Show HN: A marketplace to hire no code experts - <AUTHOR> https://www.withoutcode.io/experts <comment><USER2> I thought the whole point of the no-code movement was to enable non-technical folks to build things for themselves? If you're going to hire an expert, why not get a dev?

<comment><USER3> I was recently helping a friend modernize his family business, which is now his sole income and thus his full time job.

Because of the nature of older, archaic/legacy systems in place, there was so much room for growth and increasing revenue and profits.

My friend has worked in sales at a large tech company (hint, recent IPO), so he was acquainted with the tech industry. But when I showed him basic workflows such as how to automate Google Sheets and referencing cells and using formulas (aka Excel skills), it was like teaching calculus to a middle schooler.

I then showed him how he could connect siloed data between business tools using Zapier, which requires no code at all. I found myself again discovering that even setting up a simple Zap was way too much for him to handle.

These simple no-code workflows were to create a loyalty program, automated email/drip marketing, and more basic marketing implementations.

Moral of the story is that you can assume the normal person, even if they have worked in tech, will still have trouble setting up and using No Code to its powerful potential, let alone basic utility. I can definitely see a marketplace work for people like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No code expert is faster than no code expert.

<comment><USER2> Huh?

<comment> d--b I guess he meant: "no code-expert is faster than no-code expert"

<comment><USER2> Ha, got it thanks</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Save the Amazon (EC2) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wepay.com/donate/122143

<comment><USER2> The timing is a bit tongue-in-cheek but it's still a great cause. Upvoted for the environment.</comment>


VFIO – PCI/GPU passthrough allows VMs with native graphics performance - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF <comment><AUTHOR> I am running such a setup since last year.

Now I no longer need to dual-boot between Linux and Windows in order to use Windows-only software (like games or photo-editing software) and it has been a real game-changer for my productivity.

Just let me know if you have any questions about such a setup and I will try to answer them.

</comment><comment><USER2> I just installed Arch on a Dell server that has 2 older GPUs. I wanted to do this exact thing.</comment>


Why I'm quitting Google Reader: Google is sharing me to death - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/internet/102074/why-im-quitting-google-reader <comment><USER2> I would rather deactivate Buzz completely than letting it spoil the Reader.

<comment><USER3> I deactivated Buzz. It seems Google's so desperate to enter the social advertising market that they're inconveniencing their users so much, so I refuse to use Buzz for this simple reason. Google doesn't know what's best for me. I do. They need to stop forcing me to use things I don't want. If I want to use them, I'll turn them on, or request them.

<comment><USER4> I'm content with facebook, that by the time I'd heard about Buzz I'd already heard about problems (like this one) that would drive me away from using it. So, currently at least, I've decided to avoid Buzz. If I never experience Buzz during its existence, so be it. I use Docs, Analytics, Gmail and Reader, I'm a rather loyal Google user and Buzz just seems to be aimed at screwing all that up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Message to Google: Not MORE data. LESS data that's MORE useful.

I don't want more crap buzzing in my inbox. I want you to help me find just the most important stuff.

I don't want more crap shared to me on Google Reader. I want you to notice that I'm getting over 100 new articles a day, but only 5 of them have any relevance to my work.

Just as your search pages showed fewer (but more useful) results than your competitors and gmail showed less spam, I'd like you to help me get less data everywhere else online.

</comment><comment><USER6> Tip: Have a separate Google account for Reader. I don't use any of Google's social stuff anyway, but my Reader is nice and clean with none of this stuff going on.

I have an old Gmail and direct @gmail.com account from back in the day, but use Google Apps For My Domain with its domain specific account for everything "serious." Being logged in with two accounts at once isn't really a problem as long as you only use one login per Google service, I've found.

<comment><USER7> I have a dedicated account for Reader, and I use it from within a Mozilla Prism appliance. External links open in my regular Firefox instance.

This is a simple setup that works adequately well for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A fantastic console newsreader is newsbeuter.

<http://newsbeuter.org/>

Highly configurable, and you can set vi keybindings.

</comment><comment><USER9> I worked on a project once where this one person always posed the question, "But what if google just copied us?" I always mentally ignored the question, because I never considered it an issue. Just cause Google "can" doesn't mean they will "succeed". Buzz is a perfect case in point, and it's not the only one in Google's long history.

</comment><comment><USER10> He has to spend 5 to 15 minutes everyday hiding followers? Does he follow that many new people in buzz everyday (automatically or implicitly) or are they not staying hidden? That estimate seems large.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand the problem. Why can't you minimize the "People you follow" pane and just ignore it? Is it that shared items appear in the "All items" view? An easy solution is to just drop all your subscriptions into a single folder, and then view it through the subscriptions pane. Same content as all items except nothing shared.

</comment><comment><USER12> One of the rare cases where "normal" people would benefit from knowing how to program? Should be easy to automate the hiding with a Greasemonkey script.

Not suggesting this as a solution to everyone, just saying...

</comment><comment><USER13> Yeah I think it must have to do with the number of people you follow. Hiding has worked fine for me. Though I only follow about 150 people. Surprisingly not that many people I know use Buzz, even though most use GMail.

Anyways, if you're looking for alternatives, I used Bloglines before I was a GReader fan. Might want to try that out again, or a desktop app might be up your alley too.

</comment><comment><USER14> What about browser plugins? There are a bunch out for Firefox ([https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/tags/display/RSS?so...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/tags/display/RSS?sort=weeklydownloads)). I used Sage several years ago and was relatively happy with it; surely they've improved on it since then.

</comment><comment><USER15> I use <http://feedafever.com/> and I love it :)

<comment><USER16> I bought a license for Fever, and I hated it. It's a lovely UI and a great concept, but in practice it ended up requiring a ton of fiddling to essentially end up with Techmeme (that is, it only floats content to the top based on inbound links, which is a pretty dim signal of what's going to be important to you if you read about esoteric topics).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The author of the article is hiding people's names in the people panel without actually changing the setting to ignore their shares.

The author needs to go into the sharing settings menu and click 'ignore' on the users he doesn't want to see content from.

</comment><comment><USER18> So... alternatives?

<comment><USER19> a friend recently launched feedingo.com - which is exactly that, a better google reader.

<comment><USER20> The trouble with that is that Reader is the Twitter of RSS readers. Why do I say that? Look at iPhone feed readers. Pretty much all of them use your Google Reader account to synchronize unread/read etc. so you don't have to read just on your phone. It's the API and data store for synchronized feed reading.

<comment><USER21> How many devices do you need to read your RSS feed on anyway? For me it's only my desktop machines and _occasionally_ my phone. That's a pretty low barrier to entry for a new feed reader.

I'm not buying the huge ecosystem argument at all. The problem with the direction Google is taking—not to mention Twitter—is that there is a huge fad fun factor at work here. It's fun to play around with this stuff, but how much useful information can you get out of it? Sure, Twitter is some people's bread and butter (pro bloggers...), RSS is much more powerful for domain experts, for some people all they can really make use of is email.

Personally I think Google Buzz is too late to cash in on the Twitter fad. It's solving Google's business problem, not users'. It'll probably settle into its niche like the rest of Google's stuff, but they'll have to fix this heavy- handed integration stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My favorite thing ever is the Google Reader "next" bookmarklet. It lets me use a RSS reader without ever needing to actually go to Google Reader.

</comment><comment><USER23> tried out netvibes recently. it's designed to be more of a polished igoogle but you can use it only for feeds and it works well.

</comment><comment><USER24> It is interesting that Google is acting like a start-up company - I give them credit for pushing this stuff out, but it's easy to see why beasts like Microsoft stagnated for so long considering the litany of issues you run into as a mature business with tens-of-millions of users . . .

</comment><comment><USER25> What am I missing? I don't share anything in my Google Reader. So where's the problem?

<comment><USER26> If your Google Reader account is linked to a Google Account that's on Buzz, you get all this sharing whether you want it or not. The solutions seem to be: 1) disable Buzz; or 2) create a separate Google Account specifically to use with Reader.

<comment><USER25> But what exactly is being shared by me without my knowledge? I don't get it.

I am not sharing the feeds I read in my Google Reader, nor do I click any individual feed story to share.

<comment><USER26> I think he's complaining about the other direction--- other people's feeds being shared with him, polluting the "All Items" view with items shared by his Buzz contacts, while he'd rather just see his own subscribed feeds there. Apparently you can't turn that off without disabling Buzz entirely.

<comment><USER25> Okay, thanks. I still find it an odd reason to leave Google Reader. There's just no better alternative out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Not a problem in my case; everyone I have as a contact in Buzz is someone I was already following in Reader.</comment>


Venture Capitalist: A Rise to Riches (1981) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/06/business/venture-capitalist-a-rise-to-riches.html <comment><USER2> _> ''But at this stage of my life I don't do it for the money,'' said Mr. Adler, who just sold his Upper East Side apartment for $2.5 million. ''I'm really a dilettante, and this is like going to a university and getting paid for it. I love it.''_

Love it.

</comment><comment><USER3> HN promoting VC - business as usual.

However, what I would love to read would be a little different: bootstrapping success stories!

Because that's really hacking the system, for fun AND profit!

<comment><USER4> There have been a great many bootstrapping success stories on HN over the years. It's a perennial topic.

<comment><USER3> You are correct: every now and then, there is a bootstrapping story posted.

But it seems to me the VC:bootstrap ratio is very unequal for submitted articles, while going the opposite way for comments.

