Ask HN: After 20 years of programming, what do I do now? - <AUTHOR> I've been programming for 20 years, the last 12 in ASP.net webforms (I know, I know). In every job, I've been told I was the top dev at the company. I kept my current job because of the money and flexibility they gave me to stay, but now that working here isn't worth it anymore, I'm feeling that remaining in this job has soured my career. I'm not sure where to go from here.
I've held management positions, and while my projects were successful, I'm not interested there. The monotonous consulting-services work I've been doing for the last 5+ years hasn't lent itself to exploring new technologies, so I don't have the breadth for an architect job. I've tried the solo-business route, and while my app is loved and has sold copies, it's only breaking even and won't sustain me now.
Almost all of the jobs I am interested in (remote or product-based) want newer technology. SQL Server's been a big part of my entire career, but it feels like that is losing relevance with the ORMs/EFs of the world. I've only worked with MVC on personal projects, but even if I brushed up on it, I'm guessing managers would feel I am an expensive hire without any advantage a junior dev who worked with MVC their whole career.
Do I try to build a MVC portfolio, since that seems to be the popular MS technology? Or work on a JS portfolio (my web style today is already JS calling JSON services) and try to rebuild myself on the front end?
Do I take a big pay cut and try to rebuild my skills with a company open to a senior dev without the exact experience?
Do I try to gamble and find myself a newer technology to reinvent myself into, hoping it sticks around?
Or am I just at the natural point in my career where I'm supposed to be working for another services company?
Anyone refactor themselves into something new at a similar point in their career? I'd love to hear your advice. email@example.com in case you have any private advice. <comment><USER3> I was also in a similar position as you as a valued lead dev with 15 years of experience working in a company that didn't want to embrace newer technologies (stuck on WebForms, not moving to MVC, etc). I was not interested in progressing into middle management and had hit the ceiling with regards pay so I became a contractor. I taught myself MVC got an initial bum-on-a-seat noddy contract which was doing MVC CRUD screens for 3 months. Then for the next contract I combined my wealth of experience with my new found proven MVC credentials and got a lovely MVC contract at a senior level earning much more than I have ever earned before. Contracting is not for everyone but I've been doing it for 5 years now and still consider it one of my better career moves.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds like a good path as well. Thanks for sharing your personal story; sounds like it would be worth it to take a temporary paycut to gain some experience.

<comment><USER4> I don't think you need to consider a pay cut. It's easy to look at HN and think that all of the good jobs are in new technologies and your experience is worthless. That's not the case.

Take a week or two to build a handful of sites in ASP.Net MVC with Entity Framework, so you're familiar with the basics. At that point you'd be marketable for a lot of current senior .Net positions. Experience with .Net is more relevant to most companies than MVC-specific experience. Add in your SQL Server skills for when Entity Framework doesn't cover exactly what you need and you can almost write your own ticket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have interviewed a fair number of people for different positions over the years, here's my 2p:

1\. I would look at your CV and see your narrow focus but I would still be wondering based on your experiences whether you could move to the technology we use.

2\. Good/great developers seem to be in short supply, if you can prove your ability to understand code, build robust things and ship you would be just fine in my interview.

3\. I think you would find a lot of very similar technology in the Java field and it wouldn't be a huge hurdle for you to pick that up if you have a good and deep understanding of how you currently deliver apps using ASP. If you could show on your portfolio how you have picked up Java/Ruby/Python/whatever based on your 20 years of experience and show you understand "how things work" rather than the nitty gritty of a the language then you would beat a lot of the people we interview.

In short, if you came to an interview for a Java job I would be more interested in how easy you would be able to learn what we do with Spring etc and how much and how deeply you understood the stack you were working with rather than worrying too much about you not have "5 years of Spring MVC" or whatever other blurbs HR stuck on the job description. I've interviewed a lot of people who have no clue whatsoever how MVC works and have no notion about how things fit together to make a system, they just fill in the gaps in the Spring/Hibernate/library config and write a few lines of code and "it just works". If you have the deep knowledge I think you can easily take a senior/architect role in Java-land.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess I wish the positions I applied for had hiring managers as open as you are. To be honest, with the majority of the places I've applied to, I get no response at all.

<comment><USER6> Got to watch out for the HR filter. Often at bigger companies, hiring managers don't even see a resume unless it meets the criteria they specify on it. That means people like you with related, but different experience get cut out when you could still be a good match. Broken system.

<comment><USER7> Any advice for how to get past that filter? Things to put on the resume, specific things to say in a cover letter, etc.?

<comment><USER8> Networking helps here. I've never gotten a job where my resume had to be filtered through HR first. You need to know someone who is or knows a hiring manager. Get out there and make friends!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Study up on Microsoft SQL Server and present yourself as someone to fill a DBA role. Pay attention especially to the basics: backup, restore, migration, import and export of data and Microsoft Report Services. Read the fine print about SQL Server version differences (nobody else will).

SQL Server is in high demand and most programmers have little interest in the DBA role, yet it is crucial (read "highly-valued") in most organizations.

Organizations want young programmers/developers. But when they think of DBAs they want someone with experience. So grow a beard!8-))

<comment><USER10> To add onto this, being a "developer DBA" can be clutch. OP has a background in application programming and can relate to other groups a lot easier and inherently understand pain points and reasoning behind certain architecture decisions.

<comment><USER11> As a young-ish developer mostly interested in database and backend work, what skills/path would you say is necessary to function in a full-fledged DBA role?

I'm finding in my contracting work that my database skills are above-average and usually one of the big things that I'm relied upon for and I think this is worth pursuing.

<comment><USER10> Honestly? From what I've seen, the main skill would be, don't go into a DBA role. DBAs are operational/administrative roles by nature (maintain the DB, account/security stuff, respond to server/DB issues). What, I think, you're getting at is more architecture and system building. Having the ability to consider DB bottlenecks and interactions along with a strong foundation in application programming will provide a great base to do interesting work.

Then again, maybe DBAs aren't as bogged down by the minutiae in some places and have more of an ability to troubshoot and resolve DB code/structure problems. It always seems like that's their job but they never have enough time to properly do it with the myriad of other requests.

<comment><USER11> Years ago I worked at a financial that had a large tech staff but we only had one full-time DBA. He was a really young, sharp guy and he got to work with basically every department in the company helping them out with stuff. He had his own office, nobody ever disturbed him, he only had to report to one person (rarely) and he got paid fantastically well.

Looked like a sweet deal.

<comment><USER12> I've been a DBA officially and unofficially off and on my whole career. On one hand it is great. UIs and front end software is like fashion and always changing. What lives on is the data those programs generate. Understanding that the data will outlive almost any program put in front of is a good thing to remember.

On the other hand there is a lot of pressure as the DBA. Backups, redundancy, security, etc... all fall onto the DBA to get done and done right. Fat finger a script and blow away a key table sucks (a DBA isn't a DBA until they have done this once), but it drives the point home that backups, backups, backups are key.

 _EDIT_

The other part is the blame for lots of woes will end up on the DBAs desk. I'm a fix it and move on kind of person, but if you take things like that personally a DBA position might not be for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've had unofficial DBAs roles in the past, and it wasn't really the type of job that suited me personally (I like UI work as much as db work). I know they're in big demand though, so definitely a good path to look into if you're okay with all of the things listed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> An honest personal assessment: the bird has flown on your days as a pure coder. Even if you don't particularly want a management position, focus on that aspect of your career. It's going to be hard to convince a prospective company that you're worth the money as a developer if all you have to offer is 12 years of ASP.

I ran the software dept for a small consulting company and yes you'd probably never get a call back from me if you were applying purely as a developer. While we have hired late 30-somethings developers, it's usually because they offer some fairly unique tech skillset (i.e., a few years of production- quality FPGA experience, not a couple months dorking around with "whatever hot new technology" on github--that's something I look for in a fresh-grad). So I think for a purely tech role, beyond getting another job at a similar company doing similar tech, you're a long shot at best.

But beyond that, the one thing that would case me to look at your resume is if you were wanting a leadership position and had the corresponding soft skills and experience. It sounds like you do, so highlight that, and work on it. The advantage there is that management skills: talking to stakeholders, setting expectations and timeframes, finalizing deliverables...are all applicable no matter what the underlying technology. So there's no reason you'd have to limit yourself to ASP management roles.

My previous company had lots of young developers doing engineering with lots of new technologies, but they'd have never delivered a thing had they not been guided by some experienced devs who actually spent most of their time in Excel (or trello or Jira or whatever we happened to be using to manage the particular project).

