Show HN: Low code Jupyter Notebook alternative with dashboards - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mljar/mljar-studio <comment><AUTHOR> In 2016 I've created web service for building Machine Learning models in the cloud. However, I wasn't happy with it because it only allows building ML models on already prepared data. So I've started searching for a nice way for preparing data in a low code manner.

At first, I was considering GUI with drag and drop nodes, where each node represents an operation on data. I wasn't happy with that solution because it can easily get messy (spaghetti of nodes) and it is untestable. So I keep searching ...

It came to me that the best low-code solution will be a code itself, with GUI to generate the code. I was looking for the best way to execute the arbitrary code on the web and I came to Jupyter Notebook.

As a result, I've started working on the MLJAR Studio. It has frontend created in react and redux. It connects to Jupyter Notebook (for computation) and Django server (store and manage the project).

Users can generate code by clicking. All code creates a script that can be executed.

All results are represented as widgets and can be easily shared with others by sending a link.

There is still a lot of work to do: more operations covered with GUI, the interaction between widgets and code, periodic runs of scripts, ability to connect with databases and APIs, and of course support for ML.

In the future, I would like to have two versions of MLJAR Studio: open-source version and pro-version with additional features.

Demo address: [http://220.127.116.11:8000/](http://184.108.40.206:8000/) (you don't need to set account, be careful, it is one user only, so everyone can see your activities and data, and it uses HTTP!, the address will be active for 1 week).

</comment><comment><USER2> Congrats on shipping!

I played with the demo & liked the capability of quickly inserting a snippet of code by selecting + customising a widget. The idea of making it quickly shareable / deployable apps is also very powerful. You product is along the lines of Streamlit / Voila / Plotly dash. Write plain python to make deployable front end apps for dashboarding etc (additionally you help writing that python with readymade snippets).

While the capability is powerful, I'd recommend finding a persona that would actually use it enough to pay for the "pro" version. Currently it's geared towards data scientist, but they are very comfortable writing notebook code to generate visualizations. So the low-code (generate code from widget) part is not very appealing to them. They need simple yet powerful python constructs that creates beautiful front end components for them (headers, paginated tables, plots, graphs, interactive widgets). And then make it easy to deploy these apps internally. Checkout Streamlit that promises to do both these very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you Amit! I would like to add much more to the application:

1\. I would like to add scheduling. 2\. I would like to define different types of notebooks: notebooks for exploratory analysis (default one), notebooks for workflow automation, notebooks for packages development (with test driven development), notebooks as REST API 3\. I would like to allow to connect different data sources: databases and third party APIs 4\. I would like to support Machine Learning APIs

I've seen your work, especially reviewNB - impressive!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> with the name, first thing I was looking was for a jar file but there was none, confusing it seems.</comment>


Renault's cheap $8,000 electric car could be here within two years: CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/08/renault-8000-electric-car-2-years-carlos-ghosn-ceo-web-summit.html <comment><USER2> "price tag of around $8,000 after subsidies"

Unfortunately no word how much the subsidies are.</comment>


Show HN: NockNock – create tours for real estate properties with smartphone - <AUTHOR> http://nocknock.io/show/199-laurie-meadows-dr <comment><USER2> I run www.propertywizard.io - I'd be interested in talking to see if we can help each other (email in profile)

</comment><comment><USER3> you might want to overlay some instructions, it took me a while to figure I should drag it around.</comment>


Pigment from fossils reveals color of extinct mammals for the first time - <AUTHOR> http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2015/09/092915-research-fossilcolor.html <comment><USER2> Iffy. Melatonin isn't the only color component. And chemical action during fossilization can entirely change color; how is that accounted for? E.g. oxidized copper is blue, not red.</comment>


The Non-Libertarian FAQ (aka Why I Hate Your Freedom) - <AUTHOR> http://raikoth.net/libertarian.html <comment><USER2> This is a good critique of the more extreme forms of libertarianism.

I think a lot of the reason libertarians go wrong is they have a mistaken view of human nature that ties in turn to a mistaken view of the original state of the human human race. The seem to believe humans originally lived apart from each other, and so have the psychology needed for that sort of existence, and only later joined into societies.

But actually, the scientists have determined that humans originally lived in small foraging bands, and so have both individual and social instincts, such that a libertarian society simply would not work.

A good book on this is Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origin of Freedom, by Paul H. Rubin.

</comment><comment><USER3> A valiant attempt. In practice, I find most discussions with Libertarians quickly devolve into endless whack-a-mole sessions (whereby once you've finished deflating one of their arguments, they just change the subject and move onto another) -- _never_ acknowledging that there might, ultimately, be problem with the thought system as a whole. And that even after essentially banking a good chunk of their adult life on it, it still isn't too late to cut their losses, and move on.</comment>


Neal Stephenson: The Salon Interview (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2004/04/21/stephenson_4/ <comment><AUTHOR> This interview is part of his just-published collection, _Some Remarks: Essays and Other Writing_ , which isn't bad, but most of its contents are highly and easily accessible online—most notably, "Mother Earth Mother Board": <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html> , which is as good a reason to have a Kindle and Instapaper as anything I've ever seen.</comment>


GraphQL Saved Us from the gRPC Dumpster Fire We Created - <AUTHOR> https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2020-05-18-how-graphql-saved-us-from-grpc-dumpster-fire/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I'm a software engineer at Liquidata ([https://liquidata.co](https://liquidata.co)), the company behind Dolt ([https://github.com/liquidata-inc/dolt](https://github.com/liquidata- inc/dolt)) and DoltHub ([https://dolthub.com](https://dolthub.com)). We're building the future of data distribution and collaboration; come check out what we're up to!

I wrote this article as part of a series on the technology behind DoltHub. In this installment, I explore how GraphQL rescued us from a nasty pit of sadness we got stuck in calling our gRPC API directly from our front end.

Hope folks find it interesting. Happy to answer any questions!</comment>


Dear EarthLink Customer Support - <AUTHOR> http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2010/01/Dear-EarthLink-Customer-Support.html

<comment><USER2> 404: "The requested URL /blog/2010/01/Dear-EarthLink-Customer-Support.html was not found on this server."

going directly to <http://www.charlespetzold.com/> yields a placeholder saying:

"This domain is powered by EarthLink Web Hosting."

<comment><USER3> Not for me, at the moment.

It's very likely there's a DNS conflict. EarthLink probably never removed his records from their DNS servers, so Earthlink customers (and anyone else that uses EarthLink DNS) is getting a different result than others are.

...although, I can't corroborate that on 188.8.131.52, .186, or .187, so maybe not. But I do find it hard to believe that Earthlink "hijacked" anyone's domain name.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This happened to Charles Petzold! A living programming god. Time for the flaming torches and pitchforks if you live anywhere near Atlanta.

</comment><comment><USER4> The drop in customer service quality from Mindspring to EarthLink after that acquisition was rough; I bailed after a couple of years.

</comment><comment><USER5> The article doesn't provide any details; I'm quite curious _how_ this happened. And how did it stop?</comment>


Engineer Converts Van into Laundromat, Offers Free Loads to Homeless - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Apple-Engineer-Converts-Used-Van-Into-Mobile-Laundromat-Offers-Free-Loads-to-Homeless-416489533.html <comment><USER3> I think it's great that he's doing this, but I can't help but think how these kind of stories follow this weird American pattern of social problems being the hobby of the wealthy and/or an opportunity for cleverness. Why are we so fond of these narratives?

