Y Combinator's Young Startups Tout Revenue Over Users  - <AUTHOR> http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-deals/2012-08-22-y-combinators-young-startups-tout-revenue-over-users/ <comment><USER2> The thing that bothers me most about the "startup culture" that I see is not just touting revenue but constantly touting _funding rounds_.

It's great that you're funded, but that has nothing to do with me, nor is it evidence that you are ever going to accomplish anything worthwhile, IMHO. It just means you convinced someone with money that you're going to put their money to good use. Their confidence means nothing to me.

<comment><USER3> It's odd how this comment appears so frequently on HN and yet each time someone makes it they seem to be under the impression they're making a novel observation. It's like the comment that copying music isn't stealing, or the comment that when women say no they mean no.

There may be a pattern here. Perhaps the pattern is that these statements are emptily true: they're either truisms if taken literally, or miss the point otherwise. It may be the latter disconnect with reality gives the commenter the impression that they have discovered some new insight that needs to be mentioned. I.e. a truism that was also true when applied to the world would clearly be something that everyone else also believed, and thus wouldn't be worth mentioning.

<comment><USER4> I think you may unintentionally be implying that there aren't lots of people in the "startup culture" that do in fact consider getting funding to be an intrinsically important achievement. That seems like a meme worth quashing.

I agree that the comment has become very boring. It is especially annoying to see it injected into conversations that don't really involve VC funding.

<comment><USER3> It's an achievement of a sort. It's kind of like winning a medal: the metal disc in itself is unimportant, but it matters because it's a sign someone was impressed with you for something.

As with medals, how much it matters depends on who was impressed with you and for what. Later rounds converge on measuring revenue, which is what people who think companies shouldn't be celebrating fundraising usually think they should be celebrating instead.

<comment><USER5> I disagree with that analogy. A medal is, in and of itself, the award you are seeking to win. Yes, there may be an intermediary goal involved, swimming 200 meters faster than anybody else, or having an invention that is viewed as the most innovative in a field. But the medal represents your accomplishment.

A funding round, as I understand it, is financing to enable a certain goal. I don't knock companies that seek funding, and I would congratulate any that received it IF that is something that they deemed necessary. I think this notion that it is an "achievement of sort" is the type of thinking that elicits these types of repetitive comments that remind people, an investment round is awarded to make possible a goal by increasing its access to resources.

<comment><USER6> _A medal is, in and of itself, the award you are seeking to win_

I think you're missing the distinction between the symbol and the act. A medal is _not_ what you are seeking to win. Its a representation of what you have achieved (which seems to be pg's point). You can take away all of Michael Phelps medals and it won't in one way diminish the fact that 18 times he was the fastest guy in the pool at the Olympics.

<comment><USER5> And if I take away your 4 rounds of funding have I changed the viability of your product in the market place?

Conversely if I fund you, does that in any way validate your product? Nope. Paying customers do that I'm afraid.

To suggest that a round of funding is an achievement in and of itself is to put it in the same camp as winning a business plan competition. Sure it might show that One person likes your idea, but that's pretty much worthless compared to paying customers.

<comment><USER5> Heh, you guys are hilarious. Bring up disagreements about the BS funding train in this echo-chamber and get downvoted to hell as if that makes the statements any less valid. Hahahahaha, downvote away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _> Entrepreneurs in Y Combinator may be taking a cue from the program's co- founder, Paul Graham, who in June penned an open letter urging young startups to focus on making money as a hedge against a potential downturn in Silicon Valley [...]_

What a crazy idea! Companies should try to make money!

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding this intentionally or unintentionally, but the issue here is not whether companies should make money, but when. There are plenty of valid strategies that defer profitability. Paypal for example spent tens of millions of dollars before they reached breakeven, and if they hadn't, all other things being equal, they would have lost to a competitor who did.

<comment><USER8> >There are plenty of valid strategies that defer profitability.

You can't point to the exception, the case that just happen to work out, and consider it a valid approach.

The time to make money is always now. Any other approach is just deferring the inevitable confrontation of whether the company/idea/execution is economically viable.

<comment><USER3> That's not the exception. Few to zero of the biggest technology companies were profitable the first month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> YC S12 batch is one of the strongest YC batches of all time. This time the startups not only have a good product; but developed business models, customers and revenue.

Moreover, a lot of startups launched far before demo day. I guess majority of the startups had a product ready when they got into YC.

<comment><USER10> It's interesting to note that 20% of the companies have been working on their business for over a year (source: <https://www.statwing.com/demos/yc-s12> ). Between that and the fact that YC is on record as looking for more clear- revenue companies, I think this shift will be more pronounced.

Another interesting note is that every _major_ win (or apparent major win) for YC so far has had a very clear-- and very early-- revenue model (Dropbox, AirBnB, Heroku, OMGPop).

<comment><USER11> Do you not consider reddit a win for YC?

<comment><USER12> They sold six years ago when they were relatively tiny compared to today. There's no way they would have been a "major" win up there with the 4 _huge_ exits webwright mentioned:

"We couldn't get them to tell us the acquisition price, but they did tell us that the company has raised just $100k (all in summer 2005) and currently has an average of 70,000 daily unique visitors and 700,000 or so page views."

[http://techcrunch.com/2006/10/31/breaking-news-conde- nastwir...](http://techcrunch.com/2006/10/31/breaking-news-conde-nastwired- acquires-reddit/)

<comment><USER13> While AirBNB & Dropbox are successful enough now to consider them "exits" - they haven't actually sold or ipo'd.

<comment><USER10> For what it's worth, stock in companies at these stages are often pretty damn liquid-- not quite as much as an IPO'd company, but still plenty liquid. YC could sell their stock in either company at or near their recent valuations on SecondMarket. For all we know, they could've partially cashed out in any of the rounds (though I'd bet they haven't).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Amazing job by Vayable! And congrats to everyone running a revenue-generating startup at YC if this is enough of a trend that Bloomberg is reporting on it!

I really hope that this signals the advent of a genuine change in how mainstream investors value revenue-generating startups, so that early-stage companies can get away from being valued simply in terms of a revenue multiplier and thus penalized in comparison to companies that ignore fundamentals. Among other things, this is going to make it much easier for bootstrappers, who need to build revenue into their products from the start.

And Paul -- if this is a real trend I hope you will follow up on this topic with an article in a couple of months. While I know this stuff is sensitive on a company-by-company level, it'll be interesting to hear how and if you perceive valuations are changing for YC companies that put their revenue front-and-center like this. My experience with a few friends in different funded startups outside California is that beyond seed rounds investors are still focused very heavily on users, users, users because the return period on organic linear growth is perceived as too long or uncertain to justify investing any sizable (greater than a few hundred thousand) infusion of cash.

</comment><comment><USER15> I read this as a pretty clear indicator of what the funding environment is starting to look like.

</comment><comment><USER16> As well they should, just having lots of users and no plan for monetization is a bad recipe most of them time.

<comment><USER17> Whether or not it's a bad recipe isn't for me to say however I do struggle to understand the motivation VC's have when they invest millions into companies like lanyrd.com who publicly state (even many months after receiving funding) that they have no idea how they plan to monetise the company.

Huge userbase, no monetisation plan. I appreciate all investment is a risk but surely investing in a company who has no clue how to monetise is immensely risky?

<comment><USER18> It's risky yes, but VCs do some of their own analysis of likely monetization strategies, along with potential acquisition value of companies. In some areas that revolves around userbase and data: is there someone who would buy the company for its users and the data it's accumulated about them? If so, it may be worth investing in, regardless of revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Okay everybody - time to change your pitch decks.</comment>


10 Rules of Good Product Design by Felix Gerlach - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@felixgerlach/ten-rules-of-good-design-e3dcabc61bc <comment><AUTHOR> Feel free to ask me everything. You can find me also on Dribbble or LinkedIN.</comment>


Tradeoffs: The Currency of Decision Making - <AUTHOR> https://fs.blog/2019/12/tradeoffs-decision-making/ <comment><USER2> You absolutely can project "winning" at everything. It is possible to become the envy of everyone, though probably tough to do. Is that the goal and will it make you happy?

Living a fulfilling and meaningful life means growing up and see the backside of the shed always is in need of a paintjob, there's always one thing more to attain, one more V in the checklist, then decide what truly matters. Trying to live up to impossible and meaningless standards won't make a person happy in the longer term, so can be prioritized down. Doesn't mean you don't strive for something better when you truly want such pursuits. But the balance and attention to what's important to you, may reinvigorate and make space for wonders!</comment>


Audio Adversarial Examples - <AUTHOR> https://nicholas.carlini.com/code/audio_adversarial_examples/ <comment><USER2> Prior discussion / link to arxiv: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16220376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16220376)

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a similar attack against image classifiers.

So is this just a proof of concept or can this be exploited in the wild?

Based on my understanding you need to have access to network itself (weights, baisses, activation function, architectural topography) to pull off this kind of attack. Doesn't seem like this could be easily be duplicated as an outside agent.

<comment><USER4> To generate adversarials, you really just the Jacobian of the network, which, without the network architecture, etc., would require estimation via finite differences which would require running the same signal as input multiple (lots! for large signals) times with minor perturbations to each component. I think whether or not this is feasible depends on the circumstances. Also, I could be wrong about everything because I'm not super current on this stuff.

