Activist tricked into 6-year relationship with undercover cop tells her story - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/20/lisa-jones-girlfriend-of-undercover-police-office-mark-kennedy-interview <comment><USER3> All of this just to infiltrate environmental protesters, and this is just the UK. I can't even imagine what the US government does with more serious threats.

<comment><USER4> A small number of environmental and animal rights groups are labeled "terrorist" by the US gov, so infiltration and human rights abuses are probably happening.

UK Special Branch have said (in the 1980s) that they want an informant on every street. Duncan Campbell (who released information about eg ECHELON 30 years ago) has a great book about pervasive UK surveillance.

<comment><USER5> I wish the article would have talked more about the alleged danger this environmental group posed to warrant a 6 year plant like this. Did these environmentalists make threats, act on threats, how severe were the threats/actions? It just seems so overblown.

<comment><USER4> (Not trying to justify this undercover policing)

Here's a different group from the 1980s.

[https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19841227&id=...](https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19841227&id=3LZAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vaUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2770,4847913&hl=en)

They tried to dig up a corpse in order to send the head to a member of the royal family. That may have been posturing, but it's obviously going to draw law enforcement attention.

Here's another group that did dig up a corpse in order to blackmail a family.

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

There was a bunch of firebombing activity in the 1980s. The animal rights activists said the intent was to create a small fire that would be discovered by smoke detectors, triggering the sprinkler systems, causing water damage. This happened in department stores selling fur coats.

Animal Liberation Front pretty much started in UK, and some people claim it's caused many millions of pounds of economic damage. There are unacceptable levels of harassment and intimidation in some recent animal rights campaigns (and this is partly driven in changes to law which make protesting less legal).

So, police have these spiky things which they probably should be investigating. But it's hard to tell when someone has a "Rats Have Rights" mug whether they're a peaceful protestor using strictly legal means, or if they're going to become radicalised and start doing actions under the name of ALF. And police clearly didn't understand the mostly youthy animal rights movement in UK.

Anti hunt campaigns had uneasy alliances of anarchists, class war activists, and animal rights campaigners. Class War caused extra attention because their newsletter had "page 3 beauties" \- photos of police officers who'd been hospitalised after violence, and they'd made many statements about being prepared to use violence against people. (Hunt saboteurs had strict rules about not using violence against people. There was some debate about whether it was okay to use violence to defend yourself if you were attacked by hunt followers.)

There were a bunch of legal, peaceful, campaigning groups that tackled things like vegetarianism and veganism; vivisection; primate rights; farm animal welfare. There were a bunch of groups that appeared to be peaceful but which were used as feeder groups to more extreme groups. (EG the National Front and British National Party set up an animal rights group, campaigning on ritual slaughter, to drive people to their fascistic groups.) And then there were the obvious activist groups who would raid laboratories. Some of those groups tried to use legal loopholes - they would enter a lab, not cause any damage or take any animals but take all the paperwork they could find, then scan and copy as much of the paperwork and then return the papers. Theft requires the intent to permanently deprive the owner. That tactic didn't work, they were caught and prosecuted, and so activists went back to liberating animals and causing as much damage as they could.)

If you're looking for an at the time account you could try to find back issues of "ArkAngel", which had debate and information about activist action.

<comment><USER6> I am from Brazil, an animal rights group here invaded a laboratory that did experiments with animals, and stole all the dogs.

Later they got backlash for stealing dogs, and not the rats and other un-cute animals, so they invaded again, and released all the other animals.

Then people started to notice that the stolen dogs were being released on the streets too, with the activists realizing they could not care for the dogs.

The laboratory if I remember correctly was working with antibiotics and some other medicine, meaning that people spread in nature diseased animals, or animals that needed medicine to survive anyway.

<comment><USER4> Yes. There's a case in UK where they raided a fur farm, and released mink into the wild.

Those animals are very destructive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What value would you put on the next 6 years of your life? Keep in mind those are not just any set of 6 years, those are likely your _best_ years.

What value would not having children of your own have if you were a woman of childbearing age when the relationship started and that time had passed by the time your fake relationship fell apart and a new one had gotten underway after a long time of dealing with trust issues?

I hope she takes the government to the cleaners for an extremely large sum of money. Millions of pounds at a minimum.

<comment><USER8> Similarly, if a woman pretends not to be a gold digger, lies to a man for 6 years and ruins his life, maybe she should also owe him compensation? Perhaps she convinced him to get a vasectomy under false pretenses to avoid the existence of other heirs, if you feel childbearing ability is the crucial factor.

It's the same act, just for a worse motive (grabbing his wealth rather than stopping terrorists). Yet few would suggest the law should get involved.

<comment><USER7> I got the impression from the article that this person was doing this because they were part of a government operation, and not because they took a fancy to the victim for any other reason. If you see any 'golddiggers' (male or female) doing such a thing under a false identity with the express goal of getting close to this person at the orders of their superior then yes, that too should be a crime. But somehow I think that's not what you had in mind.

<comment><USER8> So doing it on your own rather than under orders is fine? If mark stone just wanted a shag and kept things from his superiors then this would be OK?

<comment><USER7> If Mark Stone had a relationship with a woman outside of his profession then he should be entirely free to do whatever he wants, within the limits of what that particular society feels is acceptable.

The fact that he's doing this as a deception at the orders of his boss makes this relationship a-symmetrical and causes the lady to lose a number of years that she'll never have back and will likely cause her grave trust issues for many years to come. The fact that it lasted for _6 whole years_ makes it a lot worse. How big a chunk of someone's life wasted is 'acceptable damage'? 10? 50? All of it?

You don't mess with people like that, especially not when you're nominally tasked with _protecting_ people.

Pretending to be someone else as a private individual would be deplorable behavior, setting this up as a government institution makes it actionable and in my opinion this sort of operation should be illegal unless there is a very clear and very present danger related to that particular person, I see no evidence of that.

Note that the lady was never charged with anything whatsoever, she was simply used as a tool for a substantial chunk of her life and then discarded the moment the game was up.

<comment><USER8> She would lose 6 years and trust issues if he were a private actor also. Again - would this be OK if he just wanted a shag while undercover and his bosses were unaware? If not, then the boss thing is a red herring.

Is sending a sexy lady cop go seduce anti-gay terrorists also unacceptable? Particularly if it turned out that they weren't actually gay bashing but instead just protesting gay weddings, pushing employers to fire gay employees, and other assholeish but legal behavior?

<comment><USER7> > She would lose 6 years and trust issues if he were a private actor also.

Yes, and that would be a very bad thing.

> Again - would this be OK if he just wanted a shag while undercover and his > bosses were unaware?

He's an undercover cop, what his bosses are or are not aware of is immaterial. He's on 'company time' so to speak and if he does things while on 'company time' when interacting with people the company tasked him to interact with and he does not tell them about it that does not absolve them, especially not if that lasts for 6 years. That would make them dangerously incompetent if they weren't aware of it.

> Is sending a sexy lady cop go seduce anti-gay terrorists also unacceptable?

To seduce them per-se: absolutely not acceptable, especially not if she sexy lady cop is the one taking the initiative.

To gather evidence: to pretend to be their friend (not to seduce them) for a limited time, maybe, _if_ the crimes those people are engaged in are serious enough _and_ that is the only way that evidence can be gathered.

A police officer being ordered by their superior to have sex with a subject is already crossing a whole pile of lines. After all, the police is supposedly there to serve the public, not to get off on the public.

> Particularly if it turned out that they weren't actually gay bashing but > instead just protesting gay weddings, pushing employers to fire gay > employees, and other assholeish but legal behavior?

See above. It's all about proportionality.

<comment><USER9> What if he was a salesman seducing women on the job using the nice company car. Perhaps leveraging requirements of his job to maintain more than one relationship. Would the company employing him be responsible for the loss of (reproductive?) years then?

<comment><USER7> I highly doubt a salesman seducing women 'on the job' using the nice company car would be able to create an alternative identity good enough to pass immigration inspection on holidays and so on. The fact that this dude had the power of the government behind him is what allowed him to pull it off in the first place and why it lasted as long as it did. If she had not found the passport if would have continued even longer.

Depending on the jurisdiction such impersonation could be a crime all by itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Woman pretending to be a man in a 2 year relationship gets 8 years in jail. Wonder if the cop will get 24 years in jail?

[http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/12/gayle- newland...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/12/gayle-newland- sentenced-eight-years-prison-duping-friend-having-sex)

<comment><USER11> God damn that's some terrible reporting. Never mentions what law she broke. Why is pretending to be a man illegal? Is it because the victim consented to sex under false pretenses? What if a woman only has sex with me because she thinks I'm rich in when I'm not, is that illegal?

edit: I looked around a bit, apparently wherever this happened has "Sexual Assault by Fraud" laws. Apparently the only law that exists of this type in the US is pretending to be someone's spouse and having sex with them (written in the 1800s but updated in California a few years ago): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_by_deception#United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_by_deception#United_States)

Though there have been attempts to make it illegal in the US to lie about pretty much anything in order to get consent for sex: [http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/11/rape_by_fraud_n...](http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/11/rape_by_fraud_nj_lawmaker_introduces_bill_to_make_it_a_crime.html)

How far will this go? What if I lie about loving someone to get them consent, will whether I actually loved them suddenly be decided by a jury of my peers? We're going to see a lot of jail sentences being given to people (let's be honest - men) who lied about being single.

<comment><USER4> > Never mentions what law she broke.

> > But the jury convicted the marketing manager of three counts of sexual > assault at the complainant's flat in Chester.

