Introducing Atlas: A Visual Development Tool for Creating Web Apps - <AUTHOR> http://carsonified.com/blog/web-apps/introducing-atlas-a-visual-development-tool-for-creating-web-apps/

<comment><USER2> I myself was absolutely amazed at this demo. It makes me feel like I'm not innovating at all!

At the same time, this isn't exactly new. GWT did something similar with Java (although it wasn't necessarily as polished) and as others have stated there are similar things.

I guess the question is - do people really use this, how often, and do THEY make money?

<comment><USER3> They extended apple's dev environment and then built an online iWork suite. They are likely going the 37 signals route until Apple offers them a check they can not refuse.

<comment><USER2> That's a great point. And this is something I've been thinking about recently.

It is as if some start-up business models are merely based on creating technology that either another company will want to buy outright because it runs parallel to their goals and portfolio - or because larger competition doesn't want to have to pay dearly for not buying them out while they could.

Acquisitions don't result in lasting innovation in my eyes - it increases proprietary code bases. Early exits are like leaving a cash poker game after your first big hand, the fun was just beginning.

I hope to see more and more "start-ups" use less and less VC funding (we do realize that it is the VCs who have the winning scenario here, RIGHT?), say "F U" to acquisitions, and stay around long enough to make a sustainable difference.

<comment><USER4> Actually I hope Apple take an enlightened approach to this, and see it as a valid migration/coexistence/hybrid strategy, rather than get heavy. Its the ultimate complement to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "With Atlas what we are going to give you by default is a server that runs Cappuccino. So we have javascript running in the server. We have the same stack end to end. So you know you write your front-end code in javascript. You write your back-end code in javascript. Everything just works."

I've always viewed Cappuccino and Atlas as front-end only tools so this part of the presentation (Q&A) was surprising. Does anyone know where I can find more information about the server side of things?

<comment><USER6> <http://narwhaljs.org>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What just happened?

beautiful, beautiful piece of art and engineering.

Id seen some of the RaphaelJS demos, so I knew this was coming.. but honestly was expecting this stuff to become a product in about 2 to 3 years time... and this guys integrated the whole shebang.

I just want to see the same thing happen with data - people will realize that most data is a graph and not a table, when and only when we can demo something that's fluid, has the same qualities of immediacy and usability and solves a real problem [for which the spreadsheet is the current workaround]...

Each component of this might have been done before, but the combination is a new new thing we all knew was just around the corner.

</comment><comment><USER7> Watching the RSS reader example, seems like a single button "Expand to container size, and set anchored all round and grow shrink horizontal/vertical" would be useful :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I was at the talk - the demo was excellent.

I spoke to Francisco afterwards and he said that the resulting code would be able to run across both Mac & Win32 platforms, which I thought was nice.

<comment><USER9> I assumed from watching the video that the code it generates is objective-j or cappuccino code, and that it would run in the browser. Is this correct?

<comment><USER9> From the questions part of the video it appears that all the code that it generates is javascript and html.

<comment><USER10> Sort of. Cappuccino and Atlas run in normal web browsers, no browser plugins, using JavaScript to build up and manipulate the DOM. But there is almost no HTML (or CSS) involved, and Atlas does not generate much code at all.

The interface files that Atlas creates are essentially freeze-dried archives of the interface objects. IMHO this is a better solution than code generators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 280North might be my favorite YC company. Here is another intro video on Atlas - <http://280atlas.com/>.

I unfortunately don't have a chance to watch the video right now but I'm going to go ahead and say congrats to the 280North guys anyway because their stuff always amazes.

<comment><USER11> Looks like they've updated the Atlas website since I posted that last link - the video is here now: <http://280atlas.com/what.php>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> These guys are awesome! I'll definitely check out the 'pay-in' beta ;)

<comment><USER6> The beta program is partly about getting early feedback, it's partly about keeping our future customers happy while we finish the product, and it's partly an experiment in how open we can be and how much people will want to be part of the process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really wonder how game-changing this will be. Of course most sites on the web aren't meant to be application but rather information presentation.

But it does seem like a huge step toward liberating developers from writing front-end code. The biggest possible downside I see to it that it could also liberate us from writing truly beautiful apps and we'll have a million apps that look like the standard interface.

It would be awesome to see some demos of apps not looking like 280 Slides.

<comment><USER6> I agree that most web sites are not applications, and this tool is not for them.

Atlas is going to make it pretty easy to customize the standard controls, so I wouldn't be all that concerned about cookie cutter interfaces.

It's also worth pointing out that most people don't have the ability or resources to create beautiful interfaces. Those people will get something that looks good by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've seen similar technology before, from a company called Tibco, about 4 years ago. I believe it was called GI Builder.

Edit: Not as impressive, but I believe it's the same concept - <http://media.tibco.com/gi/2_create_gui.swf>

<comment><USER6> Certainly the idea is not new. But we do believe this specific implementation (which has a lot to do with the design of the underlying framework) is miles ahead of other offerings.

<comment><USER14> Yeah definitely, you guys are head & shoulders above the competition - but you are not available, where can I get it / work with it? In Feb it will have been a year since you've announced demo'd it.

edit: I see you guys just changed the 280atlas site.

<comment><USER15> Well, you can start playing with the framework from here: <http://cappuccino.org/>

And they just announced that Atlas will be available November 15 in beta for $20.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> HTML JavaScript, front/ back-end, desktop/ web app... well defined technology for commercial applications.

Internet / web application platform is not likely to go away.

Lightly developed on NeXT Obj-C, spring controls ~20 years ago. Glad seeing good NS ideas being adapted and extended.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't have a chance to watch the video right now but I'm curious to know when Atlas is launching, if anyone knows the date.

Also, I see from the comments on carsonified that they're going to charge $20 for the IDE. If anyone watches the video, I'd be interested to have that verified.

<comment><USER6> We have not released a price tag or date for Atlas 1.0. We have announced a developer beta program, which will give interested parties early access, for a nominal fee of $20.

<comment><USER18> You should consider a Dutch auction for a fixed number of slots. That may be interesting enough to attract more media attention.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One of the big barriers for me to consider the web replacing the desktop is device support for the browser. Does anyone know of a way for web applications to talk to devices like digital cameras, video game paraphernalia, music instruments? Will atlas solve this problem?

<comment><USER10> Atlas/Cappuccino doesn't solve this problem, because it's constrained by what the browser provides us. However it's possible to integrate custom plugins to do these sort of things, if absolutely necessary.

Picurio (YC W09) has a browser plugin to allow uploading of photos directly from your digital camera. The GUI frontend is built with Cappuccino and integrates with this plugin. <http://picurio.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It might be amazing, but I had to turn it off when he said the web was better than the desktop, which is patently not true. The desktop still gives a vastly superior user experience, while the web is still trying to ape it.

<comment><USER20> I'm not certain why I'm being knocked down other than calling out a Y-Combinator guy for being wrong.

He equates desktops to VHS and the web as DVD, the only problem is there is a clear superiority of DVD over VHS (greater resolution, more features, compact form factor) where there is no clear superiority of the web over desktop in terms of usability and features.

If someone can name me one app that is better than the desktop equivalent, please do so.

Flickr is no where near as useful for image cataloging and management than many desktop equivalents. It wins in sharing for sure, but not actual functionality.

Outlook (and I'm sure the xobni guys would agree) trumps it's online version by a mile. Gmail still lags here as well.

Video editing ... Jumpcut? Yeah right.

Audio editing ... show me one that supports high end audio effects or plug- ins.

Image editing ... Aviary < Photoshop. Aviary < most freeware image editing tools.

Google docs - ever press the tab key when editing a doc? Dragged and dropped an image into the document?

I could go on and on, but you get the point.

If you are going to bring a metaphor and present it as the truth, there had better be some truth to it.

Atlas is cool, but derivative of all that came before it: Delphi, Interface Builder, Visual Studio, Dreamweaver, Visual Basic, RealBasic, etc. Sure it runs in the browser, sure you can target the desktop. I dunno, color me unimpressed.

But, listen, if you're going to downvote me at least come correct.

<comment><USER21> I think you are getting knocked down because you don't want to recognize that some people may disagree with you.

