People have stopped going to the doctor and most seem fine - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/opinion/coronavirus-reopen-hospitals.html <comment><USER2> This article seems to suggest that because no spike in short-term ailments due to lower frequency of care has been observed in a 5-month span, there is no damage to the quality of our society's physical health overall. That seems incredibly myopic to me.

The real question is whether there there will be statistically detectable increases in severity or prevalence of chronic or emergent ailments in the long run. How many cancers are detected later, how many lower-back pain cases are allowed to degenerate further, etc etc. And further, do those (to my mind inevitable) subtler long-term consequences outweigh the societal gain from less healthcare spending? They may or may not, but this article doesn't even ask the question, let alone suggest ways to answer it. This feels like low- effort clickbait to me.

<comment><USER3> In my mind, the missed cancers could be a problem.

But, there's a lot of "health care" that doesn't really need to happen. A few of my family members have chronic health issues that require medication. These are typically prescribed 6-months at a time, requiring in-person bi-annual follow-ups. That's a waste of both parties time - patient and doctor - as 95% of the time, the result is "here's another 6 months" and 5% "here's the same drug, with an adjust dose".

Those appointments should only occur if there's an issue that requires new dosing or a change of medication. The rest of the time, it should be either completely automatic, or at most a simple phone call. I assume this doesn't happen, either because it's a CYA maneuver by the physician, or because the physician wants to bill for the appointment.

<comment><USER4> I recently started paying for Direct Primary Care. We signed up as seeing a doctor during COVID became even more difficult than usual. It's definitely a luxury but I pay $100 a month and my wife and I can bug our respective doctors (she has a woman doctor that will only accept women and children patients; my male doctor only accepts male patients) whenever we want. Obviously we try not to bug them all the time and be respectful, but I'm seeing weird spots at 7pm; text my doctor he says don't worry about it. I'm kind of a hypochondriac — this saves me a trip to the ER. I say I'm pretty sure I have a sinus infection, and the symptoms are similar to one I had last year. He wrote me a prescription for antibiotics, tells me to let him know if it doesn't clear up.

It feels how I'd expect modern medicine to feel, rather than everything being set up to gatekeep me from interacting with the doctor in any way except for fifteen minutes after paying $150 for the pleasure. The doctor has an incentive to keep us healthy because we're not paying by the visit anymore.

I love love the direct primary care approach and wish I'd started paying for it sooner.

<comment><USER5> > _she has a woman doctor that will only accept women and children patients; > my male doctor only accepts male patients_

Is that legal?

<comment><USER6> > Is that legal?

IIRC, gynecologists aren't even allowed to treat men, even though they're most qualified to treat certain diseases/problems that males can have (just far more rarely than women). I don't remember the specifics, though.

<comment><USER5> Is this true? It seems like a decision that was in effect for less than three months only in the US back in 2013 and it was quickly reversed. Has this been reinstated since?

[https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/why-can-t- gynaecologists-...](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/why-can-t- gynaecologists-treat-male-patients-1.2790475)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is like a cruel joke...its like saying if you are not diagnosed with a disease you don't have it.

All anyone need to look at is the incidences of people getting a chronic condition as soon become medicare eligible. Its like magic people are healthy, then they receive Medicare and they get chronic conditions...no they had the chronic condition they just weren't diagnosed and treated until Medicare eligible.

Medicare Patient Chronic Condition Statistics:

Over one half of beneficiaries less than 65 years had two or more chronic conditions compared to: Sixty-three percent of those 65-74 years, • Seventy- eight percent of those 75-84 years and, • Eighty-three percent of beneficiaries 85 years and older.

If people were covered and had access to care then the incidences would dramatically go down, instead we all but ensure by the time they hit Medicare and the taxpayers pick up the bills they have multiple expensive chronic conditions that have gone undiagnosed and untreated for years.

<comment><USER8> > .its like saying if you are not diagnosed with a disease you don't have it.

But most "seem fine" :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is an (admittedly controversial) idea within the medical community of Specialist induced demand. I have heard it quoted to me that studies have shown that when a medical specialist moves into an area that they then generate more demand for related procedures. Personally I am not in the medical profession but am wondering if anyone more knowledgeable can speak to this. Specially what percentage of procedures could be considered in this category or is this just ridiculous?

As a personal example, I received a nose surgery once that opened my nasal area so I could breathe better but it only lasted a few months and after that it seems to have reverted so it appears to be an unnecessary procedure at the end of the day. I have just decided to live with the difficulty as the recovery was awful.

Potentially relevant link: [http://www.mit.edu/~erinmj/files/PID.pdf](http://www.mit.edu/~erinmj/files/PID.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER10> > In a recent survey, only one in 10 respondents said their or a family > member's health had worsened as a result of delayed care during the > pandemic.

That's 30 million people. And in a fantasy world where going to the doctor in America was cheap and easy, I imagine most people would be happy to go regularly if they knew there was a 10% chance it would make them healthier.

Also, how are people answering this survey? One of the main points of going to a doctor is to detect problems or risky behavior that you don't know about. You cannot replace going to the doctor with answering the single question self-assessment "Has my health worsened?"

<comment><USER11> If the average family size is three, then to account for the "or a family member's health" would mean something on the order of 10 million Americans adversely affected.

<comment><USER10> That's true. But again, how could people know? My parents are not going to mention some minor health problem on the phone with me, especially if they can't go to the doctor to confirm there's something wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If I could get antibiotics for strep or sinus infections without going to them, I'd pretty much never go. Those visits are really dumb because I already know what's wrong, and just need them to say "yep, it's the thing you already knew it was, here's a prescription and a bill for doing nothing useful"

... actually on reflection already knowing what's wrong and just needing a doctor to say it so treatment can proceed is the norm for interaction with doctors _generally_ among friends and family. Including having to gently walk the doctor to the correct diagnosis so they don't waste a bunch of time and get you in for more visits and tests than you need.

<comment><USER13> The fact that you used antibiotics as the example makes me very uneasy on this.

Antibiotics are almost certainly over-prescribed, and humanity is ultimately going to lose them as a result. It's good to make absolutely sure that you need them.

<comment><USER12> By the time I get them for those things I'm usually sitting at about 4 hours of sleep over the last 48-72(!) hours and unable to eat or (sometimes) even keep water down, so yeah, I need 'em. I wait that long so my body has a change to fight it off without resorting to antibiotics, which sometimes does work. Though also to avoid spending two and a half hours being sick and miserable in the car, at the doctor's office, in the car again, at the pharmacy, then in the car again, rather than at home resting, until I just _cannot_ avoid it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Most

Isn't the primary point of going to the doctor "anomaly detection" i.e. this thing is bothering me, will it go away on its own or do I need to do more? Most being fine is expected, doesn't mean losing doctors visits was not a big deal. I've heard lot of speculation that we've lost months of early cancer detections due to the lockdown for example. Future date statistical analysis will confirm the long term cost of sacrificing thousands of doctor visits.

</comment><comment><USER15> "Only" 1 in 10 respondents said their health had worsened due to delayed treatment? That seems really high to me! There's a very obvious ulterior motive we could ascribe to papers publishing anti-healthcare pieces.

e: and note this is only people whose health WORSENED. People like me who have a condition which has stayed the same, but have not been able to receive further tests and treatment, are not accounted for in that figure.

<comment><USER11> The quote is "only one in 10 respondents said their health or a family member's health had worsened as a result of delayed care". You may still think this is high, but it's not "1 in 10" when accounting for family size.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The postponed dentist visits will have their fallout (!) eventually. Delayed annual visits to check for skin cancer, colon cancer etc will statistically hurt us. Mammograms put off, should have a definite downside in terms of early detection.

Heck, even delaying car maintenance will cost folks hard cash later. The bill will definitely come due, for the slowdown.

<comment><USER17> Sometimes being too cautious can cause harm too. It's not so clear cut as you might think. For instance, pushing mammograms earlier in life causes over diagnosis (around 20% in one study), leading to invasive surgeries that were not actually required, and they're not without risk. It can be pretty intense having a cancer scare, too.

So if we spend more money on these and we do them more often yet they don't actually improve mortality, is it worth it? There's a trade up there which your doctor should be making.