<comment><USER14> I have programmed on all kinds of stacks, and while I understand a lot of the .NET disdain, I'm perplexed by perceptions that years of .NET experience is somehow worthless or less than noteworthy? Beyond the stigma of being a Microsoft product, there seems to be a misconception that .NET devs are dragging and dropping junk through an IDE. Why wouldn't their "12 years of ASP" include obtaining good debugging habits, writing readable code, building production ready systems that still perform at scale, and a knack for constant improvement? Someone who is a craftsman on one tool will share many qualities with a craftsman from another.

<comment><USER15> I don't think it's a disdain for .Net. It's more of a disdain for ASP.Net Webforms. I'm definitely not a youngster (I'm 41). But he's been doing Asp.Net Webforms for 12 years. He hasn't shown a "knack for constant improvement". He hasn't been keeping up with the frameworks and technologies that MS has been pushing - Asp.Net MVC, WebApi, Entity Framework, etc.

If he has been doing WebForms instead of MVC, he's probably not up on all of the basic table stakes client side stuff like BootStrap and JQuery.

I know at 41 years old, if I want to stay in development and not go into management and command the salary I want, I can't be complacent. The minute that my company stagnates, I _must_ find another job. That means for me, being a full stack .Net developer:

1\. Web - Angular, JQuery, CSS, TypeScript, and Bootstrap 2\. Server side web - Asp.Net MVC, WebApi, WCF 3\. Knowing how to speak the language of an architect (DDD, Design Patterns,everything that Martin Fowler writes) 4\. Database theory and maintenance and EF. 5\. Testing - front end and back end automation testing.

I'm not bragging, I know lots of developers who can tick off these checkboxes. If you're not willing to aggressive learn, this isn't the field for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just wanted to add that I do have professional WebApi, Angular and JQuery work on my resume, but the big thing that seems to be the blocking point is MVC. I don't code traditional webforms development anymore (I don't use controls anymore, it's more JS calling json services), but there's no resume- friendly name for it because I'm not using a specific framework, and I'm guessing that to an HR person, all that means is "not MVC".

It's a crap-shoot on which technology is going to take off. Microsoft was pushing heavily that MVC was just another way to do things during the events I went to. I tried to push the boundaries of what my company let me work in, and that just happened to not be where the market went.

In hindsight, keeping my eye open on the job market is something I should have done more.

<comment><USER13> Another honest assessment: if MVC is the only thing blocking you from various better positions, just _say_ you've got it on your resume. Then spend a couple days after work going through MVC tutorials. "New Project->Web->MVC->OK. F5." Bam, you've got MVC experience.

Seriously it's way easier than webforms so if you've got that much webforms experience, you'll have absolutely no problem picking it up. Within a week you'll know 95% of what you'd need to know on most tech interviews and you'll do fine at your new job. Stuff varies so much company-to-company that MVC will not even be one of the top five differences.

In my previous response I was thinking more you were looking for some big change into something very cutting-edge. That would be a more difficult proposition. But if you're just looking to go from webforms to MVC, or even to a Java-based infrastructure, it's not a big hurdle. Like others have said, the HR filter will be the biggest problem. There will be an age bias too, you'll just have to deal with that.

FWIW I don't think you should expect a paycut or a cut in "rank" either just because of changing technologies. You'll get caught up on the technical side very quickly. Outside of extremely technical companies, "rank" is far more about knowing how to get through a release cycle coordinate teams than it is about specific technical knowledge.

All that said, just be warned, working on websites in MVC (or really any technology) is really no more interesting than Webforms. (In fact webforms may be _more_ interesting because you get to invent your own way around its inadequacies).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> apply your self ( most valuable asset, since that has yielded you success so far ) to learning MVC, and maybe Reactive or single direction of data flow architecture.

here's the kicker: only learn so much that you know a little more than the other guys in the companies doing web forms, and then

market yourself as the guy

who knows the legacy code base, knows the organizational in and outs, knows the systems, and who's going to help transition them to MVC ( and newer tech )

so you're a guy ( or gal ) with little experience in MVC teaching folks with no experience in MVC, how to transition to MVC.

this is a niche, and you'd be perfect for it. it'll be stimulating as there is the conceptual challenge of bridging the two realms, the satisfaction of using your extensive experience, and the excitement of growing yourself into something new.

i'm excited for you. not many people will be able to be at the right place and the right time to do this. and it sounds like, with a bit of results, this could spin into your own consulting or dev shop serving this technical debt.

this path works and the future is bright for people like you.

<comment><AUTHOR> This does sound like a path, and like I mentioned in another post, it'd be easy to take an opensource webforms project and convert it. I'll probably try that out soon.

</comment></comment><comment> house9-2 You might be interested in [https://info.covermymeds.com/ruby/](https://info.covermymeds.com/ruby/)

Ruby on Rails opportunity for java and .net developers; note:I am not affiliated with covermymeds, heard about it on the Ruby Rogues podcast.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, will check them out.

<comment><USER17> My brother has worked for them for 4-5 years now. It's a nice place to work and has a great culture after visiting there a few times and once for lunch. One of the few places I'd consider working for in Columbus as a developer without having to do a lot of heavy investigating.

I don't work there myself, though we have a fairly similar culture at my work, just no free lunches everyday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for sparking this discussion!

I'm a senior dev, but still relatively early in my career (~8 years). I've been thinking about your exact situation a lot lately as I have interviewed several candidates from various backgrounds. I see a lot of people with lots of experience, but they didn't make the cut after taking our coding tests and technical interviews that younger less experienced devs breezed through. I wonder if I will be in the same boat in 5-10 years myself because I haven't kept up with the newest technology. Like you, I have no desire to become a manager and I'm quite happy being an individual contributor.

Also being a relatively new Dad (toddler and a newborn on the way) only makes it that much harder to keep up!

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm in a somewhat similar boat in that I've too much developer experience to be a junior programmer but not as much experience in modern stacks (I've about 5 years on modern web dev but two of that was mostly Drupal) before that it was all line-of-business internal stuff for business.

I solved that problem by bootstrapping a startup with consulting/development for other startups that are viable but weak technically, this gives me a lot of variety in side work while also funding my main startup.

In addition I'm currently in the process of setting up another 'startup' as a non-profit (which I'm funding out of pocket until I have a complete product at which point I'll create a charity, assign all IP to it and open the source, I wanted to pay it forward), that one is going to be a complete health management system for patients with chronic or long term medical issues (this one came about as a result of my having chronic issues essentially I'm building the thing I looked for when I got ill and didn't exist) - <USER2> complies with all the standards and legislation applicable to local and national government systems, effectively I'm building the system that should already exist for end users.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a bootstrapped project already, but as you probably can infer in my postings, I'm not good at sales. I'm toying around with finding a business partner and maybe get more out of it. Side projects will probably always be a part of what I do, but I really want to find something to replace the 9-6 I have now.

<comment><USER20> I had a web-version of my application (as a web/data analyst) in German[1] that nearly every time at least created a response.This differentiated me enough, to get around the HR-filter, that was mentioned in another reply to you.

I do not know the style you were using, but doing things differently, showcasing things you are able to do and just going the extra mile to show you really want that job oftentimes helps. At least here in Germany.

OK; the wording is somewhat cordial, but that is just to showcase my personality. I strongly believe, that being rejected for this just is a great selector for places, I would not want to work.

[1]: [http://cv.schriftrolle.de/.old/tuicruises/](http://cv.schriftrolle.de/.old/tuicruises/) This is about 1,25 years old and I did get the job (but am not working there anymore, having found quite a better place to be).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I definitely do not have the level of experience that you have so take this with a grain of salt. I have seen and worked in a lot of companies that have a very heavy portion of their code base in web forms. Many of these companies have been working to transition to MVC but it takes a longer time the larger your legacy beast is.

I would suggest finding a job where you can leverage your experience in .NET Web Forms, while picking up the pedigree for MVC.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't found positions like that open to people without MVC experience on their resume, but that seems like a good possibility to focus on. I could easily take an open source webform app and convert it to MVC as a portfolio builder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Are you still working at the job that is imposing asp.net web forms on you?

If so, maybe you could make an argument to adopt new technologies there while keeping your large pay check. If you make a business focused case for adopting new tech, you might find success.

Problem to Solve:

So, how does adopting new tech save money and/or make money?

Crude Proposed Solution:

Talented developers care about their tools, so if you are using dated techniques / technologies you are alienating potential new hires which could add significant value to the company.

The younger programmers coming out of school do not want to program in COBOL. They want to invest in technologies which will increase their marketability as a developer.

So by adopting newer technologies / techniques you reduce your risk of becoming a slave to a dwindling developer community. A community which has stopped growing and is bleeding devs, starting with the most talented. You also open up your company up to new opportunities where they can higher younger talented devs for cheap. You can mitigate problems caused by inexperience by giving them specialist roles which will decrease the amount ramp up time required for them to start adding value to the company.

