ESPN Can't Afford to Go on Like This - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-28/espn-can-t-afford-to-go-on-like-this <comment><USER3> As a millennial consumer (rolling my own eyes but it's true) who cut the cord, the biggest thing that pushed me toward doing so was seeing all of the sports channels I was paying for and never had an ounce of desire to watch. The way my cable company breaks out a mandatory $15 fee for ESPN specifically was the nail in the coffin. Personally, sports programming was dragging the already shaky value prop of the cable industry down much further.

<comment><USER4> ESPN is suffering from a two pronged death.

Like you, there's plenty of people who aren't interested in sports and aren't interested in paying extra for a sports-bundled cable package.

Then there's people like me who like sports and don't like the programming on ESPN. Two decades ago, ESPN reporting used to be legitimately great. They'd talk about strategy, roster moves, interviews with players/coaches, etc. These days it's TMZ with a sports focus. Even something as mundane as Tom Brady's new haircut became a talking point on ESPN. The most recent example I have of ESPN's decline was the recent NFL draft. It was nothing but baseless conjecture on who's getting whom. It's a lot of random guesswork and hot takes portrayed as journalism. The talking heads would just shout about the most outrageous conjecture with no rationale.

ESPN has gotten complacent and they're paying for it now. In my opinion they were relying on cable subscriptions when that's going away, and they haven't invested in quality programming to keep the sports fans in the longest time.

<comment><USER5> I've posted this elsewhere, but it's relevant here too. The problem that's affecting ESPN is the same problem that's affecting newspapers and the same root cause that's behind reality TV, and buzzfeed and the like. The issue is the advertising model and the cost of creating content.

A number of people here complain about ESPN swapping to talking heads and opinions. The reason for doing this is because it's significantly cheaper to have people give opinions (everyone has an opinion) than the costs of doing journalism. ESPN isn't swapping to these shows because they have worse ratings, comparatively they get higher ratings.

Everyone talking about he glory days of the 90s and ESPN. That time is in the past. People turn to the internet for sports updates and scores, as well as highlight reels.

Ultimately, it's a failure in the "advertising model" of paying for content. As long as content creators are paid a roughly flat fee per viewer, their only incentives are to get more viewers and cut costs. Previously the market was inefficient enough to sustain it, but now that there are alternatives the inevitable is happening in all areas of content creation. Moving to cheap to produce, easy to digest low substance, high viewership content.

Imaging you were running a restaurant, and you couldn't charge a customer per meal. You only received a small flat rate for the number of customers who ate there. You're not going to run a top end steak house where your payment doesn't even cover the materials. You're gonna run a mcdonalds. Get as many people in there for as cheap as possible. You have no choice, the money doesn't support an intimate fine dining experience.

The that the same thing happening in all aspects of content creation. The market is becoming efficient, and the only way to survive is low cost production. Fast-food of content.

<comment><USER6> You really missed the point, the article nailed it and your analogy is entirely wrong. ESPN got a flat fee per user + the ability to advertise to them. That gave them a huge financial incentive to overspend on the best content they could get to build the greatest sports "steakhouse" of all time and they did it. They spent up the wazoo on content. But the bottom is dropping out of the model because of cord cutters so now they have change and adapt to not getting flat fees for much longer.

<comment> white-flame "Because of cord cutters" seems awfully accusatory here. The real confounding factor from the article is that ESPN was being subsidized by fees from customers who don't watch the channel, but still were paying high bundled fees compared to other channels.

This is shifting to them receiving fees from those interested in their programming, which seems much more reasonable in concept.

<comment><USER7> It's not that cord-cutters are a bad thing, but isn't that the crux of ESPN's financial woes? Nearly everyone and their mama had cable about a decade ago. No matter if you were a 4 person family, living off campus where utilities were covered, or in the military - people had cable. If you were fancy, you had satellite programming. Then cord-cutting happened.

It is the fault of cord-cutters, because they aren't subsidizing the cost of ESPN for people who want to watch ESPN. Then ESPN could not pivot quickly enough to stop the bleeding. So yeah, ESPN is getting money from people who are interested in sports, but it is because cord-cutters had enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Many posts here fail to address one very salient point. And I don't think we can overstate the importance of it.

Most "sports" fans are generally not "sports" fans. They are STANFORD fans. Or Arkansas fans. Or Michigan fans. Or Packers fans. Or Golden State fans. Or what have you.

The pure football fan is rare. As is the pure baseball or hockey fan. Most fans are normally watching because they want to see their team. There certainly is a sub-demographic that are sports fans. These are people who watch every game of their chosen sport looking for tactics and strategy. Most, however, are watching because Manchester United is playing. Or because they like the Cleveland Cavaliers. Or they're fans of the Boston Red Wings. Or maybe PSG. You get the idea.

What I'm getting at is that sports coverage would need be more personalized than ESPN is capable of in its current form if it wants to be of value to consumers today.

It boils down to this...

Why should one have to pay for ESPN if one doesn't watch it?

Firstly, if you are not a fan of any team or school or city at all, then nothing in heaven or earth would get you to watch ESPN anyway. So making any changes to appease non sports fans is a foolish endeavor. Those resources are best deployed producing content that non sports fans would like to consume. I don't pretend to know what that looks like, but I'm certain it doesn't look like ESPN.

Now let's say for the sake of argument that a person is a fan of some team or school or city. I'll take myself as an example. I might watch my alma mater play a few football games, and if they go to the basketball tournament then I watch that. Sometimes I watch the super bowl, maybe, but I have never watched a Halftime show.

Now... why would a "sports" fan like that, which is the majority of us, pay $15 to $20 a month (MANDATORY) for an entire year when they only want to watch MAYBE 6 to 12 games between football and basketball that are usually not on ESPN anyway??? Answer: They shouldn't pay. And I'd imagine most of them won't in the future.

ESPN will need to offer more customization. Be it through live streaming or time shifting or whatever. I'm not an expert, but I think the days of forcing a $20 fee on people every month for non personalized sports coverage are just not sustainable long term.

<comment><USER9> "Most "sports" fans are generally ... "

boomers. And they're economically dying out as they retire and the medical industrial complex wrings out the last of their money. Plenty of things cost a multiple of ESPN's cost and are doing fine because they sell well to young people, think of the stereotypical $100+ cell phone service. The vast majority of ESPNs viewers remember when they heard JFK was shot, their viewers are not the Challenger explosion or 9/11 generations.

Baseball has died among youth and the average fan age is now going up more than a year per calendar year. NBA average fan is much younger, like middle aged gen-x. The majority of PGA viewers are nursing home age, golf is so dead, so cringy 90s/00s. The youngest sports are major league soccer and hockey about a third millennial or younger for both, the only pro sports of 2050 are going to be spanish speaking soccer and the few remaining northern state whites watching hockey, the other sports are dead when the boomers are gone.

There is also a compression effect not seen in the past such that the NFL superbowel now gets over 10x the viewers of the world series. The average baseball game has fewer viewers than my county has residents. The average NBA game is only slightly better. In the old days there was a "wide world of sports" concept which is already dead. There isn't a "sports" industry anymore, there's american pro football, soccer for the spanish speakers, hockey and nascar for the legacy being eliminated whites, basketball for the blacks, and the also-ran sports that statistically no one watches.

<comment><USER8> What?

No one in England is going to stop watching Manchester United games to start watching Chicago Blackhawks games, or even to watch some sucky MLS game. That's not happening man. Get that out of your head.

No one in China, Europe, the MidEast or Brazil is gonna stop watching basketball and start watching some sucky hockey game. That ain't happening either.

Do you have any idea the YoY revenue growth global sports leagues like PL or the NBA enjoy at the moment?

