what household income is within 10% if you know a person at all. Your privacy isn't something that employers give a hoot about.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Related: has sharing financial information, either personal or about your company, ever caused you problems?

I am very grateful to everyone who showed me, through their transparency, that it is possible to make a living through self publishing books and software, so I've made a commitment to share my own numbers.

But I'm wondering what problems this transparency has caused as well.

<comment><USER20> I've shared numbers openly my whole life, never had an issue. I understand why company policies exist though in our own company, we never implemented any such rule. As with the rest of the world, I've never not told. If anything, it irked me a bit that others weren't open about it, especially if they were asking me those same questions.

I can't say my experience speaks for everyone else, but I can't imagine why it'd ever be an issue disclosing these things openly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> People attach a lot of emotion to it. If you make a lot, then it's bragging. If you make very little, it's embarrassing.

I think the more we talk about it, the more we have to gain. It only hurts bad employers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, there is a lot of self-worth attached to how much you make. Maybe that is something we should fix?

But if it wasn't for a few friends sharing how much they charge for consulting I would never have known it was possible to charge $250/hr (and much more). I would have been stuck charging multiples of the hourly rates I had heard about (Maybe I would have doubled the highest hourly rate I had heard at the time, which was $20 an hour).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Why don't people talk specifics about money and salaries?

Writer can't think of an explanation for secrecy about money and salaries.

> When I went to negotiate my first salaried job I had no idea how much to aim > for. Was $30,000 a reasonable salary? $60,000? I realized then that > everyone's aversion to talking about money had left me in the dark as to how > the business world worked.

Writer inexplicably _still_ can't think of a reason for secrecy about money and salary.

The reason is obvious -- keeping you in the dark pays off. The employer benefits from your ignorance. Other people in your approximate position, but who have the job you seek, benefit from your ignorance. Everyone benefits from your ignorance except you.

All I can say is, wait until you actually have some money and/or a salary. Then you'll understand.

> Why is everyone so hesitant to share their salaries and other financial > information?

Because information has intrinsic value, and particular kinds of information have high intrinsic value. How many times have you read about a settlement between businesses in which the terms were sealed by a court order? Can you think of a reason why?

</comment><comment><USER23> Employers have an advantage by discouraging workers from knowing the average wage they can lower the common wage. Its been adaptive culture to not speak of wages, hence the importance of union standard wages as a need to help those less skilled in finance and valuation not get undercut.

</comment><comment><USER24> Those with information about salaries have power. Those who do not have them do not. Do not tell yourself stories to make you think it's good you don't know everyone's salary. You're disadvantaged by not knowing it.

Just like you're disadvantaged when you fill out the "past salary" boxes on job apps.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's awkward and not relevant information. You can get on payscale the same as everyone else. Especially in the US where income is really significant in terms of basic needs like healthcare and there is no cultural norm that all sorts of work are respectable and worthy.

<comment><USER26> It's _extremely_ relevant.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know that you had received a higher offer than your peers because the company wanted to hire you that much?

Or that you were lowballed but your negotiation skills brought your salary in line with averages?

Or that you are being paid 30% less than the other members of your team doing the same job?

All _extremely_ relevant things to learn.

<comment><USER27> There is an element, as somebody else has pointed out here, of Pandora's box to this.

If you are _happy_ with your current compensation (and I appreciate for some that won't be the case), then do you really want to know? Would you want to go from ignorant bliss to questioning either your own negotiating abilities or the value the company has for you?

I suspect the answer to that depends on the type of person you are, and I don't pretend there's a right one either!

<comment><USER26> You make a good point.

Salary is tied up with ego and emotion, and self-worth, and a person's assessment of how valued they are by their organization. If a person can evaluate this in an objective and cold-blooded fashion, and see things from management's point of view without taking things personally, they can probably stand to know their salary relative to their peers without obsessing about it.

On the other hand, all of us know some people who would obsess and not be able to let it go, and make others' lives miserable about it ("I get $5000 less than that jerk? All he does is browse 4chan all day" "Ha, I knew I was considered more important to this department than Thompson!")

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> On a side note, at least in Norway, every publicly traded company has to file a yearly earnings report, with income and expenses. Seeing how much is spent on salaries, divide by the number of employees, and at least you know if you're paid above or below average (just remember to allow for certain tax expenses the employer pays as "part" of the salary, I suspect that would be different in most countries).

Not feasible (or meaningful) if you work for IBM, maybe -- but for a smallish company that should work. If you can't do that math, you probably shouldn't be doing software engineering either...

</comment><comment><USER29> I think the only thing non disclosure benefits is the company. I lived abroad for many years, and salary was freely discussed. I think doing so is great for an employee.

</comment><comment><USER30> First, salary is often times the most direct way a company says how much you're worth. Thus salary in our monkey brains equals status, and real or percived differences leads to conflict.

Second, some companies like to get away with underpaying people. I'm not sure it's smart but they do. I know I worked with someone who did the same thing I did for 45% less.

</comment><comment><USER31> In some cases, it's not just against company policy, but is included in the employment contract the employee signed when they were hired.

I guess the legality of such a clause will depend on where you live, but for people who have something like that in their employment contract, the risk may seem significant enough that it isn't worth violating it.

<comment><USER32> Technically speaking, a company can't legally fire you for disclosing your compensation. That's an anti-union-busting law.

What this means in practice is that they'll make up "performance" bullshit (unrealistic deadlines, retroactive shortfalls, responsibilities without the support necessary to achieve them) and fire that person over that instead. One of the reason for companies to have "low-performer" witch hunts (also known as stack-ranking) on a periodic basis is to flush out the "troublemakers" they dislike but can't legally fire.

So I don't know how much protection those laws actually provide, but it is technically true in the U.S. that no one can be fired for disclosing his own compensation.

<comment><USER30> If your an at will employee, which almost everyone is today then the company can fire you for no given reason. In practice disclosing salary isn't going to get your fired unless there are other reasons, but will get you labeled as a bad player.

<comment><USER32> At-will is far more complicated than most people think.

It gives them the right to terminate employment because of a business event (plant closing, large-scale layoff for strategic reasons) without being liable for payment (as opposed to, e.g., a contract where there would be "kill fees" for early termination). It also gives them the right to fire people individually for criminal behavior, violations of well-understood professional ethics, and falling short of an objective, published performance standard. If the company policy requires 150 widgets per hour and one person's coming in at 130, the company can fire that person. That said, if he can establish that someone else (e.g. the boss's son) had the same title and job, produced 120, and wasn't fired, he has a stronger case.

White-collar firings, which are always dressed up to look like "performance"-related firings, are a major gray area. The reason for the kangaroo court of "performance improvement plans" is to make the case that, at the least, the employee was _warned_. PIPs don't show that the termination was fair, but establish that the employee "should have seen it coming", and that often decides these he-said/she-said sorts of things in the employer's favor.

