Ask HN: I just got fired - <AUTHOR> I'm a contributor here but using a throwaway for obvious reasons.
I was fired without notice a few days ago. The initial shock and hurt have worn off, I think, but I am still in deep processing mode. I was very unhappy at this job, and I believe it became obvious to management. I was halfway out the door myself, actively interviewing at other companies, but getting rejected like this is still a blow. I wanted to leave on my own terms.
As I reflect on my experiences and the direction I want to head in, I was wondering if any of you all have been fired and have advice on how to cope in the coming days, months, years. I'm relatively young (29) and have a long career (I hope) ahead of me.
I've applied for UI, I've told a couple very close people (but not anyone else, I still don't know how to confront the shame and tell people in my circles). I'm going to hit the job search hard. But what else can I do to minimize the damage and maximize future success? <comment><USER3> Most people are focusing on career advice, but it sounds like you're also looking for some psychological reassurance. In that case, the best advice I can give is to avoid letting this affect your view of yourself. It's easy to forget that we are more than our careers or our jobs. How will you feel about this firing 50 years from now?

This is also why it's inportant to have a balanced lifestyle. If the only focus of your life is your career, then getting fired is devastating. But if you have other things in your life — hobbies, friends, a relationship — you have those to fall back to when something goes wrong with work.

<comment><AUTHOR> > This is also why it's inportant to have a balanced lifestyle. If the only > focus of your life is your career, then getting fired is devastating.

Amen. I made a concerted effort to round out my life outside of work because I've been so unhappy there--joined a sports league, made friends from lots of industries (not just tech), new relationship...these were quite hard given my introverted nature but man am I thankful I have them now. Thanks for your input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A few thoughts:

Unless you were fired for misconduct, its usually better to say you were laid off. Its worth figuring out what information the company will give out. If you didn't leave on good terms, have a friend call and ask for employment verification. If it was a legitimate company based in the US, its likely they'll give dates of employment and nothing else.

Get some thoughts down in writing, especially what went wrong/what you could have done better. Its pretty common to be unhappy at a job and wanting to leave, so its good to figure out how to do that without making it too obvious.

Don't be shy about reaching out to people who still work at the company you left. It always feels more awkward to you than it really is.

By far the best thing you can do to minimize damage is get another job as soon as possible. It's really easy to get in a rut after a setback and get discouraged, procrastinate, then before you know it a few months have gone by and you have a 'gap' on your resume to explain.

It's tough, but remember that this exact situation happens to way more people than it seems. Its just someone nobody brings up so it seems rare. You'll get through it.

<comment><USER5> > have a friend call and ask for employment verification

One of the magic incantations I've heard of here is "is {X} eligible for rehire?"

It's worth throwing in to see what their response is.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure I understand that, can someone elaborate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > getting rejected like this is still a blow. I wanted to leave on my own > terms.

Do you have any previous Managers/Superiors who can serve as a professional reference and vouch for your skills & expertise? Was there a previous position where you delivered superior work?

Do not lie, do not misrepresent your situation.

Be candid-- Tell them you we're fired out of the blue. But your job engagement level had likely suffered when you realized the role/company wasn't a good strategic fit.

Confidently add - 'My references will tell you that I'm a trustworthy, thoroughly professional, known as Top-Notch Developer who thrives on delivering out-of-the-box solutions for tough problems'.

*You'll be surprised to know some of the most intelligent/productive/impactful talent tend to get fired at least once in their career.

Manage your inner-game, move on!

</comment><comment><USER8> First, go ahead and mourn... for a little while. A day, a week if you need to. Then be done. Time to move on.

Next thing: Look honestly at whether any of this was your fault. Was your work inadequate? Did you have conflicts with your co-workers? You need to be honest with yourself. And if there's something that you need to change going forward, think through how you're going to change things (for the sake of the long career that you still have ahead of you).

I've been laid off. It wasn't me. They killed the project, gave everybody two weeks pay instead of notice, and escorted us out the door. It was kind of a shock. I stopped somewhere on my way home and cried for a few minutes. Then I took the rest of the day off, then started working on job hunting.

You feel like this is going to ruin your career. It's not. It may make it somewhat more difficult to find the next job, but not impossible. After that, if you do decent work at that next job, nobody will ever care again about you getting fired from this one.

</comment><comment><USER9> I was part of a layoff once. At first I was kind of in shock. As soon as I started walking out the building I actually felt happy and excited. I saw it as a new opportunity and beginning of a new adventure. I have no idea where I might end up. It's made me open my eyes and mind to moving to other cities, learning technologies I'm not familiar with, applying for and considering other positions and the types of companies I'm willing to work for and meet new people.

Look at it as an opportunity. A new adventure and be open minded. That's what I have done and am actually feeling much happier. Find something you want to do and no longer are miserable every day doing.

The only part I do not like is the interview process that many companies have developed for software engineers. It can be extremely stressful and frustrating, but I guess you have to play the game.

<comment><USER10> I remember that feeling! I opened my car windows, turned the radio on - <USER2> happened to be playing "Takin Care of Business" which was perfect! Turned it up and cruised around town for an hour, happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Take a deep breath. Everything is alright and you have a bright future ahead. Getting fired is same as you leaving the job, without having a offer in hand, discarding any emotional turbulence. Keep applying for jobs and very soon you'll get a job, you always desired for. I hope you have enough cash to keep you covered, spend money with prudence. And smile, things are gonna be great for you, very soon.

</comment><comment><USER12> Getting fired from a bad gig is a blessing, especially if you've already been interviewing elsewhere.

If your company senses the vibe of disinterest, and especially if they think it's so serious that you're interviewing elsewhere, it's not entirely unusual for management to move toward a dismissal before the employee can quit. Like you, they want the imminent departure to occur on their own terms, even if that can mean paying out some severance, etc.

As another poster stated, now you are going to get some severance and other benefits that can help ease your transition to a better thing, so that's great. It is nearly always financially better to get laid off/fired than to quit voluntarily.

Don't worry about explaining it away. If other companies ask why you left without having something new first, just say that you and management didn't see eye to eye, and that you want to focus on finding a place that's a good match, because it's not worth wasting time at a place that isn't a good match. This is all totally true and valid, and it will serve to flatter the company if you end up accepting an offer. It also projects an image of financial security that may help in salary negotiations.

I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't hurt to be beaten to the punch, even when it's what you really wanted anyway. But hang in there and don't let it get you down. The emotional sting will pass and you'll be able to appreciate the brightness of the better future soon. :)

</comment><comment><USER13> A couple of thoughts:

• Have you considered that your being unhappy with the job was an intentional act on the part of others? Getting people to leave on their own is substantially easier on the long-term financials of a company (no unemployment payments, less legal liability). I'm amazed, for how many people feel like the honeymoon is over at their jobs, at how few are aware that this is completely intentional for money reasons.

• What damage? It's rare that I've seen anybody doing the hiring care about the detailed circumstances of why you left your last job. Why you want to work at the new place is far more important to them. It's a seller's market right now, and you need to stop worrying and start doing.

In three months (provided you do enough legwork in that time) you'll come to the conclusion that they were doing you a favor. Assuming you weren't a contractor (and you were actually fired), apply for unemployment benefits immediately to help you weather the storm.

<comment><USER14> > ... an intentional act on the part of others? Getting people to leave on > their own is substantially easier on the long-term financials of a company

A great point and it absolutely happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> To maximize future success, learn from this lesson. If you are unhappy with the job and are looking, you need to try as hard as you can to keep a happy disposition and _don 't signal a thing_ until you have a new job offer in hand and are ready to quit.

Why does it matter? Because now you need to find a job, and your future employer knows this. They will now have an advantage in salary negotiations compared to the alternative, where you have an existing job and can walk away if their offer isn't good enough.

A secondary task is to keep your ear to the ground and learn when a major event, like a layoff or firing, is imminent. It's not as hard to detect as you think.

</comment><comment><USER16> I was laid off too last week. Here is wha advice I have been given by HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16240389](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16240389)

</comment><comment><USER17> This reply is to do with dealing with the psychological effects of feeling rejected and feeling like you failed, rather than legal or job hunting.

I got made redundant at one of my previous companies, in a similar boat as you, unhappy at the time.

A lot of the other employees were very surprised because I was known as a high-performer and before I'd moved teams was a lot of people's go-to guy for getting shit down. I think they weren't really seeing how much of a 'handful' I'd become for management.

It took a long, long time for me to really be ok with it. Like a decade. I would very much recommend you deal with it now, and not let it fester like I did.

As I say, I did it badly, but if it happened again, I'd try and say these things to myself:

1\. It's not a reflection on your skill, it's a relationship thing. Try and realise this. You split up, and the reasons can have nothing to do with your technical skills, your interpersonal skills, your politics skills, whatever. It can be simply that you didn't fit and eventually that became more of a problem than all the other benefits you did offer.

2\. Just because you got fired doesn't make all the work you ever did there bad. You did some great things. Maybe try and reflect and write down all the great things you did do.

3\. You already wanted to leave. You'd already decided it was over, they just realised it. You ALREADY wanted to leave. It was already over.

4\. Try not to burn bridges, either through spite or through inaction. Try and keep in contact with people you valued in the business, as friends and as future useful networking contacts. _That might even include the people who fired you_. I sometimes wish I could ask one of my old bosses, who I highly valued, for advice. Yes, it might take time, maybe a year, maybe two, but don't feel like you can't say hi, even after a break. I ultimately lost good friends over it because I felt so awkward about it.