You said that outlook is better then gmail. While you might be able to make an argument when you compare it side by side one one machine. You would be mistaken in making that comparison. Gmail kicks ass for me not just because I feel it can replace outlook, but I can have my gmail, on my iphone, I can access it from any computer that has a web browser, I can access it from the linux command line using lynx, or links. Can outlook do that.

You need to realize that when they say desktop apps aren't as good as web apps, I think what they are saying is that desktop apps aren't mayby the best way for most people to use apps.

<comment><USER20> Yeah but the guy in the video explicitly made the comparison between VHS and DVD, and it's an incredibly poor metaphor because it's not true.

I get Gmail having more utility than say Outlook _for certain things_. But I can access my exchange server (I use google apps for business, but used to use exchange) in all the same places I could access Gmail which renders the point slightly moot.

I have no issue with people disagreeing, but at least argue the disagreement if you feel strongly enough to vote me down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I too was impressed by the video, and the demo. The team seems like they are building some great tools.

But that is where my fascination with 280 ends, they are taking a great language, Javascript, and turning it into something its not. Take a look at Objective-J its not javascript. It doesn't really even look like javascript.

As a JS developer, I am not certain I will be willing to give up JS, just so I can use these visual programming tools.

I am going to spend the 20 bucks though, I really want to see how much of the Objective-J I can strip out just use JS.

<comment><USER6> Stop thinking about it as "turning JavaScript into something" and start thinking about it as adding new features to the language that were previously missing.

Code importing is clearly a feature we can all get behind. Classes are clearly something that almost every JavaScript library uses. We make those things language features instead of library features.

The unique feature we add, and the reason we really have to introduce a custom syntax at all, is dynamic message passing. Message passing enables all kinds of cool new features, because method implementations aren't bound until the message is received.

If you really wanted you could do this yourself:

         objj_msgSend(anObject, "message:", aParam);

But clearly this is much cleaner:

         [anObject message:aParam];

Objective-J is not compiled really, it's translated. All of it's features are part of the Objective-J runtime, which is written purely in JavaScript. So you can use it without using the syntax if you like. It's simply a lot more work to do so.

<comment><USER21> I think its great that these guys are trying something. They have an argument, and instead of theorizing they are going for it. I just think that its to far away from what JS is, JS has a long history behind it, and these 3 guys are trying to change that entire history with one broad stroke, I think that is nearly impossible to achieve.

Besides if they feel they have something JS developers want why not take it through the standards bodies.

<comment><USER6> I am one of those people, so no need to refer to me in the third person :)

Standards bodies are hopelessly slow. If I wanted to wait a decade to get a new feature, I'd propose it to a standards body. I actually want to write programs.

Part of the power of Objective-J is taking control of the language _away_ from standards bodies. Objective-J can evolve at any pace we like, and anyone can fork it and make their own changes.

JavaScript does have a long history, but it's an awful one. It's a history of being a second class language that was slow and that was not used to produce anything significant. Only recently has that changed. And there is now a growing culture of implementing languages on top of JavaScript. Python, Ruby, Smalltak, and others have all been written on top of JS. GWT compiles from Java to JS. There are similar compilers for Lisp, PHP, C# and others. It seems narrow minded to assume that only the flavor of JS that has existed for _over a decade_ should be allowed to exist. That's why we build abstractions.

We are not rewriting history nor are we moving far away from what JavaScript is. Most of the code you write is pure JavaScript anyway. You can do as much in pure JS as you like. We are making the programming environment easier to use, should you choose to take advantage of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Cool, we are in the design stages for a web app right now and this generated significant discussion this week.

</comment><comment><USER23> amazing demo.

and its great to see that people are working on removing the hurdles that it takes to create web/html application.

but i wonder how this whole web app stuff breaks up once we move away from WIMP to more task oriented applications with NUIs.

</comment><comment><USER24> Are all the FOWA 2009 London talks online yet, or just this one?

<comment><USER6> They'll be posted here as they come online: <http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2009/london/content>

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Will 280Atlas also be available as a web application?

<comment><USER26> I was at the FOWA talk and I _believe_ , though I may misremember, that it was originally intended as one; how delightfully recursive. However, customers didn't want the insecurity of hosting their design and code online, so Atlas became Atlas.app.

<comment><USER27> Right, 280Atlas.com became 280Atlas.app.

From what Francisco said, it sounds like they may still plan a web-based version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This looks pretty amazing - but I wonder how 'staged' the demo is.

Often the problem with these types of high level abstractions is that there is so much magic going on behind the scenes that customising how things work becomes difficult and you end up getting locked into the 'Atlas' way of doing things.

I can't wait to get a chance to start playing with this though :)

<comment><USER27> The only thing staged about the demo is the richness of the widgets they already have available.

Other than that, it's just like Objective-C + Interface Builder (or better; more dynamic, more portable, no compile/link/go slowdown).

So you can expect generally the same amount of work to build stuff as you would expend building with Cocoa on the Mac/iPhone.</comment></comment>


Dorm living for professionals comes to SF - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/technology/dorm-living-grown-ups-san-francisco.html <comment><USER2> "I feel like I'm in a relationship with everyone I live with," Ms. Ndrepepaj said. "If their day is bad, your day is bad."

Hardly a selling point. As an introvert it's just within my capabilities living with my wife and playful cat; living in such an environment would be a nightmare for me. The article fails to address the 'bad roommate' situation, which _always_ happens sooner or later with these shared-living environments.

<comment><USER3> Nobody is so extroverted that they want to have other people peering in to their lives every moment of the day (unless they are walking so closely in lockstep with culture that there's literally nothing about them that could cause friction.)

There's a reason why people born in compressed, shared living conditions tend to buy houses when they can. If you don't live in a "dorm" you can control your environment, for example not seeing friends while you're sick with the flu and highly contagious (and no fun to be around).

To me this looks like a slide back in to 1800s non-rich living conditions sold as a step forwards.

<comment><USER4> Globalism is going to lead to an averaging out of the standards of living across the globe. People from wealthy nations are in for a rude awakening.

<comment><USER5> That's only somewhat true. It will smooth out living standards as it crushes working people down by exploiting the lowest wages anywhere in the globe. Simultaneously, the wealthy bourgeoisie will become richer and richer until the internal contradiction in capitalism, that profits come from consumers that must work for wages, tears the system asunder.

The system that follows will likely be fascism, the seamless merger of corporations with the state to force exploited workers to work, or socialism, the people taking control of the government and using it to expropriate the rich in favor of workers. EDIT: Note that this doesn't require central planning, the rad idea these days are socialisms based on co-ops where employees own the organization they are a part of.

If the system is fascist, living standards will sharply drop for everyone subjected to that system. If the system is a form of socialism, then yes differences will even out. The GDP of the United States divided by its population is roughly 55k in today's dollars, though certain services like medicine and housing will have their profits expropriated so 55k will go much further. If we look at world GDP, the income of all people will be closer to 11k USD, which might be barely livable, but will eradicate extreme poverty across the globe.

We have a lot of work to do to treat humanity well and in a way the planet can survive.

<comment><USER6> Years-long waiting lists for apartments shared with many strangers are the historical norm under socialist housing schemes and the only evidence-based expectation were we to implement one today.

This _despite_ central-planning allocation of graduates to work assignments and no freedom of internal movement. This alone would probably "solve" the housing crises in major cities today: just stop letting people move to them in such massive numbers.

A coworker who grew up in Soviet-era Moscow remarked that it wasn't all bad - homelessness basically didn't exist - but each nuclear family (let alone individual) getting their own home is a development of the contemporary West's uniquely hyper-capitalist and hyper-atomized society. Embracing collectivization is not going to make it easier to get your own home.

<comment><USER5> I really appreciate your perspective. I'm still learning about all of this. My understanding is that most often these setups were started in relatively poor countries that didn't have enough housing to start with. That is not the case in the US where many houses remain vacant in the face of homelessness so that speculators can speculate.

In China, they are building entire ghost cities and then filling them as fast as they can. In the Soviet Union, my understanding is that the economy was out of wack because of the need to build the military to defend against Western aggression. If those resources were diverted to the civilian sector, perhaps there would have been more and nicer housing?

EDIT: Even in a capitalist country I'm still living with roommates, and this is part of a trend for younger people. That kind of takes the bite out of the criticism that capitalism offers more freedom in that regard. Such freedom once existed, but it has been declining.

