How the DEA took a young man's life savings without charging him with a crime - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/11/how-the-dea-took-a-young-mans-life-savings-without-ever-charging-him-of-a-crime/ <comment><USER3> While civil forfeiture is scary, my (very very brief) stint doing criminal law as a public defender showed me that there's also a bigger side of this -- seizing the assets of individuals who are charged with a crime so that they cannot attain private counsel, make bail, or receive any creature comforts while incarcerated. What will generally happen is that after sitting in jail for 120+ days, they'll jump at any opportunity to be released; that includes a plea agreement that includes no more jail time, but, generally also includes more financial obligations (probation, fine, license reinstatement) against the defendant.

We've moved away from a society where the police were there to truly protect and serve the community (think 1950's/60's beat cop walking the blocks during his shift) to a totalitarian police state (constant erosion of the 4th amendment, nexus centers, sweeping overreaches of the third party doctrine, stingrays, and mass deployment of license plate scanners). Big Brother would be proud.

<comment><USER4> I am concerned that by calling it "civil forfeiture" this article is using language to mask a very basic crime.

What was described in this article is called stealing or theft. To call it anything else is to mask and downplay what was done to this man. It is to enable the very act that was committed.

George Carlin observed this as a dangerous trend in our language: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc)

Call it "civil forfeiture" once if you have to (perhaps as a footnote). But to repeatedly use such "soft language" is to delay an end to such injustice.

<comment><USER5> Civil forfeiture isn't "soft language", it's a precise legal term. You may not agree with the principle (I certainly don't), but calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with taxation.

<comment><USER4> > _Civil forfeiture isn 't "soft language", it's a precise legal term._

It is both.

> _calling it theft is no different from a libertarian doing the same with > taxation._

Taxation today is theft.

<comment><USER6> Taxation isn't theft.

Taxation is you paying the bill you've incurred for living in this country. You've lived here, gotten some benefit from the services the government provides, and when the bill comes you start saying "theft!! theft!!!"?

The anti-tax crowd is the biggest bunch of moochers and freeloaders this side of Wall Street. They're just out for a free ride, leaving the rest of us to pay for it.

<comment><USER4> Stereotypes and ad hominem don't help the conversation.

I am not "anti-tax". I think taxation is a good idea as it helps a community re-invest in itself. I am anti-theft.

Saying today's taxation is not theft won't change the reality that it is. Nor will downvoting this post change that reality. In fact, barring a change in the definition of the word, there is not a single action in this universe that can change the reality that taking something that belongs to someone else without their permission is theft.

<comment><USER6> You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here.

Taxes aren't theft any more than the check at the end of a restaurant meal is theft.

In both cases, you agree to pay something in exchange for something (a meal, a functioning government, etc).

<comment><USER4> > _You agree to pay taxes by continuing to live here._

If we were free to move to a country where we agreed with the laws you might be right. That's not reality though.

We are not (currently) free to choose how we pay taxes in any country and our freedom to move from one country to another is restricted.

So, sorry, I never agreed to pay these taxes, I have little say in how they're used, and I have no alternatives except to go to prison. That's not freedom. That's simply coercion and theft.

<comment><USER6> You are free to move to another country. The fact that no other country meets your very specific requirements doesn't mean that you are not obligated to pay for living in this one.

If no automobile maker will sell you the exact car you want, that does not grant you the right to take a car without paying for it.

So, yes, you do agree to pay these taxes by continuing to live here.

<comment><USER4> > _You are free to move to another country._

Please explain how I can do that. I would actually like to move to Switzerland, could you explain how I can freely do that as everything I've researched indicates it's neither free nor possible in any reasonable amount of time. If not Switzerland I'll settle for some other country where I can live freely and be safe from coercion.

> _If no automobile maker will sell you the exact car you want..._

Nobody is forcing me to buy the car with the threat of prison if I don't, and I do not need a car to survive. I do need to live someplace however.

<comment><USER6> You can leave the U.S. whenever you want. The U.S. isn't restricting your ability to leave.

If the country of your choice doesn't permit you to emigrate, that doesn't mean that you're suddenly free from your obligations to whatever country will host you.

Wouldn't that be convenient? "Sir, I don't have to pay taxes. I want to move to Switzerland, but they're full right now, so I can't."

(And the "threat of prison" is some of the dumbest hyperbole out of the antitax crowd--for nearly all cases, they'll simply garnish your wages, or something equally non-freedom-constraining.)

<comment><USER4> It doesn't help if all other countries both severely restrict entry and/or force a tax upon you. I'd just end up in the same exact situation.

> _And the "threat of prison" is some of the dumbest hyperbole..._

It's not hyperbole. If you willfully fail to file that's grounds for imprisonment:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/terrible-things-that-could- ha...](http://www.businessinsider.com/terrible-things-that-could-happen-if- you-dont-do-your-taxes-2014-4)

You're probably thinking of cases when people "forget" or make "mistakes" in their filing.

> _...out of the antitax crowd_

I mentioned this already, I am not anti-tax. Please cut it with the labeling. It's late. We're going in circles. Have a good night, I won't be replying to whatever you post next.

<comment><USER6> Fine, you're not antitax. You're just engaging in a lengthy thread debate using their common arguments. I stand by my statement w.r.t. the antitax crowd.

And again, whether _all other countries_ do not meet your preference or requirement does not free you from your obligations to this one, as long as you live here.

Whether other countries don't allow you in, don't allow you to stay, don't govern the way you like, or whatever other complaint you may have about other countries, that does not change your present-day relationship to this one: that you live here, and as such are obligated to pay taxes as long as you do.

And of course there are, right now, many other countries that you could emigrate to if you liked. Even if your A-list countries aren't open, you still have lots of options.

<comment><USER7> My hat is off to Frondo and notahacker. I've occasionally (regrettably, foolishly) tried to argue it out with the "taxation is theft" folks, and this is the first time I've seen one of them actually give up from exhaustion. I'm sure he'll recharge and come back tomorrow once he looks up the next argument in his playbook, but even temporary victories must be savored.

Sorry, itistoday2, I'm sure you're a nice person in person, but the argument you're making is obnoxious. Have you noticed how people get really annoyed when you make it? It's not because it's a good argument!

<comment><USER8> > Have you noticed how people get really annoyed when you make it? It's not > because it's a good argument!

People also used to get annoyed when people said the Earth wasn't the center of the solar system.

<comment><USER9> They laughed at Galileo, they laughed at Einstein, and they laughed at Bozo the Clown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Civil forfeiture rules are disgusting. Sadly there are plenty of stories out there like this, people have lost their homes, cars and livelihoods because of these draconian laws around asset forfeiture.

The circumstances under which your property can be taken are incredibly overreaching and unfair. There have been situations where people have had their homes taken away for ridiculous situations like this one: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/08/26/p...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/08/26/philadelphia- civil-forfeiture-class-action-lawsuit/)

We need to get rid of these laws entirely or at the very least, make it a more fair playing field. The authorities should be expected to bring some evidence to the table, not assume guilty until proven innocence.

<comment><USER11> Honestly we're really lucky to have these asset forfeiture programs in place; money has been given a free reign for _far_ too long.

The DEA is looking out for our safety by implementing this well-intentioned protocol... If the government didn't, who _would_ hold our money accountable for the criminal behavior it's been involved in? Just look at the facts... almost 80% of bills have touched drugs! Appalling!

And they're transparent about the process--they put that filthy money on trial even though _it keeps refusing to talk_. Enough 'shock and awe' from our DA's and I know we'll get there eventually... We need harsher sentencing guidelines!!

[United States vs. $1,058.00 of U.S. Currency]([https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-105800-in-us- curre...](https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-105800-in-us-currency))

I certainly sleep better at night knowing that the currency loitering in my pocket doesn't get a pass on its delinquent past just because it's an inanimate object...

<comment><USER12> >> The DEA is looking out for our safety by implementing this well-intentioned protocol

Criminals have a large body of very smart people working for them to develop new creative ways or hiding money flows across different legal entities and different jurisdictions. These people don't travel with cash. You won't even find out their names.

These laws don't help with serious offenders just catch some small fish on occasion and also terrorize ordinary innocent people.

<comment><USER11> Very true, and actually you touched on something really interesting--when a government attempts to regulate social behavior that _cannot_ be regulated (e.g. drugs, morals, thought, etc.) you see this dynamic take over.

In the case of black markets, yes, there is a great deal of obfuscation, however on a civil level and in business with the tax code it essentially creates an "arms race of precedent" in the courts, wherein those with capital exploit loopholes in the legal system to establish new precedents that can circumvent any spirit of the law for decades to come. In most cases I see this as a positive thing, but when state and federal prosecutors use this against civilians, it can have some truly ridiculous outcomes.

Speaking to your comment about the black market specifically, though, I raised this concern when Obama signed that executive notice last month pertaining to individuals on the SDN list--as a hypothetical, if someone on that list were to have a criminal enterprise, and if that criminal enterprise was using a legitimate merchant processing account to obfuscate funds (as per your "ways of hiding money"), then ANYONE who had ever processed a credit-card transaction with that account would be liable to have their assets frozen indefinitely and with impunity by the US government.

Dangerous precedent indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When the Heritage Foundation[1] and the ACLU [2] are both against it, you know it's really bad.