This is a serious criminal offence, as serious as rape. It's in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (which, incidentally, covers David Cameron's alleged (totally not true) pig fucking - live animal is criminal, dead human is criminal, dead animal = not criminal)

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/contents](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/contents)

Sexual Assault by penetration: [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/1/crosshead...](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/1/crossheading/assault/section/2)

Sexual Assault: [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/1/crosshead...](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/1/crossheading/assault/section/3)

This person did not get consent and could not reasonably believe that consent was given. (According to the court.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Western intelligence seems to have a hard on for investigating pointless leads for years. Maybe focus on actual threats? But that's just me.

<comment><USER13> What, and miss out on all that weed and free love?

<comment><USER14> "and all this time I've been smoking harmless tobacco he he he" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL25r7QxFMU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL25r7QxFMU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> infiltrating environmental protesters, wow, what a way to put your live on a line everyday... Always a lot of money, chicks digging you - that is one dangerous life and attending Glastonbury festival - man, that was close! Leave some schmucks do the ISIS ...

>According to The Guardian,[10] Kennedy sued the police for ruining his life and failing to "protect" him from falling in love with one of the environmental activists whose movement he infiltrated ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_%28police_officer...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_%28police_officer%29))

no kidding. Now taxpayers are to pay him for all the pleasure he tortured himself with. "The things i'm gonna do for my Country" (NSFW - <USER2> picture of the dangers of an undercover agent's job. Very different from our office jobs - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Rq...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RqO3XCOr8nk#t=43) )

</comment><comment><USER16> State-sponsored rape. Both the officer and the head of the program should go to jail for this.

<comment><USER17> By calling everything and anything rape, one debases the word's meaning, and the claims of actual rape victims.

Words have meaning, and rape is forcing someone to have sex with you when they don't want to have sex with you. She wanted to have sex with him, although he deceived her about some of his key features.

Is it rape when one discovers afterwards that their partner is a closet alcoholic? No it isn't. What about if they're chronically unfaithful? Neither. If a golddigger has sex with someone who made them falsely believe they were rich, the former hasn't been raped, merely deceived. Even if they're HIV+, it's not rape. It might be poisoning, or homicide attempt, it certainly is awful and punishable, but it's not rape.

Concealing that you're a cop on duty is despicable and might be (at least ought to be) illegal, but rape it isn't; pretending otherwise is unhelpful and insulting to rape victims.

<comment><USER4> > forcing

No, rape is sex without consent. Force isn't required for something to be rape.

<comment><USER18> Then this would rather be fraud, because consent was given _but based on deceitful information_

<comment><USER19> Actually, consent for sexual intercourse obtained through lies or deceipt is unequivocally considered rape in common law.

<comment><USER17> Can you provide a source?

I'd be surprised if, for instance, seducing someone and getting laid by pretending to be substantially wealthier than you are was considered rape. Even pretending that you aren't a convicted felon when you are one would probably not constitute rape. I'd also be surprised if a woman who lied about being a virgin (and maybe had hymenoplasty) was prosecuted as a rapist by her devout husband.

My guess would be that it's considered rape if the deception made the victim believe they _had_ to have intercourse with the liar. If the lie merely made the liar more desirable, it's (possibly unethical) seduction.

This hypothesis would mean, to come back to the original case, that:

* telling you're not a cop when you actually are one is not rape;

* telling that you're a cop when you aren't, and hitting that a sexual favor would buy you some leniency, does constitute rape.

<comment><USER4> There's several links in this thread to a recent UK case where a woman pretended to be a man, and seduced her friend and had sex with that friend.

[http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/12/gayle- newland...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/12/gayle-newland- sentenced-eight-years-prison-duping-friend-having-sex)

There are other coses from different places. A Jewish woman was told by a man that he was also Jewish. They had sex. He was in fact not Jewish, and he was convicted.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7901025/Palestinian- jailed-for-rape-after-claiming-to-be-Jewish.html)

I think the law is looking at what consent actually means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is the sort of thing that changes peaceful protesters into enemies of the state.

</comment><comment> q-base He either got a little to good at his assignment which then lead the department to keep him going longer than originally planned or there is a lot more of this going on than we can ever imagine, if they spend so much effort on such low-risk activities as environmental activism - probably a combination of both.

<comment><USER4> This case is part of a larger set of cases where very similar things happened to a bunch of women. (Long term relationships with men who were undercover police and who had been provided false identities, sometimes using the dead- child's name technique).

Nothing justifies this level of abuse, but it's important to remember that "they" will say a small number of environmental and animal rights activists are extremists who use "violence" (against property, with strict rules about no violence against people).

"They" will give the examples of incendiary devices in department stores that sell fur coats or anti fox hunt activists digging up a corpse, and say those were the drivers of this style of surveillance.

They might forget to mention the police involvement in the incendiary devices activity.

[http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/13/police-spies- anima...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/13/police-spies-animal- rights)

[http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/13/police](http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/13/police)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Url changed from [http://boingboing.net/2015/11/22/activist-tricked- into-6-yea...](http://boingboing.net/2015/11/22/activist-tricked- into-6-year-r.html), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER22> This happens the other way around all the time. LEA use females as honeytraps all the time.

[http://www.foodnotbombs.net/elle_anna.pdf](http://www.foodnotbombs.net/elle_anna.pdf)

Very interesting read.</comment>


Build a Career in Data Science - <AUTHOR> https://itbook.store/books/9781617296246 <comment><USER2> Every submit for this site is just an ad for Amazon affiliate linked books (tag=itbook.store-20)

There is no "store".

Even the descriptions are ripped from other retailers' pages.</comment>


Ask HN: (why) Does upvoting get disabled for old submissions and comments? - <AUTHOR>

I am going through some quite old submissions (eg the "passive income" ones from previous years) and I just noticed that upvoting them and their comments doesn't work. Is that a bug or a desired functionality and if so what's the idea behind it?
P.S: (not criticising or anything, just curious) <comment><USER2> Does it get disabled? Yes. It seems to disable by 180 days, maybe a bit sooner (too lazy to nail the number down at the moment).

Is it a bug, or desired functionality? I think it's desired functionality, not a bug.

 _Why?_ I might throw out some guesses, but I don't really know.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've always assumed the intention is to treat older threads as history.</comment>


Apple rejects an iPad clock app because it doesn't have any extraneous features - <AUTHOR> http://yourhead.tumblr.com/post/539227006/apple-wont-give-you-the-time-of-day

<comment><USER2> I suspect the real reason was just that Apple thinks there are already enough clocks in the App Store, and even if this one is better than some of the existing clocks, booting one of them to make way for it isn't feasible. In other words, the feature that it lacks is a sufficiently early submit date.

<comment><USER3> If I had an iPad and wanted to install a clock app, I'd just go for the one I like the best. Why would I give a shit about submission date.

Do you check submission date when you install a Firefox addon?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Browser you can use to automate work online - <AUTHOR> https://ontrackhq.com <comment><AUTHOR> I have launched this few years ago. Robotic process automation browser. Idea is to bring RPA to small-medium sized businesses for easy, fast and inexpensive setup and deployment.

<comment><USER2> How does the "hours" work? The FAQ says the actual time the automation takes to complete, but is this at human speed or robot speed?</comment></comment>


Show HN: PenguinProxy – A fast, secure, peer-to-peer VPN client - <AUTHOR> https://www.penguinproxy.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey folks,

We made a VPN client that we think is significantly more secure than the most popular competitor (Hola) and at least as secure as any centralized VPN. Happy to answer any questions!</comment>


Mindless Accumulation - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/you-cant-take-it-with-you-but-you-still-want-more.html?src=me

<comment><USER2> First time commenting on hacker news: Just wanted to say there's a difference between enjoying a treat you've worked for, and saving for retirement. When you have no clue how long you might live and how expensive your taxes, insurance, mortgage, medical bills, etc might cost in the future, it breeds the mindset of 'save as much as possible as quickly as possible so I can feel safe and relaxed about my future.'

<comment><USER3> Yeah. I get bored of trying to explain this.

I don't really care about fancy food and toys and cars and blah. Yeah, they are nice, but they are side effects of saving for housing and so on.

The absurd thing is how irrelevant and cheap they are. I could buy a brand new car once per year and scrap it for less than my rent. Ace.

A tiny tiny number of people find themselves in a position in which they have the choice to accumulate 'more than they need'. We used to call them millionaires, but suburban homes are starting to cost that now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like the quote "both groups were driven by the same thing: not by how much they need, but by how much work they could withstand."

</comment><comment><USER5> >Nonetheless, the researchers note that productivity rates have risen, which theoretically lets many people be just as comfortable as previous generations while working less. Yet they choose not to.

Oh, ffs.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is hilarious. Definitely can see what they are talking about. Did they control for how much people like chocolate and sweets?

</comment><comment><USER7> I find the study's interpretation, as reported, to be somewhat dubious.

Seated for what you know to be a study, with few options, even "pleasant music" is pretty boring. (And other sounds that can be accurately described as "white noise" are sometimes so pleasant that people buy devices to generate it!)

Turning a boring situation into a game helps make it less boring, and the researchers provided only one prominent option for doing so: how many chocolates can I 'score'? Plus, it's a psychological study... which participants know may have twists or deceptions. So possible motivations include:

• "I have all the music I can hear at home; maybe something interesting happens after choosing the 'noise' 10 times!"

• "Maybe they'll change the story after phase 1 and I will be able to take the chocolates away, or trade them for something else!"

• "My friend also signed up for this study, afterwards we can compare how many we each earned."