<comment><USER5> You don't need access to the network, you can just build another one.

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.02697](https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.02697)

"Our attack strategy consists in training a local model to substitute for the target DNN, using inputs synthetically generated by an adversary and labeled by the target DNN"

<comment><USER4> that's clever and sneaky!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if it's possible for an attack like this to work against the human brain.

<comment><USER7> Flashy cartoons give some people seizures.

I'd bet they could be engineered to affect a higher proportion of the population.

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure some alarms use a strobe light at a particular frequency combined with a loud 2kHz tone to discombobulate intruders. That's more sensory overload than an adversarial signal, though.

I'd expect a malicious adversarial example to be more like the ones discussed in Snow Crash or BLIT ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_(short_story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLIT_\(short_story\)) )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't wait to try this on my friend's Google phone.

<comment><USER2> I believe this requires the attacker to have access to the ASR neural net's weights, so Mozilla's seems like the only popular framework that's vulnerable right now (not that I'm opposed to them keeping things open).

<comment><USER10> This is exactly why we need to keep ASR tech open. These kinds of issues affect DNNs in general, and other ASR engines based on them are also vulnerable. Having models and the data used to train them open is a great way to help academia make progress in this space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Remember WEP encryption? I feel like we're at that stage with NLUI except they mostly have zero security.

</comment><comment><USER12> would this be useful to "massage" a voice phone conversation, so the wannabe wiretappers cannot (automaticaly) decode what really is in it?

</comment><comment><USER13> None of the examples triggered my google home.

<comment><USER14> See justme22's comment. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16267546](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16267546)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's Your Backup Plan? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Could you be a bit more specific? My backup plan for what? The economy failing to recover (or falling further apart)? Getting Covid? Losing my job? AI making programming obsolete? Nuclear war? Alien invasion? Zombie apocalypse?

One backup plan doesn't cover all possible scenarios...

</comment><comment><USER3> Always look in the rear-view mirrors. Better still, make sure your reversing camera is working.

After that, rsync daily.

</comment><comment><USER4> My modest savings and low expenditures allow me to not have to stress about a backup plan.

</comment><comment><USER5> become a youtuber

become a farmer</comment>


MongoDB, how to sort results - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.lessthandot.com/index.php/All/?p=2030

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry but how is this post hacker news worthy? One can just read the mongodb manual [1] and find out for himself.

[1] <http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/reference/method/cursor.sort/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Come on, you're going to write a remedial MongoDB article and not even talk about the impact of indexing, the behavior of compound indexes, or the interaction with mechanisms like the $or clause on sorts?

Weak traffic play spam, and flagged as such.

</comment><comment><USER4> This can be found in the basic MongoDB tutorial.</comment>


Show HN: Sloth – Smart copy and paste manager for all your snippets - <AUTHOR> https://www.ohsloth.com/ <comment><USER2> Should add the system requirement on your website. Do you plan to make Sloth cross platform - Windows & Linux?

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted. Will do. Definitely plan to make to release on all OS - but focusing on gathering feedback right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> What is the system requirement to use this app?

How many items can you store on the clipboard?

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now, Sloth runs on OSX 10.8 or later. There is no storage limit; items not used will be autodeleted after n days (set in config).

Love to hear what you think of it!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Ideas We'd Like to Fund No 15,how implement it otheshelf product? - <AUTHOR>

hello all im looking again in the great Y Combinator ideas list and noticed this section 16 that talking about of the shelf security like companies like ADT are doing , i dont understand who can such product be "of the shelf product" what i missing here ? <comment><USER2> Look at the prices here: [http://www.adt.com/for_your_home/products_services/security_...](http://www.adt.com/for_your_home/products_services/security_systems)

An ADT (or similar) security system is going to cost you $300-500 to install, and $40/month. Since most households who can afford such security systems likely already have broadband, always-on internet, and the members likely have smartphones with data, it is possible to offer a cheaper alternative that builds on services they are already paying for. Any hardware for the system could also be built using standard "off-the-shelf" components.

Off the top of my head, I can imagine instead of hardwiring door/window sensors, motion detectors, cameras, and microphones you could connect them all via wi-fi. And instead of having a 24 hour monitoring center, you could have a cloud-based app that routes alerts directly to the owner's smartphone.

This way, the $500 of equipment become $100, and the $40 monthly monitoring fee becomes $10.

<comment><USER3> This is intriguing but how would you handle a power outage, or an Internet outage, or WiFI just randomly flaking out?

How does the ADT system work? Some kind of dedicated line?

<comment><USER2> Obviously I haven't figured out all the kinks, since I only gave it 5 minutes thought, but you're right, whoever does this will have to plan for all of those occurrences. My parents have an ADT system, and it just uses the regular phone line to dial in to the monitoring center. The rub was that my parents didn't have a regular phone line, they had Time Warner Digital Phone service. So everytime there was a hiccup in the digital connection, the alarm assumed someone had cut the hardline, and it dialed in when service came back up. That resulted in a phone call to confirm everything was all right. They ended up switching back to regular phone service just for the alarm.

I think for the younger generation, alarms with phone line connections won't work anyway. Over half of my friends/coworkers don't have a landline phone. But they all have smartphones and broadband. Companies will have to find a way to have a reliable system that works with broadband.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess you could ship a box full of motion detectors and stuff, (I imagine the parts are pretty cheap) and have consumers do the install, or alternately, set up a network of "certified installers" who will go do it for a hundred and fifty bucks.

the easy part is setting up a callcenter to handle the alarms going off. You probably also need to coordinate with local police departments so they know what is going on when they get a call from you. (alternately, you could contract with local private security firms.)

</comment><comment><USER3> link?

<comment><USER2> <http://www.ycombinator.com/ideas.html></comment></comment>


Where can I report an incorrect "exit only" sign on 101 South exit 498B - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/FhZUOp3

<comment><USER2> Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) has a web form for this type of stuff:

[http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/maint/msrsubmit/](http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/maint/msrsubmit/)

If you don't see a good category for it in the dropdown, you can choose "Other" or use another form they provide for things that don't fit the dropdown categories, but even that form seems to have some constraints on its intended use:

[http://www.dot.ca.gov/pioform.html](http://www.dot.ca.gov/pioform.html)

I would just report it as "Other" on the first form, since it doesn't have a category for incorrect signage.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - just submitted it at [http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/maint/msrsubmit/](http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/maint/msrsubmit/)</comment></comment>


Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience - <AUTHOR> https://ethics.harvard.edu/covid-roadmap <comment><USER2> This seems like a welcome report and the executive summary is straightforward.

"What we need to do is much bigger than most people realize. We need to massively scale-up testing, contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine—together with providing the resources to make these possible for all individuals"

They go on to talk of 5 million tests a day by early June, scaling to 20 million by late July, and further as necessary.

This is to all intents and purposes a "war footing".</comment>


What is your workflow with Wordpress? - <AUTHOR> Do you push it all the wordpress repository or just a template or crate plugin? What is your workflow to automate work with wordpress? <comment><USER2> My workflow for Wordpress:

\- Bitbucket \- Phpstorm + autodeploy to ftp \- Photoshop with graphics layout \- google speed insight \- Plugins: SEO, Optimize Images, security (ithemes), Automatic backup database and send to mail + dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER3> Gitlab + Sublime text 3 + deploybot + plugins (SEO,security, metaslider)</comment>


SmallRuby: Ruby for Smalltalk/X virtual machine.  - <AUTHOR> http://smalltalk.felk.cvut.cz/projects/smallruby

<comment><USER2> The Industry Misinterpretations podcast <http://bit.ly/62td5p> was actually quite good and gives a nice overview. They have a long way to go, but it looks like another good project.</comment>


Thoughts on Startup School - <AUTHOR> http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2014-10-18-thoughts-on-startup-school.html <comment><USER4> Colin: I'm sorry we didn't deliver what you needed.

YC's goal in selecting Startup School participants is to get a mix of deeply technical people and popularizers. The combination of those two skill sets makes a great startup.

When I saw you at Startup School I was like, "Hey, it's cperciva! Maybe he'll find a co-founder who can sell and together they can make Tarsnap take over the backup business!" That would be a good thing for the universe.

Tarsnap is a great example of a better technology that should be backing up most of the world's data. It _would_ , if you teamed up with the right popularizer to get the word out and close deals. It hurts me to see Tarsnap backing up only a tiny fraction of the world's data, while companies with great salespeople back up most of it badly.

Still, I think we delivered for some people who were inspired to bring their better technology out into the wide world.

Also: I hear you about power outlets. My current MBP runs Emacs for 8 hours so I've lost touch with that need, but I'll bring extension cords and power strips to future events.

<comment><AUTHOR> Trevor: Thank you for replying. I hope you (and Jessica, and everybody else involved with Startup School) don't take what I've written personally -- I nearly didn't post it for exactly that reason, but decided in the end that you're all grown-ups who won't be offended by honest criticism. ;-)

And thank you for your comments when we met -- talking to you was the highlight of the weekend for me (I didn't mention it in the blog post simply because I don't like "outing" people, in case they didn't want their presence at an event to be widely known), both because "Hey, it's tlb!" and because of the confidence you showed in Tarsnap's potential. Thirty seconds of talking to you was more inspiring than the rest of the weekend.