What you are saying may happen, MIGHT happen in your small neighborhood... though I doubt even that... but it certainly isn't gonna happen on a scale large enough to actually make the money that PL makes in a year. In fact, I doubt that American soccer and American hockey will even make the money something like the NBA pulls out of just China. Let alone global basketball in general.

Basically, you need cheap, accessible sports to challenge the global soccer and basketball behemoths. Something that could be played barefoot in a field. Or you need to JOIN the global soccer and basketball behemoths.

But yeah... sports leagues like American football, American hockey, or American soccer stand little to no chance of challenging those more global leagues growth wise. Best outcome for them would be to somehow link into those behemoths. And I can only see American soccer being able to do that... MAYBE?

<comment><USER9> Decades of experience in the USA indicate that no matter how popular soccer is internationally, the locals in the USA don't care. See also to a much lesser extent, nascar vs F1.

In the short to medium term I don't think the business entity known as ESPN or MLB can survive USA cutting the cable cord. You're probably correct that someone is going to buy most of the pieces at the bankruptcy auction and probably right for example that baseball will be popular in Japan and central america yet that won't matter for folks in the USA who will not be watching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't watch sports networks of any kind, but I've seen anecdotes online that ESPN, especially sportscenter, is losing viewers because of politicization of content, where people just want sports talk.

<comment><USER11> _is losing viewers because of politicization of content_

They're losing viewers because we're turning away from television. That much is obvious to all. There are many ways to view, every event has countless streams, we get our sports news in granular form on our mobile, etc.

However in the wake of that, some very sad people have decided to get on their soapbox and claim that they're really declining because they don't parrot whatever their personal position is. I've seen these people claim that ESPN is faltering because they have a problem with players who rape or beat women. Others -- the same ones who say that they don't want it to be "preachy" \-- get up in arms if ESPN isn't preachily attacking the Colin Kaepernick's of the world. Etc.

So as is often the case, the most partisan of all are the ones claiming that everything is some crazy partisan slant.

<comment><USER12> I don't have a problem with Harold Reynolds (technically no longer with ESPN) because he sexually harasses women (I do, but I'm not changing the channel solely based on that). I have a problem with him because he's an idiot and I lose brain cells watching him. The same is true of so many network talking heads.

<comment><USER11> I later saw how terribly I worded that, however regarding the sexual assaults I was mostly talking about how extensively and forcefully ESPN covered incidents of sexual assault / domestic assault / etc of players in various sports (particularly football). To a certain contingent, doing so was being a "SJW", and many of that group decried it as leftist or liberal, absurdly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The problem with sports broadcasting nowadays is twofold

1\. Viewing games costs too much

2\. The commentary for said games sucks

I'd happily watch a random MLB game on a Tuesday, but sorry I am not going to spend $113/season to watch on MLB TV. The NFL is the worst. If you're out of the US you can purchase and stream games for $200/season or so, but for in the US you have to have directTV to get all the games which isn't even offered for many possible subscribers or spend $30 in beer/food for lunch at a sportsbar with no audio for your game. If I'm at home I have the choice of the local game and maybe one other random national game and if both of these games are blowouts I'm tuning out.

People want to watch their team play. They don't even mind commercials as long as there's not TOO many of them. The NFL is reaching their limit. NFL viewership has peaked. 2016 ratings declined 8%. Watching a touchdown followed by a commercial followed by a kickoff touchback followed by a commercial is too much. The only way to grow a sport is to grow viewership and fans and the only way to do that is make content cheap, easy to access and enjoyable to watch which brings us to the commentary.

The future of sports and money in sports is in the live aspect and in the commentary. I want to watch a football game commented by Conan O'Brian or Snoop Dogg or even some entertaining twitch or youtuber not Al Michaels and Phil Simms. Why not collect royalties on commentary streams? Let 1000s of people pay for the rights to comment on an NFL game and let the viewers decide who they want to listen to commentary from. Its absurd that in 2017 people still resort to reddit.com/NFLstreams or NHLstreams to watch some low res game with pop up ads everywhere with commentary from two old white guys.

Once viewership increases, ad money will increase which would offset the streaming fees the leagues would be missing out on by providing their content for free. If ESPN would simply show sports and provide interesting commentary from interesting individuals I would watch around the clock.

<comment><USER14> > The future of sports and money in sports is in the live aspect and in the > commentary. I want to watch a football game commented by Conan O'Brian or > Snoop Dogg or even some entertaining twitch or youtuber not Al Michaels and > Phil Simms. Why not collect royalties on commentary streams? Let 1000s of > people pay for the rights to comment on an NFL game and let the viewers > decide who they want to listen to commentary from. Its absurd that in 2017 > people still resort to reddit.com/NFLstreams or NHLstreams to watch some low > res game with pop up ads everywhere with commentary from two old white guys.

Over a decade ago, I was channel surfing and stumbled upon an English Premier League (edit: may have been a lower tier matchup) match cast by 2 shit-talking fans, one from each team. I thought it was absolutely genius and while having no interest in either team or even the sport, I was thoroughly entertained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think the criticisms of ESPN and the advent of cord-cutting is severely missing a larger issue at hand. Sports are just another form of entertainment for people. I can probably safely say that the decline of ESPN first started with the rise of well-produced TV shows on HBO, AMC, Netflix, etc. I believe it's more than just correlation.

Just like a captivating TV series, sports demands your attention to the details and personal stories for you to become a fan. However, sporting events take hours to ingest at a time and the outcome leave many disappointed. People who have money to spend are typically people with fewer hours to allocate for entertainment. With the rise of quality TV shows that take one hour to consume, how do sports like baseball stand a chance at gaining new viewers?

The best thing ESPN has going for it are its 30 for 30 documentaries. A well produced documentary series. However, documentaries generally don't bring in huge sums of cash. If they can pivot to a create must-see dramatic show with a sports theme, they may have a chance.

<comment><USER15> > I can probably safely say that the decline of ESPN first started with the > rise of well-produced TV shows on HBO, AMC, Netflix, etc.

You are remarkably wrong here. In fact, live sports has come to completely dominate TV over the last 20 years. 9 of the top 10 most watched TV shows in 2016 was a sporting event:

[http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2016/tops- of-2016...](http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2016/tops- of-2016-tv.html)

I would argue the opposite: that "prestige" TV shows are a response to live sports by networks that don't have NFL or NBA rights.

<comment><USER14> The 10 most watched TV shows doesn't give as much info as the top 10 primetime tv programs. 7 out of the 10 shows that are aired regularly are NOT sports. These one off events are big for the networks that have the rights to air them but they exist for one day and do not obtain ownership of the content afterwards. On the other hand regular programs last for approximately a dozen episodes or more and can still maintain viewership with reruns. Other than the NFL, there is nothing that has a comparable draw.

But that diverges from my main assertion that with less time available to working people, people prefer to follow a story with familiar characters in a 1-hr window rather than have to watch a 3-hour affair between two random teams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm seeing strong parallels between bundled channels that people don't necessarily want and Monty Python's Spam Sketch,

Cable Companies: "Well there's egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam, spam, spam, egg and spam; spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam; or lobster thermidor aux crevettes, with a mornay sauce garnished with truffle paté, brandy and a fried egg on top and spam."

Consumers: "Have you got anything without spam in it?"

Cable Companies: "Well, there's spam, egg, sausage and spam. That's not got MUCH spam in it."

Ad nauseam...

</comment><comment><USER17> Sports is one of the very few things people can totally devote themselves to without being threatened. You can talk about sports at work without worrying about getting fired. You can talk about sports at a party and not lose friends.

At least you used to be able to.

The more sports wanders from just sports into social, political, or even partisan issues, the less it is actually about sports.