I'm also reminded of the study from about a year ago that got widely forwarded under headlines like "men prefer painful electric shocks to sitting alone with their thoughts". It was also over-spun to claim more than it showed, but the tendency there would be another way to explain this study's results: people prefer to try doing something novel, even if it's superficially/temporarily unpleasant, over idleness. That's not chiefly 'mindless accumulation', just curiosity and testing the edges of your environment.

<comment><USER5> You forgot the obvious: 'A scientist in a white lab coat asked me to withstand as much as I could - for science.'</comment></comment>


Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can't Dogfight - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/war-is-boring/test-pilot-admits-the-f-35-can-t-dogfight-cdb9d11a875 <comment><USER2> To all those saying that dogfighting is an antiquited doctrine: I agree with you, but the F-35A is supposed to still do that, regardless of how archaic and improbable such a situation is supposed to occur.

Because it's supposed to be able to dogfight, compromises in its other capacities have been reduced. Now we find out that, as everyone knew, it can't dogfight. So why even design it to do a mediocre job of dogfighting when they could equivalently eliminate that design constraint and allow it to do its other roles better?

The simple fact is that the military has tried to bite off more than it can chew by asking that the F-35 can do everything at once. Because the F-35A is slated to replace the F-16, other sacrifices have been made to make it sort of approach being kind of nearly as capable as the F-16. As a result, it is doing its other roles worse than what would be the case if the military instead accepted that one size does not fit all and removed that requirement.

Frankly, it doesn't matter how unrealistic the idea of dogfighting is. The military said 'make this thing able to dogfight at least equivalently to the F-16' so LM have gone away and made specific design decisions to try to achieve that. It's now fallen short of that target, and in doing so has _also_ compromised other capabilities.

<comment><USER3> Dogfighting was supposed to be archaic and improbable in 1968 as well, since who was going to get close and maneuver when you had guided missiles? Then the losses mounted, and they created TOPGUN.

What really makes dogfighting unlikely, is the fact that United States hasn't fought anyone with airplanes in 40 years.

From everything I read, the F-35 is shit for two reasons. First, the Pentagon hadn't learned it's lessons from all the other times they tried to make one fighter for every service which almost always has failed. (The F-4 being the notable exception.) And Second, the Marines insisted on a damn VSTOL aircraft. Really, it's the Marines's fault. If ignored them (and really you should, because they're just insisting on duplicated effort), then you'd have much narrower, and thus maneuverable, airframe. The reason why the airframe is so wide, is because it must accommodate a lift-fan than isn't even installed in the Air Force and Navy versions. Even when the lift-fan is installed, the extra weight, and the need to take off and land vertically, causes the Marine version to have less range and less armaments. If you had cut the Marines out, you would have gotten the J-31).

It's really a shitty plane, and what really pisses me off about it, is that this seems to be incredibly common place anymore. Read the perpetual) cluster fuck around the KC-X. You can't read these things without wondering if the Pentagon doesn't actually know how to buy anything, and they're getting taken for a ride by overly complex (and thus very lucrative) contractors.

I don't think the Pentagon knows what it's doing. Actually, I don't think anyone involved knows what they're doing.

<comment> Tuna-Fish > Dogfighting was supposed to be archaic and improbable in 1968 as well, since > who was going to get close and maneuver when you had guided missiles? Then > the losses mounted, and they created TOPGUN.

There were some actually good reasons to believe that dogfighting was a part of a bygone era. When those planes used in '68 were being developed, missiles truly had the kind of superiority that their designers expected them to have. Then better countermeasures and anti-missile tactics were developed, and suddenly dogfighting was relevant again.

The first part is again true today. Missiles are easier to update than aircraft. Taking an air-to-air missile from the 90's and ripping out the laughably outdated electronics and replacing them with a modern CPU and targeting software makes it able to completely bypass all countermeasures available to current fighters. Right now, if an enemy gets to lock a missile at you from within the envelope where you can't simply outrun the missile until it's engine runs out, you might as well immediately eject. Your evasive maneuvers are not going to beat a missile that is getting mid-course updates from it's firing aircraft, which can tell your decoys apart from your plane, and which can plan and simulate the optimal attack vector in ways that the 90's missile designers could only dream of. Near future missile designs using much improved engines like ramjets or the throttleable ducted rocket with a secondary ram combustion stage on the MBDA Meteor seek to increase the engine performance and longevity of missiles to the point that you really can't ever even outrun them.

So currently no aircraft can remain flying with missiles in the air. There is, of course, always the possibility that we develop new countermeasures that can beat modern missiles, returning dogfighting to relevance. However, even if missiles always beat aircraft in the future, that doesn't make a F-35 a good fighter. Because, if missiles always beat planes, why not just build lots of cheap planes with a lot of missiles?

<comment><USER4> I'll admit I've been out of the field for a long time... I sort of cut ties and haven't read up on the latest tech in probably 15 years. Your point about missiles receiving mid-course updates is very interesting, though. I have a couple of questions...

Has any (unclassified) work been done on rear-mounted weaponry? I mean, if missiles can have modern CPUs and targeting software, can't the countermeasures have those as well? It seems like accurate, rear-mounted, auto-targeting machine guns (or heck, lasers for all I know) could still be an effective countermeasure, especially if you're in the position of trying to outrun one. That is to say, rather than trying to outmaneuver, outrunning would take you on a straight path, which would put the missile on a more-or- less straight path behind you until it hits. It seems like this is the perfect scenario for auto-targeting defensive cannons.

<comment><USER5> I have seen the Trophy countermeasure system for tanks work in a similar way, its not ridiculous to think it could be applied to planes.

Upon further review it looks like Raytheon is also making one (again for tanks.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_%28countermeasure%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_%28countermeasure%29) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_Kill_active_protection_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_Kill_active_protection_system)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Who cares? The mission of the F-35 was to get taxpayer money into the accounts of Lockheed Martin and its merry army of subcontractors. __Mission accomplished! __

<comment><USER7> After doing government contracting myself that really seems to be the mission of all government projects. Unfortunately.

<comment><USER8> This book is dedicated to detailing some of the inner workings of that phenomena: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man)

<comment><USER9> That's a great book - and one that I've discussed at some length with real diplomats from involved countries - but actually it's more focused on the use of burdensome and unnecessary international debt to dominate developing nations (hence the name).

<comment><USER10> I read the book too. Pretty curious what the diplomats thought of it.

<comment><USER9> They validated its story for their country (Indonesia; opening chapter).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Do we really need manned fighter planes at all? For a trillion dollars, you can overwhelm enemy air defenses with cheap, primitive drones in a saturation attack.

A tomahawk missile costs about $575k per unit, that lets you buy about 2 million tomahawks for $1 trillion. If you built a drone version that could loiter over an enemy airspace and then attack, sort of a tomahawk version of the Predator, you could buy a hundred thousand of them even if they were 10 million a piece.

You could also built UCAV fighters that could out-turn and fly most fighters by avoiding the need for the cockpit overhead and restrictions in g-force. Missiles make 40g turns, and drone airfames have been build to sustain 12-15g turning.

Are we spending a trillion dollars because the AirForce has a romantic notion of a human dogfighter in the seat when a guy with a joystick could do the job? Top Gun is a lot less interesting if robots or teleoperation is in play, but do we really that kind of engagement?

<comment><USER12> > For a trillion dollars, you can overwhelm enemy air defenses with cheap, > primitive drones in a saturation attack.

For a few hundred dollars I can jam your communications channel(s) to the drones. Asymmetric warfare sucks.

<comment><USER13> > For a few hundred dollars I can jam your communications channel(s) to the > drones. Asymmetric warfare sucks.

The problem is that once we're talking tens of millions of dollars and up -- no, you can't.

We're talking the swarm is likely operating in a shared point-to-point link mode, either using highly directional antennas that are essentially deaf to below, optical links, or (more likely) a mixture of both modes.

At 10,000 drones, they likely can form a stable mesh network over the city covering a wide enough area at a few miles in the sky that you're talking about having to run power plants or detonate magnets with high explosives to generate the kind of wattage needed to shout in to the directional communications gear.

Jamming a few hobbyist drones is nothing like jamming thousands of military grade drones, and the techniques you think will stop their communications aren't all that effective.

However, scanning the area under your bot swarm of amateur attempts to jam the network is probably a great way to target RF engineers in preparation for a ground invasion, and minimize their ability to improvise communications gear once the main communications networks are knocked out.

tl;dr: Taking out a $10,000,000+ swarm of military grade weapons isn't the same as disabling a few hobbyist trinkets, and may get you seriously hurt in the process.

<comment><USER12> > The problem is that once we're talking tens of millions of dollars and up -- > no, you can't.

Sure. If you're willing to build a new GPS system, because that's decently jammable for cheap.

Also are you proposing that all the drones will be individually piloted on missions as they are now? If so, I don't strictly have to jam the drones on the battlefield, I can just jam your satellite uplink or physically attack your operations centers. Add the cost of a plane ticket.

So far, we haven't used these weapons against any military that could be considered our peers. I wouldn't be so confident in our operational deployments without anything to base it on.

<comment><USER14> You've done an exceptional job of proving you have no idea what you're talking about. (Hint: I write software for a govt. contractor that builds drones and their control stations)

<comment><USER15> Can you point us to any public information about military systems' jamming resilience? E.g. here's a simple comm system, here's how you jam it, and here's a better comm system that can't be jammed that way?

<comment><USER14> I can't really get into the details, I apologize. I can tell you that the specific topic of jamming isn't a concern. Try and think about UAVs in the same way you might think about commercial planes. It would tend to make sense that the UAV model was most likely forked from there, at least initially.