[1] [http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/03/civil- asset...](http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/03/civil-asset- forfeiture-7-things-you-should-know) [2] [https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming- po...](https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police- practices/asset-forfeiture-abuse)

<comment><USER14> They're often on the same side of domestic policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've heard this sort of thing happening in Third World countries. Perhaps the US is - for all its advanced technology and creature comforts - <USER2> now a Third World kleptocracy. Silicon Valley and Manhattan are like Dubai - gaudy showcases that don't represent the true nature of the hinterland. I would be very wary about working in Dubai; I would be equally wary about working and living in the US for the same reasons.

<comment><USER16> The US still ranks among the best nations on earth when it comes to low corruption in fact.

The civil forfeitures problem is non-trivial, but you're drastically exaggerating. The whole of the US has a very highly functional, low-corruption judiciary system, and a mostly still intact and strong property rights system.

Most of America is low crime, low corruption, the opposite of what you're implying. In fact it's because of that, that most Americans are unaware of what organizations like the DEA are doing.

The US is less corrupt than France for example:

[https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results](https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results)

<comment><USER17> > The US is less corrupt than France for example

Careful there. The Transparency International page you link to is the _perception_ index.

It measures what a set of people _perceives corruption to be like_ in each country, and composits results from a number of different surveys in a way that as far as I know is not benchmarked against other data to verify if survey results actually matches reality.

You can not use it as a measure of how corrupt a country actually is. It's likely that it's an indicator when the numbers are very far apart, or that it can be used to spot trends in a country over time, but the relatively small difference between France and the US seems unlikely to be sufficient to draw any conclusions.

<comment> baku-fr Furthermore, we French people are much more pessimistic than people in the US. Thinking that the politicians are just one corrupted kind is almost a national sport.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Related: If you haven't seen John Oliver's segment on civil asset forfeiture, you should really check it out - [https://youtu.be/3kEpZWGgJks](https://youtu.be/3kEpZWGgJks)

<comment><USER19> That was great. I'm going to have to start watching LWT regularly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It is amazing that Americans allow this sort of thing then say they are a world leader in personal liberty.

<comment><USER16> The scale of the civil forfeitures industry has increased drastically in the last 15 to 20 years. Most Americans are not yet aware of how large it has become, because it affects a relatively small percentage of people, and only in the last few years have the major news outlets begun to write about it (eg NY Times or Washington Post).

When you have a country of 330 million people as large geographically as the US, it's very difficult as a citizen in one state, to be aware of what a national agency (the DEA) is doing across the entire nation, unless the national news outlets are writing about it.

While a typical American is going about their day to day life, living a local life (some town, in some county, in some state), the world's largest, most powerful federal / national government is aggressively attempting to undermine them in hundreds of ways large and small.

The US has a federal government that is financially the size of the entire economy of Germany, doing nothing but passing more laws, economic regulations, taxes, et al. to strangle liberty as much as they can and increase their power. There is very little else they do, or need to do. What does a beast that large do? Protect itself, entrench its own interests, grab more money, write more laws - there is nothing else for it to do most of the time.

Try doing something about that, or even thinking about how you can stop it, if you're an average citizen. It boggles the mind. Oh yeah, while you're at it, deal with the fact that the US military (which the NSA belongs to) is now increasingly taking aim at the US domestic population, you know, the world's most powerful military with a $600 billion budget.

Now compare this situation to the complexity faced by, say, Finland (5.4 million people) in trying to reign in or adjust its government system. The US has something like 200,000 pages of federal regulations; try fixing that, while the vast dedicated law passing machine is busy passing thousands of new regulations.

It isn't going to stop expanding and over-reaching until it crashes, choking itself to death.

<comment><USER21> Civil asset forfeitures are like those towns in BFE that operate on ticket revenue - the situation rarely gets dealt with because the number of people getting tickets is an insignificant proportion of the voting population.

<comment><USER16> We're fortunate it has become, essentially, a national government scandal at this point, with perpetually wider awareness. The national media has taken to aggressively writing about it lately.

In this case I'm confident we're going to see the forfeiture racket neutered in the next few years. It seems to have finally gotten large enough to draw serious Congressional and White House scrutiny to stop it.

<comment><USER21> I hope you're right. I doubt it, but we'll see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "The DEA" didn't steal Joseph Rivers' life savings. Some particular DEA agents did. And the theft was OKed by various other federal employees, who knew (or should have known) that he was entirely innocent.

Two things come to mind. We can compensate Joseph for his loss through his gofundme campaign.[0] But we can also start naming the thieves. One of the accomplices is reportedly "Sean [R.] Waite, agent-in-charge of the DEA's Albuquerque office".[1] Who are the rest?

[0] [http://www.gofundme.com/u6e2mwc](http://www.gofundme.com/u6e2mwc)

[1] [http://www.freeabq.com/?p=1791](http://www.freeabq.com/?p=1791)

</comment><comment><USER23> One of the original cases establishing the third-party doctrine was US v. Miller (1976), where SCOTUS ruled that turning over deposit slips and checks to your bank removes your reasonable expectation of privacy. On the other hand, if you choose to opt out of using the banking system to avoid this, you'll need to use cash.

However, if you carry large amounts of cash, you're subject to warrantless seizure because of some sort of bizarre assumption that the only reason to opt out of the banking system is if you are a criminal.

<comment><USER24> This is an interesting point. If the only way to avoid submission of information to your bank is to forego banking services, then this is not a meaningful choice, and you're not giving up the information voluntarily.

It is analogous to the point a judge made in a case here: [http://fourthamendment.com/?p=10373](http://fourthamendment.com/?p=10373)

"The submission of prescription information to the PDMP is required by law. The only way to avoid submission of prescription information to the PDMP is to forgo medical treatment or to leave the state. This is not a meaningful choice."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> For all the Americans on HN, just be clear that the DEA is acting in our name. They represent us, and we are responsible for their actions. This and worse occurs every day, and will continue to until we get our elected representatives to stop it.

<comment><USER26> So do I vote for s Republicrat or a Republicrat? Or maybe s third party with no chance?

<comment><USER6> You know, I hear this attitude all the time. I think it reflects lazy thinking, and the conflation of cynicism and "cool".

Yes, money in politics is a corrupting influence, yes, neither major party gets it right on some big issues (like the size of our military and how ready we are to use it, how much wall street gets away with ripping us off, etc), but are they the same?

No, of course not. Had McCain won in 2008, think we'd be looking at something like McCainCare now? As imperfect as Obamacare is, it's a vast improvement over the old status quo, and not an issue the republicans were going to tackle in our lifetimes.

<comment><USER27> ObamaCare was pretty much the same thing as RomneyCare so yes, we'd probably have the same thing. Can we stop pretending there's a difference?

<comment><USER28> I didn't see McCain proposing RomneyCare, hell didn't see Romeny proposing RomneyCare. So no we would not have had the same thing.

<comment><USER27> Romney basically implemented Obamacare before Obamacare even existed in his own state. Had he won, he would have implemented it at the federal level. The only reason he was against Obamacare during the campaign was because he was running against Obama. ObamaCare by the way isn't that great, it's more of a kayak for private insurances than anything else and it benefits them more than anyone else, it's kind of yet another extra tax that benefits a few corporations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I heard a truly tragic story related to the civil forfeiture rule. Heard from a friend who heard from a friend.

The family hired an older lady (immigrant, but lived many years in US) who came to clean their house a few times a week. She shared that she had been divorced from her husband but in the process ended up with the house. Being retired with no income (and probably no pension of any kind other than social security which is not enough), she decided to rent a spare room to someone.

Guess what. The dude renting it turned out to be a drug dealer (or was it just getting caught smoking weed?). When HE was arrested, somehow the law enforcement (not sure if local PD or DEA) made a connection to HER house. The house was seized. This older lady ended up having to stay with friends and going around working as cleaning/care-taker. Because her house was suddenly taken away from her, she had no other means of supporting her later years in life.

When I first heard it, I was like WHAT<comment>? This was a few years ago.

And than I started reading about local PD seizing private property on minor charges.

<comment><USER30> The PD actually usually skips the charges. It is literally highway robbery: trooper pulls over a car, searches it, takes the money.

<comment><USER31> This is no different than paying bribes to third world police.

<comment> maze-le In fact it is...

I've been to Geogia, in the Caucasus-Mountains, not the southern US-State. There for example, it is common for Highway-Police to set up checkpoints, and if you are a foreigner, you can be sure to pay them some bucks, 25$, 50$, 100$ somewhere in that dimension. To be sure, this is 'illegal'... No one cares to stop the police from doing that though, but it is still illegal.

It is something entireley different, to always assume your car can be searched and all your cash can be stripped from you 'legally'....

<comment><USER29> I'd say the seizure by US police is worse. In 3rd countries, you usually decide how much to give to the corrupt police.

In these seizures in US, EVERY single dollar is taken away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is why we can never, ever trust the government to "do the right thing". They have a law that should be used against real criminals, and instead they use it against regular innocent citizens. This is disgusting, and guess what: it's going to happen time and time again whenever we give the government too much power over our lives. And yet, it's happening right now.

</comment><comment><USER33> As a potential tourist or traveller (I am not to be fair), I wouldn't risk travelling to the US. I'm not sure if there are actual tourists who feel the same, but I'm sure there are other avoiding the US.

<comment><USER34> Whenever I'm overseas I try to watch whatever local news is available, plus channels like BBC and Russia Today (yes, I know, not great, but RT is entertaining). The portrayal of the US on the news is so out of whack with reality that it's really kind of depressing. Reporting bad news out of the US seems to be a hobby of the world's media, as does misreporting our politics and social issues.