Maybe it's just a question of scale (more bootstrappers = more commenters). Or maybe I'm just not in the target audience for HN

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/venture- capitalist-p...](https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/venture-capitalist- pioneer-talks-taxes-tech-and-facebook/)

He was so right about facebook and microsoft back in 2012</comment>


The Chinese Navy Just Transformed This Cargo Ship into an Helicopter Carrier - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2020/08/22/surprise-the-chinese-navy-just-transformed-this-cargo-ship-into-an-istant-helicopter-carrier/#72f30c251d44 <comment><USER2> >A commercial heavy-load carrier flying a Hong Kong flag recently supported a Chinese naval exercise, functioning as a base for at least two army helicopters.

According to every comment on here about HK, HK isn't China. Guess they give ships away now.</comment>


New Go SDK – Looking for Feedback - <AUTHOR> Just reworked our GO Sdk: https://github.com/bandwidthcom/go-bandwidth
We are a telco api (send/receive mms, sms, phonecalls): http://ap.bandwidth.com/)
We would really appreciate any feedback! Trying to make sure we put out a high quality SDK :)
Thanks! <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good "Show HN".

Guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

Because the Hacker News submission page will not include the contents of the link if there is text in the textbox, it is usually helpful to readers to just submit the link and title.

If there is explanation needed, adding a comment to the Hacker News story is ok.

Good luck.</comment>


Russian WW2 parade: A tank-spotter's guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32588868 <comment><USER2> Apparently, one of the Armatas broke down during the Parade, and one of the Buk missile launchers caught fire.

Admittedly, the Tank looks usable, but the question of the value of a completely new MBT is a really urgent one. Especially as the worth of armor diminishes more and more, as it already did once in the 60s. Modern ATGM are capable of smashing every modern MBT at the first hit, and the only protection are active protection systems as fitted to modern Israeli Merkavas. As long as the russians don't equip this Tank with one of those, its as big a casket as an old T-54.

<comment><USER3> This a million times. Tanks are ceremonial items at this point, at least against a sophisticated NATO-like enemy. This is just a propagandist display, something Russians are prone to do. Russia doesn't even have the autonomy to properly invade a non-military power like Ukraine without the West stepping in, thus all the "that's not really us" shenanigans. I'm not sure what enemy they plan to use this stuff on as anyone within their limited military range can trivially get Western ATGM's or already has them.

The reality is that long-range power projection, automation/comm/logistics, long range targeting, advanced arms, drones/UAVs/unmanned, air superiority, quick carrier group deployments, etc decide modern war outcomes. Russia struggles with this level of sophistication, hell, they are trying to get the French to build carriers for them and are woefully behind in several critical key measures. Pretending its still WWII and bulking up in armor, especially ones without counters to modern ATGM's, makes as much sense as building another Maginot line. Russian reactive armor leaves a lot to be desired. ATGM tech usually outstrips armor tech quickly and NATO's current offerings are pretty impressive. Not to mention the cost of reactive armor raises the cost, per tank, anywhere between 300-500k, which makes it economically infeasible to retro-arm older tanks frequently.

Russia's tank force is mostly a 1970s relic, the T-72. Constant retrofitting is still lipstick on a pig and to NATO forces. Older DU based munitions like the M829A3's and others punch through these things with ease. Fifth generation M829E4's take out the best Russian armor today. A $10,000 NATO round punches through $500,000 tank armor. Tank armor is a fool's errand at best, as munitions catch up too fast and armor development takes too long/tank lifespan is too long/tank retrofitting is too expensive. The Russians know this, but lack the sophistication to modernize in other ways, so they double-down on tanks, which will probably have a long service life on the usual parade route, but not be effective in combat. Especially now that Putin has rebranded himself anti-NATO, anti-West, anti-Democracy, pro-Autocracy, pro-Annexation, pro-Assad, pro-Jong-Un, etc. He's not partnering up with NATO for some peace mission, he's pointing his guns at them and compared to NATO he's at a massive disadvantage militarily with these tanks, which just become very expensive coffins for Russian tank crews.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that's also what Napoleon, Hitler and every other major power that tried to invade Russia in the last 500 years also said.

<comment><USER5> That's a strawman. Who is talking about invading Russia? Nobody. The parent comment is talking about the low value proposition offered by Russia's tank upgrade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those interested, Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising presents a pretty accurate account of a major modern day tank battle/ground war between two advanced armies. It's also a great Cold War era novel. Basically, short-range (1-4 km) anti-tank guided missiles wreak havoc on tanks and neutralize any advancing armor columns. Attack helicopters also are important but their effectiveness ends up being severely limited by Man-portable air-defense systems (think Stinger Missiles). Air superiority, for both sides at first, is limited by over the horizon radar and mobile SAM units, and so it ends up being too risky to use air assets to attack ground forces.

As for how it would turn out today, I think about the same. Point defense systems to intercept ATGMs are still relatively new and have only been tested in the field by Israel against Hamas during their 2014 war. They were supposedly very successful with intercepting RPGs and Metis-Ms ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K115-2_Metis-M](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K115-2_Metis-M)). I'm unconvinced drones like the Predator or Reaper would be effective in an extended conflict. The real power of drones lies in their ability to loiter in area for an incredibly long amount of time and wait for a target to present itself. In a modern battlefield where the sky is constantly being illuminated by radar, a loitering craft in the area of battle is not going to be there for long.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was hoping it was a parade of WW2 era tanks. Still the new tank is pretty interesting design.

<comment><USER8> They did have T-34 and either SU-100 or SU-85 (can't tell the difference between them). Only video I found has an RT reporter right in the middle obstracting some view: [https://youtu.be/fo-P98cVtq8](https://youtu.be/fo-P98cVtq8)

Tanks are first 50 seconds, then it moves on to modern stuff.

<comment><USER2> I think they are SU-100, but I would have loved to see some more of the WW2-Veterans. But as most of them molder and rust away in a sorry state in some open air museums...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What's with the tarp on the Koalitsiya-SV ?

<comment><USER10> Hiding the shoggoth controlling the vehicle.

[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm](http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Russia is ready to win the next WWII. It is just so happens that WWII is already in the past, and the next wars will be won by drones and other high- tech weapon systems which Russia isn't capable to produce. The drones they flt in Ukraine war are foreign (bought from Israel).

<comment><USER12> Sure, drones and high-tech weapon systems. I can clearly see how hyper-tech weapons will function at -40C, with N meters of snow and covering distances where you need Nk-km to reach the closest village.

I don't really mean to sound caustic but you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. There are two big mistakes which are commonly made these days: 1) technology is overrated (vs nature) 2) as humans we think we are in control and only first hand experience would teach us otherwise.

Pull out a phone at -40, it won't even switch on. Circuitry won't work, batteries won't last. Russia is a harsh country, with harsh people which has first hand experience of a territory where western technology wouldn't simply stand a chance.

<comment><USER5> You don't defeat Russia by invading it and fighting in -40 degree weather.

You defeat Russia before the war begins, by keeping them impoverished as they are today. So long as they retain their current system, they will remain that way perpetually. Putin was bailed out by the dollar induced boom in the price of commodities from 2002-2014, specifically oil; that party is over. He has no second trick up his sleeve, which is why he is now turning to invading his neighbors.

Today Russia's economy is 1/9th the size of the US economy. In just 15 years, the Russian economy will fall to 1/12th the size of the US economy.

When you are so far behind economically, and showing absolutely zero potential for progress, the long-term military threat you can pose (outside of nukes), becomes proportionally restrained. Russia is now a regional power, barely able to maintain its own mass, much less project power against something like NATO.

Russia's ability to project force outside of its borders, is dramatically lower than it was during Soviet times, and it's going to remain that way. There's no need to fight inside of Russia, when they can't fight outside of Russia.

<comment><USER12> Yes, I do agree with you. That's the real weapon we - as people from the western block - have and comes with little surprise that Russia is trying to redefine the whole economical system by joining with China.

[http://nationalinterest.org/feature/could-chinas-renminbi- ri...](http://nationalinterest.org/feature/could-chinas-renminbi-rival-the- dollar-the-next-reserve-12851)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From an article online: "And Russia's RT news says the Armata could 'evolve into a fully robotic battle vehicle'."

<comment><USER11> A good sergeant in Russian army boot-camp can make a robot out of any freshly drafted organic.</comment></comment>


A Spreadsheet's Star Turn - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601545/a-spreadsheets-star-turn/ <comment><USER2> John Oliver's recent show on "Journalism" included references to the Spotlight movie: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=bq2_wSsDwkQ](https://youtube.com/watch?v=bq2_wSsDwkQ)

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. The movie is great, and the true story very sad.

Let's hope at least Boston Globe has a backup of the spreadsheets and other original research documents. I wonder why a former journalist and current research scientist has no proper personal backup strategy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Data/notes retention in journalism has not historically been a natural part of the workflow. Sometimes it's because of logistical reasons, as it appears to be in this case. But there's also the (IMO, justified) mentality that keeping notes for long past stories and interviews can put your sources at risk of being subpoenaed.

How I've heard it explained by various media lawyers is that juries and judges are not pleased when a journalist doesn't destroy notes on a regular basis, but happens to do so in just the specific case that the journalist happens to be under scrutiny for. I guess the technophile equivalent would be using Tor regularly so that if someday you're accused of impropriety in a specific situation, you can't be accused of using Tor that one time to hide your alleged malfeasance.

Again, having a get-rid-of-notes mentality doesn't seem to be the problem here. Just lack of workflow and practice in keeping information around -- in an era before cloud file backup and services such as Github, keeping track of backups on floppies/zip disks/CDs was non-trivial for most people.