Associating these other things with sports destroys the value. It makes it so sport is no longer an escape, but instead becomes yet another politicized venue.

Here's some other interesting theories as to why ESPN is having trouble.

[http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/the-real-story-behind- es...](http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/the-real-story-behind-espns- wednesday-massacre/)

<comment><USER18> People also talk about music without worrying about getting fired. And traveling. And normal, everyday things in life.

I rarely talk sports with anyone...

<comment><USER19> And movies. And books.

In fact, there are only a few things you can't and shouldn't talk about at work.

<comment><USER20> > there are only a few things you can't and shouldn't talk about at work

Just the most important things in life: family structure, pregnancy, race, God, health issues, etc. List all the things that are inappropriate to talk about in an interview. Then realize they come up again when you are a candidate for a new promotion or transfer.

Plus, increasingly _employers_ are taking positions on things. We don't exactly call them out on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's symptomatic of the general decline in television across the last couple of decades.

MTV - when was the last time you saw a music video?

History - Apparently "History" now includes bizarre religious crackpottery, ancient aliens, and idiots buying and selling things in Las Vegas.

A&E - "Arts and Entertainment" is apparently all about terrible people and Honey Boo-Boo.

Discovery - Remember science and wildlife documentaries? Neither does the Discovery Channel.

TLC - ugh. Dwarfs and tattoos and people with way too many children.

SyFy - We can't even spell anymore, and SHARKNADO!

<comment><USER20> I don't actually watch the "channel", but The Expanse is produced by SyFy and is excellent.

And, yeah, Duck Dynasty and Cake Boss are nowhere near where A&E and TLC were when they launched, but they are family-centered sitcoms, more or less, in a time with a lack of those.

I won't defend Honey Boo Boo or that sort of thing, though.

Anyway, Disney is now the company of Star Wars and Marvel, not just Mickey and princesses. If companies want to take a risk and change their brand, I guess it's their right. There's tons of content out there if we don't like it.

<comment><USER22> Technically, The Expanse is financed and produced by Alcon Television Group, which is a division of Alcon Entertainment. Certainly having SyFy on board for US broadcast distribution is a big boon for the series, but I suspect a lot of the series' excellence is due to Alcon and not SyFy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if the prominence of esports is cutting into ESPN as well. Hell just yesterday there were over a million viewers on Twitch[1], in large due to a major esports tournament for dota. League of Legends regularly hits those numbers and beyond for their tournaments.

In the past esports were kinda sideshow attractions, but now the production quality and audience numbers are quickly catching up to traditional sports. On top of that their distribution models are more consumer friendly. I'm sure there's overlap of people who watch both, but I wonder if the next generation of kids will defer to esports over traditional ones.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/68heiu/600k_viewers_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/68heiu/600k_viewers_wow/)

<comment><USER24> Probably not like you're thinking. ESPN already has picked up esports and typically the esports tourneys don't overlap with major sports events. This is likely a conscious decision on the part of Riot, Valve, and so on, to ensure they're not competing with audiences.

ESPN has tried to adapt to esports, but it met resistance from its audience and its own commentators not really accepting it. There was this famous career ending rants [1] that is just one of many from the ESPN commentators - <USER2> comments usually don't stray too far from such thoughts.

esports fans seem pretty distinct from the core fans of ESPN, and ESPN deciding to cover it on their sub-channels (ESPN2, etc) is their attempt to reach out to those numbers and to get eyes on the channel. The internal rejection of esports doesn't help at all for ESPN who I'm sure is dying for the kinds of numbers that the Twitch and Youtube events get, especially since there is so much down-time between matches with virtually no advertisements, which likely makes the business side of ESPN wince quite a bit.

But no, I don't think esports is causing problems for ESPN in the sense that it's cutting in; ESPN would be HAPPY to get on the esports train if they could.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL21gHwt1I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzL21gHwt1I)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I read on some forums that guys were canceling ESPN due to too many female presenters commenting on sports they weren't passionate/knowledgeable about, and pushing political agenda. Could that be a compounding factor for a major loss of subscribers where many viewers decided it's no longer worth watching and found more active outlets in their spare time?

<comment><USER26> Generally speaking, the only forums I'm on that has mentioned the decline of ESPN have said nothing about politics or talking heads. I'm surprised they are such a huge talking point in this thread.

Instead, it's the huge decline of coverage and quality. These forums are devoted to a more niche form of sports (open wheel auto racing). In the 1980s and 1990s ESPN coverage of these sports was actually very extensive. No longer.

There was a time when one of ESPN's strengths was a _huge_ coverage of a wide array of sports, including many niche sports. From my perspective, a lot of the niche (or even not so niche) sports has effectively moved off of the network for one reason or another. On the main channels, cheap programming where talking heads yell at each other have taken its place.

Factor in this, and then factor in the people who got ESPN even though they weren't sports people to begin with, and now add in the cord-cutting movement. It's easy to see why ESPN's in trouble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Why is ESPN under such pressure, but sports franchise values seem to be still increasing? Aren't they competing/sharing the same dollar?

<comment><USER28> Who says this isn't the first sign of the bubble bursting?

<comment><USER29> Comcast keeps reporting subscriber growth (almost 300k last quarter). People are definitely watching sports on tv, just not ESPN. You need more than one large, bloated, continuously failing channel to convince me that we're at the beginning of giant slide, but it's not like you will ever predict that anyway.

<comment><USER30> According to the wikipedia entry on cord cutting:

 _A TDG study showed nearly 101 million U.S. households subscribed to television at the industry 's peak in 2011, but the number would fall below 95 million in 2017._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It looks like ESPN's "$6.4 billion in 2014" in profit is pre-tax, so it generated $4+ billion in cash that year leading an analyst to value ESPN at $50 billion three years ago ( [https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/04/29/the-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/04/29/the- value-of-espn-surpasses-50-billion/#28f7088561f5) )

Probably not anymore... It does point to Netflix eventually making a lot of money and being worth a lot more than it currently is. Netflix doesn't have ad revenue (in addition to such huge consumer fees, ESPN had nearly $4 billion a year in ad revenue in 2014 at least) but its subscription fees are comparable to ESPN. Better for Netflix is its aggressive move into its own content generation. If it was "merely" a way to watch other companies content, it would be at the mercy of those content owners the way ESPN pays a king's ransom for NFL, NBA, etc. games. ESPN's strategy to focus on opinion (original content) makes a lot of sense in terms of retaining fans and having a business that could survive losing broadcasting rights for a lot of sports.

While sports team/network owners could go direct to fans fairly easily these days with 1000 tv channels and everyone having "Smart" TVs, they're probably better off under the ESPN umbrella both as a bundle of many sports and through aggregated ad sales.

</comment><comment><USER32> _It pays too much for content and costs too much for consumers._

It paid too much because it could even more for it on resale. Bigger fool. They'll realign as contracts start to expire. Meanwhile they had a great run, until people awoke up to the scam.

</comment><comment><USER33> Why would they make less money by moving to a streaming model? I would imagine more people would go and buy just that instead of getting a cable package. They can also start charging a reasonable amount based on what it costs to produce the content.

If right now they rely on people paying for the channel but not watching it. Wouldn't switching to a streaming model mean that advertisers would be more interested because more people were actually watching the channel and saw ads?

<comment><USER34> ESPN is paid by cable subscriber, regardless of whether they watch sports.

Most people (>50% iirc) don't watch sports, but because of the arrangement described above most cable subscribers end up subsidizing it.

As a result: Selling sports directly to people who watch it dramatically undercuts their business model.

<comment><USER35> ESPN's contracts forbid it to sell to anyone other than a Cable system. Otherwise it would be selling direct like Netflix. This is the terrible deal that major sports networks forced on it (and it took on anyway). Some day all that massive money will vanish and sports leagues will be gasping for income.

