Key Change - <AUTHOR> https://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/2019/10/26113/ <comment><USER2> this has been the case since at least 2012 (russian mob, i think), it was a very efficient payout mechanism because you can buy keys for $2.50 and resell for $2 ish, for around a 80% recovery rate. in tf2 we had other mechanisms, e.g. bills hat = $10, earbuds = $20-25, max head = $150 for storing value, not sure if CSGO has similar things. maybe now people will just use the keys and gamble on boxes and resell the skinned guns.

all of that is to say that you aren't going to stop money launderers by cutting liquidity, you do it by identifying their behaviors and blocking them based on that.

<comment><USER3> Why is this necessary? With crypto it's super easy to use a tumbler or simply convert to an unregulated exchange and back again.

<comment><USER4> Speed, cost come to mind.

<comment><USER5> Also eg bitcoin leaves a globally readable audit trail.

<comment><USER6> Monero doesn't.

<comment><USER5> At the risk of splitting hairs: even Monero leaves a globally readable audit trail. It's just designed to be much harder / impossible to track. But no one needs even a warrant to start analyzing.

Random criminals are well advised not to trust their own judgement about crypto claims, nor their own prowess in operations security.

Keep in mind that eg lots of bitcoin exchanges have been hacked without any flaw in bitcoin itself. It's probably even easier to accidentally leak information, even if the underlying coin you are using doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slightly unrelated:

I used to love playing CS. I tried recently playing again, but after 10 minutes of witnessing all sorts of cheating, I had to stop. Cheaters just killed the game for me.

<comment><USER8> CS:GO just isn't a fun game for me. Maybe there are cheaters, but sometimes its hard to tell. Instead, I prefer framing it in same vein as why Fortnite isn't fun anymore: People are just way too good nowadays. I like to think I'm generally good at video games, but the people who play CS:GO regularly have a laser focus on it. They're better than good, and that skill discrepancy ruins the game for other people. It takes one Insane Tier player on the enemy team to ruin the game for me, or one cheater, and the probability of running into that in an average game is just too high in the top-tier competitive games.

Skill-based Matchmaking doesn't help, flat out. People smurf. I used to think smurfing was this thing that you'd rarely run into, but then I found out that my roommate smurfs on Apex. At that point, another person in the room said "yeah, I've done that". In these games that are insanely cheap or free; its rampant. I legitimately think that smurfing should be a bannable offense, but I'm not aware of any companies that take it seriously (some have said that its against ToS, but do they apply the same detection heuristics to it they do for actual cheaters?)

<comment><USER9> What is the motivation to smurf other than just destroying a bunch of new players? Surely that must get boring after a while?

<comment><USER10> Two options:

A) You can play a game at your actual skill level, which requires your team to communicate effectively and play together. This requires someone to take the lead and coordinate the other players. That just doesn't happen in drop in games. It is incredibly not-fun and frustrating to be playing decently yourself, but be anchored by incompetent team members. You get guys who want to play their own way, or just aren't interested in "taking orders". Plenty of arrogant dudes that won't listen to someone that is a lower rank.

B) Play at a level where you can essentially carry your entire team to victory because your skill level is so much higher than the enemy. You get to fuck up a bunch of newbs and win the game, while your team mates are drooling at spawn.

B is definitely more fun. Especially when the people smurfing can get their fix of A in an organised match with an organised team, outside of match making.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've played CS on and off for awhile, (Since 1.5/6) and I've collected a number of skins in CS:GO, but I've never understood the appeal of buying keys/skins. Same for most other FPS's with loot box mechanics and skins....whats the appeal? What kind of person thinks its impressive that you've swiped your credit card a few more times then they did, for the same game?

<comment><USER12> It's not supposed to be impressive, at least for me.

Sometimes you spend some money on the game simply because you really like it and want to support the developers.

I occasionally buy skins for fighting game characters simply because I enjoy looking at those skins (more than I enjoy the defaults). Heck, some characters are played exclusively because of cool skins (e.g., Blanka Chan).

I see no problem spending money in something that just looks cool if you're getting your entertainment value from the game. It's the same reason why you would buy that cool shirt you saw on the internet: you already have plenty of shirts, you don't actually need one more, but it would be cool anyway.

<comment><USER11> I'm all for people doing whatever they want to do with their money, and I realize different folks have different interests, but I guess I just don't get how this specific model is supposed to work. You pay money for the loot box itself, and then you go back and buy "keys" to open the loot box, and you just keep doing this until you actually get the skin you want?*

 _I realize you can buy skins directly on the steam market, and avoid the whole random factor, but then you 're just paying whatever the market rate is for "coolness" plus the costs of all the other people who did the key/box buying. Plus there is the whole "condition" mechanic, so the skin you get might not even look the way you actually want.

Like I said, people can do whatever they want, but to me its just silly. When you add to that the fact that Valve _actively* stops people from playing on custom (i.e. private) servers with modded skins available and it just seems like shitty anti-consumer behavior.

<comment><USER13> You got really close, but not quite.

Boxes are obtained for free by simply playing the game. You don't really need to buy boxes unless you want some specific one from a past event that is not available through the game anymore, but someone got it back then or if you want boxes at a faster rate than the regular gameplay provides. But you need to buy a key to open it, however.

Also, a given kind of a box contains one of the finite number of items. I think the idea is that if you get a duplicate that you don't want, you can either trade it with a player who doesn't have it for a skin that you want or sell it on the steam marketplace (so you can use that money on a skin that you actually want).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I mean they'll just move their money elsewhere. What's the next big score, though?

<comment><USER15> Steam doesn't really care about the 'elsewhere' so long as they're not liable for it.

At one point the Domino's app was being used to facilitate credit card fraud: [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/nyregion/pizza-orders- rev...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/nyregion/pizza-orders-reveal- credit-card-scheme-and-a-secondhand-market.html)

<comment><USER16> Was that the Adam Pisces scam that was going on? (Can't tell since NYT is paywalled). There's a great non-paywalled ReplyAll podcast about that (episode #141)

<comment><USER17> I think that the 'checking stolen CC numbers' is the most convincing theory about Adam Pisces but ultimately the ReplyAll host concluded that it was an attacker looking for vulnerabilities in the Domino's online ordering system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How are people able to convert their Steam balance into real-world cash? Is it even possible?

<comment><USER19> There are 3rd party sites where you can buy and sell items for cash and crypto. They basically serve as a middleman for expensive trades.

Years ago I bought myself a gaming PC this way, selling all my TF2 and CSGO skins. Yes everyone takes a cut (Valve, trading site, Paypal or whatever payment service you use) but it's still the best way to turn your digital items on Steam into cash

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> People buy and then sell WoW/runescape gold to launder money as well.

</comment><comment><USER21> I had over 3k hours on CS:GO and clocked onto this very fast. When they mean fraudulent, I don't think this is carding; due to the fact steam already had measurements in place (i.e. wait 30 days before removal). What you could do is use paypal and make a charge back and steam didn't respond due to their lack of support, meaning you get free keys...

</comment><comment><USER22> What are CS:GO containers? Are they loot boxes?

<comment><USER23> yes

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If "almost all" the transactions are fraud, are mobsters just trading with each other? Seems odd. Seems you need to have a minority of fraud for the fraud to work.

<comment><USER25> Nah -- the people buying the keys on the Steam Community Market are legit. I imagine it's something like this:

Jack Criminal buys a bunch of keys from Valve with dirty money. Possibly Jack Criminal passes the keys off to Jane Criminal's account to muddy the waters. Jane or Jack Criminal puts the keys up for sale on the marketplace. Harry Gamer happily buys the keys.

Every single transaction in that chain involves a criminal, but Harry isn't a criminal and is getting what he wants. The exact quote is "At this point, nearly all key purchases that end up being traded or sold on the marketplace are believed to be fraud-sourced." It's not that every individual transaction cheats someone, it's that they're happening in order to perpetrate an overall fraud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why do they need to address this? Is it their responsability (or, business) where people get the money to buy the keys? Or what they do with the money from the sales?

<comment><USER27> Did you read the full article? Your question is addressed in the second paragraph — the aftermarket for keys was largely used by fraudsters to cash out.

<comment><USER26> The same applies to gift cards, should they become non-transferrable?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Jeeeeez. A lot of people are going to be screwed over by this. I know a couple people with thousand dollars worth of keys in their accounts. Now worthless. I remember when CSGO trading could be a source of income for some.

edit: I'm dumb. didn't read it through.

<comment><USER29> From the article:

Pre-existing CS:GO container keys are unaffected–those keys can still be sold on the Steam Community Market and traded.

<comment><USER30> If anything they are now far more valuable

<comment><USER31> Not if a chunk of that value was derived from the fraudulent activity that will assumably move elsewhere now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> tedk-42 They gonna come talk to me about money laundering? On the internet? Shieeeet

Reference: [https://youtu.be/6ktvE2vfxSQ?t=69](https://youtu.be/6ktvE2vfxSQ?t=69)</comment>


Colleges turning students' phones into surveillance machines - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/24/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-locations-hundreds-thousands/ <comment><USER2> It seems like it's going to take a long time for people to accept that college has a positive removal cost.</comment>


Show HN: Mosaic – Use multiple iPhones as one big screen - <AUTHOR> http://mosaic.io <comment><USER2> The Junkyard Jumbotron lets you use all sorts of devices, and it's web based. You arrange the screens in the positions you want, and each one displays a QR code. You take a picture of them all together, and the Jumbotron breaks the image up in to the right pieces:

<http://jumbotron.media.mit.edu/>

<comment><USER3> Who uses QR codes?...

