Ask HN: Should we give a discount to a billion dollar startup? - <AUTHOR> We are a 5 months old SaaS startup with a fairly high monthly pricing ($1000+/month) with 7 paying customers. A large startup signed up recently for a month and now wants to prepay for a year but is expecting a discount on the list price (~50% discount). We have offered them a discount of 2 months, which I know is not substantial but given that we are bootstrapped till now, we are really in a dilemma. Any advice from people who have been in a similar situation would be helpful. Thank you. <comment><USER2> I would definitely get them signed up . . .

But for 50% off I would get an ok to use their logo on your website and marketing materials, be used as a case study, get quotes/reviews to use from their CTO/CEO, etc . . . also note they can not disclose a discounted rate and maybe spell out that the discount will reduce 10% each year, and also that plans/pricing can change in the future.

As long as their subscription to your SaaS won't cause any profit loss with the discount I think it's a win win.

As far as strategy can you add plans or plan levels that will protect you from absorbing their high use of your SaaS or put in place a growth in price as they grow use your SaaS more?

Sounds like a win win, as long as you're not losing money on their subscription.

I'm definitely more likely to sign up for a SaaS if I see a big name logo using it.

Congrats, good luck.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Unless you get something from the business (like saluki suggested), why offer a discount?

See what happens if you say "no". I bet that the person asking for a discount is testing to see if you will sell against yourself.

Anytime the subject of discount/price comes up a good sales person should go back to the question of product/customer need fit.

I would point out that the price helps keep your company in business so the product will continue to be available to satisfy _their_ needs.

Then be willing to broach the question with the customer about how important your product is to them. If the product is not valuable at the original price, then is it really of critical importance?

Are they looking for the low cost solution or a quality solution? Suggest that they try: X, Y,....?

If you are talking to a purchasing manager, the last thing the purchasing managers want to have to do is explain how come a vendor is refusing the big startup's business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" We have offered them a discount of 2 months, which I know is not substantial..."_

A discount of two months (17%) is _very_ substantial for a one-year prepayment (your customer can maybe get 1% a year from keeping that money in a savings account). You'll need to evaluate whether it's worth it to your business to give them even that discount.

For example:

\- If you're financing your company off credit card debt at 20%, than giving someone 17% off to get money up front would actually save you money.

\- If you're suffering desperate cash-flow problems and need money tomorrow to pay your operating expenses, then it might be worth giving someone a steep discount to get money today.

\- If it costs you $500 a month in expenses to provide the service, then a 50% discount on $1000 would wipe out all your profit.

If you're getting adequate revenue from your current paying customers to keep the company going, you may not want to give that kind of discount. The problem with giving them a discount is that they'll expect another discount when the contract comes up for renewal in a year. And they'll tell their friends that your company gave them a discount, so future customers might also ask for one.

If you do end up giving them a discount, you might want to negotiate additional terms that are advantageous to you, such as being able to say on your web site that this company is your customer, and being able to use them as a reference for other customers. That might be worth something if they're a billion dollar company with some name recognition.

</comment><comment><USER5> You can use your other contracts as leverage. I have a large number of contracts where I have agreed that if I offer any new customer a larger discount I have to turn around and provide the same lower price to them. This means that if I provide a new customer a higher discount I lose money since the new discounts to my existing customers are greater than the revenue from the new customer. I just tell all my new customers this and the whole issue of special pricing goes away.

</comment><comment><USER6> Probably 50% is too much. I'll just quote patio11.

From [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/12/29/bingo-card-creator- and-o...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/12/29/bingo-card-creator-and-other- stuff-year-in-review-2012/)

> _(Here's a replicatable strategy for making several hundred thousand dollars > with a single email: start with a revenue base of $X million a year. Email > all customers asking them to switch from monthly billing to annual billing, > in return for some incentive you can offer, which can range from "a month > free" to "15% discount" to "Hey, you can book the expense this calendar > year, so that will save you money on taxes." Feel free to try this with any > client or day-job of yours if they're already at scale — "We made so much > money the accountant /bank called us to complain" will make for a great > bullet point at your next contract/salary review.)_

</comment><comment><USER7> Many people are suggesting you ask to use them as a reference customer, and you should, but be prepared for a 'no.'

The stakeholders at the customer likely don't have the authority to say 'yes', it's very likely they the request will have to go through their legal team (who probably doesn't care about whether the project is successful or not) and a marketing review, and while they may be happy to help you jump through these hoops after the deal is closed, they may not be able to get it into the contract.

*I deal with many Fortune 100 companies and work this into almost every deal, but it's rejected most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER8> They will end up sucking most of your time away from you, with bugs, support tasks, feature requests, etc. Depending on how big the name is, it might be worth it to snag them, if they would be come a reference customer and help you grow quickly. But it depends on your bandwidth. Do you have sales people that could make use of their name? If not, then don't give them a 50% discount and be ready for an onslaught of work from them.

</comment><comment><USER9> Large businesses routinely take advantage of smaller businesses. They pay later than average, they demand "extras" and so on.

Determine what you think is a reasonable deal for any customer who prepays. Write it up as your new policy. Notify theses guys you can give them X off. If they have a problem with that, they are free to go elsewhere.

I really need to start collecting links, because I have read too many stories and stats on exactly this kind of thing, but I never know how to find them when this type question comes up. Do not let a big company make you their bitch. Set boundaries. Let them go elsewhere if they do not like it.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's already been mentioned but giving them the discount (provided you don't immediately need the revenue) in exchange for a 24 mo contract seems ideal. I believe the longest you can contract would be 24 mos (12 mo w/ 12 mo auto renew but it might be worth asking an attorney/search a bit online. I would also ensure you can use their name to leverage into additional customers. Congrats by the way, this seems like a nice problem to have :)

</comment><comment><USER11> You need to convey that a severe discount makes no sense.

 _Hey Big Startup Guys-

If you're buying from us-- you're going to want us to be profitable, so we can have great customer service, do product upgrades, legal protections, and so we can have an entire team of people to do the job and serve you.

We work with Big & Small clients that want us to make a profit. We won't allow you to make us do a bad business deal.

Our pricing model is fair-- let's figure out a way to continue working together._

*Hat Tip: Oren Klaff > [http://pitchanything.com/](http://pitchanything.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Just tell them: "No sorry, we can't do that. So, should we sign you up for our annual plan (2 months free!), or would you prefer paying month to month?".

If they need your service, they won't leave. If they don't, they will, but that teaches you something about your market. Either way, you win.

Btw: two months is substantial, it's a 17.5% discount.

</comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps they're asking for a "startup discount" like AWS Activate.

A discount because they're a startup and putting trust into you and your startup. If they do well, you'll do well. If you screw up they will be impacted.

Also, you may be able to learn a lot of from them and help more people love your product.

I'd counter with like 25 to 30% for one year and a bit more for two years. Try to find a win-win even if you have to get creative. Perhaps they allow you to use their name as a reference on your website or some other consideration.

These sorts of negotiations happen all the time. Enjoy them :)

Good luck with the SaaS, sounds look you have some momentum!

</comment><comment><USER14> As someone alluded to, if they're a big name you can point to / use their logo this could easily pay for itself. If you think of their discount instead as an approximately $500/month marketing budget, would you do it? (Or even more precisely $350/month as that's the additional request).

Just try to avoid the slippery slope of giving everyone such a discount (and I hope your pricing plans mean that this presumably large customer is getting a discount on an expensive "Enterprise" plan that's only sensible for larger groups).

</comment><comment><USER15> If they think you need them more than they need you, they'll push you hard.

50% discount is my expectation. Lately, my place had been scoring those kinds of discounts even on hardware.

</comment><comment><USER16> Have you seen those SaaS sites that mention they are used by the NYTimes, Newsweek, Forbes etc. Well you can say the billion dollar startup uses your SaaS.