<comment><USER15> Even with respect to radio interference in commercial planes, the public is subjected to more misinformation than information. How many planes have crashed due to cellphone use? Have there ever been any? Speaking specifically of commercial GPS use, was all the uproar about LightSquared just bullshit? They weren't on the GPS band, they were only _near_ it. I recall lots of authorities confidently ordering us to just trust them, that LS was a dire threat to civil aviation. If LightSquared is a threat to UAVs too, our "enemies" might want to buy their old equipment off eBay. For that matter, if USA military radios are so robust, why do they have to reserve half the usable spectrum for their private pristine use? Wouldn't they be just as comfortable on the Wifi band?

There are reasons why civilians might be reluctant to simply trust the confident assurances of random anonymous defense contractors.

<comment><USER14> > There are reasons why civilians might be reluctant to simply trust the > confident assurances of random anonymous defense contractors.

Which is absolutely your prerogative, and I don't blame you. You make some very good points. I would hope you might also be able to see my perspective: reading "facts" that are incorrect and not being able to add real value to the conversation. Sure, I chose my job, and the frustration comes with the territory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The F-35 is one of the planes Denmark is considering to replace it's F-16s. It's most likely going to be selected because of politics, regardless of it being expensive and not at all what we need.

Three Danish defence experts pointed out that while the F-35 is the most advance plane "available", it doesn't matter. While dogfighting is out date, high tech is equally useless. Neither Denmark nor the US have been in a conflict since WWII, where the advanced features of the F-35 would have made any difference.

Unless you decide to go to war with Russia or maybe China, the F-35 is so far beyond what you would reasonable require that the cost is completely unjustified.

Sadly for Denmark we pissed of SAAB and they will no long bid to deliver plane to the Danish Royal Air Force, despite them having having a suitable plane.

<comment><USER17> Hey fellow European. I am not a plane specialist by any means, but I have a question about that F-35 potential purchase. Denmark is part of the European Union, so wouldn't it make sense for Denmark to purchase a European fighter jet like the Eurofighter or maybe a Rafale? Then again, maybe those jets are not very good, dated or too expensive, I'm just genuinely wondering why Denmark would not put its money where its interests lie.

<comment><USER18> This is exactly what Lewis Page (defence reporter @ The Reg) suggested, ditching the F35 order and buying in some Rafales or F-18 Hornets -[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/17/f35_carriers_plot_by...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/17/f35_carriers_plot_by_bae_and_raf/)

Seems the UK have also ordered a shedload of F35s to replace a number of different roles in the RAF including the carrier launched Harrier jets. We've since sold the Harriers to the US which is quite telling really.

<comment><USER19> Lewis Page is a joke in the defence community for a good reason.

The UK's harriers were shagged after years of use, they were sold to the US so they could be cannibalised for spares. Plus we only had the GR versions which were not fighters, the Sea Harrier was retired even earlier.

The UK needs a STOVL multi-role fighter because of the Navy. The RAF are ordering the same planes because then they can fly them off the carriers as well. The cat and traps option on the carrier wasn't really a flier as no-one has managed to get a reliable EMALS catapult working. The US at one point was going to pay us to be the guinea pig for EMALS, but that's rather a risk if it hadn't worked out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Am I going to be the only one who is going to question the source here? The author has a clear opinion on the F-35 that he interjects inbetween the comments and War is Boring's previous reporting on the F-35 have been mostly trying to take it down a couple of notches. Everything here is based on an unnamed source and a document which may or maynot even exist.

According to Aviation Week, a reputable defense and aviation source, the F-35 has been doing loading tests. Meaning that if this report and dogfight happened then it was against a electronically limited F-35 against a platform that is very mature and limits understood. Here's a link to the story in question: [http://m.aviationweek.com/defense/f-35-flies- against-f-16-ba...](http://m.aviationweek.com/defense/f-35-flies- against-f-16-basic-fighter-maneuvers)

<comment><USER21> No, you're not the only one. Without reading the entire and uneditorialized pilot's report then it's a questionable act of journalism on display. That said, even if the F-35 is about equal to the F-16 in maneuverability, there are many other capabilities that it will excel at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This story really is about propaganda and public manipulation. (The following might sound condescending, sorry; there's no easy way to say 'you're being manipulated'. Everyone is, at various times.)

The F-35 is highly politicized, and that political fight takes place on the battlefield of public opinion, with both sides trying to manipulate the public with propaganda. And many here on HN are playing their roles perfectly, responding to the propaganda like mice responding to stimuli in a maze.

We're all susceptable to it and I try hard to learn to recognize it. I think a good sign of propaganda is the choice of phrasing. If someone is trying to manipulate you, they often try to arouse anger and outrage -- angry people aren't open to reasonable discussion and other opinions, so if you get people outraged on your side then they are innoculated against other arguments. You can see the lack of balanced, smart analysis and the widespread expression of outrage here. Someone trying to inform you will take a much different approach, carefully presenting information and avoiding distorting your understanding with provocation. For example, consider the phrase, "New stealth fighter is dead meat in an air battle" \-- clearly it's meant to arouse and not inform.

The article represents the analysis, abridged and without context, of one tester in one test of a system that's in its test phase and not meant to be in production for 1.5 years. There are many other articles, representing individuals' opinions (including test pilots), some that praise the F-35 and some that criticize it.

I'm not saying the F-35 is a good deal; I don't know. I don't know much at all about fighter planes (and reading the comments, I know more than many here). I don't know if dog-fighting is relevant; maybe it's gone the way of broadsides in combat between warships (and better dog-fighters are like Henry Ford's 'faster horses'). I don't know if the problems described by the test pilot are bugs of a test system (that's why we test!). Think about the state of your systems 1.5 years before production -- they may not look so great.

I do know that propaganda like the OP reduces public knowledge; it doesn't increase it.

EDIT: Edited to be a little less obnoxious.

<comment><USER23> > I'm not saying the F-35 is a good deal

I can't imagine how many lives the F-35 would have to save (or combatants to kill, not sure how these equations are calculated) for the money to be "a good deal". You can't put a price on human life. If we could, how much would the average life that was lost on september 11th be valued? In the billions?

<comment><USER22> > You can't put a price on human life

Interestly, anyone engineering human safety, and anyone dealing with its consequences, including the courts and insurance industry, all have to. For example, designing a car, you can always make it safer and more expensive, but where do you draw the line? What are the ethical and legal requirements? What will customers pay for? There is a number out there for the value of a life and also one for serious injury (major loss of function), but I don't remember what they are.

More importantly, there is far more than the pilot's life at stake. There are the other soldiers, sailors and pilots who die because they are now unprotected. There are the civilians who suffer because the mission fails. And there is the security and safety of the entire nation and its allies -- if Western air forces don't have effective fighter planes, it increases the threat to democracy and liberty around the world. It sounds dramatic, but those are the real stakes.

<comment><USER23> > Interestly, anyone engineering human safety, and anyone dealing with its > consequences, including the courts and insurance industry, all have to.

This is generally context sensitive and inaccurate. Engineers are attempting to limit liability, courts are attempting to compensate, and the insurance industry is attempting to limit compensation. These are not honest evaluations of human value, but rather honest evaluations of the market value of a human. The F-35 had better save millions of lives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It was predicted back in the 1960's that the price of fighters would rise to the point of the entire military budget would be expended building one fighter. So far, we're right on target.

We have clearly shot past the point where anyone would dare risk employing the F-35 in any combat role.

<comment><USER25> Could it be the case that the whole point of "trying" to build this fighter jet is to research the necessary technologies just in case future demands it?

<comment><USER26> If it was a dozen aircraft, which is where the Russian 5th Gen fighter program is presently, then that might be it. But the US military is ordering over two thousand of them. That's a little much for keeping the skill and knowledge base around.

<comment><USER27> It's more likely that 2,000 of them will never be delivered.

It'll be more like 500, and they'll kill the purchases in N years and move on to the next program. A higher volume mimic of the F22 outcome. The defense contractors will make 1/5th as many as planned in 2010, at 1/2 the cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Crazy stuff. I'm bemused that this project goes on year after year and no one in the US govt has the onions to stand up to Lockheed Martin's lobbying machine.

A trillion f ing dollars!! For that amount, you could fund 1000 startup companies a million dollars each to develop their best fighter, and stage a knockout tournament until you have whittled it down to the 15 best designs and you'd still have $993 billion to spread among the surviving designs.

Oh, your war drones have humans strapped to them...how quaint. --Some future general

<comment><USER29> > you could fund 1000 startup companies a million dollars each

A billion dollars, you mean.

<comment><USER30> Alternatively, one million startups with one million dollars each..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Some commenters are unclear about the role of the F35, so I figured I'd quote Wikipedia:

 _The F-35A is expected to match the F-16 in maneuverability and instantaneous and sustained high-g performance, and outperform it in stealth, payload, range on internal fuel, avionics, operational effectiveness, supportability, and survivability. It is expected to match an F-16 that is carrying the usual external fuel tank in acceleration performance.

The A variant is primarily intended to replace the USAF's F-16 Fighting Falcon._

<comment><USER32> It is also slated to replace the A-10 Thunderbolt II (AKA the Warthog, AKA the flying gun), another role for which there is much doubt regarding its capabilities.

<comment><USER33> I didn't think that there was any doubt about this. It is totally incapable of performing the A-10's role.

<comment><USER34> The A-10 will get shot down too easily today unless it stays high enough to be out of range of surface to air missiles and just uses missiles or bombs itself. At height it is too slow to cover a reasonable area compared to something like an F-16.