5\. It's business, you should not feel any shame. It's simply business. Realistically speaking, you simply got out-manoeuvred. Maybe you subconsciously advertised that you were moving on, and so they reacted in a fairly predictable manner.

6\. The abruptness of it doesn't mean anything, it is simply easier for them. As a business they have that control. Don't read anything at all into the abruptness. They might have spent multiple meetings agonising over what to do with you, but you'll never hear or see about that.

7\. They're only a bunch of humans, they probably made many mistakes in managing you, in nurturing you and in keeping you happy.

</comment><comment><USER18> It is definitely stressful when you don't have control over events in your life and I can understand your shock. However, it sounds like you are in a faily good place.

I have a friend that worked in an unforgivingly toxic and disfunctional environment, but was determined to finish the job. He was not interviewing or even looking for jobs. One day, he got so fed up with things that he quit. A few weeks later they laid off half the team with severance.

In the grand scheme of things you ended up with a best case scenario. Now go on and find work that you are happy with

</comment><comment><USER19> I have had the same experience. The environment was toxic, I was actively interviewing, and the company knew I was not happy. I was preparing the give my resignation the next day, as it turned out, but they pulled the trigger first. Regardless, like you, I wanted to leave on my own terms.

But keep things in perspective. Put shame to the side because that's not going to help. If you are a frontend developer, there is no shortage of job opportunities for you. Keep going with the interviewing process, and move on.

Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER20> Relatively young? You're very young. If you're not married or tied up with a mortgage yet I would travel for a few months to a year while it's still ok to use hostels. You can always apply for positions from abroad, develop some proactive skill like using orgmode or meditation and you get the kind of experiences that would put a permanent smile on your face whatever job you come back to. It's also a good excuse for being out of a job.

<comment><USER21> Out of curiosity, at what age do you think it stops being "ok" to stay at hostels?

<comment><USER22> Depends. Some hostels have strict age limits. Most are a bit wary of older looking travelers but I've definitely run into over 40-ish people in them. OP is going to be fine. Not to mention, most hostels have a rooms you can rent and in a lot of places, like Asia, you'll end up with your private room for cheap anyway in many places (Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, in my experience).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In some sense, being fired when you were already interviewing may be a net advantage if it was a layoff with severance package, etc. Companies don't owe you anything if you quit, which you would have had to do if one of the other jobs made a quick offer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, financially I may end up better off in the short term, between the severance and unemployment. But it wasn't a layoff, it was a termination. So that is going to be a lot harder to deal with for explaining to future employers I would think.

<comment><USER24> Your severance agreement probably includes a non-disparagement clause (you can't bad mouth the company after you sign). That clause should be mutual (they can't criticize you either in public or to a future employer). Even without that in place, most companies will do nothing more than confirm length of employment and (maybe) job title to avoid a law suite.

When you apply for future jobs you are under no obligation to go into the details of your departure from this one. I wouldn't recommend lying, but you can certainly phrase it differently than "I got fired". Especially since you were already looking for other jobs, you can legitimately say that you felt the role was a poor fit and you started looking for something new.

<comment><USER22> >non-disparagement clause

I've had to sign one of these to get cashed out after a company-wide lay off before. I ran it past a lawyer friend and he says they do not hold up in court.

Saying that, there are plenty of ways to frame the situation without being overly negative about the former company or yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have been fired from a few jobs - some of them because I was experiencing an undiagnosed medical issue.

Don't over think this.

Don't use coy words to hide this. It just invites interviewers to drill down into the "why did you leave?" question.

Be boldly honest if asked: "I was having difficulties in believing in the new direction of the company."

"I was experiencing the stress of a new baby keeping me up at night."

As an interviewer, the things I care about are:

1\. Is the same issue likely to repeat itself if I hire you;

2\. Was the situation a sign of anything that is going to cause a lawsuit ( i.e. sexual harassment )?

3\. Do you have anger management issues?

4\. Do you have the ability to recognize and correct your own bad behavior? Or do you blame others?

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been laid off twice in 2017, still unemployed from the 2nd one. Not going to lie, its tough. Just have to keep your head down and keep focused on something. I've taken the time to brush up on new skills.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've been fired lots of times.

Sometimes I ended up in a better position earning more money.

"I still don't know how to confront the shame"

There's nothing to be ashamed of. Tell people you're moving on to look for new challenges.

</comment><comment><USER28> Allow yourself to process the grief, humiliation, rage etc. if you are not in regular therapy, find a friend you can honestly vent out to and who can listen to you with an attitude of "these are thoughts and emotions that need to get out so they don't fester. They in no way define this person"

If you skip this step, you risk losing energy and cognitive resources to these unresolved emotions.

</comment><comment><USER29> \- Find any weakness in your skills or communications and see if you can improve those.

-Believe in yourself and do not give up, you will get a decent job eventually, but then in tech space, you will need to deal with all kinds of people, so hard to be satisfied always.

</comment><comment><USER22> Hang in there. There are some great replies here that I hope you take to heart, especially the psychological side of it. It sounds like you haven't been through this before (it still sucks regardless of how many times it happens).

Some practical questions:

1) Were you fired or laid off? There is a difference and it especially makes a difference when you apply for unemployment. How did HR or your manager frame it?

2) UI. I see you already applied which is great. The process is different in every state (assuming you're American here so correct me if I'm wrong). In CA, it takes about 2-3 weeks after you apply to get your first check.

3) Follow what the others said about confirming what they are going to say about you if someone calls for references. Most companies now cover their asses by only giving dates of employment, even if you were were a great employee.

4) If you made good friends at the company, they're probably wondering what happened to you as well. Be sure to reach out, go for a drink or two, etc. I still have drinks and am good friends with people from various jobs throughout the years, some of which ended like this. When I was laid off from my last job, my personal phone and email blew up because the only thing the company said was "X is no longer with us" in an email

5) Give yourself a certain amount of time to look over and reflect on what went right and what went wrong but then cut it off and don't dwell. There are probably mistakes made on both sides that you can learn from.

6) Go ahead and get your resume out there, LinkedIn spiffied up, and Indeed profile updated. Know what you want from your next position too that you didn't like about this one (see #5). The good part about working a shitty job and these experiences is that it teaches you what you don't want in life and work.

Personal stuff:

I thought mattmanser wrote a great reply for this, as well as some others.

1) Have you had time off in a while or did you sacrifice some of that for the job? If you want to take a short break and clear your head and heart, now is a great time to do so. I was let go in July and wish in August or September I had taken at least a week or two elsewhere to decompress.

2) You mentioned shame. There's no shame here. This shit happens to a lot of people, especially in this more cut-throat day and age. You're friends, if they truly are friends, are going to empathize with you, let you talk it out, and hopefully buy you a round of beers or three.

As someone else said, it's business. Sounds like if you were laid off you're in an at-will state. Think of it this way: Employers expect us to give them at least two weeks notice but they usually have policies of laying off people immediately and sending out the door that day. It's an unbalanced power relationship.

3) If you may not realize it until too late, but it's easy to get really down- down and time will slip away. Nothing wrong with sleeping in the first day or two off but if you regularly find yourself just staying in bed all day, overthinking things, that's starting to trend to minor depression. Be sure to get outside, exercise, see people, etc. It sounds like you already have that going for you.

If that shit does take hold, and even in general, I highly recommend this book called "How to Be Miserable" that uses counter-examples to make you think about things. I bought it after coming across the CGP-Grey video that discusses it:

Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o)

Book: [https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Miserable-Strategies- Already/d...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Miserable-Strategies- Already/dp/1626254060)

4) You were already unhappy so see this as an opportunity, a possibility, vs a negative. Work on a project you've always wanted to start but didn't have the time or energy. Work on your job applications and/or with a recruiter for a certain amount of time then block out time to be creative. Who knows, you might create a job for yourself and then only you can fire you!

5) Overall, good luck! It sucks but you will come out stronger for it. There are always options out there. It can be a struggle to stay positive and confident. The pain and anger of this will pop out of nowhere at times but just realize what's happening and let it go.

I've been out of work for six months now, some of it due to being picky about my next job, some of it with a month or so missing because of aforementioned depression, and now, my UI has run out and I have about two months to make something happen here.

But, for once, I'm really fucking positive about my future. I'm spending a part of the day applying to work and other parts of the day learning new things that will help out in the short to medium term. If shit doesn't work out here, my backup plan is to say fuck it and go to Taiwan and teach English for a year where I can save money as well as continue to pursue my learning.

You always have options it's just hard to know what they are sometimes. Keep talking to people, going to meetups, participating in life. You're going to be fine!</comment>


Seal war crime defense says prosecutors spied - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/f359ce62d16c433ca39807693c042b2b <comment><USER2> It should be "SEAL" (all caps), not "Seal".

<comment><AUTHOR> I had it that way, but I guess it was changed after I submitted it.</comment></comment>


Udacity adds HTML5 Game Development Course - <AUTHOR> https://www.udacity.com/course/cs255

<comment><USER2> HTML5 gaming is an interesting frontier but I am sceptical that we will see a resurgence of the sort of the casually played (and developed) amateur games that we saw during the hayday of newgrounds and similar sites.

In retrospect Macromedia made a stroke of genius with Flash in bundling design & animation tools, sound editors and a code editor into the same IDE.