Apologies:

This is a very knee jerk response. I do not feel as though I have proposed an actionable plan that is well thought out. I hope I have proposed an idea that is worth exploring.

Persuade your existing company to adopt new tech in terms of saving/making money and by reducing future risk (a potentially mortal risk) of problems caused by tech rot.

<comment><USER23> An angle on this that may work is to just introduce the new tech on something not very important but still useful.

A decent argument can be that plain old technology upgrades at some point are going to be gigantic herculean efforts if the same old language/framework is used for a long period of time.

And you are more susceptible to security issues and/or ridiculous "extended support" contracts the longer a tech is kept around - to the point where it is difficult to patch, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > I kept my current job because of the money and flexibility they gave me to > stay, > but now that working here isn't worth it anymore,

So, what does 'worth it' mean to you? I see money and flexibility as the plusses of your current job... maybe that's all you need from the job. Could you keep this one and do something additional to get at whatever 'worth it' means to you?

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought money and flexibility would be enough, but working on simple client requests is boring me to death, and I miss the ownership of working on a product. I'm sure I could milk this out until I retired, but there are other issues with the company, and I don't want to be miserable at something that takes so much of my day.

<comment><USER24> I've found the principle 'Run toward things, not away from things' to be helpful. If you don't know what'll really make you happy, you've got a shot at winding up just like you are now, somewhere else.

Finding, or starting, a relevant project, using technology you want to emphasize, seems to me like a step you could take independent of what you do about the job. As for the job, I think what they say about 'Change your organization, or change your organization' is true.

Of course, in similar shoes, I did something radical. I wasn't fulfilled in my monied, flexible job, so I'm taking a leap at what I really want to do: teach in college. It started when I came home from work one day, with a plan for how I could help local high schools with their AP classes and computer clubs, and my wife asked whether that would really do the trick of making me happy. I said 'No' and, 4 years later,I'm now ABD on a PhD, and could tell long stories of the highs and lows. It looks like it'll work out, but there's still a really strong case for having kept the boring job and looking for fulfillment elsewhere. Look up Eric Hoffer, who was a longshoreman by day, and philosopher and author by night.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 1\. pick an industry, not particular technologies. For example if you think Internet companies like "FANG" group are more promising, try to join one of'em; 2\. become familiar with a more adaptive language like Java; 3\. prefer back-end over front-end as experiences/technologies are more transferable; 4\. stay sharp on algorithmic problems; 5\. keep learning;

<comment><USER26> > prefer back-end over front-end as experiences/technologies are more > transferable

I'm curious to know more about what you mean by this...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Being a senior dev doesn't mean 20 years of experience on every part of the stack. It means you deliver value even when things get tough. MVC is so ridiculously simple compared to WebForms I don't even know why you wouldn't sell yourself as top of the bill senior for projects that are MVC based.

<comment><USER21> I agree with you, but there is still convincing hiring managers that it's okay to hire someone who technically doesn't have professional experience in ASP.NET MVC when the position is primarily that.

Here is a company I have worked in. They have legacy systems that are pretty heavily Web Forms and there is a lot of SQL work too. They are making the transition to MVC and ORMs in a lot of the legacy stuff.

[http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/75235/principal- softwa...](http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/75235/principal-software- engineer-glassdoor-employees-paylocity)

Hope it goes well for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think this advice might apply to your situation at least partially: [http://www.jasonswett.net/how-to-get-a-job-using-a- technolog...](http://www.jasonswett.net/how-to-get-a-job-using-a-technology- you-dont-know/)

</comment><comment><USER29> First of all, avoid the term "senior dev". That means 5 to 7 years of experience. You're way past that.

Next: Web programming is something junior devs can do. (Maybe not as well, but they can do it, and for less money.) You need to move on to harder things, where your experience is worth more money.

What harder things? You mentioned SQL Server. You say it's "losing relevance with the ORMs/EFs of the world", but there's more to the world than that, and I strongly doubt SQL Server is going away. Find places where it is in use, and go there.

Alternately, you can try to move up to architect of someplace with a big web presence, but I'm less clear on how you make that shift.

</comment><comment><USER30> To give you a philosophical answer. People usually have two situations in life where they make such decision. One where Passion wins and other where Salary(benefits). Almost overtime Passion gives job satisfaction over Passion unless you deal with Finance areas like Stocks, bonds, insurance, investment etc You are want to work for Passion, you would have to focus on what is relevant in coming future and align your interest with that. There will be fit somewhere. Once you do that, build a portfolio for the future. Not what you know, Not what you have but what you want to be known for.

Hope this helps

</comment><comment><USER31> I'd suggest you to learn and share your progress with outer world via blog. You could have at least 2 advantage:

\- You are going to present yourself an _authority_ after certain period of time.

\- Learning new technology and be accountable to outer world.

This is what I have been doing on my blog([http://blog.adnansiddiqi.me/](http://blog.adnansiddiqi.me/))

If you want, you may make guest posts related to things you are learning.

</comment><comment><USER32> I moved into sales engineering - it's cool to work on the sales team, and it gives one a wider grasp of the development organization.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've found myself where you are at multiple points in my career. And each time, I made a leap to a new domain. Not wildly, but to an immediately adjacent domain that excited me.

With 20 years of experience you potentially bring far more to the table than "just" your dev skills. The great thing about being a developer is that you touch a lot of other domains...often at a fairly detailed level of understanding (I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the credit card industry by developing commercial credit card processing software for gasoline dispensers many years ago).

Of course, this is how many devs end up becoming managers...though you say that's not where you want to go. But there are other paths as well. For example, a Product Manager with strong development skills can have a significant edge over someone that's come up strictly through marketing.

People who can straddle the boundaries between domains of knowledge have unique value. At this point in your career, you likely possess knowledge and skill beyond just ASP.net development...skills that startups or companies would find valuable.

I originally came out of physics around the time of the collapse of the SSC project. I saw colleagues with freshly minted PhD's in theoretical physics (NOT a marketable degree...except for driving a cab) go off to Wall Street and become quants...and do quite well.

So the core question is: are you locked into thinking of yourself as just one thing ("developer"), in which case the search is for what _kind_ of developer you want to be next...or can you think of yourself as someone whose years of experience bring unique and valuable expertise...in which case the search should be broader and more unconventional.

It's less about what the external trends are; more about how you can reset your internal self-image...and your willingness to make the investment to bring that into reality.

Of course that means adopting entirely new strategies for finding where your skills have value...those types of jobs aren't posted on HR job boards.

Personally, I've made some huge career and domain jumps over the years (physics, software, large-scale databases, robotics, biotech...and various startups). It can be challenging...and a little scary (but only in the roller- coaster/skydiving sense), but It's also made for an exciting life that's largely been quite financially rewarding.

Never be afraid to jump out of the box...

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not necessarily afraid to jump out of the box, I'm just unsure which direction to jump. I could work myself into a product manager (I've done stints to fill in for short staff), but I guess it would take some research to see if reinventing myself in any specific direction is worth the effort in the long run, because in the short term, I expect to not be considered for a senior-level in that position, same as with any other development skill.

But you mention "adopting entirely new strategies for finding where your skills have value...those types of jobs aren't posted on HR job boards.", which would bypass the HR filter that I would worry about. Do you have any examples of these types of strategies? Is it more of networking? Cold calling into industries you've worked in? Anything that works for people who aren't natural sellers?

<comment><USER33> I've held 6 "normal" jobs (W-2 employee) in my career. I've never submitted an unsolicited resume or a CV...I've never gone through HR (except for onboarding after I was hired). I was asked to join and worked from the beginning directly with manager (or board of directors) that I'd be reporting to.

Here's the dirty secret: A hiring manager ALWAYS has more political power than ANYONE in HR. But in larger organizations hiring managers are also very risk averse (and political cowards) and therefore will always defer to HR. This is why HR is so out of control in most companies!

So either avoid large organizations and focus on startup, growth phase and SMB companies...or find a way to directly reach the ear of the hiring managers in a manner that reduces their level of perceived risk in choosing you.

Here are strategies I've used:

1\. First understand how businesses and hiring managers perceive value (it's NOT as obvious as you might think!)

Then:

2\. _Write_ \- blogs, articles, comments in places like LinkedIn groups where hiring managers might be loitering

3\. _Talk_ \- conference talks, training, do a podcast, do webinars...but always with an eye towards message and audience (junior programmers will NOT be hiring you)

4\. _Network_ \- take any opportunity to be visible and demonstrate expertise and knowledge. And tell everyone you know what it is you're looking for.

It not unlike marketing a product. Find where the audience hangs out, figure out what they value, and then communicate that value and be visible.

This isn't a "next week" solution, but could certainly be a 90-120 day solution!