I've worked for foreign companies whose workers would come over for 6-12 months and would enjoy themselves here greatly. Plus, like any tech worker, I work with a lot of H1Bs and first generation immigrants who have very little negative to say about the US and are also quite happy with things. Anecdotal, I know, but so is what you're reading here and seeing in your media.

Anyways, I'm biased (obviously), and have probably written more than anyone cared to read, but I'd still recommend visiting someday. Avoid the urban centers (they don't differ much) and visit our national parks. Places like Yosemite [0] and the Grand Canyon [1] are breathtaking. For some of my former colleagues, just visiting places like Idaho or Utah, where they could be miles and miles away from the nearest person, was enjoyable, as that was something they could never experience back home (and those states are beautiful as well). And if you want to be really alone, visit Alaska.

[0] [http://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm](http://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm) [1] [http://www.nps.gov/grca/index.htm](http://www.nps.gov/grca/index.htm)

<comment><USER35> Your viewpoint is just very difficult to understand. You can't build a great nation on parks. The US has slid to mediocre rankings by many measures. We're #1 at hardly anything anymore. Except maybe the use of big foam fingers that claim we are. That degreades the quality of life here.

If we don't fix that stuff, it will be China's world sooner, while they are still a one-party authoritarian state, rather than later, to give their middle class time to express their political discontents.

And on top all that, hitting the update button multiple times because it didn't apparently do anything and then finding you have three copies of your post is a leading cause of desperate people turning to needle drugs.

<comment><USER34> There weren't three copies of my post. Maybe your browser puked on itself?

I wasn't talking about how great the nation is. I was discussing how it's a nice place to visit. It's like you read some other post, because I was simply saying the most interesting places to visit in the US may be the least populated.

Not in the mood to discuss various rankings and their issues. Completely unrelated to anything I wrote.

Have a good one.

<comment><USER35> No, that was me before I deleted them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder how one's refusal to speak with police, combined with the mounting judicial pressure against suspicionless searches would interact with cash seizure operations.

After all: '"We don't have to prove that the person is guilty," an Albuquerque DEA agent told the Journal. "It's that the money is presumed to be guilty."'

Would/do Federal rules governing asset forfeiture operations permit agents to use a search refusal as PC for a search of a person and their effects?

I understand that this discussion is largely an academic one. Realistically, if the officer _really_ wanted to search and was otherwise barred from executing a search, he would make a "My knowledge and training told me that he acted like a terrorist." claim in order to provide PC for the search.

<comment><USER37> By the way, what I find most heinous is the concept that the money is separate from its owner.

This is explicitly forbidden in the fourth amendment. Unless the money is evidence. (which it usually isn't.)

That judges allow this shows that the corruption is not just on the side of the police who are decking out their gin joints, but on the part of federal judges who are signing these warrants.

In my case (I had some assets held by a third party that were stolen in this way) the warrant had straight up lies in it used to justify the theft.... and worse, not only were they obvious lies, but in the weeks before the theft the very judge who signed it had been presented proof that they weren't lies in his court. (The third party was party of a lawsuit that the judge was hearing). So on one hand he knows the facts of the situation and on the other he signed an order based on a perjuruous warrant!

<comment><USER36> > ...the very judge who signed it had been presented proof that they weren't > lies in his court.

I... think you have an unfortunate typo here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> No one touched on it but what if "civil forfeiture" style of theft is being ignored all the way at the top since it helps push people from using cash to using credit and hence gives more power to the state and banks.

In the past in US gold was seized, now cash is being seized, seems to me like a trend to herd people into the system where banks and credit card companies can take a cut of everything + make things easier for IRS + make things easier for NSA as you be leaving a digital trail.

It is Orwellian beyond belief.

</comment><comment><USER30> Snap Judgment did a story this week about how the DEA will pressure child slave drug mules into becoming unpaid informants, and send them into large drug deals with armed cartel heavies, under threat of deportation, in exchange for fake promises of US citizenship.

</comment><comment><USER39> If the police continue to allow asset seizure eventually an enterprising politician and banker will find a way to seize police pensions. There will be no public outcry. Once you institutionalize theft at this level it doesn't stay put--it grows.

<comment><USER40> The banker or politician will never be affected by this, why would they try to upset the police unions?

<comment><USER39> Many US cities are near bankrupt and probably a lot more will be in the next ten years. There will be enormous political pressure to cut costs. One way to cut costs is to reduce pensions or fail to fulfill pension promises. I don't advocate this and in fact I think the police are being setup in some ways. By allowing some police to engage in what looks like theft the general public will be amenable to pension cuts in the future.

Just see Detroit as an example of our possible future.

<comment><USER40> I've never seen police unions on the chopping block. After the most recent crisis, teacher unions and other government worker unions were paraded around as needing to be fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I really think we need to start using the word "steal" in headlines like this. "How the DEA stole a young man's life savings..."

I remember when this was passed (yes I was alive way back in the Reagan era). I was astounded because I had just learned the concept of due process. I knew then that this was going to be bad, in fact, I was outraged then.

This policy is the one that is a litmus test for me. You can't claim government is legitimate and in the best interest if the people when you have its agents engaging in (literal) highway robbery.

The argument at the time was that this was supposed to be for drugs. The whole basis of the drug war was that _addiction_ is bad and thus to protect people, we need to get rid of drugs. OF course as the past century has shown this doesn't work (I'm including the prohibition era.)

But worse, it has twisted around and is now being used to cause suffering in people. Let me give you an example:

I went to the same high school as a guy who became an oncologist. Most of his patients were terminal. The DEA has decided that doctors giving terminally ill people drugs to relieve them of their pain is some sort of scourge on society... so they track how often they are prescribed... and then they average that and go after doctors who "over prescribe".

When they went after him-- he had a small practice-- they came in guns blazing, arrested everyone, stole all of his valuables, and his computers, stole the money from his bank and brokerage accounts. Stole the money his wife had. Stole the money his employees (most of whom were not wealthy.)

He was unable to afford a lawyer because they stole his money. Pre-trial they made many assertions and presented many documents he believe were dishonest or forgeries, but he could not prove it because they stole his computers and they were "accidentally damaged". They certainly weren't returning them.

They charged him and his wife, and told him that if they had to arrest his wife that she would be in jail as would he at lest a year before it came tot trial-- and so they'd place his kids with a permanent foster home.

But if he took their plea, he would get a reduced sentence (possibly it was probation, but It think it was 6 months in jail, plus probation) and they wouldn't charge his wife and employees.

Yes, they literally held his wife, kids and employees hostage (literally threatened if you want to be pedantic) unless he would admit to doing something illegal, even though he was just giving terminally ill people pain medication.

I think this whole affair is criminal, denying him adequate counsel by stealing his money, piling absurd charges on top of absurd charges to put others in jeopardy to manipulate him, it's all criminal.

He took the deal. His family was wiped out-- as part of the "deal" he gave up that money, and now the DEA is using it to buy toys for themselves... literally profiting from the crime. His family is in shambles because he can't practice medicine anymore.

Here's what's really absurd. The idea that terminally ill patients shouldn't be able to get take any drugs they want. Even if they risk overdose, it's a quality of life issue and effectively denying them is nothing short of torture. They shouldn't even need a doctors prescription. This is a fake crime created to exert control over the populace.

And you know what's worse?

Too many of the other people who went to this high school and knew him _thought he deserved it_... because obviously they wouldn't charge him if he weren't guilty.

How can I respect a government that practices this?

How can I respect Reagan who signed this into law? Or clinton who didn't try and repeal it? Or Bush who didn't either? Or Obama who not only did nothing, but had Joe Biden as his running mate?

How is this going to turn around? It's not until it starts getting painful. There are only a few ways to make things painful-- the ballot box is the preferred one but the two parties have that locked down with controlled nomination processes so no third party will have a chance.

Another is the bullet box and revolutions rarely turn out well... but they were the only method our founders could see to prevent exactly this situation. ("It's a republic... if you can keep it"... we've lost it.)

Finally is the soap box.

I'm getting off of mine now.

<comment><USER41> Thats horrifying. Please, if you haven't already, publish this somewhere. This is something that needs to be shared.

<comment><USER14> Radley Balko has written extensively about stories just like this one; look him up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> "Asset forfeiture is lucrative for the DEA. According to their latest notification of seized goods, updated Monday, agents have seized well over $38 million dollars' worth of cash and goods from people in the first few months of this year."

Umm... $38 million in three months works out to about 5% of the DEA's operating budget. If your revenue is 5% of your burn rate, that's not exactly lucrative.

This is money that, absent some form of corruption, benefits exactly no one, not even greedy shareholders or executives with tons of stock options. Let's be careful with our use of "lucrative".

<comment><USER21> The DEA isn't a company. They already get a budget from the treasury and shouldn't be behaving like a profit-making concern. "Lucrative" is the right word.

<comment><USER42> > The DEA isn't a company.

That's exactly my point. Not being a company, the notion of what is "lucrative" for the DEA is quite different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The basic problem is, as people have pointed out, euphemistic political language and moral relativism.

Asset forfeiture is theft. Taxation is theft. Imprisonment is kidnapping. War is killing. And so on.

They are not necessarily evil. It would not be evil for me to steal my neighbours' rifle if I knew he had nefarious plans. It is not evil to take money from a billionaire if he willingly allows the poor to starve otherwise.