All of this combined in an easy-to-pirate package along with the thousands of tutorials and code samples available online made game development almost shockingly easy.

Myself and a more artistic friend could literally sit in his bedroom and crank out a complete game over a weekend by taking turns at the computer and drinking heavily. No thinking about "engines", writing asset import code , muddling through JS patterns/frameworks or being stumped by cross browser quirks.

Deployment and getting instant feedback was as simple as uploading the .swf to deviantart.com and spamming the link to all of our contacts via MSN messenger.

All of the .js game dev stuff by comparison looks like hard work.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious, do you think it was the IDE that was the game changer (excuse the pun)? If JS had a game dev IDE with bundles sound editor etc... do you think it would be as popular as Flash?

<comment><USER2> I can't say for certain but I would wager it was certainly a significant part of it.

You could put a programmer or an artist down in front of it and it was intuitive enough and gave an "integrated" feel which was also probably part of what made Visual Basic popular.

Basically the interface felt "empowering" to the newbie in a way that something like vim doesn't.

For example, you could create an animated sprite and with a couple of clicks transform it into something that you could manipulate directly in the code as an object. No importing third party libraries or creating "sprite sheets" was required.

I'm not sure if the bar for games has become significantly higher apart from in the AAA area, plenty of successful indie titles still look like SNES games.

A games/multimedia specific JS IDE that dealt with as much of the crap surrounding the JS ecosystem as possible could certainly have a chance of being popular. Though I think something built around <http://love2d.org/> with easy browser publishing might be better in some ways.

<comment><USER4> Our startup's IDE, Construct 2, attempts to do just that for HTML5: <http://www.scirra.com>

Do you think that's in the right direction?

<comment><USER2> Interesting, though you seem to be going for a "no coding required" approach which always ends up hitting limits pretty quickly.

Do you support an easy way to add custom JS code for logic that the in built tools cannot handle elegantly?

Also interested in how this works, do you generate JS code or do you have a JS engine which reads settings from other files?

<comment><USER4> There aren't any hard-coded limits, and you can do things like make recursive functions with unique local variables at each call. We have a JS SDK for custom code too: <https://www.scirra.com/manual/15/sdk>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for your interest in the course!!

Re: Jiggy2011 - All game dev is hard-work; JS is easier in some ways, harder in others. We've had good 2D IDE's for 20 years now to make 2D games; Making the runtime HTML5 isn't new (especially with the ability to export SWF to JS with easel.js)

Re: CodeCube5 - We'll be covering perf on rendering, input, sound and overall entity processing

Re: muyuu - NaCl is awesome! Html5 is awesome! Web game development is a win either way; NaCl is great for devs who have an existing codebase, HTML5 generally works for most others.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> blog post by course instructor Colt McAnlis [http://mainroach.blogspot.in/2013/01/the-past-and-future- of-...](http://mainroach.blogspot.in/2013/01/the-past-and-future-of-game- development.html)

<comment><USER6> Looks great, but I guess NaCl isn't covered in the course.

<comment><USER7> Pardon my ignorance, but where is NaCl in HTML5?

<comment><USER6> That's why I don't expect it to be covered, despite NaCl being his main area and it being a course on game development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks like you need to have experience coding to take this class.

If you're a beginner or know a beginner who is interested in HTML 5 game development, you need to check out <http://codehs.com>

We teach you how to program from the ground up and get you as quickly as possible to creating awesome games in the browser.

The whole time, you get personal help from tutors who answer your questions and give you feedback on all of your programs.

You can make some really fun games really quickly. Here are some demos:

<http://codehs.com/demos>

</comment><comment><USER9> What is everyone's favorite HTML5 game engine? So far out of all that I've tried I like the Isogenic game engine: <https://github.com/coolbloke1324/ige_prototype>

<comment><USER10> I highly recommend Construct 2: <http://www.scirra.com/construct2>

It takes care of most of the heavy lifting when developing games for HTML5, but it still has a very open and powerful scripting language (unlike something like gamesalad which is more like using pre-built blocks).

Edit - Ha, beaten by 1 minute.

<comment><USER11> Have you made anything using it yet?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Whoa, interesting ... I'm particularly curious as to what performance improvements he will go over.

I've been working on a little html5 game engine myself. It lets you use sprites in a retained mode like API, while still giving you an immediate mode interface to manage the game logic. It's still pretty early, need to do more work on some samples and documentation, but there are some docs there in the wiki :)

<https://github.com/joelmartinez/flatredball-js>

</comment><comment><USER13> While HTML5 hasn't been employed heavily by the gaming industry, signs of it are showing up. Gas Powered Games' recently teased "Project Mercury", their next-gen cloud powered Modding Tool & Web platform – <http://youtu.be/kuGdQqUhKD4>

Such projects are possible only due to HTML5/WebGL, and the innovations on top of it. In a couple of years, we'd be seeing mainstream studios shipping AAA Games as Web-based applications.

</comment><comment><USER14> Just noticed the design change on Udacity. Interesting, but I preferred the old one.

<comment><USER15> There's something seriously wrong with the new design. Clicking on just about anything results in a 5-15 second loading time for pages, it feels like it is bogged down in database queries for routine page access. Furthermore, some class pages have out of control javascript that pummels most browsers and pins CPUs. Wasn't like this at all before the new design, which seems to not have been tested.

<comment><USER16> Hey droithomme, could you please email some concrete examples (like I'm on page X, do Y after which there is a long delay) to attila [at] udacity.com? We're trying to iron out all the issues as quickly as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd be really curious to know which libraries, frameworks, or engines they intend to employ. Just yesterday I started learning the melonJS canvas game engine and it's been a lot of fun so far!

<comment><USER9> According to the blog post in a link from this thread they are using <https://code.google.com/p/gritsgame/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why is it still unavailable today Feb. 4th??</comment>


Ask YC: Do you think Rich Internet Applications (Adobe FLEX, MS Silverlight) are going to take off? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a month away from starting UI development on my current project. I'm curious whether this group thinks any of the RIA applications are going to be successful. Specifically, we're interested in Silverlight because of the way it extends the Dot Net environment into the browser. <comment><USER3> If the RIA you are developing solves a real problem efficiently in a way that appeals to end user, it will take off.

But the adoption rate of a RIA depends a lot on the platform you use for development. Gmail is a succesful RIA and it uses JavaScript and Flash. The advantage of sticking on to JavaScript/Flash over Sliverlight is that, they are already very popular. If efficiently done JavaScript and Flash can reside side by side delivering a great user experience. So for the time being,because of Silverlight's low adoption rate,a SilverLight only product may not be a great idea.

Regarding Adobe Flex, Flex its nothing more than another development tool for churning out swf files.The end product is plain old Flash. Adobe Flex allows rapid flash development for those unfamiliar with Flash CS3 (CS3's timeline concept doesn't appeal to most developers). Thanks to Adobe's marketing efforts,most people mistakingly think Flex is something RIA exclusive,while its just a development environment that churns out Flash.

SilverLight does solve a lot of headache and reduce learning curve for the traditional .NET developer when it comes to building RIAs.But from a enduser's perspective, it doesn't really bring in any specific advantage. Anything that can be done in SilverLight can be done using Flash or a combination of Flash and JavaScript. I really dont see any enduser specific advantage for using SilverLight, as it is now. Why force users to install new plugins , when the existing infrastructure(JavaScript and flash) can deliver the same user experience?

Adobe AIR is a way to convert your existing Javascript/flash/html based RIA to a desktop app. But this will require the end user to install AIR runtime first(approx 11 MB download). Compared to Mozilla Prism, Adobe AIR is super advanced in the kind of desktop integration it can impart to your web based RIA.A js/flash RIA can leverage on AIR without any tweaks.

In short, use Javascript/HTML as much as possible. Flash when you need to integrate rich media (or functionalities that require realtime user interaction like Chat ) to your js .I wont recommend Silverlight .

</comment><comment><USER4> No, they won't, they'll continue to fail miserably in comparison to HTML and JavaScript because they miss the single biggest thing that makes HTML and JavaScript so dominant, no view source.

HTML and JavaScript dominate because of their openness and easy of transfer of knowledge. If you see anything cool that you want to know how to do, you just check out the source, that openness is why the web works.

That openness is also why search engines can crawl in and index things, something RIA's don't allow. RIA's have their place, but they'll never succeed big on the open net precisely because they themselves aren't open.

There's only one standard open method of building RIA's, Ajax! No closed proprietary technology can compete against that. They may be technically superior, but they aren't socially superior, and that's what matters most.

<comment><USER5> I have to disagree. I think you misunderstand what exactly an 'RIA' is. It's an application. From the ground up, and I can only speak on my experience with Flex/Flash, these are applications. Google doesn't index Microsoft Office binaries, why should it index text within any other application?

Additionally, right within the Flex dev environment there is an option to publish the source so a user can view it. Adobe is cool enough to automate this task where the end result is LiveDocs style documentation for your app. This is a decision left to the developer, not the underlying architecture of the shell it is running in such as AJAX/CSS/HTML within a browser which don't give developers a choice.

Lastly, do you actually think that Zoho(or any other AJAX/CSS/HTML application) will succeed or fail because one can view source? The users that matter just don't care.

<comment><USER4> I don't misunderstand at all, I know it's an application, but applications can be built with standard HTML and Ajax as well, see the Seaside/Arc framework for a good example of just how easy this can be with continuation frameworks.