EDIT2: I like my roommates. Not dissing them at all. :)

<comment><USER6> The problem in both cases is urbanization. Soviet central planners explicitly set out to industrialize their agrarian society; market forces are moving America's center of gravity from the Midwestern factory to the coastal R&D office. As populations move (or are ordered to move) to follow these changes, it creates blight and abandonment in the places they leave and a housing crunch in the places they head to.

The empty houses are in the places that are no longer economically relevant; the housing crises are in the places everyone is moving to.

The Soviets responded by building space-efficient housing in cities as fast as they could, which was just not fast enough. American cities are actively refusing to let this happen at any significant scale.

We would first need these cities to decide to _want_ enough housing for their ballooning populations. Then we could argue over whether the state or private developers should build it.

<comment><USER5> What you say makes a lot of sense. My understanding of why people moved out of the urban core in the first place was "white flight". People are moving back now, and the people living in the cities, typically the wealthier inhabitants, resist building any tall residential buildings, though they are happy to build upscale homes and businesses that kick out the poor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article says it's "an unusual experiment", but how is this different from an SRO?

[http://www.ccsroc.net/s-r-o-hotels-in-san- francisco/](http://www.ccsroc.net/s-r-o-hotels-in-san-francisco/)

Description from this article of the "experiment": "Shared bathrooms at the end of the hall and having no individual kitchen or living room".

Description from the SRO web site link above: "A typical S.R.O. is a single eight (8) x ten (10) foot room with shared toilets and showers down the hallway."

As the SRO web site points out, these have been around in San Francisco "throughout the city's history".

<comment><USER8> I suppose SRO's are somewhat stigmatized as being for the extremely indigent, although I think this wasn't always the case:

[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met- sro...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-sro-wilson- men-hotel-20180111-story.html)

Nothing wrong with them in principle (assuming they're well kept / safe). If you're single, it might be a better option than renting a random place with roommates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Last time I was in SF I stayed near the Tenderloin area: I've never seen anything like that level of homelessness, neglect and dysfunction in any other first world country.

The existence of such conditions in a city of billionaires is shameful shit.

The US economy generates over $100k per household, and people are living on the street, or crammed into dorm rooms? It's a cruel, obscene disgrace.

<comment><USER10> I was shocked as well. All these leading tech companies, some of the richest people on Earth and can't fix the house they live in?

It is such a bizarre contrast to see so much wealth and people living in card boxes on the streets.

No body cares enough to actually get it fixed.

<comment><USER11> The problem is that you'd have to resort to involuntary commitment and/or lifetime arrest of some form to get them off, and no one likes opening that can of worms. You can build all the apartments you like, and run all the job programs you can; if the person wont take his meds, or can't stay off drugs of his own volition, he will end up back on the street.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What a depressing article. It almost reads like a satire. 10 years ago, this would be an article in the Onion instead of NYT.

</comment><comment><USER13> > to turn into dorm rooms for the middle class.

let's be real here, the middle class in the bay area/SF makes $250k+ per household.

there's nothing wrong with living in dorms, but there is something disturbing about calling this the 'middle class' in SF.

<comment><USER4> Median household income in SF is $78k.

<comment><USER13> i'm seeing some different information.

on wikipedia- it says $78k, but that data is apparently from 2010-2014.

[https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_...](https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml#)

newer data suggests it is at least $87k, with some sources suggesting $92k+

>California Association of Realtors also estimates that the minimum qualifying income to buy in San Francisco is $254,000 annually.

i think being in the 'middle class' should mean you have some hope of escaping rent and actually own something reasonable.

<comment><USER14> Should, but sadly doesn't at the moment.

We need more housing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> While this somewhat smells as "submarine" for Starcity, I welcome these kind of innovations (or reinventions of wheels, if you prefer). For introverts or families or elderly, we should of course have other types of housing. But variety of options is the key for a diverse society. Not everyone needs a single family of a giant townhome straight out of college. Having this kind of housing is a great option for new grads who don't have to waste tons of money on living spaces they don't really need. It also opens up socializing avenues, which is good for normal people.

</comment><comment><USER16> These are SROs in the Tenderloin. Funny how this article never mentioned the word "SRO."

</comment><comment><USER17> I wish there was some way to reduce the randomness of finding people to live with, and increase the odds of compatibility.

Maybe something like Ok Cupid for roommates.

<comment><USER18> I agree. Moving is a big decision, and it's hard to gauge what a person is like after only one meeting. Also, as I've learned the hard way, many people have different understandings of what it means to be "quiet."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hello everyone! I am Jon Dishotsky, the CEO and co-founder of Starcity. I would be happy to answer any questions directly about what we're working on.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why can't the vast majority of these people work remotely yet? For a group of people who often praise the concept of meritocracy, regionally locking down your employee pool seems insane.

<comment><USER21> The article makes it sound like a lot of them are service and retail sector type workers not exactly remote job material

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Seems like this could be avoided if they just change the zoning laws to allow more vertical development. People talk about earthquakes but Japan has managed.

</comment><comment><USER23> I sincerely hope this doesn't start a precedent for our industry or for other places in this country. Stuff is hard enough as it is...

</comment><comment><USER24> I do feel like this is the future trend of things for urban workers, either gradually work remote from a faraway affordable location, commute all day or live in an affordable dorm-like room with a community.

</comment><comment><USER25> Ah,the American dream. Go through four years of college and 100k of student loans so you can live in a $2400 dorm room while barely making ends meet.

I'm moving to the Bay area in a few months and these sorts of stories make me question whether it's the right move.

<comment><USER26> You go to SF to launch your career then GTFO ASAP to a less 'enlightened' part of the US where you don't have to worry about hyper sensitivity and your dollar actually counts for something.

<comment><USER27> It depends. The big X tech companies, and hot unicorns in the bay area pay crazy salaries for engineers.

3k a month doesn't seem too bad when you are making 200k+, which is close to ~triple what you'd make in some rando mid sized city.

Working for the average SF startup though? Yeah, you'd be better off somewhere else.

<comment><USER28> Are that many SF tech workers making over 200 grand a year?

<comment><USER21> I hope so. If they aren't then they would be better off finding work in some other part of the country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I love this. I may start looking for jobs in the bay area if it has a decent jr-mid RoRails job market

</comment><comment><USER30> this is absolutely fascinating. why cant these people just commute from pleasant hill or even lafayette? i had the same accommodations as these people and paid only 400 in pleasant hill.

<comment><USER31> Or Sacramento, as my dad and stepmom did when I was growing up, and as many of my friends and family continue to do.

Yeah, the length of the commute sucks, but taking AmTrak+BART gives you some downtime instead of sitting in traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So...living like a student well into adulthood.

Doesn't sound very appealing.</comment>


Drones get dirt cheap GPS guided bombs - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/drone-economics-tiny-tactical-drones-get-dirt-cheap-gps-guided-bombs/

<comment><AUTHOR> Sigh, not a 'good' development. Does anyone know how 'real' the comments about Law Enforcement looking to equip their drones with crowd control munitions?</comment>


Results of the GitHub Investigation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github-investigation <comment><USER2> "We didn't do anything illegal, or that would leave us vulnerable to a lawsuit" is about the only content that this blog post contains.

While Horvath characterized much of her woes as being gender-related [1], the investigation could have classified most of them as either unprovable or terrible-but-not-provably-sexist (in particular, the behavior of the Preston- Werners).

I doubt it will ever be clear what actually happened. Theresa Preston-Werner's response [2] spends more time avoiding topics than actually covering them. Tom Preston-Werner likewise [3] makes sure to reinforce the fact that GitHub is immune to lawsuit while providing no real details. I'm sure there are plenty of GitHub employees who have a strong opinion, but enough of them seem to have an ax to grind in one way or another that it's hard to trust that testimony.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath- describes...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes- sexism-and-intimidation-behind-her-github-exit/)

[2] [https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215](https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215)

[3] [http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github- hel...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hello- immersive-computing.html)

<comment><USER3> You're right. It will never be clear what actually happened. I think Internet message boards create the perception that outcomes like that are rare. They're not: they're the norm. That's how it's supposed to be. We don't get to know everything and we need to work within the limits of our knowledge.

<comment><USER2> The only problem for GitHub now is finding a way to attract talent. If your best response to

"You have a hostile work environment."

is

"We don't have a _provably illegal_ hostile work environment."

then that doesn't inspire great confidence when evaluating it as a place to work.