As an example of one possible direction, I've seen some awesome product managers that came out of development. Did they have the Marketing degree or the 20 years of experience...NO!

But brought a unique understanding of how products were built and how to communicate the needs of the business back to the development team in a way that NO non-technical person would ever be capable of doing.

So don't compare yourself apples-to-apples with those already in the job (whatever role you're shooting for). In a certain sense, you have to BE what you want to become, even before you get there.

The truth is, there's nothing easier than doing tomorrow whatever it was that you did today and yesterday. Change is hard, and the hardest part of change is mastering the interior game. Knowing what you want and becoming that person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Have you tried working backwards? I mean, thinking about what you might want to be doing in 5 or 10 years? Then taking steps that get you there. It sounds cheesy but if you know where you're heading you'll make better choices in the short term.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't like mvc much.. But you can build good /powerful apps with json.net and webform. My biggest mistake was mvc itself.Too much file.Should focus on deliver instead of refining technology..

<comment><AUTHOR> That sort of goes along with the question of is pivoting myself into a front end engineer worth the effort? I'm comfortable using ajax and json services to create a UI--that's how I write my "webform" pages today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> What I hear is that you have been successful (or think you have been) in quite a few different things which you didn't really want to do.

Chances are, you will be successful and unhappy at the next job.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I've been happy in my career. I want to find positions that I enjoy again, but it just seems like that sector of the programming world left me behind while I was selling out.

<comment><USER36> Then consider this: There are women who participated in a Djangogirls workshop and are working as developers one year later.

If total beginners to programming can achieve this, you can learn any new technology in a breeze. You just won't have the certification which no one else in the field has anyway!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Try a tech bootcamp (codefellows.org) to freshen up your skill set, most of the reputable ones have some form of career counseling, and industry connections?

</comment><comment><USER38> I will suggest you should take a big pay cut and try to rebuild my skills with a company open to a senior dev without the exact experience.

</comment><comment><USER39> Build a tool for developers just like yourself. Apply what you have learnt to the benefit of the next gen.

</comment><comment><USER40> Where are you located?

</comment><comment><USER41> Let's talk, emailing you now...</comment>


Merry Christmas HN - <AUTHOR> I wanted to wish everyone on HN a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Years before many of us sign off the net for the next couple days.  I've learned so much from many of you this year, and it's amazing how quickly you can get advice and tips here.  I only regret I didn't start coming here sooner.<p>Here's to a great 2011 for us all! <comment><USER2> Merry Christmas guys. Peace, health, and prosperity for you and your families today and always.

<comment><USER3> Where is the Christmas Bingo Card Creator?

<comment><USER4> Did a quick Google search and came across a site that features some Christmas Bingo Cards.

[http://www.bingocardcreator.com/bingo- cards/holidays/christm...](http://www.bingocardcreator.com/bingo- cards/holidays/christmas-\(seasonal\))

<comment><USER5> No printer, but it works great on the iPad! Thanks for sharing the link!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just noticed HN has alternating red/green link numbers on the homepage. Merry Christmas pg!

<comment><USER7> Topbar is red too if you logout :)

<comment><USER8> #be2828 is the colour for those who want to change :)

(I liked it last year so it's been my custom topcolor for a while now)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Merry Christmas everyone. Hacker News is kind of like the gift that keeps on giving all year. Hope everyone has the ability to take some time off :). Oh and it seems pg just did a little bit of "Christmas decorating".

</comment><comment><USER10> Happy Atheistmas! (not trying to troll)

 _Edit: What would you prefer? I'm trying to acknowledge my beliefs during this holiday season and cheer the holidays on, but I am an atheist. Perhaps silence would be better?_

<comment><USER11> If it makes you feel better, christmas trees seem to have been a pagan tradition, and have no connection to anything biblical. The gift giving and santa are pretty non biblical too.

<comment><USER12> The gift giving does tie in with the 3 wise men in the Jesus story.

<comment><USER13> Actually, the Jesus story never even says there were 3 wise men. It names 3 gifts, but never counts the wise men. Much of the Christmas story (including names for those "3" wise men) comes from church tradition, not the (very short) bible story at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This site partially motivated me to find a better job closer to CS/dev stuff from Physics, and I couldn't be happier (although I'm doing dev stuff for Physics :)

Thanks HN.

</comment><comment><USER15> Happy holidays. May your code compile without errors.

<comment><USER16> Or even better... may your code not have to "compile" (Python, Ruby, Perl, JavaScript...) ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> As of my last page reload, it looks like Hacker News is celebrating as well!

(for posterity: <http://localhostr.com/file/gvXIHto/christmas-hn.png> )

</comment><comment><USER18> Merry Christmas everyone. This is the best community I have seen ever on the internet and hope we all have have a strong finish to 2010. The content shared here has made me a (subjectively) better person since I joined. What a great gift, thank you!

</comment><comment><USER19> Happy christmas to you all - I've also learnt so much since I started reading HN. Maybe my new year's resolution will be to stop lurking and start posting :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Just noticed I am now only a couple of weeks over my first year here on HN. Its been fantastic, regardless of anyone who says the site is going downhill, its as good now as it was 381 days ago.

Happy Christmas All!

</comment><comment><USER21> Merry Christmas, Maguay and Hacker News. Thank you for motivating me to become a hacker. I can't imagine doing anything else.

</comment><comment><USER22> I thought the politically correct greeting was "Happy Holidays!". I guess the jury is still out on that one. [http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/faith/50892288-142/christmas- pe...](http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/faith/50892288-142/christmas-percent- americans-holiday.html.csp)

<comment><USER22> Downvoted? Well, I ve been corrected before.

Merry Christmas, Happy New year and Happy Holidays to everyone.

EDIT: How could I forget my favorite. Happy Festivus and I ll see you around the aluminum pole. :)

<comment><USER23> _Merry Christmas, Happy New year and Happy Holidays to everyone._

What, no Festivus?

<comment><USER24> On Festivus Day too, the nerve!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Have a merry christmas and a happy new year all!

...Though knowing myself, I'll also be here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after anyway ;)

</comment><comment><USER26> Happy holidays everyone. I have learned so much from here and can't wait to see what will come next year!

</comment><comment><USER27> Merry Christmas everyone and thank you all for the great insights you gave me this year. HN is, without doubt, the best community on the web.

</comment><comment><USER28> Merry Christmas & Happy new years to everyone.

Cheers to another year of hacking! :D

</comment><comment><USER29> Merry Christmas! Tomorrow i'll be back saying sqrt(-1)/8 ! :-)

<comment><USER30> There is a central limit theorem joke in here somewhere, I just know it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Here here. Happy Holidays everyone!

</comment><comment><USER32> Merry Christmas everyone. May all your dreams come true and life shower with happiness

</comment><comment><USER33> Hi there.

I would just like to share my personal view of the 25. As an atheist, I don´t much care about the usual celebration. However, I, too, find there is something worth celebrating: The christmas truce of 1914. Though a religious event in itself, it also shows basic human values, like independence (as in the soldiers who did not heed their orders to avoid such fraternizations) understanding and forgiveness.

[http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs...](http://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=xmas+truce&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

Happy truce day to all!

</comment><comment><USER34> People sign off the net?

</comment><comment><USER35> here is a simple 4square like xmas badge <http://www.barbafan.de/christmas2010/> merry xmas to all of you

</comment><comment><USER36> Merry christmas HNers. This is from a fellow HNer half the world away in Asia that feels more connected to the greater global tech scene because of HN. Thanks HN

</comment><comment><USER37> May you all find the company you desire most, good food and liquid libation when you need it, indulgence without consequence, and the time to do everything you truly desire - whether snuggling with a loved one or trying to pin down that aggressively elusive bug in your code that keeps stopping up your compiler.

Actually, I ought to just start with "May you finally manage to pin down that bug in your code." Nothing comes close to the elation of victory.

Peace.

</comment><comment><USER38> Merry Christmas everyone, I am thankful for all the advice given to me in my first year on HN! You are all a wonderful bunch.

</comment><comment><USER39> Thanks maguay! Best to you and yours in 2011

<comment><USER39> Did I really get a downvote for saying thank you?

edit: heh, wasn't trying to suggest I deserve anything, just found that very...shallow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Happy Sparkle Season!

</comment><comment><USER41> And I thought PG is Jewish! But I must say I didn't notice any Hanukkah color festivities here. Anyway, Merry Christmas all!

Regards

Joe

</comment><comment><USER42> Thanks, and many karma points to you!

<comment><USER43> How many upvotes on this off-topic post (and comments)... And today is not even Christmas! Breaking news here!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Have a nice Holiday break everyone!

</comment><comment><USER45> Merry Christmas break everyone... wish that your new year kicks atleast as much ass the old one! =)

Cheers, \- V

</comment><comment><USER46> To all the whining Atheists,

Christmas is also a global, secular celebration that has spread well beyond it's Christian roots:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#Celebration>

Merry Christmas!