I said RIA's have their place, they'll succeed a small amount on the desktop where they can be _forced_ upon workers, but on the open internet where they have to compete against web applications, they'll get their butts kicked, as they always have, because they don't force openness.

Allowing the developer the option to hide the code is a fatal flaw, people learn by modifying examples, and that's what makes HTML/JavaScript so unbeatable and viral. When a teenager attempts to learn to program, he'll choose HTML/JavaScript over any RIA platform precisely for that reason, the barrier to entry is much lower. Given the choice to hide their code, most developers will and that creates a barrier to new developers learning the technology.

RIA's aren't new, the idea isn't new, this is what Java was all about, applets, ActiveX components from Microsoft, and Flash from Adobe have all been able to do this for years as well, and they all failed miserably to gain wide adoption. Flash found a niche doing video, but beyond that most developers hate it.

This new batch of RIA's will fail for the same reason, in the end, users don't want them, developers do, to protect their intellectual property. Users don't give a rats ass about a developers intellectual property.

Users are perfectly happy with web apps that use standard controls they understand. RIA's give developers too much freedom to deviate from the normal conventions users are accustomed too. HTML's constraints aren't a weakness to be escaped from, they're a strength that forces you to focus on providing value to the user rather than the mental masturbation of playing with and using non standard widgets that in the end mostly just confuse the average user.

RIA's will always have their place, and it'll always be secondary to HTML/JavaScript, unless an open standard is developed for RIA's that isn't owned by any one company and doesn't require any plugins to run, and doesn't allow developers the ability to hide the code from the users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've done some stuff in Flex, and it's nice. I work with people who really like it. Silverlight and JavaFX sound cool in their own way. And AIR makes sense. But they seem just like a convenience to developers and an inconvenience to many users, and don't really make anything new possible. They might be dead ends.

<comment><USER7> "don't really make anything new possible" - hardly.

Flex allows easy integration of UI concepts like drag-n-drop, neat animations with low cpu usage, integration of streaming media, lowered response times thanks to model caching on the client... and the ease of development should NOT be discounted... Users tend to like an application that exists more than one that doesn't. Ease and speed of development are a huge bonus.

As for the "invonvenience" aspect, interestingly, I've found that the only people who resent Flash in some way are _all_ geeks. The rest of the world is blithely ignorant as to the difference until you explain it to them, and even then they don't care. So, if your primary market is over-opinionated and out- of-date geeks (rather than the more forward thinking ones who are actively writing or learning Flex by now), then definitely don't use Flex.

If, on the other hand, you plan to target the rest of the world, Flex seems like a good bet!

PS: don't use Flex for writing your blog or news site! RIAs are for applications (gmail, gdocs, rescuetime, basecamp), not pure content sites (blogs, slashdot, reddit, NYTimes..).

<comment><USER5> Agreed. And from the above...

"But they seem just like a convenience to developers and an inconvenience to many users, and don't really make anything new possible."

Not acknowledging your presumption that it's an inconvenience to users, the above could essentially be said about any AJAX/Javascript framework too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been pondering this question for a while and I'm beginning to believe that they will not become particularly widespread, and that it is foolish to solely rely on their success for any venture.

What these "RIA" toolkits lack is two things:

* a common, unified, pleasant look and feel. The web already has this, largely forced by the own limitations and the fact that developers now know what's sane and sensible, whereas these ugly RIAs have neither of those things and seem to be a haven for poorly thought-out applications and ideas. I've seen Microsoft showing muddled pseudo-MDI interfaces, flashy visual effects all over the place and all sorts, but none of these things actually stood out as something I'd /like/ to use. They remind me more of artist portfolio and promotional sites in Flash that no-one actually likes in the first place.

* a killer app. I've thought long and hard, but I can't actually think of anything significant (and positive) that these applications allow that the current combination of technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Flash) don't already. Yes, Silverlight provides for easier development, but were any revolutions single-handedly brought forward solely through having a more pleasant development environment rather than anything actually better for the end-user? Perhaps if Silverlight provided 3D acceleration for in-browser games it'd be a different story, as it is I'm struggling.

Adobe Flex is likely to just continue the success that Flash already has but will not make any great strides forward beyond Flash's current popularity (which I personally expect to wane as computer speeds and browsers continue to improve). Silverlight, despite all the resources that Microsoft are pushing into it, I can't see becoming widespread anytime soon, but equally it's unlikely to be abandoned by MS, so may just be left in limbo.

Of course, I probably regret these remarks in 12 months when Silverlight is the next big thing, but only time will tell but for now I remain unconvinced.

<comment><USER9> My killer app idea for Flex. Mail-order catalogs are wildly successful. Online shopping is boring. Bring the catalog experience and add friend/social networking. Think beautifully-rendered catalog pages that turn, catalog pages that have embedded video, allow scribbled comments, tear-offs...

If anyone is serious about this, maybe we can do a prototype. Land one major niche-catalog retailer and the rest will follow...

<comment><USER8> Either you have an exceptionally high opinion of your idea or you have a different definition of what a 'killer app' is than me. There's a huge gulf between a 'killer app' and a 'good idea', and not being one doesn't exclude the other.

To me, a killer app is usually a single product that creates such a buzz around a new or previously underused technology or concept that causes a sudden almost universal take up by both users and developers and causes long- reaching paradigm shifts.

Google Suggest did it with Ajax, Del.icio.us did it with tags, YouTube did it to online video, Wikipedia for wikis or even the web for the Internet. Not everything becomes popular thanks to 'killer apps' and some innovations are introduced more gradually (such as Flash), but they're somewhat less common and it's generally an uphill struggle before they're adopted.

<comment><USER9> I stand corrected.

It is interesting that you suggest that Google Suggest did it for Ajax (I would argue that it was Google Maps that surfaced OWA-type no-page-refresh- updates). However, I think that Ajax, like Flash is a technology. The rest of the items in your list are more ideas/concepts (e.g. making it easy for the average person to use technology for their own purposes). YouTube - <USER2> embedded videos - a difficult problem to solve - (Flash just happened to be the enabler). And we can argue that video is/was the killer app for Flash. Email was the original killer app (and still is).

Maybe there isn't a killer app for Flash/Flex. Since it is more of a technology that supplements existing technology (OS integration) than a paradigm-changing thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think Silverlight would have been a great idea 4 or 5 years ago. I would have been a true killer app for asp.net/c#. However, the Achilles heel of all these applications is that they are not google friendly. Meaning they can't be indexed for search. This is fine if you use Silverlight/Flash/Flex/"Acronym of choice here" for a portion of your site (calculator, graphing, media player).

However, the learning curve for these technologies is always steep. Now not only do I have to know php/asp.net/etc but I also have to know some kind of rich client application.

I see the sweet spot as media player for your site. Take <http://www.pandora.com/> for example. This is a good way to use these rich client frameworks.

That being said, when I can't copy and paste text from these application, it really limits their usefulness. HTML/CSS/JavaScript is a pretty good stack. There will have to be something that really compels me to use them before I'll divert the resources of my shop to learn/adopt/deploy them.

<comment><USER10> I forget to mention I work in a .net environment and I've also built a startup (<http://whatsyour20.com>) using asp.net.

Unless you really need the features slow down and evaluate your need for silverlight. Do you need it or do you want to use the new shiny stuff?

I don't even use the asp.net ajax framework, instead preferring jquery for my ajaxxy stuff. Asp.net can be a great tool but I can't really comment on silverlight as I've yet to find a real need for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think there is a chance they will gain momentum. As long as there are multiple browser vendors with significant market share interpreting/implementing specifications, web development is going to continue to be painful. As evil as a single-vendor proprietary platform sounds (is?)...it sure would make a lot of things easier.

I've started looking into moving an application to flex for two main reasons: #1 to support no javascript. As more and more ajax features creep in, it gets harder to always provide a noscript fall-back. #2 to do away with cross browser compatibility issues.

Some concerns that I have with Flex so far are #1 no html rendering built in...so there is no way to leverage existing static html/css resources without converting to flex ui (I've read that AIR comes with Webkit, but flash in the browser does not.) #2 there doesn't seem to be good support for printing, especially compared to simple print stylesheets. Oh, and the other huge concern is how prohibitively expensive flex developer is.

<comment><USER3> You can solve the html rendering issue to some extend by using div overlays and flash-js-integration kit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think, especially with Google Gears, the release of Air, and the coming Love-Train that is HTML5, that HTML, CSS and JS do constitute RIA.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think it's a mistake to talk about Flex and Silverlight as though they're equals. Flex already has massive market penetration and Silverlight is barely off the ground yet.

Given Microsoft's position it's probably a good long-term bet, but I think it's quite early for use by young startups that need every user they can get.

</comment><comment><USER5> A few of us here have a vested interest in RIA's being successful, but I think that success is measured more by user adoption of our work on the platforms rather than the work of Adobe and Microsoft building the platforms.

I love developing in Flex/AIR, and I'm working on a large project now where it makes perfect sense to use it. Obviously my hope is that it is very successful.

My experience with Splashup is that a lot of people think it's AJAX, or don't have any idea what it's developed in, which is perfectly fine with me.

</comment><comment><USER14> _we're interested in Silverlight because of the way it extends the Dot Net environment into the browser._

How, exactly, does it extend the .NET environment into the browser?