If you watched the movie "Spotlight", there's a powerful scene in which the reporters rips a lawyer (Billy Crudup's character) for covering up for the Catholic Church because his willingness to settle the abuse cases privately, and he rips them right back:

> _Years ago, after the Porter case. I got plenty of calls, I had 20 priests > in Boston alone but I couldn 't go after them without the press. So I sent > you guys a list of names. And you buried it...Check your goddammn clips, > Robby_

(The real-life lawyer posted a lengthy Facebook post in which he elaborated on his role and critiqued the way the movie made him complicit in the cover-up: [https://www.facebook.com/eric.macleish/posts/922406084502403](https://www.facebook.com/eric.macleish/posts/922406084502403))

I don't know enough about the people in the real-life case, but it sounds like the reporters on the Spotlight team were unaware of what their colleagues had known and published in the past, or else they would've been less dickish towards the lawyer. Malicious cover-up from the top of the Boston Globe's editorial chain (before the Marty Baron days), or just another case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, is up to interpretation. This is a tangent to the topic of why can't people keep better track of their old files, but it's just an example of how non-trivial the work of information organization is.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How Did You Find a Job Abroad? - <AUTHOR> As an American looking to move overseas, I'm a bit overwhelmed by the seemingly infinite possibilities and the lack of curation of resources.
Looking for insights from people who have already been through this. Especially if you didn't already have a professional network at your intended destination, how did you start?
Did you find and contact specific companies? Apply to openings on job boards? Find recruiters? Something else?
If you went the recruiter route, how did you locate them and select the ones worth working with? <comment><USER3> I have lived abroad for the past 7 years. Below are ideas that I got from personal experience abroad:

\- In your home country, find a large company with offices abroad where you want to gom work for them a few years, and monitor internal job offers and apply to get transfered abroad.

PRO: good package if succesful.

CON: long and low probability of success.

\- move to the foreign location first, and start your job hunt there, with linkedin, local recruiters and meetup.

PRO: more chance to be successful.

CON: your jobhpackage might not be as good as with the first method.

\- teach english abroad.

PRO: the easiest way.

CON: salary wont be as good (but can still be decent compared to local wages), might be harder if you are not a citizen of an english speaking country (especially to get a visa), and no career prospects..

\- find a remote job, setup a company locally, and hire yourself to get the visa. Technically, you will be a consultant to the foreign company.

PRO: financially can be really good, in particular if you earn western salary and live in a cheaper country. Also you will be very independent.

CON: a lot of setup is required, and it js harder to find a remote job. a variation of this method is to create your own online business. Probably the best setup if you manage to do it.

A few other thoughts:

\- expat contracts are less and less offered

\- knowing a relevant foreign language is not that helpful. If the company needs someone who can speak the local language, they will prefer to simply hire a local

\- what is really helpful is to have a unique technical expertise that is hard to find in the country (someone said developer?)

<comment><USER4> This post is sound and current advice. If you are resource constrained, just go and sort it out when you're there. If you are worried, go somewhere that's easier to pull off first, then reward yourself by transitioning to your intended destination 12 or 24 months later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Got a working holiday visa for Ireland. Met a guy in a pub and we agreed on the proper pronunciation for JSON. Got an interview. Got a job. Got a green card. Still here.

Of course, you could also just apply. What's your skillset? Also, where do you want to go? Overseas is a big place!

<comment><USER6> So what is the proper pronunciation for JSON?

<comment><USER5> Jay-son (like "song" without the g though)

Not jay-sun, the name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The easiest in my opinion - work for US company and then relocate within organization - this may help you avoid pay-cut and sort out various visa/relocation hassles.

Another option would be working remotely for US company and travelling - <USER2> digital nomads. Then once you are fine to settle down you can seek local job. Recruiters will chase you down anyway once you switch your LinkedIn location.

Actually you can even now show your interest to relocate with LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/career- interests/](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/career-interests/)

<comment><USER8> > working remotely for US company and travelling

Note that in many jurisdictions this is in violation of immigration laws (and possibly tax laws). Check the law in the location you plan to move to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Applied for a couple of jobs in StackOverflow developer job section. Got called for a couple of interviews within two weeks or so. Finally, got a job in a Software company in Germany. Next thing you know, I'm in freezing Munich (But the city and people are pretty nice though)

PS: I'm from Sri Lanka

<comment><USER10> What was your experience level when applying / how long ago was this? SO Careers/Jobs is pretty different now to when I was using it in 2015/2016 and now I'm virtually getting no responses despite seemingly appropriate fit. Maybe it's just me but it's proving to be a time sink.

<comment><USER11> No OP but similar case; ~2015. Took 3 months end to end (Application to Offer, moving was 2 more months thanks to Visa process-BlueCard).

Interviews were all conducted via skype. Had 1 HR screening, 2 tech rounds with now teammates, 2 director rounds (not really tech more like cultural fit)

After having worked for the team 2 years I will say my return on time invested was at least 100x, YMMV though.

I really thing

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, I lived in seven different countries so far. I never moved to another country without a job. This is not to say that it cannot be done of course. It is just that I never did it.

Finding a job in a country other than the one where you live is not easy and it can easily take up to a year.

I found that lots of companies will not even interview you if you are not in the same country. Having a national phone number helps (you can get one with Skype at al).

Large companies and international organizations are more likely to consider candidates residing abroad and more likely to relocate you. Also, they are less likely to require knowledge of the local language.

Beware of moving somewhere without a job: visa requirements might be such that you cannot legally look for employment while there.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've worked two jobs overseas:

a. A post doc at EPFL. The professor sent out the JD, I applied.

b. Microsoft China. I looked at their webpage and cold emailed someone whose area seemed appealing to me. Got the job a few months later.

In total, I was out of the USA for almost 11 years (2 in Swiss, 9 in China).

The market for PhDs is a bit different, we have to rely almost solely on our connections (recruiters aren't useful), but on the other hand it is easier to get the jobs you are qualified for (not as much competition at the PhD level) if you know where to look.

<comment><USER14> > we have to rely almost solely on our connections (recruiters aren't useful)

This is pretty much the same here in AUS. Being from mainland EU on a spouse visa (457), people hardly get ANY job, and I mean even a toilet cleaner position. People get simply rejected because of "lack of local experience" bull5hit.

AUS will reap what it sows, every country will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> 2 interesting ways:

# Competing in hackathons overseas (I got many job offers this way)

# Getting inside interesting IT, or VC facebook group, many times they offer jobs this way. (I got my current job this way)

<comment><USER16> A couple questions: did you have to travel to the hackathons?

How did you fing these groups?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Did you find and contact specific companies?

That is an option. Companies I have been working for have hired people that contacted directly. If you want to come to Stockholm, these are some companies I know people in:

\- [https://king.com/sv/jobs?locations=stockholm&roles=all](https://king.com/sv/jobs?locations=stockholm&roles=all) \- [https://www.netent.com/en/section/work/](https://www.netent.com/en/section/work/) \- [https://www.spotifyjobs.com/](https://www.spotifyjobs.com/)

If you know the company you want to work for, just apply for that. But before that, make sure that you like the culture, weather, city, etc. where you are moving in. If you know which city or country, but not wich company, other methods are probably better that investigating company by company.

A good option is to work for an international company with cross-country secondment offers. I did this. I worked for a company in my country of origin, and then applied for a position in another company. It was quite easy.

</comment><comment><USER18> I am in the process of moving from the States to Europe. I am not an American (EU citizen), but I have lived in USA for almost 8 years now. It is a process I am going though with my significant other. We started by identifying places that offer good job opportunities for both of us. Then we filtered out places that are too expensive to live or have housing shortage (like Stockholm) and places where it is difficult to live without knowing the language and the language is too difficult for us to learn (like Paris). We identified one best place for us. We have been learning the language for a few months now (online resources + conversations with friends), but according to many we would be just fine only knowing English. I have found a few interesting opportunities on HN's monthly "Who's hiring" [1,2] thread and applied.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16492994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16492994) (March)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16282819](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16282819) (February)

<comment><USER7> Berlin?

<comment><USER18> Correct :)

<comment><USER19> Did you consider other German cities as well?

<comment><USER18> Yes. München has a lot to offer, but my SO could not find anything for her. Also cost of living seems to be higher.

<comment><USER14> And it's near Poland ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You didn't mention what do you specialize in but I will assume something related to IT.

Some time ago I have started poking around for a job abroad. Don't know when or how but I have found AngelList. I wasn't actively looking and I didn't want to be overwhelmed by a million job sites so I thought I'd just try out my luck on this one as it was trending at that moment as a startup job site.

Filled out my profile, started sending my resume to companies from cities I was interested to move to. Few months after I got a response from a guy from a small company in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It didn't sound too serious but we kept in touch through the year and then he asked me to come over. Booked me tickets introduced me to the company and to the city a little bit.

And that's how it went. I got a few weeks to decide whether and when I want to come. I left my job in my home country Lithuania and I'm happily living in Amsterdam for over a year now.

I'm not sure how actively you're looking for a job but AngelList would be the No. 1 place to start. I have heard other success stories related to that place as well.

</comment><comment><USER21> Managed to convince my existing employer to let me work remotely fulltime. Moved oversees and kept working for them for two years.

Posted in the monthly freelancer thread on HN and was emailed by a guy with some work that was also remote and switched to working for them.

I'd say the easiest way to get a remote job first, then you can move wherever you want, timezone permitting.

<comment><USER22> I'm not knowledgeable on visas and traveling abroad and all that stuff. How does that work for a situation like this ? I'm sure it varies from country to country. From where to where did you move?

<comment><USER23> > How does that work for a situation like this?