</comment><comment><USER47> Gabon eta Urte berri on denoi. Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all of you.

</comment><comment><USER48> Mele Kalikimaka!

</comment><comment><USER49> Me too! Wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year!

</comment><comment><USER50> I found HN this year and it changed my life. I try to spread the message further with my own means.

Thanks to all of you!

</comment><comment><USER51> Happy Holidays :)

</comment><comment><USER52> Merry Solstice and Happy New Year's.

</comment><comment><USER5> Merry Christmas! May your unauthorized performances bring you and yours happiness through out the year!

</comment><comment><USER53> I believe "Seasons Greetings" is the optimally nondescript, and therefore PC, phrase, only acknowledging that we are, currently, in a season and that we greet it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Merry Cthulhu everyone! and Happy Flying Spaghetti Monster Eve!

<comment><USER54> I have no idea how to interpret that. I can't imagine anything merry (for humans, anyway) about Cthulhu.

<eyes cross>

<comment><USER15> m̢e͜r͘r҉y z̵al̡g̡omas͡!

<comment><USER54> If I google that (EDIT: I mean, without the boxes), will the world come to an end or something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I don't want to pick on anyone (nothing personal maguay) but does this belong here? I mean this is supposed to be a high quality news site and not a place to post touchy feely comments. We frown upon too political comments/posts and try to avoid flame wars over silly things. So in that sense, this post is not supposed to be here.

<comment><USER56> Is it really so bad to let our guard down for a few minutes to celebrate the holidays and the things we're thankful for?

Your office is supposed to be (in most cases) a professional environment for conducting business, but everyone has a holiday party each year... Just sayin.

<comment><USER55> Then why don't we take our guard down when someone posts a little sarcasm or a small joke. Why do these posts always have a -4 or less karma? Why don't we have a separate section for lolcatz pics? In an office we have all that, nobody is totally professional with their first hand colleagues.

<comment><USER57> Memes kill my experience on so many other websites, that's why I will downvote every comment which makes reference to a meme. (Other meaningful content might save the comment sometimes.) Others seem to agree which is why those kinds of comments always get downvoted quickly.

All the other stuff – sarcasm, jokes – is not always downvoted, it sometimes even receives a lot of upvotes. Don't expect every joke to be upvoted, even if it's a witty one. I guess it is consensus that we don't want to see HN flooded with jokes and sarcasm.

<comment><USER55> Why this hypocrisy then? Shouldn't we have equal standards for all the things?

<comment><USER57> No we shouldn't and it's not hypocrisy. It's appropriate editorial control. Think how a magazine editor would think.

A great profile of Julian Assange might be worthy front page material if it is the first Wikileaks article in months, it probably isn't if articles about Wikileaks were on the front page every day the whole last month.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apache Ivy – any future or is it also going to be retired? - <AUTHOR> http://marc.info/?l=ant-dev&m=148092276604514 <comment><USER2> I was a long time user many many years ago of Ivy. I will say Ivy is one of the most sophisticated dependency management libraries/tools. It has things I have yet to see other dependency managers do (and probably should not do anyway).

The flexibility was sort of good for our enterprise code base that was still using Ant but over all it was just way too complicated (this was in part because it was not integrated with any particularly build system at the time ~ 8 or so years ago).

I have come to the conclusion that with proper parent poms and enforcer plugins (particularly dependency convergence) you can generally get Maven to do a fairly good job.

The only thing I can't decide is if Maven (and Ivy for that matter) should have lock files. I have some ambivalence to lock files (ie a file that gets auto generated and that you check in). Bundler and cargo do it as well as a netflix gradle plugin.

I deal with the lack of a lock file by using maven parent poms, sonatype, enforcer plugins, and version plugins.

</comment><comment><USER3> Next-In-Thread:

\---

      We see Ivy as a widely used component.
      We use archiving some components to
      recalibrate our focus. I don't think
      that we want to archive Ivy in the near
      future. Instead we try to push Ivy.

      If you want to help with Ivy, you're welcome.

      "It's already a challenge to stick with
      Ivy build system itself given the lack of
      fixes/releases/responses." What are the
      problems you think are resolved with new
      Ivy releases?

      Jan

\---

<comment><USER4> That's a nice boilerplate comment that could be applied to any open source project, but the reality is that Ivy is essentially abandonware.

At one point recently, I did a search and couldn't find any committer activity of any kind (code, mailing list messages, JIRA updates) for the better part of a year. And it's not like the project is "stable" or "complete" either -- users are constantly making posts about serious bugs that go unanswered, because there's nobody active who has the knowledge to investigate or fix them. (I've run into a couple of these myself.)

EDIT: Just took another look to see if anything had changed. The good news is that a couple of very minor bugfixes were committed in November, amounting to a grand total of 14 lines of code changed. There have been no other commits in the past 12 months, and the last time one of the committers responded to a question on the mailing list was March 2015.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't sbt still use Ivy under the covers? I know Gradle used to but maybe not anymore. In any event, Ant is still an active project and Ivy is it's dep system.

<comment><USER6> sbt still uses ivy and so do many other projects that not just use sbt but ant ones that directly use ivy.

SBT is quite a used one too.

<comment><USER7> I had to dig into gradle dependency resolution once I think I did see it falling back to ivy if it couldn't find it in the maven repo, or if the workstation had a config file for ivy but not maven. Kind of fuzzy on the details at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A project I used to work on (opticks.org) used Ivy. At the time, Ivy was the best solution we could find for C++ dependency management.

Are there any good cross-platform alternatives for C++ dependency management?

<comment><USER9> We also used Ivy for C++ dependency management, now we use Conan.io. But it is very different with Ivy in many aspects

<comment><USER9> Someone suggest use Gradle with C++, but we did not try [https://gradle.org/getting-started-native/](https://gradle.org/getting- started-native/)

<comment><USER10> Given its state on Android, I wouldn't advise it.

Google gave up on their plugin for C++ and is now advising cmake as the future for new NDK projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why use Ivy when there is Maven?

<comment><USER12> I never liked the way Maven built projects - it just seemed like overkill for simple things. I tended to use hand-written Ant builds backed by Ivy for dependencies. Then again, I also build odd outputs, like self-executing jars.

<comment><USER13> The only thing that will survive from the Maven era is the directory structure. It's the default structure in SBT and many other built tools. It's a little verbose, but it does make sense and I've learned to embrace it.

Maven is terrible. Give SBT or Gradle and try and you'll see just how terrible Maven is. SBT still has its issues (OMG why is everything a macro!), but I still prefer it to trying to build anything in Maven.

<comment><USER14> I have exactly the opposite view. Until very recently modules in sbt required a scala Build file. There is not one single file where you have a view of everything - plugins, build properties, sbt file, and sbt scala file. I prefer maven over SBT any time of the day. Have not tried Gradle, so cant comment

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Irrelevant aside: my eyes! I was astounded to see plain text twisted up so badly. It literally made my eyes water. Was that some artful/ironic attempt to reproduce ink-bleeding typewritten pages? *View/Page Style/No Style" was the only way I could tolerate this.</comment>


Word Processors: Stupid and Inefficient - <AUTHOR> http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/wp.html <comment><USER2> I had to give technical support (get word to work) for a friend recently who was working on a final group project which was a complex 100 page document and it was an absolute nightmare. Emails everywhere as version control, things being copied and pasted and losing formatting, incompatibilities between different versions of word and stuff just disappearing in the chaos. I can't fathom how anyone in there right mind can defend this as being more user friendly than a tex document and really basic version control.

I had a presentation to do for work recently and I went with latex+beamer despite having no prior experience with either and it turned out to be a fantastic decision. A make file and a bash script with inotifywait and I even had a live preview going.

It reminds me of that Einstein quote "Everything should be as simple as possible but no simpler", it feels like many of our tools try to make things too simple at the cost of making many things harder than they need to be.

<comment><USER3> You want to explain to someone who e-mail word documents how to setup/configure and use a latex distribution? I think for most tasks Word etc. are sufficent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this article is drawing a false dichotomy. It's saying that there's a hard dichotomy between a word-processor based workflow and a workflow based upon a text editor and a typesetting engine. In reality, no such dichotomy exists. Word processors since Wordstar have had tools to define styles and update those styles at once across the document.</comment>


Europe's Triumphs and Troubles Are Written in Swiss Ice - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/science/icecore-europe-pollen.html <comment><USER2> It's fascinating that they were able to get 9000 years of data from a mere 50 meters of ice!