But it is still theft.

Somehow people seem unwilling to use the basic, concrete, obvious terms and prefer intelligent-sounding euphemisms.

<comment><USER44> Both asset forfeiture and taxation are taking, but they are not "theft" because that is taking _in violation of law_. Lawful takings cannot be theft _by definition._ "Theft" is also not a concept that exists in the world outside our legal books and dictionaries. In the state of nature, everything is mine that I can take for myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I think we should repeal the civil forfeiture laws, but the article plays a little fast and loose with the law.

In a civil forfeiture, the government has the burden to show probable cause for the forfeiture, and in a contested proceeding has the burden to show that the assets are subject to forfeiture by a preponderance of the evidence.

The burden of proof does rest on the property owner for invoking the "innocent owner" defense, but that is narrower than it sounds. That defense is involved when, e.g. someone buys property with money that was given to them by someone who obtained it through illegal activity. The government still has to establish the money came from illegal activity, but the owner can assert that they did not know about and did not consent to the illegal activity.

</comment><comment><USER45> The important bit:

> he may have been singled out for a search because he was the only black > person on that part of the train.

<comment><USER46> The key part for me is right here -

"A DEA agent boarded the train at the Albuquerque Amtrak station and began asking various passengers, including Rivers, where they were going and why."

Yeah, no. We've already crossed into unacceptable police behavior right there. There's no reason to suspect me of a crime, so you don't get to question me. At all. Forget whether or not it's smart for me to answer it, it's wrong for the cop to be asking it. We, as a society, need to walk this all back starting right here at this point in the process.

The forfeiture itself is so clearly unconstitutional that I can't imagine how even a loose constructionist can twist it to make it ok. Much less someone like Thomas or Scalia. Ugh.

<comment><USER37> Not only that, but violating someone's 4th amendment rights is a crime, and in fact a felony under USC 18-242. That DEA agent (and every TSA agent, FWIW) belongs in jail for a long time.

What is it when the laws only apply to you but not the government? In this case the law is specific to people doing the violation "under color of law".

<comment><USER35> This is why the individuals involved in these acts need to have their names and faces splashed in the news, and their homes picketed by protesters, for starters.

Individual discretion, but with collective protection and anonymity. That's not going to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Stories like this show the 2nd Amendment defense of "it protects against tyrranical government" for the farce it is. Civil forfeiture isn't rare, and stories have been bubbling up for quite some time. Forget taxes, which actually go to providing you services, pretty much everyone can agree that 'civil forfeiture' is government agents stealing from the public, with no service offered in return. Where is the protection that 2nd Amendment is supposed to give from government?

</comment><comment><USER48> Why hasn't this been challenged in court? Seems like civil forfeiture violates the 4th amendment.

<comment><USER49> It doesn't violate the 4th amendment because, despite the inaccuracies in the article, you do get a trial and the government does have the burden of proof.

The DEA agent they are quoting is either ignorant or means that there is no due process before they seize the money in the first place.

But you do get the due process after the fact.

Most of the time there is no trial because the person they took the money from doesn't go back to claim it. Why? Because it was illegal money.

There probably should be some quick safeguards put in place to make sure the cops aren't just stealing cash for no reason forcing a court hearing to get it back. But the whole process is a lot less thieving that WAPO depicts.

<comment><USER50> > Most of the time there is no trial because the person they took the money > from doesn't go back to claim it. Why? Because it was illegal money.

"Georgia brought in $2.76 million in forfeitures; more than half the items taken were worth less than six hundred and fifty dollars" \-- [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken)

There's no trial because they go after tiny amounts, generally with no evidence of guilt, knowing that it won't be worth the owner's time to fight back.

Read that article I linked if you haven't already, it's quite extensive and well-researched. And then tell me that this is something other than straight- up highway robbery.

<comment><USER49> Ok I'll have to read it tomorrow, but I will since the New Yorker piece about the execution of an innocent man really changed my opinion on the death penalty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I'm sure that this is a valued asset in the fight against crime ...

... but as this story illustrates, it's so _shockingly_ immoral as to constitute robbery.

Shut it down.

<comment><USER37> I'm not aware of any instances where it was used to fight crime. Seriously, not one.

<comment><USER36> _shrug_ Several news orgs point to a DoJ study that finds that 20% of those hit by asset forfeiture end up charged with one or more crimes.

I agree that forfeiture is a tool that is currently widely abused. Its use should be tightly constrained, if not entirely eliminated. However, I cannot agree that forfeiture has _never_ been used to fight crime. Much like it's pretty clear that the NSA's dragnet _has_ swept up evidence of at least _one_ credible terror plot[0], it's pretty clear that at least _one_ instance of forfeiture use was in the service of crime elimination or punishment.

[0] Before you downvote, understand my stance. The NSA dragnet is reprehensible and clearly dangerous to the integrity of the Republic. However, the dragnet is so wide that it can't help but catch some of what the NSA is looking for. See what I'm getting at?

<comment><USER52> I see what you're getting at.

But I also am convinced that, would you present this on public television or anything with a similar broad distribution, you'd persuade many people to support civil forfeiture (or the NSA dragnet), _because_ _it 's_ _obviously_ _effective_ _against_ _crime_!

In the general public, only a minority seems to still be interested that means are somehow proportionate to the ends. THINK OF THE CHILDREN! INCARCERATE EVERYONE!

<comment><USER36> You're making an argument that I don't disagree with and that also doesn't address anything in my comment. :)

I was making a narrow statement that addressed MCRed's comment. My footnote was presented to make my position abundantly clear to all who would read my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> If this makes you as mad as it makes me, consider supporting the ACLU, which has been persistent in fighting it:

[https://www.aclu.org/search/civil%20forfeiture](https://www.aclu.org/search/civil%20forfeiture)

</comment><comment><USER54> Taking whatever from whoever you want for no reason and making it impossible to get it back sounds like improved version of USSR communism doctrine. The only difference back then people could steal some back to restore the faith. Good job USA!

</comment><comment><USER55> The USA, the biggest anti-advertisement for democracy. I can only imagine what could happen to the guy if he was not a Roman.. eh, sorry, US citizen.

</comment><comment><USER56> "You make it, we'll take it."

Thugs.

</comment><comment><USER57> Here's another example of civil forfeiture: [https://mises.org/blog/war-cash- destroys-small-entrepreneur](https://mises.org/blog/war-cash-destroys-small- entrepreneur)

</comment><comment><USER58> Solution: bitcoin.

<comment><USER59> Cause DPR/SR didn't have coins seized and auctioned?

<comment><USER27> Technically, using a brainwallet could have prevented that unless they tortured the guy over it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> The war on drugs is a war on due process. It should bother you.

<comment><USER14> It does bother most of us. When polled, more than 4 out of 5 Americans say that the war on drugs has failed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Well, that could partly explain the wealth-gap - if black people are robbed of their money by the police of course they will have less.

</comment><comment><USER62> _A DEA agent boarded the train at the Albuquerque Amtrak station and began asking various passengers, including Rivers, where they were going and why._

I wonder if the DEA agent followed him on the train after having found out the bank had reported a bunch of "suspicious" cash withdrawals and given up the victim's identity.

<comment><USER60> That's how parallel construction works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I don't know how people can read stories like this and not at least feel some attraction for libertarianism.

</comment><comment><USER64> In the first batch of comments on WaPo there is a link to the petition: [https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/abolish-civil- forf...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/abolish-civil-forfeiture)

With close to zero interest at this point

</comment><comment><USER65> Of course, this is unlawful, but that doesn't really seem to stop the government these days.

<comment><USER66> Civil forfeiture is entirely within the legal system, provided for by democratically appointed laws, upheld time and time again by judges. There is no twist of language that makes this "unlawful." Civil forfeiture is a facet of law.

As such, it is also subject to being eliminated by legislatures. As the article mentions, New Mexico did this. That this has not happened at the federal level is in fact not an indication of a misbehaving executive branch. It is an indication that Congressman do not find the issue relevant to their reelection.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States#Legal_background)

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Can they take money from your bank account, though? If they can't, the solution seems to be keeping your money electronic as much as possible. (I personally never carry more than $80 around, partly because getting mugged is not uncommon in NYC.)

</comment><comment><USER68> The justice system is messed up, if the burdon of proof falls on the defendant.

</comment><comment><USER69> From the article:

> The practice has proven to be controversial.

Is that the new slang for 'criminal' or for 'state-sponsored theft'?

</comment><comment><USER70> He should tell everyone that it was actually 32,000 USD that was taken from him.

</comment><comment><USER71> When public servants can directly fine citizens in cash, corruption pervades.

</comment><comment><USER72> Wait, wasn't this how democracy was supposed to work in the Land of the Free(TM)? I mean, he had guilty money. I am sure those money passed through the hands of drug dealers at some point in their existence.

</comment><comment><USER73> a real drug dealer would value $16k more than a DEA agents life.

it's day light robbery.

</comment><comment><USER74> Can everyone vote for a libertarian candidate in your elections? Tired of govt overreach

</comment><comment><USER75> This sounds like the beginning of a modern day Robin Hood movie.

<comment><USER45> Robin Hood did not steal from the poor, if I remember correctly.

<comment><USER75> Normally most Robin Hood movies start off showing the bad guys, the Sheriffs men, stealing from the poor.