There's no single answer to this question, it depends almost entirely on A. What citizenship(s) you hold and B. What immigration arrangements your intended country of work has with any of the States you hold citizenship in. Like many of these things, there is a bit of a birth country lottery involved here as to how difficult this may or may not be for you, or even whether it's legally possible in the first place.

In other words pick somewhere and google or seek legal advice for your own situation. The answer is often entirely different depending on which country you intend to work in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I moved to Tokyo, rented a room, and registered with a couple of staffing agencies that specialize in IT jobs for foreigners (one of which wound up hiring me internally). You need a a 4 year degree or 10 years work experience to qualify for the working visa. Happy to recommend a local IT recruiter if anyone wants.

<comment><USER10> Moved to Tokyo before acquiring a job? How did you manage that in the first place? I'd be interested in the recruiter. I wonder if I can hack it as an English teacher to get the sponsorship and work my way through.

<comment><USER24> I just came over and stayed in a hotel for a few days while I found a cheap room in a so-called Gaijin House (dormitory-style housing that rents by the month).

As for English teaching, that's a whole topic unto itself, with lots of online resources, forums etc. If you have any marketable skills or job experience then my advice would be not to mess with it.

Glad to introduce the recruiter (for IT/finance - I don't know any recruiters that deal in English teaching jobs). Email is my username at gmail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 4 months of Treehouse ([https://teamtreehouse.com/](https://teamtreehouse.com/)) courses and I landed a job as a web developer in Berlin, relocating and 7x'ing my salary. Good ROI on that $100 investment (4 months x $25p/m) :)

P.S. Found the job through LinkedIn

</comment><comment><USER26> I lived overseas for 8 years.

In one country, I went there as a student and through an internship got a job in my industry (media).

In another country, I went there to study language and ended up finding local companies (mostly media) who wanted to hire me and were able to set up temporary work visas. It was not hard to find work, lodging, and other resources, even though this was in the days before widespread Internet use. Networking and print classifieds could take you pretty far. I once found housing on an old fashioned public bulletin board.

The Internet has made it much easier to find such opportunities. I know in some countries there are local expat bulletin boards with job and housing listings, plus advice on local work requirements. But I have also seen lots of international listings using LinkedIn job search and restricting to certain locales.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER27> Both times people came to me.

My first overseas job: I had spend a few months there and enjoyed the place. When I realised they had a blooming startup scene, I built a small project to map the startups and send it to a few people. That caught the attention of the CEO of one of the startups who then proceeded to send me an email asking if we could arrange a Skype call

Second overseas job: Had been freelancing for a while. The CEO found me on angel list and asked if we could arrange a call to discuss some contract work (having some blog posts and a website played a big role in having them choose me). I got their app off the ground, helped them with a few other things and the CEO eventually asked if I would be interested in working full-time for them.

(EDIT) I guess the lesson learned here is: have an online presence no matter how small.

</comment><comment><USER28> Been working in Singapore for 13 years now. Originally from Sweden.

In my case, I already knew I needed to move there for family reasons. Before that I had already considered moving abroad but it wasn't until I knew where I wanted to go that I could start looking for real.

I was browsing job boards and did get a couple of interviews. Nothing was particularly interesting though. Then on a fluke I got in touch with another European who worked for the Singapore branch of a European company, and they were looking for tech people. A few interviews later I had a job offer, and the company helped out with the legal parts.

It's all worked out pretty well and I currently have no plans to leave the country.

</comment><comment><USER12> For Europe, I used [https://www.eurojobsites.com](https://www.eurojobsites.com) as well as the job vacancy sections of individual companies and organizations.

Each country tends to have its job boards as well (e.g. [https://www.jobs.ch/en/](https://www.jobs.ch/en/) for Switzerland) so you might want to check them out.

Stack Overflow Careers, Angel List and the monthly 'who is hiring?' thread here are also useful.

As I mentioned, my advice however is to move with a job, rather than go abroad and then look for employment.

Best of luck!

<comment><USER29> For Switzerland you can just e-mail me! I am a former programmer, turned technical recruiter. I run [https://coderfit.com](https://coderfit.com), a niche recruitment agency that focuses on Zurich. Please let me know at firstname.lastname@example.com, if I can be of any help. I got already a couple of engineers successfully into Switzerland.

If you can move to a job, that is really the best but that is not always possible. Some opportunities only open up if you are already in the country/in the city where you want to move. Several of my clients (unfortunately) consider only candidates that already basically live next door. They are missing out on great talent from other places but they don't want to take the risk that someone gets the job (which means other people have to be rejected), moves, doesn't like something about the place and moves away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I moved from Australia -> London.

I just took a leap of faith. I had a (small) amount of savings, that could keep me a float for 3-4 months.

I interviewed a couple of companies (both start ups and big corps) over the phone while still in Australia, and ended up getting an offer at the first company I interviewed at in person. I liked them so I cancelled the rest.

Best decision I've made, I love London and don't plan on leaving. But I was in a very privileged position to be able to take that huge a risk, and already had an easy Visa + friends to fall back on if I couldn't find a job.

<comment><USER31> So, I have this vague hand wavy idea that Australians are citizens of the crown, so they can go to the UK at will without jumping through bureaucratic hoops. This likely does not apply to an American.

Can you (or anyone) clarify that detail or speak to this issue? Because my suspicion is that an American would likely need a job offer in order to apply for the right kind of visa. In the US, if you show up on a tourist visa and then want to get a job or marry an American, that is apparently not kosher, from what I gather.

<comment><USER32> Right now that's only accurate if you're between 18 and 31 or have a close relative who was born in the U.K., though with Brexit looming, some politicians want to speed up the process for Commonwealth citizens. Right now, Commonwealth citizens have three options for UK visas:

1.) Youth mobility visa - when people talk about how easy it is for commonwealth citizens to get UK work visas, this is normally the program they're talking about. If you're between 18-31, are a citizen of the Commonwealth and have the resources to support yourself while you're looking for work, you can live in the U.K. for two years without needing a work permit. This program cannot be renewed and a recipient can only come to the UK on a youth mobility visa once. This visa also has no resident/citizenship path. I was too old when I started looking into immigration so didn't look into this one any further.

2.) Ancestry visa - If you're a Commonwealth citizen and have a grandparent (you have other options if your parent(s) were born in the U.K.) who was born in the U.K., you can get a five year Visa that lets you work (but oddly, not study) in the U.K. After five years, you can start the residency -> citizenship path.

3.) A regular points based visa - This is open to everyone.

(Source - I'm a Canadian who strongly considered moving to the UK)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wasn't me, but a friend of mine worked from Germany for a couple of years. He worked for a company in the US that had offices throughout the world (it was a shipping company). A bit of his work involved working with other teams, so he had a bit of insight into those teams. He noticed that there were openings for positions similar to his in the foreign offices and reached out to the managers. He had to prepare a CV for them, but he was able to transfer there relatively easily.

</comment><comment><USER34> I did not went out my way to find a job in the US (I live in Spain, Barcelona) but rather that's just where the project I want to work on happen to be (Protocol Labs/IPFS). I work remote as well, so no move needed (I love my Catalunya!).

Rather than finding a specific location to move to, why don't find a project that aligns with you, and then move wherever they are? (after investigating the location of course)

<comment><USER16> I'm personally really interested in living in spain for a while, I already speak spanish and only need 2 years to got citizenship due to living in iber- america. How hard do you think it is to get a job in spain?

<comment><USER34> Easy! When I moved here, I was not a professional programmer (just been playing around for a few years), didn't speak spanish and had basically no work experience. But it took no more than a week or two of scouting before I got my first job (but crappy job). Fast-forward one year and I got a entry- level job as a programmer. After another year with some more experience, I had plenty of programming jobs to chose from.

Edit: worth to add that this was in Barcelona, which seems to have a higher percentage of people speaking/understanding Spanish. First town I moved to was Girona but no one spoke English so had to move to Barcelona.

<comment><USER16> Sorry I took so long to answer, but thank you! I'll definitely start looking!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I started fresh out of university as a volunteer with the Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) teaching computer science classes in a village in Kenya. Ended up having a great time and learning a lot about myself and the world. Met lots of people, got several jobs from there, haven't moved back to the US since then (eleven years now), but have been all over the world. Great experience!

</comment><comment><USER36> A friend of mine wrote down his experience getting a job in Canada. The article was an HN recently, but maybe worth to link it again: [https://blog.stephanbehnke.com/how-i-learned-to-stop- worryin...](https://blog.stephanbehnke.com/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and- love-the-job-hunt-in-toronto)

</comment><comment><USER37> Asking for a friend. If an American was looking for work in UAE or even SE Asia what are some good tools to facilitate that?

</comment><comment><USER38> I saw an ad on StackOverflow Jobs for a position at an NGO in Monrovia, Liberia. Since my better half, who was living in Tokyo at the time, was born there I thought it would be interesting.

I applied and got the job very quickly, after a couple of interviews and an online test for competence. It was a contract and I ended up staying for six months.

</comment><comment><USER39> Stackoverflow for Europe. Also, lots of opportunities to talk to people online - but I overwhelmingly recommend Europe.

<comment><USER40> I'm just curious, why Europe?

<comment><USER41> Citizen friendly laws, good economy ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Applied on LinkedIn for about a month, did phone interviews for 5-6 different roles. Failed some and passed some others. From the ones I passed I rejected some, others rejected me after finding a local candidate and finally I accepted an offer.

</comment><comment><USER43> On hacker news who is hiring by cmd + f remote / visa and applying the first time.

The second time was through stack overflow careers by filtering the ones that sponsored visa.