<comment><USER3> Completely agree, but don't forget the ice is subject to significant compression due to the weight of ice/snow above it. So the layers aren't of uniform depth; at the lower end of the core they must be amazingly thin. While the last 50 years could collectively take up (perhaps) the top couple of meters.</comment></comment>


The Architecture of Open Source Applications - <AUTHOR> http://www.aosabook.org/en/index.html <comment><USER2> "Architects look at thousands of buildings during their training, and study critiques of those buildings written by masters. In contrast, most software developers only ever get to know a handful of large programs well — usually programs they wrote themselves — and never study the great programs of history. As a result, they repeat one another's mistakes rather than building on one another's successes. This book's goal is to change that."

Excellent point.

</comment><comment><USER3> "How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built " by Stewart Brand (of Whole Earth fame). Highly recommend it. I've lost track of how many copies (10?) I've given as gifts to friends.

TLDR: The bones of a building determine how adaptable it is to reskinning and structural change. If you don't have the right bones, you will have to tear the building down and it will not adapt over time. Adaptable systems have a backbone that lets them be stable during change.

[http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens- Theyre/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens- Theyre/dp/0140139966)

</comment><comment><USER4> Better title: "A must read for anyone involved in software development!"

I wonder if this will become required reading for CS students?

I haven't read the entire contents, but browsed through a few of the chapters. REALLY GREAT WORK! Very interesting lessons learned and just overall review of choices made with some of these apps. I'll definitely come back to this and finish reading.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2704765>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2619553>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2598643>

</comment><comment><USER6> Going to be pedantic and say that the NoSQL section is a bit off saying Dynamo-like systems "shard." This carries with it the connotation that the distributed aspects of the database are an afterthought or an add-on feature.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's free but I bought a copy anyway. The first paragraph was all I needed to see.

<comment><USER8> I was hooked on the section covering Berkeley DB design and will be recommending this to pretty much all the developer friends I know. I even put up with registering on Lulu to pay for the PDF version. I am so sick of registering for things and creating new accounts, although I saw it as a necessary evil in this case. Can federated identity get here any sooner?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Excellent. The book has a hacker's dedication too: "Dedicated to Brian Kernighan, who has taught us all so much; and to prisoners of conscience everywhere."

<comment><USER10> When I saw that, I rather wondered what the conjunction was supposed to imply; I still wonder.

<comment><USER11> The proceeds for the book go to amnesty international.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an such an awesome initiative. But it could do with more games. I'm surprised that none of the open source Quake engines are in there.

</comment><comment><USER13> Available on Kindle too, nice as my programmer bookshelf is becoming a little heavy.

</comment><comment><USER14> YACPB - Yet Another Copy-n-Paste Book.. ^_^</comment>


20,000 Startup Ideas - <AUTHOR> https://unawaz.github.io/stochastic-hill-climbing/tasks/ <comment><USER3> You could generate even more startup ideas by running a Markov chain thing on these!

* Check with customers to determine their usefulness.

* Inoculate animals against various diseases, such as internships.

* Review product promotional materials, and physical fitness.

* Monitor computer-controlled test equipment, using germicides and sterilizers.

* Transpose music to alternate keys, or to towers.

* Operate farm machinery, such as espresso machines.

* Document software defects, using hand and horn signals.

* Prepare bank deposits, or performing arts.

* Run errands, such as animal dehorning or castration.

* Forecast staff, equipment, utensils, and silverware.

<comment><USER4> Ah yes, the great music towers of 2020. What a time to be alive.

<comment><USER5> The Music Towers of the 1960s[1] were pretty intense too

1 - [https://news.artnet.com/art-world/taiwan-kinmen-island- sonic...](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/taiwan-kinmen-island-sonic- territories-1332893)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These are not startup ideas, but activities that people do. A startup-idea might be to find a way to make these activities easier.

To make this list more useful, there should be two additional datapoints: 1. How many people does the activity impact 2. How much does the activity impact each person. The product of these would be the total impact. Sorting by the amount of impact would give the most valuable areas for innovation, and there should already be a plenty of businesses focused on these activities.

<comment><USER7> What's missing is a resource that would let you understand each activity, it's tools, processes, problems, etc.

<comment><USER6> Actually, if you Google them, you'll find the ONET page for the job descriptions that includes the activity and has more information about the task, e.g. [https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/51-8011.00](https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/51-8011.00) (tasks are the 'startup ideas')

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Even without the list being suitable for mockery, ideas are _EASY_. Ideas are like opinions, everybody has one. Take a shower, have some ideas. Go out for drinks, hear a bunch of drunk people talking about the great idea they just had. Winnowing out the chaff (not done here) is harder because not everyone agrees on what's chaff, and building a successful company for any of many definitions of success is harder still.

The idea is when an egg is fertilized. Producing a baby is a lot more work, and producing a successful adult is a lot more beyond that.

<comment><USER9> > ideas are EASY

That's true. I see a few things behind the monitor right now.

1) Trees. Let's do something with them, like planting them at scale, maybe mess with their DNA, WCGR?

2) The window has birdshit on it. Let's build window cleaning drones.

3) Ceiling lights. These are really crap make a really smart, well designed one for office environments.

<comment><USER10> 3) Surprisingly enough (to me); Unifi has done just that. [https://store.ui.com/collections/led/products/unifi-led- pane...](https://store.ui.com/collections/led/products/unifi-led-panel)

<comment><USER11> Not fond of their colour temperature. If they had an option to change it, I'd install them all over my house.

<comment><USER10> Hundred percent agree. Especially if they upgraded it with >95 CRI and adjustable colour temp based on separate warm-white LED chips (not an array of RGBs).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > 4678\. Develop transactional Web applications, using Web programming > software and knowledge of programming languages, such as hypertext markup > language (HTML) and extensible markup language (XML).

Where has this list been all my life? I could have been a zillionaire....

</comment><comment><USER13> I enjoy how some of them run together. 10933 and 10934 as an example:

Clean, shape, and polish fingernails and toenails, using files and nail polish.

Remove bones, and cut meat into standard cuts in preparation for marketing.

<comment> toper-centage I'm confused about 10933. Isn't that just a regular nails salon?

<comment><USER14> I've heard somewhere the way to find start up ideas is to take something like this list and add AI to it. How do you add AI to a nail salon start-up?

How about: build an augmented reality display for customers who are waiting to get their nails done. It's got a camera, and it will show users what their nails would look like with any of the styles offered by the salon applied.

<comment> alex-wallish Looks like some of the large retailers are already doing this: [https://mobile-ar.reality.news/news/modiface-applies-its- aug...](https://mobile-ar.reality.news/news/modiface-applies-its-augmented- reality-tech-nail-polish-with-fingertip-tracking-feature-0190496/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well, considering ideas are a dime a dozen this site is worth 20,000 / 12 * $0.1 = $167.

Maybe less actually :)

<comment><USER16> >20,000

there aren't even 20k ideas...

<comment><USER17> 18514 so they are worth $154.28

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks a bit random.

If you give the start of this list to transformer

[https://talktotransformer.com/](https://talktotransformer.com/)

the generated ones look as good as those, example:

5.Evaluate a vehicle's operation and use of the system and record information on the system, such as the number of miles driven, total mileage, speed, and odometer reading. 6.Prepare and administer reports to provide data on vehicle performance, and to support vehicle performance maintenance and repair.

<comment><USER19> Maye someone should interface this to the patent applications system.

The idea is that if a bot can generate patent applications they aren't very novel.

From this we should backtrack and look at existing patents and throw a large percentage of them out : )

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Could a massive list like this help stop frivolous patents from being viable, or granted? Perhaps if all people could just add their ideas to this list, over time, we could prevent the ability for anyone to patent anything if the idea already existed.

Or do I still not understand patents?

Could this list exist at a stop-patents type website where even the patent office could do a quick search to see if an idea is unique and original, or has been thought of easily already and put on big list?

<comment><USER21> You dont understand patents. You cant patent an idea. You patent a specific way to do something. For example, you cant patent a mop, but you can patent a specific design of a mop, a way to build it. You cant patent encryption but you can patent an encryption algorithm. You cant patent "compressed video" but can patent a compression format. A patent requires a detailed writeup of _how_ to do something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > 10799\. Align wheels.

Okay.

> 11031\. Transport the deceased to the funeral home.

I think we've found another use for robots.

<comment> d-sc I'm pretty sure your mocking. But the funeral industry needs to be disrupted. Went through the process a couple weeks ago and it felt pretty scummy.

<comment><USER23> I don't really have a point here, but my wife and I recently looked at burial options and there's a beautiful cemetery near us but the only really affordable option is cremation and storage in a wall of tiny notches with little doors with an indoor/outdoor viewing area and garden for visitors.

I have started referring to it as, "Our Cubby" and my wife hates it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > 7384\. Prepare customers' nails in soapy water, using swabs, files, and > orange sticks.