<comment><USER36> > ESPN's contracts forbid it to sell to anyone other than a Cable system.

In Major League Baseball's case, they reserve that right for themselves. Of course, every baseball team also has its own local contract or network.

I get the feeling that ESPN is a middleman that is increasingly being seen as not adding enough value for the price by its subscribers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> could not rtfa because of the china gfw, but i'd venture a guess that netflix and all the other download based services are hurting cable sales. anyone who cannot move in this direction will face declines in revenue. everything i need i can stream. i dont want a potpouri of channels, just give me nba, or nat geo. to be fair, espn does have a streaming service, but i've been out of the us for too long to understand it. it was probably too late to the game and it probably has complicated rules if you own cable already where you'd get charged twice if you wanted it or had to go through some cable company's crappy app to get the stream.

i guess the other thing is the inflation set by all these pseudo celebreties or ex-players, they must have demanded a lot. some of these guys are worth it, but probably not most of them.

for the record, i used to watch sportscenter everyday before work, and i'd often times watch it twice in row just to see all the highlights and witty commentary. sure i sometimes had to flips channels through the hockey or golf highlights, but most if the other content was good. i enjoyed the shows like pardon the interruption and nfl countdown, so there was quality content. now when i take business trips back home, i still turn on and enjoy sportscenter, so i dont think it's the content, probably more so the packaging and over pricing of the package, look at the nba tv deal.

laying off should help reduce long term costs, but that doesnt solve their primary issue which is where the industry is going due to new tech innovations from netflix, hulu, etc. nba league pass is a great example, i just want to watch nba, i get access to all games, post game interviews, and commentary. i can imagine this being the future, more customized content, deeper, not a melting pot of sports news.

</comment><comment><USER38> There is also bundling of other sports. As a fan of, say, NBA , I really don't care about all the NFL broadcast. Still those prices paid by me.

Future to me seems, where there will be option to subscribe or buy ticket to individual events like, say only this weekend's match between team A and team B. And it seems it is more and more possible.

</comment><comment><USER39> Kind of buried near the end of the article, but as ESPN moves away from sports reporting in favor of opinion there might be some great opportunity for alternative reporting. Deadspin comes to mind.

</comment><comment><USER40> "Watching professional sports is just watching _other people_ have the time of _their_ lives".

If you have cable, you are paying for that privilege.

<comment><USER41> Comes close to what my father-in-law says about porn, 'why watch other people having fun ?'

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Damn. I thought this had something to do with the Sony Playstation Network.

</comment><comment><USER43> People learn to love sports growing up. My millenial children didn't and they won't/ didn't pick it up as an adult.

Anytime i see a Bloomberg article on hn i read it.</comment>


Leaders in tech don't want to be held accountable - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/samueljgorman/status/1268428973953826816 <comment><USER2> I agree with the title of this submission (and there are plenty of examples) but _this_ particular example is very bad in my opinion. He replied with a trollish comment and got blocked.

It's a 800k followers account too so the amount of noise they get is high and chances are the account is managed by multiple people or even automated tools.</comment>


Success of Apple Smartwatch May Rely on Health Care Partnerships - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/technology/can-apple-build-a-cool-and-convenient-iwatch.html?ref=technology&_r=0

<comment><USER2> A reliable source [1] tells me that instead of writing entire articles on what may happen, we could wait 1 and a half days for the facts.

[1]: [http://www.apple.com/live/](http://www.apple.com/live/)</comment>


So you want to learn to code? - <AUTHOR> http://forrst.com/posts/So_you_want_to_learn_to_code-Nbp <comment><USER2> I would recommend reading a highly regarded book on the programming language you are interested in. To do this, go to Hacker Books (<http://www.hackerbooks.com/>) and search by what interests you.

Many people recommend Python as a good first language. This is what Eric Raymond suggests in his _How to Become a Hacker_ essay (<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html>): _"It is cleanly designed, well documented, and relatively kind to beginners. Despite being a good first language, it is not just a toy; it is very powerful and flexible and well suited for large projects."_

</comment><comment><USER3> I suspect that most people's idea of the way to learn to code is pretty similar to the way they themselves learned to code. Once again it's Bucheit's Law: _Advice = limited experience + massive overgeneralization_

Speaking of which, I need y'all to open up BASIC and type:

10 PRINT "GREG STINKS!!!!"

20 GOTO 10

What's that? You don't have an older brother named Greg? Hmmm, this could be a bit of a problem then.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think that the most valuable advice in this is in the first line, simply learn by doing. I've been wanting to learn to code for well over a year. However, I think I've watched to many videos and done to many guided tutorials...never actually getting enough time doing projects on my own to actually solidify any skills. Thus it feels like I haven't actually learnt anything at all. My day to day work doesn't involve any programming so carving out time to practice is hard, but sooo necessary. I've got my work cut out for me.

<comment><USER5> I agree. As a beginner myself, I'd been reading about Ruby and Rails for a month or so. Mind you I said READING, not doing. That whole month of reading went out the window the minute I actually sat down at my computer and got busy. There are SO many questions you'd never even think to ask if you just sat there and read books or blogs. I fully agree that the best way to improve is to sit down and start coding in your chosen language. Everything else is just a diversion. I'll add one thing to this discussion; don't be afraid to make mistakes. Don't be afraid if your code isn't the most efficient. Just write. You'll pick up on more efficient ways to write as you go. You just have to be observant of your process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some of the advice in there is really horrible. Start learning to code with _Tizag_ tutorials!?

No. Pick a language. It doesn't matter which, pick any language. Python, Ruby, C, C++, Java, Smalltalk, PHP, Scheme, Io, whatever. Now find an introduction to computer science course or textbook. Spend a couple months working your way through it until you understand all of the concepts. Take a day or two off to learn version control.

Now, assuming your goal is to learn webdev, find a web framework for your language of choice (If you picked a language that isn't commonly used for webdev, spend a weekend learning a new one). Follow it's introduction tutorial or a related tutorial (e.g. Djangobook).

Once you have the basics down, pick up a book on software engineering like Code Complete and work through the basic concepts of good design and clean code.

But most importantly, _make things_. Scratch your own itch. Contribute to a FOSS project. Write scripts and little applications of various types. The one thing this post did get right was that the best way to learn is by trial and error.

It's really not that hard and you'll enjoy every minute of it (or you won't, in which case you don't want to be a programmer).

If you don't have the patience to spend 6-8 months learning CS, your language, and your framework of choice, you don't have the patience to work on and ship a software project.

<comment><USER7> I think the general idea of the article - to find something you want to do and then use google to solve it, is a good one. If you force people to first read big books about coding guidelines before doing anything of interest TO THEM, most will just give up. Of course, one can disagree about the articles or sites suggested, but that's not the main point IMO.

<comment><USER8> Just Googling is horrible way to learn how to program. Sure you may find an answer relatively quickly, but down the road when you come up against more difficult problems and can't find the answer, what then?