<comment><USER4> Those are ARToolKit glyphs, not QR codes (see <http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/>).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like the business model here: Free, simple standalone app that serves as a fun proof-of-concept, supported by a commercial SDK for the inevitable ideas you'll come up with. Smart.

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I'm sentimental, but you should rebrand. I think NCSA Mosaic holds a position of antiquity in a lot of hacker minds, and Mosaic is a special name to me.

Or, maybe we'll eventually run out of English words and start recycling anyway, and I should move on. Tough to say.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice... us hackers must be thinking the same thing lately - let's use multiple IP devices to do X.

We just released...

SpeakerBlast - Turn multiple friends' IP devices into one massive stereo system.

Checking out Mosiac ... i wonder what other uses of multiple IP devices can be put to use to?

<comment><AUTHOR> Congratulations on getting SpeakerBlast to work! We've tried doing that before, but getting the time delay low enough for it to sound good is incredibly challenging.

<comment><USER7> thanks!

I can see an ad agency using Mosiac at conference for Point of Sale demo. 100 person ad agency tells their employees, "Hey bring your Ipads to the conference we're gonna use them to create one huge TV for our video demo."

Cool stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just wondering on your business model. Do you really expect there would be many people with so many iPhones to use this for the purpose of making a big screen? Because those who don't already have, would probably just buy one big screen IMO...

<comment><USER9> Just think of all the concerts, festivals and other large-scale events though that could make a huge mosaic with the crowd instead of using lighters!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I saw this live at PennApps - it's incredible. It truly feels magic.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I honestly didn't believe that it actually worked when I saw the demo. Apparently, they even did it with video!?

<comment><USER11> Indeed - I saw it myself

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is really neat...what would I want to use the SDK for though...?

<comment><AUTHOR> Multi-phone board games. Swipe-based file transfer. Multi-screen movie watching, video streaming, web browsing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> were you aware of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_%28web_browser%29> when choosing the name?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. There are a few other things out there using the name Mosaic, but we went through about a hundred names and really really liked this one, so we stuck with it.

<comment><USER12> if you started an indie rock band, would you call yourself 'the beatles' :)?

<comment><USER13> The Beatles are still listened to. This browser is no longer used. I don't see the parallel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's a pity they need such new devices, I've got a box full of old iPhones and iPods that this could have been used on.

<comment><AUTHOR> The limit in the system is that we don't have enough devs to do everything we want to do right now, but we're working on it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would pay a bunch of money for an app that lets me drag windows from my MBA to my iPad.

<comment><USER16> <http://avatron.com/apps/air-display>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This looks similar to the free Blinkendroid app for Android: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.cbase.blin...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.cbase.blinkendroid)

</comment><comment><USER18> Here's another relevant project by Seb Lee-Delisle:

[http://seb.ly/2011/09/pixelphones-a-huge-display-made- with-s...](http://seb.ly/2011/09/pixelphones-a-huge-display-made-with-smart- phones/)

<comment><USER19> very clever implementation with the flashes! We'd love to see Mosaic used at such a large scale

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> most expensive screen ever.

</comment><comment><USER21> Very neat art experiment and interface implementation. I love it. I can see a lot of fun social table top games using this.

<comment><USER22> Thanks! For sure drop us a line and we can get you building on it! firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Still using MongoDB on the backend?

<comment><AUTHOR> Among other things, yes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Video doesn't demonstrate, but does it work with angled screens?

</comment><comment><USER25> this seems fun! and not to be a downer, but can someone give me some examples on how this would be used in the everyday setting?

</comment><comment><USER26> If only I have multiple devices laying around.

</comment><comment><USER27> Props for the very clever position detection!

</comment><comment><USER28> Just downloaded it, loving it so far!

</comment><comment><USER29> Do photos pan and zoom in sync?</comment>


How healthcare regulations affect even those who have good insurance plans - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/business/adam-davidson/what-the-g-o-p-doesnt-get-about-who-pays-for-health-care <comment> norea-armozel I think this article does touch on something that's always bothered me regarding healthcare. Specifically on the problem that insurance is tied to healthcare. To me insurance is about covering risks that are liable to occur no matter how much one may minimize them. In contrast, healthcare is about routine and extraordinary care of human beings. It's not something I believe follows properly with insurance business models which is why often they cut corners to make it profitable. Otherwise, I suspect many health insurance companies today would be bankrupt if they didn't attempt their corner cutting. Rather than leaving healthcare to insurance business models we need to finally admit that maybe it's no different than roads or other infrastructure and have it handled by the US federal government for better or worse.

</comment><comment><USER2> I pay $800 for rent and once my monthly insurance cost got to $800 a month I canceled it and claimed "religious exemption" on my taxes.

Including deductibles, I would have paid over $12000 a year. Plus my wife used a birth center instead of a regular OB for delivery. That wasn't covered by insurance either, so my potential max per year on "healthcare" was $16,000.

That basically means that unless I get cancer, it is cheaper to forgo insurance, which is what I did. Now I'm actually saving money and getting ready to finally build/buy a house.

Screw healthcare.

<comment><USER3> And then when you do get cancer or some other expensive disease, the rest of us get to pay for your treatment.

Costs need to come down, but opting out of the system because you're currently healthy isn't good.

<comment><USER4>
      And then when you do get cancer or some other expensive disease, the rest of us get to pay for your treatment.

Yes, that's the exact strategy that Obamacare rewards.

The Democrats _could_ have limited "preexisting condition" protections to those who obtained coverage in the first year for as long as they retained coverage (in any form, including MedicAid). They chose not to.

<comment><USER3> The mandate is what prevents this. The only failing is that the penalty was too small.

<comment><USER5> Really, there should be a default (probably public, but perhaps just the lowest-cost bronze plan you could buy off the exchange) option, for which you pay the premium, rather than a penalty.

If you want coverage to be mandatory, make it _really_ mandatory.

<comment><USER3> That seems like a good solution. Or, of course, stop pretending it's market- based and start taxing people for it instead. Unfortunately, the ACA had to be watered down a lot just to get the more conservative Democrats to accept it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any "bootcamps" or courses for intermediate/advanced people? - <AUTHOR> Yesterday, I saw a HN job ad for One Month - a company that offers a 30-day "bootcamp". I looked at their courses[1] and noticed they're all aimed at beginners.<p>I'm past the stage where I need a course on Python syntax or HTML. Like many of you, I could teach myself these things. However, I would definitely pay $300 (the cost of the courses mentioned) for good hands-on intermediate or advanced coursework in both software engineering and computer science. Unfortunately I can't come up with any ideas at the moment, sorry :-)<p>[1] https://onemonth.com/#premium-course-schedule <comment><USER3> Hi! I'm one of the instructors at Bradfield: [https://bradfieldcs.com](https://bradfieldcs.com) . We teach computer science to strong programmers, typically those who were self taught, attended bootcamps or weren't quite satisfied with their conventional CS experience.

We teach in small classes, strictly in person in SF. I know this sucks for folk (like OP) who are outside SF, but honestly you can't teach this stuff to a high enough standard remotely. We do get plenty of interstate and international students who visit for a course or two.

We also maintain a self-teaching guide [https://teachyourselfcs.com](https://teachyourselfcs.com) for those who don't need the full classroom experience.

Happy to answer any questions in person: firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER4> I did [https://bradfieldcs.com](https://bradfieldcs.com) after working as a IC for awhile and found it hugely valuable. I didn't have a CS undergrad and worked in Node, so skipped the majority the deeper fundamental studies around databases, networking, and computer architecture since I was abstracted from them in day-to-day work (or at least thought I was...:)).

I took a 10wk leave from work to go full-time through Bradfield and would recommend it to anyone that's spent time working as an engineer and is interested in leveling up generally or refining a specific skill set.

The stuff I learned there has ended up showing up almost daily for me at work and I've since been promoted to technical lead.

<comment><USER5> >"I took a 10wk leave from work to go full-time through Bradfield and would recommend it to anyone that's spent time working as an engineer and is interested in leveling up generally or refining a specific skill set."

Can you elaborate on the "full-time" part. In looking at the site it looks like the independent course modules are each 4 weeks with two 3 hour sessions a week for $1800 each. Were you somehow able to take multiple modules per week for each of the 10 weeks? If so how many did you do? Thanks,

<comment><USER4> Yeah i did it last November when the courses were structured to be done as a full-time program. They've restructured to make it compatible with having a full-time job simultaneously. I think they've still had students take all courses concurrently though, even with the new model. Worth sending @oz a note!

<comment><USER5> Was there any type of discount for taking multiple classes? I looked on the site and didn't see any mention but at $1800 each module it sounds very pricey to take them simultaneously.

<comment><USER4> The price structure was slightly different then since he was all bought as one package, but still about the same cost overall. It is pricey, but a great ROI from both a base salary standpoint (you can pretty reasonably ask for a raise once you're back) and a deep gratification of being more skilled in your craft than you were 3months ago :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Recurse Center: [https://www.recurse.com/](https://www.recurse.com/). Anecdotally, not so easy to get in.

<comment><USER7> OP here. I'm an alum! Fall 1 2016. It's not quite the same thing - RC is self- directed. You do what you want instead of following a course or teacher.