<comment><USER4> I think perhaps it is because many people in 'modern' societies are starting to rediscover their humanitarian side after a long time of being blinded by years of consumerism and trying to find enlightenment via a career or 'keeping up with the Joneses'?!?

What a lot of people don't realise is that things like this are actually quite commonplace in so called 'third world' areas like Asia and the sub-continent.

Where they were once viewed as sign of a society less well off and endeavours that won't really lead to a difference, I'd like to think that people are starting to realise that improvement of humanity, rather than the building of bank accounts and stock portfolios, may actually be the purpose of existence.

Addendum: Less well off people tend to do this all the time (see my other post in this thread), but because of their 'low' social status, they tend to be invisible to the casual observer who have their eyes conditioned to look upwards only.

Therefore, if someone considered well off, and a 'good role model' does it, it tends to get more notice.

<comment><USER3> When I was reading this, the first thing I thought was that it sounded like something from a developing country. I then wondered how long it was gonna be before we're all doing our laundry like this because of housing costs. But I like your more optimistic take.

<comment><USER4> I think your point is valid too. It seems that a lot more people today, given the current political climate in a lot of countries, plus the widening gap between the upper and lower classes of society, are beginning to realise that quite a sizeable percentage of the population is only one or two paychecks away from being homeless.

Perhaps there is an awakening along the lines of "There but for the grace of [insert deity here] go I..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Santa Monica, CA has a facility called SWASHLOCK.[1] It offers showers, laundry machines, and lockers for homeless people. But the usage level for the laundry machine is low.

[1] [https://www.opcc.net/?nd=shwashlock](https://www.opcc.net/?nd=shwashlock)

<comment><USER6> Is anybody doing anything similar in the SF Bay Area?

<comment><USER7> Check out Lavamae. While you're there send them some money. [http://lavamae.org/](http://lavamae.org/)

<comment><USER8> No financial info apparent on the site, and the FAQ is a link to PDF -- yields "Decompression error" on Android. I'd be wary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-01/orange-sky-laundry- sea...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-01/orange-sky-laundry-search-for- australians-making-a-difference/7557536)

<comment><USER4> Just came in here to post about the same guys. A good friend of mine was up for Young Australian of the Year last year against them. He didn't win it, but I am glad that these two guys won...

Similarly, we have a local Sikh taxi driver in our home town who spends his spare time cooking and feeding homeless people around our city. [0] It's people like these who should be held up as role models for our communities, not meaningless 'celebrities'.

[0] - [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-31/sikh-taxi-driver- feeds...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-31/sikh-taxi-driver-feeds-darwin- needy/6358572)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Acts of charity like this have always struck me as creating an uncomfortable power dynamic. When sticking around to hear a religious presentation is the price of admission, it's not a pure form of generosity; it's transactional. Ron Powers even mentions the captive audience situation outright, near the end of the video.

"If you have something like their clothes, you've got them for an hour, two hours ... we might as well have a conversation."

I don't really see a need to glorify this in the local news. He's just a man who has found a way to buy time to proselytize. To me, the fact that he exists is a symptom that our existing social safety nets are insufficient to set folks up with clean clothes, let alone get them into housing.

Taxes to fund direct cash transfers and housing subsidies do not make for heartwarming stories. They are boring as hell, but they get the job done with no strings attached, and that's the best outcome we as a society could wish for.

<comment><USER11> I think it's kind of ironic that you mention how his charity isn't 100% altruistic, but then juxtapose it with "social safety nets" \- by which, I assume, you mean tax-funded welfare, which is forced on people by government and has nothing altruistic about it on any level.

<comment><USER10> Actual altruism is very rare. The level at which it exists in the United States is nowhere near sufficient to solve this country's homelessness problem. By all means, write inspiring news stories about pure generosity when it appears, but this is not one of those times. This is a man who looks at our collective unwillingness to help our most needy and sees a religious opportunity.

Some voters support safety nets out of a sense of altruism. Others do it for selfish reasons; they simply don't enjoy living next to homeless people. Still more - like myself - see housing as a fundamental human right we are not properly addressing. The motive by which people join this cause doesn't matter to me, as long as the result fulfills our citizens' basic needs and asks nothing in return from them. If a majority of the country agrees with me that poverty is a serious problem, then we'll all chip in to solve it.

I'm willing to do my bit - are you?

<comment><USER11> > Some voters support safety nets out of a sense of altruism.

It cannot be called altruism. People you're referring to aren't giving their resources out of free will - they support government taking other people's resources, under threat of violence (which the government has monopoly on) and redistributing it to others.

> housing as a fundamental human right

How can a product of someone else's labour can be a human right?

<comment><USER12> >How can a product of someone else's labour can be a human right?

Quite easily. Access to clean water isn't free, nor is safety or freedom (of religion, to own property, whatever). Enough people agree that these are a human right, so they are financed by the collective, regardless of how much the recipient contributed by paying taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> He is a beautiful soul to want to put a somewhat passive belief system into usable practice. All you need is (loads of) love.

</comment><comment><USER14> In the SF Bay Area (Silicon Valley), there was already another a free mobile laundry (with shower) service. [0]

It's good that multiple nonprofits offer overlapping/similar services, especially in an affluent area which can easily afford to provide basic dignity to those in need.

0: [http://www.dignityonwheels.org/locations-and- schedule/](http://www.dignityonwheels.org/locations-and-schedule/)

</comment><comment><USER15> "Loads of Love" is the same name the mobile sperm bank startup in our area is using.

<comment><USER16> Finally a startup can have a byline of " _Made for love in <city>_" and actually mean it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cool idea. It would be awesome to couple it with something proven to move the needle on underlying trauma during the hour wash / dry cycle vs. a ministry (like NARM Therapy or similar), but it's a great idea and well executed and I love folks doing what they can to help.

</comment><comment><USER18> Does he say how much it cost him upfront and how much it costs him monthly to do this? Really inspiring!

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice, thats awesome. This is really using his knowledge for the betterment of the society. Too cool !

</comment><comment><USER20> Would be pretty cool to add another van with showers operating next to it, so they can shower and get fresh clean clothes in one go, without having to go to a fixed place they might not trust.

<comment><USER21> In San Francisco, there is a non profit (Lava Mae) that turned buses into mobile showers.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/lava-mae-turning-buses- into-b...](http://www.businessinsider.com/lava-mae-turning-buses-into- bathrooms-and-showers-for-san-francisco-homeless-2016-6/#-6)

[http://lavamae.org/](http://lavamae.org/)

It looks like the laundromat van is in Santa Cruz. But would be cool if they teamed up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have a homeless friend who lives in a van. He's in the Bay. He cleans around where he lives, keeping the area tidy. I'm sure he'd love to know more about stuff like this.

</comment><comment><USER23> While it's a great thing he's doing, it looks like his main purpose is to convert people to his religion. Well, if that's what it takes to motivate someone to help others, then so be it.

<comment><USER24> He literally says that his goal is not conversions and that he's doing it because he realized _he_ wasn't putting _his faith_ into action. Further, even if he _was_ trying to convert people, what's so bad about that?

"Hi, let me help you and by the way here's what I believe and why I'm doing what I'm doing." \-- no idea why that kind of train of thought can rationally be looked down upon. I've always failed to see why atheists view proselytizing as "bad" \-- it's the same thing as lobbying for any other kind of position.

<comment><USER25> If someone drove around in a van and offered conversation to homeless people with a christian angle - that would be great. It's also great if someone offers laundry service. Talking to people is great. Talking about religion must be on their terms, otherwise it's preaching or being a missionary - <USER2> isn't.