Termination endgames can be played to a win. For one thing, a lot of the things that people get fired for _can_ be actionable. Let's say you have a bad boss and try to get away from him using a transfer. In most companies, bosses fire people who try to get away from them. However, if company policy is to allow transfers and you can establish that someone of your rank and seniority was allowed transfer anywhere in the company, but your boss blocked it, you have a harassment claim. You used a legitimate HR measure (transfer) in a legitimate way. You can never prove it was the reason for the termination, but if you document everything you do-- every single thing that can make you look good-- it is to your advantage. (If he lets you transfer and get out of his way, that's better. Getting a better job is always better than playing the termination endgame.)

You're almost always better off getting another job, but if you have some reason to want to stay at the company, there's a lot you can do to make yourself hard to fire. Use all internal recourse you have, including HR. (Be respectful and focus on defending yourself and your reputation, not attacking your boss. HR is not your friend, but you can still use them.) That will make your boss angry, and HR will almost always side with management, but if you document everything you can make it look like the firing is retaliatory. Health problems are often protected, and everyone over 25 has at least one health problem. Disclose it, no matter how minor. (If you're presented with a PIP, sign absolutely nothing, leave the room, and disclose a health problem by email _immediately_.) If you get put on a PIP, dress up interviews as "doctor visits" and force your boss to change the schedule of the PIP (if he doesn't, then start using words like "emotional distress" and CC someone in HR.) This will exhaust him and draw out the process long enough for you to get a better job. The goal, I should mention, is usually not to sue the company. It's to scare them into either slowing down so you can get out, writing a severance, or agreeing to a good reference so you can move on in your career.

TL;DR: At-will employment is much more complicated than employers want people to believe. The problem is that the termination game is something people (if they're lucky) rarely or never have to play, and people who've been through it don't talk about it and share knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Unfortunately, compensation is taken to be like a performance review, but objective, so you often need to change your story later for career reasons. In finance, some firms won't hire analysts who didn't make top bonus, which means you need to figure out what that level is-- and it varies widely. (Top bonus in a shitty year is often less than the lowest-tier in a good year, at least for entry-level roles.) If you let too many people know what you make, it gets harder to reshape your story if you need to do it.

(By the way, this should be obvious, but you should avoid naming numbers unless you absolutely have to. If a future employer asks what bonus you got, just say, regardless of what's true, "I received the highest bonus available for my role and seniority and I'm contractually disallowed to give specific numbers.")

This is also an area where it's hard to tell whether you'll need an upward or downward revision until you're in that situation. Upgrading makes it look like you were a strong performer whereas downgrading gives you a socially acceptable excuse for leaving a job or a better "trend". Of course, the smartest thing to do is not to give these numbers out ever.

I actually think LinkedIn is a bad idea for a lot of people, for the same reason, but pertaining to job titles and dates. Accidental consistency risk is enough of a danger (people who forget their exact job titles 12 years ago) to be cautious, and then consider the fact that, although people don't anticipate ever needing "creative career repair", shit happens and sometimes people do.

Finally, my attitude is just that it's none of anyone's business what I, personally, make. I'll gladly share my estimates of what various levels of engineer can earn on the market as it currently is, and my general sense of what engineers are worth, but strategically important information ought to be safeguarded, especially in this world.

</comment><comment><USER33> Because most people are insecure. (By talking salary, I helped a co-worker raise his salary at the company by 40%, matching a new hire. It's unbelievable)

</comment><comment><USER34> This is a US thing. It's not true in many other countries.</comment>


27 Websites to Submit your Startup after launch - <AUTHOR> http://www.inboundio.com/blog/27-websites-to-submit-your-startup/

<comment><USER2> Also check out - [http://ovoice.net/32-places-can-submit-launching- startup/](http://ovoice.net/32-places-can-submit-launching-startup/)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a Github repo with a list of these: [https://github.com/mmccaff/PlacesToPostYourStartup](https://github.com/mmccaff/PlacesToPostYourStartup)

</comment><comment><USER4> Why not reddit? I am not talking about r/startups or something like that, but the subreddit relative to your target audience and what your startup does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I forgot to add Reddit. Ironically, this was also the first comment on Reddit that why not reddit ? :) Here is the reddit thread btw [http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/298a8l/27_websites...](http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/298a8l/27_websites_to_submit_your_startup_after_launch/), there are some good sites also listed there

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That didn't take long. Site down.

OK, this is simple folks. Use a CDN. Always for static sites. Easiest thing to do is to adopt CloudFlare. Free. Hopeoing to never see the dreaded "Error establishing a database connection" again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, the post also hit Reddit startups homepage at the same time and that is why the server crashed. I will install CF right now :)

</comment></comment><comment> aps-sids The link is currently giving - "Error establishing a database connection"

<comment><AUTHOR> The Post hit both reddit and HN homepage in matter of minute which brought the server down. Now it is up again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Error establishing a database connection

</comment><comment><USER7> cool</comment>


Facebook is planning to build a real community with parks, stores and apartments - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/technology/facebook-zucktown-willow-village.html <comment><USER2> Microsoft ended up, organically, surrounded by Microsoft employee residences. All you ever see in your life are Microsoft buildings on campus, fellow Microsoft employees driving on all nearby roads (you can tell from parking permits), living next door, sitting next table in the bar, standing the queue at the store, riding the company shuttle, being your friends.

What it did is create an awful monoculture. You don't get to have a beer with a buddy works at a competing or related company and realize how utterly, unbelievably stupid and immature your position is on this or another issue. Ideological inbreeding is what it is. My biggest regrets lie where I wasted time on something that I could have been talked out of by someone with a different perspective.

I think cross-pollination of ideas is the major advantage of Silicon Valley. Seattle is also getting better recently, with big companies opening more jobs.

<comment><USER3> >I think cross-pollination of ideas is the major advantage of Silicon Valley. Seattle is also getting better recently, with big companies opening more jobs.

Tech workers hanging out with other tech workers is still a huge circle jerk of ideas. If all you've known is graduate university with a CS degree and working at tech companies and living in upper middle class and wealthy livelihoods you are still part of the same monoculture. Not much changes between Google and MS in the larger picture.

<comment><USER4> Right SF is better than what the parent comment describes but it very oftentimes is still devoid of true diversity. I worked at a company based in SF and made the conscious decision not to live there. It felt like every time I would go out to a bar or coffee shop all I would hear is tech workers and business investors having the same types of conversations everywhere. More than being crummy for expanding one's perspective on a whole host of issues, it was just plain depressing to be around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Depends how it goes. Facebook is testing the proposition: Do people love tech companies so much they will live inside of them?_

People are increasingly afraid of tech companies, not in love with them. We're all pretty dependent on them, but that also breeds fear and loathing. It doesn't help that so many companies are full of the same, weird, Stepford Wife tone of "We love you, we want what's best for you, and that just so happens to align with our own perverse incentives. We're changing the world."

I get the sense that the older guard of the media is also taking this opportunity to stoke fear and resentment of their newer competitors. They've been good at that kind of thing for a couple of hundred years longer than tech as a concept existed. I'm concerned that things like encryption and secure messaging, self-driving tech and more will be cynically attacked too.

<comment><USER6> A teacher I had in High School explained a particular portion of history to us about like this: "I can rule via Love or via Fear. People can fall out of Love; People don't fall out of Fear." So this monarch dictated government via Fear, and it worked until he died [which is the point much of the time].