<comment><USER8> Summer '13 saying hi from across the batches. Self-directed, but plenty of experienced folks to rub off on you, in my experience. The diversity of experience at RC was incredible when I was there. Definitely fantasize about going back for another batch sometimes -- I know so much more now and I'd get so much out of doing it a second time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [Disclaimer: Shameless self-promotion]

We run something called Interview Kickstart: [http://Interviewkickstart.com](http://Interviewkickstart.com) .

It's a part-time bootcamp focused on preparing for technical interviews at (so-called) top-tier places i.e. places which interview heavily in DS/Algos and Large Scale Design for their core engineering roles, and also make staggeringly high offers. Think G/F/A/Netflix/Amazon/MS etc.

It is intense and also taught by Sr. Engineers working in core systems at these places. There is a rigorous academic take to it, with homework, tests, mock interviews etc.

A little known fact, is that many people come to the program with no intent to look for a job. They are already at good places, paid well, and just want to get better as an engineer, which I think is what you're looking for.

Many have figured out, that the structure and the forcing function challenges them to be better. Most of your peers will have backgrounds in CS/CS, and you'll also see people coming FROM some of the same companies others are aspiring to go to (e.g. Amazon, Microsoft etC).

We start an online cohort every month, where people join from all over US and Canada (and sometimes even other countries).

Feel free to check it out.

<comment><USER10> Just a suggestion for possible improvements... Looking at the sight I really just wanted two questions answered. How much time? How much money?

The first took a while to find: _Two 4 to 6-hour sessions per week, for 8 weeks. 200+ hours of work._

The second looks sketchy: _Tuition: Not cheap_

<comment><USER9> Thanks! Will consider. With that comment on pricing, we just want to deter people who think this can be done cheaply.

<comment><USER11> Isn't it possible that someone considers whatever your price is to be 'cheap'? Why not just list the price, and deter whoever's deterred?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Advanced folks will have very specific needs that are hard to meet for any course with a pre-determined curriculum.

Perhaps a better approach would be to hire an expert from a consultancy, negotiate a detailed custom curriculum together and go from there? It would certainly be expensive but perhaps within reach for a small group or for heavily motivated individuals?

<comment><USER13> I have had the same thought about college-courses. Why have 100+ people paying 2k+ for a course being taught by a grad student.

If you could cut out the middlemen (schools), we could probably get better "professors" (i.e. one of the best people in the field - im sure people in industry would love to pick up an extra 10-20k to teach 1 class a year) for cheaper and in smaller class room settings.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.........Just gotta figure out how to do the signaling properly so businesses will look at the classes you took and think 'I want to hire that person.'

<comment><USER14> That's what you get for going to a research school: grad students teaching classes. I went to a non research school (a CSU) back in the early 2000s, and all classes were taught by real professors, but it isn't as prestigious as a Stanford or Berkeley. Beyond that, the teachers for night classes were all from industry. I took a graphics class taught by someone who previously worked on OpenGL at SGI, a database class taught by someone who was at the time working on DB2 at IBM, and a j2ee class taught by someone who at the time was working at Sun Microsystems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How about moocs? Am algorithms class will level you up for sure.

[https://www.coursera.org/specializations/algorithms](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/algorithms) comes to mind.

</comment><comment><USER16> Lambda Academy of Computer Science - a six month, full-time deep dive into software engineering and computer science. Closer to a CS degree than a one- month bootcamp. You need to know basic programming before enrolling.

It's free up-front and takes a percentage of income after you get a job, or you can pay up-front.

[https://lambdaschool.com/computer-science](https://lambdaschool.com/computer- science)

(I'm a co-founder, happy to answer any questions)

<comment><USER17> I'm a currently-employed web developer (bootcamp grad) and I'd love to see a part-time (nights and/or weekends), cash up front offering to deepen my CS knowledge. Just throwing that out there in case part-time something you guys have thought about. I'm sure I'm not the only bootcamp grad that could use an in-depth CS program.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, we think about it a lot. We want to be very careful about scaling into something like that because the part-time dynamic is very different than full- time, and the most important thing to us is our student experience.

It would also be long, if we used the current curriculum. Like... a year long. We're not sure if that's too much of a commitment for most folks, so we're asking.

<comment><USER18> I'm in a similar boat to the person above (bootcamp grad working as software developer). I have been trying to do a comp-sci degree but that cost, degree requirements (classes unrelated to my major) and actually going to school after work is a major pain. I would definitely pay for a year long (or more) part time CS course if it was intense and online. I'm doing that already, but it would save me a lot of time/money of not having to actually commute to school.

<comment><USER16> Cool. Mind if I email you to ask a few questions?

<comment><USER18> that sounds great!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Big Nerd's Ranch ([https://www.bignerdranch.com/](https://www.bignerdranch.com/)) especialy for mobile app development. Their bootcamp is called "retreat", and they also work as developers and publish books.

<comment><USER20> disclaimer: I am an instructor for Big Nerd Ranch, teaching our various iOS courses. That said, I came to BNR after being blown away by the quality of their Mac programming book, years ago. I believe deeply in what we do.

tl;dr: Big Nerd Ranch offers short retreats for intermediate and advanced instructors. They are not cheap but they are thorough and powerful, as long as you're willing to put in the work.

Details: We have short (typically 5 day), intensive courses. The instructor leads the class through a series of lectures and intense labs, building out real applications throughout the week. The instructor works with each student to help them maximize what they can learn and achieve during the week.

There is no magic for scaling across different ability levels, but there are ways to do this better or worse. Our courses target intermediate to advanced level learners. We intentionally build our chapters, demonstrations, and lectures to be very dense with material. For the advanced students, they're able to glean API gotchas and sharp corners, as well as real world tips (pretty much all our instructors are also active consulting developers), and lots of looks at different working practices. Seeing another developer work is a great way to learn new techniques.

For intermediate or closer to beginner students, they won't that level of detail as much, as they're still absorbing all the new APIs, design patterns, and details necessary to just get apps building and shipping.

Our courses allow you to get out what you put in. In other words, there's not any particular magic to leveling up. You have to put in the hard work yourself. But I believe our retreat-style approach - where we remove or take care of all possible distractions, and provide expert aid at your call - <USER2> you the best chance to maximize how much you can learn in a week. Food and lodging is included. You'll spend the week learning, programming, and going for hikes every day. It's sort of my ideal world. :D

We don't call them bootcamps half-heartedly. You'll be exhausted by Friday. But if we've done our job right, you'll feel like you've just shortcut several months of work in leveling up as a developer.

<comment><USER5> >"That said, I came to BNR after being blown away by the quality of their Mac programming book, years ago. I believe deeply in what we do"

So can the same level proficiency be gained by either the book or the retreat? Is there parity there then?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have done CodePath twice and highly recommend for iOS and android bootcamps. [https://codepath.com/](https://codepath.com/)

<comment><USER5> The site states:

>"Students must pass a rigorous selection process to be admitted to any of our programs."

Would you be able to share what that selection process entails exactly?

<comment><USER22> From my experience, selection process was submitting your resume, going through a short phone screen (15-20 minutes, mostly just chatting about why you're interested and your background) and completing a intro project (it took me around 8-10 hours)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I highly recommend Frontend Masters: [https://frontendmasters.com/courses/](https://frontendmasters.com/courses/).

Lots of different courses taught by the likes of Douglas Crockford, Kyle Simpson, Ryan Chenkie, and Kent C Dodds. It's not just front end stuff--they cover data structures and algorithms, building REST apis, Electron and React Native, testing and debugging, functional programming, prototyping, and even SEO.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have been working on this idea for a little bit. Started putting together a list of intermediate projects for people that finished a bootcamp. It is still in its infancy. I ran a programming bootcamp for a year and a half and think there is a need for this, but still figuring out the right way.

[https://github.com/Jbot29/intermediate-programming- projects](https://github.com/Jbot29/intermediate-programming-projects)

</comment><comment><USER25> This is heavy ruby/rails focused but has other content as well. Tagline is "Get the junior out of your title"

[https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/](https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/)

<comment><USER26> I've been advocating Upcase to Junior Rails devs for a couple years now. Has a lot of great content around improving your testing skills, refactoring, and best practices for object oriented design.

although most of the content is ruby/rails based, the concepts are widely applicable to improving your skills as a software engineer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Profuse apologies in that this is not a so-called boot camp type avenue, but if you're really interested in some computer science concepts, UMass Dartmouth offers a computer science certificate.

[http://www.umassd.edu/extension/programs/computerscienceonli...](http://www.umassd.edu/extension/programs/computerscienceonlinecertificate/)

<comment><USER27> And.. what I forgot to add was that you really don't need to take the certificate. Look at a few of the 'foundation' courses they offer online for people without a CS undergrad, most notably:

CIS 322 Data Structures and Fundamental Algorithms CIS 323 Fundamentals of Computer Systems

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm working with Hyperion Development[0] which has a wide variety of online bootcamps with 1:1 mentor support. We have courses targeting beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Currently we are just about to deploy a big update but have a look and you might find what you are looking for.

[0] [https://hyperiondev.com](https://hyperiondev.com)

<comment><USER5> Asking people for all of their contact details in order to simply read course descriptions seems pretty lame. I also can't imagine that's doing the business any favors.

<comment><USER28> I'll submit this as feedback to our team :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you're in SF: [https://bradfieldcs.com/](https://bradfieldcs.com/)

<comment><USER30> has anyone had experience with this? I'd love to get some actual reviews of this place?

<comment><USER3> Hi! I'm one of the instructors, if you ping me at email@example.com I can connect you with past students or answer any questions you have :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Udacity Nanodegrees are geared toward "post-beginners looking to specialize" (my words, not theirs).