<comment><USER4> If you want to know if GitHub is a hostile work environment according to women who work there, take a poll of current and past female employees, including Horvath.

I did. So far it's working out in GitHub's favour. But maybe I missed something, so do your own research.

<comment><USER5> [https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458342995469688833](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458342995469688833)

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347143086870528](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347143086870528)

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347574672388096](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347574672388096)

<comment><USER6> What a drama queen. Hard to take her seriously with these antics.

<comment><USER7> Yes, this is a common rhetorical tactic used to dismiss the opinions of women when they address issues of sexism publicly. Thank you for demonstrating this disingenuous method of discourse so ably.

<comment><USER6> No, but denouncing everything as sexism is. Her issue is with another woman. That argument doesn't apply here. Unless you're suggesting that both me and the founder's wife are sexist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This anonymous post from an alleged GitHub employee adds some interesting perspective.[1] It alleges Julie Ann Horvath was actually spreading rumors of a personal nature about the founder's wife before any of this. In other words, Horvath was the bully, and she really didn't like having the tables turned on her.

If true, this would be a very difficult employee to keep at the company. She should have been fired for inappropriate behavior rather than given an elevated role (which she can now use to bolster her case). Very poor handling and it does suggest a degree of naivety on the part of management.

Having said that, the founder's wife also admits that her actions were a role in his departure.[2] It sounds like she had way too much free reign at the company and was making people uncomfortable with her activism around her startup. The fact that she presented herself to Horvath as having a lot of influence and power within the company reflects that. Plus it's a fertile ground for more serious transgressions into company privacy and so forth. Also should've been nipped in the bud early on.

[1] [https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e](https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e)

[2] [https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215](https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215)

<comment><USER9> This anonymous post is no better than the unsupported claims by Julie. Unsupported claims on top of unsupported claims.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There appear to have been weirdnesses around the investigation, such as Julie Ann Horvath (and other ex-employees) remaining uncontacted until it was wrapping up: [https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453298152569720832](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453298152569720832)

So I don't know how much stock you can place behind the idea that the investigators GH hired, who did not contact ex-employees competently, found them blameless. The resignation probably speaks for more than the investigation does.

<comment><USER11> An anonymous post on medium by github insiders: [https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e](https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e)

Unfortunate that it is anonymous, but it is still worth reading in my opinion.

<comment><USER12> It's telling that nobody would attach their name to the article. Horvath's already publicly laughed it off.

<comment><USER4> What was her alternate version of the missing events? It's hard to believe the techCrunch story when it starts so late in the game.

If I was in a similar position I'd take it to court, but if for some reason I wanted to do trial by media, I'd be gushing with detail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It sounds like Mrs. Preston-Werner was a regular presence at the GitHub office and, according to Horvath, had extensive access to private information throughout GitHub's systems despite the fact that she wasn't an employee. If true, that should certainly be a privacy and security concern to any GitHub customer or user.

<comment><USER14> This is incredibly troubling. How can anyone trust GitHub, knowing that non- employees regularly had access to private information?

<comment><USER15> In my experience it is pretty common for people who bring work home with them not to be super-meticulous about preventing access to the content of the work by their families. How many people do you know who sound-proof their home office so their wife can't eavesdrop on their business calls?

<comment><USER16> I think I should point out this is a fireable offense in a number of companies. I work with sensitive information every day. I'm pretty sure if allowed someone outside the company to use my machine for anything, I would be fired.

My dad works for IBM doing mainframe repair and installation. He's seen his coworkers fired for allowing unauthorized individuals to use their company laptops. They've gone even further in the last few years in making unauthorized software a fireable offense.

Granted, two data points isn't a lot but there are companies that have enforced policies to prevent sensitive information from leaking.

I should also point out both my dad and I do significant amounts of work from home and we are both required by our companies to use full disk encryption.

<comment><USER17> Without going to the extreme of secret+ classifications -- in which case you cannot take things home without a secure home office, and move things between them in secure containers -- I don't think employees are fired for failing to lock their home office against their spouse or soundproofing their office against their spouse.

Which is different from saying that the company would fire them if the spouse used their inside-access to harm the company in any way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> These memos are often more about what isn't said:

> _The investigation found no evidence..._

This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal investigation didn't find any. If read carefully, this statement tells us nothing about the universe of evidence that exists, but only about what _GitHub_ didn't find. A different investigator might come to a completely different conclusion, or find other evidence (this is where the comment about the investigators possibly not contacting key people could become important).

> _...found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of > sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation_

So their internal investigation didn't find sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation. But did that investigation find other types of harassment or retaliation?

> _However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing_

"May have been none" or "there definitely wasn't any"? And then legal wrongdoing vs. just plain wrongdoing? Disclaimers/"wiggle words" everywhere.

> _As to the remaining allegations, the investigation found no evidence of > gender-based discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or abuse._

Again, we're seeing the term "gender-based" used as a modifier (also done in P-W's response). This makes it appear as if their attorneys primarily want to remove this controversy from the ambit of gender-based discrimination claims.

I'm not saying this memo is worse than any other corporate public statement. But reading carefully, you often find that the statements don't tell you very much, if anything.

<comment><USER19> "This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal investigation didn't find any."

How could you ever claim anything else, though? You can only make a claim about the things you did find (including absence of things), not about things you didn't find, because you can not know about them.

This is just another example of human communication depending on goodwill. If some involved parties want to misinterpret everything they hear, there is no way to stop them.

I think the emphasis on "gender based" stuff is because that was the gist of Horvath's accusations.

<comment><USER18> Again, in my comment I mention that this memo is no different than other corporate statements. My point is that some comments on here say "there is no evidence", which is not what the memo says. Saying you didn't find something isn't the same as saying that something doesn't exist.

<comment><USER20> Right, but there is no actual way that you can say that something doesn't exist; you can't prove a negative. There is absolutely no other wording you can ever use. Pointing that out as some sort of indicator that it's possible that there _is_ some evidence is a little silly, because... well, duh.

Ultimately it depends on whether or not you trust the investigator to be thorough, and to be able to ferret out the truth where people lie and omit details.

<comment><USER21> The investigator in this case is not about uncovering the truth of everything - it's about investigating this specific case. They do not have an obligation, for example, to mention that they found taxation irregularities during their work.

<comment><USER20> ... what does that have to do with anything? We're not talking about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> When these things conclude, as this one has, it is useful to check your own response emotion (happiness? sadness? outrage? bitterness?). One of the harder things for me to learn has been to critically evaluate my own judgement. Generally I'm a very rational guy and can give you my reasoning from first principles right up to the claim in question, when its wrong (the claim), I find my tendency is not to listen. My rational brain is invested in learning, my emotional brain is invested in being "right."

At the end of the day, neither Tom or Julie work at GitHub any more and what ever they brought to the mix has been lost. They have both made statements of pain and hurt, and their pain has been a burden on their friends as well. Will GitHub be stronger or weaker after this event? Will Julie and Tom? Only time will tell. Perhaps the best that can be said of this affair is that its publicity might help others to recognize the dangers of their behavior earlier before it becomes a problem.

</comment><comment><USER23> This has to be an incredibly difficult moment in Tom Preston-Werner's life. Regardless of what may have happened. To build a company from the ground up and then have to walk away from it. I'm sure we all remember GitHub during its infancy and the enthusiasm with which founders worked on it. A hugely successful bootstrapped company.

<comment><USER24> exactly, this is really tragic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > The investigation found no evidence to support the claims [...] of a sexist > or hostile work environment.

So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? I mean, there was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. I don't want to get into whether the behavior was "sexist" or not, but I think we can all agree that if what she said was true, the work environment was hostile and unprofessional.