It takes a while for Robin to show up, and it seems that in real life, this will never be the case - as $3.9 billion worth of seizures is going to motivate the cops and Feds to fight any changes to this legislation tooth and nail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Wouldn't happen with bitcoins.

<comment><USER77> It wouldn't have happened with a visa or mastercard either. Bitcoin has literally nothing to do with this.

<comment><USER78> Apparently it does happen with bank accounts. So no, your point does not stand.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States#Seizures_of_funds_in_a_bank_account)

EDIT: In fact Bitcoin is much better protected against this. m-of-n signatures, brain wallets, hardware devices such as Tresor, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Russian citizen here.

This sort of things I have regularly been hearing about the US over the last decade make me really sad. Some 20 years ago America was a symbol of civil liberties for us. I considered one day maybe going there to work and live. A few years ago I still entertained an idea of going there for an internship. Today I'd be scared to go there even as a tourist or on a short business trip.

Let's say I go there. Then what? My cell phone and laptop can be confiscated at the airport for no reason. When I continue on to the streets I can be mugged by the police and get all of my money taken from me. And then when I go on without my phone or any money in my pocket, I can get killed in a mass shooting by yet another disgruntled worker who's just been laid off or by a high school freak whose girlfriend has just left him. Or maybe I don't get shot but then get sued by somebody for whatever reason and then I'm going to need from a few hundred thousands bucks to a few millions to defend myself in a court. Which will probably consider a Russian citizen a hacker and a criminal and pronounce me guilty anyway.

Sound like a true third world country to me. I'm not saying Russia is much better. But it's not the same America I've gotten to know from the movies of the 60s-80s.

What happened to you? How have you fallen so low?

<comment><USER79> The internet happened. We are no less corrupt than we ever were. We are just more obvious about it now because of the internet. People always think, "oh, things were so much better back in the day". In reality, no, they weren't. It was just different. Back in the day, we wouldn't let blacks use the same bathroom or water fountain. Now we steal their money.

It is the same America it always was. We just have more people airing our dirty laundry.

<comment><USER80> > We are no less corrupt than we ever were.

I'm not sure. America used to be a lot more diverse in how it was governed. Thought Chicago was too corrupt? Move to California.

More and more issues are becoming federal issues (drugs, bridge maintenance, even), so corruption and injustice becomes a universal problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> I keep seeing these stories and, yes, civil forfeiture is a problem, but why are these people traveling with CASH in these amounts? I always get a cashier's check or similar since it offers me some protection.

<comment><USER56> Who do you make it out to, and when?

<comment><USER77> You don't make it out to anyone. A cashier's check is a bearer instrument issued by the bank against its own funds.

<comment><USER56> "The payee's name, the written and numeric amount to be tendered, the remitter's information, and other tracking information (such as the branch of issue), are printed on the front of the check." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashier%27s_check](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashier%27s_check)

"A bearer instrument is a document that indicates that the owner of the document has title to property, such as shares or bonds. Bearer instruments differ from normal registered instruments, in that no records are kept of who owns the underlying property, or of the transactions involving transfer of ownership. Whoever physically holds the bearer bond papers is assumed to be the owner of the property. This is useful for investors and corporate officers who wish to retain anonymity, but ownership is extremely difficult to recover in event of loss or theft." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearer_instrument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearer_instrument)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> I do not dispute that this is very unfair (and thats putting it mildly)....

... but did the Washington Post bother finding out if this man was involved in criminal activity? It does not make this law any less unfair, but surely it makes a difference in the outrage in this case.

People are not upset when cartel members have their planes and jewelry confiscated.

Proving your life savings are in fact legally earned should be pretty simple. Print out a bank statement (he said he withdrew it from an out of state bank) and take it to the nearest DEA (or US Marshal?) office.

On the other hand, if he could not furnish a bank statement, has a history of drug dealing or other criminal activity I would be no more outraged than when a local drug dealer has his car confiscated. (Although I would still be against the law in principle)

<comment><USER83> > ... but did the Washington Post bother finding out if this man was involved > in criminal activity? It does not make this law any less unfair, but surely > it makes a difference in the outrage in this case.

The Washington Post confirmed that he was never tried for any crime, let alone convicted. The legal system of the US is built on the premise that guilt must be shown, and innocence presumed. They didn't even attempt to show he was guilty -- instead, they just stole his money.</comment></comment>


Show HN: VR demo: shooting hoops, triggering score and confetti [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQAFp4_P6bM <comment><USER2> The thing that's most novel to me (not much VR experience, though) is how you convey the masses of held objects, given the lack of force feedback. It implies that the virtual hands have some kind of not entirely real existence in the simulation, or it's like you carry everything via an elastic string. A more "simulationist" approach would be to have the hands meet resistence to their movement, but that would break the linkage between player movements and visual feedback.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most games I've seen don't account for mass. In Job Simulator 2050, there's no feel for mass. I think there should be some sort of indication or "tractor beam" that pulls the object in tow, perhaps?

Until we get hand controllers that have gyroscopes that simulate resistance, that's all we got so far.

<comment><USER3> It's been probably 10 years since I played it - but Garrys Mod does just that, adds a beam between the object and the crosshair. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoYHALkoUrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoYHALkoUrE)

As far as I remember, the weight feeling is quite good. Not sure how it would work in VR though as I never tried that.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: 2 options, 1 choice and about the chance to get hired for a remote job - <AUTHOR> Hello HN, After graduating university with a Computer Engineering degree (bachelor), I has been working in App Dev Department of a big IT firm for about 2 years (develop Android app but I mostly work on C++ native layer (JNI)). However, I still could not find my interest in my work. Therefore, I would like to make some changes to my life, starting with apply for 1 of 2 nano courses I find interesting and think after finishing it I can apply for a new job.
These 2 nano courses are:
1. Learn C++ by Coding Five Projects: https://www.udacity.com/course/c-plus-plus-nanodegree--nd213
2. Become a Cloud Developer: https://www.udacity.com/course/cloud-developer-nanodegree--nd9990
I would like to ask HN for some insights about the the courses, about the prospect of getting a new job after finishing it.
P/S: Although I has been studying/working in IT for about 6 years, I still feel overwhelmed by the speedy change and the ever-increasing technologies/knowledge... and I feel lost in this maze.
I intend to make 2 posts about this. The first post is this, and the second post will be after I finish the course mentioned above. That time I will post to ask for a job. I will throw myself to the world to see if I can catch any opportunity.
I hope you are not confused by my writing ;)
Thank you for reading, <comment><USER2> If you are comfortable working in C++ you can probably pick up pretty easily anything else. I think there is a limited amount of work to be done remotely in C++ since most of the postings seem to be for more "hipster" technologies. There a decent amount of Android work to be done though.

As for the maze, I think it's something we have to come to terms to. There is just simply too much. While you can be a generalist or specialize in one thing we have to accept that there is still too many technologies and we can't know everything. The good news is that you get to pick whatever you want!</comment>


String theorys second life - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160915-string-theorys-strange-second-life/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12512954](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12512954)

</comment><comment><USER3> Reposting this link that I found in the comments section from the previous time this article was submitted:

[http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8778](http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8778)

</comment><comment><USER4> > String theory has _so far_ failed to live up to its promise

(emphasis mine)

How long should we wait? There should be a Samuel Beckett adaptation...

Valdimir: "Should we start work on some other theories?"

Estragon: "Yes let's"

(They continue adding dimensions to make their predictionless theories internally-consistent)</comment>


Why Japanese web design is so different - <AUTHOR> http://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-different/

<comment><USER2> Well, let's not forget the popularity and success of sites like Craigslist and Drudge Report. Plus don't those images basically look like Amazon or ebay, only somewhat more cluttered and with more-saturated colors?

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is a good article; those really are some of the biggest reasons the Japanese web by and large looks so horrible.

At an HN Tokyo event I once met an American engineer from Rakuten.

Of course we asked him wtf was up with how ugly it looked. He laughed and swore that they did A/B test it against modern designs, but that ugly won.

My wife is Japanese, and she totally prefers shopping on Rakuten's site to say, Amazon. She says, "it is ugly, but it's more convenient to use." That blew my mind, but there it is.

</comment><comment><USER4> Many people can argue a lot about what's beautiful and what's not in western design based on Latin and Latin-like scripts, however I think that the web design has become more streamlined and easier to consume during the last decade. Although the new trends with parallax effects and weird scrolling hacks certainly don't help, but aside from that many websites look really nice on the eyes.

Since I find randomwire.com a nice looking website, I decided to see what it would look like in Japanese: [https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=en&tl=ja&u=h...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=en&tl=ja&u=http%3A%2F%2Frandomwire.com%2Fwhy- japanese-web-design-is-so-different%2F). I don't know Japanese and probably the translation is quite a bit off, so I can only speak about the visual aspect of it. I think Japanese characters really don't help the design but overall it doesn't look bad either. Certainly much better than Japanese websites.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's intriguing to see how language influences design and how one design can have multiple meanings. Language is the only thing that stands in a way of a international community. It's clear that logographic has the advantage over phonographic language when concerned with mobile design and wearable technologies where visual real estate is limited.

</comment><comment><USER6> The font thing is wrong, Vietnamese is mostly latin mostly but their web look just as awful!

</comment><comment><USER7> It's also because designers in the USA copy each other.

A couple of trend setters declare that "flat design" is best, and now everyone is doing flat design. In 2 years it'll be another style where everyone is copying each other.</comment>


Why I'm Choosing C++ - <AUTHOR> http://www.cjdrake.com/why-im-choosing-c.html <comment><USER2> Some people are missing the general point of the text.