[https://www.udacity.com/nanodegree](https://www.udacity.com/nanodegree)

For example, the Android nanodegree assumes you're already familiar with Java and OOP, but not with Android.

The "Full Stack Web Developer Nanodegree" suggests you have "Beginner-level experience in Python." (direct quote) [https://www.udacity.com/course/full- stack-web-developer-nano...](https://www.udacity.com/course/full-stack-web- developer-nanodegree--nd004)

These courses are not cheap, they take a lot of time, but if you have the time and money, they are absolutely worth it IMO.

<comment><USER32> If you are at intermediate level, you can always just follow video lectures/assignments for free and try to improve on your own. That's what i do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm the founder of Dataquest ([https://www.dataquest.io](https://www.dataquest.io)) -- we teach data science online from the basics, and have a comprehensive curriculum that includes machine learning, spark, and data visualization. You can skip the Python basics and start with more intermediate/advanced material (and build your own projects!).

We also have a data engineering path that teaches more CS fundamentals, and may be a good fit (this is still being developed, but has a few courses).

</comment><comment><USER34> Shameless self-promotion:

If you are interested in front-end and/or node.js courses (javascript, react, webpack, all that kind of stuff) - I've been doing a free open source course called "Building products with javascript" [1] that is aimed at intermediate/advanced developers who want to learn javascript more in-depth.

[1] [https://github.com/yamalight/building-products-with- js](https://github.com/yamalight/building-products-with-js)

</comment><comment><USER35> Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't most bootcamps geared toward preparing people for jobs? I feel like in this current market having to attend a bootcamp as a experienced developer would send off negative signals about one's ability to stay up on current tech/trends.

</comment><comment><USER36> Highly recommend 'Design of Computer Programs' on Udacity. Its a 300 level class taught by Peter Norvig, and while the quizzes and homework's aren't terribly challenging, its a great way to learn how to break down problems for an intermediate developer.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've been teaching classes on machine learning for engineers (shameless self promotion: [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/technical-introduction-to-ai- ma...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/technical-introduction-to-ai-machine- learning-deep-learning-tickets-34671486349))

One of the coolest parts of teaching these classes is how awesome the people are that show up. The engineers that want to learn new things mid career are exactly the kind of people I want to work with and hang out with. I think there's a real opportunity for more classes like this.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've actually been thinking about starting a Sales bootcamp aimed at teaching technical founders, or people with no background in sales.

Not sure if there would be any interest though.

<comment><USER39> That would be VERY USEFUL. Speaking as a tech founder who had to learn and appreciate sales after launch.

<comment><USER38> Mind if I email you with some more questions?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is not exactly what you're looking for, but it's somewhat similar and may be of interest to some readers of this thread.

The Google Brain team accepts residents:

[https://research.google.com/teams/brain/residency/](https://research.google.com/teams/brain/residency/)

It's similar to a one-year research-focused advanced degree in machine learning (with the focus being, of course, entirely on deep learning).

</comment><comment><USER41> Not a bootcamp, but egghead.io is a fantastic resource, and udemy can be an awesome resource for specific classes (but there is a lot of junk to wade through)

</comment><comment><USER42> MIT's OpenCourseWare [1] has a lot of great material that's as rigorous and in-depth as anywhere you'll ever find. I've been using it to supplement and extend areas where my alma mater's curriculum has fallen a bit short, or where I just want to focus.

[1] [https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm](https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER43> Want to learn SQL Server from the best? Check out SQL Skills: [https://www.sqlskills.com/sql-server-training/immersion- even...](https://www.sqlskills.com/sql-server-training/immersion-events- schedule/) They are the best and most comprehensive. Not associated with them, but a long time, satisfied customer.

</comment><comment><USER44> Although, part of the program is an intro to python development (which you can easily skip) [https://www.dataquest.io/](https://www.dataquest.io/) is a set of guided lessons that teach you data analysis/science/engineering .

</comment><comment><USER45> I am building out an advanced-beginner course at [http://testdriven.io/](http://testdriven.io/). It details how to set up a set of microservices with Flask and Docker. Let me know your thoughts. Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm surprised that Coursera and Udacity don't figure higher in the responses. There are a tonne of advanced algorithms, machine learning, data science, and domain specific stuff on there like computational biology and computational neuroscience.

</comment><comment><USER47> For data science: [http://insightdatascience.com/](http://insightdatascience.com/) only accepts those who have completed a PhD

<comment><USER48> That has to be one of the weirdest things I've ever heard in my life. You don't need a PhD to do data science. Hell, most companies would be taking a huge step forward if they got somebody who knows how to do linear regression.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> There's a great option here in SF called BradfieldCS.

</comment><comment><USER50> > I'm past the stage where I need a course on Python syntax or HTML.

It's hard to guess what stage you are at.

What have you built so far in Python?

</comment><comment><USER51> this is more of an AI bent to it but I have heard good things about the following in NY that comes with a job placement:

[http://ivydatascience.com/](http://ivydatascience.com/)

</comment><comment><USER52> At this level you should probably just take a Masters. I did mine part time over 2 years while working full time. Many if not most good colleges will offer some sort of programme.

</comment><comment><USER53> Does anyone have experience with [https://www.udemy.com/intermediate-advanced- java-programming...](https://www.udemy.com/intermediate-advanced-java- programming/)? I've been eyeballing it for a while, $10 is cheap but I'm afraid that's also indicative of the quality.</comment>


MI5, MI6, and GCHQ chiefs public hearing live on the BBC - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_news24/watchlive

<comment><USER2> This is a better live stream, with running text commentary: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24848186](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- politics-24848186)

<comment><USER3> This may also work for those "outside the UK".

(It works for me whilst the original link doesn't as the BBC thinks my IP is in .ch despite me being less than a mile from the Houses of Parliament.)

<comment><USER4> I'm in Germany currently and it works fine for me, thanks a lot for sharing!

<comment><USER2> Sweet, no problem

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is the point of this? Does anybody honestly think they will be honest? They will admit to a few little "bad" things but justify it all for the Greater Good™. They will talk about "internal policy review" and "more transparency with the public/government". They will apologise for "over stepping". They, obviously, won't admit to anything that really matters. They will be given a stern telling off then everybody will go home and nothing will have changed.

Sigh.

<comment><USER6> I agree, but...

Things like this matter in the long run. Remember how, before the war in Iraq, over 1 million people marched in London against the war? We still went to war, but Tony Blair never recovered from it, and when the issue of Syria came up recently, MPs opposed intervention - that is the legacy of the opposition to the war in Iraq.

In Britian at least, policy trends seem to be set over periods of 10-15 years. (The battle with the miners is another example). Things rarely get sort out in one big showdown. When it comes to government surveillance and privacy, the important thing is that we keep the story going, that we keep the pressure on, that we keep explaining to people why this is an issue and keep building the argument. And making intelligence chiefs squirm is all part of that.

<comment><USER5> I agree with your point buy disagree regarding Iraq and Syria. Syria was about getting involved in an internal conflict whereas Iraq was about WMDs (albeit lies). Quite different IMHO.

<comment><USER6> Yes, Iraq and Syria were very different situations. If anything Syria is the one we should have got involved in. I just raised it to highlight how a non- intervention policy is now firmly establish following years of pressure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Everytime I see anything about MI5 all I can think about is that article from Adam Curtis ( [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER) ). It's at the time reassuring (the agency is filled with people too incompetent to do any of the major conspiracies we think they're up to), but also bothering (their worldview is dangerous and is basically fearmongering).

Listening to this, I feel like the difference between storage and actually looking at data is an important one. The view of the quasi-totality here seem to think it's the same, but I think the distinction is important. Especially when being looked at through search programs (and not human eyes), we run into the whole "Chinese room" problem: the program doesn't understand what it's looking at, so is it really "breaching" privacy? And what is the difference between your e-mails being in a locked box at an ISP or a locked box with the NSA if the key is in the hand of a judge anyways?

Then again I'm more of the sort to think that if a judge agrees, then access to the info should be swift. Some people disagree with that.

<comment><USER8> Without wanting to be too facetious "Don't worry, we may be violating your privacy, but we're rubbish at it." isn't a particularly compelling defence.

The problem with the locked box analogy is that my ISP isn't going to potentially scrutinise my data and decide that because I read stuff from all sorts of sources - including the blogs of subversives, activists, hackers, and political outliers (along with the thousands of other things I read online) that I should be considered a threat to a society I am part of, and could be considered a 'baddie', espescially given the UK's stupidly broad definitions of terrorism.

Perhaps that is a slippery slope argument, but it's a valid one IMO especially given that the reason for excusing it is one that not many of us put much credit in (the omnipresent threat of terror and violence from fanatical foes). I'd sooner we just didn't go around making enemies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Oh dear.

The fact that certain communication methods are not secure or are hard to secure has been know to people in IT for some time. The Snowden revelations would've only helped those with no idea about IT. Are these people now going to be immediately tech-savy enough not to choose another insecure communication method? Or will they just give up?

Blaming the Snowden leaks for informing all the criminals about how not to get caught is like blaming Google for enforcing HTTPS.

</comment><comment><USER10> There's a 2 minute delay on the feed in case they want to [redacted]

<comment><USER11> A capability they just appear to have exercised. As one of the agency heads went into details on their Syria strategy, the audio suddenly fell out for ~20 seconds. Strictly speaking, I can't rule out network issues as the cause, but video was still 100% smooth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The needle in the haystack analogy, in that they are only looking at data through complex queries to find the needles, and not looking at data collected from the public directly, only works if they get no false positives.