<comment><USER16> Hm. 'Getting scared' vs 'missing a cancer and dying'. There's a disparity in the cost of those two false results. I know which side I'm on.

<comment><USER17> 22% unnecessary surgeries following mammograms[1] is not just 'getting scared' these are invasive surgeries with real risks. Are you strawmanning my point or just being hyperbolic? Again, I ask, hoping for a less flippant answer; if we spend money, time, effort on increasing mammograms that doesn't actually improve overall mortality and has it's own risks, should we still do it?

I'm not saying this because I think we should never investigate or search for cancer, I'm just stating that it's not as clear as 'mammogram always good'. We must weigh the risks with the benefits and we cannot just ignore the harm because we're scared of the possibility of death.

[1] [https://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g366](https://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g366)

<comment><USER16> That seems exaggerated - the 'unnecessary surgeries' are biopsies, right? Hardly a life-threatening procedure. That sounds hyperbolic too?

This 20-year-old study shows that mammograms are matched by excellent screening programs in Canada. Is that the choice being made today? The screening programs in Canada were discontinued. Is the real choice now between mammograms and nothing? I didn't understand that development at all.

In the last 10 years, there's been a decrease in mortality by 25% or better. That's the good news today. And its all attributed to early detection. Clearly the most important factor in survival.

I think 20-year-old data is not the greatest basis for an informed choice on this subject. E.g. MRIs became common after that study was over. The world has changed, a lot, since then.

<comment><USER17> It was published in Feburary 2014.

I'm not intentionally trying to sound hyperbolic. Are you? They are literally classified as invasive procedures. It is by definition unnecessary. There are going to be false-positives in these screenings and these false-positives can be harmful. Early detection + cancer = good. Early detection + no cancer = bad. So we must balance these two. I agree detecting cancer early is a good thing, but that's not what I was saying.

What's the deal, do you think there's no false positives, do you think over detection has no harms?

If you want something more recent, here's one published February 2020:

"...A further contributor is overdiagnosis, or the diagnosis of cancer in people who would never have experienced symptoms or harm had the cancer remained undetected and untreated. Overdiagnosis of certain screen‐detected cancers is common including 20–50% of prostate cancer and 11–19% of breast cancer diagnoses.

Cancer can also be overdiagnosed outside screening programs. Overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer is attributable to incidental detection during investigations of unrelated problems; overdiagnosis of renal cancer and melanoma is less well investigated.

Overdiagnosis is important because of the associated iatrogenic harms and costs. Harms include the psychosocial impact of unnecessary cancer diagnoses, such as the increased suicide risk for men after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Cancer treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy, endocrine therapy, and chemotherapy can cause physical harm, but the risks are considered acceptable if diagnosis is appropriate. When someone is unnecessarily diagnosed with cancer, however, they can only be harmed by treatment, not helped."

...

"Overdiagnosis of breast cancers is largely attributable to the national screening program, that of prostate cancers and melanoma to opportunistic but extensive screening in Australia. Renal cancer overdiagnosis appears to be largely linked with cancers detected as incidental findings during abdominal imaging for an unrelated reason (incidentalomas). Overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer is related to both incidentalomas and to excessive investigation of thyroid function test abnormalities"

[https://www.mja.com.au/system/files/issues/212_04/mja250455....](https://www.mja.com.au/system/files/issues/212_04/mja250455.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The more I think about the healthcare problem in the United States, the more it appears to be a Gordian knot.

The author doesn't explicitly call for any policy proposal, rather he wishes some medically informed patient into existence. This effectively turns the doctor-patient relationship on its head, but, unfortunately, it seems reasonable to do so, given the opioid epidemic. I don't want to have to know as much as my doctor, I just want them to tell me how to fix it, and I am willing to bet most people largely feel the same.

On the other hand, I can hardly imagine that decreased consumption of healthcare isn't going to cause corporations to recoup lost profits elsewhere, so I'm not sure if the long-run is particularly different from the author's suggestion.

In short: indecision.

</comment><comment><USER19> I can't speak for others, but I'm between jobs due to the pandemic and can't afford health care without employer-provided insurance. Most people are fine most of the time, which is why it doesn't seem like a problem. But I bet that it will eventually be a problem; chronic issues need to be taken care of, and everybody can benefit from a visit to the dentist now and then.

</comment><comment><USER20> Not leaving home much probably minimizes exposure to all the usual threats.

Reminds me of my grandaunt who rarely left the house after the death of her husband. But she was very active, and had family members around to help out. She was quite healthy till the end and outlived her siblings/peer group by a big margin.

</comment><comment><USER21> Last time I went to a doctor, I was concerned about intestinal blockage; they gave me a prescription for a drug that slows intestinal motility. And told me I couldn't afford any tests to confirm my notions of what my actual health issues might be.

I've never been one of those who delegates the responsibility for my health to a doctor; but at least they used to be valuable consultants. Today I cannot imagine a circumstance that would make me _want_ to be a customer of a health care provider. I can only hope to find a alternate source for any treatments they keep exclusive to themselves if i ever need one.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have realized doctors don't do much good, except for very extreme treatments for life-threatening conditions (surgery, powerful medications etc). I'm not saying they never help, just that 99% they do either useless or actively damaging treatments that don't take side-effects into account. They are biased towards unecesserary action. Overuse of antibiotics is just one way this manifests itself, but it is true for most treatments.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'd love to go to the doctor, but I don't have a pressing emergency; no-one is willing to schedule an appointment.

I'd love to do to the dentist; the very few I've found willing to do routine teeth cleaning have a reservation system that requires winning the scheduling lottery.

I guess that superficially, I'm fine. For now, at least. At least I have an HSA; most of my health insurance money is sitting in an account instead of being lost forever.

</comment><comment><USER24> Iatrogenesis. Nassim Taleb explains a great deal about it in Antifragile: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenesis)

</comment><comment><USER25> Most people were also stuck at home, living a much lower impact lifestyle.

<comment><USER16> I wondered about that - the cost to the environment (is that what you mean by 'impact'?).

I guess this is off topic. But not travelling - check. Ordering all the stuff online from different vendors, consuming more (because, more idle leisure), doing more home projects cost something.

Heck, construction is booming. That's an impact too. I wonder what it'll all add up to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Necessary or not is subjective. For example, at the collective level, lung cancer screening costs outweigh the benefit. At the individual level, early detection gives the best chance for survival.

</comment><comment><USER27> This isn't that surprising. Healthcare economists have known for a very long time that medical spending, on the margin, has precious little impact on actual health outcomes.[1]

Basically there's a "core" set of medicine that constitutes basic care and is essential to health. But even during deep budget cuts or quarantine, very few people are avoiding vaccines, not setting broken legs, and letting appendices explode.

In contrast an enormous amount of healthcare is very expensive and of dubious effectiveness at best. For example it's not uncommon for courses of certain chemotherapy to cost $400,000 and have no statistical effectiveness.[2] Overall nearly half of medical procedures are unsupported by evidence[3]. Even procedures we take for granted, like routine mammograms[4], have no actual impact at reducing mortality at the population level.

This is what economists call "on the margin". These are the treatments that get cut first during rationing.

[1] [https://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/09/10/robin-hanson/cut- med...](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/09/10/robin-hanson/cut-medicine- half) [2] [https://freakonomics.com/2013/10/22/the-unsustainable- econom...](https://freakonomics.com/2013/10/22/the-unsustainable-economics-of- cancer-drugs/) [3] [https://www.vox.com/the-big- idea/2017/12/28/16823266/medical...](https://www.vox.com/the-big- idea/2017/12/28/16823266/medical-treatments-evidence-based-expensive-cost- stents) [4] [https://theconversation.com/routine-mammograms-do-not- save-l...](https://theconversation.com/routine-mammograms-do-not-save-lives- the-research-is-clear-84110)

</comment><comment><USER28> "seem fine" covers a lot of situation for example your having an ultra sound and they say "oh that looks a bit small" you go from fine to not fine very quickly

</comment><comment><USER29> My impression is that at a Public Health level most forms of medicine don't make much of an impression.

Antibiotics would probably be an exception. Vaccinations if you choose to call them medicine.