As for finding a co-founder... you're not the first person to say that, but after 8 years of writing code I really don't think I could bring in a _co_ -founder at this point.

<comment><USER5> I feel there's something inconsistent to be reconciled here.

On one hand single-founder startups don't get as big, which is a bad thing. On the other, writing code for 8 years as a single founder is right about the definition of doing things that don't scale, which is a good thing. So you can't say Colin running Tarsnap as a single founder for 8 years was bad for Tarsnap.

But it also sounds like unexplored terrain. The more specialized a skill you need for some types of work, the more likely this scenario is to happen. What's missing here is a way forward. If the goal of Tarsnap is to grow, the north star is Tarsnap's growth rate.

Colin, could you share more about what you are looking for?

<comment><AUTHOR> _If the goal of Tarsnap is to grow, the north star is Tarsnap 's growth rate._

Well, Tarsnap's goal _isn 't_ to grow. I mean, growth is nice, but I'd be perfectly happy if it stayed at its current size; my priority is to have a good product.

<comment><USER6> I am curious; how do you come to the conclusion that staying small is better than growing the product/business and taking over as some suggest?

<comment><AUTHOR> I said that Tarsnap's goal wasn't to grow, not that Tarsnap's goal was to not grow. What it comes down to is that Tarsnap is large enough now to be easily self-sustaining (it pays me more than I would expect to earn anywhere else), and my goal from the start was "build the service I want to use", not "become rich".

<comment><USER7> That's how I run my game project as well. Except that I haven't gotten to a point where it can sustain working on it full time. Have you written about the history of Tarsnap like how you started it, how long before you were able to use it as a living, etc...?

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't written any sort of history like that, although you can get a few bits of history from looking back at my older blog posts. Tarsnap has always been my full-time job, though; when it was still very small I supplemented it by doing some consulting, but mostly I lived off my savings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I attended Startup School 2011; I regret wasting the day there.

I thought that "Startup School" would be more like the "How to Start a Startup" lecture series that YC is running at Stanford.

Instead, it was just a bunch of celebrities talking about their startup experiences; a concentrated shot of survival bias. There's nothing practical to learn from the Startup School talks.

As for inspiration, I guess some people might be inspired by celebrity speeches like those, and I don't want to begrudge anyone that if that's what they got out of it, but I'm much more inspired by new products. (Especially imperfect products that make it seem easy to improve them.)

The Office Hours are the best part. Throw away the talks, let PG give a keynote, and turn the whole thing into Office Hours.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Throw away the talks, let PG give a keynote, and turn the whole thing into Office Hours._

Now _that_ would be an event I could imagine attending.

<comment><USER9> But that's the YC business. Startups wouldn't apply to YC if they could get the Office Hours for free (instead of in exchange for significant equity).

Not knocking on YC, just pointing out that that's not happening, doesn't make financial sense for YC.

<comment><USER10> Sure they would. It's not like YC puts on startup school every week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I attended two previous Startup Schools and mostly feel the same way as Colin expresses in this post. The incremental value of attending these events is not sufficiently great if you've already read PG's essays and a watched the talks online. However I would say that it can be motivating to attend and meet people with an energy and interest in building the "new new thing" if you live somewhere where that vibe is lacking. It's worth the flight to attend once, as a reminder that there are other people in the world with the same mindset as you, and they are more than just their HN username.

</comment><comment><USER12> Startup School was well worth the value of traveling to the Bay Area for myself. I'd read PG's essays and a lot of other startup literature so I didn't learn anything profoundly new, but I was inspired. Interacting with other attendees was also an amazing experience that is not available to me where I live.

While I disagree with you, your post is important, and I'm glad you wrote it. Those who are undecided about attending SuS in the future whose expectations match yours can decide against it if they read your post. Then, one more space will be available for someone who may have gained a lot, but wasn't accepted.

<comment><AUTHOR> _While I disagree with you, I think your post is important, and I 'm glad you wrote it._

Thank you for saying that. I hesitated for a long time before writing this -- hence the posting almost a week after the event -- because it felt like I was being rude to criticize an event which, after all, we were all invited into for free.

 _Those who are undecided about attending SuS in the future whose expectations match yours can decide against it if they read your post. Then, one more space will be available for someone who may have gained a lot, but wasn 't accepted._

That would certainly be one positive outcome. For me, an even better outcome would be to have Startup School cut down to 100 developers and gaining a technical focus... mind you, maybe that just means I want "hacker school" more than "startup school".

<comment><USER13> > For me, an even better outcome would be to have Startup School cut down to > 100 developers and gaining a technical focus

Interesting you should say that. We've tossed around the idea of HN sponsoring a hackery summit a la Startup School but with a purely technical focus. It might complement Startup School well.

The YC/HN world has always had both technical and entrepreneurial hemispheres, if you can call them that, and some people identify more with one than the other. Cross-pollination between the two is beneficial (which is one reason why we've always resisted the idea of splitting HN into sub-communities) but yeah, it can be frustrating when you find yourself in a local optimum for the side you don't find interesting. We hear similar complaints about HN pretty regularly even though we try to keep both sides well-stocked.

<comment><AUTHOR> _We 've tossed around the idea of HN sponsoring a hackery summit a la Startup School but with a purely technical focus._

I wouldn't want to attend a "hackery summit" which simply consists of people writing code; I can do that better at home, since having people around is distracting.

On the other hand, a "hackery summit" with technical talks from people who have built cool things would be very interesting.

<comment><USER13> > technical talks from people who have built cool things would be very > interesting

Yes, that's the idea. À la Startup School but with a technical focus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is a matter of expectations. I've been the Startup School for three times now. I don't go for the talks - I go for the people. The talks certainly have an inspirational bent to them, and most of the info can be gleaned from HN, PG's essays, and a whole bunch of blog posts.

Every Startup School there are a few good talks (Andrew Mason's and Reid Hoffman's were two I liked), plus office hours, which are engaging - <USER2> again, these are all uploaded online. I'm not sure how office hours participants are selected, but doing that would be an obvious reason to attend.

The real reason to attend Startup School is to meet a fairly interesting, relatively accomplished, friendly crowd of folks. There's a business bent to the demographic - everyone is interested in startups, but most people I meet are technical. If you really want to, there's the chance to talk to some of the YC partners. Some of the speakers will stick around to answer questions. Last year one of the Airbnb cofounders stayed to answer questions for a while.

To get the most out of it you definitely need to introduce yourself to random people. You certainly shouldn't pull out a laptop. I never sit down with friends because sitting down next to a stranger is a great opportunity to introduce yourself.

Over the past three events I've met a few people I've kept in touch with; that alone makes it worthwhile. It also makes a lot more sense if you're local to the Bay Area - it's a great excuse to meet up with friends in the area.

</comment><comment><USER15> I actually wrote a complaint to the Startup School contract after a being disappointed by the event in NYC last year...

The event was ok... but really lacked anything you couldn't find elsewhere. I was particularly annoyed that they didn't even try to sort the companies or founders or attendees into discussion groups, make connections, or even foster conversation after the event. In fact, it was almost like they were working against that, by whisking away all of the speakers and interviewers imediatly following the event and during the one intermission....

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>- [1] My complaint letter:

Hi Kathrina,

I really enjoyed ~87.3% of startup school, but wanted to pass along a few thoughts on how future events could be better.

1) Introduce the interviewer - not just the interviewee. I had no idea who Aaron Harris was until 2/3'ds of the way through the interview.

2) Don't choose startups at random. Everyone had to apply to be at Startup School - you should use those applications to chose which startups get to present at office hours.

2A) Don't chose 3 startups at the same level of growth. I run a b2b saas startup in its early growth stage. the three startups chosen for office hours we're all in the early development stage.

2B) Don't choose 3 b2c startups. I'm sure I wasn't the only enterprise b2b company in the audience.

Office hours was the section that fell flat with me. None of the companies interviewed we're in my companies stage of development (all earlier), and none we're business to business.

Furthermore;

3) I guess its OK to leave the attendees to fend for themselves... but it could work a lot better if you used the intermission to have groups cycle through quick talks with the speakers, or with YC partners. That would also add more value to attending the conference.

3A) The speakers should be more public during the break, and during the social following the event.

I'm Looking forward to future startup schools, and I hope this advice is helpful!

All the Best, Jason

</comment><comment><USER16> With all due respect, while a lot of the criticism there seems valid it does seem that there is a desire for startup school to simply act to validate the preconceptions of attendees. A fundamental error tech people make (I say this having learned the hard way from experience) is to not notice the value of what non-techies are saying, and to be honest I get that vibe here.

An example of this reinforcing itself is the idea of having a laptop for IRC channel usage, however, if no one else in the audience is on IRC what's the point? Even if there were sockets there the only people that would be on IRC are the like minded, when the whole point of the exercise is to get out of whatever bubble you're in.

The successful superficially tech founders are actually really good at both games, but bridging those two worlds is a far rarer skill than it looks, and contributes to the scarcity of successful startups, but also the rarity of good technical management in large organisations.