Are they expecting us to believe they have a perfect system? If so, why collect all the data in the first place and run their queries in real time?

The board questioning doesn't have the technical background to ask any challenging questions.

</comment><comment><USER12> For people that are interested, there was a good [podcast] interview with the head of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal - "a judicial body, independent of the government, which considers complaints brought against the intelligence services, the police, military and local authorities."

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03gbs6n](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03gbs6n)

</comment><comment><USER13> _' so we have to do detective work' \- Iain Lobban_

uuum... what did he think his job was?

</comment><comment> grey-area Although this is a bit of a whitewash, it's good to see these issues discussed, and spies questioned to some extent, and forced to justify their activities in public for the first time.

 _Asked about complicity in torture. Sir John of MI6: "I don't accept the allegations that have been made against us"_

There have been several court cases about M16 involvement in torture, including that of Abdel Hakim Belhaj, which exposes our cynical backing for terrorists when it suits our agenda after sending them to be tortured just a few years before.

 _GCHQ denies listening into telephone calls or reading emails of the majority. "That would not be proportionate, that would not be legal, and we would not do it."_

Like Obama, they're denying something they haven't been accused of. Tempora is _storing_ and _sharing with the NSA_ as much data as they can manage, even though it's not legal or proportionate. This non-denial is very misleading if you don't know that background. They don't need to read emails or listen to phone calls for this to be incredibly dangerous - it's enough that everything is recorded and stored for potential future or current use by any partners with access.

 _34 terrorist plots have been thwarted in the UK since the 7 /7 London bombings. One or two were major plots aimed at mass casualties._

What's most interesting is the focus on terrorism as a way to deflect criticism - they've learned that talking about terror switches off the brain quite effectively and stops people doing a risk benefit analysis. This is incredibly useful, as along with having broad laws passed which restrict rights as part of the war on terror, they can tar anyone with that brush, and immediately turn the public against them. According to Kovats QC for the gov. in the Miranda case, we have a new definition of terrorism: _" simply having this data is terrorism"_.

Terrorism is not a great threat to either the US or the UK - a tiny number of people have been killed by it, and yet it is painted as an existential threat which must be fought at all costs. Many of their activities have nothing to do with terrorism, but we've heard nothing about the Belgacom hack ( _Operation Socialist_ ), tapping cables crossing the Atlantic, subverting encryption protocols, tapping internal traffic at providers like Google for the NSA, tapping G20 attendees, Mastering the Internet™ with Tempora, or tapping Merkel's phone. Very little of that is useful for combatting terrorism (most terrorism is not organised on the internet but face to face, terrorists like Bin Laden are not stupid), but it's very useful for economic and political espionage.

That none of that has been mentioned, let alone questioned, betrays just how little proper supervision this committee provides.

<comment><USER14> > Terrorism is not a great threat to either the US or the UK - a tiny number > of people have been killed by it, and yet it is painted as an existential > threat which must be fought at all costs

"Americans Are as Likely to Be Killed by Their Own Furniture as by Terrorism"

[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/ame...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/americans- are-as-likely-to-be-killed-by-their-own-furniture-as-by-terrorism/258156/)

<comment><USER7> Are we going to go into this numbers game again?

Few people were killed in the Boston Marathon bombings. But many were maimed , and it will remain traumatic for them for the rest of their lives. But , more importantly, this bomb hit a group of people whose only reason for being hit/killed was that they were in the same geographic area as this bomb. There was no reason for this tragedy.

In drunk driving, you can place the cause relatively easily. Furniture falls over because a shelf was badly built. You can place the cause. Most acts of terrorism happen due to extremely nebulous and complicated reasons, so the people who die in events such as 9/11 and Boston died "for no reason".

Talk to some Japanese people about the March 11th Tsunami. the feelings about that event are very similar to those Americans have about 9/11, as a turning point in society and something where many innocent people died for no good reason. Terrorist attacks are basically on the same level as huge natural disasters, emotionally.

Terrorist attacks are extremely traumatising for people just like getting an arm cut off is traumatizing a lot more than being slowly bruised over and over on the arm. It's a huge shock event that feels unavoidable, and people don't want to experience it ever again (because we're not all robots who count lives like we're accountants). It's a major event and trying to avoid it is entirely reasonable.

<comment><USER15> How are "In drunk driving, you can place the cause relatively easily." and "only reason for being hit/killed was that they were in the same geographic area as this bomb. There was no reason for this tragedy." incompatible in any way?

You can also place the cause of the bombing extremely easily - the person with the bomb. In drunk driving accident, people get hit/killed just because they were in the same geographic area as the drunk driver. They will also get sometimes extremely traumatised (enough to avoid any road travel).

Both cases are completely out of control for the affected people. What's the big difference?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like how they talk about how much "balance" they try to maintain, so they don't become another "North Korea" or something like that, or how they talk about "oppressive regimes", yet they still stumble on explaining why they accused David Miranda of terrorism.

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131106/10352625149/uk- gov...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131106/10352625149/uk-govt-david- miranda-might-be-terrorist-because-journalism-can-be-terrorism-also-we-had-no- idea-he-was-journalist.shtml)

They also use the excuse that Snowden leaks could "help paedophiles (it always seems lead to this one, doesn't it?):

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131107/00222225158/uk- gov...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131107/00222225158/uk-govt-losing- plot-now-claiming-snowden-leaks-could-help-pedophiles.shtml)

Let's not forget that whatever they say about the terrorists learning from these leaks, the leaks wouldn't have happened if they didn't spy on _everyone_. They could've just spied on the people they actually suspected of terrorism.

</comment><comment><USER17> German "Spiegel" has also a live stream: [http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/live-aus-dem- unterhaus...](http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/live-aus-dem-unterhaus- britische-geheimdienstchefs-im-kreuzverhoer-a-932350.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> I couldn't be more repulsed by these people. They simply justify their crimes against humanity with the call "protection! security!".

<comment><USER19> "Alex from Ipswich emails: I really don't understand this furore over industrial surveillance. If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, simple."

I don't want to live on this planet any more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Most of the questions they aren't even answering... this is pointless and stupid.

</comment><comment><USER21> The link is available to play in the UK only.

</comment><comment><USER22> Note: Only viewable if you live in the UK

<comment><USER16> Is there some browser extension to be able to watch it?

<comment><USER23> Media Hint is an excellent extension, that should allow this (if not through that link, directly through the BBC's iPlayer)

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Excellent, some very sensible/esteemed members on the ISC.

<comment><USER11> Yet, as mentioned above, not technically insightful enough to pose some important challenging questions.

<comment><USER3> True, but it's easy to email the people involved to suggest lines of questioning for future public (and private) sessions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> edit: Deleted due to the overwhelming amount of Guardian readers/conspiracy nuts in the comments section, who aren't able to listen to reasoned debate.

<comment><USER25> The type of person that supports these sorts of activities is the sort of person I would also expect to delete their message instead of standing their ground regardless of adversarial opinions.

<comment><USER26> Agreed, though I don't want to see people merely _stand their ground_ , I want to see them _engage with_ adversarial opinions. I want both of us to have the possibility of learning where we got it wrong. Leaving in a huff is even worse than standing your ground.

The idea that this makes one "Guardian readers/conspiracy nuts" is laughable.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How are you tracking bugs? - <AUTHOR> Recently I've found myself becoming increasingly frustrated with the tools we use at work to track bugs in the software we develop.
To give context these are often small things such as "make primary button the correct shade of blue" but typically occur in high volume throughout the day. So far we've tried using Notion, Github Projects, JIRA and Clubhouse to track these but most of the time these systems feel clunky and too heavy to track the large number of mostly ephemeral  issues and the rapid cycle that fixes them.
In terms of feature set I would say we are quite light on requirements - mostly just the ability to quickly log bugs, triage them, merge duplicates and mark them as fixed.
Do you have any suggestions for a system that could work well? Perhaps you are using one of the system mentioned above and have configured it better than I was able to?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Have you looked at Trello? I think it's good for small, rapid-fire issues. Each card on a Trello board can be "flipped over" to add substantially more detail, too - so it scales nicely to larger tasks that need to traverse the same pipeline.

My team uses Jira, but I'd consider migrating to Trello if our workload looked like what you're describing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've used Trello a couple years ago for some personal planning but hadn't thought to try it. I'll give it a spin and see how it feels.

My gut feeling is that the Kanban / Board model might not be a good fit here because the state is really a binary (not-fixed/fixed) and most kanban systems struggle to represent that cleanly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's how we intended the system to work at one of those big ones-

We were using the sky blue devops system that the company developed to track development tickets.

Bugs were triaged as soon as they arrived, by email or otherwise, and they were either fixed asap or turned to a development ticket with the needed priority.

If you think about it there is no real reason to track bugs as such, hopefully your management won't care about bug statistics.

The above system works well enough if it's a small enough product and not too many bugs, if you have to track bugs anyway you can use your development tickets tagged with "bug"

</comment><comment><USER4> We use jira and bitbucket for that. I'm happy with it.</comment>


Using Chakra for Scripting Applications Across Windows 10 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/05/18/using-chakra-for-scripting-applications-across-windows-10/

<comment><USER2> If you want to use the API the documentation is not particularly helpful on how to put all the pieces together (though it's not too hard to figure out with some guessing).