</comment><comment><USER44> I moved first with some savings and then started applying through job pages on local companies' websites. Took a bit under 2 months overall.

</comment><comment><USER45> If you are looking to move to Asia. Loom Network (TechStars Winter '18) is offering visas to programmers in Bangkok. We are a blockchain company famous for CryptoZombies ([https://cryptozombies.io](https://cryptozombies.io)) . We need Go Backend, Vue.Js, and Kubernetes resources .

Email me at email@example.com put [HN] in the title

</comment><comment><USER46> I moved from Russia to Sweden, then to the Netherlands as a software engineer.

Interesting thing about my situation - I don't have any degree.

Before even looking for a job, I had to do research about work permit rules in different countries in respect to bachelor degree.

The problem is that I couldn't ask for any help on the Internet for two reasons. First, there were very few "smart dropouts" looking for a job abroad. Second, very strong perception in society that university degree is solid, reliable and universal proof of qualification (and that's wrong, having a degree from noname university often tells absolutely nothing about qualification). Usually, I got useless answers like this: sorry, but Europe is out of the question, nobody needs uneducated people.

Obvious choices like US couldn't work for me since they have stupid H1B visa system. According to stupid logic of H1B, even if you get decent job offer from Google, you are not eligible for H1B visa without degree or 12 years of documentary proven relevant experience.

For months, I thought it's not possible to go anywhere in the first world without a degree.

In 2014, I dismissed popular beliefs that it's almost impossible to relocate without a degree. At that time, I decided to directly contact several immigration authorities about work visa requirements - Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Sweden.

In Hong Kong, they said it's theoretically possible. At that point, I realized that I still have a chance.

In the Netherlands, Immigration and Naturalisation Service confirmed that degree is not a requirement for highly-skilled work permit. And this was starting point to actually look for a job in the Netherlands.

I looked for a job mainly here:

[https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?sort=i&q=c%2B%2B&l=Netherland...](https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?sort=i&q=c%2B%2B&l=Netherlands&d=20&u=Km&v=true&t=true)

Additionally, I found my ex-colleagues in LinkedIn who work in Europe. I significantly improved my LinkedIn profile by explaining what I actually did at my previous jobs. Also, I added lots of recruiters to my LinkedIn network. Gradually, my profile became relevant and I started appearing in searches more often.

There were some very useful recruiters (mainly from London), who gave me valuable advices about my CV. If you have a lot of recruiters in your network, then you have a good chance to have a few of them, who understand your non- standard situation (i.e. not having any degree) and who are willing to spend their time giving you advices and recommend you to employers.

What I found is that mediocre companies tended to care much more about degree, than top companies. For example, Google, Facebook and Amazon really don't care about your degree unless it's Standford, MIT or something like this.

It was a long story how I failed lots of interviews because of cultural fit, ability to explain well what you thinking during coding round etc. I won't cover it here.

Eventually, I moved to Sweden first, worked for two companies there, then I moved to the Netherlands (thanks for 30% tax rulling for expats, I love it!).

Here is my LinkedIn profile:

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/eldar- gaynetdinov-a0564b61/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/eldar- gaynetdinov-a0564b61/)

May be I should help those university dropouts who want to relocate to different country.

<comment><USER47> Really valuable. Working internationally without an undergrad degree is its own class of problem.

Not having a degree in tech remains an extremely expensive (yet surprisingly reliable) counter signal for exceptional technical ability.

The question of why a company should hire someone without a degree overlooks the more accurate one which is, would this person actually still be in tech if they did have a degree?

There are laws and regulations in place to filter those people out, but like anything, there are exceptions to the rules. If you know any of them, they would be really, really useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Wrote a blog post.

Got call from my future manager.

Moved from cold Canada to warm California. :)

</comment><comment><USER49> While traveling, I searched for local jobs.

</comment><comment><USER50> drop me a resume if you're interested in working in one of the best cities in the world, shanghai

<comment><USER51> Currently in Shenzhen, looking to move to Shanghai. Your website does not seem to work - can I email you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> why do u want to leave US? Isnt it american dream?

</comment><comment><USER53> I created and launched a job board specifically for people like you last year. [http://www.visaok.in](http://www.visaok.in)

You can find jobs by Country / Work Visa. These are employers who promise to pay for and get you a work visa. As an American, you'll find that you have a lot less restrictions and requirements for working overseas on a work visa / resident permit.

From the listings and data, I found that Germany, Netherlands, UK / Great Britain (to an extend) and Denmark in Europe have the easiest to obtain work visa programs. Many also have 'Startup Visa' programs that lets the employer bring in an overseas engineer / tech worker on that Visa.

Lastly, I've done tons of research and published 'Visa Guides' for various countries.

[http://www.visaok.in/work-permit/blog/](http://www.visaok.in/work- permit/blog/)

These guides details the requirements, fees, and application portal links and forms.

Let me know if you (or anyone else) has feedback on what I can do to better help you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great resource, and those visa guides are wonderful!

There were no job openings listed in my preferred location that match my skill set, but maybe there will be in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Job boards have always worked great for me. What countries are you looking at?</comment>


Take Control of Your Twitter Data: Introducing Crowdbooster (YC S10) Pro Exports - <AUTHOR> http://blog.crowdbooster.com/take-control-of-your-twitter-data-introducing

<comment><USER2>
      4. You will not attempt or encourage others to:

        A. sell, rent, lease, sublicense, redistribute, or syndicate the
           Twitter API or Twitter Content to any third party for such
           party to develop additional products or services without prior
           written approval from Twitter;

\- <http://dev.twitter.com/pages/api_terms>

But you never know.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't believe that spreadsheets of data about your own Twitter account are a useful way to "develop an additional product or service" and that's not how we're pitching the feature. This feature is based on requests from several professional social media managers among our beta users, who wanted a way of exporting the data to give their management reports on their Twitter usage. If we find out that anyone is paying to download our spreadsheets for the purpose of re-importing the spreadsheets to build their own Twitter-related product or service, we will take appropriate action.

Thanks for the note of caution, though. There are risks to developing a service on top of a third-party platform, and we strive to maintain a good relationship with Twitter to mitigate those risks.

<comment><USER3> We were doing similar with the 140kit and got shut down fyi. We were making it easier for the average person to access their streaming API and we were adding value through additional data analysis and graphs. Twitter wants to make money now it seems from the data, and is realizing that its a commodity for them to control tighter.

I _thought_ we had developed a good working relationship with Twitter and their API team, but it doesn't seem that was the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Crowdbooster is lots of fun. I've been using it on my own piddly twitter account and a mega twitter account, @dropbox. Knowing which tweets resonate the most with the audience is great. Hint: people liked Dropquest.

<http://twitter.com/ikirigin>

<http://twitter.com/dropbox>

<http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=659>

</comment><comment><USER5> ThinkUp has a similar feature, it indexes your twitter activity (and facebook) and allows you to export and analyze it as you see fit.

<http://thinkupapp.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been using CrowdBooster to see how my @thathigh tweets are engaging users -- it's pretty awesome. Highly recommend.

</comment><comment><USER7> Twapperkeeper just rant into this same issue. I'd wager you'll do the same. <http://twapperkeeper.wordpress.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> That logo looks REALLY familiar.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is Posterous down?</comment>


Alleged Mt.Gox code leaked on IRC node by Russian Hacker - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/W8B3CGiN <comment><USER2> Wow. This code is pretty bad. I mean, it's bad for a college project. It's horrible for a company dealing with large sums of money.

Some random red flags:

\- There's a class with the name of the application. (Issues: Scope, SRP)

\- There's a class with 1708 lines of code. (Scope)

\- There's a switch-case statement that runs over 150 LOC (readability, maintainability)

\- There's a string parsing function in the same class as transaction processing (Separation of concerns)

\- There are segments of code commented out (are they not using source control?)

\- There's inlined SQL (maintainability, security)

\- There's JSON being generated manually & inline (SoC, DRY)

\- There's XML being generated manually & inline (SoC, DRY)

\- To sum up function __Route_getStats($path)_ : XML production, JSON production, file writing, business logic, SQL commands, HTTP header fiddling, hard coded paging limits, multiple exit points...

The amount of refactoring needed here to bring this code up to acceptable quality is simply staggering.

<comment><USER3> for an MVP this is fine :D Seeing how long mtgox has been around this is absurd. 1700+ lines would spin my head pretty fast.. And inline SQL is non- forgivable.

<comment><USER4> > And inline SQL is non-forgivable

What do PHP folk typically do for a big, hairy query that isn't really doable via an ORM? Not that this is the case here, just curious. I haven't touched PHP for years.

<comment><USER3> Oops, "inline SQL" is probably a wrong way of putting it. Actually, even in Symfony2 which has an ORM (Doctrine), I sometimes find myself writing SQL queries in code because Doctrine can be so inefficient in some situations. Writing pure SQL makes your code less portable (i.e. tied to a specific database, in this case MySQL). Now I don't think its bad at all to have somewhat complex group/(sub)queries written this way if portability is not a big concern, and if the number of those queries is not as big, it is something you just need to be aware of.

What we're actually talking about here which is really bad is string concatenation without parameterization.