I'm suspicious of claims like this. The integration of two completely disparate technologies usually gets talked up for marketing reasons, but when you try to build something on top of it, turns out to be unwieldy if not unworkable. Kind of like how Krazy Glue never seemed to hold things together the way it did on TV. :)

<comment><USER15> Huh? You write CLR code, and much of the library you expect in those languages is available. I think that's what he means.

<comment><USER14> Sure, but the devil is in the details. I'd like to know more. Assuming the Silverlight VM is not the same one that .NET apps run on, how did they do it? Did they port the CLR to a browser environment? Is it the full CLR? Does it support the full C# language? How does integration with the browser environment (dom/javascript) work under the hood? How did they get it working on different browsers? Are they completely separate implementations?

I should have clarified that I'm not criticizing Silverlight (of which I'm ignorant) as such, just expressing general skepticism based on what such claims remind me of. These things usually work, but only up to a point (well enough for marketing, that is, but not really for production). If Silverlight is better than that, I'm curious to hear more. Googling hasn't helped, because "Creating a New Silverlight Application using VS 2008" is not what I'm looking for.

<comment><AUTHOR> It supports the full C# language and many of the component libraries. Silverlight is essentially a plug-in that can run in any browser, and there are extensions for different operating systems. (Apple and Linux soon.)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for responding. Are you using it for serious development? Have you learned anything interesting about its DOM/Javascript integration?

I ask because for the problem I'm working on, a full Silverlight app wouldn't make sense; but if it were possible to use the Silverlight plugin to work around some of the bottlenecks we've encountered for Ajax development, I'd be interested. Given that most of the bottlenecks have to do with rendering in the browser, though, I imagine this is a long shot.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm about to use it for serious development. We're planning on using it exclusively so I haven't paid much attention to how well it will integrate with Java. My feeling is that we'll be able to develop a much richer front-end in Silverlight in less than half the time it would take in Java/Ajax. Plus we won't get weird lags and delays, and we can do more extensive multi-threading type stuff.

<comment><USER14> What kind of app are you developing? I'm not asking for proprietary specifics, just wondering what it generally is, and what makes you think Silverlight is a good fit for its UI (in addition to development time).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I hope not. I hope there will be _standardized_ way of doing hardware- accelerated 2D/3D graphics, H.264 video and Ogg vorbis sound on the web.

[http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-flash-and-new- techn...](http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-flash-and-new- technologies.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Similar to Google Maps jumpstarting AJAX, I believe RIA will take off if/when a big player like Amazon or Google adopts it.

Adobe is trying to get Flash into the Fortune 500/Enterprise with Flex but I think Ruby on Rails has a better chance (and they are different types of technologies)

<comment><USER11> It was interesting a few months ago when Yahoo maps moved from Flex to AJAX. I'm assuming the problem there was the mashup factor. I think using one of these RIA platforms creates (or at least give the impression of) a walled garden, which is not what people want on the web these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nope. What will be successful is RMA: Rich Mobile Applications.

<comment><USER9> _Very_ interesting perspective on why Flash is not yet on the iPhone

[http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/08/gone-in-a-flash- mor...](http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/07/08/gone-in-a-flash-more-on- apples-iphone-web-plans/)</comment></comment>


What HTTP is and how HTTP1.x and HTTP2 are different - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/kosamari/status/859958929484337152 <comment><USER2> I was glad to see someone highlight that http/1.1 has pipelining. [http://twitter.com/dret/status/860150644405133313](http://twitter.com/dret/status/860150644405133313)</comment>


Trip down memory lane: Early Apple II, Mac apps and games - <AUTHOR> http://school.anhb.uwa.edu.au/personalpages/kwessen/web/software/software.html <comment><USER2> Slightly surprised to see how similar Photoshop is to today's version.

</comment><comment><USER3> What? No Beagle Brothers? HERESY! =)

Good set of pics; a lot brought back some good memories. Thanks</comment>


How Apple Is Working from Home - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-apple-is-working-from-home <comment><USER2> Dupe, discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22730478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22730478)</comment>


UK court says face recognition violates human rights - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/424f063d7fcb0c270bf4f52ce4b8f81b <comment><USER2> That takes an odd tangent into sex/race issues. Surely privacy violations apply to all individuals and the questions of whether or not software can a) have dicriminatory bias and b) be purged of them are entirely orthoganol to the initial human rights concern.</comment>


The Kindle Touch and Invasive Advertising - <AUTHOR> http://jetheis.com/blog/2012/08/23/the-kindle-touch-and-invasive-advertising/

<comment><USER2> >I'm actually being paid $40 to install a permanent billboard in my apartment whenever I'm not actively reading. Consider that. What if a cell phone provider put banner ads in every text you sent, or if your car played audio commercials from external speakers whenever it was parked.

It's nothing like either of these analogies. It shows ads on the kindle itself, which no-one else will see unless you show it to them, and you won't see when you're using it. If you don't want to then fine - pay the $40. I don't think the amazon sales page is misleading - it shows that your kindle will be displaying a full-page ad. Frankly the ones posted aren't very different from the example.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll definitely agree that the other analogies are more severe, but I don't think they're totally off-base. If the Kindle isn't being actively read, it _is_ an advertisement. The text message analogy is a stretch, I'll admit, but I don't think the car analogy is. If your car is turned off, anyone near it is exposed to advertising, just like the Kindle.

The Kindle is a device that almost never needs to be charged and has a pretty attractive form factor, so it's very natural to leave it laying around, just like you would a book. Because the ads are always displayed, it is naturally turned into a tiny billboard unless it's intentionally left face-down or hidden.

That said, you're right; I'm being a little picky and my problems could have been solved by just coughing up the money instead. It just doesn't seem like quite enough fair warning is given to the uninitiated (like me) as to just how heavy-handed the advertising is.</comment></comment>


Chromebooks Gaining on iPads in School Sector - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/chromebooks-gaining-on-ipads-in-school-sector <comment><USER2> Our school (K-12, east coast, I'm IT director) has purchased hundreds of both devices in the past 4 years. We started with 3:1 iPads in the first year, distributed evenly throughout the school. We very quickly realized that the iPad is not the right device for any student who ever needs to type anything, and the "enterprise" management from the MDM providers (who are handcuffed by the atrocious tools, including Apple Configurator, that Apple provides) is pretty awful compared to the outstanding and couldn't-be-easier management through the Chrome Management Console.

So now we purchase iPads for prekindergarten through second grade, and Chromebooks for 3 and 4. Starting in grade 5, we have a mandatory BYOD and the Chromebook is our recommended device. In the middle school (5-8) the Chromebook takes 65% of the market share (versus Apple 30% and other <5%). In the upper school (9-12) it's more a 50/50 split Apple/Google.

It's just so hard to discount the functionality of a real keyboard in any school where typing (and consequently writing) matters. Google Docs on an iPad is still awful, despite lots of improvements in the past few years. Still, if it were up to me, the lack of management tools for the Apple side (each device requires a LOT of manipulation by hand to install apps, update software, manage accounts, etc) would be the deciding factor and I'd never buy another iPad again.

Edit: I just wanted to clarify that our "BYOD" program 5-12 is a laptop program. That's 65% Chromebooks and ~30% Mac laptops in grades 5-8, not iPads. We don't allow the iPad for the program requirements, though we permit their use as long as the student _also_ has a full-sized laptop.

<comment><USER3> > Starting in grade 5, we have a mandatory BYOD and the Chromebook is our > recommended device.

Is this a public school or private? In a public school I cannot imagine that that is legal since it is highly regressive. And before you say a Chromebook is "only" $150-200, that is 1/2 of someone's pay cheque and many are living pay cheque to pay cheque as is.

Even school uniforms are seen as a hardship for the poor. Doing freaking computers is just mind boggling to me.

<comment><USER4> Buying a TI graphing calculator was mandatory for my math class in 7th grade ~20 years ago, and those were around $120, or $200 if adjusted for inflation. That was at a public school, and that was only useful for a single subject, not every class in school.

<comment><USER5> Such a racket TI has going there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since February we use chromebooks for taking exams at Utrecht University. The tests are just kiosk apps and the chromebooks are easily managed using Googles administrator tools. Works like a charm. Was cheap too. The whole project cost less than 200,000 euros to set up. Chromebooks are dirt cheap so when one breaks we simply replace it. I think we've got like 400-500 of them and are planning to get more because students are pretty happy with them.

[http://pers.uu.nl/studenten-digitaal-tentamen- toetsvoorzieni...](http://pers.uu.nl/studenten-digitaal-tentamen- toetsvoorziening/)

(Disclosure: I'm one of the students who helped set up all the chromebooks)

<comment><USER7> In your experience, what makes a Chromebook break? My two daughters love their Chromebooks but they both cracked their screens. I suspect one was picked up by the lid, which you can do with a tablet but not a laptop. I ended up replacing them both for about $40-$45 from Amazon or eBay.

Replacement screens were pretty easy to put in, though I got impatient and yanked on the cable. Then I had to order a replacement cable. But those are relatively easy to come by as people take the parts from seriously broken Chromebooks and put them on eBay. Buying the Acer C720 line means tons of parts readily available. Not sure about other models or manufacturers.

<comment><USER6> Since february we only had one chromebook break of 400. Reason was unclear. It just wouldn't boot. We use the Acer Chromebook 13's. they actually seem pretty abuse-resistent so far. I couldn't really tell you what makes a chromebook break as we haven't had so many cases yet...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cromebooks are in essence netbooks 2.0. Only this time round you have Google backing them from top to bottom, rather than hardware OEMs getting "good deals" from Intel and MS in exchange for dropping the concept.