You don't learn by just Googling, you learn by working through the problem which reinforces concepts that you've read. Using Google is like if you were to go through school just copying answers -- you'd learn absolutely nothing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How come articles like this come up on the homepage so often? A lot of us here already know how to code, and those who want to probably aren't reading Hacker News.</comment>


30 Days Notebook Runtime for Kagglers - <AUTHOR> https://blobcity.com/blobcity-cloud.html <comment><AUTHOR> Enroll into BlobCity's A.I. Cloud and run your Jupyter Notebook models at scale. Leverage unlimited compute, unlimited data and 30 day Notebook runtimes at no cost. We have just launched and are currently in Limited Beta. Available to Kagglers only on a first cum first serve basis. No payment and no credit card required. Use our Notebook for your next Kaggle competition.</comment>


Zdog – Pseudo-3D JavaScript engine for Canvas and SVG - <AUTHOR> https://zzz.dog/ <comment><USER2> Super-crude STL file reader I whipped up in 10 minutes: [https://codepen.io/dheera/pen/zQJBrx](https://codepen.io/dheera/pen/zQJBrx)

<comment><USER3> nice stuff man!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So cool. I looked at a few projects and was turned off by how much code was needed to render each result. However, when I looked closer I realized that most of the code was simply to define the shapes in the illustration, which, is nice, because it's not very logic heavy and means these scenes could be whipped up relatively quickly without confusing the hell out of me. Nice! To the author: you said you wanted to make it for a video game, would love to hear if that idea is going anywhere because I could imagine something like this as a game engine being super useful.

</comment><comment><USER5> Remembering Dogz and digging through the Wikipedia rabbit hole, I just learned that PF Magic [1], the developer for Dogz/Catz, were also responsible for the SNES 3D fighting game Ballz [2], and its programmer later went on to develop the open-ended experimental adventure game Facade [3]. I knew of the existence of all of them but didn't knew they were all connected!

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PF_Magic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PF_Magic)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballz)

[3]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa%C3%A7ade_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa%C3%A7ade_\(video_game\))

<comment><USER6> Why wasn't the last one named Facadez?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I notice that there are some issues with depth sorting (which I guess would be expected). It'd be complicated, but one way you could do the same effect without that issue is to use signed distance fields in a shader:

[https://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/distfunctions/distfu...](https://www.iquilezles.org/www/articles/distfunctions/distfunctions.htm)

(Demo at the bottom of the page)

<comment><USER8> It is addressed in [https://zzz.dog/extras#z-fighting](https://zzz.dog/extras#z-fighting) as a feature:

> Z-fighting in Zdog is the natural result of its pseudo-3D engine. Zdog's 3D > shapes are actually 2D projections, rendered without any accounting for > collisions with other shapes. > Rather than fighting against this effect, > the best course is to accept it. Z-fighting is one of Zdog's charms. Embrace > it.

<comment><USER9> This is such a glorious project. I wonder if intersecting shapes could be detected and automatically decomposed into a set of non-intersecting shapes that render separately...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it me, or that `addTo` api feels very strange. Creating new objects with no assignments, with the side effects of adding it to an illustration.

<comment><USER11> The name is non-standard, but the concept is absolutely normal for a 2D or 3D rendering API. You can think of the 'addTo' property as the item's parent. In 3D APIs this is normally called an instance or transform node, and here the transform is combined with the shape type. Sometimes those are separate things, and they would each have a parent attribute. Some APIs do the assignment the other way, by adding children to the parent. Either way, my short answer is no, this doesn't feel strange.

<comment><USER10> That makes sense, I'm just not used to constructors having side-effect, though I can imagine wanting to skip the extra step of adding it to the illustration. But wouldn't something like

illustration.addRect({}) look better?

<comment><USER11> Don't constructors always have side effects? That's the only reason to have them.

I wouldn't think of this as a side-effect though, think of it as a graph property. addTo is setting up a tree structure, the same way you might setup a linked list. Think of the addTo property as a pointer to the parent, rather than a side-effect.

A doubly-linked list has two pointers per node, one for next node and one for previous. A tree node in a scene graph also has two pointers per node, one for parent and one for child. A parent can have multiple children, and so might arrange the children in an array. A child, however, can have only one parent. This makes setting the parent simpler than setting a child, considering corner cases like duplicate children.

Your suggestion is pointing at the addChild() form rather than addParent(). One of the other comments said that kind of call is available in Zdog, so maybe you can just use that instead.

But, I wouldn't use addRect() I would prefer addChild(). A call like addRect() is binding the type of shape and scene graph setup unnecessarily, so you'd have to provide separate calls for each shape type.

<comment><USER10> > Don't constructors always have side effects?

The only side effect they should have is creating a new instance, no playing around with some other object's hierarchy.

> think of it as a graph property. addTo is setting up a tree structure

The problem is that the hierarchy here is backwards. You usually add children to the parent, not parent to the children. Having a link back to your parent does help with navigating, but it shouldn't be how you "build" the tree.

When building a tree, do you think of it as building from children up to the parent? I did see that addChild was a thing, and that makes much more sense to me.

<comment><USER11> > The only side effect they should have is creating a new instance, no playing > around with some other object's hierarchy.

You might be making assumptions. The 'addTo' property does not imply the constructor is touching any other object.

You might be getting confused because the name is a verb. Again, addTo isn't very standard naming, but what it represents is the parent property. You should think of it as a property that can define the graph, not assume that the name implies anything about the implementation. Even if the constructor does do something external to the node, the implementation can change.

> The problem is that the hierarchy here is backwards. You usually add > children to the parent... it shouldn't be how you "build" the tree.

No, it's bottom-up, not backwards. And bottom-up builders are common in graphics, so I disagree with your assumption about how trees should be built. I think of building trees from child to parent all the time, because, as I mentioned before, it's a simpler operation: all nodes have one and only one parent, where nodes can have any number of children and complications managing those children.

<comment><USER10> But the example calls render on `illo`, which is the parent. So at some point the "double link" between illo and the child was created, which is a side- effect, no?

<comment><USER11> Presumably updateGraph() and even render() can both tidy up linkages and anything else that needs updating. The shape constructor might well have a side-effect though, I don't know.

Hey I hear your point, this API is a little bit different. Maybe since it's early your feedback is fully justified. Just from my perspective it didn't strike me as "very strange", only perhaps a little bit. I don't think you're wrong, it's just a matter of degree... which is subjective anyway, so take this as lukewarm agreement with you. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does this library support dynamic rendering? I tried to add extra elements to the illustration after rendering it to the canvas and it doesn't appear to work. I might be using the API incorrectly though - is the idea that you can use this library to produce a static model which can then be transformed (eg. rotated), but can't be extended after the first render?

<comment><USER13> Did you try to call updateGraph() after adding elements? It seems like it should do the trick.

[] [https://zzz.dog/api#anchor-updategraph](https://zzz.dog/api#anchor- updategraph)

<comment><USER12> This was my initial attempt using an Illustration [https://codepen.io/anon/pen/NVORrZ](https://codepen.io/anon/pen/NVORrZ)

This is my 2nd attempt using the docs you linked [https://codepen.io/anon/pen/QRZKxy?editors=0010](https://codepen.io/anon/pen/QRZKxy?editors=0010)

What do you think - is updateGraph + render supposed to work more than once?

<comment><USER14> No, the underlying flatgraph (which is used to generate the drawing commands) is cached and only updated on first call. Reset it by calling

      scene.updateFlatGraph();

after adding new shapes, before updating the graph & rendering

(see [https://github.com/metafizzy/zdog/blob/master/js/anchor.js#L...](https://github.com/metafizzy/zdog/blob/master/js/anchor.js#L126))

edit: made an issue [https://github.com/metafizzy/zdog/issues/21](https://github.com/metafizzy/zdog/issues/21)

<comment><USER12> Cheers!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Are there similar libraries for charting and plotting data? That would be super useful for visualizing complex datasets - in a 3d space.

<comment><USER16> I found vpython extremely helpful for visualizing an aerodynamic model of one of our parachute systems at work

[https://vpython.org/](https://vpython.org/)

<comment><USER17> Is this something I can use locally or in Jupyter or do I have to use GlowScript?

<comment><USER16> This is a great question, the whole GlowScript vs. VPython thing is really confusing and I feel presented in a complicated way on their site. It works great in plain old Jupyter and also from plain old python. If you use it in non-Jupyter Python, it'll launch a web server and browser to play the animation.