</comment><comment><USER17> Just say "no".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY)

<comment><USER18> Awesomesauce!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Id not give them a discount. Im sure they can afford to invest 12k a.k.a. peanuts if they are valued so highly.

</comment><comment><USER19> What do you get in return for the 50% discount?

\- reference statement?

\- mention on their blog?

\- referals to other billion dollars startup?

\- case story?

</comment><comment><USER20> It depends if having them as a marquee name on your site and guaranteed revenue is worth it. Guaranteed revenue is hard to thumb your nose at. So too is a recognizable brand name, especially if they have gravity in a vertical you are targeting.

</comment><comment><USER21> Give them a discount but make them prepay for 3 years</comment>


Default go http server doesn't say something like "go web http server" - <AUTHOR> curl -i http://officecrashe.rs HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2016 05:22:03 GMT Transfer-Encoding: chunked <comment><AUTHOR> i'll bet default java one says something like:

"Server: Oracle-Application-Server-11g Oracle-Web-Cache-11g/184.108.40.206.0 (H;max- age=300+0;age=17;ecid=584413567863459,0:1)"</comment>


My first fifteen compilers - <AUTHOR> http://composition.al/blog/2017/07/31/my-first-fifteen-compilers/ <comment><USER2> Favorite quote:

> There's a wealth of tutorials, courses, books, and the like about how to > write compilers. But if somebody believes that writing a transpiler isn't > fundamentally the same thing as writing a compiler, it may not occur to them > to look at any of that material.

The basic argument is this: "compiler" isn't a term that needs to be limited from transforming a high-level input to a low-level output. Any program which is structured to map an AST to another AST, no matter the relative levels of abstraction, can borrow from many of the principles of modern compiler theory, including using many small passes rather than monolithic rewrites.

At a company I worked for, we compiled a high-level declarative expression language of our own devising into SQL and other back-end representations, including English. Is that a "compiler" as many see it? No. However, thinking about the problem like a compiler problem gave us lots of insights into how to architect our product; it let us draw on an existing wealth of knowledge to make improvements quickly and reliably.

<comment><USER3> > But if somebody believes that writing a transpiler isn't fundamentally the > same thing as writing a compiler,

I'd be surprised if anyone did.

The use of transpiler is more about audience expectation, a specificity.

It's shorter than writing "source-to-source compiler", and acknowledges compiler as its superset, right there in its name

<comment><USER4> That's unfortunately not my experience. I'm appalled every time someone tells me "But Scala.js is not a compiler, it's a transpiler, since it compiles to JS!"

I assume other language users and authors suffer the same kind of comments on a regular basis.

<comment><USER3> I'm now horrified to learn that you experience is the norm.

And that the cognitive dissonance to say:

> ...is not a compiler, it's a transpiler, since it compiles to...

is alive and well.

Mea culpa.

<comment><USER5> Welcome to the webdev world. It keeps inventing new terms for things that already have established terms for decades, probably because it's rare anyone bothers to look back at the decades of stuff not done in JS...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd strongly suggest diving into compilers if you've never studied the subject. Learning a bit on the subject unlocks a ton of incredibly useful skills. That knowledge helps you implement stuff like autocomplete, linters, syntax highlighting, etc.

The Super Tiny Compiler [0] is a very gentle introduction to the subject. It's great because it helps you quickly develop an initial mental model.

To give an everyday usage example: I've used jscodeshift [1] many times to safely refactor large amounts of code. In one case, I quickly migrated a project's test assertion library to an alternative which the team agreed was superior. This tool is also typically used by the react team in order to provide a smooth migration path whenever they make changes to the public API.

[0] [https://github.com/thejameskyle/the-super-tiny- compiler](https://github.com/thejameskyle/the-super-tiny-compiler)

[1] [https://github.com/facebook/jscodeshift](https://github.com/facebook/jscodeshift)

<comment><USER7> If people find getting started on a compiler to be a bit too intimidating, one good way to get your feet wet is implementing an interpreter for small subset of a language. Perhaps the basic arithmetic part of adding/multiplying/dividing integers.

<comment> nils-m-holm People finding compilers intimidating is exactly my audience. :)

[http://www.t3x.org/t3x/book.html](http://www.t3x.org/t3x/book.html)

Please excuse the shameless plug!

<comment><USER8> I have been reading the T3X book and code and I have to say that I am a huge fan of your work. I haven't finished reading it yet, but I have thoroughly enjoyed it so far! I can do successful 'make test' on Linux and NetBSD, but a trivial T3X program seems to misbehave on NetBSD. I look forward to getting to the bottom of it.

A quick question, if you don't mind: why do t.c and t.t differ slightly in the code emitted for t.memcmp, t.copy and t.fill? Thanks!!

<comment> nils-m-holm Thanks! I'm glad you like my work!

The two compilers differ because I stopped applying non-essential modifications to t.c as soon as it was good enough to bootstrap t.t. There are also some edges cases that t.c does not catch. I think it's best to not use it for anything but bootstrapping!

Let me know about that misbehaving NetBSD program when you find out what caused it -- or even if you don't!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a favor for a friend, I wrote a mini-"compiler" that translated detailed specs for story game scenes into code. I had never done anything similar (my background is more on the Math/Stats side) but I figured hey, what the hell.

There were only a few types of possible scenes, so my first approach was to create a data structure for each type of scene that had a method converting it to code. However, this broke badly with conditional/branching paths that could potentially have arbitrary levels of nesting.

So my next approach was to create multiple passes using some simple recursive data structures "Parseables" where conditional branches could contain other Parseables (including other conditional branches) as well as multiple passes (Text -> Parseable -> Printable -> Code instead of Text -> Screen -> Code.) This worked quite nicely.

Had I realized this was a compiler, I could have probably read some tutorials and not had to do everything from scratch. This would probably have resulted in better engineering, but been a lot less fun.

My amateurish code, if anyone is curious: [https://github.com/Satvik/spec- compiler](https://github.com/Satvik/spec-compiler)

<comment><USER10> Don't feel bad, tutorials are for when you don't know how to start. If you have a clue how to approach the next step, having a go based on intuition is a superior strategy. Maybe you'll do something stupid, maybe not; either way you learn which means we all win in the long run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if scheme-based compiler courses are still run at Indiana University?

Abdulaziz Ghuloum's 'Incremental compiler construction' [1] also has a working compiler at the end of each stage. For example after the first week you have a compiler that outputs a program that prints a single integer, the 2nd week immediates. The tutorial is at [2]. It doesn't use a nanopass framework, just builds the complexity of the language. It's for a scheme compiler written in scheme.

Apparently Ghuloum was a phd student under Dyvbig who also wrote his own scheme compiler to x86 [3],[4].

[1] [http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf](http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf)

[2] [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/namin/inc/master/docs/tuto...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/namin/inc/master/docs/tutorial.pdf)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_(Scheme_implementation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_\(Scheme_implementation\))

[4] [https://web.archive.org/web/20101210085823/http://www.cs.ind...](https://web.archive.org/web/20101210085823/http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~aghuloum/)

<comment><USER12> That paper is amazing.

Plug for my course, which is built around the ideas in Ghuloum's paper, and I've talked about before on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13207695](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13207695) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15005853](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15005853)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think the nanopass concept - e.g. lots of well defined IRs passing through a pipeline - is a very good idea for teaching, but I'm interested to see how well it performs and also whether, from the programmers perspective, whether this simplifies code or adds unneeded complexity (Specifically, whether they can be optimized quite as well as a big monolithic compiler).

I'm currently writing a compiler framework - nothing big, as a learning project, and I think I shall try integrate this idea in some way. I feel it would be particularly useful for compiler backends like GCC or LLVM because having well defined pipelines etc. means that one can hook into the framework cleanly (Potentially a huge saving in compile times, e.g. not having to cart around unneeded libraries/symbols).