What disturbs me is the idea of people have to feel even a little pressure to participate in his prayers or religious conversation just to get their clothes washed.

It's _exactly_ what missionaries in Africa do: build schools and hospitals and inform about christianity.

If you are serious about charity then don't preach. Even if being charitable is part of acting out your own faith, separate the two.

I think this guy has a heart of gold and like so many others (like the missionaries in Africa) he doesn't see that there is a conflict in what hd is doing.

<comment><USER24> > If you are serious about charity then don't preach. Even if being charitable > is part of acting out your own faith, separate the two.

I don't really follow. If they are being charitable _because_ of their faith, why separate the two? It's an integral part of their identity and why they do what they do.

<comment><USER25> > I don't really follow. If they are being charitable because of their faith, > why separate the two?

Let me rephrase it: if being a christian requires you to be a good samaritan - by all means be a good samaritan. Charity is a good thing. But if you want to come across as doing someone a favor altruistically - don't preach.

<comment><USER24> Let me offer a thought experiment. You're moving and need some help. Some dude on the street freely offers to help you and carries much of your stuff. What a nice guy. Once all is well and done and you're moved into your new place, he turns towards you and says "hey by the way, you seem like a nice guy and I'm a part of the local chess club, we're always looking for new members -- care to hear more?"

I just don't see how his invitation to join the chess club detracts from his good deed. Even if (for whatever reason) he helps people move _solely to get a chance to ask them to join chess club_ , I still have a hard time finding fault.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Many people who think he is doing a great thing would immediately change their mind if I told you that he was proselytizing for Allah.

What if he just wanted to talk to them about Amway for a while? would you be OK with that?

What if he was talking Scientology?

What if he was talking Malboro?

If you are being honest with yourself, you have to agree he is merely running a business. They give him their time, he gets God points.

<comment><USER27> Amway and Malboro are for-profit businesses. The others aren't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Not to diminish what the guy is doing, but why does it matter that he's an Apple Engineer? They /could/ mention it in the article, but why does it have to be in the title? In fact, that's pretty much a pattern these days. "Google Engineer did this". "Apple Engineer did that". You'll never read "$random_company engineer did that", but "Dude did that" or at best "Sofware engineer did that". What is it with the cult of big names? Really? That the guy works there has very little to do with what he did (which is awesome).

<comment><USER29> This is NBC Bay Area, a news source for regular folks. News provides information in terms their audience can recognize and understand, and most regular folks don't know what engineers really do. It matters quite a bit that he's an engineer at one of the world's most well respected brands, because its not just some regular engineer, but one that is good enough to work at a company people hold in high regard.

'Important person takes time off to work on things of true importance' is another way to think of it - that's a strong story to tell, so they lead with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> >offers free loads to homeless

...hot?</comment>


Under time pressure, people tell us what we want to hear - <AUTHOR> https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/under-time-pressure-people-tell-us-what-we-want-to-hear.html <comment><USER2> This reminds me of the findings that torture doesn't work because people just tell the torturer what they want to hear.

</comment><comment><USER3> More accurately, they tell us what they think we want to hear.</comment>


Ask HN: Any possibilities of a career in proprietary trading remotely? - <AUTHOR>

I traded US stocks in a proprietary trading firm during my studies. It didn't interfere with my classes, because US Exchanges operates in the afternoon my local time.
I did day trading on US Equity market as an independent contractor. After about a year I learned a little python and built a model which automatically sends orders and gives positions. It's rather a concept than successful algorithm yet, it needs far more testing.
Now I graduated and had to quit my job. I have summaries of my trading from December 2008 till March 2010, with quite stable profits.
Is it possible to continue what I did earlier through the internet? Do you know some proprietary trading firms hiring outside US? What do they require? What conditions do they offer? I'm curious your advice.
I live in a south of Poland. <comment><USER2> Why not raise capital and start your own fund if you have the track record already?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have no knowledge of raising capital and managing a fund. I don't think I could operate on that large scale yet, just want to concentrate simply on trading, with money provided.

<comment><USER2> I think it's going to be tough to work remotely in that capacity. Most funds do allow that -- but only if you have worked for them for a period of time and have really proven yourself.

If Poland does not have many funds you ought to consider moving to somewhere that does (maybe you could apply to one of the graduate degree quant finance/financial engineering programs?)

Or, if this is the work that you love and are good at - consider trying to raise capital. There's not much to know. Most people tap friends and family for the initial capital and give it a go. There are plenty of great traders that started with little more than a small sum of capital and a tiny room to work out of.</comment></comment></comment>


How To: Make a Laser Espionage Microphone - <AUTHOR> http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2007/08/17/how-to-make-a-laser-espionage-microphone/

<comment><USER2> Foggy memory, but either the CIA or KGB embedded tiny prisms in embassy window(s) so it was easy to capture the reflection. Without the prism it seems like this would be a real pain.

Here's another awesome way to pick up sound covertly: <http://www.nsa.gov/museum/museu00029.cfm>

I'd love to see some instructions how to do that easily. I'd love to try it.

</comment><comment><USER3> That is deeply awesome. Only of use if you want to listen to a window that you can hit almost perfectly straight on though. They have the two components at quite an angle, that wouldn't be practical if you were trying to be discreet...

<comment><USER4> If I remember right from high school physics class, hitting it at a greater angle will get you a better reflection, and hence better sound quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Time to buy an IR laser to really fool all but the most observant.

<comment><USER5> I suppose aiming might be hard, but getting a camera that sees low res IR shouldn't be too hard.

Some IR lasers <http://www.nvginc.com/irlasmod.htm>

</comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen Such a clever hack.</comment>


The Ultimate-64 board - <AUTHOR> http://www.1541ultimate.net/content/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74&catid=9&Itemid=127 <comment><USER2> It really seems like quite the ultimate c64 board. Pretty much the only thing I can imagine it needing is a image resampler to scale the frame to full 1080p in some way. As many if not most screens are 1080p, it would make sense to have the scaling to be done on the board because it probably can do it better than the random crap that is built-in in screens.

My 2c about the price; do not try too hard to squeeze it into low price point. I can't imagine there being a huge difference in volume between e.g. 200 and 250 eur, but it is absolutely crucial that you actually have the ability to ship it.

<comment><USER3> The MEGA65 is promising a 1080p output but will cost more (and is still months/years away). I don't know that it's really all that important to me, as long as I can use modern monitors, which this seems to offer.

I mean, right now, to get my C64 onto a modern display, I use a TV interface that has composite inputs (this has the nice side effect of allowing me to put it into a PIP on my laptop display). I also have a tiny composite monitor for when I don't want that hassle. So, really, anything that gives me an HDMI output is gonna be awesome.

And, I like their idea of line doubling at lower saturation to give a CRT effect. That's a fun idea.

Also, I agree on the price. I'd love for it to be cheap, but what's an extra fifty bucks between friends? There certainly is an upper bound, but it's not $200.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmm... Could you combine these boards with these newly-pressed cases [1] to get yourself some completely new C64s?

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1670214687/original- com...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1670214687/original- commodore-64c-computer-housing-in-new-coo)

<comment><USER5> Yes. The newly pressed cases are the original molds from Commodore for the C64C, and that model C64 can accommodate any C64 mainboard. Since this new Ultimate-64 is compatible with C64 cases, in turn it's also compatible with these newly pressed ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can't resist any C64 story. It's just impossible for me to not read them.