</comment><comment><USER17> Google does this constantly too. I've been to several Google Glass events where the wall outlets were all hidden or taped down. Sometimes there is only one in the entire room an event is going on in like the GDK Sneak Preview and I'll take turns with someone using it to keep Glass alive or just give up and go downstairs and use an outlet in the lobby, giving up on the event.

For that particular event a journalist passed on the way out and we had an amusing conversation making fun of how poor the battery life is and how Google doesn't provide any power to keep them alive at events. Good events for hackers/developers have power wired to every seat. Bad events, well you can see the write up here.

<comment><USER18> What's wrong with giving the speakers - and the folks you converse with - <USER3> full undivided attention?

I showed up to startup school with no electronic devices other than my phone. I figured that I was there to go, listen, maybe talk a little bit, and then go home. If I want to sit on a laptop I can do that much more comfortably in bed.

<comment><AUTHOR> _What 's wrong with giving the speakers - and the folks you converse with - your full undivided attention?_

Not all speakers are saying interesting things all the time. Also, having my laptop out at BSD conferences allows me to engage in the IRC backchannel, which is often just as informative as the talks themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> From this post, it sounds like you would have been more interested in the YC Hacks Hackathon back in August. Plenty of outlets, plenty of food/drinks, lots of developers, everyone was building stuff, and over 80 products were demoed. Startup School was not targeted to be like the Hackahton, and rightfully so. If I was to breakdown the two events based on my personal experience I would say.

1\. YC Hacks Hackahton Goal: Idea (0 People) - Founding Team (2-3 People) People who wanted to build products. It was all designers and engineers with ideas working together for two days to build a product. The end goal was light pitches of products to prominent people in the startup community. Lots of design, building, and engineering.

2\. Startup School Goal: Founding Team (2-3 People) - Small Team (6-10 People) People who want to run startups. After you've got your product, startup school answered questions like: Where do you go from there idea? What keeps you going? what pitfalls are you going to encounter? What types of people are you looking to work with? etc...

From your post, it seems like you were expecting YC Hacks. I would suggest going to that next year.

</comment><comment><USER20> I always appreciate a good critique, but I think maybe you nailed it when you said:

"Perhaps my expectations were misaligned"

The comment about the power outlets, leading the piece, seems like the clearest example of misalignment. I'm not able to speak for YC, but I think the point of startup school is to help people (hackers) who might not have read every PG essay but have some interest in startups learn how to start startups. Power outlets and other stuff you'd find at "cons" aren't really the point.

I didn't attend this year's startup school, but have attended a few prior, and I can say that the talks, while not completely filled with new information, helped me understand what it's like to be a startup founder. Now, as a current startup founder, I feel like as I've watched the videos this year and talked to one of our employees who attended, I feel empathy with the talks. They don't add to a huge trove of new, previously unearthed knowledge for me, but I don't really think that's the point.

To some extent, I'd liken them to the YC dinners themselves. The point of the YC dinners, in my view, is not so much to give the inside baseball of what it's like to be a silicon valley startup founder... instead sometimes you hear anecdotes that so tightly align with what you're currently going through that you think, "Wow, I'm dealing with that exact thing. And these guys are actually successful now!" It's some sort of helpful external validation which is so often lacking in early stage startups. It helps you keep going, for sure. Startup School talks are like the open source / public version of a YC dinner. The office hours are like the open source / public version of YC office hours.

But back to Startup School itself, I don't think you missed out... I don't even think your critique is invalid, I'd just caution the blanket statement at the end:

>> I would hesitate to recommend it to any other startup founder. If you're considering launching a startup and you need some "inspiration" to push you into going ahead, then by all means attend. For that matter, if you're looking for an audience to practice your "elevator pitch" on, you could certainly do worse. But if you're already working on a startup? Your time is probably better spent staying home and writing code.

Sure, I didn't go this year because I had just gotten back from a week in NYC that was particularly unfun for me, not to mention we're in a totally different place than when I've gone in years past (employees and stuff).

However.

If you feel like you're struggling, and you want to do something that actually could result in an impactful company, there's a whole lot of things worse than going to startup school. For me, it was extremely instructional especially before I had launched my startup. After I had launched, it provided some catharsis / empathy that I really appreciated.

It's definitely not a wasted day. That's for sure.

A great example: Jessica's "Startup Monsters" talk is one I go back and re- read at least every 6 months.

[http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes- wrong...](http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong.html)

Hearing talks like that, and, when you live in a place like Utah, being able to socialize with other people who you could work with forever (we hired someone we met at Startup School) is an extremely great reason to attend. Maybe it wasn't for you, Colin, but I think it could help a lot of people... especially anyone considering launching a startup. And for people who've already launched a startup, if you feel like you're having a hard time, it'll help, I think. It compresses a lot of the essay reading / knowledge gathering into an 8 hour block, combined with meeting extremely great people. For already launched startups, it's a refresher course, with a dollop of community building.

And it's on a saturday... so it's not eating away at your precious work week. Maybe you don't need it, but I think a lot of people will benefit.

(BTW Colin, I've always loved your contributions to HN, and I hope you take this as additional perspective from someone it helped.)

<comment><USER21> Imo the socializing can be demoralizing or exciting, driven by sheer luck since there are so many different people in attendance. As a commenter on the article says, "it's difficult to find like-minded people" there.

I just decided to roll the dice a LOT of times, and came out with a few serendipitous contacts that will probably be sustained for years to come. But I do think that you need to go in with the mindset of having to converse with many people with whom you don't have anything in common with, before bumping into someone who you find interesting.

<comment><USER22> Furthermore, I've found that networking is a very long game. If you go in thinking "what can I get out of this today?" you are only seeing a small part of the benefit. My biggest financial success came from a person I met 7 _years_ before we ever worked together. We only loosely kept in touch over the years, but when the right opportunity came along for both of us we were glad to have met all those years before.

I have dozens of people like that in my orbit. Smart, ambitious, connected etc. We just haven't found the right opportunity yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Thanks for this story, I've been really confused about things like startup school myself. I guess I went to a seminar or two about how to think about a startup way back when I first realized I was definitely doing it wrong, but the idea of being around a thousand other wanna be entrepreneurs has always been intimidating and anxiety inducing to me.

I feel like it just makes me feel even less qualified to do what I'm doing, since I'm not a socialite. Sure, I can be friendly and engaged and talkative for short stretches, but the idea of being around a thousand excited people trying to network is just really depressing.

And I think after just reading/skimming the lean startup and steps to the epiphany, there's really not much to learn from lectures... small groups and an expert discussing specifics sure, but such large groups have to trend towards generalities which I just find exhausting.

Really, I'm at my happiest when I'm in the lab building and testing things, and at my least happy when I'm feeling like I need to be constantly "on" selling my ideas. I assume lots of other technical founders feel similarly... I can deal with sales, and I can deal with negotiations, but even when I really do enjoy hearing other people's stories it gets emotionally and intellectually taxing fast!

</comment><comment><USER24> I love Startup School! I have watched so many, like literally more than 100s of founders and CEOs give talks and lectures, because I work and went to Draper University, but the content from Startup School is just incredible! I love what YC did!

Lots of on point lesson to learn Lots of tips&tricks if that is what everyone else wants to call it! Just awesome overall for me as I'm doing my 4th startup, I still learned new things and gained wisdom!

</comment><comment><USER25> Everybody knows the speakers are for inspiration, but the mingling and conversations with like-minded founders is where you get all the real work/enjoyment.

<comment><USER26> Yes, I totally agree with you. I think to get into conversation with those like-minded founders is an art. It takes good amount of time to learn and get good takeaways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I checked out the [http://www.tarsnap.com/](http://www.tarsnap.com/) website and it looks like very interesting technology but extremely unfriendly to the "ordinary" user. Perhaps not designed for ordinary users, but seems like there is a lot of potential for improvement to the marketing (which is exactly the type of content that you can teach in a startup school). They prefaced the entire content by saying that mostly you can't learn startups from a lecture, because the most important information you need to know is what the customer wants and it's specific to each market. You can learn something more general about marketing and user acquisition.

Personally I've been watching the videos online. I think the information is incredibly valuable because it's from people who have some of the most experience in the world at advising and working with startups. Even more useful if you have no experience and no prior education on what it is like to start a new venture.

</comment><comment><USER28> The power points and standing are more likely health and safety regulation.

<comment><USER29> I agree.

[Begin Anecdotal interleave

We recently moved to a new office in the university. The office plan was designed by the old school professors. It has three big tables in the middle of the room and a few computers and a printer in a side room. It's very comfortable for meeting and discussing or working in groups, but the outlets are in the walls.

The problem if that I and a few new school professors have notebooks. I'd like to have my LaTeX editor configured in _the_ correct way. A few compilers just in case. Leave my gmail account open. ... So when the battery is low the only solution is to sit in the extreme of the table that is nearby the wall in pass the electric cord though the four foots aisle. Perhaps put a chair so no one runs into the cord. Emit a public warning. Watch for incoming problems.. ...

It's very difficult to add the electric plugs under the table, so I'd like to add some retractile plugs in the lamps, so the electric cord can go to the roof to get the electricity.