I found this sample program helpful: [https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/JavaScript-Runtime- Hosting-d...](https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/JavaScript-Runtime- Hosting-d3a13880/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I used the Active Scripting interfaces in a Windows product then discovered my mistake a year later when MS refused to release 64-bit versions of the .lib files. I won't make that mistake again, no thanks Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER4> Source/license? ATM just slightly interested, since v8 is pretty much state- of-the-art and can be used commercially + open source.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't really get what the advantage of having the EventLoop running on a Threadpool instead of of a single thread is? At first it sounds like disadvantage because of more context switches.

It might be helpful if you really want to run a lot of Javascript EventLoops - but that's not the node.js programming model.

<comment><USER6> You might get more context switches, but that's preferable to having multiple cores that are left unused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow. Small thread...lots of anger and distrust.

</comment><comment><USER7> Node.js on Chakra sounds pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER8> if it wasn't enough to have google pushing it's weight around to drive new JS and html specs, now microsoft resurrects from the grave with out-of- IE6-history pearls such as:

"Legacy JSRT APIs ... Edge JSRT APIs"

when IE11 rolls out, lots of devs (obviously not in san francisco bubble) will be churning out sites that require IE11 new APIs to work.

let's just hope they at least bring something useful to justify the shitstorm, like they did with XMLHttpRequest (which does not get even the uppercase consistency right)

<comment><USER9> All of these apis seem to be exposed only when hosting the Chakra engine. They even call out the fact that it's not for in browser:

> However with JavaScript's increasing popularity in beyond-the-browser > scenarios, developers have been requesting to host the Chakra engine outside > the browser to enable JavaScript programmability in their native/managed > applications across the client and the server.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, just like XMLHttpRequest was a activeX on 5, until outlook.com team or something wanted to use it.</comment></comment></comment>


How Facebook's AI Researchers Built a Game-Changing Go Engine - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/544181/how-facebooks-ai-researchers-built-a-game-changing-go-engine/ <comment><USER2> Comment[0] by fitzwatermellow[1] yesterday from one of the other submissions[2]:

        Here's the paper:

        Better Computer Go Player with Neural Network and
        Long-term Prediction by Yuandong Tian, Yan Zhu

        http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.06410[3]

        "Adding MCTS to darkforest creates a much stronger
         player: with only 1000 rollouts, darkforest+MCTS
         beats pure darkforest 90% of the time; with 5000
         rollouts, our best model plus MCTS beats Pachi
         with 10,000 rollouts 95.5% of the time."

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10685334](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10685334)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fitzwatermellow](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fitzwatermellow)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10685278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10685278)

[3] [http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.06410](http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.06410)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I didn't see it yesterday otherwise wouldn't have posted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The approach is novel but at the moment it's not stronger than the best traditional go programs. See [http://senseis.xmp.net/?ZenGoProgram](http://senseis.xmp.net/?ZenGoProgram) for possibly the very best one.</comment>


Ask HN: How to legally discover competitor pricing and discounts? - <AUTHOR> I am at a networking startup and looking at MSRP pricing we seem to be an order of magnitude off from the competitor pricing. I know large discounts are common in the industry but I have no way of quantifying them. Is there a legitimate service that provides market pricing analysis along with approximate discounts? <comment><USER2> I don't have any personal experiences with this, but a few users on reddit host pricing discussions. You might get recommendations or info from them. [https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/search?q=Am+I+getting+fuck...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/search?q=Am+I+getting+fucked&sort=new&restrict_sr=on)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!! That was certainly useful and something I would have never found using regular search terms.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do we have asymmetric views about work life balance in professions? - <AUTHOR> Correct me here and this is a genuine question.
We (software professionals) expect to go home at a reasonable time, still be paid the best salary among all verticals and we often complain about work life balance. But we have a different set of expectations when it comes to doctors, day care professionals, military etc. We don't expect a doctor to discontinue his operation if he worked for 9 hours a day or infantryman to stop shooting. Heck, I will be furious if the daycare professional chose not to keep a watch on my child even beyond the designated time if I fail to show up.
Is this because we lack empathy or are we living in our own bubbles? <comment><USER2> >Is this because we lack empathy or are we living in our own bubbles?

Coming from someone that is not a software professional, you are actually living in your own bubble BUT you have a number of mitigating circumstances.

The work of (I presume) a programmer is not entirely new and can be likened to a number of "intellectual professions", what has changed (again as seen from the outside) is the toxicity of the environment around you.

I mean, a programmer at IBM or Bell Laboratories or NASA in the '60's has probably written possibly "more important" code, very likely being paid comparatively much less, but he/she did it in a proper office, with some "proper" management and much less "company pressure".

And - since I believe you are from the US - remember that the "best salary among verticals" is not "worldwide", generally speaking in the EU programmers and "software professionals" are not usually paid better or much better than other technical professionals (like engineers, architects or similar).

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it is because our minute-to-minute work doesn't impact the well-being of either ourselves or other people. Your other examples all have a direct impact on people's lives, potentially up to life/death consequences. Whereas whether or not I finish updating this react component... not so much.

Now, contrast that with the work I did at a hospital. I was fully expected to keep working if whatever I was fixing had a negative impact on patient care, even if it was something trivial. We had a standard criteria for when we went home which was that if patient care was not impacted, we could put it off for later, but nobody walked out that door if a patient could be harmed by our inaction.</comment>


AirPods Are a Tragedy - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/neaz3d/airpods-are-a-tragedy <comment><USER2> I just like the form factor and I'm willing to sacrifice quality if it means I don't have to wear a large Bose or Beats headphone. Not a fan of the necklace style headphones the earbuds feel unnatural. Had mine over 18 months and use them for conference calls when I work from home.

</comment><comment><USER3> The click-bait-iest article I've read in a long time. At least they put some time into a barrage of every thing they could think of. It would be tiring just to put together a refutation of every dodgy assertion.

>If AirPods are anything, they're future fossils of capitalism.

Kinda sums it up.</comment>


Police warn of coronavirus text scam that contains fake alert about infection - <AUTHOR> https://www.immuniweb.com/media/police-warn-of-coronavirus-text-scam-that-contains-fake-alert-about-potential-infection.html <comment><USER2> Instead of an ad for some company with a vaguely medical name that you have to click through to "read the full [actual] article," how about linking to the actual article.

[https://www.newsweek.com/police-warn-coronavirus-text- messag...](https://www.newsweek.com/police-warn-coronavirus-text-message-scam- fake-alert-infection-contact-tracing-1498225)</comment>


Bill Gates says robots should pay taxes if they take your job - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bill-gates-says-robots-should-pay-taxes-if-they-take-your-job-2017-02-17 <comment><USER2> It makes very less economic sense. If we want to dig ditches, digging with a spoon and fork creates thousands of jobs but using a robot, one person can do 1000 people work. Making this robot pay the taxes of many spoon & fork workers will make it un necessarily expensive and creates hurdles for progress and limits the human potential.

The human capital freed from innovative technology can be utilized some where else. That free time can be used to invent new things or focus on some other problems that make our lives better.

Taxing natural resources makes sense but taxing innovative products/services that consume less natural resources is very bad idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not only Bill who has this opinion but it's also a proposal at the European Parliament[1]. If there are fewer workers to tax, where is the government going to collect taxes to afford UBI or other welfare programs? Increase corporate tax rates, real estate taxes, let people fend for themselves?

In one view, robots are a regressive tax on the non-professionals.

[1][http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/22/technology/europe-robots- tax...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/22/technology/europe-robots-taxes-jobs/)

<comment><USER3> Well they could TAX the companies that make the profit, I know countries/Unions seem to fail at taxing companies but it is there job to do that and one in which they always seem to fail and push the problem onto the individuals.

Then there is the aspect of what do robots run on, electricity! They TAX that already in the EU, as they equally do water and food. Indeed on one hand they pollute the air and on the other they TAX the people to get cleaner air.

It is a vicious circle and all gets down to governments failing at the job they are tasked with and punishing the individuals for the crimes of organised companies.

Whilst I agree robots do remove the lesser professional jobs and the fread in the 60's/70's was for this to happen and give everybody more free time. But have we really seen working hours/week reduced? That is one aspect that sadly we have not and in IT at least the pressure to endure more and longer hours burning the candle towards burnout is alas still happening today for many.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yesterday. I made a YouTube video explaining why this is a bad idea.

[https://youtu.be/SyvqY7h3pck](https://youtu.be/SyvqY7h3pck)

It's one minute and explains why the productivity of robots is already accounted for in our current income tax system.

Cliffs: Bob has a job in which he adds $50,000 worth of productivity and therefore has a salary of approximately $50,000. Let's say there is a 10% tax, therefore tax revenue is $5,000.

Now let's say that robots help him out. With the robots' assistance, Bob now adds $150,000 worth of productivity and therefore earns approximately $150,000. Since taxes are 10%, tax revenue is $15,000.

Robots added $100,000 worth of productivity and therefore taxes increased by ($100,000 * 10% =) $10,000.

As you can see the productivity of the robots was taxed without having to levy a tax on robots. This is because robots are capital -- not consumers.

<comment><USER5> Nah. When Bob starts running the robot, he gets a raise to $60,000, and the guy who owns the robot keeps the $140k.

And by the way, there tends to be significant wage deflation of automation workers with time. I can show you an advertisement for a part time machinist who is expected to work without much supervision, use sophisticated CAM software to program parts, and run them on a CNC mill. For $14.25 an hour.

<comment><USER6> And, since Bob's productivity has gone up, two of Bob's cow orkers get fired...