<comment><USER14> Chez Scheme [0] is written using the nanopass framework, and it's regarded as one of the fastest Scheme compilers in existence [1]. Before it was rewritten to use the nanopass system, Chez's compiler was known for its performance in terms of lines of code compiled per second; the rewrite slowed it down a bit, but the quality and performance of generated machine code improved. Andy Keep and Kent Dybvig wrote a paper about the project [2]. I haven't browsed the Chez source, but it's a good way to answer your question.

[0] [https://github.com/cisco/ChezScheme](https://github.com/cisco/ChezScheme)

[1] [http://ecraven.github.io/r7rs- benchmarks/benchmark.html](http://ecraven.github.io/r7rs- benchmarks/benchmark.html)

[2] [https://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dyb/pubs/commercial- nanopass.pdf](https://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dyb/pubs/commercial-nanopass.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I suppose if you look at it that way, then anyone who has completed Crenshaw's excellent tutorial series[1] could also claim to have written (approximately) the same number of "compilers".

 _With a parser combinator library, you write a parser by starting with a bunch of primitive parsers (say, that parse numbers or characters) and combining them, eventually building up the ability to parse a sophisticated language._

That sounds like recursive descent, also a highly recommended method of writing a parser for its simplicity, speed, and ease of error reporting.

 _But if somebody believes that writing a transpiler isn't fundamentally the same thing as writing a compiler, it may not occur to them to look at any of that material._

From what I understand, the definition of a transpiler is one which almost exclusively performs syntax-syntax transforms, and doesn't delve into the semantics with e.g. dataflow or control flow. Thus the lack of material about writing "transpilers" \--- or rather, someone looking to write one should instead be seeking out information on "search and replace" algorithms.

[1] [https://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/](https://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/) \--- highly recommended.

<comment><USER16> It is recursive descent. Scala's parser combinator library is beautiful, and has been, hour-for-hour, the most useful tool I have learned as a programmer. Parsing problems became _so common_ once I understood how to parse things.

I'm writing my first compiled DSL right now, inspired by the sense that parser combinators gave me: "maybe you don't have to be a genius to write a compiler."

In addition to parser combinators, another great functional tool for dealing with recursive structures (e.g. abstract syntax trees) is recursion schemes. I've been banging my head against them this week, and I finally made some headway. They are useful for the nanopass technique referenced in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a decent textbook written in the incremental style argued for by the author: Essentials of Compilation. It features compilers for seven languages, written in Racket, each with successively more advanced features.

[https://jeapostrophe.github.io/courses/2017/spring/406/notes...](https://jeapostrophe.github.io/courses/2017/spring/406/notes/book.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER18> [http://www.craftinginterpreters.com/a-tree-walk- interpreter....](http://www.craftinginterpreters.com/a-tree-walk- interpreter.html) This link has been up a long time ago on hackernews, or reddit, can't remember which. But i am trying to work through it, it has good basic explanation.

And then you have SICP which introduces compilers without really talking about it :p.

</comment><comment><USER19> I am very fascinated by this notion of teaching compilers by starting at code generation and working backwards from there. I've read about nanopass compilers before, but do they also work well if the compiler is written in a statically typed language? They clearly will for passes that do not change the program representation, but my experience is that it is awkward to define large amount of similar-but-slightly-different representations in a statically typed language.

<comment><USER20> I think you end up needing macros even in statically typed languages to make it convenient. Even the nanopass framework uses macros to define the different representations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've always thought of compilers as usually lossy graph rewriters with input and output data structures usually being 'flatter' in some sense. Maybe a both simplistic and vague model, but it has served me well enough the few times I needed to build one.

This isn't meant to validate or invalidate any other view or definition, but I'm curious if there are any good counter examples or theoretical reasons for characterising compilers differently ?

Quite naturally, all compilers might not be implemented with explicit graphs and their subsequent rewrites, but implicitly both input and output represent a set of statements encoding a specific set of truths and actions, all of them which is intrinsically related to their various contexts.

In this light there is really no distinction between high level and low level targets, but only between various levels of information loss and how explicit the actions and truths are expressed in the input and output.

It might be worth noting that most of the perceived information loss, except for names, is only due to human perception and limitations. State of the art decompilers can in many cases recover a surprising amount of the original types and code structures, albeit at considerable computational costs.

<comment><USER22> Graph rewriting turns out to be a rather difficult problem, and many optimizations are better recast in other frameworks. For example, instruction scheduling (on superscalar processors) is pretty much a textbook example of the job scheduling problem. Loop optimizations can be most easily expressed in the polyhedral loop optimization model. Decisions like inlining can be framed as high-dimension, highly non-linear, multi-goal optimization (in the mathematics sense) problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Most compilers sort of work this way, except that they don't have an intermediate format. They take source, turn it into tokens, turn it into a tree of sorts, run several passes over it till the end result is reached (whatever the target is).

My own compilers turn 4 different input languages in the same parser tree (Hand written tokenizers/parsers), do several passes over it until it has a very base set of instructions left, at which point it generates code for whatever backend was picked.

The only big difference is that the process outlined in the article has an actual textual intermediate format, if I understand it correctly. Sounds like a lot of work of extra work with little gain, a simpler approach might be to have "ToString" method working on all nodes on all levels that' outputs info clear enough to understand from within a debugger.

<comment><USER14> It's not that there's a _textual_ intermediate format: just a defined intermediate tree structure. Some examples are given in the nanopass framework documentation [0]. So it's not that the input language is processed into an intermediate format, which is printed to a string and then read by the next pass; the intermediate languages are all in various forms of trees. See also the paper on writing Chez Scheme as a nanopass system [1].

[0] [https://docs.racket-lang.org/nanopass/index.html](https://docs.racket- lang.org/nanopass/index.html)

[1] [https://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dyb/pubs/commercial- nanopass.pdf](https://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dyb/pubs/commercial-nanopass.pdf)

<comment><USER23> That's a pretty interesting approach then; I like it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Blender is a toolset for creating nanopass compilers: [https://github.com/keyboardDrummer/Blender](https://github.com/keyboardDrummer/Blender)

</comment><comment><USER25> This is an interesting instance of the sorites paradox :)

</comment><comment><USER26> Anyone got stories about attempts to combine compiler construction with deep learning techniques? As AI related technologies now become realistically implementable, wouldn't the compiler theory be one of the most greatly affected research fields?

<comment><USER27> _wouldn 't the compiler theory be one of the most greatly affected research fields?_

Why would it? What techniques do you propose to use for what tasks?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I find many people tend to use the terms _parser_ and _compiler_ almost interchangeably, which is a horrid mistake. These terms are not the same and are not related. So, lets get clear on terminology:

* lexer: A scanner. It runs code, typically as a string, through an evaluator and builds pieces based upon known language syntax rules.

* parser: A rule evaluator. Parsers typically use lexers to reason about code and then evaluate the pieces to determine context, relationships, and categories that describes the code structure.

* compiler: A transformer. Compilers change code from one format (syntax) to another different format.

\---

> With a parser combinator library, you write a parser by starting with a > bunch of primitive parsers (say, that parse numbers or characters) and > combining them, eventually building up the ability to parse a sophisticated > language.

I do like that part of the article. I am working on a universal language parser right now. To be truly universal you have to accomplish two big goals:

1\. parse all the languages

2\. seamless interchange between the various different parsers (it is a single parser with interchange between the various lexers)

Seamless interchange is necessary for languages like JSX, which starts as JavaScript, but can contain XML code units that then escape back to JavaScript syntax. Another example is code blocks in markdown documents where the code block can specific a name of the language described by the code block.

<comment><USER29> Lexers split a program (string) into groups of characters as a list of tokens. Lexical analysis has nothing to do with syntax. Canonically, syntax and grammar are the same thing and parsers deal with that. A parser looks for patterns of tokens that match up to a grammar rule. If all the grammar rules that compose a correct program are parsed, a parser produces an AST that the compiler can act on. Otherwise the parser errors out due to a programmer syntax error.