End Anecdotal interleave]

In a room with a few hundreds people, a cord across the aisle is dangerous. It's not possible to allow it to make the event hacker friendly. The only solution is to find a venue that has a plug in each seat, so everyone can connect the notebook without disturbing the transit and emergency exits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It feels worth pointing out that this is a free event. So expecting lots of infrastructure (like an abundance of power sockets) does seem a bit unrealistic?

It was pretty cool to see some startup "legends" in real life. There where definitely interesting "geeks" in the crowd, if you went to the trouble of sniffing about.

I think you're right in assuming that one of the most important (perhaps _the_ most important) aims of the event is recruitment for YC. Given that YC are organising this event, giving out free food and generally going to a lot of trouble that seems pretty obvious going in though. They're not a charity, they seem like a nice bunch of guys running a _business_.

</comment><comment><USER26> I found something really cool stuff - summarising Startup School in simple and elegant form. Loved it. You may check it here: [http://startupnotes.org](http://startupnotes.org)

</comment><comment><USER31> Hmm, it's interesting how diverse and varied the responses to Startup School are. I had never attended Startup School before, and found it to be a worthwhile experience.

I met a great group of people (including you Colin!) and got to hear about some interesting projects people were working on. While the talks weren't terribly interesting or teach me anything I didn't know already, I felt the people aspect more than made up for it.

Maybe Startup School should have a hackathon type project for 1-2 hours, that's completely optional for people to participate in.

</comment><comment><USER32> Some questions:

I watched some of a Startup School video, maybe the most recent one. Ron Conway was interviewed, and there were other speakers.

And I just read Jessica Livingston's talk

 _What Goes Wrong_ , 10/25/2012

at

[http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes- wrong...](http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong.html)

and from the post by Randell in this thread at

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8474689](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8474689)

I will start with Livingston's

"Making Something People Want is Hard"

Here's a suggestion of another way:

Step (1) Problem.

Pick a problem where there is no doubt that the first good or a much better solution will result in enough eager users/customers to make a financially successful business. That is, we want a problem where plenty of people want and will like the solution very much. Here we want no doubt. Maybe the ideal such problem would be a safe, effective, cheap, one pill cure for any cancer.

Step (2) Solution.

For the solution, to exploit Moore's law, etc., stay in information technology and there do some original research.

Step (3) Implementation.

Write the software to do the data manipulations specified by the research.

So, the result should be a solution to Livingston's

"Making Something People Want is Hard"

Livingston also warns about co-founder disputes.

She has

"Not making something people want is the biggest cause of failure we see early on. (The second biggest is founder disputes.)"

So, here's a solution to the second biggest "cause of failure" \-- be a solo founder.

But Livingston also has

"single founder and it's hard to do a startup as a single founder."

Here she loses me: There are a lot of successful businesses, small to giant, that had solo founders. So, I'm lost on why it is such a bad idea for a solo founder to try to get a company going. Sure, once the company is growing rapidly, then take on, say, an office manager, a guy to run the server farm, a programmer, a marketing guy, etc. as needed.

</comment><comment><USER33> I was present for the Startup School Europe in London this year, and I have to admit I agree with Colin. Perhaps Startup School SF is a little different, but Startup School in London seemed more like a sales pitch for Y-combinator (not in itself a bad thing). The speakers were interesting for sure, but did little to add value for budding, first time entrepreneurs. I hasten to add however, that the networking was great and my personal disappointment was perhaps more due to "misaligned expectations".

</comment><comment><USER34> My background is technical also and I figured out what you mean and your sentiment. I'm one of the attendees that was impressed by Jan Koum has chose Erlang for an intuition or by the Kevin Systrom estimation for rails. Maybe you wrong your approach to a startupschool as many tecnical people like us. Basically the startup success formula does not exist

I think that startup school has an implicit and very powerfull message: Startup successful founders are common people and not divinity

</comment><comment><USER35> > in fact I had decided against attending many previous such events due to the > cost ( _in both time and money_ ) of travelling down to the San Francisco > bay area

It may not be my place to say, but...Is anyone else here....irked that a singular genius like Colin, with as impressive a product as Tarsnap still has to worry about money? Especially considering that said worry could easily be ameliorated by yielding to even one of patio11's entreaties?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not worried about money. Doesn't mean I like wasting it though...

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Finding useful connections is hard at these big events. You're basically shooting darts in the dark. There was a "speed networking" section at the intermission that was pretty efficient.

Wouldn't it be cool if there was an event where people have 60 seconds to pitch what they're looking for, and if you're looking for the same thing, go talk to them after all the pitches?

</comment><comment><USER37> yup, the talks for the most part were of the inspirational sort by those who had won the startup lottery and had tidbits (but not 8 hours' worth) of useful advice to share. as others have noted, they was less about the content (since that could be had online) and more about absorbing the energy of the group, getting a sense of the character and approach of the speakers, and feeling kinship with everyone there.

i'd also traveled for startup school and would say it was just worth it for me. if i'd been local, it certainly would have been worth it, just for meeting people like the guy who created tarsnap with whom i shared a power outlet until the ushers scolded us. =)

(to be fair to the ushers, the cords were in the aisles, which could be a hazard)

one of the lytro engineers taught me a bit more about light field photography, and an arduino hacker and i chatted about locomotive robotics. on the other end of the spectrum, there were discussions about ad tech business models. so to me, it seemed to be a good mix of people with all kinds of technical skills.

</comment><comment><USER38> If you want actual _practical advice_ , MicroConf is a great conference, and there's one coming up in Europe in a few days: [http://www.microconf.com/europe/](http://www.microconf.com/europe/)

I won't be attending this year, unfortunately, but I went last year and thought it was a great time.

</comment><comment><USER39> IMO Colin is spot on. I attended startup school 2 years ago, and had the exact same experience (well, sans tarsnap conversations)

It seems worth going to once, if you don't already know/follow "startup ethos" but otherwise, It doesn't seem very useful from a practical standpoint.

</comment><comment><USER40> Reconnecting is another big benefit (for some attendees).

Over the years there are a lot of cool people with whom we interacted but then have lost the connection. Startup School is a great place to meet them again, and learn all new things they are doing.

</comment><comment><USER41> Kind of agree, however, there is an element of contagious/infectious energy that is hard to get in many other events. Of course, there are the giggly and hyper, but one has to learn to tune their over enthusiastic oozing a bit.

</comment><comment><USER42> i went to "hardware summer camp" summer of 2013. a weekend event hosted at the oreilly alphatech office in sf.

it was a fantastic event with nuts and bolts business and hacker types talking about how they actually got companies/products off the ground and then operated them.

point is ..need more of those! @nickpinkston on twitter was one of the organizers > that team brought in all the right presenters.

</comment><comment><USER43> Last time I looked YC had a 2% admission rate, plus is a very successful program (arguably the best one), not sure why it needs promotion.

</comment><comment><USER44> The BSD beard is an entirely different type of beard to the hipster beard.</comment>


Sony develops transparent lens eyewear "SmartEyeglass" - <AUTHOR> http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201409/14-090E/index.html <comment><USER2> This is ugly yes, but this is a very different experience than Google Glass. Glass is a tiny screen in the top right of your peripheral vision, which requires a conscious effort to glance up and view.

These are complete overlays on top of your complete field of vision. Google Glass can't do real AR, but these can.

Ugly, but pretty neat to me!

<comment><USER3> And in a couple of years, they'll be slimmer and more pretty. I'm not a fan of the way the battery and touch sensor are handled, though. I don't really think there was another way to do it, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Of course it's ugly, its a prototype. Have you ever seen prototypes of the original iPhone and Google glass? Any developer knows you make something functional then you make it practical. If you look at the tech behind the product, it looks promising and I will definitely be watching this product evolve.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is incredibly ugly. That wouldn't matter if they positioned this product toward industry and manufacturing.

</comment><comment><USER6> So everyone's commenting about it's ugliness. Definitely the first thing I noticed too.

But then this bulkiness reminded me of something... yes... ski goggles and similar athletic corrective lens accessories. Market size and practicality aside, the idea of having a HUD show me some stats while skiing/snowboarding down a mountain seems pretty awesome to me.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure I've seen that product already ... aha, yes, it's being marketed to snowboarders: [http://www.reconinstruments.com/products/snow2/](http://www.reconinstruments.com/products/snow2/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd be interested in this for AR gaming if it were fully stereoscopic and fast, but I doubt it. AR gaming glasses could get away with being that ugly, but you'd have higher processing needs.

</comment><comment><USER9> A look at the specs: 419x138px monochrome green display.. so they basically attached a COG lcd display to glass frames? This actually doesn't seem to hard to hack with off the shelf components...

<comment><USER10> Someone correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe it's a lot more complicated then that. Your eye can't focus on a transparent display so close to the eye, so the display light must be highly converged, while incoming light is undisturbed. I'd guess they're instead reflecting light coming from a small projector on the glass with a special coting that reflects only a narrow bandwidth around the green laser light (otherwise transmissivity couldn't be so high).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, many comments about a prototype being ugly. It is as ugly as you or your baby as a fetus. That does not mean you are ugly, does it?

</comment><comment><USER12> They say kit avail, but how to buy and how much?

</comment><comment><USER13> Hoping to have people start developing on it while they improve the technology.