Output for the three man team now reduced to one man and a robot remains the same. Employer is now paying $60k instead of $150k in wages, tax revenue generated is now $6k instead of $15k. So long at the robot's maintenance and finance (after capital investment and operations cost tax rebates) is under $90/year - then the employer wins big, Bob wins a little bit, Bob's two ex- colleagues lose their jobs, and society loses 9k/year in tax revenue.

(The numbers for the employer work out even better when they re-engage Bob's two ex-colleagues through a contracting company at $38k to work the 4pm- midnight and midnight-8am shifts (without benefits or shift loading, since 'independent contractors'...), and they keep the robot running 24hrs a day... At which point their fire another 6 of Bob's friends... And now Bob's salary gets renegotiated down, since there's now 8 other guys prepared to do his job for way less than $60k...)

And it's not like this hasn't already happened. Compare car manufacturing today with 50 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most of the comments say that this is unreasonable or that it makes little economic sense. But let's take the case of tariffs. An heterodox economist will tell you that every country should eliminate all their tariffs, because it is "pareto optimal" (you are not making anyone worse-off). Well, now we know that that is not true. The rust-belt is a clear example of this.

Automatization is similar. Technological progress is needed, but it has short and medium term negative side effects. For example, during some periods of the Industrial Revolution wages declined ([https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-16/industria...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-16/industrial- revolution-comparisons-aren-t-comforting)). A tax can be a good way to compensate for the negative externalities of automatization.

<comment><USER8> We don't know that the rust belt would have been better off if there had been tariffs.

<comment><USER7> There is academic research documenting the impact of trade agreements on the labor market. The main take away is that on average the welfare gains are huge, but not everybody is better of. Still, if you do not believe in the impact of tariffs, the point still stands for other types of protectionism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At first glance, not workable.

Is a CNC mill a robot? What is a robot? Who decides? Do we hire some CIS and philosophy professors to study this?

Should a hammer be taxed at a very low rate? Does the hardware store checkout robot register the hammer to our SSN? Should self-driving cars get even more expensive?

Should the state be a nanny and tax only new robots that come in and take away jobs right now?

I think the issue is who owns the robot. You ultimately only tax people. My general feeling is that in general, a pair of persons A and B are unequal in their abilities to use the national infrastructure and access markets. The one more successful at this, as shown by his wealth generation, owes something back that is greater than the one just getting by. And philosophically, this is not confiscation or a taking, but a kind of use tax.

</comment><comment><USER9> I normally find Gates to be pretty sensible but I fail to see how this is a good idea. Isn't impossible to avoid that by extension any machine must be taxed because robots are after all machines? Otherwise, who is to say which 5-axis milling machine is a robot and which isn't?

Why not just tax the things we have always taxed (income, profits, purchases, wealth, pollution, ..) and do so in a way that lets everyone enjoy any wealth created by robot automation? That's what we did last time (industrialization).

If all labor is replaced by robots that must be a _good thing_. Solving the redistribution of wealth and work is the easy problem here.

<comment><USER10> The simplest thing to consider is what kind of revenue will be collected as far fewer people earn income and, as a consequence, purchase fewer goods and services. These things _require_ jobs and income.

<comment><USER9> they just require the same amount of wealth to be created and redistributed.

If a factory that used to employ 100 now employs 1 robot the taxes need to be the same (so higher taxation, since now those taxes come only from the corporate taxes plus income/wealth of owners of the factory and people who make robots and not income/payroll of employees. These taxes now basically have to finance universal income as well as the roads/schools it used to fund).

But I don't see the problem with having the same taxation given that the same value is created.

Potential problems I see are only international when huge taxes on wealth or corporate profits cause people and corporations to move - but that should be solvable too. Rather - it will be possible in countries that accept a system of massive redistributive taxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This sounds unreasonable if you think of income taxes. However imagine we shifted taxation so that income taxes were zero but businesses paid more taxes on their revenue (or profit). Then there is overall the same tax paid when a job shifts to a robot, whereas now the effective tax reduces because no income tax is being paid.

Of course it's difficult to shift tax burden to companies, especially with multinationals. However Mr Gates might be right that such a solution would have better incentives and be more ethical.

<comment><USER12> If businesses pay more taxes on profit, it's close to the impact of a sales tax. This is because the business ultimately only has money by taking it from customers. You're taxing the money that customers pay to the business.

That money is money unavailable for expanding the business - if you want to actually make enough profit to open a new location you'll have to raise your prices. Every successful business thinks the same thing. So everyone raises their prices as a form of implicit collusion to keep their profits at a healthy level. This is equivalent to how a sales tax would operate with minor differences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It makes sense if taxes go towards UBI, free education, free healthcare etc. Not sure how else to get money from the <1% to pay for the \d0% that cannot get a job even if they try. In the end if might not make sense if money makes no sense but that will take while.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is way too specific and will create tons of bureaucracy -- and of course, there will be exemptions and disputes about what qualifies and what doesn't. The lawyers and government will win, but I'm not sure about everyone else. Oh, I guess large corporations will win because taxes and compliance will hurt small business and startups disproportionately.

I do think, however, we need to provide assistance to displaced workers. That assistance could be new training and a comparable income while they make the transition.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if this was made retrospective - how much tax would be owed by companies who replaced typing pools with copies of Microsoft Word and laser printers - or replaced rooms full of people using mechanical calculating machines with copies of Excel?

I understand the motivation, but the problem is nothing new (although the scale may be...)

<comment><USER15> This time it is different because automation has reached the levels when it impacts most jobs profoundly and the remaining or newly created job require more skills and deeper specialisation at the same time.

A woodworker whose job was automated cannot pick computer programming in a couple of weeks. It is just not practical.

<comment><USER6> Maybe...

My mother used to have the job title "comptometer operator". She, and rooms- full of her peers, spent all day driving tools like these: [http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/operating_a_comptomet...](http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/operating_a_comptometer.html) (And they - presumably - had "disrupted" the abacus-operator industry...)

It seems to me a lot like the industry category change that woodworkers, or car assembly line workers, or buggy whip makers - all experienced.

It was only a handful of generations back when the majority of humanity spent most of their time working farms to create food. That's changed radically to where way under 1% of the workforce produces all the food - and "the rest of us" do other things (like desperately trying to get people to tap more often on our little square on their smartphone screen instead of some other little square... Or more optimistically, curing cancer or the common cold...)

I think in general, humanity is better off. The optimist in me _assumes_ we'll be better off still once the robots are doing all the physical work, and the AIs are doing all the (uninteresting) mental work. There'll still be fights over who owns "the means of production", and history will inevitably repeat the Luddite movement again and again, and "the people" will resolve the inevitability of the accumulation of wealth in the pockets of the rich - either democratically via functional government and taxation and regulation, or by revolution of the masses. (And that'll happen faster than anyone expects and it'll be spectacularly unpleasant to live through - and the pessimist in me says we may well be irretrievably on our way down that path already...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> How much should each copy of Windows be taxed?

</comment><comment><USER17> is this the same guy that said "640K Ought to be Enough for Anyone" and "We will never make a 32-bit operating system"?

<comment><USER18> Gates never said anything even remotely like 640K ought to be enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> duplicate, please check before submitting: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13666124](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13666124)</comment>


A de Kooning, a Theft and an Enduring Mystery - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/nyregion/a-de-kooning-a-theft-and-an-enduring-mystery.html <comment><USER2> I love stuff like this! It's one of those things that seems so simple to execute, though I'm sure involved alot of planning. It aggravates a few people, but in the end, the thing that is stolen is found, and the temporary- losing party is able to milk the publicity.</comment>


Encouraging entrepreneurship via policy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14743944&source=hptextfeature

<comment><USER2> In my opinion, the #1 thing US policymakers could do for entrepreneurship is to fix our broken health care system.

I'll share a personal anecdote: My wife and I have a daughter with significant medical needs. The only reason I can even _contemplate_ being an entrepreneur is because I live in Massachusetts, where we have guaranteed access to health insurance that is only priced by age and zip code. In any other state, because of her pre-existing conditions I would have to choose between being an entrepreneur and taking care of my daughter's health.

<comment><USER3> Yes, this is the real issue. Even for a healthy entrepreneur, health insurance costs more than hosting.

<comment><USER2> I was actually a bit surprised to learn that YC _doesn't_ (as far as I could tell) have some sort of starter group insurance pool for their companies.

Keeping entrepreneurs off of the individual market (and distracted by the nonsense of dealing with health-insurance in general) seems like another small way to add value by improving the odds of success. That being said, I'd totally understand if there were legal or other practical barriers to doing something like that.

<comment><USER4> Most people going through YC are probably in the "can get away with being uninsured" demographic--young, male, healthy, single, childless, and not frequently engaged in activities hazardous to health--and for those who can do so, not having health insurance at all is the best way to not be distracted by it.

<comment><USER2> Well, some percentage of the "can get away with being uninsured" demographic actually _can't_ ... they just don't know it yet. In those cases, I'd imagine the impact on the startup of the uninsured founder is very negative. But I understand that those cases might be rare enough with YC's target demographic that it isn't worth the time / effort to prevent them.

That being said, as someone who isn't in that demographic (but is thinking seriously about a startup), the soft "can get away with being uninsured / or can juggle health insurance on top of everything else" is personally frustrating (and was what inspired my comments above). For me, it would be a reason not to try the YC route (to be weighed against the reasons to try it, of course).