At the population level though most of the things that affect health and life expectancy are life style choices of one type or the other that Doctors have not show an ability to control.

My Dr. might be able to tell me that my smoking is bad. That I need to lose 10 lbs. That getting black out drunk every weekend isn't doing me any good. All of that and more. But Dr's aren't any good about doing anything about those things.

You could add clean water and clean air in that pile.

Compared to that cancer detection and extending the lives of people with cancer is a drop in the bucket. Of course if you fall into that category then it's a huge difference but overall I don't think it makes a huge difference.

</comment><comment><USER30> A good time to advocate for telehealth, remote visits.

</comment><comment><USER31> NYT also has the counterpoint: "Vaccine Rates Drop Dangerously as Parents Avoid Doctor's Visits" [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/health/coronavirus- measle...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/health/coronavirus-measles- vaccines.html)</comment>


Navigating Mid-Success - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/navigating-mid-success/ <comment><USER2> It's like a kid playing basketball. He beats the odds and make his high school team. He beats the odds and is a starter. He beats more odds and is the star. He beats even more odds and wins an athletic scholarship to college. He not only makes the team but becomes a starter and eventually the star of the team. He further beats the odds and is drafted by an NBA team. He not only makes the team but becomes a starter.

Imagine telling that guy he's a failure because he's no LeBron James. Apparently if you're not a unicorn founder you've achieved nothing.

<comment><USER3> Good analogy, but without taking into account the financing side of things it's only a partial picture.

Imagine if that player was borrowing and spending Other People's Money since High School, based on the EXPECTATION that one day he'll be the next LeBron James and pay it all back with sufficient return or forced into bankruptcy.

He had natural talent, but needed money for better shoes, trainers, better nutrition, etc in order to achieve the top level as quickly as possible. So he found some people to loan him the money.

In that scenario, it's not so much a question of whether playing in the NBA is a desirable outcome -- it's certainly better than if he hadn't made it that far -- but one would have to also consider the financial outcome for his investors and him personally.

There are lots of bankrupt NBA players (for different reasons, but still).

This is the article's point: if you're not LeBron, don't choose a trajectory that requires that level of outsized outcome in order to be successful.

<comment><USER4> I believe this scenario actually happens for soccer players, where investors can by equity in a young player's future sale to a bigger club. Although I think there have been some recent attempts to crack down on this practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The subtext to this piece is the mathematics of venture capital investing.

1\. Most companies fail. Not "turn into airplanes"; plow into the ground at terrific speed leaving an unrecognizable smoking crater.

2\. VC investors survive this by investing in a portfolio of companies, not just one or two.

3\. For the math of a portfolio to work out, the winners have to pay for the losers.

4\. The majority of the portfolio is losers.

Because they invest so little in such a large portfolio of companies, YC can afford to cultivate startups that are aiming for 8-digit outcomes. But VC firms, as a general rule, can't: for your startup's success to make their math work, you need an outstanding return. They'd rather you return something than nothing --- _but they wouldn 't rather by much_.

There's a lot not to like about this model, but it's not really a moral question. There isn't a model where just a couple of investors plow millions of dollars into your startup all at once where simple mathematics aren't determining everyone's positions.

So when we talk about the difference between shoot-the-moon companies and "airplanes" or "lifestyle businesses" or whatever dumb term we're using for them this week, we'd do well to keep in mind that the people pushing you away from these kinds of outcomes really don't have a choice.

</comment><comment><USER6> The flip side of this is that if you're not planning on a unicorn, don't get hitched to the VCs that are hunting unicorns. There are other investors who'd be quite happy to get that 5x back and build a $100M company, or even a $20M company.

<comment><USER7> Huh, are there really a significant # of investors who put money into $20MM companies looking for 5x returns? That's surprising.

<comment><USER8> Looking for and being quite happy to get are two different things.

I'll happily take a 5x on any of my angel investments. I didn't go into them thinking that was the best possible (hoped for) case.

Getting 5x on all of them would be above my average.

<comment><USER6> I would also expect angel investors to be a little more understanding about slightly less than "MAX GROWTH NOW!!!!!", relative to a large VC firm, and less likely to force the founders into a path the founders don't want to take if the numbers aren't ideal..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fuck building a $100M. Can you build a $10M or just a $1M company? Just do that (first).

I read somewhere - first get comfortable, then get rich (or change the world). This insane focus on the wrong metric (valuation/size of your company) is going to hurt nearly every first-time founder, which I presume most of you will be.

Once in a while, you do hit the jackpot, but _let_ it happen to you, let it come to you as you make progress and hit bigger and better milestones. Pretty sure even Zuck, Gates, Jobs, or you-name-it-unicorn-founder had no fucking clue that theirs would be the unicorn company.

<comment><USER10> This article isn't about building a $1M or a $10M company. It's about companies who have done that already.

<comment><USER9> Thank you for the nitpick. I wasn't talking about the article either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm a founder of a company that had "mid-success" (a few times over).

I mostly agree with this article and when I see companies in my former market raising $100M+ rounds I always cringe.

> But as a general rule, the longer you delude your investors here, the worse > shape you'll be in.

This is true, but the real problem is not deluding your investors but deluding yourself. It's often necessary to have unreasonable optimism to overcome every hurdles along the way. Knowing when that optimism crosses the line can be difficult especially in the bubble of fundraising.

> Very often I've seen cases where founders know in their hearts they have an > airplane but are able to convince good investors it might still be a > spaceship. This really causes a lot of heartache, and often precludes your > opportunity for a good acquisition later.

The point about over-raising limiting future options really resonates. It's one of the saddest things that can happen: all of the hard work has been done to build a viable business, but in the rush to get there too much money was raised, so the the cap table has gotten to the point where any reasonable exit will yield the founders and employees almost nothing. So frustrating.

> Let's define a "really good airplane" as a company that has profitability > within reach and is on track to be worth $100 million with several more > years of hard work.

Here's the thing. Airplanes can get much bigger than $100M, they just take longer to get there. They have to fight their way there and rarely get the spotlight. That's just the way some markets are, no matter how great the product, no matter how smart the team. It's a shame when founders build a real company but destroy the value of its equity by trying to make it something that it's not.

</comment><comment><USER12> Quite often you find entrepreneurs getting sucked into the mindset of building for investors and not necessarily building for customers. Entrepreneurs and their teams are too focused on valuation and not enough on business fundamentals.

</comment><comment><USER13> Silicon Valley is a place where founders need to be reassured that building a company that's profitable but only worth $100 million is "nothing to be ashamed of."

<comment><USER14> I don't think the article is about founders needing reassurance or emotional support. It's advice for founders to navigate the dynamic with investors that are pushing them to go for a bigger outcome.

<comment><USER15> Or perhaps we can just stop referring to them as "medium success" companies. "Medium success" for whom?

$100M in revenue/year to anyone but a very very small percentage of people in the world is a wildly successful business you just built.

<comment><USER16> Article speaks about $100M valuation. It's much different from $100M/year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This advice is valuable to more than just "airplanes," because the truth is that there aren't just two classes of companies -- "airplanes" and "spaceships" \-- there are infinitely many.

And it's just as important to realize that your $2B company is not a $20B company as it is to realize that your $200M company is not a $2B company.

If your company can plausibly be $50M, and you realize that, you can get wealthy and your investors can have positive outcomes (not "wildest dream" outcomes of course). But if your company is plausibly $2B, but you try to make it a $20B company, you and your investors will end up less happy than $50M guy, even though his company was worth 1/40th of what yours is.

I think that the story of a lot of companies during the Great Recession is of over-funding themselves to their eventual detriment -- even companies that are objectively very valuable.

</comment><comment><USER18> Anybody have any advice for those who are actually _aiming_ to build a perfectly serviceable airplane, preferably with a reliable-enough autopilot? Articles containing such advice are also welcome.

<comment><USER19> Don't take money from VCs who are expecting a 10-20x return?

<comment><USER20> Hell, avoid VCs entirely if you can avoid it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > When you start a startup, you get pushed off the side of a cliff with a bag > of aerospace parts.

Here's a pain point for someone to solve: why the fuck does the VC process necessitate pushing unequipped people off cliffs?