Looks ugly now, but it won't in 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yeah, it's fugly, but in typical Sony fashion, i.e. Exec: "Google Glass is the future. We must own the future. Make a Google Glass Killer". Engineer: "Well, Google has spent years miniaturizing the required tech to make it into a fashion accessory people can accept. It will take us years as well". Exec: "You have 6 months"

Bada bing! We get this beauty.

<comment><USER15> Sony has had their version working since 2008.

[http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080523/152287...](http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080523/152287/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Huh, so this might be what was needed to make Google Glass look cool.

</comment><comment><USER17> Ugly.

</comment><comment><USER18> For everyone decrying the Apple Watch, this shows what "ugly" and "pointless" truly look like.

</comment><comment><USER19> For those thinking about getting Google Glass but who were holding out for something that makes them look way more dorky.

Typical of most Sony consumer electronics products post-2000 or so it is kind of amazing in a narrow technical way but completely drops the ball in every other way. In this case, by making you look like the stereotypical "nerd" comedy relief one might see on a tv show or in a bad movie.

</comment><comment><USER20> The military has a term: RPG, or Rape Prevention Glasses :-)

<comment><USER21> The term is 'Birth Control Glasses', which is not only less offensive, it actually makes sense.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What coding challenge sites should I try next? - <AUTHOR> I'm learning PHP for a new position and tried using codewars and codefights. I'm not impressed by the UX with either of them, they're over gamified. The quality of Kata on codewars is not good (at least the easy stuff) and both are broken in random trivial places.<p>Can you offer suggestions on similar platforms that are less gamified, higher quality challenges, and more reliable? <comment><USER2> Maybe just skip the game sites.

Go to github, find a project that you find interesting and relevant to your position.

Take a look at the open bugs and try to fix some. Even if you don't feel comfortable sending a pull request you can learn a lot by going through the whole process on a real project.

Alternatively, take a look at the recent commits and what they fix...

[https://github.com/topics/php](https://github.com/topics/php)

<comment><USER3> My recent interviewing experience, while anecdotal, would suggest that you'd actually be better off with the coding challenge sites, assuming that succeeding at interviewing is your goal.

I think this is unfortunate, irrational, and that contributing to Github projects would actually build your practical skills while adding some value to the universe.

But having spent more time working on coding challenges, algorithms and puzzles would have been more beneficial to my most recent several interviews.

<comment><USER4> It's a trade-off. One thing that's definitely going to get you more and better interviews is a section on your resume that lists major open-source projects you've contributed to. But yes, once you hit the interview you still might hit the old-style puzzle questions depending on the company.

<comment><USER5> You don't need to make a trade off. You _can_ do both contribute meaningfully to an open source project AND practice on Codewars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Project Euler (projecteuler.net) has great algorithmic and mathematical challenges. I like to go through their problems when learning new languages.

<comment><USER7> Agree with your good suggestion, and extend with rosalind.info for kinda the same experience but for bioinformatics instead of math.

Now what I'd be VERY interested in is an implementation of a list of "Like Project Euler, but for X" where X is all manner of things. WRT various values of X, I know there are periodic security challenges but nothing long term/permanently ongoing, I'd greatly enjoy being proven wrong. I'd be particularly personally and professionally interested in "Project Euler for HFT". How about "Project Euler for VLSI design"?

Yeah, yeah, If I want it, I should do it, and its true I probably could, other than the lack of infinite spare time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I personally love [https://www.codingame.com/](https://www.codingame.com/), but it's geared more towards university students. The challenges get pretty hard, and they all pretty much gravitate around game AI if that's your thing.

The cool thing is that some challenges are multiplayer, in the sense where you need to develop an AI for a given game, and then send your AI on a ladder to compete against other coders' AI.

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://adventofcode.com](https://adventofcode.com)

</comment><comment><USER10> Advent of code just started, so you might try that: [http://adventofcode.com/](http://adventofcode.com/)

<comment><USER11> I second this, gets more popular every year. The puzzles are well thought out. They get progressively more involved each day, it's definite worth a try

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am surprised no body has mentioned Exercism yet. Go to exercism.io and there are around 60 problems for PHP that you can start working on it. The good part is, it has tests built into it. You can gradually work on a solution by progressive approach and thus passing each test successively.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm pretty surprised that LeetCode hasn't been mentioned. There are a lot of low quality questions on it but if you sort by "Top 100", you'll find some pretty interesting problems.

</comment><comment><USER14> You don't really need platforms to help you learn how to code. Find some good video courses and create practical projects by following the instructions, that's the best way to learn, especially if you're into webdev.

I suggest trying Udemy, TutsPlus, or CodeSchool. Unfortunately, I can't recommend anything PHP-specific. Though if you're just getting started and aren't stuck with PHP, I recommend going with Django or Node instead. Udemy has excellent courses on Node([https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-nodejs- developer-course-2...](https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-nodejs-developer- course-2/)), so if you're looking for the best place to learn webdev, I highly recommend going there.

<comment><AUTHOR> For sure, it's just the little language gotchas that I'm trying to understand before really leaping in to anything. For example I didn't realize an array in PHP is actually a key/val set until it bit me on some easy challenges.

Thanks for the recommendations though. I'm not necessarily stuck with PHP and would prefer to move towards Python if possible.

<comment><USER15> A couple of years ago, I had some slack in my schedule, and decided to combine learning Python with starting a project in it. It took me a couple weeks to feel really comfortable, but it also got me to a kind of "MVP" implementation, and I was able to take the next month or so after that to fill in the features.

Starting out, I spent a few days in standard tutorials, then just started writing. As I implemented features, I'd research the standard Python idioms for doing various things. It might not work for every program, or for every learning style, but that script has been part of our build infrastructure for 2 years at this point, and maintenance for the last year and a half has mostly been limited to feature additions as our needs change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like Programming Praxis:

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

There's a pretty extensive collection of problems there now, and they span a variety of topics, from basic CS stuff (e.g., implement a stack or a binary tree), to cryptography, number theory, and trivia (e.g., write a quine, calculate the date of Easter, or solve a Sudoku puzzle). Note that the chronological list of exercises isn't up to date.

</comment><comment><USER17> Realistically, the best way to learn a language is to make a small project that does something useful. But if you're still wanting to do challenges rather than a project, you're just in time to participate in Advent of Code 2017 [0]. The only 'gamified' part is the leaderboard which is based on how long it takes you to generate a correct answer since the challenge became available. Another challenge that, while not generally suited for a PHP programmer but still possible, is the Synacor Challenge [1] , which involves creating a virtual machine and running a provided binary in that virtual machine to find codes to submit.

[0] [https://adventofcode.com/](https://adventofcode.com/) [1] [https://challenge.synacor.com/](https://challenge.synacor.com/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm shocked Codility isn't on here yet. [https://codility.com/programmers/lessons/1-iterations/](https://codility.com/programmers/lessons/1-iterations/)

They're really strong on language-agnostic testing with emphasis on CS concepts. That's great and typical, but they have the study material linked directly to each lesson. I've had great interview experiences through their platform.

(shameless plug warning) I liked it enough that when I went through Flatiron School, I made a Ruby gem to see their lessons in the command line. [https://rubygems.org/gems/rubedility](https://rubygems.org/gems/rubedility)

</comment><comment><USER19> [http://www.codeabbey.com/](http://www.codeabbey.com/) is more CpSc oriented but very similar to [https://projecteuler.net/](https://projecteuler.net/).

[https://uva.onlinejudge.org/](https://uva.onlinejudge.org/) has too many problems to sum up easily, but they have online solution checking. [http://acm.timus.ru/](http://acm.timus.ru/) and [http://www.spoj.com/](http://www.spoj.com/) are similarly massive.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you don't mind competitive programming sites then you can try codeforces [1] which is probably one of the hardest sites to compete in. You could also try codechef [2] which has long challenges so you can compete over the span of a week rather than over two hours like on codeforces.

[1] [http://codeforces.com](http://codeforces.com)

[2] [https://www.codechef.com](https://www.codechef.com)

</comment><comment><USER21> When I was taking algorithm courses in my university, my lecturer used SPOJ [0] and Uva online judge [1] as part of coding exercises. For example, today, I learn about greedy algorithm, my lecturer find a problem on those website about greedy algorithm problems. Someone already mentioned CodeForces. It likes SPOJ and Uva. But, CodeForces usually has a coding competition regularly.

The websites above will affect you on how to solve a problem quickly because it's timed. It helps for job interview. If you want to learn about software engineering, e.g. architecture or what's going on in real industry, it's different in my opinion. You should know well the problem, use cases and of course, the contexts. To be honest, I agree with @cag_li. Involve in open source projects or build a real project!

[0]: [http://www.spoj.com](http://www.spoj.com)

[1]: [https://uva.onlinejudge.org/index.php](https://uva.onlinejudge.org/index.php)

</comment><comment><USER22> Build your own toy version of the following:

\- compiler

\- neural network

\- graphics engine

\- web server

\- physics LP solver

\- JIT compiler

\- garbage collector

\- memory controller

\- operating system

<comment><USER23> OP said he's learning PHP.