This sounds super cool, even though I told myself I was gonna wait for the MEGA65 to get back into poking at 8-bit stuff. The expected price point of €199 is also really good (and you can find a broken C64 to provide the donor case and maybe real SID for cheap), so it's not a major investment for a lot of tinkering fun.

</comment><comment><USER6> An aside and confused this with the Ultra 64 for a second, and thought it would be a story about a Nintendo 64 prototype.

Fun history if you've never looked into it.

[https://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/its- fa...](https://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/its-fascinating- to-follow-nintendo-ultra-64-develo-33377190/?page=1)

<comment><USER7> I like how it touts "mitt-mapped" interpolation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> We have a couple of these sorts of projects happening for the Oric-1/Atmos line of computers as well .. its truly an awesome time to be into 8bit computing as an art form, because it doesn't look like these obscure platforms are going away any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have the 1541 Ultimate II cartridge for my C64 and it is a fantastic unit. But the C64 itself is getting on and I wonder how much longer it will last. This is very exciting!

Does it resolve the C64 Chroma/Luminance interference issue? I would love to get a real hardware implementation of the C64 without the interference flaw and see it on a modern display without the horror colour bleed.

I also vaguely remember reading a guide on how to solve the problem on an original C64 with some modification, but I simply cannot find the page anymore. Does anyone have any info on this?

<comment><USER9> Just did some more searching and found it. [http://biosrhythm.com/?p=1340](http://biosrhythm.com/?p=1340)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love these resurrection projects for old processors. I'm currently trying to bring back the Texas Instruments TMS34020 graphics processor without its compiler.

</comment><comment><USER11> I would love to get one of these</comment>


French President Hollande Seeks to Amend Constitution - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/europe/paris-terror-attack.html <comment><USER2> Don't do this, go Norway [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/27/norway- terror-a...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/27/norway-terror- attacks-prime-minister)</comment>


A third of Americans are cool with lab-grown meat – are you? - <AUTHOR> https://www.thememo.com/2017/04/10/a-third-of-americans-are-cool-with-lab-grown-meat-are-you/ <comment><USER2> As long as I can walk down the road and see the cattle I eat roaming happy, nope. Do cows not deserve a nice life? Sure, factory farming is bad, don't support it. I love meat, but if you can't (or wouldn't) tour where it is raised, don't eat it. I get the impression 'meat factories' will be even creepier than factory farms.</comment>


Using Docker as a Development Environment - <AUTHOR> http://www.coolgarif.com/brain-food/using-docker-as-a-development-environment

<comment><USER2> I am only someone with a cursory introduction to docker, but I do believe that a 6 month old introduction is very old for something that has changed so rapidly.</comment>


Think APP.net's Just a Twitter Clone? Then, You're Missing the Point - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/08/13/think-app-net-is-just-a-twitter-clone-then-youre-missing-the-point/ by Mathew Ingram, GigaOm <comment><USER2> This is wishful thinking. App.net describes itself as essentially a third- party-developer-friendly Twitter with user-friendly privacy practices.

From their FAQ:

 _"OK, great, but what exactly is this product you will be delivering?

As a member, you'll have a new social graph and real-time feed that you access from an App.net mobile application or website. At first, the user experience will be very similar to what Twitter was like before it turned into a media company. On a forward basis, we will focus on expanding our core experience by nurturing a powerful ecosystem based on 3rd-party developer built "apps". This is why we think the name "App.net" is appropriate for this service.

From a developer perspective, you will be able to read and write to a Twitter- like API. Developers behaving in good faith will have free reign to build alternate UIs, new business models of their own, and whatever they can dream up."_

Notice how the only differences between their described product and Twitter are the two factors I mentioned above.

Developers don't build Twitter-based products because they need a stream-as-a- service to build upon. They build them because there are users there. This is why I don't understand the App.net hype.

</comment><comment><USER3> "It would a huge benefit to society if we can get with social networking to where we are with email today."

If Twitter, Facebook and other Social networks are controlling their APIs, they may as well choose to create restrictions around App.Net accessing the APIs. So do you think App.Net will be successful in creating this open platform?

<comment><USER4> If you want something to get where email is today, you don't do it through an API. You do it through a standard protocol.

We already have something that handles messages from all over the world. It's called Usenet.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the clarification. I like many misunderstood the project scope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think a lot of people are "missing the point" because of the poor job Dalton is doing of describing what exactly he is trying to do. By the score of my comment [1] on the original announcement a lot of people agree.

1\. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4241821>

</comment><comment><USER6> They keep inviting comparisons to e-mail and instant messaging, and they keep insisting how app.net is not twitter. In many ways, all we know at this point is what app.net is not, and not what it is designed to do.

The additional problem in all of this is that they're selling this service to developers, not users. Users are not going to care whether they use app.net, twitter, or whatever. Most are just wanting to see what Oprah or Shaq are going to say next.

I see this project as more of an expression of collective frustration on behalf of anyone working in social media. I don't see it as a viable service.

</comment><comment><USER7> That's exactly what it is, a Twitter clone. The inspiration is clear from looking at the UI mockups and API. <https://github.com/appdotnet/api- spec/blob/master/objects.md>

Maybe it will turn into something else someday, but not today.

</comment><comment><USER8> APP.net = ghost town social network with a fee.

</comment><comment><USER9> Can someone give an example of an application that would be built on top of App.net?</comment>


Twitter Launches "Twitter Certified Products" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/29/twitter-launches-twitter-certified-products-partners-with-datasift-gnip-hootsuite-others/ <comment><USER3> Looking at this as a complete outsider (and ignoring for a moment that the people running and backing Twitter are _very_ smart and talented), Twitter's big-picture strategy seems rather similar to the plan hatched by the Underpants Gnomes of South Park[1]:

      Phase 1: Collect users and developers (with a free service)
      Phase 2: ?
      Phase 3: Profit

Twitter seems to be smack in the middle of that awkward phase 2: they have a lot of users and developers, and now they need to figure out how to leverage the valuable social graph they've acquired to build a profitable, sustainable, defensible business. That's NOT easy.

I wish them success.

\--

[1] [http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/151040/the- underpants-...](http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/151040/the-underpants- business)

<comment><USER4> Maybe they should just start courting some of the big media companies. I'm sure neither Time Warner or News Corp wants to go back to the days when they had to fill airtime with real content instead of reading tweets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The last sentence of this article has an obvious typo - it says "...the company argues that they don't add enough value for its users." That sentence only makes sense if you replace "users" with "Twitter's bank account."

<comment><USER6> Agreed. Twitter needs to die already.

<comment><USER7> So does Facebook, and Myspace.

<comment><USER8> Does HN automatically hate any tech company as soon as it becomes successful?

<comment> a-priori The key thing about things like Twitter and, especially, Facebook that makes them get such hate, I think, is that as a user, you are their product -- not their customer. They don't get money from you, so their interests are not aligned with yours. This leads to a lot of perverse behaviour in the interests of extracting value from your use of their site.

This is in contrast with other services (like Github, which someone mentioned), whose interests are aligned with yours. They want your experience to be good so that you continue to give them money.

<comment><USER9> ^^This is a nice, clear, and level headed response.

Combine conflict of interest and lack of transparency, and you can explain a lot of problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When there are thousands upon thousands of 'partners' integrating their API, how does a consumer, or a business, sift through that shit and find the gems?

How does Twitter even know about or be aware of apps that are either violating their terms (before or after any terms change), or are awesome and solve a unique problem?

They're big enough now that this is a required means of developer communication, verification, and management.