<comment><USER22> There are actually a number of VCs showing up right now to address this pain point.

They're tending to fund profitable B2B companies with $5-40m in annual revenue and explicitly state that they're content with the option of 3-5X returns (while still hoping for more).

<comment><USER23> Could you drop a few names here?

<comment><USER24> one example i know of: [http://scaleworks.com/](http://scaleworks.com/)

they bought Filestack (formerly Fileppicker), Chargify and a few more

Lew wrote about basically the same thing as sama earlier this month: [https://medium.com/@lewmoorman/not-venture-scale-get-over- it...](https://medium.com/@lewmoorman/not-venture-scale-get-over- it-282e93c4f873#.z06m9ejoo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is a very investor-centric article. It assumes that successful founders will one day want to "hit it out of the park" by the investor's definition (moreso than they have with a $100M company), as if founders live to serve the interests of the investors.

I'd suggest that founders who have a profitable $100M company get themselves free from the chain of their investors as quickly as possible and go about their lives running a successful company, never worrying about what investors think or want again. Remember which party is actually engaged in creating something valuable here. You might need their money to start, but if you do things right, you don't need it to live.

The other caveat here is that sama says many founders are surprised when potential acquirers don't consider them "legitimately valuable". That's because founders typically think of value in technical terms. AFAIK, acquisitions happen only because you have something that the company can't just rip off: either you already have a large/significant installed base in a segment the company wants, a recognizable brand, or you have some intellectual property that the acquiring company couldn't recreate by stuffing 3-4 engineers in a closet for a year (which costs ~$1M, much cheaper than any type of exit you're hoping for) (this basically means patents that they want to own for themselves, not really patents on interesting technology, because such patents can normally be circumvented).

</comment><comment><USER26> This seems to be a much more apt analogy for most startups:

Rather than being pushed off a cliff and asked to build a rocket, they are being strapped to the rocket (of VC funding) and asked to make it to the moon.

Not to diminish the hard work that goes into building a successful startup. Not all rockets make it to the moon, as the difficulty of a moon shot isn't really in generating thrust, but thrust is a necessary but not necessarily sufficient condition.

</comment><comment><USER27> "A company that has profitability within reach and is on track to be worth $100 million with several more years of hard work. This is nothing to be ashamed of"

I wonder if there's some vague sense of how disconnected one has to be from normal conceptions of reality to consider building a $100MM company something to be ashamed of.

<comment><USER23> I was reading this, and nodding along, until I saw that number. Is SV really that inflated?

Your average entrepreneur, say Bob from Bob's Plumbing, would be really happy to have his company build to $10MM over a decade or two.

<comment><USER28> I've always interpreted this sort of valuation as more about "potential best- case acquisition price" than about real market cap. Instagram was "worth" a billion dollars, because Facebook said so; that doesn't mean it had a $1bn market cap. But when VCs talk about you having a "$100MM company", that's what they mostly mean: that there might be a Facebook or two around who would pay that.

I'm actually curious, since we've seen a few (not many, but a few) tech IPOs of these SV darlings in the last five years: how well does their publicly- traded market cap today align with the projected valuations VCs invested at?</comment></comment></comment>


First language taught to undergraduates in the 1990s - <AUTHOR> http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2019/07/29/first-language-taught-to-undergraduates-in-the-1990s/ <comment><USER2> The first langauge you learn should have you spending your time learning how to structure your code and build things from primitives. These are valuable lessons that will stick with you wherever you go. If you learn a complicated langauge like C++ or Python, you will be spending more time learning langauge specific features and quirks. I still say langauges like C or Scheme are the way to go as an introduction.

<comment><USER3> Definitely not C. It's way to quirky to teach as a first programming language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The graph appears to me to show Java as in use before its release. Or am I mistaking the colors?

<comment><USER5> Java is pretty old, released in 1995. The Java line is the nearly vertical line (that I mistook for a graph border) in 2002.

[https://www.freejavaguide.com/history.html](https://www.freejavaguide.com/history.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Like the author, FORTRAN was my first language in the mid nineties.

</comment><comment><USER7>
      rem 1990s
      10 Print "Basic"
      20 GOTO:10

Seriously, I was taught Basic in 1990 that ran on a VAX (BigTen University). I can't even think Basic anymore after 20+ years of C# / C / JavaScript ActionScript etc...</comment>


Why Hiring Is So Hard in Tech - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/javascript-scene/why-hiring-is-so-hard-in-tech-c462c3230017 <comment><USER2> If you want to hire only those with GitHub profiles, no wonder you see shortage of candidates.</comment>


A Deep Dive on Binge On - <AUTHOR> http://www.project-disco.org/telecom/011316-deep-dive-on-binge-on/ <comment><USER2> _Although some other non-Binge On content providers might be able to react with lower resolution video as well (this is currently unclear as commentary has been confusing on this detail), clearly a significant number of video content providers cannot. This is because, even if they are using adaptive bitrate technology, their server senses a faster connection and selects video accordingly, and when it starts shipping video, the "pipe" shrinks to 1.5 mbps when T-Mobile identifies the traffic as video._

To me, this means that a lot of providers are using pretty crappy "adaptive" technology. To me, "adaptive" doesn't mean take the results of a query, then stick with it, even if it's not working.</comment>


RubyGems.org Redesign - <AUTHOR> http://rubygems.org/?redesign <comment><USER2> Huge thanks to DockYard for working on the design on this; it looks amazing!

As an open source maintainer, one of the most valuable things people can contribute is great design. Not a lot of designers think to spend their spare time contributing to open source.

If you work at a company with great designers and you ever notice they have some spare cycles, you can have a huge impact by helping them contribute to your favorite open source project. Not only does the open source project get desperately-needed design, your company gets the increased visibility that goes with it. (How much is that DockYard logo on the front page worth in advertising $$$?)

<comment><USER3> This looks good but two things:

1] The guides section is still on the older design which I'm guessing will be updated later?

2] IMHO on the show gem page the authors/owners section should be moved below licence + versions/runtime-deps sections. The later are more important for first time scanning especially when looking for a new gem.

<comment><USER4> We just pushed out changes to the guides!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Am I the only one that feels the color was just too glaring for my eyes? My eyes couldn't stand looking at the page for 5 secs.

<comment><USER6> Same here. Maybe "flux" adds to that?

<comment><USER7> I tried toggling redshift (An Open Source, Ubuntu-friendly alternative for flux) and it does make a little difference, but hardly enough to warrant the "glare".

Personally, I like it. Especially since the way I use rubygems makes me hardly ever land on the frontpage; all other pages are much "whiter".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> On the page for a gem [0] there is a lot of padding. It makes the page feel larger than it needs to be to present the little information it has.

[0] e.g. [https://rubygems.org/gems/aws-mfa](https://rubygems.org/gems/aws- mfa)

</comment><comment> clark-kent I appreciate rubygems.org, I visit the site every other day. I think a simple and functional design works better than this one. This looks over-designed and gets in its own way. The colors don't go well together. The old design works better for me, I find it more accessible and functional. Just giving feedback as someone that cares a lot about rubygems.org.

</comment><comment><USER9> first impression:

i spent about 30 seconds scanning around the page looking for the search bar

<comment><USER10> No offence but even with the extremely bright colour scheme it was quite obvious.

<comment><USER11> Not with a smaller monitor. 13" rMBP and it took me a while to see it - it's obscured by the globe wireframe.

[https://picto.io/i/IatX8owh.png](https://picto.io/i/IatX8owh.png)

<comment><USER12> Looks like you fall between a couple of sweet spots with the responsive design. If you reduce your browser width a bit more I'm guessing you see the brighter globe wireframe disappear and the search bar becomes more obvious?

They could probably fix this by throwing in some more media queries that do the same thing (toggle the brighter globe) but based on `min-height` rather than width-alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why is it orange? Ruby should be red.

The background is a gradient from orange to red, but the orange is on top, so the header is orange.

[http://rubygems.org/red.jpg](http://rubygems.org/red.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER14> I really don't like the tiny 'copy' icon aside the gem install code:

[http://rubygems.org/gems/rails](http://rubygems.org/gems/rails)

And it shows as 'Missing...' on a browser without flash.