<comment><USER33> As I understand it the real advantage of the A-10 is persistence. It can stay around and provide close support for a long time period relative to a fast jet. Apparently the shooters on the ground like having this type of support...

Why not let the Army decide what ground support planes it gets and leave the Air Force to gain air superiority and strategic bombing.

<comment><USER35> > Why not let the Army decide what ground support planes it gets and leave the > Air Force to gain air superiority and strategic bombing.

Because then we end up paying for 4 complete militaries. Everyone loves having their own set of toys, and can make the case for why a particular role makes sense for them.

<comment><USER33> But surely one lesson from the F-35 is that sometimes having specialised equipment can be cheaper than having one multi-role item?

<comment><USER35> Sometimes? Sure. But just letting each branch do what they want isn't the right way either.

<comment><USER33> Of course. Yes I realise that my post might have seemed like that. There should clearly be a joint strategy.

However, as I understand it the US Army currently can't have fixed wing planes (although they can have helicopters) yet are the ones that need close air support and also understand what is needed from it best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The F-35 wasn't designed to be a superlative dogfighter and the F-16 is one of the best handling aircraft in history. By no means am I saying that dogfighting is irrelevant -- history has shown that even with long-range missiles there will always be times when aircraft manage to close the distance, but this test is extremely artificial and doesn't by any means make the F-35 a waste of money.

The claim that "The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft" is quite strange. Despite developmental issues, the F-35 Head-Mounted Display has been completed and displays imagery in a complete sphere (4pi steradian) from the aircraft's Distributed Aperture System. Additionally, the F-35 has a somewhat roomier cockpit than the F-16, though rear visibility is more obstructed.

The control systems are still being tuned to some extent as well. The F-35 is fully fly-by-wire, and it tries to make sure the aircraft can't be overstressed or stall, but these limits can be too conservative. I'm not claiming that maneuverability will drastically improve, but this is one of the many objectives of testing.

</comment><comment><USER37> In the aviation industry designs really do stand the test of time. A large number of airliners,props and helicopters were designed back in the 60's and 70's with only a few minor upgrades here and there.

I can almost understand why the new jet is having a hard time replacing the previous one. I say almost because at a trillion dollars... Lol

</comment><comment><USER38> Well the good news is that Boeing is still cranking out F-18s with no end in sight. And for the price of a single F-35, you can get 10 F-18s. So hey, send out the platoon!

<comment><USER39> F-18 = 65.3 million

F-35 = 148 - 251 million depending on model

It actually looks reasonably decent value when you look at it is this way.

<comment><USER38> Negative. The F-35 model that the Navy uses costs $337 million. And the same use (carrier F-18 E/F) is $57 according to a Navy web page. So I was a little off... the A models were much less expensive, but that's still 5 F-18F models for one F-35. I think in a skirmish 5 F-18s will beat the pants off a single F-35, since there is no way an F-35 can carry sufficient munitions to compensate for the anti-missile capabilities of 5 F-18s.

The only possible way an F-35 could take out 5 F-18s is if its advanced electronics warfare package could remotely hack the avionics of the F-18s, or deploy some EMP weapon (then they all bail out!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> So what? It wasn't meant to be used for dogfight. It is a strike fighter with some A2A capability, to be used in combination with F-22 if the airspace is highly contested. When a small number of F-22s is escorting a large number of F-35s, their advantage of IRST and networking capability together with long- range, LOAL AIM-120D (and with European, and later potentially U.S. users too, even more capable MBDA Meteor), will ensure they will clear our most bandits long before getting to the WVR range, where F-22s will be able to take over the job.

<comment><USER41> This is all well and fine assuming you have enough F-22s. We don't.

There's an infamous RAND study involving a conflict over the Strait of Taiwan:

[http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/rgs_dissertations/...](http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/rgs_dissertations/2011/RAND_RGSD267.pdf)

The tl;dr of it is that even assuming F-22s could score a perfect 1:1 missiles fired to kill ratio while perfectly evading all enemy missiles, the simple fact of the matter is that they'd get overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemy aircraft and run out of munitions.

And then the airfields get destroyed and it doesn't matter how good your air superiority fighters are if they don't have anywhere to operate out of.

<comment><USER40> Also, fulldome IRST means it won't need much of a dogfight. It can direct missile from any angle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> For people who don't understand the context, this is incredibly misleading.

>the Air Force organized specifically to test out the F-35's prowess as a close-range dogfighter

They fail to mention that dogfighting is as antiquated as Snoopy and the Red Baron. Talking about this test without the context is plain irresponsible.

Modern air superiority strategy is about delaying detection with stealth combined with advanced electronic warfare and coordination intelligence suites to destroy the enemy before he even sees you, or at least when it's much to late to have any meaningful response. It isn't 'perfect' stealth, but it doesn't need to be. Just need to get close enough that your missiles get to where the need to go opening up the theater for other assets to do their thing.

"Too close for missiles, switching to guns" is ancient history.

The F-35 is no good at dogfighting because it wasn't designed to be, the test was just something you do to test your outer limits. "Failing" isn't failure.

<comment><USER43> > dogfighting is as antiquated as Snoopy and the Red Baron

So they said during Vietnam too.

<comment><USER42> People being wrong on a subject 40 years ago doesn't mean the same arguments are valid today.

<comment><USER44> Had they really felt that dogfighting was obsolete, the F-35A wouldn't have a gun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Jesus Christ, can't we kill this program already? What's going on, a trillion dollar sunk-cost fallacy?

<comment><USER46> Just keeping the military-industrial complex well-fed, basically. It doesn't matter if the thing can even get off the ground.

<comment><USER47> Also the long tail of air force generals who were originally pilots.

The biggest shift which will happen over the next 15 years is when generals start being minted who were drone flight controllers or managed those operations. They'll have a very different perspective on where they want development funds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The stealth the anti radar feature is visible on long wave radio. Something that was likely sold as a feature to the tax payer but does as far as I understand work that well in practise.

Pierre Sprey F16 and A10 co-designer speaks about F35 and specifically about dog fight 04:00 in the video. Stealth capabilities 06:00 in the video. [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x203cgj_pierre-sprey-co- des...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x203cgj_pierre-sprey-co-designer- of-f16-a10-explains-why-the-f35-will-not-cut-it-on-the-modern- battlefield_tech)

<comment><USER49> Isn't stealth pretty much defeated for the last 40 years? I recall reading that Soviet ground radars were perfectly capable of detecting US stealth planes, as well as there being a crash of a stealth plane which was then recovered by the enemies of US.

<comment><USER50> Stealth is not a boolean property. What you can do on the ground with giant arrays of huge antennas and/or supercomputers is way ahead of what can be done in a fighter plane, and that is way ahead of what can be done in the seeker of a small-diameter missile.

<comment><USER49> True, although today all three often constantly talk to one another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> "The flying qualities in the blended region...were not intuitive or favorable."

God, I love bureaucrat-talk. It's a pig. A trillion-dollar pig. But that doesn't mean we can't put lipstick on it!

Last time this came up on HN, somebody recommended reading about the life of John Boyd. For those of you interested in how large systems of people operate, how the Pentagon ends up with bad airplanes, principles of organization change, and the philosophy of strategic planning? Go read as much as you can. Boyd was no Sun Tzu, but he significantly advanced the state-of-the art in a bunch of seemingly unrelated fields. I have a feeling we'll be parsing some of his stuff over the next few decades.

Aside from providing promotions to large sections of the officer core and gainful employment to many large defense contractors in various districts of various politicians, I'm not sure what the F-35 is actually for. It's like the space shuttle: it's supposed to do so many contradictory things at the same time that it doesn't seem to do any of them well.

In fairness, the Osprey tilt-rotor had a lot of the same type of procurement and delivery problems. Anybody remember ring vortex state? But the Osprey at least had somewhere it was going: take a squad of marines or special operators far inland as fast as an airplane without using runways at either end. It looks like the Osprey is turning the corner and can finally deliver the goods.

Not so much with the F-35.

I'm not sure what to do with the program now. My instinct says keep the close air support and air superiority fighters we have and concentrate on the F-35's stealth capabilities. But strategically, once somebody figures out how to use passive radiation to paint and plot airborne targets? The stealth game is up. Required computing power may be a decade or two away, but it's well within the expected lifetime of the airframe. I think maybe you just bail out on the whole thing and go back to strategy school.

</comment><comment><USER52> Can't believe noone posted yet [this clip from Pentagon Wars]([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA)) about the clusterfuck that was the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

<comment><USER53> It gets posted every time the F-35 is mentioned on Hacker News.

But yes, very appropriate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> what if all this talk about the f-35 being crap has to do with some sort of russian propaganda aimed at shaping the public opinion in the west, which should eventually pressure the politicians to drop the idea of buying the f-35. Because what the "Internet Age" has taught me is that the world is not short of suckers, and russian propaganda knows it. Think of it! Putin would have a much better sleep at night if the American allies and NATO members didn't have a stealth fighter/bomber able to penetrate the enemy lines without much problems and hitting the targets with high precision. The idea of f-35 and other stealth planes is to reduce some "costs", like political cost, while still exercising your geo-political control. For instance, the Europeans countries would never send a plane to east Ukraine if there is a chance it might be shot down. Imagine a European Prime Minister saying: "we sent a couple of ours f-35s, bombed the rebels, came back and opened the door for the Ukrainian army to reunify the country and bring peace"; to instead saying: "we sent a bunch of planes, some where shot down, some of our men were killed and the situation in east Ukraine is still not defined". The second sentence could translate into: "shit! I could lose the next election". The russians might not admit it in public, but they are always scared about the western military superiority and economic power, particularly the USA. (Yes, I said economic power, don't fall for the BRICS bullshit, the economic fragility of these countries is nothing compared to the fragility, that of course exists, in the developed nations). They (russians) have their own stealth fighter project, the T-50, that seems not to be working properly, besides the fact they are short of money and had to drop the number of planes they initially planed to build for the Russian air force from 52 to just 12 now. Meanwhile the f-35 is about to hit the skies, and the Americans already have almost two hundred f-22 and and 20 B-2 on top of 10 nuclear powered carriers with a bunch of f-18. So, I say it again, it wouldn't be surprising if the russian propaganda wants to shape public opinion to at least delay the acquisition of advanced stealth fighters/bombers by NATO members.