<comment><USER26> I think it's possible that Horvath was right about the poor actions of management, and at the same time, very little of what she alleged seemed to fall into the bounds of gender-based discrimination. A colleague who reverts your commits because you wouldn't date him...that's not gender-based, that's office-romance strife (though obviously, such strife can be exacerbated with a gender imbalance at the company). I'm kind of interested in what happened to _that_ engineer.

edit:

FYI: her detailed complaint to TechCrunch: [http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath- describes...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes- sexism-and-intimidation-behind-her-github-exit/)

re: The co-worker who couldn't handle being rejected by her:

> _The rejection of the other employee led to something of an internal battle > at GitHub. According to Horvath, the engineer, "hurt from my rejection, > started passive-aggressively ripping out my code from projects we had worked > on together without so much as a ping or a comment. I even had to have a few > of his commits reverted. I would work on something, go to bed, and wake up > to find my work gone without any explanation." The employee in question, > according to Horvath, is both "well-liked at GitHub" and "popular in the > community."_

 _His "behavior towards female employees," according to Horvath, "especially those he sees as opportunities is disgusting."_

And there was one more incident that would purportedly fall under sexism:

> _Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were > hula hooping to some music. I didn't have a problem with this. What I did > have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the > hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club. > When I brought this up to male coworkers, they didn't see a problem with it. > But for me it felt unsafe and to be honest, really embarrassing. That was > the moment I decided to finally leave GitHub._

The first one, of course, is bad. And there's possibly a case to be made that if management knew about this engineer and let it slide, well, that does create a hostile environment. Yet I don't think Horvath points out where she complained about this guy's commit-reverting behavior to management.

The second thing, about hula-hooping, without context, it doesn't really mean anything beyond what Horvath claims she was able to grok just by stumbling upon the scene. I think during the original HN discussion, a Githubber said that the hula-hooping happened during an in-office party. Either way, hula- hooping and watching said-hula-hooping is hard to claim, on its face, as being gender-discrimination.

The other stuff though, about the co-founder unfairly pressuring her partner to resign, and the co-founder's wife claiming to have access to Github employees' private data...Those could be things that the company frowns upon enough to merit a resignation.

<comment><USER27> How is a woman who refuses to date another employee considered an "office- romance?" Retaliation as a result of unwanted advances is considered harassment.

sexual harassment definition: [http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm)

<comment><USER26> Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there was an actual romance. I meant that this immature (and shitty) behavior was based in that domain of "romance" (the existence or lack thereof, in this case) and not, from the face of Horvath's description, automatically based on gender-discrimination.

From your link:

> _Although the law doesn't prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or > isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it > is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work > environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as > the victim being fired or demoted)._

1\. Did Horvath provide proof that this immature behavior was more-than- isolated and unpunished? It would be easy for her to, as it would exist in the git logs. But we don't know if it happened dozens of times, or just more than one time.

2\. Reverting commits is still part of an engineer's job. She alleges that the commits were unfair...again, this evidence would exist in the logs. But what if the commits were justifiable, and the engineer was being snippy about it? That doesn't really count as harassment.

3\. Was Horvath retaliated against by management (e.g. fired or demoted) for being angry at her colleague? Her account doesn't claim that.

The link you posted says that harassment, and sexual harassment, is illegal...But what Horvath describes is not harassment by the legal definition, because the other engineer could claim that the reverts were part of his job. Again, the commit logs, or even a description of them, are needed to decide whether this constituted harassment beyond a coworker criticizing another.

<comment><USER28> > _I meant that this immature (and shitty) behavior was based in that domain > of "romance" (the existence or lack thereof, in this case) and not, from the > face of Horvath's description, automatically based on gender- > discrimination._

Don't make up soft weasel words to describe it. It's sexual harassment plain and simple. Also, this bit about classifying it as gender-discrimination seems like pointless hair-splitting. Horvath felt wronged by many things, and she probably felt those things would not have happened if she were a man, and I think that's a fair assumption on her part. I'll leave it to the courts to get into the technical classification of precisely if and how she was wronged.

<comment><USER29> Sorry, reverting someone's commits out of spite because they rejected you is not sexual harassment "plain and simple." Words have meanings. Furthermore it is not "pointless hair-splitting" to say it is not gender discrimination. You clearly have no understanding of what these terms mean and why it's important to not let this type of drama bleed into the wider discussion about systemic gender discrimination in tech.

[http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm)

"Harassment can include "sexual harassment" or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person's sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general."

Harassment of someone who happens to be of the opposite gender does not make it sexual harassment. Harassment of someone for rejecting you romantically does not make it sexual harassment. If someone "feels" they would not have been harassed the same way if they were a man does not make it sexual harassment. (This is clearly false in this case, obviously, because the same thing could have happened if it were an advancement by someone of the same gender.)

Reverting someone's commit is not harassment of a "sexual nature" nor does it include commentary on the person's sex or women in general. It has nothing to do with gender or sexual comments, it has to do with an emotional reaction to rejection and an immature pathetic response.

<comment><USER28> Okay, good point, I stand corrected.

<comment><USER29> major props, a response like this doesn't happen often on the internet

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I have a question/observation that may be offensive, and it is not meant to be - so pardon my ignorance if this is a misguided perception:

When this story first ran and I was reading JA Horvaths tweets in the surrounding days - and reading whatever other articles related to this story were - I got the impression that she didn't necessarily seem like the most easy-going-innocent victim, and I wondered; what if she was actually a difficult to work-with person?

This is in no way a defense of any actions of any party, it was just a perception of the language, tone and content of the messages that Mrs. Horvath used gave me the perception that she wouldn't be the most desirable co- worker....

Now, I have nothing to substantiate such an opinion other than the tweets and stories I read just left me with this impression....

So, could it be that while her allegations are true, she is also a participant in the situation whereby she could have been acting poorly/using poor judgement?

Finally, I recognize that the actions of the wife of the founder are the most insidious, and a clear cause of concern, assuming they are in fact true...

<comment><USER31> It certainly could be, but in general what she's accusing them of would be wrong regardless of what a terrible person she could be. If someone is a bad employee/co-worker you can fire them, but you can't bully/harass them out of the place.

<comment><USER30> True. The weirdest accusation is that toward the wife... That just sounds.... strange.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This statement is pretty terrible.

The line "sexual or gender-based harassment" looks like it's been specifically written to exclude other kinds of harassment, especially given that term is used multiple times.

Employee harassment of any kind is unacceptable and if they're not willing to admit that it's a problem and act as if it's something that should be brushed under the carpet then it will continue to be a problem.

I appreciate that this might turn into a legal case so they're acting to protect themselves, but it would be better if they hadn't put out any statement rather than this weasel worded one.

<comment><USER33> > Employee harassment of any kind is unacceptable

But generally not illegal except as a form of discrimination on an illegal basis (as in, e.g., sexual harassment.) The line about sexual or gender-based harassment is part of the detail leading up to the general statement of no legal wrongdoing, which is followed by the statement about errors of judgement, etc., that do not rise to the level of legal wrongdoing.

Harassment that does not constitute legally-prohibited discrimination would fall into the category of error that they have expressly stated _did_ occur.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> We have a process for all this. It's called the legal system.

It's not perfect but it mostly gets the job done.

Has Julie Ann Horvath formally sued Github? It's not clear to me that she has.

It seems that she may have grounds for some kind of lawsuit. Why hasn't she sued the company (if in fact there is no lawsuit)?

This to me is the most important question. At the moment, it seems this is becoming a matter of public opinion.

I would rather it be moved over to the legal system where the rules of engagement are much less malleable.

<comment><USER21> Quite so, and in most legal cases, both sides tend not to speak openly or publicly until the case has finished.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Maybe it's just me, but I don't really think speculating on fights like this from the outside without full and complete information is beneficial, or even sane and rational. Can we just all agree that we don't know the full story here, and that any and all players might be misleading or not telling the whole story publicly? This is an internal issue. The only opinions I am interested in are internal opinions of other github co-workers, and that only if I was interviewing for a position at the company.

<comment><USER36> This is the internet. There is no place here for your logic and reason.

<comment><USER37> I literally cringe whenever someone posts this hackneyed response.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Tom Preston-Werner's response: [http://tom.preston- werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hel...](http://tom.preston- werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hello-immersive-computing.html)

<comment><USER39> It would be nice to not see the harassment word prefaced with "gender-based." This parsing, by Tom, without fuller disclosure of what mistakes were made leads to the conclusion that there was some form of harassment, but that it wasn't put forth in a manner which legally falls into "gender-based," which would make github and Tom (& family) liable for those actions.

I still want to see the dramatization where the guy coder comes in professing his love, gets spurned, then spitefully removes code.

Terms like hostile, gender-based, and discrimination all have pretty specific requirements for proof.