This applies to any platform after a good length of time and adoption. It probably should have come sooner-- it may have even better telegraphed their hand before the blog posts did.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wrote this a little earlier regarding the announcement:

"Working toward the sustenance of some inexplicable business jargon? Fortunately for you, Twitter has yet to define a robust plan to subvert your work. So, to alay any budding concerns, you get a plucky blue badge for your product."

Ridiculous.

([http://one37.net/29/8/2012/twitter-launches-certified- produc...](http://one37.net/29/8/2012/twitter-launches-certified-products- business-jargon))

</comment><comment><USER12> "Thanks for figuring out for us what monetizes and what doesn't!" -- Twitter (and Craigslist, apparently)

<comment><USER9> Imagine if MLB thought AAA ball was going to cannibalize its audience? What does that say about Major Leaugue's future?

Zuckeberg did the smart thing with IG, his just bought it ! (at 1% of his company value = NBD). Why doesn't twitter just roll-up some of the better products? And keep the collabritive ecosystem? Can they not "afford it"?

The valuation gap between twitter (at what $6-7B?) and its ecosystem players is so vast...something doesn't add up to why they should have such fear.

<comment><USER13> Tweetdeck had enough users before Twitter bought them that they could have started a competing service. And due to the loose nature of Twitter's social graph, it may have been just as useful to the users. I think that sent a scare through the company on the dangers of not being the touch point with the company.

<comment><USER9> Just hit google real quick, and found this headline on that _Twitter Buys TweetDeck For $40 Million | TechCrunch_ I think you're probably right in terms of the mental framing...but, back of the envelope, 10x tweetdecks = 400m = 6% equity stake in Twitter $7B. Its not a bad biz model. Twitter has 2x orders of magnitude more mkt value. They should put that to work.[1]

[1] Or they dont, and/or cant issue shares anywhere near that price after the FB ipo collapse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Their road map and this strategy cements the opinion that Twitter is a media company and not a social-networking platform.

The question each user of Twitter now has to ask themselves, how and why they are using Twitter on the daily basis.

As a business itself, Twitter is clearly providing an outlook into what it expects its user community to be, i.e, the users are the clear product to be sold to Twitter's customers and clients.

The old model of selling Ads to the free-users, no longer works. The free- users clearly need to be sold to the clients and customers as well.

So if you are a free-user as a business yourself, than you are in a good company at Twitter. If you are a free-user as a consumer (consuming content generated by others) than you are a product and you have to be ready to be sold. But if you are a free-user only trying to have social-conversation with friends and strangers, than you are an idiot interfering in other people's business.

There is nothing negative here, it just all makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER15> From Failwhale to Stamp Of Quality in a few short years.

</comment><comment><USER16> Twitter can't find profitability, but these companies can. Maybe Twitter can finally make a buck by taxing them?

<comment><USER17> The problem is that there's not enough money there. Twitter needs 12 - <USER2> figures, not the paltry 6-7 of these "partners".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well, at least Klout didn't get a badge. That really would have taken the cake.

</comment><comment><USER19> Does twitter have an in house R&D department not focused on improving twitter, but on exploring other options?

<comment><USER20> Haha, couldn't agree more! It is age of the marketers not the geeks, it seems. Dustin's comment made me remember it <http://dcurt.is/twitters-graph>

<comment><USER19> If I were running twitter, I would be moving towards making twitter more open. I would not stop until diapers could tweet that the baby needs to be changed. I would also hire every coder I could find and give them free will over what to develop and research. Then we would test all of the ideas on the incredible user base twitter has. There is no way they cant hit gold multiple times with such approach. But no, they prefer to "defend" their property. Twitter is going the way of yahoo. Sad.

<comment><USER21> IFTTT: If This Then Twitter

<comment><USER19> :D

        if(twitter)
            R&D ? profit | break
        else
            print "one more round, people"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This maybe wild conjecture but I think the crux of the issue is that Twitter feels that developers of third-party apps "owe them something". After all, even before Tweetie the Twitter apps were generating profits for many small companies before Twitter generated any significant revenue.

The problem with Twitter is that they provide an infrastructure service without owning infrastructure but paying all the costs to provide it (aside from bandwidth consumed by users).

If Twitter's going to go with this API tokens implementation I think they should stop this love/hate relationship with third-party developers and tax them per token. As long as it's a reasonable fee and not prohibitive, third- party devs should be happy to pay. This 100,000 users cap is both arbitrary and prohibitive for startups targeting growth.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think a lot of developers are looking at this in the wrong way. Twitter realizes its potential as a service. It has been used to topple governments in the last 5 years and to stage massive political movements. A lot has been changed thanks to Twitter's method of communication. In the past year they've hired multiple security experts and have begun making their product more secure (look at the patches to the Twitter client). I think their move to create licensed applications may not be as much for money as it is for security and having trusted sources. Lets face it, most applications you can't trust with your security. This allows Twitter to have a say in who meets their standards.

</comment><comment><USER24> Steve Ballmer could offer some valuable advice to Dick on what's actually important.[1]

On a more serious note, am I the only one who suspects they're not satisfied with feed ads and want to drive more impressions on Twitter.com?

\--

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE>

</comment><comment><USER25> Looks like a direct answer to the Facebook PMD program, even the badge qualifications are similar.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why isn't Twitter taking these data analyses and enterprise targetted services and acquiring a service or two and developing them in house? It seems like they already do a lot of liaising with companies, and this is a solid extension.

</comment><comment><USER27> Letting Twitter audit your company and plans and then shortlist you if you're doing something worth doing sounds like a great plan.</comment>


Rockstar programmers: do you ever cheat/bluff for your reputation? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Rockstar-programmers-do-you-ever-cheat-bluff-for-your-reputation

<comment><USER2> Anybody answering this question is admitting they call themselves a rockstar.

Everybody knows ninjas kick rockstar ass.

</comment><comment><USER3> Such a way does not do honor to the spirit of the craft.</comment>


Qt for WebAssembly Technology Preview - <AUTHOR> http://blog.qt.io/blog/2018/04/23/beta-qt-webassembly-technology-preview/ <comment><USER2> Really surprised and saddened by the negative comments here. Qt is an amazing framework that has been around for nearly 30 years. Developing with it is a great experience, probably the most enjoyable coding I've done.

I have faith that the Qt project won't spend time shipping this if it doesn't offer advantages. Give them time, and a little benefit of the doubt based on a very long history of excellence.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I buy that, are you saying that the only reason that Qt hasn't completely taken over writing native software on (even desktop! not to mention mobile where Qt also works), is a marketing problem?

I would argue that Qt's problem is:

* Licensing is expensive (look it up, you can't just use it for free for large-scale commercial projects, contrary to what many people believe)

* Getting started with Qt is painful and integrating it into an existing codebase even moreso - get ready to suffer with C++ linker nonsense

* You have to write in languages that are not particularly enjoyable to ship a production application (C++, JavaScript but without The Nice Parts of modern JS web dev)

* The "deploy" bit is completely left to the reader, Qt doesn't help you write apps and ship them end-to-end. Contrast this with Electron which has a pretty strong (albeit a bit mysterious) packaging and auto-update pipeline

Qt experts will argue on all these points, "It's a library, it shouldn't do XYZ", but at the end of the day, Qt is a _means_ to ship Desktop and Mobile Software, and by ignoring the entire Developer Experience from end-to-end, they miss the mark.

<comment><USER4> My main problem with Qt is just that it doesn't feel native, it's as simple as that. This trumps all other problems like the fact that it's a bazillion exabytes and painful to set up etc.