</comment><comment><USER15> Considering that searching for gems is the primary call to action, adding an autocomplete drop-down would help users a lot.

</comment><comment><USER16> The font in the guides looks awful on my Windows machine, it became more readable if I reduced the size.

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks great! Was here earlier today

</comment><comment><USER18> the red color hurt my eyes. ORZ...</comment>


New SIM attacks de-mystified, protection tools now available - <AUTHOR> https://srlabs.de/bites/sim_attacks_demystified/ <comment><USER2> The only way I've found to protect against SIM Swap is to use Google voice for my SMS. Google has good two factor authentication and, since it has no telephone customer service, is hardened to PII based social engineering, or at least you can't SIM Swap somebody with just a name and an SSN.

<comment><USER3> That's a working, but very very scary foundation for security.

"Google's customers service is _so_ fucked even the most dedicated social engineers with the biggest of whales in their sights can't get them to do a fucking thing."

<comment><USER4> What's even scarier is the premise of your comment: "Any decent customer service operation will fall prey to social engineering."

And what's unfortunate is that you're probably right!

<comment><USER3> To be fair, banks do an OK job of that. (Well, it's hard to take over an account purely by remote social engineering, some of mine still blindly use SMS as an authentication thing...)

Telcos do not secure phone numbers to banking grade security, because they never agreed to be part of anyone's critical security posture, and their own incentives are to make it as easy and quick as possible for customers to move their phone numbers around. It's in the telco's interest for you to be able to walk into a $TelcoBrand store and walk out with a functioning device with your old number. (Or to call up their support line and do the same thing.) They never offered to make that more difficult than it needs to be just because companies like PayPal wanted to outsource security to be somebody else's expense. They've been actively recommending against it since forever:

[https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telcos-declare-sms-unsafe- for...](https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telcos-declare-sms-unsafe-for-bank- transactions-322194)

<comment><USER5> « _To be fair, banks do an OK job of that_ »

Are you kidding? Banks do a terrible job. Just one data point: «Losses from [bank] account takeovers hit $5.1 billion last year, a 120 percent increase over 2016» [https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2018/thieves- tar...](https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2018/thieves-targeting- bank-accounts.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> SIM Swap [1] is not covered by this. SIM Swap is a social engineering attack powered by PII leaking from everywhere and for long time. Today, SIM Swap attackers don't even need to use phishing or buy PII from ilegal sources. After so many leaks, peoples full name, mother name, addresses, credit cards, SSNs are all over the internet. Just Google it.

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

<comment><USER7> Yeah, since that is NOT an attack against the SIM card (and code stored / running on the SIM card) but different issue completely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Out of curiosity, do eSIMs, now common in newer phones, make these kind of attacks less likely or more likely? It seems like they would be more likely since there's no physical component anymore.

<comment><USER9> No difference, because there is still a physical component ;) Where a normal SIM card is removable, with an eSIM the chip is soldered on the device. But there is still the same secure chip as in a removable SIM card really, it just takes a lot less space. Because it is soldered, it must be possible to remotely change the content of the SIM, for example to change your telco operator. How to do this securely and in a standard way is what eSIM is all about.

The technical name for a SIM card is UICC (Universal Integrated Circuit Card IIRC). eSIM is eUICC. The next step is iUICC, for an integrated on die function. There is no separate chip then, it's integrated in the modem SoC. But the way it is standardized (on-going) the iUICC must run in a secure enclave, with similar security level as current discrete SIM cards. So again, no real difference: a iUICC will behave as an eUICC one from an end user point of view. The operator do not want to reduce the security of their UICC.

<comment><USER10> Is there also some level of virtualization with eSIM, where the single chip allows for multiple SIM "profiles" (SIM-card-ISA VMs, basically) to run on one chip? Or are the manufacturers that claim that eSIM "allows" for multiple simultaneous operator accounts, just putting multiple eSIM chips in their devices?

<comment><USER11> SIM is software, UICC is hardware (ie the card).

Always remember, there's another computer inside your phone, the UICC computer, it contains software from the past, written by hardware people who've never heard of security, no one's looked at the code for bugs, and it controls your phone.

In conclusion: buy a tablet

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20951578](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20951578)

<comment><USER7> Err, no. That describes one (relatively new) attack called Simjacker.

This article / link describes this and a possible other attack (also an applet on the SIM card, calle Wireless Internet Browser (WIB)) AND a way to test if your sim card is vulnerable plus mitigation measures (hint: do not allow MSL (Minimum Security Level) zero).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> From reading this it seems that this is unrelated to the SIM Swapping attacks that were in the news recently and are mostly customer service exploits and not technical issues.

<comment><USER14> ATT has an "extra security" mode that requires your account PIN even when walking into a retail store - [https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM10513...](https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM1051397)

<comment><USER15> Do you know whether this requires the person in store to enter an exact match/have you enter it on a pinpad, and that it is absolutely not removable in any way by any CSR, customer service, or other humans other than you knowing it and logging in with it?

<comment><USER14> I have no idea, but for the first one: chances are the retail employee will enter the pin themselves.

<comment><USER16> ATT asks for the PIN over the phone too, so best practice seems to be changing PIN after giving it to an ATT employee.

But who knows if PINs are visible to ATT employees, and what verification they do in case PIN is forgotten. It's all moot if any ATT employee can reset it without a significant paper trail.

<comment><USER17> Even if there's a paper trail, that doesn't mean it won't happen. For example here's a guy who got fired for transferring a number without the code:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/6nxkbl/so_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/6nxkbl/so_i_was_probably_fired_today/)

<comment><USER16> Well, ideally, it would lead to stricter penalties and process improvements to prevent it from happening. And it would allow for fraud liability to be placed on ATT causing them to care to fix the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So many dates in the article and yet the article itself is not dated. Surely that is important. Does anyone know when this was published?

<comment><USER7> It is dated, just not on the page itself:

[https://srlabs.de/#bites](https://srlabs.de/#bites) "27.09.2019"

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This doesn't cover any new attacks. Good read though.

</comment><comment><USER20> Testing requires PC/SC-compatible SIM card readers: SCM SCR-3310 and HID Omnikey 3121

<comment><USER21> There are a lot of PC/SC compatible card readers e.g. most of these

[https://ccid.apdu.fr/ccid/supported.html](https://ccid.apdu.fr/ccid/supported.html)

[https://ccid.apdu.fr/ccid/shouldwork.html](https://ccid.apdu.fr/ccid/shouldwork.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Ah, good old days. I wrote some of the tooling back in the days. Was a lot of fun. Damn, video cards have advanced so much in the past years I wonder how fast that code would now run. We were using Radeon 5970s at the time -- integer performance was pretty bad on NVidia cards back then.</comment>


Ask HN: Is your online presence costing you the job? - <AUTHOR> Employers can quickly search for applicants online, and if they don't fit within their hiring "diversity inclusion" protocols, they receive a rejection notice.<p>Are online profiles just an easy way for employers to quickly discriminate against those who do not fit their current hiring practices? Does anyone else think this problem? <comment><USER2> > if they don't fit within their hiring "diversity inclusion" protocols, they > receive a rejection notice.

Citation needed.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is why I dislike anti-discrimination laws. I suggest a compromise to only include certain kinds of jobs like manual labor under employment anti- discrimination laws, where workers are actually commodities that are measureable and interchangeable.</comment>


ESPN Public API Retirement - <AUTHOR> http://developer.espn.com/blog/read/publicretirement <comment><USER2> I still feel sports stats has a lot of room for disruption. Stats.com is the leader in the space but their feeds are incredibly expensive. I think if a competitor could get the reliability of data as Stats has achieved but with a much, much lower cost they could dominate the space pretty easily.

<comment><USER3> I think you need to pay a lot of money to actually license the stats from the various sports leagues, which is why they charge so much for the feeds.

<comment><USER4> However, since statistics cannot be copyrighted (at least in the United States), there _is_ significant room for disruption. They only have contract law as a tool to prevent propagation of stats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am not surprised they are pulling the plug on this. The fine print read that api users could not monetize their apps.