Meaning, it seems the code is not using a database driver. PDO has been the accepted way of doing this. You pass the parameters to PDO separately from the query for sanitation. We can all see why this is bad:

         if (isset($_GET['limit'])) {
             $limit = (int)$_GET['limit'];
             if ($limit < 1) $limit = 1;
             if ($limit > 10000) $limit = 10000;
          }
     $req = 'SELECT * FROM `Money_Bitcoin_Node` WHERE `Status` = \'up\' AND `Last_Checked` > DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 6 HOUR) AND `Version` >= 31500 AND (`Last_Down` IS NULL OR `Last_Down` < DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 2 WEEK)) AND `First_Seen` < DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 2 WEEK) ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT '.$limit;

<comment><USER2> Exactly. Parameterization is #1 priority. Second you _could_ also move the statement string itself to a separate resource (disk file), which helps for maintainability.

so... the statement above refactored to slightly better pseudo-code:

        $limit = getLimitParameter();
        $sqlString = SqlResourceLoader::Load("BitCoinNodeSelect.sql");
        $statement = $db->prepare($sqlString);
        $statement->bindValue(1, $limit, PDO::PARAM_INT);
        $statement->execute();

..or the query with the SQL along with parameter parsing logic could be contained in a separate class altogether.

<comment><USER5> Excuse me for asking, how saving the SQL query in a file helps maintainability?

Storing the query in a file means an additional IO call, right? Isn't the better approach to wrap the sql statement in a function if it's about to be reused?

I'm not arguing, I'd like to know the point and learn why saving that into a file helps maintenance.

<comment><USER2> Scenario: You're asked to rewrite SQL for UseCase#14 because it's slow. I'd argue the developer find it more quickly if it's stored in a separate .SQL file with a file name related to the use case (discoverability). It would also separate better in source control history as you'd see when you did SQL changes and when you did PHP changes. Could be valuable when bug-hunting. _edit_ : And the obvious: instead of scrolling to line 762, column 18 of PHP file X, you open file Y on line 1, column 1. It's also an .SQL file, which tells an IDE to syntax highlight it as SQL and not PHP.

Yes, there's a performance cost. Hard disks are fast, though. And then there's caching. I always value maintanability higher than performance, as maintainability often is correlated with number of bugs.

You suggest to wrap the SQL statement in a function, and that might be just as fine. There's no single best solution here. Just a lot of solutions that are better than the Bitcoin-class ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had a little peak and started seeing a few bugs but then I hit line 1009:

> mail('email@example.com', 'BLOCK IMPORT ERROR', $e->getMessage()."\n\n".$e);

I haven't done much digging around this issue (so perhaps someone can enlighten me on this) but I was curious at what was at that domain (since it seemed the email was going to Mark Karpeles). When I went to the staff page[1] I could see his company Mutum Sigillum LLC takes care of the administration for that IRC network. That same staff page used his nickname MagicalTux and the corresponding page[2] links to his "Professionnal PHP5 certification"[3] but that lists his name as "Robert Karpeles" and not Mark Karpeles. Does anyone know why this is? Did he change his name between 2006 and now?

[1] [http://en.wiki.gg.st/wiki/Staff](http://en.wiki.gg.st/wiki/Staff) [2] [http://en.wiki.gg.st/wiki/MagicalTux](http://en.wiki.gg.st/wiki/MagicalTux) [3] [http://www.expertrating.com/transcript.asp?transcriptid=1005...](http://www.expertrating.com/transcript.asp?transcriptid=1005930&submit=Submit)

Edit: After more digging and looking at his test scores and code, I have come to the conclusion that this guy's skill level is not what he thinks it is. Here is my favourite: [http://code.ohloh.net/file?fid=it28K0-Hdeyw2F2XDguAEU0ZSKI&c...](http://code.ohloh.net/file?fid=it28K0-Hdeyw2F2XDguAEU0ZSKI&cid=lrhV9kzrbr8&s=)

Notice his fix to stop local file inclusion vulnerabilities in PHP, apparently he has never heard of a null byte.

<comment><USER7> Plus just about 200 lines later there is a completely different email address to notify of a failed ssh connection.

>mail('email@example.com,email@example.com', 'SSH connection to freetxn@'.$ip.' failed', 'Used ssh key 14a70b11-5f36-4890-82ca-5de820882c7f, but couldn\'t login to push those txs:'."\n".implode("\n", $el_todo));

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ooh, floating-point arithmetic in software making financial transactions!

<comment><USER9> Pardon my naïveté - why would floating point arithmetic be a red flag in transactional code?

<comment><USER10> It's less about the transactions but the money.

        >> 3 * 1005.01
        => 3015.0299999999997

This might get truncated to 3015.02 and might

        >> 3 * 1005.01 * 10000
        => 30150299.999999996

turn into a real loss.

<comment><USER11> Like Superman 3!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is impressive that PHP ran the largest Bitcoin exchange for a while and the main flaw happened to be a software hack than its ability to scale. If you think language X would be more secure and saved Mt Gox, the Russians would like to have a word with you

<comment><USER6> PHP is a tool and as any tool with a low learning curve it can be used by people with or without expertise.

I think we certainly have had PHP built infrastructure that scales, but surely you can see why an order matching system should not be written in PHP.

First of all, by doing it that way, the order matching system was coupled to the website, so now it makes perfect sense why the BitCoin price crashed after the DDoS attacks on MtGox. Because taking the website down meant taking the order matching down with it. No more trading.

From what I am seeing, this is not a case of PHP being evil (although, would you really run mission critical systems with PHP? The execution model doesn't make sense in that world and if you think a set_time_limit(0) on a PHP script is the same as an actual daemon written in a robust language meant for that execution model, then I think we are in extreme disagreement).

For me this is a case of a guy who's confidence was ahead of the reality. I'm sure in his mind a pacemaker running on PHP code is perfectly fine, and perhaps it might actually work for a while but that's just it, it will fail eventually (its a square peg in a round hole after all) and when it does it will be bad. We don't craft critical systems thinking of the best case scenario, we do it thinking of the worst and for my money, whatever happened at MtGox, its the worst case scenario.

PHP in Facebook, yes, NYSE? FUCK NO.

<comment><USER13> I love PHP. Yes, you read that right. And, I completely agree with you.

Also, for the GP, PHP's shared-nothing architecture means scaling horizontally is actually pretty easy all things considered. I just wouldn't write a bitcoin exchange in anything that doesn't have static typing: PHPs gotchas could quite literally cause a massive loss of money.

<comment><USER14> A matching engine can't scale horizontally very much in the first place

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Am I to believe that MtGox code that actually touched Bitcoin transactions was actually written in PHP? Is this some sick joke?

I have used PHP on and off for years for many things. I'm not a PHP hater, but if it's not touching HTTP, it probably shouldn't be written in PHP.

<comment><USER16> There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that if you do it correctly. But this was not done correctly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looking at that code makes me yearn for Cobol.

</comment><comment><USER18> The the leaked IRC chat logs [1] the leaker stated he was Serbian, not Russian. Is there additional information available?

[1] [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1x93tf/some_irc_cha...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1x93tf/some_irc_chatter_about_what_is_going_on_at_mtgox/cf99yac)

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't read or write PHP but the code looks quite neat and well-organized to me...

<comment><USER20> It's organized, but not well built.

Previous comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7332372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7332372)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Apologies in advance to the PHPers out there, but... PHP?!

<comment><USER8> MagicalTux is a known lunatic who wants to write everything in PHP. Which isn't too bad of an idea, but he, for example, hacked together an SSHd in PHP and immediately put it into production use:

[http://blog.magicaltux.net/2010/06/27/php-can-do-anything- wh...](http://blog.magicaltux.net/2010/06/27/php-can-do-anything-what-about- some-ssh/)

Essentially he is a bad programmer and he has Not Invented Here (fixed, thanks jey) syndrome, both of which are _terrible_ attributes for someone coding a Bitcoin exchange.

<comment><USER22> I think you meant NIH ("Not Invented Here"), not NIMBY ("Not In My Backyard").

<comment><USER8> Oops, yes I did indeed mean Not Invented Here syndrome. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> PHP...

What a farce.

</comment><comment><USER24> Now that it has been shown the NSA to offensive attacks to discredit anti- government forces, could any of this mess be attributed to PSYOPS to discredit the whole cryptocurrencies?</comment>


My self-published book on being a great developer - <AUTHOR> http://www.theseniorsoftwareengineer.com/

<comment><USER4> First off, congrats! I can only imagine what a good feeling it is to publish a book (let alone two, as it appears you wrote a Ruby book as well.)

I'm going to offer some friendly criticism on marketing. (I can't really comment on the content of the book, given that I haven't read it.)

\- Invest $50 and buy a nice Wordpress theme off of ThemeForest, because junior software engineers are picky folk. If it nets you two more sales, then it's already paid itself off.

\- The table of contents tells me what I'm going to learn from this book, not why I want to learn them. Often, the answer to "why" is either "to make a lot more money" or "to build a lot of cool things I wouldn't otherwise." The three points you outline underneath the ToC hit those aspects much more strongly, so I'd move those above the fold.

\- Throwing up an email list where you send me some snippets and then try to upsell me is advised. I haven't heard of you before, so I'd prefer some credentials before I commit to a purchase (remember, I'm a junior software engineer, so both time and money are scarce resources.) Testimonials would also be helpful here.

\- There's nothing wrong with a second call to action at the bottom of the page.

<comment><USER5> Good comments! And congratulations as well.

> Invest $50 and buy a nice Wordpress theme off of ThemeForest, because junior > software engineers are picky folk. If it nets you two more sales, then it's > already paid itself off.

Second this! Being a software engineer is so much more than writing efficient algorithms. It's also about beautiful design in many ways. Average website design gives a feeling it could correlate to average design in other fields.

<comment><USER6> _Average website design gives a feeling it could correlate to average design in other fields._

I couldn't disagree more. I personally see no correlation between the design of his site and his software engineering ability. It's like saying you don't trust that engineer to design a bridge because the ring he's wearing is all jagged along the edges. What?