At least HN an move forward unhappily and pull out the "tragic" word describe everything. I'm not sure we all experienced catharsis, but "tragic" will have to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Can anyone tell what exact discrimination Horvath faced? I went through her long interview and I can only read how she "felt" to be in "boys club" as opposed to specific events that can be qualified as discrimination. For example, she says her code was reverted and was apparently blaming that event on her being a women. I can't imagine someone throwing good code away because it was written by a women rather it seems much more likely that her code had issues. Then there is series of rambling for founders wife sitting in front of her every day. That doesn't feel like discrimination either but rather feels like she was not looked upon as desirable employee there at higher level. Overall I got an impression that she was turning whatever bad performance on her part in to case of discrimination. May be I'm missing details but it is very hard to identify events that can actually be qualified as "discrimination" in her long rambling interview.

<comment><USER41> It would be fascinating to see the commit in question.

If the commit has technical merit and should not have been reverted, why would you not focus on demonstrating why the technical merit of the commit in question? Claiming that a commit was reverted for personal reasons instead of defending the technical merits of the commit strikes me as naïve.

A highly competent person who has produced some work product that was challenged would typically either defend it on merit or assume they might have produced a lesser work and seek to understand why.

My experience in all areas of competence I'm familiar with is that histrionics like those observed thus far are often comorbid with demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect in inexperienced individuals.

Zed Shaw is one of the few people I can think of that would be a counterpoint to this observation, demonstrating high competence when acting histrionically. You can just look at his contributions to open-source to see how good he is at what he does.

JAH's github profile (for an engineer that worked there for a long time) seems conspicuously sparse to me. There really aren't many projects there to demonstrate superior mastery of HTML, CSS or git.

[https://github.com/nrrrdcore?tab=repositories](https://github.com/nrrrdcore?tab=repositories)

Looking further, like at her blog repo. There are .DS_Store files committed (which would normally be in a local .gitignore or in your home folder .gitignore file) and the first file I clicked on the in CSS folder has Jekyll ruby errors printed to it:

[https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/tree/maste...](https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/tree/master/css) (DS_Store file from 2 years ago still there)

[https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/blob/maste...](https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/blob/master/css/base.scss) (broken blog post is 6 months old)

Assuming this is representative of the quality of her commits, Occam's Razor suggest competence may be the reason for reverting the that css commit.

<comment><USER42> Exactly! I had the curiosity to check JAH's github profile too, and it raised more suspicious towards her than I had previously imagined. For a fair comparison, let's see a couple of female github repos (both frontend and backend):

[https://github.com/pamelafox?tab=repositories](https://github.com/pamelafox?tab=repositories)

[https://github.com/kellabyte?tab=repositories](https://github.com/kellabyte?tab=repositories)

[https://github.com/gwenshap?tab=repositories](https://github.com/gwenshap?tab=repositories)

See? Any of those smart women above has much more quality code in their repos with regular activity, even though not any of them works at github, that is, they push code on their free time.

Finally, let's see a repo by another harassed geek girl: [https://github.com/adriarichards?tab=repositories](https://github.com/adriarichards?tab=repositories)

Um... I definitely see a pattern here screaming too loud not to take notice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> [http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/5526574/github-sexism- scan...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/5526574/github-sexism-scandal- julie-ann-horvath) for a bit of backstory.

</comment><comment><USER44> His wife says she didn't realize that soliciting contributions from her husband's employees may not be appropriate.

She pretty plainly states that it never even entered her mind. That tells me more about the atmosphere there than anything.

<comment><USER20> Yes, I agree, but I'm sympathetic: GH has always pushed the flat-hierarchy, we-are-all-peers attitude. And I think that's cool in theory, but has potentially bad side-effects like this one, where people feel pressured in situations where they viscerally know they are _not_ peers, even if the atmosphere tries to push that idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I have not followed this case. However, this just rolled across my FB feed :

[http://www.businessinsider.com/julie-ann-horvath-github- hara...](http://www.businessinsider.com/julie-ann-horvath-github-harassment- twitter-2014-4)

Maybe I'm being uncharitable, but based on her [JAH] public statements I have a hard time taking her version of events 100% at face value. The drama to fact ratio feels high.

> _" Company perks : witch hunts, snow cones and silencing"_

> _" I am not a victim. I'm someone that a company's negligence pushed too > far, for too long. I am living, breathing consequence"_

> _" Leaving GitHub was the best decision of my life"_

> _" Hmm still no mention of the man who bullied me out of our code base > because I _wouldn't_ fuck him. Too popular to be accountable, I guess"_

Is Github _that_ awful? I'm not seeing it.

<comment><USER46> There's a strong current of spitefulness in those Twitter posts. While I understand that Horvath is clearly livid, and obviously not without some reason, that kind of public vitriol would make me question anyone's rationality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I wonder why his wife had to be at Github at all. I've worked at half a dozen startups now. Never would a spouse of either gender be in the office, and if they happened to maybe communicate with anyone, it was only a quick introduction and then they got out of your way.

I would consider it highly inappropriate.

<comment><USER48> I've been in a couple Midwestern start-ups, and founder's spouses (wives, in both cases) often did come into the office. Generally they were going somewhere together, or whatever. Chatted several times, and it was no big thing.

When they did ask how things were going business-wise, I got the nod from their husband. Turns out, they were also on the hook (co-signatories) for much of the start-up capital vehicles/loans/lines of credit.

Their money on the line, they own the company, IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Julie Ann Horvath has posted a bunch of interesting tweets about it starting here [https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458340919721197568](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458340919721197568)

<comment><USER50> Somehow, I don't think she's doing what is in her best interest right now. The guy has resigned and the tech media is totally on this story right now. Any small __preceived__ misstep and she could end up being labeled another "Adria Richards".

Also, the question[1] in her current github background appears to represent a suggestive joke that I would have never guessed she'd be comfortable with. Not saying this is any kind of evidence of anything; just interesting that apparently there is a side to her that finds jokes like that funny.

[http://i.imgur.com/X8Wdgg0.png](http://i.imgur.com/X8Wdgg0.png)

<comment><USER51> Why, because she's supposed to be sexless before she can be credible in a claim of sexual harassment?

<comment><USER50> I wouldn't have a joke like that on any of my social profiles. If anything, this is in her defense since it's one data-point indicating she's not a stereotypical hyper-feminist-drama-queen _(do these even exist?)_ looking to be offended by the slightest incident. She's easy-going enough to have something like that on her public profile and she __knows__ what people will think of first when they read that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Mrs. Preston-Werner says here ([https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215](https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215) ) that the accusation and reason is that: "We learned that unnamed employees felt pressured by Tom and me to work pro-bono for my nonprofit."

</comment><comment><USER53> I don't even know what to make of this. They say there was no evidence but he is still resigning.

<comment><USER54> They say no evidence of illegality, but there is evidence of poor judgement. Without commenting on the specifics of this incident that's a valid reason to fire a CEO/co-founder/exec. I have no particular knowledge of what happened but if GitHub thinks he showed poor judgement then it is reasonable to ask him to resign.

<comment><USER55> For example, if you didn't actually do anything legally wrong, but made it look an awful lot like you did by screwing up and being a dick about it, and you're a company executive, then you can resign or get fired.

I suspect that this is not a million miles from what happened here: not actual discrimination, but enough of a blunder to look like it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> It doesn't really matter what actually happened. The well has been poisoned so just fire someone and get it over with.

Now Github can get back to business.

<comment><USER57> > It doesn't really matter what actually happened.

That's the annoying part of the story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> [http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github- hel...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hello- immersive-computing.html)

</comment><comment><USER59> What a crock of shit. People don't typically quit companies they built from the ground up when they have "done nothing wrong".

</comment><comment><USER24> :( this sucks. Github would not even exist without Tom Preston-Werner and I am really scared to see how it will exist without him. Tragic for all his users.

<comment><USER60> > I am really scared to see how it will exist without him

Isn't that a _little_ bit extreme? Do all the good things that happen at Github stem directly from Tom Preston-Werner?

I can't claim intimate knowledge of Github the company, but I somehow doubt that this is a "Steve Jobs" type situation.

<comment><USER61> Come to think, I somehow doubt Steve Jobs was a "Steve Jobs" type situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> To me this is lawyer speak for, yes it is true but if we admit, we would be liable. I would expect something like this from Bank of America or some other mega-corp, not github.

Only good thing about this is that it is not happening on the front pages of TechCrunch and whatever else blog might be following events like this.