</comment><comment><USER6> Do the NFL/MLB/NBA still charge for access to their statistics and live game scores?

</comment><comment><USER7> What type of things were found via this api?

<comment><USER8> Pretty sure all the things on this [1] page that have a checkmark in the "Public" column

[1] [http://developer.espn.com/docs](http://developer.espn.com/docs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> debt and other posters:

Check out SportsData - developer.sportsdatallc.com - free trials, cost effective plans for startups.</comment>


Steve Huffman - Lessons learned while at reddit.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/carsonified/steve-huffman-lessons-learned-while-at-redditcom <comment><USER2> These slides are from the talk found here: [http://carsonified.com/blog/dev/steve-huffman-on-lessons- lea...](http://carsonified.com/blog/dev/steve-huffman-on-lessons-learned-at- reddit/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've never found slides useful without the actual _talk_ given with them. Even the text would make this much more useful.</comment>


Popular electricity smart meters in Spain can be hacked, researchers say - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/07/us-cybersecurity-spain-idUSKCN0HW15E20141007

<comment><USER2> Any device subject to mass-rollout under a government funding or requirement should be fully opened up to public scrutiny (software, hardware, firmware) for some time beforehand.</comment>


Telegram changes emoji of Belarus flag in solidarity with protesters - <AUTHOR> https://www.euronews.com/2020/08/26/telegram-changes-emoji-of-belarus-flag-in-solidarity-with-protesters-thecube <comment><USER2> Political activism by tech companies that can roll out changes within <1 release cycle is going to be such a major force to be reckoned with in the upcoming years/decade, solidifying passionate users in their base and allowing them to increase their clout. It's really quite impressive to watch. Slightly tangential, but look at how Apple was able to just quickly flip around and be "the privacy megacorp" after just a few combative swipes with Google/Facebook on the issue. Seems like a trend to watch.</comment>


Is Starbucks a Cannibal? - <AUTHOR> http://internationalbs.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/is-starbucks-a-cannibal/

<comment><USER2> _Surely, if customers cannot readily taste any difference between the instant coffee and the considerably more expensive version brewed in-store, then Starbucks has broken their own business model._

That is ridiculous. Two immediate reasons:

1\. If brewed costs B and Via costs V, but they price the latter at slightly more than the cost savings (B - V), their profit margin per unit sale has still increased.

2\. Even after their double blind super funky scientific rigorous tests end up showing most people cant distinguish between the tastes of the two variants, there will always exist people who are quite willing to pay more for 'premium' versions. Despite these being only same old stuff re-badged.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's not mentioned is that Via has larger upfront cost. $3 for 3 Via packets or $20 for 24 packets.

I've tried Via, and it needs to either be WAY cheaper or lightyears better than the in-store brewed coffee to make the purchase worthwhile for me.

I'm not saying that's a hard task on either count. Starbucks brew is way way too strong and burnt for my tastes.</comment>


Why Programming is Difficult - <AUTHOR> http://joearms.github.io/2014/02/07/why-programming-is-difficult.html <comment><USER2> Most difficult part for me is letting go.

I am compelled to febreeze every bit of code smell I come across. I often rewrite large sections of working code into better structures, more readable/concise syntax, better naming of variables/functions, etc. and In the process I have at times introduced bugs.

But that isn't enough to deter me.

I feel like I've accomplished something but in reality I have done nothing. It's kinda like cleaning behind the refrigerator. You know it's dirty back there, but it's not stopping the fridge from keeping your food cold.

<comment><USER3> I agree.

However, "You know it's dirty back there, but it's not stopping the fridge from keeping your food cold."

If you don't properly maintain your fridge and allow too much dust to build up you could end up burning out the compressor.

Everything needs to be done thoughtfully, in moderation, and with purpose.

<comment><USER4> Yup, if we want to beat the analogy further, I would say the constant attention to code "smells" and such is like cleaning behind the refrigerator daily when you see dust has landed. I think there is a great middle ground, where you actually consider the possibility that the improvement to the code will be a net loss (time investment to improve code and time it saves in the future). Lots of books about this, many people don't get the full theories, and instead take the talking points (x lines of code per method, don't do Y, do Z, etc).

<comment><USER5> The analogy falls apart when you consider that:

1\. Fridge dust compounds linearly with time. Technical debt compounds faster the more technical debt you have.

2\. Most of us aren't in the fridge business. The downside of a burnt out fridge is probably a lot lower than the downside of a terrible code base.

<comment><USER6> Technical debt only compounds if you're building on top of it. A module that is written once and never needs to be modified doesn't get any worse over time. Therefore, once it is working correctly, there is no point in wasting effort to clean it up until it needs to be touched again.

Note that I assume basic documentation, proper naming conventions, and adequate testing are part of "working correctly". Those are the things you do as you write the code initially. It's the refactoring/rework/gold plating that you leave for later, only if you need it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good Article, I have found the hardest part of software to be the team work. It's hard to agreement on what's right, to write code that other people understand, to understand other peoples code, and generally just to get a good productive team working.

In fact a lot of software design is just for making things easier for humans. Otherwise we could have files that are 14,000 lines long.... The hardest part of software is the people.

<comment><USER8> > Good Article, I have found the hardest part of software to be the team work.

This... I'm trying to work with someone whose only programming experience is with IDEs on Windows that hand-hold every step of the way. Something as simple as creating a file, compiling it and running it in a terminal is something he's never done.

I've spent more time trying to explain incredibly basic concepts than actually getting anything done.

<comment><USER9> Taking a day to teach someone an entirely new (and arguably extremely backward) workflow is exasperating to you?

<comment><USER8> It's not about the workflow - it's about the fact that things like compiling files, linking libraries, are kind of basic concepts.

For his prior apps (flash) he created objects using only a graphical interface (never wrote a single class), and the 'program' was a single 9000 line file where everything (all vars, functions, etc...) was in the global namespace with absolutely no organization, encapsulation, etc...

Anyhow, for someone who claims to have been programming for 10+ years, I'd expect some understanding of how the underlying technology works, how languages and compilers work, etc...

I mean, I like convenience as much as anyone (my Vim setup behaves like an IDE with code completion, automatic compiling, etc...), but knowing the command line is a good thing when the app you want to build involves a Unix-y server...

<comment><USER9> Look, "someone only using IDEs with windows" is nothing like what you just described. You gave us all the wrong facts in the initial comment. You've identified all the wrong facts as important.

Your fellow is abnormal to the extreme. That he's never met anyone in 10 years to tell him drag & dropping is not programming is one thing.

Making your description match a good proportion of C# developers or even Java developers just shows your irrational bias against types of programmer you obviously view as inferior.

The problem is not that he's using an IDE, the problem is he's not a programmer.

Bloody luddites clinging to their consoles.

<comment><USER8> > That he's never met anyone in 10 years to tell him drag & dropping is not > programming is one thing.

It's not drag and dropping, it's using a 'visual programming' tool that the environment encourages.

> The problem is not that he's using an IDE, the problem is he's not a > programmer.

I wouldn't disagree, I like IDEs myself. I even use automatic completion in my word processor. The problem is that he never learned the basics.

> Bloody luddites clinging to their consoles.

It's funny how things always come full circle - search is the big thing now, everyone has an interface based on search. Windows 8, Linux, OSX, Android, iOS, everyone.

We enter http addresses into our browser, and search for things using (gasp) text, but using the command line makes one a luddite. Great logic that...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's why I think programming will never get much simpler than it is now...as our stacks and applications become more sophisticated and powerful, so do the relations between the systems...Apple has managed to make things simpler on iOS by clamping down on what developers and users can do, which is one possibility for a "simpler" future. But for those who do want to be developers and have flexibility...complexity will just have to be a way of life.

As an example, I recently tried my hand at making a Chrome extension using the Yeoman build tool. It was a simple plugin to allow you, on Reddit IAMA pages, to hide all comments except those from the IAMA subject and their direct questioners, and to also auto-load all comments:

[https://github.com/dannguyen/iama-highlights-chrome- extensio...](https://github.com/dannguyen/iama-highlights-chrome-extension)

Figuring out how to use the yeoman build tool took about 30 minutes (it's not quite fully developed)...it took about 30 minutes to browse through the Chrome extension documentation and then think of what I wanted to do. About 10 minutes to write the actual jQuery.