<comment><USER5> It certainly feels more native than web/electron, swing, XUL, GTK and just about every other cross platform technology. It's about as good as you'll get without a native client for each platform, which will always be the best option.

The only other options is the hybrid approach which uses native widgets like wxWidgets, but this means you're limited by the lowest common denominator.

<comment><USER6> I used to care about the native feel, but now as long as something has a good UI I don't really care that much. Case in point, visual studio code. The file menu is native and that's about it. The rest is html / JavaScript and it's a great interface. I don't care that the buttons don't match whatever OS theme I'm using. The web never has.

<comment><USER7> > Case in point, visual studio code.

I think most people consider visual studio to be an exception, not the norm. Whether or not visual studio's performance success represents what the typical developer should be expected to get when writing idiomatic JavaScript in Electron has probably not been fairly evaluated in the face of popular performance slugs like slack.

<comment><USER6> I was talking about nicely designed non-native UX/UI. Why are you talking about electron performance?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of a time, when I used to work for a very large company. After an unfortunate amount of meetings and powerpoint presentations about ubiquity and compatibility, we ended up putting a Flash VM inside a Java client, to read HTML.

Oh boy, sometimes you just walk away from a crash, but you're never the same.

<comment><USER9> I think this is misdirected criticism. WebAssembly runs at almost native speeds on a single very lightweight "VM".

<comment><USER10> I think this is perfectly relevant criticism. Browsers are a huge amount of overhead to add to a cross platform toolkit, for virtually no benefit. Distributing full fledged programs like this via browsers is simply going to be a shit user experience, on top of the already terrible user experience that browsers give.

<comment><USER11> Webassembly isn't designed or intended to run exclusively in the browser, though. A lot of people seem to assume that native webassembly apps would be packaged with Electron but I think that when the language matures a bit, it should be possible to get thinner native VMs without the unnecessary bulk of a browser.

<comment><USER12> Why would you package it in Electron? AFAIK, webassembly is mainly intended to be run on the web, in the browser. The main goal being you don't need to install anything.

Building a native app to wasm to package it into Electron sounds really weird to me. OK there's a security benefit thanks to sandboxing, but using Electron as a sandbox is really a strange idea.

And when it comes to portability, if you build you native app to webassembly, it can run anywhere. But if you add Electron to the mix, you need to build a different version for each platform, which destroy the portability benefit. If your app can be built on wasm, it can probably be compiled for different platform already. Adding Electron to the mix doesn't change any of that.

<comment> yoz-y Browsers still can not access the filesystem correctly, can't communicate with most of the devices you could plug into your computer, can't reasonably use keyboard shortcuts and so on.

Electron can.

<comment><USER12> But the native version already does that! What can electron do that the native version cannot ? The point of electron is that it let you write code once (in JavaScript or something that transpile to js, like TypeScript or Elm) and built multi-plateform software. But if you have a native software that can be built in wasm, it also can be built on Windows + Mac + Linux. Why using electron in that case?

Electron is great if you don't want to write native code (and deal with the debugging complexity of C or C++). If you already have a cross-plateform native app in written with Qt, why the hell would you want to put that in Electron?! And remind that if your C++ isn't cross-plateform already, you won't be able to build to wasm.

<comment> yoz-y You are right, in this case it does not make sense since you can already distribute the Qt compiled version.

<comment><USER12> And even if you want to ship native code within your Electron app, why would you use wasm instead of the native code with ffi ?

<comment> yoz-y This would of course have to be tested but there might be less overhead? I haven't used FFI but they mention that it is significant. I have written a V8 add-on using NAN and the performance is very good (as in passing relatively large arrays between C++ and Node is in the few microsecond range)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Note that Qt has two separate technology previews for porting Qt apps to run in the web browser:

Qt WebGL streaming (qplatform/qpa plugin):

The Qt binary runs on your PC as normal, but instead of opening an X11/Win32 window, opens a network port. You can open the URL in a browser to see the interface. Only one connection is allowed / only one user can interact with the app at a time.

Technology preview since 5.10, will be "TP2" status in 5.11. See [http://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/11/14/qt-webgl-cinematic- experie...](http://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/11/14/qt-webgl-cinematic-experience/) and [http://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/07/07/qt-webgl-streaming- merged/](http://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/07/07/qt-webgl-streaming-merged/)

Qt for WebAssembly:

The entire QtWidgets / QML libraries are compiled to WASM and run clientside. There is no server-side component.

Will be released as a technology preview in the upcoming 5.11 release.

<comment><USER14> They should port the rendering of the qt components to Dom/css with a web assembly backend. That would seem like a web app but allow for c++ code reuse.

<comment><USER15> I think that would be more feasible with something like wxWidgets or libui [0], which already use each platform's native widgets.

[0] [https://github.com/andlabs/libui](https://github.com/andlabs/libui)

<comment><USER16> GTK isn't native on a huge number of users' desktops, including mine. It wouldn't be so bad if the GTK CADTs would stop breaking style configuration with each release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Say what you will, we need these kind of projects in order to push forward WebAssembly (and eventually JavaScript may not be the only dominant language for front-end web development). I'm curious how much of the canvas they're taking advantage of if any of it. It's quite exciting. I might wind up porting one of my existing Qt applications just to try this out and see what that would be like.

<comment><USER18> Wasn't it more like: most people know JS so everything (server, mobile/desktpp apps, etc) was made with it.

And not like: JS is so shitty, better we make everything with it, even if there are better alternatives.

?

<comment><USER19> It was the latter I am afraid. Then the general hype started and now we have insanity like Electron etc. Don't worry web assembly is here to help JS, not to replace it ;-).

<comment><USER17> I wouldn't be surprised to see WebAssembly only applications once WebAssembly matures and can "stand on it's own free" honestly. JavaScript for sure will hold dominance for many, many years however.

<comment> yoz-y WebAssembly can not manipulate the DOM though no? Web applications got popular also because creating UIs with HTML and CSS is easy.

<comment><USER18> It probably will be able to do this in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I could find a few live demos [0] although some are broken

[0] [https://msorvig.github.io/qt-webassembly- examples/](https://msorvig.github.io/qt-webassembly-examples/)

<comment><USER21> I just have "NetworkError" for all of them.

<comment><USER22> It's rare I have to disable ublock, but that helped me.

<comment><USER21> aaaah, thanks a lot! I did not made the link with the error name...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm seeing a ton of snarky comments, but isn't this what exactly WebAssemly is about (which I see people praising everyday as it opens up possibilities)

<comment><USER18> I had the impression WASM was about writing parts of web apps in it, so they get more performance.

I can't imagine many people would like to download a 60GB AAA game or something like Photoshop to run it in the browser.

<comment><USER23> Actually, if I could have Photoshop run in a browser, with its full feature set, and running at >90% of full native speed, that would be pretty awesome. And I'd even be willing to wait for the multi-GB download as long as it only happened once (with small deltas thereafter).

Not saying we're there yet, but it's not hard to see where WASM could take us.

<comment><USER10> I can see where web assembly could take us, but I am confused about why people seem to want to go there.

<comment><USER24> Because Flash, Applets, .NET, Silverlight, ActiveX, NaCL,....

Difference being that WASM is kind of blessed format.

<comment><USER10> The problems with the alternatives you listed wouldn't have been reduced with more blessing.

<comment><USER24> So what makes Flash => WebAssembly more acceptable than Flash?