Now, the monarchs may not die. "Facebook Forever" as reality? A 'Black Mirror' episode isn't a far stretch, and to be fair so is the opposite -- both of which we can see in reality today.

Being skeptical of tech companies is great. Behaving appropriately is also great. Going "all or nothing" can be debated. I'm interested in hearing about something in the middle, should such exist.

<comment><USER7> You can also rule by utility and dependence. People don't just love FAANG, they _need_ FAANG because they provide indispensable tools which yield vast utility.

You can also use addiction as a strategy to create dependence, but this is a strategy: users will inevitably realize there's more harm than good being done. It also means you're at risk of become a fad. I actually think Facebook's pivot from user engagement maximizer to social fabric platform reflects some internal awareness of the vulnerabilities of an addiction- focused business strategy over the long term.

<comment><USER8> Besides Google's search I can't think of any FAANG service/product that would be indispensable for the average Joe, being the only service that has no real competition. For all the others, people would replace them relatively easy. Could you provide some examples?

People _need_ Microsoft Windows to operate their businesses and do their jobs, Apple phones and Netflix subscriptions are much easier to replace.

<comment><USER5> I want to agree with you, but realistically I think a lot of people have come to view Amazon at least, as pretty indispensable. Between their retail offerings, and AWS, they're into a lot!

<comment><USER8> Maybe I'm biased because I'm living in a country where Amazon has little to no presence and there are just other retailers to fill the gap, other delivery companies etc. so life goes on. I never heard anyone cry for Amazon to come to our rescue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lot's of negative sentiminents in these comments towards Facebook which is understood but the way I look at it this is a symptom and not the root cause.

We are having a really bad housing crisis in coastal cities, and obviously the Bay Area is leading the pack. NIMBY voters and short sighted government officials are stagnating developers from building more units. Just a few weeks ago the city council in Portland rejected two housing projects that would've generated thousands of units and hundreds of affordable housing units.

When the public sector cannot solve the housing problem it is no surprise that the private sector will step in and play a bigger role. It's not surprising to see tech companies leading the way because their HQs are in the Bay Area. If potential employees don't wont to work for you because the area that the office is in has an astronomical COL that is an existential threat to your company.

<comment><USER10> That's an altruistic lens applied over a more likely scenario -- 20-40% of salaries are lost to rentier cadres. Throughout history they have been a blight upon humanity and they have always been formidable, and furthermore Facebook actuaries likely calculated that rental costs are only going to keep going up unabated. There will be a point where Facebook will have to move headquarters and that will come with a multibillion dollar pricetag.

In this hypothetical scenario, they will have to take steps to ensure this doesn't happen again, which comes with a hefty pricetag in itself, so provided this data there is only one question -- where to relocate the HQ?

There is no better place than the SF Bay Area, so logically it stands to reason that they take the same steps to progressively expand their current HQ rather than relocate.

Not only that but this new FB community can be a testbed for applying the same pernicious digital surveillance mentality to the physical world. Truly, it will be the place to measure how much privacy people will give up for real- life benefits (eg: rent).

<comment><USER11> With the housing challenges in SF I think you will see more and more companies questioning the "there's no better place than SF" mindset.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> People speculate wildly but what is this really 1) utopian attempt or 2) new form of paternalism, or 3) just practical way to solve housing crisis for employers.

1) Walt Disney tried utopian with Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_\(concept\)) The property became the Walt Disney World Resort but some of the architecture is from the EPCOT concept. Later Michael Eisner tried something similar with Celebration, Florida [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida)

2) Traditional paternialism was social engineering attempt where employers wanted to control their workers force middle-class ideals to working-class. It was seen as moral and religious responsibility for owners to do this. Company Towns were build to achieve this goal. Modern version might push certain lifestyle and values.

3) Zucktown and Alphabet City may be just a realization that it's cheaper and easier for everyone if employers turns into property developer and builds housing than just increase wages.

</comment><comment><USER13> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town)

        You get sixteen likes, whattaya get?
        Another day older and deeper in debt
        St. Peter don'cha call me, 'cause I can't go
        I owe my soul to the company store

(Parody of "Sixteen Tons" [https://genius.com/Tennessee-ernie-ford-sixteen- tons-lyrics](https://genius.com/Tennessee-ernie-ford-sixteen-tons-lyrics) )

<comment><USER14> I wonder if anyone has tried to do a 1:1 mapping of early 20th century robber- barrons and the current 21st century tech gods.

Seems like there would be a lot of aspirational lifestyle overlap.

<comment><USER15> I live a couple of blocks from the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, which isn't too far from the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital. It's funny to compare to all of the buildings on the east coast named after Rockefellers and Carnegies. New industrialists indeed...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There once was a time when satire was just that, satire. When dystopian fiction was understood to be that, dystopian, portraying a potential future. When books like 'Brave New World', 'Fahrenheit 451' and '1984' were written. Where cyberpunk was a literary genre where corporations were more powerful than nation states.

Now, things are different. Facebook is building the set for a real life Truman show [1], Fahrenheit 451 (the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns..) has found stiff competition in the rise of censorship on the 'net, 1984 is treated as a user manual by those who prefer to see the world in terms of 'good' and 'bad', Brave New World is just another story - nothing to see there, move along. Where institutions like the EU are trying to dissolve national borders and national identities without offering a believable identity in return, leaving the population grasping for a handhold and ready for recruitment by any strong identity group which catches their favour.

There is supposed to be a Chinese proverb saying 'may you live in interesting times' , to be directed at those one considers to be their opponents. While the proverb seems to be made up, times _are_ interesting in many ways.

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

<comment><USER17> Great post, I agree with you 100%. If you don't mind, I thought the correct Chinese proverb was "May you live in _uninteresting_ times" \- as the proverb is an acknowledgement of the disruption of lives that occur during _interesting times_.

<comment><USER18> "May you live in interesting times" is a phrase widely thought of in the English world to be a "Chinese _curse_ ", though the "Chinese" element of this per the Wiki is possibly dubious. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _In the textile town of Lowell, Mass., in 1846, the mill clock slowed down to lengthen shifts and then sped up at night when the workers were off_

Holy shit!

</comment><comment><USER20> By definition a company can't "build a real community", only the residents can do that. I love the timing of this piece though.

<comment><USER21> Developers build cities. Developers maximize profit. In the USA, the gov't defines where incentives are. That is why we have urban sprawl everywhere (including the bay area).

I always thought this project, S. Lake Union (Amazon), Toronto Waterfront (Google), Diridon Station San Jose (Google) was these large companies' response to no private developer or gov't entity building a city they thought was needed... in other words it's just a normal city built by a large company. It's not too different than one of these crappy master planned communities where I live like [http://stonegatereno.com/](http://stonegatereno.com/) or [http://damonteranch.com/](http://damonteranch.com/) .

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Getting laid-off if you were a FB employee and a resident would become super- unpleasant. "Got laid off. Now I have to find a new place to live by the end of the week. And explain to them how I am able to pay the higher rent on the new place"

<comment><USER23> I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. Despite being located next to Google or Facebook, these will likely be apartments being rented out like anywhere else with no particular employment requirements.