<comment><USER9> Yes and no. The original netbooks claimed some ability to run native apps, but did it poorly. Chromebooks don't claim to be more than Chrome, but do that well. A small part of this is Google Docs, but a bigger part is the general rise of webapps.

<comment><USER3> > The original netbooks claimed some ability to run native apps, but did it > poorly.

Back during the peak of the Netbook, my main PC went down. While I waited for parts I hooked up an ASUS Eee PC with Windows XP. Not only was it able to drive a 21" monitor, but also Skype video chat, my browser, and full screen YouTube without any stuttering or issues.

Netbooks got a bad rep' but frankly they were incredible value for money and even to this day have a somewhat unique form factor. Sure, you can buy ultrabooks, but they're a lot bigger and still heavier, plus they cost $800-1000+.

So I guess my only point is, sure, Netbooks are limited. They cannot game realistically, and full screen HD video is about the height of their potential. But they still do a lot of stuff extremely well, could run Office flawlessly, as could they run browsers.

Chromebooks have limited functionality, but not because it HAS to be that way, but because that is the product Google is selling. That's fine, but let's not pretend that Netbook's inferiority was the reason. And even if we pretend that it was, the hardware today kicks what Netbooks had in the butt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Microsoft could have been close to this, but Google is really executing here.

Make no mistake, this is not about the Hardware - this is training kids on an office suite. GDocs as a long game against MS Office 365. Kids get older, habits and skills stay. Brought up on Gmail, GDocs they will have issues with Word, Excel.

MS better step up.

<comment><USER11> While I agree in terms of casual use, it is important to note that for a power user, nothing can hold a candle to Microsoft Office. I speak primarily from experience in Excel, but I am sure there are points to be made across the suite.

Excel as a business analyst's tool is far beyond any competitors. Especially since 2010, with the Power Pivot add-on, you get a seamless promotion path from analyst's desktop to a fully integrated BI solution across the enterprise.

I know I might sound a bit fanboyish above, and I'll acknowledge that I speak from my position as a BI consultant for a Microsoft partner. This being said, I'm also in a position where I have seen that transition where an analyst's local Power Pivot workbook becomes the basis for an enterprise reporting solution using SSAS and Power BI + SSRS many times.

<comment><USER12> > Excel as a business analyst's tool is far beyond any competitors.

Honestly, Excel (or any spreadsheet really) is quite clunky for a lot of these tasks.

In most of my University classes (economics/finance stream) that require me to analyse data and present it, I use R (w/ R Studio), and it's far superior - both for parsing the data, and for presenting it (and of course R is standard for any statistics course beyond the intro courses). R can even create 'pivot tables' and many other interactive HTML widgets.

And while we still learn Excel, we were also forced to learn Python and SQL.

<comment><USER11> I don't disagree with anything you've said.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of business analysts and 100%[0] of the consumers of their analysis are only comfortable with a spreadsheet. I'd say less than 50% of the business analysts we see can do more than write a join in SQL, 90% dump data straight to Excel for processing and presentation. The remaining 10% will use whatever BI tool their company has decided on.

[0] Close enough not to matter.

Note: the percentages above are based on my experience consulting with primarily non-tech-related clients and are based on my casual observations and those of my coworkers. Microsoft Excel has a stranglehold on the niche we're discussing, because it hits the sweet spot of functionality and usability for the people who are doing this work in most companies.

<comment><USER12> And I suspect it will change over time. The newer generation has much, much higher computer literacy.

Programming (Python and SQL) is required in the University I attend for any stream beyond a basic language degree. R is required for stats.

My mother is a business analyst, she uses Excel. Needs to find the IT guy to do anything with a database. Building a database and doing complex queries was an assignment in a required introductory course I took as a freshman. She thinks pivot tables are black magic and prides herself on knowing how to make them. We did pivot tables in two 50-minute classes.

I don't doubt your experience at all. But I do think Excel's stranglehold is/will weaken - it's clunky, and newer generations are learning programming even in non-CPSC streams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The one thing that drives me mad about the Chromebooks is Google Cloud Print. We don't use it very often and every time we do, it's broken. I don't know if it's something in our Brother printer or on the Chromebooks and I really, really, really don't care.

I just want to be able to connect the Chromebook to the printer and print.

AirPrint, on the same printer, works every time from my MacBook. But it doesn't require a "printer manager" to figure out what the printer's IP # is, point a browser to it, login, then use the admin interface to give permission to people via email and those people to click on the email.

It's Linux underneath so I don't understand why that can't be used to talk to CUPS or LPD or something similar in the same way the file system is used.

<comment><USER13> Google Cloud Print is definitely a weak link in my opinion. I've set up a full chromebook deployment for my daughter's school including rollout of GCP, and there are still occasional hiccups with printing (for example management of a stuck queue is obfuscated).

However it has improved a lot and management (once you get your head around it) is really great.

For example, you can easily provision printers to either groups or devices, so teachers can be provisioned on the user level while students are restricted to printing from provisioned devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The problem with a tablet is that it makes for a terrible input device. Tablets are awesome for media consumption, though.

<comment><USER15> Can't you simply add a Bluetooth keyboard? I think cost is the major factor.

<comment><USER3> Sure. But now you have a two part device, with more that can go wrong, and broadly speaking a worse typing experience.

There's something to be said for the stereotypical laptop form factor.

<comment><USER15> There sure is something to be said... They're horrible keyboards. We're going to give more kids RSI.

[http://looknohands.me/](http://looknohands.me/)

[http://24ways.org/2014/dont-push-through-the- pain/](http://24ways.org/2014/dont-push-through-the-pain/)

[http://markmcb.com/2014/10/13/severe-hand-rsi-pain-and- recov...](http://markmcb.com/2014/10/13/severe-hand-rsi-pain-and-recovery/)

We need more wireless ergonomic keyboards.

[https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/the-model-01-an- heir...](https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/the-model-01-an-heirloom- grade-keyboard-for-serious-typists/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I guess they're realising that they're slightly more useful than iPads, and cheaper.

<comment><USER17> It's all about Google Docs. My kids' elementary school has gone completely gDocs for word processing and presentations (teacher _and_ student areas). No more thumb drives for collaboration, and bringing work home is transparent.

<comment><USER18> I don't think it has to be one thing... I think that they are less expensive, and more usable are big things... having a separate keyboard for typing on is definitely a better use case for many over an on-screen keypad that takes up half the screen.

gDocs is probably a big influence as well... as an all around value, I really like the Chromebooks... from a security standpoint, I tend to like them for mom & granda even more... (with uBlock)

<comment><USER3> They're also easier to centrally manage and are completely user agnostic devices. iPads can be made to be use agnostic devices also, but you have to disable almost all of the built in apps (since iCloud doesn't really accomplish it), and have people sign into some online service each time (e.g. GApps, Office 365, etc).

There's something to be said for a device where you can just grab a new one off of the laptop cart, install nothing, and login as any user with the full experience available.

Windows domain-connected PCs kinda accomplish that, but with a lot more management overhead.

<comment><USER7> I never tried FireFox Portable ... hmmm, looks like it requires a Windows machine (or a Linux box running Wine)

That might have been interesting if Mozilla had been able to get it to run on Macs.

We have a spare/guest Chromebook and it's been nice to hand it to one of my two daughters when they've cracked the screen. I'm not in IT but I'm just imagining how much easier Chromebooks would make my life. Especially if the management software is even halfway-good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have two kids in elementary school, K and 2nd grade. The last few years the school district has been experimenting with Chromebook carts they would send to various classrooms once or twice a week. This year, they went with Chromebooks for all students K-12. The kids bring them home in the evening and are expected to bring them to school every day. The K's have touch screen Chromebooks to help mitigate their lack of typing skills.

I'm really interested to see how they will be using them. They have already been using google docs and they have both been talking about email. Maybe they will finally come to appreciate the vanity domains I registered for them when they were born :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Tablets, generally speaking, are for consuming content. Laptops are better devices for creating content...

<comment><USER8> In the end it all boils down to inputs.

Once you hitch a keyboard onto a tablet, there is no functional diffrerence between it, a laptop, or this new iteration of the netbook.

<comment> yoz-y Not really. The tablets also lack any kind of mouse support (well, at least iPads do). A lot of software is optimised for mouse+keyboard, ton of it is optimised for touch input, but there are not that many that support touch + keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So while people are up in arms with Windows 10 and latest 7/8 updates, they are ok with giving children information to Google!?

<comment><USER12> And what info are they giving to Google?

Their search history for school projects which is collected and sorted by an algorithm?

<comment><USER22> > And what info are they giving to Google? Their search history for school > projects which is collected and sorted by an algorithm?

They give all the same usage information and probably more than Windows 10 sends to Microsoft. If you don't thing Google is collecting insane amounts of data from Chromebooks, you're incredibly naive.

<comment><USER12> And if you are signed into Google (from any browser) they collect your information. Or if you use Gmail.

It's what they use for many of their services. I guess the question I'm asking is more philosophical - if you 'opt in' to the Google ecosystem, why is this a bad thing?

Up to now, there's been no indication Google abuses your data (unless you consider algos to show you ads as 'abuse'), or that it ever leaves Google's servers, or is ever even human-readable...

<comment><USER22> > if you 'opt in' to the Google ecosystem, why is this a bad thing?