</comment><comment><USER63> And this is why you need strong/clear HR policies.

<comment><USER5> Sure, at their size now. Not before, as policy beyond "use good judgement" at a small company is basically pointless.

Your first dozen hires must all be good enough to _write_ such policies...

<comment><USER64> FWIW, Github hasn't been a "small company" for quite some time. github.com/about/team says they are currently at 237 employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> >>the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment

Isn't that like saying, well the hard proof isn't there but its clear you did do something wrong?

<comment> vezzy-fnord Which is an important distinction to make, especially considering the original allegations were specific.

<comment><USER65> I get the distinction, but I guess I'm just skeptical about the attempt at face saving here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> If you haven't read already, check this: [https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e](https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e) She did a lot of wrong things: \- Dating a coworker is not one of the best practise. \- gossiping around about your co-workers/founders character is the also not the best thing to do. \- If you write shit code, your code will be removed. She is definitely not known for her coding abilities. She is just a melodrama queen who is bad at heart, opportunist, blackmailed founder to poison the company atmosphere. \- You can create a healthy workspace shouting "Women Women" every time. We work with women too. Our behaviour and respect is based on compassion and professionalism. They are just like any other person in the company. \- The real story must have been that she is a bad/mediocre developer who was being reviewed which didn't turned out pretty well (Obv since she was busy bitching against coworkers). The only good way she had to abuse and insult the company publically , get sympathy and then a Job. She seems to have good PR skills. (Pun intended) Again, here are some of her recent tweets: [https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347574672388096](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347574672388096) [https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458345005866696704](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458345005866696704)

</comment><comment><USER67> This is turning into a Soap-Opera-via-Social-Media... What happened to the good old days of people suing for damages in a court of law and moving on?

Public _name-and-shame_ has its place in the grand picture of such incidents, but the longer it stretches, relative to time on social media, the more sudsy it turns.

</comment><comment><USER68> This fucking sucks, man. Tom's always seemed like an awesome guy.

As always, absolutely overblown PR messes like this are a result of faulty communication.

Without proper context or research done about it by Internet warriors frothing at the mouth, a one-off donation ruins Brendan Eich's once rich and successful career. Partly because Internet warriors tend to make emotional judgments before they properly study the evidence and contex and before they think through things, but also because Eich ... never responded. He never let the facts through, never let out an, "Oh, sorry guys. This donation was done because of X and Y and Z (don't support marriage as a whole/don't want government getting it's hands in things/etc.,etc.) and it doesn't reflect my current views on sexual orientation or that people with certain sexual orientations deserve less opportunities.", he never gave proper context and evidence to suggest that he wasn't a bad character.

Similarly with this. People are (conveniently?) keeping facts back, giving very vague stories, saying very little with a lot of words, etc., etc. If we are to believe that this thing was a huge misunderstanding and GitHub doesn't employ a bunch of mysognisitic, immature people, why hasn't Tom spoke up? I'm sure that GitHub is internally a lot better than it's image on the Internet right now is -- why doesn't anyone speak up?

Or is it really as bad as the Internet's image of it is?

</comment><comment><USER69> we have one side of the story, for fuck's sake. the other side--the github side? it's lawyer-speak and completely devoid of anything that addresses the specific accusations.

how so many ostensibly smart people can simultaneously lose their ability to think critically is incredible. add the word "gender" to anything and people lose their minds.

</comment><comment><USER70> To me it sounds more like...

We dont have enough evidence to take legal action in this case, but our investigation found out something worse so we would like Tom to resign before it comes out publicly.

</comment><comment><USER71> Slightly off topic:

Is there anywhere that offers(for lack of a better term) open source HR policy for small companies to copy? Seems to me writing something like this can be fairly onerous for a small company, especially in terms of legal overhead, but is clearly important. Having a starting point would be very helpful...

</comment><comment><USER72> To me it seems Github fired him but allow him to "save face" with the resignation story.

<comment><USER73> This is pretty much standard procedure. Depending on his contract, it saves github from paying severance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> It feels unconvincing, and unapologetic.

<comment><USER75> I can't think of much else they could reasonably do in response to these allegations. Tom was a founder, President, and former CEO of GitHub. They effectively fired him. They apologized profusely and laid out specific ways in which they're trying to fix the problem. They hired a new HR head. They're starting to train and educate employees.

What else would you have GitHub do?

<comment><USER74> Agreed. everything is right rationally, in fact I said it "feels". It feels cold. It lacks human touch, in my opinion of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> I really don't care about how it's published in the media, I mean, this last episode at least. It was clear since the very beginning when it broke out that it would be dirty, really dirty. It's a shame not only for the people involved but more specially for Github as an ecosystem. Such incredible company bleeding in the media... sad times... and when I say incredible company I don't mean incredibly owned or well run company, you know what I mean. I lost a bit of faith in them today anyway. Sad times...

</comment><comment><USER77> It is shortsighted to think there is nothing we can learn from this. There are certainly things we can learn.

1) A good lawyer is worth a 1000 tweets.

2) Getting deeply romantically involved with coworkers carries serious risks, whether or not you believe a company has the right to restrict office romances or not.

3) The fetishization of "we don't have any process!" is a mark of immaturity, not Zen. One would think engineers of all people would understand the importance of formalized process.

I don't think anyone walks away a winner here.

</comment><comment><USER78> "This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper"

I think with the amount of coverage this story has gotten, everyone wanted something big to happen. Instead, we just get something mundane in some carefully crafted words that seem designed to give no information whatsoever, while still ensuring nobody can be sued any further. I kind of get the feeling that they are all trying to say "Nothing to see here....move along....cows turn themselves inside out all the time".

</comment><comment><USER79> Best of luck to everyone involved. Before casting judgement, please remember that everybody makes mistakes. The process of healing involves accepting this reality and recognizing everybody's humanity.

In light of this, I would personally be honored to work with someone of Tom Preston-Werner's caliber.

I hope he & his wife learn from this experience & grow as people.

</comment><comment><USER80> So what happens when a founder leaves like this, do they give up their % ownership and the other founders gain what was lost?

<comment><USER81> I suppose it depends on how the articles of incorporation are written up, but I really doubt it would work _that_ way. It's more likely that the leaving founder will become a sort of silent partner, retaining equity but not managerial input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Also, can they get rid of Gravatar now?

<comment><USER82> They kind of did. You just start with a Gravatar, but can upload your own image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> "The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment."

"We still have work to do"

Which is it? A non acknowledgement acknowledgement?

</comment><comment><USER84> The best thing about this article is that it hopefully signals that we will no longer have to here about this anymore. As much as I love using GitHub, I hate hearing about the internal politics of their executives and engineers.

</comment><comment><USER85> This is a misleading title and not the actual title on the page.

</comment><comment><USER86> Think this might make those "Fork me on GitHub" badges a little less popular? I sincerely hope so.

</comment><comment><USER87> it's not idea Sunday but: a wearable video recording device that documents everything.

It may sound crazy but it would be interesting to me to find out how much of my rather boring life is actionable / illegal or distasteful

<comment><USER88> Devices like this exist.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelog](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelog) [http://getnarrative.com/](http://getnarrative.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Im over using anything with this much drama, I want features, not headline news.

</comment><comment><USER90> Weird that just a few months ago, Tom became the first President of Github.

</comment><comment><USER91> What a load. Good luck with your hiring goals for 2014...

</comment><comment><USER92> Hope that Julie publishes a detailed account. Sources I've read so far are vague and subjective as to what actually happened.

</comment><comment><USER93> github is not seeing another penny of my money.

<comment><USER17> Because Tom didn't demand they go balls-to-the-wall fighting what may be an inevitably losing battle to disprove something that isn't disprovable?

I don't know what happened, but this outcome might be very much in Tom's well- considered best interests. You are making a no-win situation.

 _EDIT_ : Heck, I don't even know if you are mad at GitHub for insufficiently defending Tom or insufficiently crucifying him

<comment><USER94> gjvc is using their small slice of economic leverage to weigh in; the motivations are no one else's business unless gjvc volunteers this. Given the baiting questions you pose, what incentive does gjvc have to address your curiosity?

<comment><USER17> It's not really "weighing in" to send up a confusing signal, despite (especially?) if it's very emphatic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> "Because I would hear 'We should hire more women!' on almost a daily basis from the same people who kind of refused to respect me as a peer."