<comment><USER7> One of the primary traits of a good developer is a strong desire for excellence. If a developer is willing to settle for a mediocre and boring design, then that is some (perhaps small) evidence that the book may contain mediocre and boring content.

Anecdotally: At the TechWeek Chicago job fair, there was a very high correlation between booths with good logos and graphic design and interesting people behind the booth. All of my good conversations were with people at the well designed booths.

EDIT: This is especially true since we are expected to pay for the book before we get access to it. This means that we cannot judge its quality in any holistic way, but must do our best to pre-judge its quality through various social signals.

<comment><USER8> I personally go for things that have bad design. Like slackware linux. I associate bad graphic design with great software. I love seeing a great science fiction novel wrapped in a generic illustrated cover. It seems more quirky and personal to me. I think good design can be bought, so I distrust it. I really hate it when the packaging is slick, with a perfect logo, and a perfect website, but the product is terrible. Like you were fooled into buying it. It happens more often to me these days because good graphic design can be bought, or copy-pasted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> (Hasty, possibly unfounded criticism follows)

I'm a software engineer myself, and I already believe that great advice can come from unexpected sources, so I visited your website willing to be convinced that you really do know what you are talking about.

These are a few things that I had immediate and decisive opinions on:

\- Your title here: "My self-published book on being a great developer" \- Sets me up to expect advice from someone like myself (otherwise why would you self-publish?) -- which is a good thing. It's a sign that you relate to me. And "on being a great developer". Concise, I really like that. Off to a great start!

\- "theseniorsoftwareengineer.com" \- Good domain name. I like you already. Connotes relation to career and adding the "the" makes me think about the true meaning of "senior".

Then I get to your website. Sorry to say, but that's where it goes south.

\- It reminds me of those scammy "make millions on the internet" advertisement websites. They may actually make a lot of money with their over-the-top styling, so I'm not saying I'm right, but it's a turnoff to me.

\- Excerpts - Good! But they don't stand out. Call them out! Maybe even link some great quotes to the excerpt page instead of the word "excerpt".

\- The checklist - it's gotta go. I didn't read it, even though the text was huge.

\- Try to neutralize the statement "Not interested in management?". I don't think you need to preemptively limit your audience.

\- The cover -- Your style is up to you, but because the text is fairly small, in thumbnail size it doesn't balance well against the huge text on the rest of the page. And I like large text -- but it just needs to balance well.

\- Avoid generic statements like "A guide for making the most of your career" or "simple techniques for fixing bugs" \-- everyone offers these. What is unique about your take? What did folks like about your blog posts that motivated you to write this book?

\- Some of the good content, stuff you should highlight better: Stuff about you, "instant download", "197 page eBook", links to your blog posts.

Sorry if this is harsh -- I think you are off to a great start and I hope this helps even a little bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Thanks for these comments. They are not harsh and very useful and I can see where you are coming from with all of them. I do want to address these issues, but I also wanted to ship, so hopefully I can evolve the design and other aspects as you've mentioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't know. It's great that you wrote it and I can completely understand what sort of undertaking it was, but the problem with any mentoring book is that it should come from a recognized and credible source. If this were an auto-biography book, written from the "what worked for me" angle, it would certainly have an audience. But if it just dispenses advice, then it begs the question what makes you think you are in a position to do that.

I am also not sure who it is written for - pretty much every developer above summer intern thinks of himself as a senior :) Over-inflated self-assessment is a norm.

<comment><USER11> [disclaimer: I helped proofread the book]

FWIW, I worked with Dave at LivingSocial and took over a bunch of code that he wrote. Whatever a senior developer is, DaveC is that. He wrote great code, was excellent in terms of executing on tasks, made major contributions to tons of projects, was helpful, cheerful, all that good stuff.

<comment><USER12> This blurb needs to be on the landing page!

<comment><USER13> Really? Nothing in that blurb tells me that he's exceptional. Just a nice guy who writes good code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So maybe this is nitpicky, but it's the difference between books I buy and books I don't.

In the 'Technical Debt and Slop' excerpt, there is an example about determining whether an order is free. Basically it compares the customer's store credit plus discounts against the price of the object. It does not account for quantity, or other items in the user's cart. Essentially, the same store credit amount gets applied to every item. This is a bug in the logic, and it took about 30 seconds of me scanning the article to notice it.

Now I realize that's not the point of the excerpt. It's about code duplication. But it's still sloppy writing. That's fine for your blog, but if you expect me to pay, I expect content that is of high quality. Code examples should be complete, and free of bugs.

<comment><USER15> I think it is worse than that. To begin with, it makes no sense (to me) for an order to have a single product by definition. This is what I think you quickly spotted.

I understand that the author does not have an "Order" because that is supposed to be somewhat definitive (a domain object stored in the database). If that is the case, a much better approach would be to have a "PreOrder" object, that is basically the same but lives in the session scope.

This PreOrder object (or ShoppingCart, or whatever) should basically "extend" (share everything with) the Order object, inheriting all its capabilities _except that of being persistent_. This includes the logic for computing prices based on discount codes/rates/delivery chargers/whatever that you normally apply to a regular Order.

Now, if you want to check if a product would be free, you just add a helper method "free?(product)" to the PreOrder. That method would just get the "price()" of the order, add the product to the PreOrder (itself), check if the new "price()" is higher than before, remove the product, return the result of the price increase check.

At this point you have accounted for any possible interaction between product quantities, discount codes and rates, user credit, delivery costs and whatever. No code duplication involved _at all_.

Moreover, I would say that it is actually _less_ complex (as in difficult to understand) to build such "PreOrder"s than to add random methods to your domain objects...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think $25 is a bit too much for me, unless people start raving about it. You can price it however you want, you wrote it, but I'd give it a shot if it were half the price, considering you're self-published and without reviews. I'm not trying to devalue your work, but just keep in mind that you may actually make up in quantity sold what you lose in price per item.

Also, is this your final product? Knowing that it's going to increase in refinement over time would add to the value proposition for me.

Anyway, congrats on writing a book! It's a great accomplishment.

<comment><USER17> You're being the "I'd buy your product if..." guy.

<comment><USER18> Nothing wrong with that if it's genuine i.e. if it's "I'll buy it for $10" rather than "the price is higher than I perceive the expected value, I might buy it if it was less". It doesn't make a lot of sense to sell for less than $25 based on expected volumes though.

Based on initial impressions I'll agree the book isn't giving off the vibe that it's worth much more than 1-2 coffees of value ($5-$10), but after looking into it a bit more there's no reason why it can't improve that (it is after all a decent length book by a previously published author who has relevant experience, so $25 sounds quite reasonable).

1\. Better site design would make me more confident the book is well designed.

2\. Include chapters in the same format/design as the book (rather than just HTML pages).

3\. Tell me front and center that the book is 197 pages (that's quite a lot!). First impression I thought this was a couple of blog posts worth of generic advice, not a decent length book.

4\. Make the links to the successful blog posts that spawned the book more prominent (bonus: site adds credibility).

5\. Make it easier on scanning that he's already an accomplished well-reviewed author (Build Awesome Command-Line Applications in Ruby). Include reviews from here initially in the context of showing author credibility (need to make it clear they're not for the current book though obviously).

6\. Highlight the experience in an easier to skim way

7\. Make the book cover look different, e.g. 3D rotate with imaginary book pages, or border, or on a darker background or something (the white edges for me at least didn't look like part of the book, so I see the slim narrow purple band and think "booklet" not book).

For reference, Nathan Barry does some of the best sales pages I've seen (Patrick McKenzie aka patio11 happens to agree).

Nathan's advice:

[http://nathanbarry.com/learned-selling-6000-ebook- today/](http://nathanbarry.com/learned-selling-6000-ebook-today/)

[http://nathanbarry.com/step-by-step-landing-page- copywriting...](http://nathanbarry.com/step-by-step-landing-page-copywriting/)

Samples:

[http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/](http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/)

[http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-handbook/](http://nathanbarry.com/app- design-handbook/)

<comment><USER16> I was being serious about my price point. Not because I expect he'll lower the price, but just to give my data point to take into consideration with whatever other feedback he's getting. If it were $12.50, I'd buy it. That's on the high end of what I like to pay for eBooks, but I respect what the author's doing, and I want to be a better senior engineer. To me, that's a reasonable price to pay with the preconceived notion that I'll probably have to dig through the book for the gems that really resonate with me. Maybe it's my background in econ, but I often approach things with my valuation in mind.

<comment><USER19> I agree totally here. You cannot price an e-book the same as a textbook. Plus e-books give you a much wider audience so lowering the price is not necessarily a bad thing. Check out Joe Konrath's blog. He is a fiction author but much of what he says cover the span of e-book publishing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you want your experience to come through, don't make it the primary point. Your experience will become apparent in the things you write and the way you write about them.

Out of the first 9 paragraphs in 'Focus on Delivering Results' you use "I" in 6 of them - you start 3 of them with "I". The excerpt reads more like a biography.

I don't know whether you worked with a copy editor - if you didn't, you should have.

You also should have had some independent reviews prior to publishing - <USER2> someone would have been kind enough to tell you about all of those "I"s - <USER3> make the text "feel" rough and unfinished.

You could go crazy with the "I"s in your "about the author" section, yet let the book's content speak for itself.

Given this, the excerpt diminishes the book's value for me, so it's unlikely I would pay $25 for it. If I wanted a biography, I would get a biography.