<comment><USER10> When did I say webassembly was more acceptable than flash?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is emscripten-qt that built Qt apps w/ Emscripten for a while now[0] (since asm.js and WASM should not change anything even though it hasn't had updates in a few years). Appears this uses Emscripten as well. I wonder how this compares at a tech level.

0 - [http://vps2.etotheipiplusone.com:30176/redmine/projects/emsc...](http://vps2.etotheipiplusone.com:30176/redmine/projects/emscripten- qt)

<comment><USER26> Thank you for pointing to this, I'd seen it before and was reminded of it.

It's impressive and exciting it can run a full app like KATE. It feels as if you're running a Linux VM inside the browser, but no!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and- death...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of- javascript) The end is neigh

<comment><USER28> Is it common for people to call it YavaScript?

<comment><USER28> Apparently it's a joke: [https://www.quora.com/JavaScript-programming- language-Why-do...](https://www.quora.com/JavaScript-programming-language-Why- does-Gary-Bernhardt-say-YavaScript-instead-of-JavaScript-in-his-talk-The- Birth-and-Death-of-JavaScript)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Unfortunately, this port seems to lack accessibility for blind people and others that require assistive technology. My conclusion is based on the demos linked elsewhere on this thread. [0] I have no idea how to make a conventional GUI toolkit accessible with ARIA, but I hope the Qt developers figure it out.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I tested on Windows with a screen reader and Chrome.

[0]: [https://msorvig.github.io/qt-webassembly- examples/](https://msorvig.github.io/qt-webassembly-examples/)

<comment><USER29> Accessibility like that likely won't be possible, as the only way to get accessibility in browsers is with the DOM, which is very limited in functionality.

If you wish to have accessible applications, you'll need to run the native applications instead.

<comment><USER15> What if some application developers don't make a native version available? Accessibility should be the default on all platforms, not something that application developers have to go out of their way to support.

<comment><USER29> > Accessibility should be the default on all platforms, not something that > application developers have to go out of their way to support.

Complain to the browser developers then, they're the reason why this is so hard for Qt running on the web.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So, you're saying I could use a QTWebView in the browser?

<comment><USER31> No no no. Obviously you should compile your existing Qt application to webassembly, put that in a QTWebView and have that be your application.

<comment><USER32> And we will run this all on nebulet, an OS being written for a pure web assembly user space [0].

But seriously, you say this like it's horrible, but a bytecode/VM that allows us to abstract over code that runs in a browser/code that runs a native app/code that runs in a device driver is really exciting. The fact that it allows infinite nesting is a inevitable mildly beneficial side effect to having interoperability.

[0] [https://github.com/nebulet/nebulet](https://github.com/nebulet/nebulet)

<comment><USER33> So basically Squeak, a 25 yr old technology that still runs bitexact across all it's virtual machines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This (assuming it's Qt Quick) opens the door for a competitor to HTML for web apps.

<comment><USER35> Except this looks like it would be a big download, wouldn't it? And how would this UI interact with assistive applications like screen readers?

<comment><USER36> According to my chrome network tab cnn.com now comes to 1.7 megabyte. Without ad blocking, over double that.

Let's say 20% of that is images (it's actually less) ... it is not a problem to fit quite an extensive C++ program in that.

<comment><USER35> Have you checked the sizes of the Qt libraries lately? QtCore or QtWidgets larger than 5MB each. Qt is simply an enormous amount of code. I currently can't get any of the wasm files for the demos to load to compare those, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> How long until someone uses this to make an Electron app?

<comment><USER38> Once we compile Chromium to webassembly, we can run Qt in Chromium in Chromium in Slack!

<comment><USER39> See also [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and- death...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of- javascript)

You jest, but this sort of thing probably is the death of almost all native software, sadly.

<comment><USER40> There are some things we mourn. Nobody mourns cross platform distribution of native apps. Anyone who does hasn't had to manage the insanity of installer apps and of papering over a million different OS versions and app versions.

It's 2018 and we still don't have a common, wide spread, OSS framework for self-updating native apps that runs on all the major desktop operating systems. And let's not even go into app store territory...

<comment><USER24> Well it would be great if there weren't hundred of FOSS desktop variants....

<comment><USER41> This seems to be a common complaint as if we were all standing on a life raft pushing it down with the collective weight of our respective keisters.

If only some people would stop contributing to creative work you don't see the value of and distributing it for free on the internet!

At present you have

Debian and a bazillion ubuntu derivatives using a debian package. ubuntu/debian are going to have different versions of some libraries but you can package deps with your app.

Arch and derivatives have a pkgbuild. This is quite simple if anyone cares about your app your arch users will probably upload one for you to the arch user repo.

Fedora and suse have rpms. These will be similar but not identical.

3 packages and you can cover most of your potential users.

In the future you reasonably may expect to be able to distribute a flatpak and be done with it.

<comment><USER24> It is not only about package formats, since even when the format is the same, the expected directory layouts or installed libraries will be completely different.

No one really took FHS seriously, each installation is a special snowflake with its own GUI and dynamic libraries story across Linux variants is even worse than it was on other OSes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Looking at software that uses Qt[1], I'd say I'll be impressed once they have compiled one of them, say for instance Stellarium, to Wasm. It'd be great to see how a full software, not just a toy demo, behaves in webassembly.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software)#Applications_usi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_\(software\)#Applications_using_Qt)

<comment><USER43> On a comment to the article:

> To give an example, the app I'm working on > ([https://github.com/OSSIA/score](https://github.com/OSSIA/score)) is > roughly 300kloc of Qt / C++ code and compiled in WASM almost from the first > try. I'm still having freezes in some places but overall it's working great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> If everybody has a problem with Qt why don't we see gtk on more systems. The last time I checked you can use gtk on win/Linux/Mac it is free, and it sort of works.

</comment><comment><USER45> [https://github.com/msorvig/qt-webassembly- examples](https://github.com/msorvig/qt-webassembly-examples)

</comment><comment><USER46> Honestly, I can't wait to try it. This is exciting.

</comment><comment><USER47> It would be great if this could be done with JUCE too!

<comment><USER48> Also FLTK, both would be very small compared to Qt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> No demo page?

</comment><comment><USER8> "Because you can doesn't mean you should." -common sense.

But then again, since 2017, anything that can happen will.

<comment><USER50> On the one hand, I find it funny that people are using bloated electron to avoid writing Qt code, and now you can write Qt code even on the web!

On the other hand, if you already do have a Qt application, then you can maybe get a webapp for almost free?

<comment><USER51> See, this is what I get for procrastinating.

I've been asked by a customer to port my recent Qt app to iOS. Got the equipment, was about to get the development environment set up, got XCode installed....and now this.

This is pretty exciting if it all works as expected.

EDIT: aaaaaaand after trying some of the demos at [https://github.com/msorvig/qt-webassembly- examples](https://github.com/msorvig/qt-webassembly-examples) using a brand new iPad (iOS11/A10 Fusion core) using Safari, half the examples run out of memory, and the other half aren't touch enabled. Hmm.

EDIT2: Firefox iOS, same set of crashes.

<comment><USER51> EDIT3: got it to cross compile and load off a server. And....ugh. It's got a long way to go. It works, at least. Still too large for a mobile device however.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Which website can I reverse engineer for you? - <AUTHOR> I'm creating a series of articles that reverse engineer your favorite websites. With a focus on fundamentals like messaging, sales copy, how they demonstrate the value of their product and build trust.
The goal is to make it easier for you to see their underlying persuasion principles, so you don't have to copy their copy.
Who would you like me to reverse engineer? It could be a leading competitor. Or a site that never fails to inspire you. There should be little doubt about their success.
Let me know, I'll pick half a dozen and publish them over the next few weeks. <comment><USER2> [https://adafruit.com/](https://adafruit.com/)

They do a lot of things well, some of which are not immediately obvious.