Some are oddly specific

<comment><USER25> > 12399\. Give enemas and perform catheterizations, ear flushes, intravenous > feedings, or gavages.

Very specific, and somewhat disturbing.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejmFSN2qBG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejmFSN2qBG0)

<comment><USER26> How did you went so far while reading the list?

<comment><USER25> I ctrl-f'd for something else and had to do a double take when I saw that. The worrying part is presumable someone actually does that job - which seems to only involve sticking tubes into people, never mind which hole.

<comment><USER27> Someone's gotta do the job.

I've thought that inserting IVs is something that nurses struggle with a lot and maybe could be automated. It would be an absolute nightmare to develop that robot though, as you'd have to go through all of the medical device certification on top of dealing with all of the edge cases of human anatomy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "524\. Solicit new business." how did i never think of this before...

<comment><USER29> Then when done:

7024\. Collect payment upon job completion.

<comment><USER30> And:

> 1600\. Collect payments from customers.

<comment><USER31> All of these are huge businesses. Debt collection. Factoring. Etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Word Cloud: [https://i.imgur.com/2Tjjo6S.png](https://i.imgur.com/2Tjjo6S.png)

<comment><USER33> Nah this can't be right. Blockchain, AI and Machine Learning need to be huge. No wonder no startups are getting funded nowadays /s

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Idea 20100, make a filtering and full text search service for all of these ideas for better reading experience.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is hilarious. The first one that caught my eye was helping passengers leave and airplane.

Was this an ML project? This looks like the output of a very basic machine learning project.

The commentary here is the best part of this. As (un)valuable as this list may be, it definitely gets the wheels turning in your mind.

</comment><comment><USER36> "883: Design computers and the software that runs them."

Seems to check out

</comment><comment><USER37> > 12064\. Manage leasing of facility space.

Sounds profitable.

<comment><USER38> > Regular Brain - Lease an Office

> Nebula Brain - Virtual Offices like Regus Offices

> Galaxy Brain - Coworking spaces

> Exploding Galaxy Brain - <USER2>

> Super Exploding Galaxy Brain - OurWork a per second billed coworking/living > space

<comment><USER39> OurWork ?

More like Amazon Workplace Services, if Amazon does it.

<comment><USER17> WeLive.com is kinda getting there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Just prepend "Uber for " or append " for developers" and this is indeed a startup idea list.

Also:

> 20\. Carry messages or documents between departments.

"I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

</comment><comment><USER41> Unsurprisingly, contains some duplicates:

#11755: Separate scrap waste and related materials for reuse, recycling, or disposal.

#11784: Separate scrap or waste materials for recycling, reuse, or environmentally sound disposal.

#11997: Identify or separate waste products or materials for recycling or reuse.

</comment><comment><USER42>
      2948. Deliver babies.

<comment><USER24> I raise you "2603\. [...] deliver babies safely"

<comment><USER43> Sounds like something to worry about once we've achieved market domination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> To clarify, is this meant as a joke of some sort?

Just not sure if it's just a satirical thing -- like, " _Hah, look at the silly word jumbles my script generated!_ " \-- or if it's meant as a tool for something.

</comment><comment> vincent-toups This combined with the WeWork news is not doing anything to counter my opinion that startup culture is both practically vacuous and morally bankrupt.

<comment><USER44> If I upload the right HTML to github, can I get you to move to Portugal and become a cod fisherman?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> >1556\. Enter data into computers for use in analyses or reports

Literally scale.ai

<comment><USER46> I was thinking about Power BI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> A few of these are totally ripe for disruption!

>51\. Conduct raids and order detention of witnesses and suspects for questioning.

<comment><USER48> Definitely my favourite economic disruption!

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Is this what people mean when they say that start up ideas are worthless? Or is this a joke?

</comment><comment><USER50> I subscribed to a few newsletters that would send me startup ideas and problems to solve on a daily basis.

But somehow that didn't do anything for me.

Some even would offer to connect me to people with the problem, but I had the feeling even with people who would say "I have problem X and I'd pay for a solution" the whole process was still too abstract for me.

I think this has more to do with the business side of things than with talking to potential customers and implementing a solution.

How do I start? What are good first steps if you don't know anyone, don't have a network etc.

<comment><USER51> Flip it on its head: don't start with an idea. Start by identifying a group of people you belong to (e.g. "Rails developers"), because it gives you an instant leg up in knowing their struggles. Then research their struggles. Write about them, and solve them. Grow an audience (read: email list). After all that research you'll have a solid idea of what they already want and buy, and you can create that for them. Plus you'll have built up an audience to sell it to!

It's not necessarily quick but it works. Amy Hoy & Alex Hillman were the ones who taught me this strategy and I heartily recommend reading everything they've written at [https://stackingthebricks.com](https://stackingthebricks.com) :)

<comment><USER52> It is a lot easier from a technical standpoint if the group you pick is not already in tech. Replace "rails developers" with something like "antiques collectors" or "massage therapists" or "arborists" any other profession that isn't saturated with software options already. These people all have smartphones and computers but probably have only crappy options for how those tools specifically accelerate their work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> > 7819\. Participate or assist in raids and arrests.

Yeah, well, not sure about this one.

<comment><USER44> Lots of money to be made selling equipment for those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> The five shortest ones (11, 13, 13, 13 and 13 characters long):

> 874\. Carve meat.

> 5221\. Dig trenches.

> 8361\. Graft plants.

> 10799\. Align wheels.

> 16441\. Shampoo hair.

And the five longest ones (291, 305, 308, 317 and 332 characters long):

> 6231\. Keep abreast of government regulations and emerging Web technology to > ensure regulatory compliance by reviewing current literature, talking with > colleagues, participating in educational programs, attending meetings or > workshops, or participating in professional organizations or conferences.

> 12863\. Design, develop, select, test, implement, and evaluate new or > modified informatics solutions, data structures, and decision-support > mechanisms to support patients, health care professionals, and their > information management and human-computer and human-technology interactions > within health care contexts.

> 7530\. Keep abreast of game design technology and techniques, industry > trends, or audience interests, reactions, and needs by reviewing current > literature, talking with colleagues, participating in educational programs, > attending meetings or workshops, or participating in professional > organizations or conferences.

> 4806\. Direct environmental programs, such as air or water compliance, > aboveground or underground storage tanks, spill prevention or control, > hazardous waste or materials management, solid waste recycling, medical > waste management, indoor air quality, integrated pest management, employee > training, or disaster preparedness.

> 5895\. Compute, retrace, or adjust existing surveys of features such as > highway alignments, property boundaries, utilities, control and other > surveys to match the ground elevation-dependent grids, geodetic grids, or > property boundaries and to ensure accuracy and continuity of data used in > engineering, surveying, or construction projects.

\---

My method for determining these things (which may be of interest to some), using just my favourite text editor, rather than slurping it into a REPL for some programming language and manipulating it thus:

1\. Copy the whole document to the clipboard;

2\. Paste in Vim (and note at this point that lists lose their markers in favour of just a tab character, so the numbers disappear);

3\. Manually remove everything that's not the list;

4\. Manually remove the tab at the start of each line with `:%s/^\t//` or block selection (this could also be done in the next step with slight modification, matching `^\t\\(.\\+)` and using `submatch(1)`);

5\. Prefix each line with its length and the line number using `:%s/.\\+/\=len(submatch(0)) . "\t" . line(".") . ". " . submatch(0)` (I actually used asterisk instead of \\+, but HN formatting hates unmatched asterisks; see `:help sub-replace-\=`; another approach for the line number part alone would have been to block-insert `1.\t` on every line, then block- select all but the first, and use `g<CTRL-A>` to increment them, see `:help v_g_CTRL-A`);

6\. Sort by line length with `:sort n` (since I had put it at the start of the line for convenience);

7\. Optionally strip the character counts out again with `:%s/^\d\\+\t//` or similar.

sub-replace-\= and v_g_CTRL-A are among my favourite not-so-well-known Vim features. They're not useful very often, but when they are, they're _really_ great.

<comment><USER55> My first chance ever to be _that guy_!

My solution:

      curl "https://unawaz.github.io/stochastic-hill-climbing/tasks/" \
        | awk '{ print length, $0 }' \
        | sort -n -s \
        | sed 's/<li>//' \
        | (tail -n +11 | head; tail)

Updated to remove noise.

<comment><USER54> The problem with such a pipeline is that it's not interactive. Now if you had a REPL that would memoize the steps so that it only ever did one `curl` request, that'd be different and useful.