Though, they're likely to be attractive to employees who want to live within walking distance.

<comment><USER24> If that were the case, what would be the incentive for FB to do this then?

<comment><USER25> Everywhere in the Bay Area has a severe housing shortage. Even with $150k+ salaries, there are very limited housing options available on the peninsula.

The Bay Area's land-use policies are directly responsible for the absurdly high housing costs and terrible road congestion. Too many jobs are in office parks, too many houses are in far-flung and low-density areas.

If Facebook can build 1000 apartment homes that would allow their employees to walk to work, they stand to benefit in huge ways. If that development can help subsidize 200 apartment homes for people who have been displaced by the skewed housing market, all the better.

At least that's how I read their motivations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Having been in a situation where my work, housing, friends and entire life were all wrapped up in one, each subject to the failure of one of the others, this freaks me out a bit. The anxiety it can cause is unreal since there's no compartmentalization in your life. You can't go home and not worry about work, or go to work and not worry about home.

The situation I was in was quite a bit more complicated than this, involving national level athletic training and working for a company that was both associated personally with the team as well as the sport in general. I was living in team dorms and having problems with the team so suddenly everything was in jeopardy. I do not recommend it...

</comment><comment><USER27> This has me picturing a community of people wearing identical "male"/"female" plastic hairpieces and massive fake smiles, under constant surveillance. Communicating is done solely via Facebook, so the fake smiles become permanently burned into the residents' faces.

Facebook as a physical community is a truly terrifying place to imagine. I'm not sure a Black Mirror episode could even properly capture it.

Zuckerberg: "If I can't be president of the US, I can at least be president of the HOA"

</comment><comment><USER23> Folks, this will let employees walk to work, resulting in less traffic, and putting somewhat less pressure on housing prices in nearby communities. Mixed- use development is what a lot of housing advocates have been asking for.

This "company store" stuff is unwarranted negative sentiment. They're just apartments. Along with new housing you do want to have parks and stores.

<comment><USER28> This is not a new idea. At no point previously in history has this worked out well. Companies like Facebook (and they aren't alone in this) love the idea of employees living around the company both literally and figuratively - spend 12 hours a day at the office and in return we'll give you free food and a gym and games. This is not a great future.

<comment><USER23> I think people are expecting innovation in real estate just because it's Facebook. But this isn't their area of expertise. Do they need to do anything different from any other large real estate developer in Silicon Valley to succeed at building housing?

They've likely hired professional real estate developers who will follow all the same laws, with more money.

The free food and games and gyms are already there (at work).

So I'm not seeing how this will be different in practical terms from other large apartment complexes?

<comment><USER28> A company whose main business model is giving things out for free, to gather your data, which they then make billions of dollars selling to other businesses?

And you think they're suddenly taking on the very complex and muddied problem of real estate because they have passionate feelings about the housing crises?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Planned utopian communities have a track record of devolving into anything but their original goals. This feels like a cross between the movie "The Circle" and the Toyota company city in Japan.

<comment><USER30> Depends on the scale. Lots of cities and towns have areas planned by developers. They work well enough, though they don't have as much character as more organically grown neighborhoods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This gives me DDR (East Germany) vibes: The rethoric, the symbolism and the motivation are all similar to how the DDR presented itself.

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm not buying the "cheaper employee housing" idea. If they build it, they will have on their hands real estate that's rented out below market, a potential revenue source that's utilized to subsidize employees. Only not all employees because there won't be enough to go around. So you will have to ration it. Will there be a waitlist? Why not rent to anyone and give the surplus to employees instead? That way all employees participate, not just the few chosen ones. And no tax complications.

Then you spin off the real estate arm into a subsidiary and use dividends to pay the employees. Same thing, right? Then you realize you can just sell the subsidiary and invest the cash into something with a better risk / reward profile.

And then you ask yourself why did a software company spent several years managing a real estate project.

I think it's just boys playing toys. Big, expensive toys. Heck, I would do that too if I had the money.

</comment><comment><USER32> When someone needs to mention the 'real' character of this 'real community', that means there is nothing real about it. It's a red flag for phony.

Henry Ford tried to force the American way of life in Fordlândia. He failed. George Pullman wanted Pullman, Chicago, to be a sin-free town. He also failed.

Modern company towns live under the specter of many past failed projects.

Maybe "Zuckerburg" isn't supposed to be any kind of utopia. But why should Facebook succeed in building a town, specially when it's supervised by a corporation that profits on knowing everything it can about people?

I know I'd never want to live there. It would always feel like online trackers covered in stucco.

</comment><comment><USER33> They more and more sound and behave like a cult. Silicon Valley these days feels like a very very awkward dystopia.

</comment><comment><USER34> ... and monitoring of all things people do... and then using it against them... and people will be grateful for that

</comment><comment><USER35> Bay Area massively undersupplies housing for decades, problems arise. News at 11.

People are working to fix it, though: [https://yimbyaction.org/join/](https://yimbyaction.org/join/)

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd be great for retention of they could make the leases conditional on continued employment at Facebook. /s

> Google will build 5,000 homes on its property under an agreement brokered > with Mountain View in December. Call it Alphabet City as a nod to Alphabet, > Google's corporate parent. The company said it was still figuring out its > future as a landlord, and declined further comment.

There's no question that the Alphabet/Google company town should be called Alphaville.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphaville_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphaville_\(film\))

</comment><comment><USER37> This is so different than old company towns. Those were built around remote factories where no housing or stores or services of any kind surrounding them - they were more like Disneyland, in the sense that everything comes from there. Facebook's "community" is using all the generic terms for every decent sized development in America right now. It's 60 acres - you could walk outside of it in a couple minutes, and you can drive to all of Silicon Valley. There's no "company store" \- you can live and shop wherever you want.

</comment><comment><USER38> We tried company towns already, it did Not Go Well.

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

<comment><USER39> Isn't that the destiny of all tech companies? To rediscover concepts that previously did Not Go Well and act like they're new, only to rediscover why certain regulations were put into place to begin with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This honestly sounds like an Onion article title.

<comment><USER41> Meets a _Black Mirror_ episode.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> What a nice, paid advertisement to get the attention away from the current troubles. For shame, NYT

</comment><comment><USER43> How about they just pay there taxes, then the governments can build the parks?

</comment><comment><USER44> Did Mr Z piss off somebody who's behind major media outlets?, surprised to see liberal media going after a company that is mostly left wing.

<comment><USER45> They're mad that FB changed the timeline algorithm. Now they're showing less shared links to 3rd party sites and more personal updates, such as new photos and status updates.

<comment><USER46> When did that happen? If anything it seems like they have ramped up "suggested" garbage posts to the point it is 1 in 3 on my timeline

<comment><USER45> In January [https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16882536/facebook-news-feed- ch...](https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16882536/facebook-news-feed-changes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ng-user > employees are offered a 5 figure bonus if they live close to their work

Is this a unique bonus mainly offered in the Valley versus the rest of the world?