I don't know what went on here, but I have heard these words before. And most of the time it has nothing to do with gender.

(As to hn deleting comments--I don't understand the moderators. I posted something earlier about the divide between the rich/poor--and claimed something about the lack of modern Horatio Algiers. I guess it really bothers some of the fancy boys? I come back to this site and comments are magically removed. I commented in the article on Lenin. Yes--this is off topic; I'm just curious why whenever I bring up money, and how many rich boys fathers helped them out graetly; I am edited?)

<comment><USER96> "We should hire more women", when said to a person of the female sex, does not necessarily or automatically mean, "we should hire _you_ ".

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Kicked out of his own company - ouch. Taking VC and giving control to outsiders is Russian roulette.

Writing and adhering to HR/conflict-of-interest policy is a no-brainer. A board who cared for the interests of its founder would not leave this as a trap for the founder to step in.

I note with interest that the other accused was given a promotion.

</comment><comment><USER98> "There was no investigation." \- Julie Ann Horvath

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458342995469688833](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458342995469688833)

</comment><comment><USER99> Theresa Preston-Werner's twitter bio reads:

"Obsessed with inspiring the tech community to support underfunded nonprofits."

Mostly, her own nonprofit, I imagine.

</comment><comment><USER99> 3 recent tweets from the wife that indicate that she might be batshit crazy:

TheresaPrestonWerner @tpdubs2 Apr 10 Best meal I've ever had. @ The Meatball Shop [http://instagram.com/p/moWCO4njNA/](http://instagram.com/p/moWCO4njNA/)

TheresaPrestonWerner @tpdubs2 Apr 10 Building out a team and getting to work with insanely great people makes me the happiest founder ever.

TheresaPrestonWerner @tpdubs2 Mar 27 First time in 2 weeks that I feel like I'm not just performing being excited, but I really am insanely excited to change the world!

(people who express themselves with such extreme language, usually are batshit crazy. not taking sides here, the Horvath lady also seems to be batshit crazy from a reading of her tweet stream.)

<comment><USER100> > people who express themselves with such extreme language, usually are > batshit crazy

Quick question: Would you consider "batshit crazy" extreme language?

<comment><USER99> Best, ever, happiest founder ever, changing the WORLD

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> What a surprise. Who thought that there is zero legal ground for her accusations...

</comment><comment><USER102> github raped me! now lets start the misandric shitstorm.

</comment><comment><USER99> This is what happens when you hire people for their gender (Horvath) or race. Injudiciously applied 'Liberalism' is the core problem here.

</comment><comment><USER103> Are we still on this?

</comment><comment><USER101> GitHub did the right thing and it turns out that Ms. Horvath accusations were without any basis. She not just damaged the gender equality efforts harder for everybody but raised visibility about how hiring females can damage your company's reputation. This is not the right way of fighting for the good case. A good example how to challenge the status quo: [http://qz.com/192071/how-one- college-went-from-10-female-com...](http://qz.com/192071/how-one-college-went- from-10-female-computer-science-majors-to-40/)

I hope more people realize that we need more results and less artificially buffed scandals.

<comment><USER12> How do you suggest she should have responded, rather than calling them out publicly?

<comment><USER101> First of all, if you have problem with your employment you sit down with your manager or your peers and talk about it. If you can resolve the case right there great if not, escalate. If you still think that they mistreat you, get a lawyer. Going public with accusations that you can't prove is certainly not the way. Look at her now, you think that there is any company on this planet which is going to risk the same process that was done to Github on a maximum mediocre engineer? I don't think so. This pretty much a lose lose situation as I can see it. Not to mention the post from that anonymous employee who states that in fact Ms. Horvath was starting this entire scandal due to jealousy and trying to undermine other people's reputation. You really think that this is they way to go?

<comment><USER12> When it's the CEO who you have a problem with, how do you escalate beyond him?

> Look at her now, you think that there is any company on this planet which is > going to risk the same process that was done to Github on a maximum mediocre > engineer? I don't think so.

She already has another job with &yet. I'm curious though, what makes you think she's a "maximum mediocre engineer"?

<comment><USER101> Well beyond the CEO is my lawyer and you get gather proof and build a case. She just exploded and left, making accusations nobody can prove. Again, that anonymous post just made it clear that she did not tell half of the story.

Just by going through her public gh profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER104> Silly thing these gender based politics and acts of political correctness. I can guarandamntee you that if I was Tom and was innocent, mistakes in judgment aside, I would not be resigning from MY COMPANY.

Is this the result of new board members coming in post-investment? If so, it's more reason to stay bootstrapped and free. If not, who is there to pressure him other than Chris?

Edit: 4 downvotes without a single comment. Tech is really becoming a soup sandwich of misplaced frustration and angst.

<comment><USER102> in regards to misplaced frustration and angst, pretty much, tech is mostly filled with frustrated, unattractive (physical and personality wise) middle aged men, who believe that the only way to find a mate is to swallow this liberal agenda so as to make themselves appear as more of a 'nice guy', and thus in their twisted little heads, becoming more attractive to members of the opposite sex. Typical beta mentality.

edit: actually, I should say that tech is not actually like this, its mainly the illusion that reddit and HN present.

<comment><USER99> Agree 100%. There are a couple of Betas tweeting her offering to employ her.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> So, guy who wrote GitHub and a ton of open source stuff is ousted from his own company and sacrificed for a person whos biggest accomplishment in open source is JavaScript for Cats? [https://github.com/nrrrdcore/javascript-for- cats](https://github.com/nrrrdcore/javascript-for-cats)

<comment><USER12> Why do you consider this relevant?

<comment><USER106> It would appear to be relevant because she describes herself as an engineer, and because she thought the reverts of her code and bad performance reviews were due to sexism.

<comment><USER12> Are you saying that good engineers can't have a sense of humor?

<comment><USER106> No.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER107> It's interesting how many would still remember the incident in question, if it wasn't brought up like this again. My personal attention span must be pretty short, it took a couple of days for me to stop associating Github with that incident.

</comment><comment><USER108> What an ugly mess!

Somewhat related: I am amazed now much gossiping goes on in an entirely male work group behind other people's backs. Males are definitely worse than females in that regard. I would not be surpised if allegations were true. A bunch if primadonna devs can be nasty to work with. Just stay away and separate work and life.

<comment><USER109> Eh no, in my personal experience in a workplace where there are majority women you -will- get cliques and you will hear some nasty rumors go around. Women enjoy spreading gossip and harassing each other.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hmlPtRu1SQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hmlPtRu1SQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER110> Kicked out of his own company? Reminds me of Apple and SJ... Hopefully Tom will see a great future and make some out of the blue return.

<comment><USER111> First came across Tom's code in the Grit gem (around 2008 possibly).

Unfortunately people who can write inspirational and innovative code like that are not always the most perceptive to the complexities and risks of HR in a large organisation.

I really hope mojombo gets back to building awesome again ... a VR coding environment - shut up and take my money ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER112> I doubt they are publishing the real story, there. What is a fact is that Mr. Preston-Werner is resigning. From there, we may only speculate.

If I may speculate, I'd guess that there was some truth to the story told by "the other side", that there was some kind of harassment on the part of this man's wife (who was not employed there). That is all I can really guess. And the only real way to publicly resolve this would be for this man to resign - while he perhaps didn't _personally_ do anything wrong, maybe his wife did, so he was in a sense the fall guy for that.

</comment><comment><USER113> This makes me sad. My interpretation of these events was that a toxic employee instigated a witch hunt and was successful. By simple observation of numbers here, you probably disagree with this. But for the few of you that do agree with this point of view, take it as a reminder of the crucial role of hiring. You can easily hire the person who ruins your company's culture and causes your downfall.

<comment><USER114> If losing one executive at a 200+ employee company "ruins the company's culture and causes [that company's] downfall", then that company and that executive have been doing it wrong!

Regardless of the facts of the case and whatever damage it may have done to GitHub's culture, if this incident and this individual's departure are enough to cause GitHub's ruin and downfall, then that's evidence of an absurdly fragile company and culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> Irrationality is sweeping the Tech world. I shudder to think where this will end.

</comment><comment><USER116> This is scary. I was just checking out Jekyll and stumbled upon his blog. Then I came here and saw this.</comment>