<comment><USER17> Thank you, it really wasn't clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is amazing. The examples are great and feel amost too easy.

I hope I get the chance to use it.

<comment><USER19> Same. I kind of wish I had a need for this sort of thing.

Without this sort of library I would have zero chance of building this myself. Amazing.

<comment><USER20> > I kind of wish I had a need for this sort of thing.

Just Do It. Over some coffee instead of loading HN.

Make a snowman. Three spheres. Progressively smaller. Make two eyes, then get the snowman to rotate. Then add a carrot nose. Maybe two arms as extra credit.

Doesn't take long, you've dabbled enough to at least think of it if you _do_ ever need it. And best of all, you've replaced idle consumption with creation which always is a more fulfilling use of time.

<comment><USER21> You are the man. Took the advice. :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Been following this project on Twitter for a while through the creators (Dave DeSandro). Looks great.. Used to use masonry all the time in projects, glad to see he is still creating cool shit.

</comment><comment><USER23> N00b question - why is it called pseudo-3d? It looks and feels very much 3d like a three.js output.

<comment><USER24> Submitted a clarifying description: [https://github.com/metafizzy/zdog- docs/issues/4](https://github.com/metafizzy/zdog-docs/issues/4)

> Zdog is a pseudo-3D Vector Art engine. You define your geometry using 3D > splines and blobs, which render as 2D SVG shapes for any arbitrary > perspective.

> For nerds—this simple translation is made possible by assuming an > orthographic projection (where drawing 3D splines becomes trivially > reducible to flat 2D splines—not so with perspective projection). More > obvious, the occlusion-culling is achieved with a trivial drawing order or > by hiding entire 2D primitives when appropriate.

<comment><USER23> Thanks so much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> React bindings are ready for testing: [https://github.com/drcmda/react- zdog](https://github.com/drcmda/react-zdog) :-)

</comment><comment><USER26> This is really nifty. Bonus points for suggesting tau rather than pi across the whole set of examples. Use cases like this make it entirely obvious pi is Just Bad

</comment><comment><USER27> Wow. Nice! I can imagine a plethora of things being built over this. Less applicable in real life, but also fun: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoxmyH7GezE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoxmyH7GezE) [https://github.com/s0lly/Pseudo3DEngineInExcel](https://github.com/s0lly/Pseudo3DEngineInExcel)

</comment><comment><USER28> Nice. I've been playing around with 2D Canvas for audio visualizations and looked into WebGL but was mortified by how complicated it was to render basic 3D shapes and just gave up.

<comment><USER29> The answer is always start with Three.js. Especially if you have no 3D graphics experience and just want to render basic shapes. Drawing a textured cube is relatively straight forward ([https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/blob/master/examples/webg...](https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/blob/master/examples/webgl_geometry_cube.html)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd love to see the old tensorflow logo built with this.

<comment><USER31> I was thinking of how cool it would look to be able to rotate all 600+ logos in the CNCF Interactive Landscape into the third dimension.

[https://landscape.cncf.io/](https://landscape.cncf.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wow. This is a nice execution of an idea. Very well done.

</comment><comment><USER13> Very clean and fast. The API also looks good, I like hierarchical translation and scaling. Is there anything preventing animation?

<comment><USER33> Seems like there shouldn't be since the examples are interactive (can rotate the move the shapes in 3D space with the mouse), but perhaps animation is a DIY exercise on top of this library

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Feels light and fast. Thank you for creating and sharing. I'm wondering what are some useful applications?

</comment><comment><USER35> Wow! This looks fantastic! Kudos / bravo / thank you for creating and sharing this!! :)

</comment><comment><USER36> Awesome, congratulations to the creator! I started doing something a little similar, to render pseudo 3d shapes to canvas, here is an example[0]. Try clicking on the page and moving the mouse.

[0] [http://jsquest.net/chagas/shift.html](http://jsquest.net/chagas/shift.html)

</comment><comment><USER37> But when will we get ray-tracing Electron apps for Windows Home tablets?

</comment><comment><USER38> I love this. I think "pseudo-2D" might be more accurate.

</comment><comment><USER39> Does it work on IE11?

<comment><USER40> Just tried it. No it doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is delightful

</comment><comment><USER42> Pop this on product hunt, you'll get your first few thousand users in no time.

> Zdog is directly inspired by Dogz, a virtual pet game by P.F. Magic released > in 1995. It used flat 2D circle sprites to render the Dogz' models, but in a > 3D scene. See Dogz playthrough video here. Dogz were fully animated in real > time, running, flopping, scratching (on Windows 3.1!). It was remarkable.

The new repeating the old. Love when someone looks historically, finds a great idea and re-implements it for a new usecase!

<comment><USER43> I hadn't thought about Dogz in ages. This video brought back some nostalgic memories.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lKSn_cHw5k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lKSn_cHw5k)

<comment><USER44> I remember playing its successor Petz: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw2tJj5IX5k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw2tJj5IX5k)

Definitely have memories from 90s childhood gaming.</comment></comment></comment>


Deprecating Raw Pointers in C++20 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bfilipek.com/2018/04/deprecating-pointers.html# <comment><USER2> It's an April fool's day joke in the best tradition: a parody almost indistinguishable from truth. C++ has jumped the shark.

Prima facie C was created as a portable assembly language that very nearly reflected the underlying hardware. Then C++ added new abstraction mechanisms on top of C, that were at first totally orthogonal: just classes and templates. One could still use all of C to get at the raw machine (raw pointers and peeking/poking). Then as abstraction envy grew to overcome C++, as it does every active language in time, C++ drifted farther and farther from its system-y roots. Fine.

But in my day job, the only real reason to use C++ is because it's the only realistic choice as a systems language. I need to peek and poke memory, jump to raw machine code I've generated at runtime. This doesn't make me better or worse, it's just my use case (a virtual machine). As C++ becomes less and less capable of doing these low-level unsafe things (because too many people caused too much damage attempting this), and adds more ceremony to the old ways of peeking and poking memory, it becomes less useful to me. Who is it useful for?

I'd argue that C++ has drifted off into some fantasy world where it believes it's a beautiful language full of nice, solid abstractions. But IMO it isn't-- probably can't be--as all the abstractions break down, leaving us in the lurch, with neither good systems programming support nor good application- level abstraction.

<comment><USER3> > _C++ has drifted off into some fantasy world_

I like what E. W. Dijkstra had to say in "The Humble Programmer":

> _Finally, although the subject is not a pleasant one, I must mention C++, a > programming language for which the defining documentation is of a > frightening size and complexity. Using C++ must be like flying a plane with > 7000 buttons, switches and handles to manipulate in the cockpit. I > absolutely fail to see how we can keep our growing programs firmly within > our intellectual grip when by its sheer baroqueness the programming language > —our basic tool, mind you!— already escapes our intellectual control. And if > I have to describe the influence C++ can have on its users, the closest > metaphor that comes to my mind is that of a drug. I remember from a > symposium on higher level programming language a lecture given in defense of > C++ by a man who described himself as one of its devoted users. But within a > one-hour lecture in praise of C++. he managed to ask for the addition of > about fifty new "features", little supposing that the main source of his > problems could very well be that it contained already far too many > "features". The speaker displayed all the depressing symptoms of addiction, > reduced as he was to the state of mental stagnation in which he could only > ask for more, more, more... When FORTRAN has been called an infantile > disorder, full C++, with its growth characteristics of a dangerous tumor, > could turn out to be a fatal disease._

April fool's. He actually said that about PL/1 [1].

[1] [https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD340...](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD340.html)

<comment><USER2> Great quote, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The fact that this headline cannot be distinguished from April Fools joke by other commenters seems to say a lot about the direction in which C++ standard committee is heading.