</comment><comment><USER47> I have done a lot of extensive read and thinking on the subject for my startup (we're now doing digital real estate transactions leveraging the Blockchain, but months ago we were exploring the idea of a platform to create/fund communities). [0]

The pioneer in this field has certainly been Adriano Olivetti in the 1940/1950s, back when Olivetti was an amazingly successful company. They were market leaders in typewriters, so much that they bought the US-based Underwood, and they were pioneering computers in the 1960s.

Olivetti built a "quasi-socialist" company campus in Ivrea (outside Turin, Italy), which was really innovative for its time. Kindergarden, schools, services, etc, all available to Olivetti workers and their families. Think of it as a combination of a Google or Facebook campus, with an Italian, pragmatic, honest twist.

Now, let's get back to Facebook's proposed "campus" or "community".

I see a few problems here:

1) providing rent to FB employees is a form of employee retention - you have a strong incentive not to leave Facebook, or you will lose a rent likely more affordable than outside the campus, and your neighborhood friendships.

2) Most of these campuses are done to project an image of an amazing, cool company. Therefore, expensive architects plan expensive buildings in a way that cannot be easily replicated elsewhere. When building costs are "subsidized" by the need of "grandeur" of a company, it's the wrong incentive at play. Look, for a counter example, at the Nightingale project [1].

3) Many architects and thinkers have written about the subject. In particular, Christoper Alexander and Leon Krier, among others. The short summary of their conclusions is that "top down" almost never works; "bottom up" does. In essence, you have to plant the seed, provide initial resources, and get out of the way, letting people and communities figure out how they want to organize their life. A good counter example? The planned city of Brazilia. I studied it, and visited it, and it's an urban design nightmare. [2] - so much so that, to cite just one metric, Brazilia has 4 to 5 times the number of pedestrian accident (in proportion of the population) of other Brazilian cities.

I could go on and on, but let me just conclude with this: most of these company-driven initiatives are dead from the start, and they are set to produce only aberrations. I hope I'm wrong, and I hope to see something different emerge over time.

[0]: [https://www.fabrica.city/](https://www.fabrica.city/)

[1]: [http://nightingalehousing.org/nightingale- village](http://nightingalehousing.org/nightingale-village)

[2]: [http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20632277](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20632277)

</comment><comment><USER48> How are they going to keep the riff-raff from East Palo Alto out?

</comment><comment><USER49> ... with cameras everywhere, so they can train their AI.

</comment><comment><USER50> >Facebook is planning 1,500 apartments

>About 12,000 of its 25,000 employees work in Menlo Park. In a decade, it will have space for 35,000

so they are planning to build 15 of these Zucktowns in Menlo Park in the next 10 years?

</comment><comment><USER51> just an excuse to beta test their new army of mailmen who give better CPA- tracking to their ads team.

</comment><comment><USER52> Sounds like a factory town

</comment><comment><USER53> Seriously folks, that the fuck is going on? Every day I read the news it's like I'm in a dystopian novel. Yesterday there was the parole-as-a-service startup announcement, today 'The Circle' leaks into reality. Lots of startups are issuing basically 'Kongbucks' and a self-driving car killed its first victim. Looking forward for the first corporation to want to become sovereign.

<comment><USER54> Agreed. This place seems to love most of those events however. Google execs have been very open about their desire to start a Google Island where they can conduct limitless experiments (on customers / 'citizens' I assume) away from regulation.

<comment><USER55> That sounds very much like the city of Rapture in _Bioshock_ ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock)) the only difference being that Art Déco is the more tasteful styling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This would be so creepy.

<comment><USER57> Even the name... Zucktown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> parks, stores and apartments ... and ubiquitous surveillance?

</comment><comment><USER59> What a hellhole. Pray the CA authorities put a stop to this madness!

</comment><comment><USER60> I assume they'll start paying their employees in Facebucks that can only be spent at the company store?</comment>


Jetsetting Terrorist: The TSA won't leave me alone - <AUTHOR> http://jetsettingterrorist.com/about-a-tsa-labeled-terrorist/

<comment><USER2> One interesting thing I glance while reading his hilarious stories:

Typically travelers are in a huge disadvantage, not knowing their rights or the correct procedures, maybe making remarks that are considered inappropriate and put them into more hassle than it's worth. For the "Jetsetting Terrorist", the odds there have completely changed, making him much more experienced in the methods and psychology than TSA agents and airport personnel.

So, probably every real terrorists' organization might want to have a jetsetting member?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm curious to know more about >Years ago I was convicted of an activist- related property crime. The government deemed it "terrorism." My "weapon of mass destruction" was a small tool purchased at a hardware store for under $30. My crime resulted in a loss of profits to several businesses. No one was injured. And it wasn't even a felony.

I'm not trying to minimize his experience without this information, but I'd love to know more about the aforementioned infraction.

</comment><comment><USER4> I used to have the quad-S on all of my boarding passes from 2006 until around 2009 but I never committed any crimes. I never understood why it started or ended. I have a very ethnic last name so maybe that was why?</comment>


Lazarus – A Delphi-compatible cross-platform IDE - <AUTHOR> http://www.lazarus-ide.org <comment><USER2> I mentioned Lazarus in other threads a few days ago (since my kids are playing around with it) and it's great to see it as a top-level post. Some random thoughts:

\- It's somewhat amusing to realize that in 2017 this is pretty much the easiest way to do a desktop app (besides RealBasic/Xojo which I've yet to try - was put off by their mandatory registration)

\- I wish we had RAD environments like this for more languages (Racket, Python, etc. - even JS).

\- On the Mac, installation is a bit fiddly. It needs a little polish and support (a standalone, integrated bundle would be better, or at the very least a unified installer).

\- We've been retrofitting web UIs to desktops to such an extent (I'm looking at you, Electron) that the tiny, supremely efficient apps Lazarus spits out put the last couple of years into stark perspective (2GB RAM used by Slack, etc.)

I love Lazarus, and hope it helps resurrect the RAD approach for other languages - if anyone knows of any similar environments (besides QtCreator, etc.), could you share the links?

<comment><USER3> I've not used Lazarus or Delphi, so I can't really compare properly. Perhaps I'm missing something. But:

> if anyone knows of any similar environments (besides QtCreator, etc.)

Why "besides QtCreator, etc"? It sounds to me almost like "do you know any X besides all of the popular X". Is there any particular reason you discount QtCreator? Does it not work for your purposes? Or is it just a case of you already know about it and want to hear about more obscure tools?

> It's somewhat amusing to realize that in 2017 this is pretty much the > easiest way to do a desktop app

I've found Qt with QtCreator to be an incredibly productive way to develop desktop applications. Both old-school QWidgets-based Qt with QtDesigner (the RAD portion of QtCreator for pre-QtQuick) and QtQuick/QML with and without its RAD interface.

> I wish we had RAD environments like this for more languages (Racket, Python, > etc. - even JS).

I've used the Python version of Qt with QWidgets in the past and it was a pretty nice workflow. I've never done it personally, but I know of people who use Python + QtQuick/QML and seem pretty happy with it. There's also various "app builder" tools for JS, but I don't know how good they are.

<comment><USER4> > Why "besides QtCreator, etc"? It sounds to me almost like "do you know any X > besides all of the popular X". Is there any particular reason you discount > QtCreator?