<comment><USER55> First,

      curl [address] > /tmp/foo

Then, build up the pipeline starting with:

      cat /tmp/foo |

(And I know this is probably "useless abuse of cat", but whatever.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Great stuff - however, one thing that is missing is the ability to discuss these ideas in a forum-like medium. This is why I created the GH repo: [https://github.com/marcelosousa/million-dollar- ideas](https://github.com/marcelosousa/million-dollar-ideas). I might code a script that pushes each item as an issue to the repo to at least allow for that.

</comment><comment><USER57> [https://thisstartupdoesnotexist.com/](https://thisstartupdoesnotexist.com/)

</comment><comment><USER58> [https://www.ideasarecheap.net](https://www.ideasarecheap.net)

^^ I built this more or less on a bet about a year ago. Give it a dollar and it will give you a startup business idea.

(No Markov chains here, it's a couple of arrays of industries and keywords and a JS function that uses Math.random()... )

</comment><comment><USER59> > Shape shoe heels with a knife, and sand them on a buffing wheel for > smoothness.

> Adjust felt hammers on pianos to increase tonal mellowness or brilliance, > using sanding paddles, lacquer, or needles.

> Review filed tax returns to determine whether claimed tax credits and > deductions are allowed by law.

Three adjacent ones there, could be rewritten as:

* become a cobbler

* become a piano technician

* become an accountant

</comment><comment><USER60> "Implement dynamic relational" is _not_ listed. Fooey! In fact, it doesn't even contain the word "relational" or "RDBMS".

In general the IT-oriented items seem like variations of "fix my goofed up spreadsheet". Did they scrape the tech support logs?

</comment><comment><USER61> >It maybe is even the listing of approximately all startup ideas.

I wasn't able to find cloudflare in there

</comment><comment><USER62> What would make this for more useful is to have a list of even mildly _validated_ ideas, even by showing that there are existing competitors or a market for it. Or pointing to a gap where it exists.

Validation is the first step to product market fit.

</comment><comment><USER63> There are only 18514 ideas there

</comment><comment><USER55> I wrote an app that turns those into proper startup ideas. Source here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21126901](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21126901).

</comment><comment><USER64> A startup idea: an app to generate a startup idea (based on this list).

<comment><USER55> Here you go:

      (function () {
        var els = document.getElementsByTagName("li");
        var startups = ["A web-based platform", "An AI-powered platform", "Uber for",
                        "Subscription-based service", "Blockchain", "A folder that syncs"]
        for(var i = 4 ; i < els.length ; ++i) {
          els[i].innerText = startups[Math.floor(Math.random() * startups.length)] + " for people who " + els[i].innerText;
        }})()

Paste it into dev console on that page to receive an instant list of proper startup ideas.

The code is GPLv3, and can be trivially modified to generate further interesting startup ideas.

EDIT: Modified to add a greater variety of instant startup ideas!

<comment><USER64> Cool. But it should be in React Native and AI to raise some money.

<comment><USER55> Don't know about React Native, but updated the app to generate AI-related ideas (and some others).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Replace xylophone bars and wheels.

Watch out guys we've got a unicorn over here

</comment><comment><USER66> I like it. I created this mini API. Throws random ideas: [https://startup- ideas-api.btl.es](https://startup-ideas-api.btl.es)

</comment><comment><USER67> 20 001: collect, organize and rank a library of startup ideas

</comment><comment><USER68> > Select sizes and types of molds according to instructions.

Fair enough

</comment><comment><USER69> Title should be: "20,000 incremental startup ideas that will waste years of your life and generate mediocre returns for your investors".

</comment><comment><USER70> >524\. Solicit new business.

Genius!

</comment><comment><USER71> 6835\. Provide testimony as a witness in court.

</comment><comment><USER72> "Perform oral practice periodontal surgery on the jaw or mouth." Dude! I even have a spare room, we can totally do this one!

</comment><comment><USER73> "Process or book convicted individuals into prison." AirBnB and Uber for prisoners. Sounds legitimate :)

</comment><comment><USER74> 768\. Measure and mark cutting lines on materials, using a ruler, pencil, chalk, and marking gauge.

</comment><comment><USER75> Ideas are a dime a dozen; Everyone has them.

What is rare is the hard work needed to make an idea a reality.

<comment><USER76> I never have any that are even half-decent. Plenty for things that aren't businesses. Sometimes I act on those but they don't make me money. None for businesses. When I think I have one it always turns out there are a few players in the space already, one or more of them appear to be doing a good job with no clear way to outdo them, but nonetheless all appear to be struggling (so it might have been an OK idea when no-one was doing it but trying now would pretty much be doomed, spending weeks to months to get off the ground to take 10th place eating from a small pie). Or it's something you'd have to have FAANG resources and/or a huge pile of cash available to do (owning/collecting relevant machine learning datasets, mostly).

When other people say "hey I'd love an app that let me do X, you should build it, you'd make so much money" it usually turns out there are already 20 in the app store, and they "love" the idea so much that they'd never bothered to look for one. This is true whether it's for themselves, or for their job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> How old are some of these? For instance, is #402 even relevant today?

</comment><comment><USER78> "Splice or solder cables together or to overhead transmission lines, customer service lines, or street light lines, using hand tools, epoxies, or specialized equipment."

No...no no don't do that you will stand a good chance of being electrocuted.

</comment><comment><USER65> Replace xylophone bars and wheels.

Watch out you guys we've got a unicorn

</comment><comment><USER79> "117\. Buff defective areas of inner tubes, using scrapers."

what?

<comment><USER44> Part of the job description of Tire Repairers and Changers: [https://www.mappingyourfuture.org/planyourcareer/careership/...](https://www.mappingyourfuture.org/planyourcareer/careership/career_summary.cfm?careerID=727&headerImage=_career_summary)

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Oh no. There is a banner ad now at the top of the list.

<comment><USER53> uBlock Origin got my back. No ads to be seen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> 2413\. Google maps

<comment><USER81> Well, if you can out-Google Google Maps you'd definitely have a huge business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> 15728 would be an organised crime startup

<comment> yoz-y Or the police becoming privatized?

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> this is an outrage: there are only 18,514 startup ideas in there.

</comment><comment><USER84> haha > 5131 Move and arrange furniture and turn mattresses

</comment><comment><USER85> Unreadable.

</comment><comment><USER86> ideas are cheap

</comment><comment><USER87> These are so useless

</comment><comment><USER88> REQUEST FOR IDEA:

i have a backend tech stack that i believe is scalable and efficient (REST or websockets). i'd like to prove this out with a demo or app. i can do a pure-js SPA frontend (eg fitno.us) but i'm terrible at UI so it's not gonna be pretty

is there a free service that i could provide that people would use at high scale ? there doesn't need to be a way to eventually monetize it

required: store data to database optional: rest calls to 3rd parties

anyone have an idea they're willing to share ?

<comment><USER89> My FBI guy: a moderated chat app.

Instead of just a 2-way chat program, there is a 3rd participant "the FBI guy" who also joins the chat. Every message sent must get approved by the FBI guy before it goes through to the recipient.

It should also be possible to send messages to the FBI guy directly. e.g. "Does she/he like me?"

<comment><USER88> i like the concept (and it's sort of the inversion of another chat app idea i've been tossing around along the lines of cyrano de bergerac) but i don't see what's going to drive adoption

what's the motivation for a user to use this app vs un-moderated chat ? is it driven by the moderator, eg a parent wanting to limit what their kids can say or see ? or is it one of the 2 chatting parties that prefers to have someone else sanitize content before they have to see it, eg to ensure that they don't get d*ck pics ?

in the latter case, what motivates the moderator to participate ?

<comment><USER89> I think it would have to grow (or die) virally. Like GMail in the early days, moderators would get accounts by being invited.

Although there probably is a way to pitch it as a parental control, I think other demographics could enjoy it too. As you say, the moderation basically ensures no creepers or d*ck picks. That will probably encourage more female users to trust the platform, which would certainly help to boost overall numbers.

It could be a means of chatting to strangers, where the moderator chooses 2 people to pair up. That could get interesting. The idea is still pretty half- baked, but I'd like to explore it more, and maybe use it as a testing ground for decentralised chat technology.

For people who are unsure about social norms of chatting to people, such as those with Aspergers, autism spectrum, or who are just plain shy, I think being a moderator would be a great way to learn how to have an ordinary conversation. I'd also want to make the website fully accessible, with text readers for the blind, and automatic language translation so that people can make friends in other countries.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


JAX-RS vs. Spring REST with Examples and Stormtroopers - <AUTHOR> https://stormpath.com/blog/jax-rs-vs-spring-rest-endpoints <comment><USER2> boy thats quite a bit of "stuff" just for some rest thing</comment>


A Sleeping Disorder That Turns Life into a Waking Dream - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/magazine/mysterious-sleeping-disorder-diagnosis.html <comment><USER2> [http://archive.is/sz8ZU](http://archive.is/sz8ZU)</comment>