<comment><USER28> The boundaries between lexers and parsers differ by the parser in question.

Grammar and syntax are also different, particularly with regards to XML based languages. Syntax are the rules which define the language while grammars are the conventions that define the context in which artifacts in a language instance are interpreted. Whether a language requires terminating semicolons or curly braces are syntax rules. Whether there is an object schema or namespace concern is a grammar issue.

Parsers commonly produce abstract syntax trees (AST), but can produce output in a variety of formats. I prefer parse tables personally. To say that a parser must produce as AST is rather short-sided and inexperienced.

While parsers typically rely upon lexers and compilers typically rely upon parsers there is no law proclaiming computation must occur in that flow. Lexers, parsers, and compilers are all separate steps that can act independently provided a sufficient configuration.

<comment><USER30> > The boundaries between lexers and parsers differ by the parser in question.

Indeed, the division between lexer and parser is somewhat optional, since scannerless parsers can be defined to operate directly on a stream of basic symbols from the language's alphabet, but the usual division reflects notions from automata theory:

\- A lexer (a.k.a., lexical analyzer, tokenizer, scanner) is founded, in principle if not in actuality, on a finite state automaton to group input symbols from an alphabet into basic meaningful units ("lexemes" or "tokens") and to classify those units according to their significance (identifiers, keywords, literals, delimiters, etc.). In a natural language context, it can be thought of as producing words from a sequence of letters.

\- A parser is founded, in principle if not in actuality, on (usually and at least) a finite state _pushdown_ automaton, which is basically a finite state automaton equipped with a stack which can be manipulated by the transition function. The goal of a parser is to convert a stream of input symbols into one (or sometimes more) derivations (a.k.a. parse trees, [concrete] syntax trees, parses) which represent the structure of the input in terms of a grammar. In a natural language context, it can be thought of as producing sentence diagrams from a sequence of words (or letters in the case of scannerless parsing).

> Grammar and syntax are also different,

No, grammar and syntax are the same. A grammar consists of an array of productions, which are rules that define how symbols in the language may be combined to form valid sentences in the language. Usually, "grammar" refers to a formalism that is sorta like a big regular expression, except that it's not limited to the regular languages (context-free grammars being most common, with extra-parser hacks to support context-sensitive languages if needed), but a grammar is really an abstract mathematical object and need not be formally manifest.

> Syntax are the rules which define the language while grammars are the > conventions that define the context in which artifacts in a language > instance are interpreted.

Indeed, syntax can be thought of as the rules which define a language (that is, can be thought of as a grammar). However, what you describe as "the conventions that define the context in which artifacts in a language instance are interpreted" is properly called _semantics_ , which are rules for ascribing meaning to phrases in the language.

> Parsers commonly produce abstract syntax trees (AST), but can produce output > in a variety of formats. I prefer parse tables personally. To say that a > parser must produce as AST is rather short-sided and inexperienced.

This is true; indeed a parser can directly produce any sort of output: a single truth value that indicates whether the input is part of the language that it recognizes, a translation into another language, or even "no" output in the case of an interpreter. However, I'm confused by your usage of "parse tables" here. The term usually refers to the tables that are used to drive a parsing algorithm (i.e., an input to the parsing algorithm) rather than the output of a parser. Would you elaborate for me?

> Lexers, parsers, and compilers are all separate steps that can act > independently provided a sufficient configuration.

Indeed, a parser does not necessarily require a lexer, nor must a parser's output be compiled. However, though your statement is technically true, I can't even imagine what a compiler without a parser might look like!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jack Parsons: Occultist involved in early rocketry - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/23/jpl-jack-parsons/viewall <comment><USER2> There are two different forms of scientific history. The history of science as used for future scientific development lives in academic papers, journals, conferences, and similar; those are preserved as a record of historical development progress. That history is, when functioning correctly, blind to outside issues like this.

On the other hand, there's scientific history as captured by news and popular culture, which focuses on personalities, personal stories, struggles, and development. In that version of history, it shouldn't be at all surprising that people prefer to hide the crazy people and focus on those that can successfully serve as visible PR figures. That doesn't denigrate their contributions, but it avoids making them visible figureheads when they're not appropriate for a figurehead role.

You can complain about outside politics affecting science, but far too often, people like this will bring their politics into their science, such as in interviews and discussions; sweeping people under the rug doesn't just happen because of embarassment about past actions, but for fear of _future_ embarassment. And that future embarassment can then cause problems when trying to get popular support and funding, which makes it entirely rational to focus on the scientists who can safely talk to other people.

<comment><USER3> >You can complain about outside politics affecting science, but far too often, people like this will bring their politics into their science

This seems incredibly one sided. By removing him, you've already brought politics into science. You're wrong, this isn't about politics in science, it's about "the right" politics or "the approved" politics in science.

You have a point, but it's very defeatist. You're essentially saying "people can get turned off by opposing views. To remedy this, we'll make sure they don't hear any opposing views". The remedy is to expose people to more opposing views, not shelter them.

<comment><USER2> > This seems incredibly one sided. By removing him, you've already brought > politics into science. You're wrong, this isn't about politics in science, > it's about "the right" politics or "the approved" politics in science.

Ideally people shouldn't be bringing _any_ politics into science. But as sad as it is, sometimes you have to deal with politics to get your research sponsored, funded, and widely accepted. That's reality; please feel free to tilt against that windmill, and more power to you if you can manage to change it.

Meanwhile, there's always going to be a subset of scientists (and affiliated non-scientists good at PR) who serve as the public face of a project, and like it or not, they'll be selected for criteria _other_ than how good they are at science.

As much as you might wish that to not be the case, rejecting it will not lead to the outcomes you desire.

This is closely related to the issue of presentability and fashion. Many scientists and engineers object to notions of fashion and other social patterns that they rather reasonably believe should not matter; that objection is fine. But that then turns into a kind of is-ought fallacious reasoning, concluding that because those things _shouldn 't_ matter, caring about them isn't important, or worse yet that actively opposing them is worthwhile. And thus you have the stereotype of the engineer in T-shirt and jeans no matter the occasion. The rational reasoning says "OK, perhaps those things shouldn't matter, but in practice they _do_ matter, so live with that and learn to use it when it benefits you".

When it comes to portraying science (or anything else) in popular culture, many problems are isomorphic to fashion, and like it or not the rational choice is to be fashionable.

<comment><USER3> At what point does it become a self fulfilling prophecy? If we continue to cater to people who insist on demanding that research and funding go to the prettiest scientist or the on that has the best power point who is to blame when things like this happen? I think it's better to not be an enabler. Sure, it may be harder and more complicated, but to me it's the right thing to do. We're letting ignorance win when we have we shelter the ignorant.

<comment><USER2> I agree to some level, especially regarding politics and personality, but go back and look at the article we're commenting on. Does that _sound_ like a person who should be the public face of _any_ project?

<comment><USER4> Yes, definitely! Then scientists might be considered interesting human beings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" Day science employs reasoning that meshes like gears… One admires its majestic arrangement like a da Vinci painting or a Bach fugue. One walks about it as in a French formal garden…

Night science, on the other hand, wanders blindly. It hesitates, stumbles, falls back, sweats, wakes with a start. Doubting everything… It is a workshop of the possible… where thought proceeds along sensuous paths, tortuous streets, most often blind alleys."_

Francois Jacob[1], _The Statue Within_.

Science and technology as an activity involves questioning, and finding new ways of doing things. I imagine these activities are bound to attract people on the edge of things a little. Having said that, Aleister Crowley was not the kind of person you'd want to be involved closely with from what I can see.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Jacob](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Jacob)

<comment><USER6> Night Science sounds a lot like Cave Johnson in the Portal franchise.