<comment><USER4> _Well, some percentage of the "can get away with being uninsured" demographic actually can't ... they just don't know it yet._

Well, yes. Being uninsured is a reverse lottery--you gain a modest benefit with a small chance of an extremely negative result. For the demographic in question it's quite possibly a positive expected utility anyway. I think it's unfortunate that people who _do_ need health insurance are potentially excluded from being entrepreneurs but I can't really fault YC for not tackling the issue.

And hey, if it frustrates you sufficiently--if at some point you do launch a startup and get a hefty cash-out, you could put some of that money toward lobbying the government on issues that would make entrepreneurship more accessible to a wider demographic. Seems like something that could have a greater positive impact on society than a lot of other causes...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think to inject real Competition into the economy via Entrepreneurs, Govt must regulate Market Capitalization.</comment>


Week 23: Changes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/post/60799862146/week-23-changes

<comment><USER2> As someone with a design background and now work mostly in development, something I learned about myself is that I am now convinced that every single 'web designer' in the known universe should be forced to make a full HTML site (tools of their choice!) that is compatible back to IE8 (bonus points for IE6) and 'mobile friendly'.

Plus accept that web pages are not the same as printed pages.

Wait, that's not all about me learning about myself though. Maybe my background and my current job has given me a less accepting attitude towards 'web designers' that don't learn the canvas they are attempting to paint on?

Sometimes I do feel bad about it though.

Oh! I also should have done more coding in college.

<comment><USER3> > every single 'web designer' in the known universe should be forced to make a > full HTML site (tools of their choice!) that is compatible back to IE8 > (bonus points for IE6)

But they only pass if it's backwards-compatible to Lynx as well.

<comment><USER4> I downvoted your post on accident. I'm sorry. This meager apology is my only recourse. I hope you are able to regain the karma I recklessly took from you.

<comment><USER5> Upvoted him for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> She says: "The thing I was missing is that math is just a bunch of symbols that you manipulate to get new symbols out. Coding is basically the same thing. The meaning isn't in the math or the code itself. The meaning comes from the interpretation of the mathematics or similarly, what your code is doing for someone."

This is, I think, the most important thing to understand about mathematics, and failure to understand this leads to the travesty that is K-12 mathematics education in the US. I find it impressive that she came to this conclusion on her own, having started as someone for whom "Math was never [her] favorite subject".

<comment><USER7> I taught myself to program when I was 11, using GameMaker, which had this neat scripting language called GML that hooked into the editor to control things above and beyond the simple actions built in.

Learning about functions and variables made algebra ezpz when we learnt it later on. Matrices were multidimensional arrays (I know, not quite the same in terms of maths, but hey I was young).

More importantly, programming taught me how to approach logical problems the correct way. I'm super thankful for it :)

<comment><USER3> > Matrices were multidimensional arrays (I know, not quite the same in terms > of maths, but hey I was young).

In math, if something has all the properties a kind of object is defined to have, it _is_ that kind of object. Mathematics is based on definitions, so things are what they are defined to be, no more, no less.

In fact, you can implement mathematical structures in terms of other mathematical structures, as Peano did when he defined numbers and basic arithmetic in terms of set theory:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms)

<comment><USER7> Hey, set theory is neat although I never got to study it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I check in from time to time and am continually impressed with her cycle of innovation and release...amusingly, if you check her repo, the way she's structured the app is basically batshit crazy (creating a controller for every new app, even though each app is mostly static HTML and JS)...but hey, it works, and it works well, and just goes to show how imperfect implementation isn't the end of the world.

(her controllers directory in the repo: [https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/tree/master/app...](https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/tree/master/app/controllers))

And yet, not knowing exactly how to structure things is enough to hold back novices and experts alike. The OP just plowed through -- devoting a half year of her life to this -- and will have made more web-sites (or thingies) than I'll make in a lifetime, and doing it for self-enrichment. If only more people had that same attitude.*

* Yes, she's lucky that she has some situation where she can devote a huge chunk of her life to exploring web dev...but it's not as if everyone has to do the half year route...Doing a simple web-page/widget/app a week, or every two weeks, is a manageable commitment for people who are already in the online/web industry.

</comment><comment> jack-r-abbit I can totally relate to her thing about typing. I've been coding professionally for nearly 20 years and can't type for shit. My theory is that typing code is not like typing words in sentences in paragraphs in [whatever]. Code is not structured the same (not always " _word_ [space] _word_ [space] _word_ [punctuation]"). Code is not as linear as an email or story (well.. not the same kind of linear anyway). Code uses a totally different ratio of symbols/numbers/letters/etc (I type more dollar signs and under_scores in a _day_ at work than in a whole _month_ not at work). Well... that is my theory anyway.

<comment><USER9> I've noticed this myself as well, with a similar timeframe. In college, right when I started coding, I would regularly type up a 8-10 page paper (for non-CS assignments), find 2 typos in spell check, and then just ... turn it in. No grammar snafus, no syntactic boo-boos, no problems at all.

Nowadays even a short email can't measure up.

I think it's because I edit code much more "interactively" than I used to write prose: editing a previous line as I think through the current one, deciding to change a variable name or edit a loop construct or what-have-you. That habit has transferred to writing prose, and I think it's for the worse.

Rather than having a complete sentence planned out before I start it, I find myself getting partway through and then thinking "huh, I'd rather rephrase the beginning like so". And so I change the beginning and go back to the end, but often a conjunction or phrase-transition gets messed up in the middle and I don't notice it.

 _EDIT: typo!_

<comment><USER10> I do this all the time on anything longer than a couple sentences.

<comment><USER11> You can both benefit from adopting the Halmo's Spiral technique [http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/36521/963](http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/36521/963).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maths is like programming with terrible variable names.

<comment><USER7> And a very-not-context-free grammar!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Math isn't the symbols, it's the ideas. The symbols are just a crude way of communicating the ideas.

<comment><USER14> We cannot even think about ideas, leave aside communicating, without involving symbols. Language is a necessity for thinking. So what you said above, doesn't really say anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm amazed by the creative ideas she comes up with day after day. You're almost there!

</comment><comment><USER16> Definitely impressed by her tenacity and creativity. But if I were to do the same for self-enrichment reasons, I might go a different route. I'd rather build one or two full-blown apps in 180 days so I can dive in a deeper depth. After all, quality is better than quantity, isn't it?

Though she definitely has inspired me to do something similar.

<comment><USER17> I would argue quantity is better than quality for learning. This is why in art classes teachers have you constantly making new things instead of spending the entire semester on one painting, sculpture, whatever...

When I was learning Ruby on Rails I built iterations of the same stupid app dozens of times—I found that more helpful that the more in-depth app that took more than a month.

EDIT: wording

<comment><USER16> When you build iterations of the same app, you are essentially working on just one app, refining it, probably making it perform faster, look nicer or just architect it better. That, to me, indicates quality over quantity. That's pretty much what I meant in my original comment. The lady who posted this is building 180 different small apps in 180 days, many of them aren't refined or related to each other, that's quantity over quality.

<comment><USER18> I still think that quantity over quality is the way to go, though I would opt for a little more depth than these are.

There's a lot of "one-time" stuff that's important in web-dev--primarily server & app config--that can be a big obstacle, for instance. Getting it down pat is a huge step in the right direction.

Anyway, for beginners, I think this is a great way to do things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was a bit overwhelmed by the many samples that I clicked on.

Someone else posted a link to her GitHub repo and I was glad to check it out some. I chuckled at her using of Ruby/Rails. I was amazed at her using of jQuery.

It pains me to note that what the industry might consider sound software engineering is so detached from the creative tools that she has employed to get this going.

On one hand the industry demands greater quality from their tools. On the other hand the industry seems eager to provide the creative tools used by amateurs-alike to help to get people trained in the tools that the industry might need.

JavaScript really is a puzzle that the industry has been trying to solve. Because JavaScript is far away from what the industry might consider sound engineering principles. But users of JavaScript could make for great employees, so the industry has been trying to figure out a way to create a bridge between the two.

Keep up the great work! I liked playing the Hangman.

Cheers.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have not unfortunately experienced the typing thing (my typing speed is getting faster), but I can definitely say my appreciation for compact functions and mathematics has increased a great deal.

I would also add to the list: 1) In my day-to-day life, precision has become more important. It's tougher for me to accept imprecise statements as they often reflect incomplete knowledge which, as we all know, will lead to "bugs" or lots of head-banging 2) Logical problem solving skills have increased right in line with my debugging effectiveness. 3) As walls of abstraction get torn down through application of technology and programming, I find it harder and harder to identify and describe technology to non-technology users without cringing (see number 1)

</comment><comment><USER21> I learned to code 3 years ago-- I've worked professional in it for 2.5 years. A couple of changes I've had (that occured fairly early on) were:

1\. A nitpicky eye for detail. Even in my non-coding life I seem to be just a bit more detail focused than I usually am.

2\. Tenacity and willingness to 'jump in'. I think this was always a strength for me but now, as long as I'm not totally stumped, when I find something (a bug, or a new thing I'm curious about) I will just dive in and explore.

</comment><comment><USER22> Scrolling on `Day 162` is shaky and often misses final position when moving the mouse rapidly.

</comment><comment><USER23> She is like an unrelenting ant!

</comment><comment><USER24> Women are crazy.

<comment><USER25> What could this comment possibly add to the discussion? Why did you post this?

<comment><USER24> Oh I think you know.

<comment><USER26> It is like you _want_ to be downvoted. Exploring yourself to find out why could be useful.

<comment><USER24> You can't control me with your threats.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>