Sometimes I like the "shiny new stuff" that is presented on the frontpage here. I take it for a spinn to see what I like about it and what I don't like about it.

But other times I just want to hack together something. Then I go and use the tools that I know. Imperative programming with Python, C++, JavaScript and C# with a sprinkle of functional ideas.

Why? Because it is about getting things done, and not learning the idioms of the new shiny stuff. You can try to convince me of the virtues of going with something less mainstream, but I have inertia... And some of you reading this have that too.

I occasionally see comments here with some reflections of "guilt" over that they don't use the new language/framework du jour. I don't feel "guilt" and not going to apologize that I use the tools that I use. This is how I've solved programmatic problems most of my life and I'm going to continue doing so. But it doesn't mean that I'm not trying to learn something else. Maybe someday I'll be doing functional programming with a language that automatically parallelizes my code, but right now I just can't shift my mindset to do it. I'm too busy building stuff with the tools at my disposal.

<comment><USER3> I haven't read the OP so I'm responding to your post. I am/is/was a C/C++ programmer from the mid 80s until 2013. That's the last time I wrote some C++, not that I've given it up just haven't need to to write any.

What changed for me was I learned HTML/CSS/JavaScript and in particular WebGL. Now I kind of get, upset may be too strong a word but, basically I can't stand not being able to share something easily. I see people making simple visual things in C++ or Python or GO and I'm like "why are you making me jump through hoops to see your creations? Why couldn't you just put it on the web so in one click I could see it and/or interact with it?"

I'm not saying there's no place for C/C++ or any of those other languages. I am saying though that if what you want to make is something interactive or visual (or audio) and you can do it in such a way that you can put it on the web PLEASE do that! C/C++ run it through emscripten. C# (well, if it's unity at least might be able to export to the web). I don't know of the Go->Web or Python->Web paths but mostly if it's not on the web I'm not likely to download and install an SDK just so I can check out your Go program.

If you're making an app or backend something fine, whatever, but if you're just making a visualization, a graph, a simple game for fun but not profit, please consider learning the tech that will lead to the least amount of friction for your audience. Most of the time that will be web.

<comment><USER2> Well that is half of my point. I mentioned JavaScript, because I use it if I want most people to see my stuff. But what is wrong with a executable for C++ or C#? Where is my obligation to distribute a executable for every platform that results from my fun side projects? I don't think maintenance is fun and I usually skip that part on my side projects. Either you can see it or you can't... it might bother you... but it doesn't bother me the least. They are supposed to be fun...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Modern C++ is certainly good compared to old C++, or compared to C. But this article completely glosses over why the author chose not to go with Rust. From just the article alone, my impression is basically that the author just decided to lump Rust in with all the other "shiny" languages and didn't really look into it much. And that's a real shame, because unlike any of the other languages that are listed, Rust is basically a better alternative to C++ for almost any usage of C++ that doesn't require interoperating with existing C++ libraries (or vending new C++-specific APIs).

<comment><USER5> > Rust is basically a better alternative to C++ for almost any usage of C++ > that doesn't require interoperating with existing C++ libraries

What often isn't mentioned is that C++ has a much more diverse ecosystem than Rust. C++ has four major compilers, three major standard library implementations, and 30 years of associated tooling and library development. Occasional serious issues in GCC and libstdc++ (or Clang and libc++, or in Microsoft, ...) do crop up, and the ability to cross reference alternative toolchains is quite valuable. If Rust can hit enough critical mass the ecosystem will develop, but it isn't there, yet.

<comment><USER6> But those same features make it very bewildering and difficult for newcomers. Four different compiler behaviors to read about in any area not defined by the standard, tooling that can require a long and complex setup from an expert, and 30 years of differing opinions about good development practices crufting up learning resources.

<comment><USER7> "But those same features make it very bewildering and difficult for newcomers"

Yes, that is very true.

"tooling that can require a long and complex setup from an expert"

If one is on windows, one can 1. install visual studio community edition and 2. click "new project".

Sure, it's nowhere close to npm or Rusts's crates or go's dependency management but that's bit hyperbolic way to express it. I can waste hours trying to get Rusts' dependencies working if I'm using something bleeding edge.

<comment><USER6> Not having used C++ on Windows, I have to take that at face value. But getting autotools or cmake set up as a new C++ developer...not super fun. Also, spending lots of time setting up bleeding edge features is different than trying to get a single working build with a couple of fairly standard dependencies.

<comment><USER7> "But getting autotools or cmake set up as a new C++ developer...not super fun."

Yes, this is the main reason I prefer visual studio :). I know my way around unixes but since I don't use them for my daily work I forget most of the things I would need to remember to be productive.

<comment><USER8> Until you need to build a cross-platform cmake-based project on windows. Which means modifying the system path using the lovely "environment variables" panel straight from the Win95 era, downloading and compiling dependencies (half of which fail to compile on MSVC due to lacking standards-compliance), dll hell and all the other MS cruft.

Contrast to apt-get install foo-dev or brew install foo on Linux and MacOS respectively.

<comment><USER7> "Contrast to apt-get install foo-dev or brew install foo on Linux and MacOS respectively."

Having a project that builds painlessly on third party developer machines requires effort from the project and is not guaranteed automatically by the chosen platform.

Apt-get also can fail if the dependency chain does not match exactly the configuration required by the project one wants to build.

The best way to build software on windows is different, perhaps even less elegant, but claiming that Linux/OS X builds are automatically correct does not match my experience.

Projects which have an incentive to provide a windows build usually can be built out of the box pretty painlessly, even with CMake.

From my experience, the best indicator of a pain free build on a platform is the number of users the project has on the said platform, not the platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the modern C++ is indeed a good alternative to other modern languages listed in the OP for _who already knows the pre-modern C++_. That is, you still don't get an automatic correctness (of sort) implicitly provided by all those modern languages, and you being able to avoid the traps is not a proof that it would be universal. I really hope that C++ Core Guidelines [1] are successful enough that it is actually enforced and thus you _finally_ get the correct feedback from the compiler, but until that point, I'm not choosing C++.

[1] [http://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines....](http://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines.html)

<comment><USER5> With ranges pretty much a sealed deal, if we can get modules and reflection, to boot, C++ is going to feel hella fresh.

<comment><USER8> With the amount of pushback and bikesheding, I don't expect reflection to happen this decade at all. For me, modules would be killer. This is right now the single biggest issue facing large C++ codebases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who recently tried to do "modern" C++ with no background in C or C++, it was absolutely horrifying compared to my nice cuddly managed language runtimes. I get that it's not meant to be a language that's quick to pick up, but the languages that OP decided not to use _are_ quick to pick up in comparison. And several of them offer many comparable features (whether you're evaluating the metaprogramming, the performance, etc.).

<comment><USER10> No background being key. Learning takes time. Coming from older versions forward of C/C++ (though most people don't crow about a particular version) is easier than what you propose.

Having a strong foundation in classic languages and an ability to adapt to modern paradigms seems way easier than the reverse.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely, that's a much better way to put it. But it's a situation that (I'd wager) many more developers are in, as opposed to already knowing an older dialect of C or C++. Given the growth the field is still undergoing, and the number of devs who never need to learn one of "the classics," I don't think it's bad to point out that there are good alternatives to C++ that are easier for someone versed in managed languages to pick up if they need some of C++'s strengths.

<comment><USER10> Given the cyclical nature of this field, adaptability should be a core component of one's aresenal.

For instance at a low level, machine to machine communication, C over the internet, Node APIs, etc shouldn't matter to getting things done...

API and functionality can be decoupled, but you will still need to have someone available to understand the path from A to Z

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >I want to congratulate the C++ standards committee for all the work they've been doing lately. And they're not even slowing down! The roadmap for C++17 looks like we'll get even more fantastic features...

This is exactly why people avoid C++. More features != better language.

<comment><USER12> C++ is an officialy supported option for pretty much any platform out there - including iOS, Android and Windows. Together with relevant debuggers (eventhough the Android/NDK GDB integration leaves something to be desired).

Rust isn't there yet and when opting for a longterm project you want stability, access to experienced developers and good time-tested libraries. I love the idea of Rust but I'd still not consider it for use-cases we use C++ in for at least a few years still.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, you wrote the exact thing I wanted to point out.

For some reason people seem to forget there are still programmers for whom the only platform they need support for is not just the deployment server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I genuinely don't understand C++ direction, where it goes?

C++ does change too much, language (specifically in this level,python is okay to change) aren't suppose to be stable as much as possible ? every 2,3 year they literally add new language to existing C++.

What decision should existing library take? rewriting whole library? rewriting critical part ? in these case almost all of developers time should be devoted on rewriting existing C++ code.

look at C. They don't add shitpile of feature to the standard every 2,3 years.The may fix some criteria.But it does not even count in compare with what C++ committee doing.

p.s. one of my friends in college used to joke about C++. He calls C++ : "feature adding contest".

<comment><USER14> _C++ does change too much, language (specifically in this level,python is okay to change) aren 't suppose to be stable as much as possible ? every 2,3 year they literally add new language to existing C++._

Well, before people were complaining that C++ didn't change enough. The core language did not really change from 1998 to 2011 and that was showing. That said, I cannot really see what the complaint is about, since you can still program in C++ as if it's C++98 or C++03.