I know Lazarus (almost) inside out and i've tried several times to use QtCreator, mainly because C++ would allow me to reuse some of my C code. However i could never get used to how QtCreator expects from me to do more stuff, how unweildy the laying out widgets is (this is natural since Qt's layout management was made expecting programmers to do layouts via code but compared to Lazarus' alignment and anchor based layouts they feel like taking a step back - although the same can be told with Lazarus' layout if you try to do it via code) and other not necessarily big issues but still annoying enough for me to always drop it.

<comment><USER3> Have you tried QtQuick/QML? It sounds like its anchor/grid/constraints-based layouts work very similarly to Lazarus.

<comment><USER4> Isn't that a JSON-like language? I find describing UIs in text instead of "drawing" them like done in Lazarus to be going backwards.

Although TBH i haven't really looked into that. Most QtQuick programs i've seen look like something you'd see in a mobile phone or tablet instead of a normal desktop application, so i didn't had the incentive

<comment><USER3> > Isn't that a JSON-like language?

It is (but its actually good!), but QtCreator also has a design tool to visually create QML-based UI's.

> I find describing UIs in text instead of "drawing" them like done in Lazarus > to be going backwards.

This is a preference thing I guess - some people prefer visual design tools, some prefer text. I quite like QML's approach of giving me a simple declarative text description language and then providing me with a visual design tool to author it with if I prefer to do so.

> Most QtQuick programs i've seen look like something you'd see in a mobile > phone or tablet instead of a normal desktop application

Early QtQuick was very much like this, but nowadays it has pretty good platform-style emulation (QtQuick Controls). How many applications use it, I don't know, especially nowadays that QtQuick has iOS and Android support. Also, since it gives you full styling freedom, I guess (for better or worse) many people make use of them rather than trying to look native. I've seen some very non-mobile style QtQuick applications too though, including desktop mail clients and such and they looked great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recently tried out Lazarus, and besides looking a bit dated, it works REALLY well. I had no Pascal experience so it was also overwhelming for a hello world app. But after the basic Pascal "Hello World" command line app, a GUI app didn't even require a tutorial to get working. Really impressed and am considering Pascal for a project.

<comment><USER6> For me as for the guy who only look at Lazarus not as developer, but as user who just go to compile map editor of our game (developed by other very skilled developer) main frustration was multi-windows interface.

Not that I can't understand why some would prefer to work in that mode, but that alone make it feel more dated than it's actually is. It's still weird why they still ship it in multi-window mode by default, but fortunately all you need to do is install "anchor docking" and then it's become a lot more usable for guys like me.

Also ability to patch and recompile your own IDE on the fly without waiting for half of hour to it to compile is just great. Nothing like that is possible in case of 99% C++ projects.

<comment><USER7> > main frustration was multi-windows interface.

Multiple windows are very comfortable if you have multiple displays connected to your computer.

<comment><USER8> Lazarus is basically a Delphi 2 clone. Delphi ditched the multiple floating windows design starting in version 3 and every subsequent version has been the more traditional "MDI" design similar to Visual Studio. I really like that Lazarus kept the floating window design because it's nice to be able to see your desktop, the wallpaper is more pleasant than whatever solid color background is on the MDI client, and you can access tools and things by just clicking through to your desktop icons. Lazarus is like the best version of Delphi frozen in time.

<comment><USER9> The floating windows were still very much present in Delphi 7, my preferred arrangement [0]. D7 was the last "good" version before the .NET era. Actually I remember the buzz around Lazarus and Free Pascal really growing when the .NET versions of Delphi came out. So I think its fair to say Lazarus took plenty of influence from versions later than D2.

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/gHQR6aH.png](http://i.imgur.com/gHQR6aH.png)

<comment><USER8> oh dang I used D7 for years and didn't know you could configure it into this mode. I would've preferred it at the time.

I'd say clearly Lazarus is tracking the best of Delphi, not just version 2 from 1995.

<comment><USER9> It's been years since I worked in Delphi regularly, but I still have it installed and have been looking around in it this evening for the first time in a long while. Right now I can't find the option to change from this to a single-window mode, but I'm not sure there is one.

I think the trick is to just not run it maximized, then undock the various parts from the main editor window. Then once you have things resized and placed where you want, you save it as a Desktop layout. I don't know how far back that feature goes.

I would have to reinstall it from scratch somewhere to see how it looks by default. I really want to do this and dare say I even intend to! I may even have D5 and D3 somewhere in a box too, but now I'm approaching self-promise overload!!

Here it is maximized and docked. Is that something like what you remember?

[http://i.imgur.com/aeTYPjb.png](http://i.imgur.com/aeTYPjb.png)

<comment><USER8> it's a real blur but I do recall doing the unmaximize and undock stuff to get things looking just right. I distinctly recall no longer being able to do that in some version.. I thought it was 5 but you've proven me wrong. maybe D2005?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lazarus/FPC checks so many nice boxes:

[x] Statically compiled

[x] Native UI on Linux/Mac/Win

[x] Typically compiled without code changes on Linux/Mac/Win

[x] Small binaries

[x] No GC

[x] Readable, somewhat python-like syntax

[x] Still, doesn't rely on indentation for nested blocks

[ ] (Fill in)

<comment><USER11> > [x] Readable, somewhat python-like syntax

I have a rather different opinion on OP that it has a needlessly verbose syntax.

Pythonic it is definitely not. Even C# (which is another creation of Anders Hejlsberg, after MS poached him from Borland) has a better, readable and concise syntax.

I used to be a Delphi evangelist in it's glory days. Now I bristle when I read Pascal source code, there's so much unnecessary visual noise. Of course if your brain is habituated enough to parse Pascal code, eventually you will tend to filter out the begin..end's.

Pascal syntax belongs to C family of language.

As regards to Python-like syntax, I think you are referring to the Nim language, whose syntax happens to be similar to that of Pascal.

<comment><USER12> My feeling as well. In my heart I am really happy that Lazarus (and Harbour, the Clipper-compatible compiler) exist, but being rational the days of desktop applications are over.

Python is being run on microcontrollers these days; I actually wrestle with the non-adoption of Python (or Ruby, or Javascript, or Tcl) as 1st-class citizen language for desktop and mobile; it does not make sense for me. Certainly writing desktop/web apps in C++ or Pascal make even less sense.

Perhaps I am forgetting the big number of fellow developers that work on ERP systems and outdated software, for them it is a blessing to have free tools, while in the 90s such a tool could cost $3k.

<comment><USER13> > My feeling as well. In my heart I am really happy that Lazarus (and Harbour, > the Clipper-compatible compiler) exist, but being rational the days of > desktop applications are over.

Oh boy, I hadn't heard about Harbour until now; earlier today I was looking at the Wikipedia page for id Tech 5, and it says it uses Clipper so I was really scratching my head wondering how they pulled that off and why. Now I know, thanks for mentioning it. :- )

<comment><USER14> Wait. Why would a 3D game use Clipper? What for?

<comment><USER13> That's what I was wondering, I'm thinking of tracking down whoever added that to the Wikipedia page, because I don't know how they found out.

<comment><USER15> I very strongly suspect that some confused person (or algorithm?) saw that that the level design tool Radiant has a "clipper" and ran with it.