<comment><USER5> It's not like the idea is completely crazy; pointer misuse is a big source of all kinds of problems, Rust shows how much can be done without constantly using raw pointers, and what are the C++ Core Guidelines if not an effort in exactly this direction?

I finally "got" that this is a joke when they discussed the future alternatives:

> For copyable and assignable references you can use std::reference_wrapper. > ([http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/utility/functional/referenc...](http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/utility/functional/reference_wrapper))

and thought, ha ha, an "assignable reference" instead of a "pointer", that's obviously completely different. :) What a subtle joke!

Only now I see that reference_wrapper is apparently completely real and exists since C++11. Why does this even exist? My head hurts from banging it against the desk.

<comment><USER6> 1\. April joke :)

The point of c/c++ in comparision to other languages is that you can do anything and having a huge toolbox for that. Pointers are excelent sledgehammer. You can be perfectly fine with not using them but c++ _need_ to have them. The pointers are not source of the problem, the developer is. That's why languages like java are prospering, it prevent incompetent people making stupid mistakes and that is fine. But some people need and want freedom that c++ offers.

<comment><USER7> You can have languages that prevent people making stupid mistakes and still offer full control over the hardware, that is what languages like Modula-2 and Ada offer.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, also Rust and ATS. A good systems language just needs to _allow_ low- level and unsafe operations; nowadays the industry is warming up to the idea that such operations shouldn't be available _by default_. Having to opt in with a machine-checked "unsafe" annotation means you have an explicit indication in the code of everywhere things _could_ go wrong with type/memory safety, which means when something does go wrong, you know it _must_ be caused by one of those unsafe regions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Having started using the Internet in the 90's, and thus still remembering Geocities-era websites, I loved that they did this as a webring ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring)): each blog post has a link to the next one, making a singly-linked circular list.

Starting with this one, we have:

\- [http://www.bfilipek.com/2018/04/deprecating- pointers.html](http://www.bfilipek.com/2018/04/deprecating-pointers.html)

\- [http://www.modernescpp.com/index.php/no-new- new](http://www.modernescpp.com/index.php/no-new-new)

\- [https://www.fluentcpp.com/2018/04/01/cpp-will-no-longer- have...](https://www.fluentcpp.com/2018/04/01/cpp-will-no-longer-have- pointers/)

\- [https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/no- pointers/](https://blog.tartanllama.xyz/no-pointers/)

\- [https://arne-mertz.de/2018/04/raw-pointers-are-gone/](https://arne- mertz.de/2018/04/raw-pointers-are-gone/)

And it circles back to this one.

</comment><comment><USER10> This could be a joke. Or not.

It is very much in keeping with the current direction of C++, which appears to be:

"Oh no, C++ cannot keep pace with modern systems languages, let's repair it by whatever means possible"

Their heart is in the right place, but perhaps this accelerated process of mutating the language will ultimately be what kills it.

Personally, after having deep expertise in C++(11/14) I jumped ship to Go and will _never_ look back...

<comment><USER11> There is nothing in C++ 11 and later that is forced on you. Everything that was added is optional. For personal projects I depend on some alternate implementations for things that are now in the STL because these not complete enough for my needs.

<comment><USER12> That only works if you are working alone. In a real world team environment you can't always enforce your preferences on your teammates

<comment><USER11> I did not wrote these things for fun. I had a real need for each one. The STL is fine for the average case, but it is also limited. I hit these limitations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hope this is a joke: the std::weak_ptr / std::shared_ptr combo (only non- reference alternative I can think of other than std::optional) can have pretty bad performance implications due to ref-counting atomics in multi-threaded scenarios...

For the use-case of optional pointers that don't have any ownership (and can possibly be updated mid-lifetime) and have a guaranteed external lifetime, what's the alternative?

Are there any other ways of doing this that are guaranteed to have no performance (time or memory) overhead in modern C++ (relying on by-value move semantics isn't ideal) ?

Also, what about std:atomic (CAS) raw pointers - for high-performance / lockless stuff, they can be critical...

<comment><USER14> _For the use-case of optional pointers that don 't have any ownership (and can possibly be updated mid-lifetime) and have a guaranteed external lifetime_

Those three things seem like a pretty rare co-occurrence, if something has no ownership how can it have guaranteed external lifetime without being reference counted? I guess it's possible but in any scenario I come up with reference counting seems an easier way to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I guess a serious point is that modern C++ does "deprecate" raw pointers in the sense that their use is discouraged outside of interfacing with external libraries or old C++ code.

But that's more the realm of linters than compiler warnings.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure that's quite true. Raw pointers are fine if you need a nullable non-owning reference type.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This sounds to me like an April Fools joke, but the linked article on new new written on 26 March makes it sound like it's not...

<comment><USER18> They link back from there to a April 1st post, however.

> Additionally, I refer to the post C++ Will no Longer Have Pointers by Fluent > C++

Following the trail of references just loops around a half dozen April 1st posts.

With that, and nothing on the drafts [0], that I can see, I'm leaning towards joke.

[0] [https://github.com/cplusplus/draft](https://github.com/cplusplus/draft)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In other news: Bjarne Stroustrup hast been fired by the C++ language committee, as one data member declared "we are sick and tired of this backard compatibility with C mantra, we all want to party like Rust!". Today everything is possible...

</comment><comment><USER20> "The C++ Standard moves at a fast pace."

Too obvious.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can someone with more knowledge about c++ standard comment whether this is for real or it is an April Fools joke. Wouldn't this be an enormous change and probably break the language?

<comment><USER4> It seems to be a joke, they would have serious problem with backward compatibility with "this" pointer. Also it would limit the use cases for the language, unless they would introduce something like std::raw_ptr, which to be honest would be quite funny.

<comment><USER8> Honestly this wouldn't be a bad idea for consistency, teaching, and template programming purposes:

        namespace std {
            template<typename T>
            using raw_ptr = T*;
        }

        // mutable pointer to const value
        int const *a_old;
        std::raw_ptr<int const> a_new;
        std::raw_ptr<const int> a_new_var;

        // const pointer to mutable value
        int *const b_old;
        std::raw_ptr<int> const b_new;
        const std::raw_ptr<int> b_new_var;

        // const pointer to const value
        int const *const c_old;
        std::raw_ptr<int const> const c_new;
        const std::raw_ptr<const int> c_new_var;

I've actually used this before to parameterise a struct/class with an ownership policy, for example:

        template<template<typename T, typename...> class P>
        struct Wrapper {
            P<int> value;
        };

Now Wrapper<std::raw_ptr> is a non-owning Wrapper, while Wrapper<std::unique_ptr> is an owning one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Another blogger wrote about this : [https://www.fluentcpp.com/2018/04/01/cpp- will-no-longer-have...](https://www.fluentcpp.com/2018/04/01/cpp-will-no- longer-have-pointers/)

Is this actually a joke ?

<comment><USER23> You can follow the links to more details, which goes to a different blog post. Each has another blog post as a source, and eventually comes back in a circle to the original one.

This is most definitely an April Fool's joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've never done any real development with a language that uses pointers. So noob question: why would one use a pointer over passing a variable? (those are the two flavors right?)

<comment><USER25> When passing a pointer, if you want the resulting state of the variable, the function doesn't need to return a value. Also if the variable is a large object, then passing just a pointer to it saves time spent copying the object.

<comment><USER26> I am sure parent meant "passing by reference". (In Oberon, for example, this is indicated by the VAR keyword.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Obvious joke is obvious. I looked at the date immediately after reading the title. Now, if that was to be discussed for C++23, that could indeed be plausible... yet still unlikely.