(I share most common critiques of C++ and think Rust is probably its replacement. However, it's a fact of life that there are major C++ codebases out in the wild and there will be for the next 50 or 100 years. So, it makes sense to evolve the language for such projects.)

<comment><USER15> > before people were complaining that C++ didn't change enough

Mostly people who didn't use it.

<comment><USER16> On the contrary. It was precisely the people who _did_ use it, and knew that what they wanted it to do would be so much easier if it just had reference- counted pointers... or move semantics... or...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm struggling to see how the Verilog vs. VHDL mailing list post the author linked to argue in favor of C++ (which, as far as I can tell, consists of various rants about specific aspects of VHDL that have nothing to do with higher-level languages) is relevant to C++ vs. Rust at all. Why not argue specifically against Rust's safety features instead of giving tenuous analogies to hardware description languages, of all things?

</comment><comment><USER18> I recently tried C++11/14 features in my Eclipse IDE with GCC and I actually enjoyed it. It does feel like a new great language.

I wish Java had __auto __type (the idea I believe Java people omitted for several reasons).

I also think the C++ community is really great - and this reason alone is able to give this platform a promising (than for many others) future. The youtube conference videos are awesome and I learned quite a bit from these lads (even doing Java full time).

</comment><comment><USER19> Based on the few years I spent working in big C++ shops the obvious thing is that the popularity of C++ is largely based on previous popularity of C++ - internal libraries, easily hired external developers etc. That, and the constant development of C++ - because the language is regularly getting new features (and cool features at that, I mean look at C++11) there is little incentive for folks to say "this language is dead, let's move somewhere else". With a large pre-existing C++ codebase you have a choice of writing SWIG wrappers, embarking on a quixotic task of rewriting core libraries natively in your language of choice or just going with the flow. The first thing destroys your soul and the second one is a career killer so I would expect C++ to have great many years ahead of it despite sometimes atrocious compilation times.

<comment><USER20> Hopefully the compilation time will be drastically reduced in C++17 with the addition of modules to the language. Obviously, this won't be of much help if you work with an old codebase or old libraries.

<comment><USER19> Which is unfortunately the case for the places I've been. Modules could perhaps persuade some folks to start new codebases in C++ but these days you have less incentive to do so given a choice of decent systems programming languages. Surely I'm a sample of one but being a reasonably competent C++ coder I tend to start most of my new projects in Go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anyone here uses D? I recall it was kind of popular a few years back, and its features look very similar to Rust. Thoughts?

<comment><USER22> Andrei Alexandrescu points out one major issue being that D went with a GC first approach, and even though the GC is optional, the library support isn't as good.

For at least some problems people will not want to use a GC, and D's story there isn't as good as Rust's.

<comment><USER23> To me, garbage collection is a hack, trying to workaround the fact that we don't know how to deal with ownership. This is something Rust and C++ get right (unique_ptr, the whole Rust ownership system), and I would definitely prefer D being based on an ownership system, rather than a rogue thread randomly scanning your memory for things that look like addresses.

However, the garbage collection in D turns out not to be an issue in practice. In D, you do have destructors and deterministic deallocation when you want to (in one word: RAII).

<comment><USER24> > To me, garbage collection is a hack, trying to workaround the fact that we > don't know how to deal with ownership.

Eh. Often the whole "ownership" thing is irrelevant. For a lot of high-level programs, trying to express things in a Rust-ish "ownership" style with pointers adds a lot of syntactic and semantic overhead.

<comment><USER14> _Often the whole "ownership" thing is irrelevant._

I don't see how it can ever be irrelevant, unless you use immutable data structures everywhere. Does your class/struct provide getters? Ownership! You have to think about what you return. When you are not careful, the calling code can break invariants of the data structure. Consider the following Go code:

       type Foo struct {
           sortedSlice []Bar
           // ....
       }

       func (f *Foo) sorted() []Bar {
          return f.sortSlice // Outside world can break invariants.
       }

Now the outside world has access to internal state and can break invariants (make sortedSlice unsorted). You have to decide to: make a copy (and waste time) or document this fact (and put the burden on the user of _Foo_ ). Suddenly, knowing from the signature what the ownership is and having the compiler fail on violations, looks pretty useful!

Tony Hoare once called the null pointer his one billion dollar mistake. I think the lack of ownership semantics (or immutability) is an even bigger mistake. Some of the most difficult and aggravating bugs that I encountered (even in relatively simple web services) were caused by (a lack of understanding of) ownership. Throw in some concurrency and you have bugs that occur frequently, but are terribly hard to reproduce consistently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't mean to hijack this thread but I've been wanting to learn C++ for desktop-app and game related side hobby. I'm wondering if I could get some suggestions on where to start given my background as a Java and JavaScript developer (I do mainly web-application/back-end development) by day and had done C for the majority of my university courses (I take a few system- programming type of courses: OS courses, Computer Network courses, Dist. Syst, and DB). I did a bit of C++ for algorithms/data structure courses and am familiar with basic C++ (new/delete, OOP in C++ to some extend, STL).

I'm afraid Java spoiled me with GC, cross-platform libraries (especially the concurrency API, Joda-Time, Joda-Money, etc), JUnit, SCM (build, dependency management by Maven), great cross-platform IDEs that I'm really having hard time dragging my feet to C++.

Should I start with C++14 and skipped anything before that?

Any tips in how to deal with dependency-management and build in general?

What about unit-testing framework and some best practices?

<comment><USER7> "What about unit-testing framework and some best practices?"

A random collection of anecdotal stuff and opinions that comes to my head:

For common utilities for game development stb libraries are fantastic: [https://github.com/nothings/stb](https://github.com/nothings/stb)

For general idea how to structure code you could google "data oriented design c++".

Try not to structure your solution around class hierarchies but prefer data pipelines.

Write your code so that it's easy to debug.

Prefer to structure your solutions around stl containers and stl algorithms.

Avoid using inheritance as long as it does not reduce code complexity. If you use inheritance prefer to use only abstract base classes. Do not use template metaprogramming unless you are absolutely sure it's the most simple way to solve your problem. Avoid multiple inheritance like the plague. Ignore my advice if your problem is such that they don't make sense.

Try not to solve any other problem than the one you have immediately in front of you, and solve it as fast and simply as possible. Do not try to create some "framework" to solve your problems but prefer simple code. Refactor your code as your program progresses. This point might be obvious - but for me personally has been the most difficult thing to learn - writing agressively simple code is the best thing I've learned. This does not mean that the abstractions that are implemented are necessarily simple - just that the implementation is as easy to read, easy to debug and easy to reason about it's dependencies, as possible.

If you can trade off complexity of dependency with a little bit more code, prefer little bit more code. I.e. if you have an itch to include a library because you need a single function, think hard about implementing or copy pasting the function to your codebase. Once you are confident enough that you know you need something, only then include it.

Learn some OCaml :) - really, I feel like much better C++ programmer after I understood how a properly designed language with a static type system works. (I hear "Real world OCaml" is a good book).

<comment><USER8> > Learn some OCaml :) - really, I feel like much better C++ programmer after I > understood how a properly designed language with a static type system works. > (I hear "Real world OCaml" is a good book).

This.

Or F#.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> FWIW: I've found C++ to be a necessity when trying to put together cross platform numerical software[1] that works on the gpu as well as cpu (with all the right auto vectorization etc) The killer app for me is being able to interop with any language (jni, or cython) easily. I know rust and go have good ffis (light years of ahead of java where I spend a lot of my time)

This is definitely a niche compared to normal web development though. A lot of what I like is what's already been mentioned: the mature ecosystem. I'm sure the new contenders will mature over time. I'm really looking forward to using rust. I can't justify learning it yet though ;/

[1]: [https://github.com/deeplearning4j/libnd4j](https://github.com/deeplearning4j/libnd4j)

</comment><comment><USER27> I have never been as excited for the future of cpp as I am now. Cpp17 and cpp20 are going to be revolutionary when it comes to concurrency an parallelism.

In cpp17 we get couroutines. Its like await in c# only more general and powerful. In cpp20 we will get parallel executors. Kindof like cppamp and openmp only more general and powerful. It will bring supercomputing mainstream.

Its exciting times for cpp. There are already some experimental implementations to try out. There are also a bunch of other big features coming out. Modules, concepts, transactional memory, compile time reflection, ranges, views, etc.

People can hate on cpp all they want. I'm super excited, and think they are missing out on the future.

<comment><USER17> Both of these have been done for years in other languages.

The claim that parallel executors bring supercomputing mainstream is puzzling to me, because OpenCL has been around for a long time, is more widely supported, and is far easier to run on e.g. GPUs than the full C++ language.

<comment><USER27> Its not been done as general as this though. Check out this link if you have the time. Especially the last 15 minutes. Its by the ceo of openmp and its very interesting. [http://youtu.be/0mwHJ0950tA](http://youtu.be/0mwHJ0950tA)

<comment><USER27> I find it surprising how little interest there is on hn about cpp in general. This video about the future of cpp is the best i have seen this year. My guess is the demographics of hn is just wrong for cpp. Its mostly web developers here?

<comment><USER28> Yes, HN in general is anti-C++, a quick search for previous discussions proves this. For some inane reason, the language makes a lot of people upset and pouty. People love to hate it. To be honest, it's getting old. It's the same bitter sentiments over and over.

I turn to reddit for substantive C++ discussions.