<comment><USER13> [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Id_Tech_5&diff=pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Id_Tech_5&diff=prev&oldid=585705338)

Hard to say, bots usually have usernames, so probably a person.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/99.100.1...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/126.96.36.199)

They also seem to have added a similar section to the id Tech 6 article, it's possible they're just an insider.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2015&diff=prev&ol...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2015&diff=prev&oldid=610736224)

But looking at other edits from this address it sees like they might just be a vandal; or at least somebody who is very confused about how Wikipedia works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've made the mistake to write a complex project in Free Pascal. As far as I can tell pretty much every release of Lazarus is breaking something. And surprisingly often those breaks are major (like e.g. broken multi-threading, broken-strings, ...).

For me the whole thing looks more like a playground for hobbyists and is not really useful for anything productive. There's not much continuity in the language. And for the devs something like 95% compatibility seems to be good enough.

For small projects it might be ok to use, but you better keep your snapshot of the compiler locked in a safe place.

On the other hand: If you're young and want to make history as the guy who replaced all those begin/end in pascal with smileys: This project might be your chance...

<comment><USER17> I work with a multi-mloc application in fpc. We have migrated the code over many compiler versions with hardly any issues at all.

With every update they post a list of things breaks compatibility, and if you are affected, the refactoring tools are almost always enough.

We had two tries at a full recompile migrating from 2.6.something to 3.0.2, and passed all tests within 13 hours of starting the process. (some of the larger stuff were however already fixed since we keep a close eye on the development).

<comment><USER18> What are you doing with a million lines of Pascal? It sounds interesting!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Btw, OmniPascal for VSCode is also worth a mention as an alternative for quick edits, or for coding those CLI apps in pure FPC. A really nice project, which also helps showing that Pascal is Alive and Kicking :)

[http://www.omnipascal.com](http://www.omnipascal.com)

(Only issue is Linux support is not (yet) on par with Windows and Mac ... but then, it is open source, so that could change!)

<comment><USER19> Just wanted to mention OmniPascal :)

What's about Linux support? It's working on all platforms, isn't it? [http://blog.omnipascal.com/omnipascal-0-14-0-mac-and- linux-s...](http://blog.omnipascal.com/omnipascal-0-14-0-mac-and-linux- support/)

<comment><USER20> Yes it is, finally :) I like the ability to extract build information from .lpi, despite still needs a lot of work (macros won't work), already lifts the burden to write the unnecessary build scripts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the things I'm excited about, is using FPC/Lazarus as GUI for computationally heavy Go code (Now with the recent efforts to use Go for datascience ... see [http://gopherdata.io](http://gopherdata.io)), now since Go supports shared object (.so/.dll) files.

I collected my (very early) research on it in this thread:

[https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?topic=24948.0](https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?topic=24948.0)

... where some users report they tried it already. Seems to work, if not super smooth. Hope it can be improved in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great news, the key comment there was that Go supports calling from other languages: [https://dev.to/vladimirvivien/calling-go-functions-from- othe...](https://dev.to/vladimirvivien/calling-go-functions-from-other- languages)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> mORMot framework is also a nice example for modern Pascal... [https://synopse.info/fossil/wiki?name=SQLite3+Framework](https://synopse.info/fossil/wiki?name=SQLite3+Framework)

It has DDD, SOA, MVC, ORM (even for NoSql), REST, caching, logging and security features and works with Lazarus.

<comment><USER22> Looks great - have added to my research list on FPK. Thanks.

<comment><USER23> mORMot is very full-featured and powerful! I'd suggest to start with its rich set of samples ([https://github.com/synopse/mORMot/tree/master/SQLite3/Sample...](https://github.com/synopse/mORMot/tree/master/SQLite3/Samples)) and this blog: [https://tamingthemormot.wordpress.com/](https://tamingthemormot.wordpress.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A bit funny seeing this on here tonight. My teenage daughter was looking to create a native desktop app and I pointed her to Lazarus just today. Then I login and check Hacker News...

</comment><comment><USER14> While we're at it, for those times when you're hacking on console apps, FreePascal also has a very nice text-mode (TUI) IDE that is basically a Turbo/Borland Pascal 7.0 IDE clone - but cross-platform.

To do that, they had to port Turbo Vision (or rather its open source fork Free Vision). It's still a great TUI library... it's a shame it's Pascal-specific. Would be interesting to have an implementation of it for, say, Python, for system tools and the like.

<comment><USER25> The Turbo Vision IDE was actually introduced with version 6.0 as an example what the framework was capable of.

It was later available in C++ as well, and there is a port available.

[http://tvision.sourceforge.net/](http://tvision.sourceforge.net/)

<comment><USER14> Yeah. I was thinking more like C (with possibly glib as the object model), so that it can then be wrapped in Python etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I miss the glory days of RAD

<comment><USER27> Xcode is a RAD tool at heart so we're in the glory decade of RAD. We just don't call it that.

<comment><USER28> In my opinion, I wouldn't call XCode the pinnacle. That position is for VB/C#.

<comment><USER29> Still, things didn't get any more Rapid than they were in 1998 and that's a bit sad. In terms of productivity, C# with WPF/XAML is at best _equally good_ IMO.

<comment><USER30> WPF/XAML can give you amazing results but I'm nowhere near as productive with it as I was with VB6.

<comment><USER14> I would venture that WinForms is actually more RAD'ish than WPF.

A lot of that productivity came from the drag-and-drop form editing. And what made it possible (and easy) was complete disregard for any kind of advanced dynamic layouts. Delphi's VCL, .NET's WinForms and the nameless VB6 UI toolkit are all designed around the notion of widgets manually placed on a 2D grid, and the most that you can get in terms of dynamic resizing is "anchoring" their corners to containers.

<comment><USER25> While true, WPF development when coupled with Blend design can be very expressive.

The main hurdle is getting how templates, styles, triggers and code interact together.

If one happens to work in enterprise projects, it is quite easy to get WPF component libraries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I use Free Pascal at times. In case there are any FP developers here: your build arrangements hamper my use. I tried installing earlier this week from source and could not get it going.

My ideal would be a single configure/Makefile combination in the root directory. Consider if the user does not have root, how are they to set a prefix?

The idea of the 'build' download is good, but not if it needs to link to recent shared-objects. Particularly recent shared objects like libc. Maybe you could put statically-linked tools in the 'build' version.

<comment><USER32> I guess you need to contact devs to clarify. I regularly build from sources for Linux and cross-compile for Windows both x32 and x64 using just single "make ..." command.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For the FPC/Lazarus project as a whole, it is also good news that there is some work going on to build up a foundation (it exists already), with funding and stuff, to support further development:

[https://foundation.freepascal.org/](https://foundation.freepascal.org/)

Among founders being Delphi luminaire Boian Mitov (author of Visuino / OpenWire / OpenWireStudio etc).

Hoping the foundation can take off with some good funding.

<comment><USER23> I've been watching the foundation since it's creation (I think it's over one year ago), I don't think it has done any significant help to the FPC/Lazarus development so far. Anyhow, such effort is plausible. On the other hand, open source projects like this ([http://newpascal.org/](http://newpascal.org/)) is what actually driving open source going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I wish porting projects from Delphi was easier. I was trying to make Python bindings for the AcBR library[1] and failed miserably.