 _" Just a heads up, we're gonna have a super conductor turned up full blast and pointed at you for the duration of this next test. I'll be honest, we're throwing science at the walls here to see what sticks. No idea what it'll do."_

[http://www.cavejohnsonhere.com/](http://www.cavejohnsonhere.com/) "

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are a fair number of tech people I've encountered (mainly in the device driver and security subcommunities) who are part of OTO, Temple of Set, or other "left hand path" type occult groups or practices; a lot more who are just "pagan". Not too far off from any mainstream religions in concentration, which is way different from the general population.

<comment><USER8> Interesting- I only know a handful of hardware people, and that includes a pagan microchip designer. Is there a reason for those beliefs being more prevalent in those communities?

<comment><USER9> I don't know if the connection really exists, or why it might, but I am reminded of the connection Neal Stephenson draws between Babylonian Shaman and programmers. Like how programmers utter incantations which have a special power not fully understood by the rest of society, maybe hardware designers create patterns and layouts which have special power. The general concept appeals to them, so they are attracted to ideologies which incorporate similar ideas?

<comment><USER10> I can't speak to hardware, but there's certainly a certain similarity between occultism/esotericism and creating software - you have to be comfortable thinking about and working with things that, in a sense, don't exist. That doesn't mean they're not useful in their own way. It means that they don't have objective reality in the same way that a lake or a car or a building does.

<comment><USER11> in the software world powerful spell books are definitely real : [http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html](http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html)

<comment><USER12> You don't say! :)

Try googling for "the wizard book." See first result.

Marvel at the book's cover, [http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full- text/book/book.html](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html)

P.S. for a kinda-scientific treatment of "what if magic was real [and obeyed internally consistent laws]?", see ongoing scifi story [http://qntm.org/ra](http://qntm.org/ra)

<comment><USER13> The TV Tropes folks have categorized this idea as "Magic A is Magic A":

[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA)

The description of Magic Engineering in _Ra_ is worked out pretty entertainingly, with people setting up university departments, research programs, companies, etc., to apply magic to things like manufacturing and transportation.

Spoiler alert for _Ra_ (no really, go read the story instead of this spoiler):

Va gur yngre puncgref vg'f funcvat hc gb ybbx yvxr gur ernfba gung "zntvp vf erny" vf _abg_ gung vg'f n shaqnzragny cneg bs gur angher bs gur havirefr, ohg gung vg jnf vzcyrzragrq va gur cnfg ol uhzna orvatf sbyybjvat n grpuabybtvpny fvathynevgl, lrg gung gur crbcyr fghqlvat vg naq cenpgvpvat vg gbqnl qba'g xabj gung gung fvathynevgl unf unccrarq. (Gur choyvp jebatyl oryvrirf gung zntvp jnf nyjnlf n cneg bs angher.)

Gur rknpg ernfba gung gur trareny choyvp vf pbzcyrgryl hanjner gung gur fvathynevgl vf nyernql va gurve cnfg (be gung zntvp vf n uhzna perngvba!) vf fgvyy na rkpvgvat cbvag bs batbvat qvfchgr va gur fgbel, naq V'z dhvgr rkpvgrq gb svaq bhg gur nafjre.

<comment><USER12> ..english letter frequency table based remapping did not help me here (and that was the extent of my effort).. I'm beginning to think that this might have been one of those autoironic fourth wall story-narrative-mocking jokes! Did you just pull a Derrida on me?

(Thanks for the tvtropes article; it links to another one ([http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MinovskyPhysics](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MinovskyPhysics)) which mentions "Schild's ladder"; which makes their arguments ex vi termini pretty great!)

<comment><USER14> It's ROT-13, try this [http://web.forret.com/tools/rot13.asp](http://web.forret.com/tools/rot13.asp) \- and a nice way to obfuscate a spoiler.

<comment><USER12> Ah! I should have known better. ROT-13 for the win!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Prejudice takes many forms, and those who forget their own personal responsibility for the destructive effects of judgement, incur the final injustice. The people we choose to 'hate' and 'despise' \- for religious, political, industrial, or .. other .. reasons - end up being a part of the universe that we isolate ourselves from.

The universe is bigger than you. Get over it. Make friends. Prejudice against the lives of others is a little step closer to the grave.

<comment><USER16> Bravo. There's also something to be said for persuasion through friendship and tolerance. E pluribus unum and all that. There are many different textures in a good melting pot.

<comment><USER15> I imagine a world where the vast, arbitrary .. human .. distance between magic and science are embraced by the world at large, and not shunned by the ruling technocratic order. What if, in fact, we could discuss the vast magick order here on Earth so comfortably well that one day, we do it on the Moon?

I wonder if we will go to Mars with purely scientific purposes in mind? I hope not.

<comment><USER11> "We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together." -Terrence Mckenna

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This an interesting philosophical and liberal political essay he wrote: [http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/bb/babalon210.htm](http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/bb/babalon210.htm) .

If you skip some bits of mystical mumbo-jumbo, there is _a serious and very original take on liberal philosophy and politics in there!_

</comment><comment><USER18> From the summary it seems that Parsons was more one of the people involved in early rocketry rather than a central and driving figure. It is possible that this is much ado about nothing - the author of the book (as well as the person writing about the book) is using Parson's colorful personal life as titillation and is playing up their connection with the rocketry program to sell the book (Otherwise it's just a story about another eccentric bohemian in Pasadena).

</comment><comment><USER19> Parsons still has a crater on the moon named after him. Very interesting story though. I think Parsons is more renowned in occult circles than in scientific circles. His legacy remains in both.

</comment><comment><USER20> The article evokes some doubts - particularly statement "JPL... first government-sponsored rocket lab in history". According to article, that happened in "late 1930-s", but already in 1933 in USSR rocket groups GIRD and GDL were combined into a research institute.

A highly recommended "Ignition!" ([http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf](http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf)) - a history of liquid propellant research by John Clark briefly describes genesis of JPL, mentioning Malina and Theodor von Karman. According to that, GALCIT was "Malina's group" (if I remember correctly).

<comment><USER21> And the VFR funded by the Reichswehr in the early 30's

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's a shame really. Recording history shouldn't be motivated by politics and other peoples' sensibilities being offended. Regarding Aleister Crowley being 'The Wickedest Man on Earth', not even close. If you've ever read M. Scott Peck's 'People of the Lie', then you know what I mean.

<comment><USER23> That was a title Crowley took for himself, as he enjoyed being a notorious figure. His actual behavior, though, amounted to little more than being a sex maniac and saying blasphemous things during a much more socially conservative era. His 'autohagiography' makes for entertaining reading if you can get past the turgid Victorian prose.

As for Parsons, the Wired article is being a bit clickbaity. In the last paragraph: _Wired.co.uk contacted JPL and we asked whether Parsons had been written out of the history books. Historian Erik Conway said: "Jack Parsons is included in history books and other venues, and in fact, his role is discussed in the JPL-involved standard history, JPL and the American Space Program by Clayton R. Koppes. Parsons was one of the original founders of JPL. He was the team's chemist and developed the first castable solid propellant used to power aircraft."_

<comment><USER24> I agree, and I'd even upgrade your "a bit clickbaity" to "very clickbaity". I happen to work at JPL, and elements of the Parsons story are generally known to people at the lab. I just don't think they're that interesting. Certainly, complaining that the oddball philosophy of one of the four founders is not featured in the lab tour is ridiculous. People come on the lab tour to see robots and rockets, not to talk about occult side-interests.

If you want interesting side stories, how about Qian Xuesen, who was also one of the original handful of JPL founders, and who was hounded from his position and went on to found the Chinese rocket program. (Discussed on HN previously, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6905862](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6905862)). That's a historical figure who has actual significance, not just odd/occult tendencies.

The other interesting back story, besides Wehrner von Braun, is that of the principal founder of JPL, Theodore von Karman, who was a Hungarian Jew who left Europe in 1930. Von Karman was the first Director of JPL. Another founder with a back-story of considerable significance.

<comment><USER25> You and others have a good point about the title. We've edited it to take out the linkbait.

Great comment, too!