</comment><comment><USER21> Nice job. I also did this. I got tired after twenty some years of repeating myself to juniors, so I wrote "Coding: On Software Design Process". -- Jonathan

[http://www.amazon.com/Coding-On-Software-Design- Process/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Coding-On-Software-Design- Process/dp/0615404820)

<comment><USER22> Thanks for the recommend, I purchased. So far as I can tell, this book isn't so much about how to code, as how to work with people. It's by Jonathan Locke, who has an impressive history, and (judging by the online preview) a lovely writing style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> First impression is that you may be a great engineer, but you need a great designer if you want to sell your book. I'm still interested in the content, but it's a definite turn-off to see a site that looks like something I designed (aka not good - references available upon request).

Somewhat related, there's a 914kb 1007x1024 black-and-white PNG for a 197x200 image of the author. That should probably be fixed, if for nothing else than it's killing your bandwidth. I only noticed because I thought I was back in dial-up days with how slowly it came through.

All of that aside, I'm intrigued. I'm going to bookmark this and come back in a couple weeks, I'll have to see how it looks after you've taken the other comments here on HN into account.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd like to point out that $25 is probably not too much to pay for a book that might earn you an extra $X,000-$X00,000 over the course of the rest your career. There's of course a chance that you could read this book and increase your earning power by exactly zero, but I have a hunch that there's at least $25 worth of good advice here.

The design is FINE! It communicates what the book is about in a way that takes very little effort on the visitor's part. I think Dave did a perfectly okay job with it.

I've actually been saving up thoughts and writing scraps to write a book like this myself, but I'm probably not qualified and I'm glad somebody else did a better job first. Nice work.

<comment><USER25> The cost of reading this book isn't $25. It's $25 plus the opportunity cost of however many hours it takes to read it.

<comment><USER26> Nice. I'll take this as an opportunity to link to an Austrian economist. Austrians happen to be the best economists. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_von_Wieser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_von_Wieser)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This design is visually abrasive. I would suggest getting rid of the the purple accents and changing your typography.

<comment><USER28> This comment is verbally abrasive. I find the site very clear, legible, and intuitive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> A lot of negativity here, mostly based on the 90s site.

Reading the excerpts, what the author is doing is quite clever. He creates an identity, the reliable, effective Senior Engineer.

The reader wants to be more like that identity, so he takes you through different situations and says, 'This is how a Senior Engineer would act and think in this situation'. For example, [A senior engineer would not ship his code until it was really production quality, even when rushed].

The situations and issues he talks about are often a result of social pressure (to ship, to deliver features that don't matter in order to show progress on the burn chart). It's easy to get caught up in those moments. If the book allows you to step outside that, and think 'What would a true Senior Engineer do here', and the answer is 'The long term right thing', I think it's valuable.

But not $25 of valuable. Sorry, that is too much for a speculative purchase (which this is, given the author isn't a known quantity like Jonathan Locke at bottom of the thread.

</comment><comment><USER29> You absolutely need an email capture. I'm not ready to buy yet but if you sent me periodic posts I would be more inclined over time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Apologies that the design of the website has been so distracting. I ultimately decided that I needed to ship, but I can see where those commenters are coming from (and I appreciate that most of you have been constructive). I CAN say you should all be glad to not see the 3-D book I created in Pixelmator. I saved you from SOMETHING, at least :)

Since I've now made real revenue just on the first days' sales, I feel more confident spending actual money on the site design.

I opted NOT to use a template because none of them seemed adaptable to what I wanted to do.

Anyone willing to help me out, or can recommend someone who would?

</comment><comment><USER30> Congratulations Dave! About a year ago I self-published my first book and it ended up being the best thing I ever did (so far). How did you write the book? I used LaTeX for mine, less mess with the tools! Another thing, have you considered going Print-On-Demand as well? I've got my book on Amazon using CreateSpace, they don't take a lot of the money and the book gets good exposure; while I also have a DRM free PDF, ePub and Mobi. As well as on Kindle.

Good luck with the sales and again, congratulations on becoming an author!

</comment><comment><USER31> I just wanted to say congrats on getting something out in the world.

Don't worry about all the criticism on this page, particularly from anyone who has never written a book before.

</comment><comment><USER32> Congratulations on self-publishing your work. I know how much work it is (published a book this year, working on a second) and I know what it's like when you get criticism. Keep up the good work and a big lesson we learned was this:

Take the negative criticism on your book and reverse it. Every time we got dinged on a problem with the text in our book we worked on that chapter until we felt like no one could ever complain.

</comment><comment><USER33> I can't help but think that giving generic coding advice by using a dynamically typed language is anathema to a book, because you see all these symbols in the source (customer, account, etc...) but you have no idea what methods they respond to and which ones are compatible with which other ones.

I hope that as a senior software engineer, you make your points using other languages than Ruby in your book.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. There is very little code in the book and it is split between Ruby and Java. The chapter on writing includes a fair bit about how the API documentation burden in statically typed languages is lower, since the types are part of the method signatures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Sorry to he a hater but that landing page looks like balls and the book cover looks like balls. Looks like a high schoolers HTML project. Also, 'Who you are and what you have done and what makes you qualified' should be higher up and more noticable. I would find someone who has done something similar in the past and base your sales pitch/designs from that.

</comment><comment><USER35> Congrats and Thank You! I just purchased the book, and look forward to reading it. As a young software engineer, I enjoy reading books like this to get many different points of view that I can learn from.

In relation to the comments about the price--I think it is reasonable. It really depends on how much you think you can get out of this book, or a book like this.

</comment><comment><USER36> I hope the book had a good revision using a good spell-checker. Please fix the e-reaeers on your page to e-readers.

</comment><comment><USER37> One mild criticism. A book such as this is really going to depend on the author's reputation. You buried the info about yourself way below the fold.

I'm also not certain about the price. I would pay that price from a big name. For anybody else, I wouldn't go above $10.

</comment><comment><USER38> You have a minor misspelling under book types:

ePub (iPad and most other e-reaeers)

</comment><comment><USER39> Nice to see a programming book that's more meta. I'm sure that it will be useful; especially for new college grads.

<comment><USER40> Has anyone read this yet? I'd like to see a basic review before I through $25 at a relatively unknown author. Though regardless, congratulations on self publishing and getting a book out!</comment></comment>


Show HN: I created a website to compare online service security, need your help - <AUTHOR> A little more than a year ago, I made this website that compares the privacy and security of online services. After getting a ton of feedback (especially on Reddit), I have made a lot of changes, and I'm looking for some feedback on the new site.
Anybody is free to use it, so I thought that I would share it here, and see what people think about it. It's called https://Secured.fyi, which is completely redesigned from the ground up, it took me a lot of time to do that.
Looking forward to hearing what you think. <comment><USER2> The immediate popup that wants my email is annoying. I get why sites have this but letting you know everybody hates these popups.

None of the categories work if you click the main landing page icons but do work if you click the drop down Suggestions menu (on the desktop version, using Firefox 60.7.0esr however the mobile version the main icon category links work).

The Features options (which are hard to use on a mobile screen) have nothing to explain what they are, and assume knowledge of the reader. These options under Features to narrow the product listings could probably just be a single tick instead of no/yes boxes too. For example 'Accepts paypal' could be just one tick, instead of 'Yes/No/Unknown'. There is also inconsistent design here, with some pages listing 'Pricing: Free/Paid' as tick options then other pages 'Free Plan: Yes/No' 'Paid Plan: Yes/No'. I would pick one consistent design. You may also want to audit your site for accessibility compatibility, lot's of img alt text does not convey the same information as the image.

There should be some kind of caveat/more info about audited category, since it doesn't mean much if the person writing the software is a well known PhD crypto engineer, such as Tarsnap. Who is qualified to audit it? Who did the auditing and where is this information, seems like this should be included in the product summary instead of a no/yes answer. The 'Naughty List' could easily fill up with a thousand entries, you'd want to add that to specific category pages like [https://prism-break.org/](https://prism-break.org/) does though I would personally avoid telling people what not to use, every product has had some kind of security breach. Finally the summary under some of the products as "Security Issues: Good" is worthless, as again none of the feature categories are explained anywhere. For example you list Telegram as 'good', but if you ask Moxie Marlinspike about it he'll give you a laundry list of severe unaddressed Telegram problems and shady practices so this is another impossible category. The upvoting seems like it will just be gamed by companies to shill their product, I don't see a benefit. Maybe you could offer reviews instead but make them specific reviews, like QoS, not allowing for useless star reviews or free text where random people can rant "This is run by CIA" or whatever.

Edit: extra work, but you could think about pricing tier filters, since let's be honest that's what most people care about. "Show me the cheapest options" like how logical increments website works [https://www.logicalincrements.com/](https://www.logicalincrements.com/)

Edit2: you also may want to look through these slides, they focus on general UI design [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/uicourse/05863fall18/schedule.htm...](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/uicourse/05863fall18/schedule.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> The category links on the home page works fine on my end, what platform and browser are you using?

I'll go over all the filters to make sure everything is properly explained, and ensure design consistency.

I'm planning on adding a link to the source of each data point, so that users can see what e.g. the feature "Audited" if "Yes" is based on.

The "Naughty List" (producthunt.com/posts/naughty-list) will be restructured, but I haven't had time to do that yet, so I decided to just include the raw data from the Alpha.

I will remove "Security Issues", which I just did with "Reputation", because I ultimately want that to be based on crowd sourced data with sources.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad that you pointed out a few things that nobody else has mentioned so far!

<comment><USER2> Ninja edited these details, also noticed in the browser category, under features there is tons of redundency, like 'not applicable' or "Free Plan: Yes" "Paid Plan: No".

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, there's a lot that needs to be done, thanks for pointing that out, I've noted it down</comment></comment></comment></comment>