<comment><USER24> Uncharted territories are quite a challenge. But probably there are projects out there that are doing those already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> As others have said try building something. I would add the following:

Start with something really, really simple - like a single page website (and I mean literally a single page of HTML). Then incrementally add features, adding the PHP code to, for example, read content from a database. Every day add a little feature or a tweak or fix a bug. After a couple of months you will be surprised by what you have achieved. But you don't need to stop there. Keep adding little features - eventually you will end up with a CMS.

The thing about this approach is you never burn out because you work in small doses, and the project never "runs out" because there's always something new you can add. But because you work on it incrementally you are more likely to get somewhere than if you sit down one day to "write the next Google".

Hope that helps and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER26> Code Forces is an ugly, ungamified site but the calibre of its contestants is of a far higher grade. If you can do well there, you'll have no need to ever again worry at your ability to solve smaller coding-related problems. Silicon Valley tech company interviews will also feel easy in comparison.

</comment><comment><USER27> [http://www.hackerrank.com](http://www.hackerrank.com) \- most popular, lots of corps use for first line recruiting so worth knowing.

[http://www.interviewbit.com](http://www.interviewbit.com) \- teaches you at the same time.

<comment><USER20> One similar to Hackerrank is hackerearth [1].

[1] [https://www.hackerearth.com](https://www.hackerearth.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One I like is Wechall. It's sort of an index of other challenge sites (including a nifty API that can track your progress through some of their indexed sites), although they have a few of their own challenges as well. The sites it indexes tend to be geared towards security topics like web security and cryptography, though there are some more general programming challenges as well.

</comment><comment><USER29> PHP is an unusual situation; for PHP, I would recommend reading bug reports and learning what has not been fixed for years that will bite you badly. Lots more info here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15815830](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15815830)

If you want an honest appraisal of PHP, you'll find it in the above link.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha yeah that's been my experience at a smaller scale so far. Why are "arrays" actually key value sets? Not at all intuitive. I figured that out when I used array_unique() only to discover that some index values had gone missing. Of course that function provides no option to "treat $array like an actual array". I found a solution of array_keys(array_flip()) which I read also happens to be faster than array_unique(). Wat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Anybody know some good resources for advanced sql query practice? Multiple nested subqueries, more obscure functions, etc?

<comment><USER31> Have you tried pgexercises or hackerrank?

[https://pgexercises.com/](https://pgexercises.com/) [https://www.hackerrank.com/domains/sql](https://www.hackerrank.com/domains/sql)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm the founder of Daily Coding Problem ([https://dailycodingproblem.com/](https://dailycodingproblem.com/)).

We send high quality programming questions every day. You can sign up to our mailing list for free to get problems starting tomorrow at 9AM PST.

I hope you enjoy our problems!

<comment><USER33> I tried signing up via the form but could not do so.

<comment><USER32> Sorry! There was a bug in the subscription logic. It should be fixed now. Mind trying again?

<comment><USER33> It seems fixed, thanks for the quick turnaround.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> [http://codeforces.com/](http://codeforces.com/) and [https://www.topcoder.com/](https://www.topcoder.com/) have really good algorithmic challenges with frequent Competitions.

</comment><comment><USER35> We're going to start more business-oriented dev challenge soon, more info [https://dev.to/msedzielewski/voucherify-developer- challenge-...](https://dev.to/msedzielewski/voucherify-developer- challenge-57m)

</comment><comment><USER36> None, go build something. Build a clone of something, facebook, twitter, HN, google, slack.

</comment><comment><USER37> Codility is really well written. I'm not sure if they have PHP but they seem to have the major languages.

They're one of the few which tests and teaches your code's performance. They're also very popular for hiring tests.

</comment><comment><USER38> Hi! I'm teaching a coding bootcamp and one of my students built [http://jsstation.com](http://jsstation.com)

If you could share with us what you could like to see, we can make it happen!

</comment><comment><USER39> Synacor Challenge is a pretty good one: [https://challenge.synacor.com/](https://challenge.synacor.com/)

I wasn't a fan of the text adventure puzzle, but the rest is great.

</comment><comment><USER40> codewars Kata get hard soon enough. maybe its because youre doing it in PHP but ive had no complaints at all on python and javascript.

agree with cag_ii that you should just work on projects given that you're keen on PHP

<comment><AUTHOR> It wasn't that they were too easy, too easy is fine. I'm doing this to understand where the good docs are, what error messages read like, and what the common mistakes and gotchas of the language will be. It's just like no one proofread some of these, repetitive concepts, one Kata had a blatantly wrong test condition, etc.

Reviewing commits on github will be useful in understanding what contributing to mature projects looks like though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> [https://codegolf.io](https://codegolf.io)

This site has been mentioned on HN and reddit a few times.

Good if you are looking for sharp code, and perhaps to span languages.

<comment><USER27> [https://code-golf.io](https://code-golf.io)

</comment></comment><comment> aaron-santos I had a great time going through the challenges at [http://www.4clojure.com/](http://www.4clojure.com/)

</comment><comment><USER42> What about the original "challenge" website?

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

</comment><comment><USER43> Google Codejam has some great problems.

[https://code.google.com/codejam/](https://code.google.com/codejam/)

</comment><comment><USER44> I really like [https://www.crackthatcode.com/](https://www.crackthatcode.com/)

</comment><comment><USER41> This site has been mentioned here a few times, good if you want a challenge in your language or a variety of languages.

Https://codegolf.io

<comment><USER45> This link does not go anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I would personally recommend taking the 10x Club course (note: I work at the parent company, and yeah I know about the name)

</comment><comment><USER47> It might be something fun to build something that solves a need that someone or a group of people have.

</comment><comment><USER48> hacker.org is pretty good.

Some of the challenges can be brute forced easily, and some have only been solved fully by one person. The puzzles are good, but the real fun is in the challenges. Some of the ones I've unlocked have only been solved by less than 100 people.</comment>


Nation's Nerds Wake Up in Utopia Where Everyone Stays Inside - <AUTHOR> https://babylonbee.com/news/nations-nerds-wake-up-in-utopia-where-everyone-stays-inside-sports-canceled-social-interaction-forbidden <comment><USER2> This is incredibly fucking asinine.</comment>


Ask YC: is webpy dead? - <AUTHOR>

i have noticed a lull in the development of webpy and also on the site, i wonder if aaron is interested in the project? I have moved on to web2py which is great, but sometimes, i long for webpy. any hints on what is happening? <comment><USER2> It might not be dead. It might simply be done.

web.py is meant to be anti-framework. Adding new features probably isn't high on his list since it's not supposed to be monolithic like that. The code is stable and complete for what it was supposed to accomplish. Is there something you're looking for it to do that it doesn't (that would still be within their anti-framework scope)?

<comment><USER3> It doesnt do sessions natively without using flup, but i heard that that will be included in webpy 0.3 but noword about its release for now. and i just wish it could incorporate open id also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I deployed a low-volume production service on webpy a couple of years ago, and haven't had to pay more than cursory attention to logs and patches since then. That's fine with me, especially compared to, I dunno, Rails or PHP, where you pretty much have to apply some critical security patch every 60 days, or upgrade to handle the latest RESTfulEncryptedAgileCookieStoreAjaxWidget API.</comment>


Ask HN: What is it like to work on software for space exploration? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN!
One of the most inspiring presentations I've ever seen is by someone who worked on the code and instrumentation for the Rosetta spacecraft sent to explore the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. I still think about this presentation often and wondering how is it really like to write code for spacecrafts and space missions. Has anyone worked on similar projects professionally? Can you share a bit about your experience and the exciting technical challenges? Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> Do you have a link to the presentation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! It was actually the PyCon 2015 keynote [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg6SdUF- BaM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg6SdUF-BaM)</comment></comment>


Intel predicts 10GHz chips by 2011  - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/intel-predicts-10ghz-chips-by-2011-20000726/

<comment><USER2> Published Jul. 26, 2000.

Really, this isn't that far off. We've got 4-, 6-, and 8-core chips running at 2-3 GHz, for an effective speed within an order of magnitude of 10 GHz.

Edit: Read through some of the comments for a good laugh!

<comment><USER3> _doesn't matter the speed of intel's chip in 2011 because motorola and ibm will already have chips out by then that are more effective, use energy better, and run applications ready for the new iMac's that are introduced at the 2011 MacWorld. They'll run at somewhere near 7GHz and still be faster than an 11GHz or even 128GHz sh_ t that intel puts out.. - by StickWithApple*

I think that's my favorite one so far.</comment></comment>


The Problem with GitHub Pages - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jathu.me/post/132924532393/github-unix-the-real-world <comment><USER2> > I understand Pages has nothing to do with source control

Slightly disagree. What I always loved about pages is every commit is on record and auditable by the public. This makes coders accountable for their actions if they introduce malicious code to their users. Take for example:

`something.js` being served from RawGit ([https://rawgit.com/](https://rawgit.com/)). In all likelihood the asset can be trusted because we can inspect the repo where the asset resides and audit it.

The same cannot be said for private GH accounts, because it's impossible to view the source. People actually pay Github money to conceal their source code. Gasp

</comment><comment><USER3> Wait, do people typically use slugs with uppercase letters in "the real world?"

In the example given, using an uppercase P doesn't even make sense from an aesthetic standpoint.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes.