<comment><AUTHOR> As context for future readers, the submitted HN title was the same as the actual title of the article: "Occultist Father of Rocketry 'Written Out' of NASA'S History". Definitely link-bait, although unedited primary-source link- bait.

(dang: Leaving notes when changing titles is great, thanks!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There's another book about him, called Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons. Anyone read both books?

[http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Rockets-Occult-World- Parsons/dp/09...](http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Rockets-Occult-World- Parsons/dp/0922915970)

</comment><comment><USER22> Pascual Jordan, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics along with Dirac, Heisenberg, Pauli and Born had his name essentially written out of the history books because of his association with the Nazi party which really amounted to overlooking what the Nazis were doing and saying some positive comments about the Nazis. I don't like what Jordan did. Heisenberg is a less controversial figure which some people claimed had skeletons in his closet regarding the Nazi party. Nothing really came of it and Heisenberg's reputation has been untouched except a few still hold questions regarding his conduct. I'd like to know if this issue was ever cleared up. Heisenberg is still (rightly) remembered as a chief architect but Pascual Jordan whose contributions equal or exceed Pauli is almost entirely written out.

</comment><comment><USER27> In today's atheistic science culture I'm not even sure who is offended by this.

<comment><USER28> On the contrary, there's a certain thread of the skeptic movement that attacks anything that isn't "scientific" enough. It's basically a kind of fundamentalism. Fundie positivism?

<comment><USER29> Scientism?

<comment><USER30> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > "A lot of people would be shocked to find out that the space programme was > founded by a man who held orgies in his Pasadena mansion."

If we had to kick every eccentric out of science there wouldn't be anyone left to invent anything. Might as well write Newton out of the history books too for 30 years of failed attempts at alchemy and occult research.

<comment><USER32> Since Captain Kirk, people _expect_ space heroes to have vast sexual appetites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think people here were too quick to buy the OP theory that JP was "written out of NASA's history". Quoting the first comment on the article:

 _" Parsons was mentioned frequently in a recent JPL-produced documentary on the early days of the space age and the founding of the Lab. And, his name sits on engraved plaque in a central area of JPL that commemorates all the members of the "suicide squad" involved in the first rocket test firing. I suppose your headline makes sense seeing as he died several years before NASA was founded so he may not be in a NASA history book. But wrong to say he's written out of JPL's early history."_

Blame someone of our present time for some misbehave must generate more clicks than just pointing out how prejudice harmed someone's carreer on government decades ago, which seems to be the real story here. Good that the HN title was edited for a less sensationalist one.

</comment><comment><USER34> 1000$ around 1940 are about 17000$ today. I don't know what the point of converting them to today's British pounds is.

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1000%20usd%201940](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1000%20usd%201940)

<comment><USER35> This is from wired.co.uk, it's expected that readers know pounds better than dollars.

<comment><USER34> My point was that they should have converted from 1940 dollars, not today's.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The first time I heard about this kind of stuff when I was searching 'Aleister Crowley' in Google but hit Jet Propulsion Lab in the following story:

[http://io9.com/5978746/the-strangely-true-connection- between...](http://io9.com/5978746/the-strangely-true-connection-between- scientology-the-jet-propulsion-lab-and-pagan-sorcery)

</comment><comment><USER37> It's fascinating how scientology was formed out of Hubbard stealing his wife, scamming him out of money... and then his ex wife and hubbard founded scientology - using a bastardized version of Thelema as a means to control and bilk money out of 'thin' personalities that are looking for help and validation. Quite a use of the occult!

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands >>> "A lot of people would be shocked to find out that the space programme was founded by a man who held orgies in his Pasadena mansion."

Still wondering how the heck that would ever find its way into an academic book about NASA or the JPL considering how people are up in arms about anything that goes into text books these days.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder why Wired magazine has been wading into "deep politics" more and more recently. I mean the German and Occult underpinnings of NASA is a significant can of worms for a publication with a mainstream readership to be opening.

<comment><USER38> In fairness, Parsons's occult history isn't particularly new, shocking, or politically dangerous ground in 2014.

It's not mainstream knowledge, by any means. And I'm sure a lot of folks are reading about it in Wired for the first time. But Parsons's backstory has been covered pretty extensively -- most recently as a significant side chapter (or two) in "Going Clear," the NYT-bestselling book about L Ron Hubbard and Scientology. Prior to that, Parsons figured prominently into "Barefaced Messiah," another Scientology history, written in the late 1980s.

For the record, "Going Clear" and "Barefaced Messiah" are fascinating reads. I recommend them. It's unfortunate that Parsons, a man of legitimate and numerous accomplishments, has been so thoroughly overshadowed by the con artist L Ron Hubbard. But Hubbard had a much better knack for publicity.

<comment><USER24> Prior discussions of the Parsons story are not confined to Scientology history.

It was covered (in 2 or 3 pages IIRC) in Mike Davis's 1990 book "City of Quartz". This book was widely reviewed and widely discussed, and was re-issued a couple of years ago.

That's where I first read the Parsons story, and I've seen it a few times since then.

<comment><USER38> _" Prior discussions of the Parsons story are not confined to Scientology history."_

True. I'm just pointing it out because it's a big vector by which a lot of mainstream audiences are likely to have discovered Parsons and his extracurricular activities. Especially in recent years, with "Going Clear" coming out and hitting the charts. My point was mostly that this stuff is not fresh scandal, hot off the presses.

<comment><USER24> Sorry if I did not convey that I was not correcting, just supplementing what you said. I already upvoted your comment FWIW.

<comment><USER38> Oh, it's all good. I upvoted yours, as well. :) I have a tendency to respond with supplemental information to a lot of my replies, and from time to time, it can come across as defensive. It's not meant to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Has nobody here read "Gravity's Rainbow"?

Love and rockets, indeed.

<comment><USER21> Reading GR gave me a chance to be ultra geeky one evening in one of my fluids classes by correctly identifying a lump of crumpled metal as an A4 fuel pump.

I went to college in Bedford which is next door to an RAE R&D station where they brought back captured Nazi tech – and half the course worked at twinwoods.

Though I never got to go round the black museum at Cranfield where they had loads of v2 bits - I did see the sad TSR2 they had there though

<comment><USER39> That's what I'm talking about. That's the good stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> >> "When you think about scientists, you don't think of them as necessarily being fun or having a creative side..."

Jeez, speak for yourself.

<comment><USER41> Really! They don't watch 3rd Rock?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now I'm waiting for Parsons to appear in one of Charles Stross's novels.

(Also waiting for cstross to appear in this thread.)

</comment><comment><USER42> Am I the only one who's annoyed by the author's inappropriate use of the plural possessive apostrophe?

s/Parsons'/Parsons's/g

<comment> mike-cardwell Why is it inappropriate? That's the correct usage isn't it? Bare in mind this is a UK website...</comment></comment>


Quantcast File System on S3 - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantcast.com/blog/quantcast-file-system-on-amazon-s3/?source=hn <comment><AUTHOR> For some context:

Quantcast moved off Hadoop in favor of a home-rolled solution (QFS) because of Hadoop wasn't scaling well to our needs (40PB+ data processed/day).

This release of QFS ([https://github.com/quantcast/qfs](https://github.com/quantcast/qfs)) includes support for S3, among other improvements.

<comment><USER2> I wonder how it compares/relates to [https://minio.io](https://minio.io)

Can it run on minio, for example?

<comment><USER3> One difference I see is that QFS is block-based and each file is composed of multiple S3 objects. Hence, there is no file size limit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi, we recently announced Quantcast File System version 1.2. Besides many bug fixes and improvements, it comes with the ability to use Amazon S3 as a backend store. You can check it out on QFS Github. I personally contributed to this release, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thanks.</comment>


Interstellar Movie - Teaser Trailer - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyc6RJEEe0U

<comment><USER2> "We've always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments, these moments when we dared to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that. And perhaps we've just forgotten that we are still pioneers and we've barely begun. And that are greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, as our destiny lies above us."