In the same way, you 'opt in' to the Microsoft ecosystem by using Windows. The problem is everyone seems to give Google a free pass because of free stuff. What's crazy to me is that whenever Google expands the amount of information they collect, they're praised for being so innovate. I mean, one of the "best" new features of the next version of Android literally walks the entire view hierarchy on your phone and sends it all too Google's servers, but god forbid Microsoft collects some usage information and crash reports.

<comment><USER12> No, people give Google a free pass because, even though they collect data, they haven't visibly abused that trust.

MS has (as shown in other articles). Their EULA states it. But then they claim they don't, and that Google are the bad guys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The great thing about chromebooks is less forced obsolescence, so fewer hw upgrades required.

<comment> yoz-y If the only thing you ever use is a web browser, then you could use a years old iPad just fine. For students, keyboard is probably the biggest factor and for schools it is the price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm just amazed that in 2015 we can run videos on every possible platform, same for viewing pdf documents, and even web-based applications.

But when it comes to simple "natively-integrated" applications, there is a clear divide in platforms.

<comment><USER25> Well, one thing to consider is that "natively-integrated" applications are slowly losing ground to cloud-based applications. Look at the apps for Chrome - they run on Chromebooks, Mac, Windows, and Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's amazing how different different communities can be. I have never seen a chromebook in the wild that wasn't gifted by Google.

Guess I live more sheltered than I thought!

<comment><USER27> > It's amazing how different different communities can be. I have never seen a > chromebook in the wild that wasn't gifted by Google.

Sure you have, it's just they're barely noticable. Little black laptops with a web-browser open. Not all of them have big chrome logos on them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Once Microsoft's new Edge browser matures I could see a free, locked down version of Windows 10 being some serious competition for Chromebooks and iPads.

<comment><USER29> I was going to say "Wouldn't it be too resource heavy?" \- meaning the whole Windows baggage as opposed to the leaner ChromeOS.

But then I considered that the resource usage of Chrome (or Edge for that matter) itself might be the single biggest factor.

<comment><USER30> They've got a version of Windows 10 that runs reasonably well on the Raspberry PI 2 and I imagine most chromebook like devices have better specs that the RPi2.

<comment><USER31> Not exactly, it's Windows IoT which doesn't really have a GUI. I agree with the original comment, MS might follow suit with Edge.

<comment><USER30> Sure, but Windows IoT should be plenty good enough for Microsoft to build a ChromeOS clone on top of it.

<comment><USER3> And it wouldn't even be the first time. Microsoft had "Windows Embedded" (Vista and XP) which did exactly that. Essentially a kiosk operating system often used either for VB6 applications or for a web browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Off topic (educational computers) but I have mixed feelings about Chromebooks. It seems like you give up a lot of privacy (potentially) but they are very secure. The security is great for kids in school, but are advertising profiles now being created for people when they are in K-12? (I love my Toshiba Chromebook 2, so I hope I don't sound too critical of the platform.)

<comment><USER33> Wouldn't they be using Google Apps for Education (I don't know)? If so, the terms of that say that data covered by Apps will not be mined for ads:

 _Google Apps for Education services don 't collect or use student data for advertising purposes or create ads profiles._

[https://support.google.com/a/answer/139019?hl=en](https://support.google.com/a/answer/139019?hl=en)

<comment><USER34> They're still collecting the user data. And they're building a familiarity and user reliance on cloud "apps".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> From oversize iPods to glorified browser notebooks.

<comment><USER36> I have a full installation of Ubuntu running on my glorified browser notebook and it can be used as a normal laptop. It performance can be a little slow when working with very large data sets but on the other hand it was just about $300 including tax so it was an enormously good deal.

I love it.

<comment><USER35> No Linux distributive is mentioned in that article. I have no doubt that a combination of RAM, SSD and CPU can achieve great things with right software.</comment></comment></comment>


V8 release v7.2 - <AUTHOR> https://v8.dev/blog/v8-release-72 <comment><USER2> > V8 v7.2 adds support for public class [1] fields. Support for private class > [2] fields is planned for a future V8 release.

For those who don't know private class fields add the weird "#" character for defining them inside the `class {}` block.

        class IncreasingCounter {
           #count = 0;
           get value() {
               console.log('Getting the current value!');
               return this.#count;
           }
           increment() {
               this.#count++;
           }
        }

This looks way worse than having what TypeScript did by introducing `public` / `private` keywords. Is there any body which votes for es-next features such as this one? I wonder how the "#" private field popped up in Chrome specs.

1 : [https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/12/class- fiel...](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/12/class-fields)

2 : [https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/12/class- fiel...](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/12/class- fields#private_class_fields)

<comment><USER3> The rationale for the "#" syntax is that it makes it clear that the field is NOT an object property. This is an important distinction because you can do this:

      class Example {
          #myVar = 100;

          getPrivateMyVar() {
              return this.#myVar;
          }

          getLocalMyVar() {
              return this.myVar();
          }
      }

      const example = new Example();

      example.myVar = 200;

      console.log(example.getPrivateMyVar()) // 100;
      console.log(example.getLocalMyVar()) // 200;

I agree the syntax is terrible. But you need to be able to distinguish between the own object property _myVar_ and the private field _myVar_.

<comment><USER4> Access modifiers, as the name suggest, are an accessibility feature not a scope feature (like let).

example.myVar = 500 should throw an access error.

You don't need to distinguish because you shouldn't be shadowing private variables.

<comment><USER5> If `example.myVar = 500` can throw errors, then is the private field really private? Since now it's existence can break the public interface, and changing it to `myOtherVar` during a refactor can break existing code.

That removes a major benefit of private fields (which is to be able to change implementation details without breaking the public interface)

I don't think anyone really loves the syntax, but there doesn't seem to be much of a better way of doing it.

<comment><USER6> What happens if you do `example.#myVar = 500`? Does it throw an error? Wouldn't it be the same situation?

<comment><USER3> The difference is that when you type _example.myVar = 400_ you are setting a property names "myVar" on the object to 400. When you type _example.#myVar_ you are trying to set example's _private field_ to 400. The intentions are distinct and it is not costly to determine at the call site what you're trying to do.

<comment><USER7> What if I have private values I want to access programmatically? Ie. fields = ['#foo', '#baz', '#bar']; fields.forEach(field => { this[field] = frobnicate(field) }); ?

<comment><USER3> I don't know what the spec's solution for that would be, but what you've typed would not work. Specifically because when I say `this.#foo` it is not a property on the object named "#foo". It is just the syntax for looking up a private field referenced by the literal #foo.

<comment><USER5> The spec's solution is to not solve that problem ;)

Dynamic property access isn't allowed for private fields, so it kind of side steps that whole issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What happens when it reaches version 8.0?

<comment><USER9> Google search results will be rendered useless.

"V8 release v8"

At least when it's spelled out like this, they always use capital V8 for the engine and a lowercase v8 for the version.

I can imagine the verbal V8/v8 confusion probably forces everyone to say "version 8"

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unrelated but .dev is a new Google TLD where all the domains have HSTS enabled by default.

[https://shop.gandi.net/en/domain/suggest?search=hackernews.d...](https://shop.gandi.net/en/domain/suggest?search=hackernews.dev)

<comment><USER11> .app domains have HSTS enabled by default too. I think all domains should be HSTS enabled by default in the near future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Personally, i'd like to see them focus less on super-rapid releases, and more on consistency of builds and stopping major breakages across platforms.

It makes it much more difficult to maintain downstream builds when the build- system breaks completely for indeterminate amounts of time.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder how many people will skip using Intl.ListFormat because it insists on Oxford comma in English. I know I'll be skipping it. CLDR really missed the semantic nuance there—not that it could readily have included it. The problem is that it's just too blunt an instrument. (Further reading: [http://cldr.unicode.org/translation/lists](http://cldr.unicode.org/translation/lists), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma) .)

<comment><USER14> Out of curiosity, why is the API's insistence on the Oxford comma a downside, seeing as it works for almost all lists? Is it due to overriding editorial preference - e.g. news orgs style guides?

<comment><USER13> The linked Wikipedia article is long, but goes into some depth on reasons and situations where it may or may not be desired. In American English it seems to be mostly a matter of preference and style guide, but in Australian English there is also semantic meaning to the comma, where it is possible in a carefully crafted sentence to convey quite a different meaning by the addition or removal of a comma; and unless there is semantic or possibly parsing value to be gained by the inclusion of a comma, it is broadly (though not universally) agreed that you shouldn't.

As noted by narrowtux, not all English locales use the Oxford comma; en-AU also doesn't, which mollifies me.

The simplest style of example I can think of is nesting conjunctions: "the difference between A and B, and C and D". (This example isn't great because it depends on nesting and has only two items in each list; but it's the first that springs to my mind. There are others that don't require nesting or only two items, though normally not quite so clear-cut.) Removing the comma or shuffling things around in any way would completely change the meaning of the sentence. This is the sort of subtle thing that some will miss when writing, but in speech it'd be very clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I suppose I could look this up, but maybe someone here knows. Is cached JS re- parsed on every page load or is the AST (or some sort of bytecode) stored as a blob on disk for faster loads from cache?