One of my projects on GitHub is "UIImageColors", so if I were to create a gh- pages for it, the link would be jathu.me/UIImageColors.

<comment><USER4> I can understand your use case, but the need for case insensitive slugs is one I've never had (or wanted). Then again, I tend to use simple lowercase slugs, preferably single word, and hyphenated for multiword. For that project I might use /image-colors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well the main reason is not so much for me (I prefer all lowercase too), but rather other people linking the sites. A 404 resulting from something as simple as the wrong case is costly. Users don't try to fix the URL, they just leave!

Also, regarding the UIImageColors, if I'm making a library for a language that follows CamelCase, then it's only appropriate I follow that standard.

<comment><USER4> I agree with using the language convention within the language but not onto the web.

Ex. The GitHub repo for a (multiword) Python package foo_bar is generally foo- bar. Maybe this is just a convention we follow.

A list of top Python packages for example:

[https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=language%3Apython...](https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=language%3Apython&type=Repositories&ref=searchresults)

Edit: It would be interesting to compare data for how repo and slug naming convention varies by language.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Just a Standard N.D.A - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/just-a-standard-nda <comment><USER2> > For the remainder of this document, "Inquiring Party" will be referred to as > "Shitty Jerry."

Thats is good humour. :-)</comment>


Challenges to Silicon Valley won't just come from Brussels - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/01/google-fine-challenges-to-silicon-valley <comment><USER2> Competition law is one thing, but Data Protection is probably the thing EU citizens can cherish most. It is light years ahead of many other jurisdictions, including the US.

</comment><comment><USER3> "monopolistic behaviour is considered illegal if it restricts competitors."

I think there is a major fallacy in this reasoning. Case in point - look at the trains in UK. Tracks, rails, signaling, services are all owned by different companies. While this sounds great from a regulatory perspective, it's not so great for bringing about changes. Which is perhaps why, most of the trains still run on ancient signaling tech, no GPS trackers. I admit, I have very cursory or superficial knowledge in this domain, but at the outset this is what it seems like. OTOH, the FCC's way of looking at monopolistic behavior seems prudent - it's just based on price. As long as consumers get the price advantage, a monopoly is fine.

</comment><comment><USER4> If the EU can simply decide that agreed upon tax deals are no longer valid seems like nothing more than a shake down of an American company.

Also, it's somewhat terrifying because what laws will Brussels decide to suddenly interpret different on a whim?

The US Treasury has a good analysis of why this is a sham ruling: [https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax- policy/treaties...](https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax- policy/treaties/Documents/White-Paper-State-Aid.pdf)

<comment><USER5> 1\. No, they can't "simply decide". That's not how the legal system works.

2\. The case argued was that the tax deal was illegal when it was agreed upon and therefore void. Sweetheart deals / government aid is generally illegal in the EU, and neither Google nor Ireland should have been surprised.

3\. Do you have any examples of the ECJ changing interpretation on a whim? I do see that Google lacks legal certainty, but when you're as unique as Google is, lack of precedent comes with the territory. That said, Google is walking up to the red line of its own volition. There's a limit to how surprised they can credibly act when they find they have overstepped it.

<comment> wav-part > _2\. The case argued was that the tax deal was illegal when it was agreed > upon and therefore void. Sweetheart deals / government aid is generally > illegal in the EU, and neither Google nor Ireland should have been > surprised._

You are right about Sweetheart deals. But the dispute is whether the "deal" is sweetheart deal or not. Ireland DoF, Apple (not Google) and US Treasury argues that Apple was following the same laws as everyone else. But EC says otherwise.

Note that EC have repeatdley shown their discontent regarding Ireland's, otherwise EUAA consistent, tax laws. One might argue that its an attempt to harmonize tax laws across EU despite it not being a requirement under EUAA.

> _3\. Do you have any examples of the ECJ changing interpretation on a whim? > I do see that Google lacks legal certainty, but when you 're as unique as > Google is, lack of precedent comes with the territory. That said, Google is > walking up to the red line of its own volition. There's a limit to how > surprised they can credibly act when they find they have overstepped it._

Its not ECJ its EC. EC has acted retroactively (Apple case). EC has acted without precedent and warning (Google case).</comment></comment></comment>


The corrosive culture of modern work - <AUTHOR> https://iansommerville.com/systems-software-and-technology/2019/03/18/the-corrosive-culture-of-modern-work/ <comment><USER2> The article makes sense from a professionals perspective I guess, but where it falls flat is in 'non professional'. Whatever that means.

I'm a senior engine mechanic for a chain of diesel repair shops in the Midwest. I work with my hands, so I guess its not 'professional' but its still fulfilling. I get my 5 o'clock beer every day at quitting time and I get plenty of time with friends and family

What killed a lot of mining jobs was shifting to automation and cleaner energy. What killed US manufacturing was profiteering. Whenever someone says they can't compete at a global scale with us labor, all I hear is they can't afford to pay a living wage and buy this years nicest mega yacht. Plenty of companies still exist in the us that not only compete but dominate the competition in quality, and pay a living wage. Bobs red mill comes to mind. So does Tesla.

<comment><USER3> Tesla is barely profitable. Bob's red mill is filling a tiny niche. The price of a yacht wouldn't pay that many people's wages either.

<comment><USER4> They're barely profitable because they're aggressively expanding and buying/building new infrastructure. Tesla would have been profitable years ago if they had decided to just stick to building the Model S, but they have much bigger plans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think this is a particularly new insight.

Yes, most retired people suffer if they don't have a life outside of work. Yes, most people do indeed define themselves by work. Yes, automation threatens to undermine or relegate people who have defined themselves by work to the impermanent and transient needs of the middle and upper class (uber/task rabit/gig economy etc).

Given that this article recognizes a (what I thought was) well understood trend, and doesn't present a fix, whats' new here?</comment>


Show HN: Time tracking with Trello, what do you think? - <AUTHOR> http://rotorapp.com <comment><USER2> Before looking at your tool, I think that there are already many tools for time tracking with Trello.

<comment><USER3> You are right, a few good tools out there. This is just our take on it, we like simple things :)

Most tools require some form of manual work, starting a timer, installing an extension, entering hours by hand etc.

We developed Rotor for our internal use some time ago because it allowed us to track time with no interference and keep using Trello as we had before (it tracks the time cards spend in defined list/s where we would move then anyway - ex : from To Do to Doing).

We thought others might be interested as well so we made it public.

Glad you like the landing page :D, my partner will appreciate that, tried to make it simple and informative.

<comment><USER4> > You are right, a few good tools out there. This is just our take on it, we > like simple things :)

I used to have a really simple way to track time, back in the pre-cloud days: music CDs.

Put on CD, hit play, start working on something billable to a particular client. When the CD ends, put on another. When done working on stuff for that client, add up the total time of the pile of played CDs, and that's the time to bill that client.

That did require manual action, but since I was going to listen to music while I worked anyway it was not really any extra work.</comment></comment></comment>


Why is Hacker News only about "news" and implemented as such? - <AUTHOR>

Some submissions are interesting for a long time (e.g., decades), yet Hacker News and other social news sites select submissions for the front page based on their newsworthiness.
For submissions that are interesting for a long time, there should be a way to show them on the front page for a long time to some fraction of users.
Ranking on the front page would be (partially) based on recent scores for submissions. Users could hide a submission once they are no longer interested in it.
Why don't social news sites do something like that? <comment><USER2> That's what social bookmarking sites (like del.icio.us) are for. When I make the choice to come to a news site I'd rather see news, or at least current discussion relating to a "classic" link. If I instead see a bunch of old links without any active discussion attached, I'm quickly going to find another place to get my news.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why wouldn't the old links have an active discussion? Perhaps not as active as the news, but still active.

<comment><USER3> New comments have to compete with old ones on the page. Once a page hits one million words it is pretty much done, unless there's a mechanism by which it gets edited, condensed, summarized, or updated.

One technique that has been tried is giving every visitor the power to edit, summarize, or update the entire page. That's the Wikipedia model. But, of course, you lose the history of the conversation [1], and the individual voices, and you're subject to the editorial whims of whoever happens by.

Another idea is to keep the content in the form of discrete comments but allow visitors to _rearrange_ the comments. That's kind of how Stack Overflow works. The HN voting system also serves to rearrange comments on the page. These things are kind of indirect, though, and they do nothing to deal with the volume problem. Words take time to read; you have to cut down the supply somehow, and that inevitably requires some rewriting as well as cherry- picking.

Or you could just periodically archive the discussion and start it over with a fresh page, ending up with a series of discussions, each lasting only a day or two, but possibly related to or built on predecessor discussions that stretch back into history. This is pretty much how HN works.

\---

[1] Yeah, there are edit logs. Most people don't read those for fun. Most of the events in an edit log are tedious and unenlightening, like reading raw Postscript source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> HN content hasn't been purely news in my experience, there is a lot of interesting content that is submitted that isn't new, nor does it fit it in the "news" category. Many well thought, well written essays end up on the front page and recieve many upvotes, even if they were written years ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but HN is implemented for news and doesn't handle submissions of long term interest properly.

Moreover, the name "Hacker News" encourages mostly news submissions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Build it!</comment>