<comment><USER55> This. Autocratic nations ability to shape public opinion has never been so easy. It was interesting to see /r/worldnews on Reddit go from a milquetoast forum into one of the internet's leading pro-Putin platforms overnight once Crimea was annexed. Suddenly all these guys with broken english were giving the same talking points. Now dumb white kids from the suburbs think Putin is some wonderful chap and NATO being on par with Hitler.

Its incredible how well propaganda works. We have one opinion from one test here and suddenly everyone is convinced that the F-35 can't rule the skies. It will dominate many roles trivially and that's something China, Russia, and Iran don't like to hear. Anything they can do to make Americans hate their military and our fighting men is great for them, because their citizens are all in lockstep about defeating us and imposing autocratic dictatorships on their neighbors.

<comment><USER56> > We have one opinion from one test here and suddenly everyone is convinced > that the F-35 can't rule the skies.

This is _not_ the first negative information regarding the F-35, just the latest piece in a litany.

> Anything they can do to make Americans hate their military and our fighting > men

Distrust of a particular piece of hardware is not hating the military or the "fighting men" in the military. Heck, often, that's a position that is _shared_ with the military, or at least the "fighting men", who often are not enamored of the equipment that the politicians decide to purchase for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Here is a video of Pierre Spray (one of the F-16 designers) discussing the same thing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxDSiwqM2nw)

</comment><comment><USER58> The Phantom F4 had no main gun because everyone thought there were no dogfighst but only missle fights. Reality was different and they added a vulcan gun.

The F35 is not designed for dogfights but long range missle fights and stealth.

<comment><USER59> But unlike F4, F35 has a main gun, and I think that demonstrates the dogfight doctrine still has its way. Unfortunately that gun has its own problem [1].

[1] [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/31/new-u-s- ste...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/31/new-u-s-stealth-jet- can-t-fire-its-gun-until-2019.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> DOD spending is more about sustaining the companies in its orbit than producing superior solutions.

1 Trillion dollars for a shit plane...but we can't afford to take care of the veterans and retirees.

</comment><comment><USER61> Has anyone thought of how many F-18 SuperHornets could have been purchased with the F-35's $1trillion in funding, or how long they could have been operated? Or How little the F-18 Advanced Hornet retrofits actually cost? Never mind that the SuperHornet will be cheaper to operate and will have 1/6th the unit cost even after development is over.

Plus, the F-18 SuperHornet will never be accused of not being able to dogfight.

</comment><comment><USER62> Is this program literally the biggest waste of money of all time?

<comment><USER63> It's hard to beat unnecessary wars:

[http://cironline.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/June20...](http://cironline.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/June2010CRScostofuswars.pdf)

According to the linked article, Iraq and Afghanistan cost over $1T (and this was as of 2011 and does not include things like health care, replacing degraded equipment, etc.) and the Vietnam war cost $738B.

It may be the first time a weapon system would qualify as a folly by itself (per _The March of Folly_ , by Barbara Tuchman):

* Perceived as counter-productive in its own time (not just hindsight)

* Has clear alternatives

* Decision made by a group, not a single individual

It's generally worth noting that Tuchman's follies, and more recent cases that clearly fit her criteria (Iraq and the F35) seem to be follies in a fractal sense: you can just drill down and down and see more stupid as you go -- e.g. given you are fixated on going into Iraq, perhaps you include the State Department in the planning? Nope. Listen to your most experienced military leaders? Nope. At least make use of comprehensive existing plans for invasion? Nope. And on and on. With the JSF there are so many bad decisions bundled into the thing that it's hard to know where to start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I'm sure the military contractors that profited from this contract don't consider it a failure.

</comment><comment><USER65> This is what you get for choosing which aircraft to sponsor by going by looks. Boeing's alternative had the greatest manoeuvrability, and now the hay is beginning to stick out of their shoes, as they slowly admit that F-35 isn't as good as we were led to believe.

<comment><USER66> The Boeing wasn't without its issues however. The main reason it lost to Lockheed was the thrust vectoring used for STOVL was flawed and could cause the engine to overheat which was a large showstopper. Funnly enough, I recently read about F35 overheating while in STOVL as well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> The F-35 program is basically just government stimulus spending disguised as something else.

<comment><USER68> As is almost the entire DoD budget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Sounds like they've recreated the F-111, with VTOL thrown in. One would think that procurement/design history would be a mandatory study, but they continually recapitulate it. Guess it's easier to shovel out the money this way?

Given the design freedom with multiple airframes, I would think it quite hard to outdo such divergent airplanes as the F-16 and A-10. Unless the spare-part situation is crippling, conservative design would be to tailor to individual roles. Call it a Unix approach to air combat?

</comment><comment><USER70> The lesson here is that it is really hard to manage projects like the JSF program.

Cost, conflicting interests, technical challenges and secrecy requirements in the worst possible package.

</comment><comment><USER71> Unfortunately, the F-35 was predicted long ago in John Boyd's biography (or look up Pierre Sprey, which will bring you back to Boyd).

<comment><USER72> Robert Coram's biography of John Boyd is very good.

[http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-The-Fighter-Pilot- Changed/dp/0316...](http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-The-Fighter-Pilot- Changed/dp/0316796883)

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I wonder how the F-35 performs against other current generation fighters like the Eurofighter or Saab Gripen. And considering the costs, it would need to be several times better, which I doubt. I suspect both aircraft could out- manoeuvre it.

But then the F-35 is supposed to be stealthy so might be able to attack from a distance with relative impunity.

</comment><comment><USER74> It's hard to imagine how so much money has been wasted developing such a mediocre aircraft. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but maybe the F-35 does not exist, and all the money has actually been well spent on amazingly stealthy next-generation supersonic drone fleets which nobody has been able to see?!

</comment><comment><USER75> Isn't this old news? I remember watching this interesting diatribe from Pierre Osprey (designer of the F-16 & A-10 Warthog airplane) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQB4W8C0rZI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQB4W8C0rZI)

</comment><comment><USER76> ""The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft.""

you can't see behind the F35 - even if you turn your head. there's a rear view camera because of that. The central fan is in the way.

That's odd a pilot says he can't turn his head and see well.

</comment><comment><USER77> Well, we did build the F-22 as the air supremacy fighter. Sadly, the much maligned F-22 has actually been used in combat to bomb a ground target[1]. I find it interesting that the F-22 seems to have gotten over most of its teething problems, but the F-35 still cannot fire its gun (needs a new software)[2]. Even when it can fire its gun, it will only have ammo for 4 seconds of firing (2 bursts)[3].

I think the close combat air support / tactical role should be given back to the Army (changing Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966[4] and Key West Agreement[5]) and the Air Force can deal with strategic bombing and air dominance.

The Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10 with various excuses, but the GAO recently said their budget reason were bunk[6]. They just don't want the job and their loiter time of their replacements is pathetic.

1) [http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/23/syria-a...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/23/syria- air-strikes-f-22-raptor/16105291/)

2) [http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air- space/strike/20...](http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air- space/strike/2015/01/07/f35-gun-on-track/21401907/) [http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/01/08/pentagon-f-35-gun-will- fir...](http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/01/08/pentagon-f-35-gun-will-fire- in-2017/)

3) [http://defensetech.org/2015/01/02/a-tale-of-two-gatling- guns...](http://defensetech.org/2015/01/02/a-tale-of-two-gatling- guns-f-35-vs-a-10/)

4) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson- McConnell_agreement_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson- McConnell_agreement_of_1966)

5) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_West_Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_West_Agreement)

6) [http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/06/25/gao-r...](http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/06/25/gao- report-air-force-a10-justification/29285967/)

</comment><comment><USER78> Keep in mind that the headline number (1 trillion dollars) _includes_ the cost to service 2000 F-35 over 50 years. The amount spent on R&D and building it is in the (large, but not as eye-watering) 300 billion dollar range.

</comment><comment><USER79> Here is the relevant software engineering term for relevance [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_committee)

</comment><comment><USER80> In the full-scale war the fighter planes are useless cause the air bases and carriers will be nuked out in the first hour. So the reality is that the planes are not made for fights, they are made for parades.

<comment><USER81> Quite. Carriers are useless in a war of equals. They will be at the bottom of the ocean in the opening minutes of the war.

But they are brilliant against barbarians, which seem to be our main enemy these days.

<comment><USER82> In a full scale nuclear war most things would be useless. The US however has managed to use it's planes a fair bit since WW2 though and not just for parades.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> the best we can hope is the turns out so bad it accelerates the move to drones and their lower costs replacing manned fighter and even bomber craft.

While there is some romanticism still attached to fighter pilots the truth is in this day and age their relevance is dropping like a rock and there is little need to put pilots into danger when a drone can do the same.

plus drones can be created to do all sorts of maneuvers human pilots could never do... let alone reduce the size of the craft to make it less visible

</comment><comment><USER84> Yes, but it really shines as a pork barrel generator.