</comment><comment><USER3> This time Palmer Joss goes through the wormhole?</comment>


The irrelevance of Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2013/7/20/the-irrelevance-of-microsoft <comment><USER2> Here we go again. The same story on how PCs are dead and will be replaced by tablets and smartphones and Google Glasses. Never mind there is a sizable amount of people who need huge screens for what they do everyday, who need a mouse to do proper work, who play high end games in Full HD and full details with graphics cards that consume more watts that you can ever hope your whole ipad10 to use, and you'll see this story is seriously outdated.

PC sales may go down. A bit. So what? The PC will not die. You're just looking at a more fragmented market. End of story.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but that doesn't guarantee Microsoft's relevance in that space. I still have a feeling that many of MS's cash cow products in many cases could easily be replaced by FOSS, and increased irrelevance on other platforms could make things suddenly swing that way. Though I guess I'm kinda talking about the year of the Linux Desktop here, so yeah...

<comment><USER2> Totally agree with you, but the article was clearly mentioning Microsoft is losing relevancy because the PC is dying... which is not the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think this article is claiming the PC is dead or that there's no need for anyone to do work at their desks using keyboards and large monitors. No, the irrelevance of Microsoft is they no longer _influence_ the market. They are no longer perceived to be the leaders of change. This is quite different from the height of their influence in the 90's.

</comment><comment><USER5> Microsoft's share of connected devices will continue to drop as connected home appliances become ubiquitous. I'm sure what this number proves. How about Microsoft's share of computing power, say n connected devices x m processing power. I'm sure Microsoft dominates in a world full of under powered "smart" phones.

</comment><comment><USER6> Saying Microsoft is dead is a bit like saying working at a desk is dead. Habits change, but neither the desk nor Microsoft is going away any-time soon.

<comment><USER7> They'll be around longer than me no doubt. The default OS on a PC will be Windows for many years to come, but that won't last forever, and obviously the percentage of sales of traditional PCs to all other consumer computing devices will decline. Their other businesses may or may not thrive.

But to address the title literally, the relevance of Microsoft to me is about the same as the relevance of General Electric to me. I just don't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> PC division != Microsoft

MS will do just fine.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, I want to agree with other commenters here, but the way I see the PC market is similar to a bicycle: accelerate or fall to the ground. PCs are an absolute necessity for maybe 20-30% of the consumer population. Whereas until now a household of 7 people would require 5-6 PCs, it's getting to the point of only needing one or two, and then only occasionally. This is, I believe, the fundamental driver behind the weak PC market.</comment>


Robotic suit gives shipyard workers super strength - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329803.900-robotic-suit-gives-shipyard-workers-super-strength.html#.U-BDDYBdWyt <comment><USER2> It does not take super strength to lift 30kg.

</comment><comment><USER3> flagged it because its a duplicate of a story on front page

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd found one story that linked to another that linked to this one. I think _this_ is the original.

<comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133808](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8133808) was created hours ago and points to

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329803.900-robotic-s...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329803.900-robotic- suit-gives-shipyard-workers-super-strength.html#.U9_rW_ldVu0)

while yours points to [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329803.900-robotic-s...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329803.900-robotic- suit-gives-shipyard-workers-super-strength.html#.U-BSz4BdVQa)

same link with different named anchors. regardless they resolve to same story on same website</comment></comment></comment>


Standing Out at Dev Bootcamp - <AUTHOR> http://catgrena.de/careers/2013/10/15/standing-out-from-the-crowd.html

<comment><USER2> I don't have any interest in "coding socially" for the same reason that I don't like attending meet-ups and office parties.

I am dismayed at the fact that what used to be a good choice of a career for nerdy and introverted people, where you could surround yourself by technical problems and be left alone to it - has been high-jacked and turned into yet another social networking competition.

Apparently to have a chance at getting a job nowadays I need to have a github profile, contribute to foss, write a blog and speak at the user groups.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think that's entirely true that you need all of those things to get hired. Your resume still speaks volumes about you. It's just that things like github and stack overflow show an interest in engaging in the larger community of software development, and are a strong signal when evaluating a candidate. Having been on both sides of the table it's important to remember that the person hiring you is taking just as much of a chance on you being the right fit. I think anything makes that decision clearer is a positive.

<comment><USER2> I've encountered a number of studies using randomly put together groups which are rewarded based on performance of some task - organically select a leader based on display of confidence, rather than competence.

I reason that it is not uncommon to assume competence from an extroverted person. I can't really argue with that, it's a fact, use whatever card you got dealt to get ahead.

I am just bemoaning the fact that slowly but surely the field becomes skewed towards that, losing a good amount of original core values in the process.

Hasn't something similar already happened to academia for example?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've attended almost every hiring day at DevBootcamp Chicago and I almost always ignore the actual "product" the teams build

As we are there to hire entry level Rails devs from this program I tend to listen for and ask questions around

1 - The technical challenges they faced

2 - How did they solve the technical challenges

3 - What weren't they able to solve some of them and why

4 - What open source technologies and platforms did they embrace, and why

5 - How did they work together to build the software

6 - What testing (if any) did they do, and why?

I'm actually not a fan of the "hackathon" format for presenting the graduating class.

IMO

</comment><comment><USER4> This is somewhat minor, and a bit tangential to the article, but worth noting nonetheless.

The title on HN is misleading. Dev Bootcamp is a company whose name in the general sense is being used to refer to similar learn-to-code schools ("dev bootcamps"). This article refers to one of the latter, but does not identify as having to do with the Dev Bootcamp.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. My capitalization of the title conveyed some meaning other than what was intended.</comment></comment>


You appear to be advocating a new JavaScript framework. - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/6040f05f8a93

<comment><USER2> I'd like to think Angular 2 will be well received, even if we are probably checking off more than a few of these boxes (not that AngularJS 1.x doesn't, though)</comment>


Unlocking the iPhone (with instructions) - <AUTHOR> http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/ the blog of teanager George Hotz, with the instructions to unlock the iPhone
<comment><AUTHOR> what our lives would be without hackers I wonder?!</comment>


How Much Science Is in the Constitution? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/how-much-science-is-in-the-constitution

<comment><USER2> Nautilus articles are usually okay, but this is literally a facebook quiz. No content loads unless you permit Facebook Connect to load an externally hosted quiz from PlayBuzz.

<comment><USER3> I totally agree with you. Normally, I enjoy some content from this site but didn't really expect this type of thing to get up voted to the fp.The only reason I frequent HN is to get away from non-intellectualy stimulating content like this.

<comment><USER3> Although my view is indeed bias for I associate trivias with popular sites like buzzfeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dark Matter and Energy are the phlogiston and luminiferous aether of our times.</comment>


Dramatic improvement in surface finishing of 3-D printing - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/11202.html <comment><USER2> abbreviated blogspam of:

[https://www.waseda.jp/top/en-news/49368](https://www.waseda.jp/top/en- news/49368)

The original has more graphics and text.</comment>


Phil Haack is leaving Microsoft - will all the remaining coolness go with him? - <AUTHOR> http://haacked.com/archive/2011/11/28/departing-microsoft.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+haacked+%28you%27ve+been+HAACKED%29

<comment><USER2> Per the site guidelines, please do not editorialize titles. Flagged</comment>


Libra Core - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/libra/libra <comment><USER2> Good to see another big one embracing Rust.

Interesting to note that their smart-contract language _Move_ [1] also _borrows_ from Rust:

 _> Move's bytecode verifier uses a "borrow checking" scheme similar to Rust to ensure that at most one mutable reference to a value exists at any point in time._

[1]: [https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra- move-a...](https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-move-a- language-with-programmable-resources.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Another surprise from IO was that the new ChromeOS sandbox infrastructure is written in Rust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What I still don't see here is a compelling use case which would make a critical mass of users say "this is demonstrably better for me than the existing payments system." All I see from my perspective as a potential user is I can do what I can already do with dollars except I lose the interest on the deposits I make to buy Libra.