Shameless plug: if you think you are up to the task and is not too expensive contact paulo at xtend.com.br

[1] [http://acbr.sourceforge.net/drupal/](http://acbr.sourceforge.net/drupal/)

<comment><USER34> I'd definitely use it more if I could port over the last few Delphi apps I have in production. My Delphi 7 is getting a bit old...

Aside from single-file executables, the biggest advantage to Lazarus (and also Delphi) [to me] is that all the libraries are also built in the language. No needing to bounce down to opaque DLLs just to display some GUI element.

<comment><USER35> Just in case, I found this: [http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Delphi_Converter_in_Lazar...](http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Delphi_Converter_in_Lazarus)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Do not forget also the tremendous effort in the Free Pascal other big IDE

[https://sourceforge.net/projects/mseide- msegui/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/mseide-msegui/)

It is a pitty dev pascal didn't catch up or ported to FPC.

<comment><USER37> Looks interesting. What are its advantages when compared to Lazarus?

<comment><USER20> Smaller and simpler (written in old Delphi, with some 3rd party packages, so Windows only), nothing else I guess. Lazarus is far superior in every other aspects.

<comment><USER36> Simply not true. Runs on Unix and windows, built on free pascal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Lazarus is awesome because of the speed of the compiler, the fact that it has a GUI that works, and is OPEN SOURCE.

So one wonders WTH is going on with all the other compiled languages that have nothing like this? And no QT is not the answer, we need a built-in good enough GUI! =)

<comment><USER38> IIRC Delphi compilers are usually single pass and thus really fast

<comment><USER39> That is correct and it is why all the variables must be declared before the "implementation" section of a unit. The compilation felt instantaneous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I see Lazarus pop up on HN occasionally. It's an IDE for FreePascal right? I guess I'll have to open the article again. How are the database drivers? I've been told they're ageing. Is there 64 bit support for Windows or only 32?

<comment><USER40> I'm no expert by any means, but I just opened Lazarus to look at the DB drivers and they seem pretty respectable. The MySQL driver only goes up to 5.6 but works well in my experience. I haven't tried the SQLite, Postgres, ODB or MSSQL drivers though.

Also it does support 64 bit, I have a 64 bit Lazarus installed on my Windows VPS.

<comment><USER20> As MySQL develops, the bindings are updated as well, but most people will have to wait for stable release. If you use trunk, though, you can enjoy it right away because MySQL bindings has been designed rather easy to port a new version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone looking for a proper, "modern" introduction to Object Pascal, as found in FPC/Lazarus, don't miss this excellent guide:

[http://castle-engine.io/modern_pascal_introduction.html](http://castle- engine.io/modern_pascal_introduction.html)

</comment><comment><USER41> How do you avoid spaghetti code, in an environment like lazarus?

<comment><USER42> I'll take this one - architecture.

So you can setup a very standard MVC or MVVM architecture using Lazarus.

I bought this book to help:[http://www.apress.com/br/book/9781484222133](http://www.apress.com/br/book/9781484222133) it uses Delphi, so there's translation to do, but the concepts are the same.

Also, Lazarus has an amazing community that's a joy to be a part of, and is extremely welcoming.

I'm a hardware jockey (mostly) so if they can explain it to me, literally anyone can get it.

To boot, there are a number of excellent older texts that are just a few dollars, and all the concepts are the same.

There's new material being produced more and more for it as well.

What I'm trying to say is: join us... One of US. One of US. One of US....

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Now someone just needs to clone C++ Builder and we'll be all set. Power of C++ with the simplicity of Delphi.

<comment><USER44> QT Creator is really nice.

<comment><USER20> No other RAD claiming IDE has the same RAD capabilities as Lazarus or Delphi (or C++ builder), including QT Creator. Live database connection and manipulation while designing your form and data module? Nah, it doesn't even know what a data module is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> We've updated the description from "Proving That Pascal Is Alive and Kicking Ass". Submitters: the guidelines ask that you please don't editorialize titles.

<comment><AUTHOR> That headline made people read... and your current title is not fully accurate. It is a Delphi inspired Pascal for sure, but not fully compatible, more like a free alternative.

<comment><USER46> Exactly. Your title was clickbait and dishonest.

We don't accept that here.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please review my new site - greaterdebater.com - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone, I've been working on a new social news and discussion site - http://greaterdebater.com - for the past few months. In addition to the usual features like posting links to stories, self topics, and comments, users can also challenge each other to one-on-one debates.
If a challenge is accepted a special thread is created in which only the original commenter and the challenger can post. Other users can view the argument and vote for the side they feel most compellingly proves their point. Arguments stay open for seven days, and voters can change their vote at any time until the end.
I'd appreciate any feedback on the site design, functionality, usefulness or anything else you think of. Thanks for taking the time to check out my site. <comment><USER2> I looked at making a site similar to this about 15 months ago. I found the market to be saturated and hard to differentiate in. There are currently sites that allow both users and experts to post video responses to each other, I find this much more interested then reading a threaded response.

That said, it looks like the threads could be improved with some added functionality such as integration with facebook--a picture or two would make the debate seem a little more interesting. Also, how does one "win" and argument, I did not see a ranking system.

Final take aways: -How do you differentiate the site from a news aggregater with comments? -UI needs a little more color? -Maybe a a sidebar that explains the premise of the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback.

I think the differentiating factor with other news aggregators is the argument feature. Lots of times an interesting discussion on reddit or hacker news will get lost somewhere at the bottom of the comment page. By breaking it out to an argument thread it can get more exposure, and be available for other users to read who might have otherwise missed it. I often find the comments sections of sites like this to be more interesting than the articles themselves, I'm hoping this makes comments more readable and usable.

Arguments are decided by votes. The argument is active for 7 days or until the participants decide to call a draw or one concedes. At the end of the 7 days, the argument is ended and the user with the most votes is the winner.

A leaderboard or ranking system is definitely in the works. Right now it would just show all users at 0 though. Scores at this point are just the total number of arguments won. I'm still evaluating if that's the best way to go, but I think it will work well enough to start. Something like the Elo rating system (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system>) used for chess ratings might be better, but time will tell.

UI design is definitely not my strong suit, so I tried to keep it as simple as possible. Your suggestion is appreciated, though.

I've been tweaking the copy at the top of the home page for a while to try to explain the site as succinctly as possible to leave more room for topics and arguments. A sidebar might be a better way to make it stand out.

Facebook integration is definitely on my long list of improvements to make. I think the site would really benefit from integration with a Facebook app. You're not the first person to ask for pics / avatars either. I'll have to see how I can fit that into the layout.

Thanks again!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://greaterdebater.com></comment>


Bootstrapping a Micro-ISV: Balsamiq Mockup Tool - <AUTHOR> http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/10/14/personal-whats-your-story-why-start-balsamiq/ I use this tool all the time at work.  It is interesting how many of their sales come from the desktop version (which I purchased). <comment><USER2> Somehow a dupe of <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=332278></comment>