I'd rather see a swarm of drones one tenth the size and one twentieth the price fight our dog fights.

</comment><comment><USER85> Do you guys think that they will eventually scrap the program and open source this future failed startup?

<comment><USER59> Nah, they will just sweep it under the rug in the name of national security. Not even a post-mortem because that would put some highly ranked people whom about to become the advisors of the defense industry on the grilling fire.

<comment><USER85> I should use /s next time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Come on. They put this up against a 16. Did _anyone_ believe the 16 couldn't out maneuver the 35?

</comment><comment><USER87> Drones. Thats why this doesn't matter.

</comment><comment><USER88> Only skimmed the article but it looks like it's, "F-35 can't dogfight" followed by a lot of author opinions and rants. My question is, was the F-35 created to ever be put into a situation where it would be in a dogfight? B-1 bombers can't dogfight either.

It seems like he's pretending that we have, or will have, no other fighter jets remaining.

<comment><USER89> _My question is, was the F-35 created to ever be put into a situation where it would be in a dogfight?_

Yes. It was created to be a multirole fighter - including air superiority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> They should really start making memes of the F-35.

Or maybe even a motivational picture of McNamara, with satirical captions.

</comment><comment><USER91> The problem with the F-35 is that it's a jack of all trades and master of none. Put it up against a more nimble and agile fighter it'll lose in a dogfight every single time due to its limited aerodynamic operating range. So, what's the real purpose of the F-35? To support the military industrial complex, of course.

</comment><comment><USER92> Who cares about dogfight when you only bombing of civilians.

</comment><comment><USER93> ".. cost the United States control of the air."

when you think about the current situation in Irak, one might argue that it would not necessarily be a bad thing.

<comment><USER94> Iraq was a clusterfuck, there's no doubt about that, but the current situation there is that American aircraft are among the few things keeping a whole lot more people from being enslaved or murdered by the Isis thugs. So while there are quite a few aspects of US government policy that I disagree with, at the end of the day, I pretty much do want them to keep control of the air, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> It's not at all what it's built for. I'd be interested in seeing articles critiquing it's designed mission (or more reporting on the software woes, which would be very relevant here), since I'm no military strategy expert, but reports like this seem rather useless. Do we expect to be doing a lot of WWI/WWII-style close-range air fighting?

EDIT: this, for instance, seems much more interesting: [http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/22/us-navy- to-...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/22/us-navy-to-lockheed- martins-f-35-stealth-fighter-w.aspx)

But it's hard to see how dogfighting prowess would be any help against long- range radar systems that can detect it before being in range.

<comment><USER96> while obviously nobody is planning to have dogfights, one can imagine 2 stealth fighters that no missile can lock onto while pilots can actually see each others planes - times for good old school dogfight :)

(the probably exception for missiles is IR missiles - as long as you can get behind the enemy plane it would probably be able to lock onto it, even on the stealth one, and trying to get behind each other means pretty much dogfight again. Or similarly, say regular missile can lock onto a stealth plane only from much closer distance - from behind would be much more preferable position as stealth planes are less stealthier from that direction and at close distance the target plane has much less chances to shake off the incoming from behind missile)

<comment><USER80> Even SU-27 had passive locking. If pilot can see, electronics can as well.</comment></comment></comment>


Mark Zuckerberg Was Once One of CNN's '10 People Who Don't Matter' - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2014/10/15/zuckerberg-doesnt-matter

<comment><USER2> >Linus Torvalds

>Steve Ballmer

>Reed Hastings

>Mark Zuckerberg

What imbecile wrote this?</comment>


Wikipedia considers limiting user edits - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10149648-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 <comment><USER2> This proposal only applies to protected/semi-protected pages, most of which are Biographies of Living Persons (BLP) for which Wikipedia already has stricter standards. There's a spin to this proposal that actually makes the encyclopedia even more inclusive, by allowing anonymous users who would ordinarily be prohibited from editing protected BLP articles to at least have their contributions reviewed.

</comment><comment><USER3> If the deployment ever grows to cover more of the site, this sounds like something that would be rife with abuse, and even though it doesn't sound like that's the plan, it's interesting to think about how you might want to solve that. One of the things it suggests is the need for wikipedia to involve democratic trust metrics (i.e., you aren't an admin just because you're friends with another admin) but this invites its own host of problems. Interesting topic though.

</comment><comment><USER4> As wikipedia matures, they won't be as desperate for article contributions. So they won't need to take the risk of having bad data. This is a natural progression.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think Wikipedia is facing a myth vs. reality problem: the idea of an freely editable encyclopaedia is wonderful, but in the end a closed & moderated system might prove more useful.

<comment><USER2> I think it's misleading to call Wikipedia an "idea" at this point; it very much _is_ a freely-editable encyclopedia; it is already a superior substitute in the market for encyclopedias.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also over here, posted a day ago (readwriteweb): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=448473>

</comment><comment><USER7> Practically this is a great idea. It'll go through eventually.</comment>


Guide dogs and guns: America's blind gunmen - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28587041

<comment><USER2> It was interesting how in the photo of him using the sonic scope, he had one eye open and the other closed, in the manner a sighted person would use a scope.

I'm really intrigued by the tech for this whole area - clearly these guys are absurd 0.001% outliers, but I wonder if you could make a (lethal or non- lethal) self defense device for reduced-vision or blind people which used image recognition. It's going to happen at physical-contact distances, but having some combination of camera, pepper spray or firearm, and safety interlock (like a nailgun, where you press it against the material to allow it to fire)?

Ideally something which requires even less physical strength, vision, or other ability than a firearm (handguns are actually hard to use in self defense for a variety of situations). An impaired mobility, impaired vision person totally deserves some kind of protection, and probably needs it more than someone who can see trouble coming from a distance, or run away.

<comment><USER3> "An impaired mobility, impaired vision person totally deserves some kind of protection"

It's the job of the police specifically and of government generally to create a safe society. If one's community is seriously so unsafe that carrying firearms is justified from the point-of-view of personal protection there are better ways to fix it than arming blind people.

<comment><USER4> Police in America have zero responsibility to protect an individual. They enforce laws. Also, even if they did, check on response times for a 911 call. My wife is a dispatcher with the sheriffs dept here - 20-30 mins is normal where we are at. Tell us again how the cops can protect us?

<comment><USER5> Fix your police, then.

<comment><USER6> Can you recommend a fix which will reduce the average response time of police to under say 5 minutes in a geographically huge, mostly unpopulated rural area?

<comment><USER5> Don't live in a geographically huge, mostly unpopulated rural area but instead in sufficiently large villages/small towns, each with their own local police.

 _Especially_ don't live in a geographically huge, mostly unpopulated rural area _if you are blind_. Self-defence is likely to be one of the smaller issues in this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Insanity. Even the author thinks so, by the tid bits at the end of the piece.

<comment><USER8> How's it insane? I think it's a pretty cool triumph of will over adversity. And it takes away every excuse I have for my poor shooting if a blind man can be a good wing shot.

<comment><USER9> But while the test was meant to measure a skill, he beat the test without having the skill. He used the sound of the targets on the range to aim which, while impressive, is also completely unavailable in situations for which concealed carry permits are intended. Range marksmanship can translate to real-world scenarios for sighted shooters, but it doesn't seem like it would for blind shooters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I guess it's a sign of my age, but when I read stories like this, I no longer try to carefully reason my way through to a solid judgment on whether it's right or wrong, or sensible or foolish; instead I just view it as a sign of the times we live in and wonder whether PKD, Gibson, Vonnegut, or Pynchon wrote about it first.

</comment><comment><USER11> Funny. Reminds me of the Ray Charles scene in 'Blues Brothers'.</comment>


Ask HN: Help me like modern web development - <AUTHOR> I am trying to figure out if I'm just getting old or if modern web development, and by extension javascript-based mobile development, really is that horrible. I mean am looking at a project now with dozens if not hundreds of config files (mostly .json and .xml) and at bash build scripts with hundreds of lines of code, all super fragile btw., and of course I have to "npm install" things but that literally downloads more than 2GB of dependencies. And all for a very trivial mobile app..
I mean I get it, it's web, it's sandboxed, it's safe, it's run-everywhere, but it also makes me want to quit my current job.
HN: What am I missing? Can you cheer me up?
(Btw. I usually love programming. C, C+=, ObjC, Ruby, ..) <comment><USER2> What will make you hate web development:

* All the unnecessary nonsense: frameworks, template foolishness, tooling, thousands of dependencies, and so forth

* Bad advise. Be critical of all advice, including this advise, especially since you are already an experienced developer. Be extremely critical of any advise that attempts to make the technologies or languages _easier_. Simple is not easy.

What makes JavaScript a fun experience:

* Expressiveness. Functions are first-class citizens which means they can be used and executed anywhere a primitive type can be used. This is a feature, not an accident. Since ES6 the language has lexical block scope, which is great for writing structured code without a bunch of syntax decoration.

* Rapid experimentation. JavaScript compiles fast enough that you won't ever know there is a compile step. This allows you to write code and test it instantly. The biggest limitation in this process is you.

* Appreciate the data structures provided for you. Treat the DOM like a data structure, which it is, by using the standard methods and your code will be more expressive, smaller, and execute several orders of magnitude faster. Being comfortable with how the technologies work allow you to write logic that is more fun to test and more interactive to use.