EDIT: fwiw, I've found the actual cpp community to be a delight.

<comment><USER17> > For some inane reason, the language makes a lot of people upset and pouty.

People here have cited specific problems with C++ over and over. There are legitimate criticisms of the language that aren't "inane".

Personally, my biggest issue is that it's not memory safe, which leads to people making the same memory management mistakes we've been making since the '70s. At the same time, attackers have seen ways to weaponize use after free in ways that were not thought of when C++ was designed—and C++'s vtables make it much easier to do so. RAII and smart pointers have not proven to be an effective way to mitigate this, as a trip to any Web browser's bug tracker will demonstrate.

I do not believe this specific problem can be effectively fixed in C++, even with the ISO Core C++ lifetime checker, for reasons that I've elaborated on at length before.

<comment><USER28> > There are legitimate criticisms of the language that aren't "inane".

Please don't misquote me. I did not say criticisms of C++ were inane. Obviously there are many legitimate criticisms.

What I said was the reason people get so upset about C++ must be inane. IMO there's no good reason for an adult to get upset over a programming language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> C++ has definitely changed in important ways, and I continue to use it for several things (both to manage legacy code and by choice for newer code).

Having said that, C++ really, _really_ needs to start throwing out its bad ideas and creating sane defaults that mercilessly break backward- compatibility. This applies throughout the standard library and the language. It can be done in phases (e.g. identify bad behavior; introduce an opt-in compiler mode per file to change defaults and not allow the bad practices; wait a few years and change the default; wait a few more years and remove the old mode forever). C++ also really ought to provide a standard way to partition unsafe behavior from safe behavior; the vast majority of programs do _not_ need the crazy things that are possible in C++, and it shouldn't be a big deal to require extra keywords or compiler modes to enable dangerous language features.

<comment><USER17> > C++ also really ought to provide a standard way to partition unsafe behavior > from safe behavior

I'm not really sure this is going to be feasible, assuming by safe you mean memory-safe like most other languages. The ISO Core C++ lifetime profile is a very interesting attempt, and I hope it works out, but there are serious issues I see around shared_ptr and aliasing that lead me to doubt how much use it'll get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you need a bunch of library features not found in the C standard, you could switch languages or you could ... use a library. "Use language builtin hash table or write your own hash table" are not the only two options as this article suggests!

Quite a few hash tables out there, and very complete standard-library-like utility libraries too. (aside: failure to use one of these is a major cause of bad, bug-ridden C code, containing for example calls to dangerous old-school string API from the standard library. If your C is of any size and you don't have a good string abstraction you are doing it wrong.)

There are lots of circumstances where I'd use something besides C, for sure. But if I was using C for a good reason, and needed a hash table, in most cases I would not write my own.

</comment><comment><USER31> I moved to C++ in 2000, from C, because it made it easier for me to do more with less code, and as consequence of that, require less time to build what was needed and less time to debug and maintain it. I have looked at various other contenders over the years for a replacement, not because I felt I needed one, but because they all had something interesting to offer, and because the buzz have gotten to me. I have concluded that C++, especially with the recent 'modernization' initiatives (C++11/14/17) is as good as it gets for me, considering my needs and expectations, and obviously factoring in my familiarity with the language.

Most popular programming languages nowadays are providing fancy runtime features (GC, introspection and reflection, dynamic dispatch) at the expense of performance and unpredictable operation. You may get some control over the execution semantics, but not much. For most use cases, I suppose this is fine, but when you go deeper or higher(in the Y performance and scalability axis), you start to question your choice and realize you don't know what is really going on, especially if the profilers tell you that the culprit is the language runtime, and so you end up spending your time working around the language limitations instead of doing 'real' work.

The prevailing opinion nowadays is that C++ is complex, and use of templates, operation overloading, and even hierarchical objects structure, makes it hard to understand what is going on. It certainly mystifies many 'pure C' developers who are eager to come out and speak against the language, as if they are on some sort of mission to bash it, or just because they are not familiar with the language themselves and, well, if other like minded people are speaking against it, they may as well join them.

C++ _is_ is a superset of C, and everything availed by C++ is optional — you absolutely don't need to use anything you don't want to use, or don't feel yet comfortable using. I don't understand why this just escapes more people who speak against it. Maybe because it's not helping their cause, whatever it is.

There are brilliant people who will work around the limitations of a language and deliver incredible products, frameworks, libraries (Aeron - [https://github.com/real-logic/Aeron](https://github.com/real-logic/Aeron) comes to mind). There are languages that are better suited to many tasks than C++ - where performance is a big concern, but managed runtime environments and writing high level code makes more sense (or maybe you just care about compilation times, a very valid concern). There is no perfect programming language.

There is only the language that works best for you and your needs. For me, that is C++, and I can't wait for the C++17 updates.

</comment><comment><USER32> last time I used C++ was back in 1996 and my conclusion was that is a horrible language with even more horrible libraries like MFC which made me quit it for Delphi. 20 years later on, being mainly a python dev and lately working with lisp and smalltalk, I decided to go back to C++ because I will be using Unreal Engine heavily for making games. So I was eager to see what have changed in the mean time and whether that would change me my belief that C++ is the worst language I ever used .

After several tutorials, text books, learning the new features in C++ 11 etc, my mind has changed. C++ is a horrible language trying to get better. Beyond the usual crap and total disregard of good design that this language and its libraries exhibit , it does not fail to suprise me something like fstream.good() to detect that the file has not reach its end , its just blows the mind.

But C++ is a necessary evil in my case, so the torture continues.

<comment><USER33> As someone that went Turbo Pascal/Delphi => C++ as Borland lost touch with the developer community, the biggest problem to replace that necessary evil is getting newer languages into OS vendor SDKs.

On my case, if the language is not part of the SDK, usually it no use discussing its use with the customers.

At least C++ is way safer than C, if one cares to use its features.

<comment><USER32> There lies the problem, C++ reigns king in making games and many other area of coding. The language may be horrible but there are ways to avoid the horrible stuff and use some libraries that are far better design. Nowdays for example I would use something like QT which is very well made, to avoid MFC.

Thats the issue with offering an alternative to C++, its not enough to offer a better design language you also need to replace countless of C++ libraries that very capable , mature and very well established. Hence why there is no true C++ replacement out there beyond Java.

Delphi was awesome in countless diffirent ways but just lacked the library support to make it as popular. But at the time was as popular as python is nowdays with around 1 million developers and Borland C++ had 2 million. However at the same time VB had around 6 million and Visual C++ much more than that.

C++ is way safer than C but also way more complex. Which comes as no surprise why C is the go to choice for small libraries. Frankly I rather go C++ as well.

<comment><USER33> At work we migrated from C++ to JVM and .NET languages around 2006.

So where we get to use to still use C++?

Interfacing with hardware, COM libraries, JVM/CLR agents and lately portable native code across mobile OSes.

Someday using Rust, D, Go, Swift will be an welcome option, but they aren't there yet, at least for the type of customers we work with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > Programming languages have a lot in common with religions. You can spend > your life searching for the "one true" way, and either find enlightenment, > or discover you were worshipping false idols.

True that.

</comment><comment><USER35> I really wanted to read this but the font size is microscopic on mobile. And if you zoom in, you have to scroll horizontally, a lot. Nigh unreadable.

<comment><USER36> All modern browsers have a "reading mode."

<comment><USER37> Do they? I'm on chrome mobile and chrome desktop and can't find anything like a reading mode.

<comment><USER38> I think GP meant Firefox. It has reading mode in android and desktop versions

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'd be curious to know if anyone's ever used Objective-C as an OO language substitute for C++.

<comment><USER40> I learned Objective-C in 1988 (yes, really), as a serious competitor to C++ for the project we were embarking on. But, prior to AutoRelease its memory management made it basically unusable.

I became something of a C++ expert for the next 20 years. I turned down a job in 1994 because it was in Objective-C and I perceived limited future.

Later, wishing to build iOS apps, I re-encountered Objective-C. I guess I had the choice to write substantially in C++, but Objective-C is good enough for most app stuff and I never bothered.</comment></comment>


Would any programmer like to help 'The Spectator' fight for press freedom? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/defence-press-freedom/ <comment><AUTHOR> The UK government wants to pass a new law called 'Section 40'. The Spectator editor explains why this is a serious threat to press freedom. Seems to me that this might interest some folk on HN (my idea, not theirs)

Here's the request: "The government's online form is here, but it's about as user-friendly as a tax return. The alternative is to email firstname.lastname@example.com asking the government to repeal the appalling "Section 40" and desist from further harassment of the press (which means no more Leveson inquiries).

But even composing an email requires more time than people have. Hacked Off's website has a template-response form allowing its activists to send a pre- written submission to the consultation. We'd run one here, but we don't have any programmers on staff. If anyone reading this can create an equivalent, perhaps embeddable via iframe, then please drop me an email: email@example.com.

<comment><USER2> _But even composing an email requires more time than people have._

Without passing judgement on the merits of your campaign, if you can't even make a good enough argument to convince people bother to copy, paste and sign an email why should anybody take you/this seriously? Or looking at it from the other side of the table, why should I care about the opinion of what is just half a step above a spam-bot. If I was a government minister I'd pay a lot more attention to 2000 genuine emails form genuine people than I would to a 20000 message 'DDoS' attack.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Neo.mjs Online Examples - <AUTHOR> https://neomjs.github.io/pages/ <comment><AUTHOR> updated version</comment>