<comment><USER5> I can see a use case.

I'm Whatsapp-ing my son who is a student, and he tells me he needs money. A button pops up onto the screen saying "Give Michael $50".

I click the button and the transaction is done.

With our marketing hats on we like to talk about what we can do with "one click".

I've personally never seen a one click system in my life - this could actually be one, and for one of the most fundamental and valuable human activities - paying someone.

<comment><USER6> > A button pops up onto the screen saying "Give Michael $50".

You don't need a cryptocurrency for that...

<comment><USER5> Nope you don't, it's just a tool allowing the world's biggest Bank ever to open its doors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When you consider that

1\. validators are hand picked 2\. "To execute transactions, each validator must know the global state of the latest version of the blockchain's distributed database."

it looks like blockchain doesn't offer much additional value over a few replicated Postgres databases.

</comment><comment><USER8> I can't wait for the new wave of spam that tells me that they have access to my Linux computer using Outlook, or RDP, and that all I need to do for them to not release my d* pics is to send them some Libra Coins. Since FB will make it easy for everyone to get the coins, "hackers" will no longer have to explain how to get bitcoins.

</comment><comment><USER9> Will FB dogfood it by paying their employees in Libra?

<comment><USER10> According to this news report, [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/05/facebook- cryptocurrency-comi...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/05/facebook- cryptocurrency-coming-in-june-report.html) yes some employees will be paid in company scrip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We are heading to a world where the US Federal Reserve is preparing people for the idea of negative interest rates in the next recession (see [https://www.frbsf.org/economic- research/publications/economi...](https://www.frbsf.org/economic- research/publications/economic-letter/2019/february/how-much-could-negative- rates-have-helped-recovery/))

The "vig" for supporters of Libra seems to be that they capture the interest on money used to purchase Libra. In a negative interest rate world that breaks down. Moreover if the Fed wants to have meaningful negative interest rates you need to impose a haircut on non-bank deposits (i.e., cash or crypto) to avoid hoarding.

I am curious how this platform incorporates the possibility of a negative interest rate environment.

</comment><comment><USER11> So, how is this: Store money in Bitcoin, and when it needs to be sent, change to Libra and send?

</comment><comment><USER12> It seems like it has the table-stakes features without anything new. And certainly not anything ethereum or a handful of other crypto's don't already offer.

<comment><USER13> They're capitalizing on existing concenpts, there's hardly any innovation here. The only novelty factor is that now you can run smart contracts on a stable coin, which is not possible with the existing stable coins in the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> As far as I can see, the inclusion of a turing complete gas limited language makes it possible to do some of the things you can do with ethereum: Creating your own tokens, possibly creating a distributed exchange / order book. But only much faster and presumedly cheaper since blockchain is kept only on a few nodes and there is no expensive proof of work. Will be fun to see what comes of this.

<comment><USER15> Looks like its not a blockchain at all, there is no Proof-of-Work or Proof-of- Stake, instead validators. Skimmed over documentation, consensus protocol seems to be BFT, like Stellar (XLM). So, they did not even innovate anything in cryptocurrency space. Just re-write, re-implement, re-hash old ideas with their name on it.

So not really distributed, just slightly decentralized. Zuckerercoin.

<comment><USER14> What matters is the implementation; if they can put the following together:

\- Fully programmable smart contracts

\- Fast cheap transactions

\- Easy onboarding

\- Default support for fiat currencies

\- Nice end-user interfaces

Plus a strong push to their existing user base and a number of established businesses.

<comment><USER14> But it will be fun to see what comes out of this and what is allowed. I for sure look forward to create a ponzicoin and a casino that my mum easily can use ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If there's any truth behind the stories of Bitcoin seeing widespread use (purchased, not mined using subsidized electricity) as a store of value in countries in the grips of hyper-inflation, surely a coin which is pegged to a basket of currencies and easily purchased through the Facebook messenger app would see even greater adoption.

That said, I absolutely hate the idea of Facebook as a fintech platform and really don't look forward to being forced to maintain an account just to easily send/receive money once the network effects take hold.

</comment><comment><USER17> If I'm not wrong giving a quick read to the website is like a FIAT currency, but instead of a Country Government is backed and controlled by a network of private independent (and sometime competitors) corporations. May not be a bad idea but can degenerate to a centralized currency if the controlling corporations shrink in number.

<comment><USER18> This is already centralized.

The governance and distribution is hand picked.

<comment><USER19> This

And they don't even mention the assets or government/banks chosen for backing, just "highly liquid".

So much for transparency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Honestly. This looks like a major contribution to the cryptocurrency space. I am impressed.

<comment><USER20> There's literally not a single innovation or contribution here. I just skimmed through the paper and there's not a thing there. It's a cut and paste from existing concepts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not sure how they're going to overcome KYC/AML.

<comment><USER22> You're asking how Facebook, the largest surveillance machine in the history of mankind, is going to avoid Know Your Customer?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> oof, Libra translates to Pound(£). Imagine the confusion.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, a bit annoying given that Facebook must have been aware and they could have changed a single letter somewhere to avoid it.

But I guess they assumed that languages are pretty good at dealing with this sort of thing, and we'll end up with something like Libras Británicas and Libras Electrónicas/Libras de Facebook. Or better yet, Libras Falsas

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't trust FB with anything. They've been banning various groups, including conservatives. Why would I risk my money with them? I don't want to one day discover I can't pay because I made some comment online that disagrees with their politics.</comment>


Construkts – 3d edu-game – match electronic 3d block config in physical world - <AUTHOR> http://www.construkts.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting presentation at Flywheel in Winston Salem NC by CEO, Pamela Jennings. She also is the new director at the Center for Design and Innovation in WS.</comment>


Show HN: HireFrames – Notepads to draw your wireframes by hand - <AUTHOR> https://hireframes.com/?ref=hn <comment><AUTHOR> I was never any good at creating high resolution mockups before starting any development work, but I could always draw out which screens I needed for my apps.

I had the idea to create notepads with mobile and browsers that I could use to draw my wireframes. Then I had the idea to send those over to designers for high resolution mockups.

I'm excited to announce that I spent the last week turning this idea into a service. Let me know your thoughts!</comment>


How to sell a website? - <AUTHOR> http://www.kreci.net/website-flipping/how-to-sell-a-website/How to sell a website?

<comment><USER2> Funny, the I was on flippa.com for 2 hours today. I use the site to study how "repeat sellers" create hughly successful sites in a matter of months. I followed a tip from Glen Allsopp on seomoz.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually you've got those two mixed up.

Flippa is the old SitePoint site marketplace (they still keep a marketplace on SP, but not with any site): <http://flippa.com/about>

And DigitalPoint just uses their own forums: <http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=52>

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right - I mixed the names. Just fixed :) Thanks for noticing it :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here are two most trusted places to sell a website.

</comment><comment><USER4> I _am_ a dump person!

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> thanks article seems to be fine, but the 2 marketplaces are boon for me. I didn't even knew these existed. Cheers....

<comment><AUTHOR> They not only exist but have a lot of visitors - so these are great places for selling your website :)</comment></comment>


Google announces Accelerated Mobile Pages for faster open mobile web - <AUTHOR> https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/introducing-accelerated-mobile-pages.html <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting move by Google, this is clearly to combat against the Instant Articles that Facebook released.

Looking at the setup, it seems its just lightweight HTML pages for the articles but hosted by Google instead and the first 3 or so are preloaded.

Here's the page for NY Times article: [https://amp.gstatic.com/v/mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/us/r...](https://amp.gstatic.com/v/mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/us/reassurances- end-in-flint-after-months-of-concern.amp.html?amp_js_v=0)

Honestly though any simple HTML page like this will load fast (see: HN) so publishers could've just done this the whole time and everyone would have fast loading pages.</comment>