Here is a fun personal project that I recently worked on. The GUI only took a bit more than 2 weeks to write and fully test: [http://mailmarkup.org/sharefile/demo1.mp4](http://mailmarkup.org/sharefile/demo1.mp4)

<comment><USER3> > Be extremely critical of any advise that attempts to make the technologies > or languages easier. Simple is not easy.

This is great advice. I would have avoided a huge snafu on a recent project if I had listened to my gut instead of adopting an unproven "easier" approach promoted by a FAANG-sponsored open source framework.

<comment><USER4> Could you possibly share more details on this? Would also love to avoid the pitfall is possible. Thank you

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Try ELM, with elm-ui it makes much more sense than the dumpster fire that is "modern" JavaScript development.

Maybe I'm just old like you. But I remember that it was easy to make graphical user interfaces, connected to a database in simple tools such as TK or visual basic ver 2.5

But somehow around 1995 we lost our way...

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm running a .net exe as a server, on "raw" sockets. For the front end, typescript with 0 dependencies that aren't built into browsers. My own "framework" on both ends, written to specifically cover my needs (and do no more). WebSockets maintain connections (I wrote the server implementation from WebSockets specification - no iis or asp.net necessary), and HTML5 Canvas renders content (I wrote the renderer - working on vetting whether or not I can switch to WebGL currently). I may migrate to web assembly through C# to cut javascript out completely if that becomes available without the blazor framework requirement.

It's a lot of fun to work on, it fits my specific (unusual) needs, it's fully predictable, and it's fast as hell.

There is no chance I could have convinced someone to pay me to build this. I'm a solo founder with 20 years of r&d programming and high complexity, high traffic, application architecture experience.

As crazy as this stack may sound to some; the chances that this system will continue to run and be usable without modification in 10 years is pretty high.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think a lot of it is many entering the field today are throwing components together more than optimising their work. You look at the source of pages and see the mishmash of various javascripts, CSSs, and HTML.

Then again I sometimes see a well crafted thin website, usually this is one that's been around a while (which after a few re-boots learned that just getting anyone to re-make it again is not going to fix the problem.) Look around, they are out there.

So what can I say, there is a lot of technical debt in web development lately (i.e. WordPress), and at some point these will come due. The script kiddies will not be the choice to fix the problem, but folks who care about the long term will - and with that there will be a chance to go through the cruft and refactor a more optimised web.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd recommend not trying to enjoy it anymore, and instead focus on the subject of what you're working on. Once you accept that coding arbitrary stuff just isn't inherently that interesting, you can use it as the tool it is and find something more interesting to work on. I've long since given up trying to understand all facets of my current js stack, and pick it up as necessary. I direct my interest to specific hard tasks and maintain a distance from really caring about the tools. I used to give a shit about HTML semantics and other language syntax bs that doesn't matter, and now I focus on the problem because those things barely matter.

</comment><comment><USER9> Unfortunately I can't cheer you up except to say that I sympathize. I enjoy many different facets of programming but trying to understand modern web development makes me want to tear my hair out, it feels like it's almost designed as a "moat" where you have to specifically specialize in the area to understand best practices and why they exist.

I do enjoy JavaScript, and I've found much more happiness sticking to the absolute minimum for personal projects: vanilla JS or sometimes React + JSX without NPM.

</comment><comment><USER10> You're not missing anything. Modern web development is a dumpster fire, and hating it is perfectly reasonable and justified.

</comment><comment><USER11> I am interested in this too. I looking to Elixir & Phoenix framework ...but I am not sure I can find a remote job

</comment><comment><USER12> I got out of it for a lot of the reasons you mention above. It made me not enjoy programming much anymore. I switched to iOS development, I'm not sure why really, it could have been anything I think I just picked it up at the right time and started getting work and really enjoying it. Native mobile development's hype period is long gone, it's a smaller and more mature and the code quality is often far better, cross platform and PWAs are eating up the boring json-viewing app market so whats left is actually pretty fun stuff if you can get it.

</comment><comment><USER13> I was there once as well. Then I've tried Vue.js framework (I am a front-end developer who spent too much time in jQuery-based projects) - I've written a blog post about it as well: [https://lukaszkups.net/notes/thanks-to-vuejs-ive- found-front...](https://lukaszkups.net/notes/thanks-to-vuejs-ive-found-front- end-development-fun-again/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Do you have a need for those systems? Unless you're working on a large project which has specific needs, you will need at most the package manager, framework of choice, test framework, and maybe babel. Just because you can use more things doesn't mean you need them.

If you're doing something internal and tiny with Vue for example, you could just import it like any other script and not use anything else, not even npm.

</comment><comment><USER15> The "modern web" will be a case study for psychiatrists once this bubble is over. (Seems to be a creation of the cloud business marketing machine)

</comment><comment><USER16> These elements, Javascript, DOM, HTML together portray a picture of modern web development. This is one in which developers are trying to handle more complexity and sophistication while improving their productivity and efficiency.

</comment><comment><USER17> If it's a trivial mobile app are you sure you need JavaScript? A traditional server-side web app is accessible on any mobile device and doesn't require much of any JS.

</comment><comment><USER4> As many others below, I can also say I sympathise and often feel the same. As you said, everything feels super fragile and held together with only duct tape.

Why is it so? I believe because everything started switching to web lately so it gained a lot of focus. Being open-source in nature it attracted a lot of new ideas and this is what lead us to the influx of new frameworks we have today.

It is a good thing because innovation->improvement, but also a bad thing because a huge mess and choice paralysis :D. I also feel overwhelmed with all the transpiler and compilation steps, pretty much gave up on understanding everything.

How to hate it less? What @valand suggested below makes sense to me, by focusing less on the technology and its brokeness, but rather on the product, best practices and the end-goal. Also, even if the build system is a mess we can still write clean, high-quality and tested code which can be reused. This is what we did, propagated this culture through the team and that helped me hate things less. We were reading engineering books, having clean code dojos, best practice presentations etc. My takeaway from that was choose your victories when you can have them and enjoy them.

Another approach would be to join the madness by creating your own solution - which is what I also did. I know it is a [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/) case, but it was too fun and interesting so I couldn't help it :)

We basically built a DSL that compiles to the underlying stack of choice. If somebody wants to give it a look it is here: [https://github.com/wasp- lang/wasp](https://github.com/wasp-lang/wasp)

Good luck and hope you find peace with whatever you choose!

</comment><comment><USER18> Felt the same even though I'm just 3 years into professional software development.

I found that the most comfortable place to look at software development is at the architecture level and I suggest you try too.

You'll be able to see the roles of each component in a system. It's magnificent.

Tips:

1\. In the end, you'll only need to know the fundamentals

2\. Docker builder pattern really helps with the build scripts thingy if you're developing a web app, either for the frontend and backend side. It really helps with fragility because fragility is often caused by leftover states and Docker container really helps you with that.

3\. Rewrite instead of reuse parts that are not essentials / easily breaks. Pass-by-value and copy-paste was invented for something ;D

4\. If you're using javascript, consider using TypeScript. It saves you a lot of time debugging for type-related bugs.

5\. For browser/browser-like apps, use declarative language frontend libraries such as React, but don't rely much on other libs that come with React's popularity (such as redux, react-bootstrap, etc). They usually don't help as much and could be a hindrance in the future. All you need to understand are the fundamentals: html, css, and javascript.

6\. For backends, don't feel forced to follow some architecture pattern such as (MVC, MVVM, etc). They often only apply well on certain tech-stacks, but not the other (e.g. expressjs is more popular than the MVC oriented sails.js, actor system is more comfortable in elm than redux due to the former having static typing). It'll help with flexibility later on.

7\. Optimize the most valuable and reused component of the software/system. Over DRYing could lead you into premature optimization/abstraction where it would lead to unnecessary complexity.

8\. If possible, only make assumptions if it is commonly done or it is guaranteed to not change frequently in the future. Otherwise, do not reuse. This is where YAGNI applies.

9\. Don't feel rushed by the overwhelming amount of new frameworks, those things rarely survive. Choose the most flexible, helpful, and do the least (and most starred). Resist hype-based development because new programmers tend to be excited to learn new things and will inadvertently put what's new in the stack because it is cool.

10\. Make it a constant if it can. Give it default if it cannot. If there's no possible default, don't run if not provided, write documentation for it. Do the same when running something. It'll reduce the amount of config in your codebase from now on.

Optimize at the architecture level, because you'll find the moving cogs over there are the most valuable for the business. Do touch the codebase at the lower level to understand what problem resides there.

Any framework you choose doesn't matter much as long as it fulfills the purpose of that very component.

You'll find that some tools and frameworks are better than the other for a particular problem, but usually, the choice of tech stack matters more despite the framework. And the choice of structure, contract, and architecture is the real deal, applicable everywhere.

Example: React feels better than Angular in electron. Nevertheless, electron app done right is almost always slower than native apps done right (not hating electron, I code electron almost every day in 2018). But ultimately you'll need to have a desktop app over publishing game in only-browsers, if you've got to run a game publishing and download management business because requirements and other things.

After a while, you'll realize that the technical decisions that matter the most are which you have to balance between development speed/productivity, performance, and maintainability. To me, it sounds like a pretty decent challenge, and I'm sure it does to you too.

If you're dealing with multi-layered architecture that needs maintaining, press your team or yourself to make each layer as simple as possible, do one thing and do it well, this also applies for frontend apps. Sometimes it takes more line of codes to do less, but it'll be worth it.

These have made my life easier and I hope they help you love programming more too.

(I love programming too, Game programming, Functional Programming, Fullstack, TypeScript, Rust, JavaScript)</comment>