</comment><comment><USER26> On a more serious note, raw pointers can be seen as _practically_ deprecated in C++ since its inception (at least inside code that is not considered library or low-level).

</comment><comment><USER28> Eventually C++ will be a well thought out standard.

</comment><comment><USER29> Hacker News also doing April Fools now...

</comment><comment><USER23> If you click on the "more details" link, you end up on a different blog post, saying some of the same things. Looks like it has a reference.

But then that post also has a link to a source, which is another blog post, which links to another, which via a few more links back to this one.

We have citogenesis[1] in actual action.

[1] [https://xkcd.com/978/](https://xkcd.com/978/)

</comment><comment><USER30> so tldr, the C haters have won in the process of rubyizing C++ for webdevs who literally could not care less about a language that they have absolutely no use for...

I'm glad I decided against moving to C++

<comment><USER31> Look at the date on the article...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you do to keep your Coding Interview skills sharp? - <AUTHOR> Recently I started doing 1-2 problems from Leetcode before going to sleep.<p>I want to be prepared for whatever comes my way whenever I decide to interview again. <comment><USER2> After realizing that even as a moderately competent junior-mid-level developer my fitness for interview problems drops drastically as soon as I'm employed.

Studying algorithms reminds me of my most hated classes in college, mostly because my professor had no interest in teaching and was really only there for his research...

However, I still have no clue how to keep my interview-foo top notch while not freaking out about trying to get a job as well. I still can't believe friends of mine can line up 5-7 interviews in the course of a week and then get offers from 60% of them on their first try.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's you and me both buddy. The paranoia is always there. Which makes me really reconsider my life choices?

Like, why am I in this? Thinking in long term, considering the ageism factor, maybe it's about time I take some other approach to this whole career thing?

<comment><USER3> I've thought deeply about that too. The whole, if I hate practicing stupid word problems so much, why have I convinced myself to spend most of my waking hours doing this software thing?

Then again, it's decent money and in time I do plan to do something else entirely. Hopefully I'll have an idea or get involved early enough at a startup to move into management / less technical things?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh incidentally I learned recently that things you learn in the last 90 minutes or so before going to sleep are less likely to be retained.

I believe I read this in "The Expert's Guide to Sleeping Well" by Chris Idzikowski, which is a well-researched book... but I didn't take any notes on where in particular I read it.

It was a striking result because a lot of research shows that sleeping after studying is crucial to consolidate the learning -- this added the nuance that a gap between the study and the sleep is also needed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I usually surf the internet right before going to sleep. Reading random things. This happens because I give up the monotonous task of doing this types of problems on behalf of enjoying something. :) So, I might be ok?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Actually do interviews. After 20 you'll see what you should actually focus on, as opposed to cookie cutter problems that test memory vs. in-moment applications.

<comment><AUTHOR> You do only phone ones or you take time to go do the interviews? Also, if you just interview and then don't keep practicing, aren't you gonna get rusty?

I've had quite a few so far...definitely more than 10. From my experience, coding problems can range from anything to anything. Wall street was more puzzly, but even the big4 sometimes ask very convoluted questions.

Not sure how to generalize everything but to solve random problems on Leetcode.

<comment><USER5> Take time to do interviews. Phone is just first pass, the real interview is when youre talking to another software engineer and mutually digesting a problem and seeing how you'd approach it. Stop thinking of interviews as a test and start thinking of interviews as a date. Do I want to spend my week with this person? Do I want to actually work on stuff with this person? Outside of maybe Google, these are the questions most interviewers are asking.

<comment><AUTHOR> For me the experience has been different. Any company that seemed interesting to me, always asked C.O.D.E & ALGORITHM questions.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NSA assisting Minnesota with intercepted communications - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1266743748769316865 <comment><USER2> I saw an article saying that the government was conducting contact tracing of people arrested at the protests.

At the time I wasn't sure what that meant, but now my guess is that it means precisely what it sounds like: the authorities are using the same tools they use against COVID-19, for the purpose of identifying looters and rioters.

Personally I think we must dismantle a large portion of our surveillance apparatus.

<comment><USER3> > conducting contact tracing of people arrested

I'm pretty sure this is standard when police think that more than one person committed the crime. I don't think "contact tracing" in this case is any different than just "investigate the crime and follow the leads".

The 50 states and many large metros have fusion centers that were already gathering, collating, and redirecting national security info. If the NSA was given authority to target the protests (probably, because the president and DoJ are claiming other nations are agitators), this might be happening.

<comment><USER4> Given the current admins' penchant for blaming others for what happens here, pointing at other nations seems like par for the course by now. It's easier than looking in the mirror, and a convenient distraction.

<comment><USER3> I don't disagree with what you say, but I don't see how it's relevant to my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fox News updated the story to say the MN Governor public statement that the NSA was involved in interceptions of messages for the military supplied intelligence report was in error, per the Governor's office.

SOURCE: [https://www.foxnews.com/politics/minnesota-intelligence- supp...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/minnesota-intelligence-support-nsa- riots)

<comment><USER6> Read: Getting caught was the error.

<comment><USER7> Yeah you cannot trust the NSA for anything. Especially related to your own security. They would be do more societal good as fertilizer to water thirsty ornamental plants in a minimally populated desert. Where maintenance of said plants was paid for by taxpayers watered by contractors at extortionate rates while the workers only receive minimium wage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's quite likely there is foreign interference, but it would be nice to have some solid evidence for once. The bets are open, I guess.

<comment><USER9> In Romania we are used to have praceful protests turn into vandalism, it's a known thing already: agitators are brought in, chaos starts, police ram onto peaceful protesters, including moms, kids , some grandmas and grandpas, some disabled. They thus end the peaceful protests and more vandalism takes place. This is a classic tactic form soviet opression and control manuals, since we're in their sphere of influence. I shouldn't be surprised if Amerika has mighty methods of control and supression, sure, not like China and Russia but in an perverted way nonetheless

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> We all said this tech would be used for no good, and now here we are.

</comment><comment><USER11> Already been denied by Minnesota Governor, and it's outlandish to begin with. I'll believe it when it's written somewhere other than Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER12> Isn't the nsa explicitly prohibited from operating in the US? Or is that just the CIA?

<comment><USER3> Another comment stated that Fox news retracted this story.

The charters prevent them from spying domestically, but there are a handful of cases where domestic agencies are allowed to request their assistance.

<comment><USER13> > The charters prevent them from spying domestically,

A long time ago that was the case, but I believe that hasn't been true (or followed) for over 30 years.

The AT&T "splitter" rooms are one example. Tapping Google's WAN links is another.

One of the fig leafs used for email gathering is if one recipient is not in the US, then it's "international." But they could just say, "we thought one of his contacts might have been foreign", and there's nothing anybody can do.

<comment><USER3> Yes, sorry I didn't expand on this. The capabilities of the IC have changed (during Cold War, after Church Committee, after 9/11, etc).

I'm aware of the evidence that you listed.

> But they could just say, "we thought one of his contacts might have been > foreign", and there's nothing anybody can do.

I would argue the US military could invade another country and "there's nothing you can do". We, as lowly citizens, have no standing in court and no authority over the NSA/DoD/CIA (except through our elected representatives).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Turn-key police state exists.

The race is on. Do we dismantle the apparatus before someone turns that key or dues someone get there and turn it first?

This probably isn't it. This is just another warning, right? We still have time, right?

I think Biden's handlers are more likely than Trump myself but it might be singing that vibes after.

<comment><USER14> "singing that vibes after" from "someone that comes after"

Phone autocorrect is not something I'm working with very well nowadays... Sigh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As long as the signals leave US borders the NSA looking into it is fair game.

Or if it started internationally before reaching the US.</comment>