<comment><USER16> It looks like you can leverage this:

[https://v8.dev/blog/improved-code-caching](https://v8.dev/blog/improved-code- caching)

using this:

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/v8-compile- cache](https://www.npmjs.com/package/v8-compile-cache)

Or see the options with "cache" in their name, here: [https://nodejs.org/api/vm.html#vm_new_vm_script_code_options](https://nodejs.org/api/vm.html#vm_new_vm_script_code_options)

<comment><USER15> Thanks! Looks like the first link answers my question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> why focus on facebook when measuring performance?

I thought they have like 10.000 websites they measure

<comment><USER18> Well.. Facebook runs like a dog, so any improvement is great news.

<comment><USER19> I consider dogs to be pretty fast :)

<comment><USER20> Some dogs. Most dogs even. Not my dog. He is a good boy though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Headline is hilarious

<comment><USER22> Not yet. I can't wait for V8 v8.

<comment> forgot-my-pw Spoiler: V8 release v8.0 · V8

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wow. Very impressive. They are improving at very fast rate. I wonder do we still need to invest in WebAssembly ?

<comment><USER20> What? How are these even related?

<comment><USER23> How are they not related ?</comment></comment></comment>


Survey finds Facebook banned by 70% of British Companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/27/nface127.xml <comment><USER2> Any numbers on the percentage of users who are professionals? Considering the college roots, my guess is it isn't too high. I'd like to see trends on growth in the UK as well, across demographics.

Another note: banning a site in hopes that your employees will be more productive is a waste of time (pun intended). Wasting time on social networks while at work is a symptom of a bigger problem.

<comment><USER3> "Another note: banning a site in hopes that your employees will be more productive is a waste of time (pun intended). Wasting time on social networks while at work is a symptom of a bigger problem."

I disagree. People are obviously addicted to these social sites and if you make it impossible for them to get another "hit", they will wean off it in a day or two. I wouldn't call this a 'bigger problem', everyone has some weaknesses.

<comment><USER2> There is an inverse correlation between how much I like a job/task and how much time I waste on the internet. I'm sure lots of people are like me.</comment></comment></comment>


Review my Startup. Help a guy out.  - <AUTHOR> http://helpaguyout.com With my own experience, and others, I always thought there is a market for a service where an otherwise socially awkward guy could ask a girl a question (about anything) and get genuine advice. I wanted to make the service paid, so the women actually had some incentive to spend some time crafting a thoughtful response. Also, wanted to make everything discreet, so that women did not need to hold anything back, and guys owned the responses they paid for. At the same time, wanted money to be very nominal so that anyone could use it - so thought $2 would be just right. I split a buck with the answer provider. Guys can request responses from multiple ladies (5 responses = $10). Guys have option to reject any reponse deemed unthoughtful and request refund.
Income has been interesting so far. About 20 guys asked questions last month. Some of them requested multiple responses. October total $90. Through word of mouth, about 600 ladies have signed up so far to provide reponses. An email is fired every time a new request gets posted, ladies "reserve" the question and respond on a first-come-first-served basis and guys receive reponses within a few hours.
I would like to get some suggestions from the HN community as to how to make it scalable? I know there is a market for a service like this but just haven't been able to get any traction. What can I change, improve? Or is this whole concept is just flawed and I should just "move on".
Thank you for your feedback. Pete <comment><USER2> I like the idea. I think with a little tweaking this could really take off.

Here's my thoughts

1) For the front page, its a little right in your user's face that you're taking a 50% cut of the money. I would word that differently. Not sure exactly how. Maybe take out the bit about how much the ladies get paid and explain that in the signup process, or separate the "how it works" by gender on separate pages. Its just a little too "kimono wide open" on the financials. Also, "Just click here within the next 7 days for a full refund." should either be eliminated or reworded to say something to the effect of "You can get a refund within 7 days of getting a response." While we're on that subject, are you going to award the money to the lady regardless of whether it was rejected? If not, you should clearly state that. I don't think you do. You just say answer the question and get paid. There's nothing talking about the approval process being tied to the money.

2) The bullet points below the top box on the front page repeat a lot of the information that is in the top box. You don't need to repeat yourself. Consider combining those two spaces into one.

3) While "meet the ladies" is a whimsical title for that page, it doesn't actually deliver (as people have already stated). You're not actually introducing us, more telling us about demographics. Maybe "Who are the ladies?" is more accurate and consistent with the message of the page (I noticed you have a link titled exactly that which points to the same place...)

4) You need something to convince us to trust you. A demo of a question/answer? Screen shots perhaps? Testimonials would definitely go a long way.

5) The menus could stand to be cleaned up. Either you don't need the "login/register" links or you don't need the "guys ask a question" and "ladies answer a question" links. I would lean towards getting rid of the latter. That allows you to move buzz down to the footer (its not that important to have up at the top. The average user doesn't care how much you've been talked about... sorry. The "guys ask a question" link points to the login page. I'm not sure why the "ladies:..." doesn't also point to a login/register page. It should as well. Also, fix the capitalization on the text of the login page. You Don't Need To Capitalize Every Word Of A Sentence.

6) On the buzz page, get rid of the buzz in Spanish. The site is in English. Don't expect anyone to take the time to pop it into Google Translate or for a majority of people to know Spanish.

Sorry this kinda jumps around alot and is probably a little too snarky. I hope this helps.

Good Luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Site seems a bit slow.

2\. "Meet the ladies" - I would expect to see some pictures. Graphs? That isn't cutting it.

3\. I would expect to see some sample Q&A. You don't demonstrate any value, so I'm not compelled to sign up.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks fun. Simplify the page though.

1\. Use a real picture for the male/female on landing page.

2\. Watch your kerning. On the guys_ladies.png the text could use some adjusting. (and the first instance of 'For' should be lowercase)

3\. Remove the "Risk Free". I can't find the article, but I've read, and would agree, those labels lower one's trust in a site.

4\. A stat breakdown of "your ladies" undermines trust even more. That is not "meeting the ladies" but getting to know their demographics.

The idea is interesting, and I imagine the market could be good for it. How do you see incentivizing the right "ladies" ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks tgrass.

1\. Great point. I will replace them.

2\. I need to rework that image.

3\. Good to learn about "Risk Free". I had no idea.

4\. I never looked at it from that angle. What do you suggest I say / show as far as "Who are the ladies?" is concerned? Or do I even bother? I simply wanted to share the fact that there are real "ladies" involved with the site who will be responding.

5\. At this point I do not have any filters set to incentivize the right ladies. Every question asked gets emailed out to all the ladies and I simply ask them to respond only if they can relate to the question. As the user base grows I can certainly allow the "Asker" to target by demographics, etc.

=> Any input on price structure and scalability?

Thanks again. Appreciate your input.

<comment><USER4> Re: 4.

I would show profiles. Let the females write their profiles and showcase say a half dozen at a time. Additionally, I wouldn't call them "the ladies." It seems to cheapen them. If you're selling a more machismo site, see what Maxim is calling women in general these days. Realize that whatever label you use must appeal to both the men but also the women. Maybe be euphemistic, but not as vulgar as nuts and bolts.

Your prices seem reasonable. You might consider having a level which is free, receiving an answer from a newbie, where a higher paid level could get a more thoughtful reply. That would allow new users to experience without commitment.

I really want to stress that the idea looks good. The aesthetic execution is rough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Couple of things: 1\. You ask for registration information far too quickly. You should allow the users to get a little more invested into what they're doing before prompting for registration/payment information.

2\. Meet the ladies doesn't have any information on the actual women who would answer your questions. It's just generic pie charts.

3\. PayPal only? :(

4\. To the end user what sets this apart from Yahoo! answers?

5\. No examples anywhere that I could find.

Otherwise it's a clever idea and you're off to a pretty good start.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Agreed. Should probably engage users first. Will work on that.

2\. I wanted to keep their info confidential and just show the demographics based on info provided. What do you think I should show? Should I even include "Meet the ladies" link?

3\. Just testing the idea out. So for now, Paypal only, yes :)

4\. To an interested user, I think confidentiality and a guarantee that someone will actually spend the time to fully study his question and respond thoughtfully (small monetary incentive). Moreover, the questions we are getting tend to be longer and very detailed. I don't think Yahoo Answers users will have the patience to study the question carefully and take the time to repond to every issues raised.

5\. Good point. I will include some examples.

=> Any thought on pricing structure?

=> How about scalability, do you think take-off here is simply dependent on sheer number of users?

Thank you for your feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How do I know it's really a lady answering my question?

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll that's a tough one :) I don't either. But when they sign up I clarify the intention of the service and make them agree to my terms. It's a simple system designed to help guys beased on honor system. If you have any suggestions, pls let me know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just a thought, but maybe consider offering the ladies a bigger percentage? They're the ones doing the actual answering and you're taking 50%... Or, maybe increase the cost per question so that they get paid more (but still, you should probably give them a slightly bigger chunk).

Just a suggestion though, maybe $1 is enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be fine with me. However, right now I am struggling to get traction among guys. Once it picks up, I can definitly implement various pricing structures. Just wanted to keep it simple for now. Thank you for your suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a website, not a startup.

Why is this better than Reddit relationships?

<http://en.reddit.com/r/relationships/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Jabbles,

I did not even know that existed. Thanks for pointing that out. However, I am trying to take a slightly different approach and monetize it.

If you have any suggestions, that would be great. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I want to know if you really have these "ladies" who will answer these questions or is it just a mock up of what your plan is. Or in other words, is this a joke?

<comment><AUTHOR> No this is not a joke:) I encourage you to spend two bucks and try the service yourself. May be you'll get a tip or two:)</comment></comment>