...And then about 3 - 4 hours figuring out why the comment auto-loader wasn't working. I thought I could simply just have my jquery activate the "click" event on all "load more comments" links...but a recent Chrome upgrade clamped down on security, effectively sandboxing all extension code and preventing it from executing existing inline JavaScript.

IMHO, this is a good security measure. But it just goes to show you that when things are made "easier" (the scaffolding of the extension, the jQuery to do DOM/AJAX work), there are still intractable tradeoffs and details that have to be dealt with...in this case, security.

<comment><USER11> I had a similar experience with a very basic Android app I did for a Coursera class. It took me about an hour to finish it, and then 3-4 hours to figure out that the test cases would only run successfully using one particular Android virtual device at a particular API version. It didn't work on any other AVD's or on my phone. This was an exercise designed by a compsci professor at a major university. Who knows how many additional hours would be necessary to determine the exact reason for the error?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think "bad environment" is the worst of all the problems.

At first we had no environment, so we had to make it ourselves. A few companies did this, and turned into monopolies.

Then we started trying to make free/open-source environments to combat this problem, but they ended up so incredibly scatterbrained that compatibility is a very real and current nightmare.

The monopolies are trying really hard to give us good environments, but first of all they come at a cost, which isn't accessible to many (Apple's hardware, MS's software, etc). And secondly they are not community-driven efforts, so we have little control over them.

So the battle rages on between the plethora of options I have for a programming environment. Meanwhile I'm just trying to write some simple apps that help me pay the bills (we get dangerously close to not being able to each month) and the competition between environments only slows me down.

<comment><USER8> Free/open source OSes are great programming environments that leave you in control.

As for the compatibility 'problem', install the compiler/interpreter version you need from source, use chroot if you need to, etc... If you're making apps to run on said scatterbrained systems, you can ship statically linked libraries with the app, or use a cross-platform solution (Java, HTML5, something like Haxe, etc...).

<comment><USER13> I think a big problem with environments is the balance between "having control" and "having to control". Sometimes just getting things set up to the point where I can actually do the work I wanted to do sucks up a lot of gumption.

<comment><USER12> Every time I try linux, I lose several days in config files, and at the end, it's still not perfect, just "good enough for now".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To me what is difficult about programming is to deal with huge undocumented and badly written legacy code, and also understanding tons of frameworks and APIs. Algorithms are the easy part.

<comment><USER15> Yes. My company's CRM uses a single 2500-line Perl script to handle all of its licensing emails. The script was written by our current VP of engineering in 1998 when our CRM was still built on ActiveX. I started porting this code over to Ruby for our now Rails-based CRM and I am beginning to doubt I will ever finish.

<comment><USER16> [http://xkcd.com/224/](http://xkcd.com/224/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Programming is difficult because people are profiting from the difficultability of it. For as long as you can give someone a money-making machine, but say that it will be 'a lot of esoteric work' to make it, grease it, keep it clean .. there will be development work.

By the very nature of the business, if you are not improving something, some human-describable human activity, by using esoteric magic, you're probably not that good. If you're making it indescribable in the process of making improvement, perhaps you've been in the business a long enough time to know, the only difference is whether the customer can be bothered to learn the language, or not. Anyone can 'program computers'; computers are a universal language.

<comment><USER18> > Programming is difficult because people are profiting from the > "difficultability" of it

That's backwards. Not "anyone" can program computers. Anyone can _try_ , but most will fail. Just like "anyone" can "do math" or "do chemistry" or "do anything", but most will fail. The reason programming is lucrative, whether as an employee or entrepeneur exploiting programmers' labor (or supplying their own technical labor), is exactly because not everybody can program _well enough_ to meet a market need.

It's a curious thing, this misplaced, or in some cases faux-humility about programming, or any other academic/intellectual endeavour. It dovetails very well with certain business interests who would love for nothing more than programming to be as commoditized as, say, janitorial work is. These interests are definitely getting their wish in some areas (e.g. web/mobile development).

<comment><USER19> I see programming mostly as janitorial work. Why? Because it's mostly complex rather than hard. Of course "real programmers" are upset with RoR jockeys when it turns out businesses pay for delivered value rather than technical complexity.

<comment><USER18> Janitorial work isn't "complex" in any way that approximates programming--even the programming that "RoR jockeys" do. If the two were on the same level of complexity, "RoR jockeys" wouldn't be paid as well as they are. And, yes "real programmers" earn more than "RoR jockeys," because what "real programmers" do is both more complex and harder. But I think calling them "RoR jockeys" or implying they aren't "real programmers" is both wrong and juvenile. Otherwise I don't think you've written anything that conflicts substantially with what I wrote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Amen. When I think, "I love my job", I'm generally thinking about the "easy" part, where the tools are all under my control and well known, and I just have to build something with them using my knowledge of algorithms and architecture.

However, the reality tends more often to be: \- Frantic Googling trying to figure out the magic code to pass to a black box 3rd party component that will prompt it to spit out exactly what I need \- Banging 3rd party components together to see what happens to be compatible \- Trying to figure out how to work around the limitations of an API without being _too_ inefficient or complex \- Spending 4 times longer on conference calls discussing a problem than actually fixing it

</comment><comment><USER21> Programing is the easy part of the job - getting the customer to agree exactly what is they want is "hard"

<comment><USER22> Maybe for web development. For everything else... no.

<comment><USER23> I've hit that problem in embedded systems, too. It's not just web development (though it may be worse there).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> According to Leiserson, the qualities of "great software" are,

      * performance
      * modularity
      * correctness
      * maintainability
      * security
      * functionality
      * robustness
      * user-friendliness
      * programmer's time
      * simplicity
      * extensibility
      * reliability
      * scalability

[http://www.catonmat.net/blog/mit-introduction-to- algorithms-...](http://www.catonmat.net/blog/mit-introduction-to-algorithms- part-one/)

</comment><comment><USER25> This article only scratches the surface of the "programming is easy, programming is hard" riddle. It's a big question really, linking up with the "mythical man month" and all the paradoxes that commentators have observed since people began thinking about the process of programming.

The way I would put it is that programming gives a person more power to realize their ideas than any other device in existence, in that sense, programming is the easiest thing ever. But since programming put so much power at your finger-tips, it gives you more ways to shoot yourself in the foot than any other activity. So programming while avoiding the pitfalls can suddenly look like the hardest thing in the world.

Arguably humans have a natural facility with language. And I am inclined to believe that our ability to produce programs leverages that facility. But again, the upshot is we wind-up with a really big cannon that, if aimed at all wrong, blows our feet clean away.

</comment><comment><USER26> I enjoyed this post for one very simple reason: it makes me realize that, no, I am not the only one who dislikes these parts of programming.

Too often when problems like those mentioned by Joe are brought up in discussion, the (seemingly) majority of programmers argue that these are just complexities we have to deal with. Perhaps they're just the vocal ones. I admit, it is a pragmatic attitude, but I constantly daydream about an environment, both technical and social, where these problems mostly disappear.

Thankfully, we're starting to approach some solutions on the technical side with virtual environments, deterministic builds, etc.. The social side I hope will fall out of having better environments for reproducible behaviour. Although I believe a total solution is technically impossible (at least practically, e.g. requiring total system verification, managed behaviour, etc.), I think we can make a lot of improvements to the environments we currently use.

<comment><USER27> I have always argued that programming is not "intellectually difficult" (for me) but is rather "emotionally difficult" for a lot of the reasons mentioned in the blog post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Programming is hard. Proof-reading? Impossible.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't know whether I think programming is hard or not. I think it's difficult for the fact that it requires a unique way of thinking and it takes a series of consecutive and uninterrupted thoughts in order to form a piece of logic.

I cannot even imagine learning programming and not having instant access to learning material/answers to my questions.

</comment><comment><USER30> In short, working with computer is easy, working with people is hard. This is also reflected by salary. It pays to have the skill communicate, influence, or manipulate people.

Most programmer job is simply translate others thought to language that computer can understand. Therefore the difficult is never the programming part, but the understanding human being part.

Comparing to human ability making computer close to understanding human, civilization has developed much more advanced in manipulate human to think like computer, evidenced by all the gadgets surround us today. Comparing to programmers inventing new ways to make computing smarter or say closer to human, majority of corporate line of business IT programmers are merely temporarily filling the gap between human and computer, but for how long? There is no need exaggerate the Corporate experience, that's a translator job can be easily replaced by cheaper labor and eventually by smarter computer.

</comment><comment><USER31> Programming used to be hard because of the hyper-optimization needed to get things to run.

Now programming is hard because of the giant scale of existing open source codebases.

It's not just the libraries, it's the toolchains, the build systems, the versioning tools, and that's just the things I've touched myself.

Someone once compared classical mathematics with modern mathematics, with the analogy of open pit mining vs deep shaft mining. I think programming has followed a similar trend. Modern programming involves strategically using existing tools, combining them without making major modifications to any of them. Of course, this is just for the individual programmer working on a discrete task. There is still room to participate in or lead large projects.

</comment><comment><USER32> With the words of my mentor at my first programming job: Beginners guess programming is hard. Advanced ones think programming is easy. Experts know programming is hard.

</comment><comment><USER33> Maybe take another run at the spell checker problem though. I don't think you fixed it well enough.

</comment><comment><USER34> I tried to read the whole thing, but gah my brain just couldn't get past all the spelling mistakes. :-/

<comment><USER2> You should have kept reading:

> When I'd finished this article, I wanted to spell check the content. At this > particular time emacs-ispell mode decided to that it could not find aspell, > the program that I use for spelling checking.

Does emacs have a grammar sanity check as well as spellchecker?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I don't care about the programming, what I want to know is why is using a spellchecker so difficult?

</comment><comment><USER36> If programming was 'easy', we would probably be having trouble finding work.

</comment><comment><USER37> Great post Joe!

/patrik.

</comment><comment><USER38> Programming is not difficult.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think programming is easy. When I sit down to code something, it feels deterministic, and everything falls into place. I attribute this to: 1) IQ 3 standard deviations above. If I hadn't been this way when I started, I probably wouldn't have started. 2) I've been practicing hard, 25 years. That's a lot of time to try a lot of ways to do a lot of things, and find what works.

Here's what's difficult for me, and what only gets more difficult as my own time grows shorter and I'm less agreeable to wasting it: Working on teams, under managers, within organisations. Sitting in the third meta-meeting that week, listening to posturers quibble over what Agile means, rolling my eyes thinking obviously it's anything but agile. Performance reviews and arbitrary subjectivity-based rewards dressed in time-consuming process they swear will make it more objective. Perennial "Strategic Roadmap Shifts", listening to yet another CEO spout boilerplate bullshit about how this is the one way to glory, never shall we mention that one from just six months ago - that never happened. And that means another project cancellation. Then one by one the coworkers you like the most get fed up and leave, until the day it's your turn to get fed up and leave. On to greener pastures to enjoy a few months of a semblance of accomplishment before the whole cycle starts to repeat again. All that is what never gets any easier for me. Like everybody always says, "It's the people!"

<comment><USER40> Do you think that your inability to relate to other people in your organization is related to your obvious superiority complex?

No one cares what your IQ is. There are many different kinds of intelligence and some of them, like social and emotional intelligence, also contribute to your personal success within any particular organization.

<comment><USER39> I relate to straight shooters who say what they see. I understand that fronting, ass covering, being indirect, and speaking the mel[odious] language of business are ways to play the game.

Mention of IQ induces reflexive invocation of multiple intelligences like ipecac, but IQ-style intelligence is directly relevant to programming.

High emotional intelligence makes it _worse_ when you're in a toxic corporate environment.

<comment><USER40> The only people who are overly concerned with IQ and take advantage of every opportunity to mention their own score are the people who have nothing to offer but an IQ score. You come across as incredibly haughty and condescending.

<comment><USER41> I agree that his comment seemed haughty, but I'd like to mention that yours does as well.

I disagree that "only people who are overly concerned with and take advantage of mentioning their IQ". More likely, it's just that smart people with empathic intelligence don't mention it. You know, because they realize that others don't like feeling "dumb".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> And thought that i was the only one.</comment>


Using machine learning to search flights and generate savings - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbtworld.com/tripdelta-uses-artificial-intelligence-to-find-legal-hidden-flight-routes/ <comment><USER2> Show HN is specifically reserved for stuff people have made that HN can use, this is an article.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks...Sorry, rather unexperienced with that..I'll change it</comment></comment>


Trump says he is likely to support ending blanket federal ban on marijuana - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-marijuana-20180608-story.html <comment><USER2> Marijuana prohibition was never constitutional in the first place. In Gonzalez vs Raich SCOTUS narrowly ruled the commerce clause ('the fed's constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce') gave the feds jurisdiction over personal consumption of plants. As Thomas noted: this case had nothing to do with the commerce clause and gave the fed unlimited power.

Every single civil liberty from gay rights to privacy to prohibition of plants and drinks has to somehow go through a political movement rather than just be acknowledged as already constitutionally granted: the federal government was just never intended to have that power.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just to be clear, he said he is willing to sign a bipartisan bill to that effect. Congress is doing the work and he's just not overruling them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there a consistant opinion from Democrats on this at a federal level? This is one of the interesting topics that wasn't largely discussed much in the past presidential elections.

<comment><USER5> I don't think a lot of blue state democrats could get away with a hard stance against marijuana, maybe more so in red states though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What he would _perhaps_ support was a bill to ensure that each state has the right to determine for itself the best approach to marijuana within its borders [1]. To me, this sounds different from ending the ban on a federal level, which is what the title would suggest.

[1] [https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/STATES%20Act%20O...](https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/STATES%20Act%20One%20Pager.pdf) (PDF)

<comment><USER7> > To me, this sounds different from ending the ban on a federal level, which > is what the title would suggest.

This is exactly ending the ban on a federal level. It is not affirmatively creating a federal right to marijuana which would prohibit state regulation, but then we don't do that with most things that are legal.

This is pretty exactly what the state was with the end of prohibition of alcohol, for instance.

<comment><USER6> That does makes sense, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> the-dude GDPR block.

edit: other link [http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/national/trump-says-he- is...](http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/national/trump-says-he-is-likely-to- support-ending-federal-ban-on-marijuana-20180608)

<comment><USER8> Which country? I was able to access from Sweden.

<comment><USER9> It's blocked in Germany.

<comment><USER10> Under what grounds? Sure, GDPR and all, but what specifically triggered this?

<comment><USER11> Laziness. Some sites are just blocking all European visitors on the mistaken assumption that that complies with GDPR. They're not willing to undertake any further dev work.

<comment><USER12> I don't think it's useful to use laziness to describe this, as it's needlessly perjorative. It may be that they've decided that the ROI is not there for complying with GDPR, or that the risk of an inadvertant fail is too high and expensive. Laziness may be the case, but it's unwise to assume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I bet a lot of money he's only saying this to annoy Jeff Sessions. We already know that Sessions wants to be hard on marijuana, and Trump is very clearly mad at him.

Either way, does this matter? It should be clear by now the value of one of Trump's statements. We have more than enough history to know that they're often not a reliable indicator of anything.

<comment><USER14> In the article it's mentioned that Trump has already maintained Obama's policy on this issue by ordering the DoJ not to prosecute anyone in states where it is legal. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that he would support this measure as well.

<comment><USER13> That may be. He's very consistent on some things (the wall, Muslim ban) and changes his mind wildly on others.

Given a single quote that I don't know the history of, I just have to assume it's not trustworthy.

I didn't know he had a history of saying this. If he did you're probably right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'll believe it when he puts a bill to Congress, and actively works towards getting it passed. Till then, it's just another thing Trump says he's going to do.

<comment><USER7> He's saying he will likely support a bipartisan effort already in Congress, so sending a new bill to Congress would be inconsistent with what he claims, and a poor basis for believing it.

<comment><USER10> Fair enough. When he actively supports that bipartisan effort, then I'll believe him!

With Trump, actions speak louder than words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I made an identical submission yesterday, which was flagged.</comment>