<comment><AUTHOR> Positives, in no particular order: \- The quotations on the bottom of each page help communicate the companies values and also create a sense of community, "people like us believe things like this".

\- It's a really good balance between promoting fun electrical projects that will engage the maker mindset, but they aren't shying away from actually selling the components. Sales + Engineering. And those are often two mindsets that don't sit comfortably.

\- It owns its nerdiness and goes all in on having a personality. 90% of websites I see have "professional and trustworthy" as their goal, but the result is generic, bland and boring.

\- There's tons of learning resources.

\- Uses video really well, I got sucked into a video about solar cells and the whole vibe reminded me of an old BBC tv show that helped you build a robot from a kit, decades ago. "It's hot and sunny outside, so I'm going to build a solar powered fan, here's how a solar cell it works" this is just a great way to learn, this is how we all wish science was taught in schools. There are 1000 other electrical component suppliers who would say it's not their job to do the teaching for the teachers, just to supply the components. But this is how you create a community that will keep coming back, because they just get so much value from the overall package.

\- The founder is willing to promote her business. Magazine covers, interviews, videos. Most people don't want to face the scrutiny and judgement that comes with real publicity.

\- There are only a few fundamental models for selling, one is the weekly marketplace, another is the travelling show. A merchant would travel from town to town and use some form of entertainment to draw a crowd, once they had the crowds attention, and they'd been warmed up (shifted their emotional state from the drudgery of everyday chores to something more exciting), then you introduce your product and its benefits. (Also the basic model of TV). And that's also the foundation of this type of business. A lot of effort is invested in the free "entertainment" side of the business. The regular fun and inspiring creative projects that the company puts out. (And I believe were the origin of the company, blog first, kids later.) Get people excited, create a crowd, then sell them a tool, amulet, map or weapon to help them move closer to their dreams. It sounds obvious, but most companies skip both the crowd and the excitement part.

\- There's a nice segment from what looks like an external documentary about the company, on the about page. I thought it might be useful to roughly break down that documentary, so that people could make their own. If you look at it, there's really nothing technically difficult about it. Sit on a chair, looking slightly off camera and answer the follow types of question...

(Have anyone ask you the questions, one at a time, and edit them out)

What's your name and what's your company? When did you start your company? What does your company do? Where do you do it? How does your company make your customers lives better? Who uses your products and where are they? How successful is your company? How did you get into this business, what's your background? Step 1, Step 2, Step 3. Who are your heroes, who inspired you? What's your company culture like? What has been your biggest realization or lesson learned? What's your best piece of advice you have for your customers?

Then film a bunch of B roll of you working, interacting with people, and around your city, and splice it in behind your answers to break up the images. Then add upbeat background music. Your own documentary in a couple of days!

That's all I have for now. There's a lot more that could be modelled from this site though, I think they're doing a great job.

<comment><USER2> Impressive. Thanks much, I've been a fan of theirs for some time; you've illuminated things i hadn't seen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://falconipuig.com/](https://falconipuig.com/)

they are lawyers in Ecuador

<comment><AUTHOR> Positives: The main thing I think these guys are doing really well is communicating through their images.

Lawyering (is that a word?) is a personal service, who you're working with matters, and first impressions matter. There are 8 large portraits of the key team on the main page, not hidden away. And I like that they aren't all sharing the same expression. At this point a customer will just be looking for anyone they can connect with, or relate to. We are constantly trying to simulate the future, "what will it be like to share my problems with these people?" And we tell ourselves a story, often based purely on how people look.

I've seen dozens of legal sites without a single human image, but no one wants to share their troubles with an unknown stranger. [That's the route to go even further down if you're competing. Would people want to share their troubles with you? And would they trust you to fight on their behalf. Empathy and Courage, two quite different traits.]

A single good image makes the future more predictable, and the lawyer less of a stranger.

The main hero shot is great. It's both formal and informal. These people are clearly here to work, and this is a prestigious location overlooking the city, but the scene is also reminiscent of a family gathering. This is a powerful family who could be on your side, and have your back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google would be a nice challenge as they avoided paid advertising.

<comment><AUTHOR> hasn't google been done to death already? especially back when they started?

<comment><USER4> I'd like to see a modern approach how someone would advertise something like Google. It seems like the usual - mailing list, ads, etc still won't work. Would the word of mouth approach be as effective today?

Or maybe, say, DuckDuckGo instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> duckduckgo is riding the growing wave of concern over privacy. So they get to chip in on every press story about privacy issues and google.

google at the time was riding the wave of the web itself taking off, an also it was an order of magnitude better than the alternatives, which a new google would need to be to compete.

People don't change habits for a little benefit, when the existing solution is already good. the new benefit has to be 10x better.

they might change for ideological reasons, or social reasons. if you have a world view about privacy it's easy to buy into an alternative because of that. as we've seen, most people don't care about privacy. maybe that changes in 10 years, maybe not.

But any strategy for a new product needs a target, and a story before you think about which media to use.

For example, you target teens now, who over the next 10 years will be the ones showing their parents how to use, and what to use on the next set of devices.

Or, you focus on a new niche kind of search, image search and video search and social media search and map search all came after website text (and likely were invented by other companies google acquired) maybe the next kind of search with come out of the VR world or whatever.

Either way, you start with some niche of people who will be the ones naturally motivated to spread the message. You never try to directly convince the general public of something.

That usually means starting with the group who is suffering the most pain, and wants the most urgent solution.

One thing DDGo do well on their homepage is deliver their message in long meaningful headlines... \- We don't store your personal information. Ever. \- We don't follow you around with ads. \- We don't track you in or out of private browsing mode. \- Switch to DuckDuckGo and take back your privacy!

They use 4 full screens to deliver 4 headlines, that's super easy to consume, but it feels like a full message. The rest of those screens get to tell a hero's journey story visually with friendly cartoons, and a likable color palette. This feels the opposite of corporate and tech.

If you want to compete with those two, with a search engine, find another wave to ride. Another big story that people feel strongly about.

Breakthrough Advertising is one of the best ad books ever written, it explains really well how society creates these waves of feeling, the conversation of the day, the worries of the day, the hopes of the day. And how to direct that energy into your product.

Dove soap is an obvious example, a wave of emotion about the number of perfect photoshopped women selling cosmetics in magazines. Dove rode it by creating campaigns around "real women". Its a story, riding a wave, but it has sold a lot of otherwise ordinary soap. (they don't even call it dove soap anymore its a beauty cream bar lol)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> don't use them so i m curious how they did it:

pinterest

linkedin

<comment><AUTHOR> pinterest is a little like modern google. I was thinking about the main benefit of the modern google (beyond the basic utility of the search function) and its the chrome browser. as in, you don't even need to goto google to search google any more. you just type into your browser bar.

similarly with pinterest, we know what it promises, its simple enough that they don't need to sell it, if you're visually minded you get to create vision boards on your favorite topics. For people into that, its reinforcing both their values and aspirations. The key thing that makes it usable is that you don't have to goto pinterest to use it. Once you have the plugin or extension every image on every website can be instantly plucked and collected.

The lesson to extract, or the question to ask is - how might I get people to benefit from using my site, in the context most useful to them, without them having to think about, or come find my site?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> news.ycombinator.com :)

<comment><AUTHOR> hmmm, i'm not sure there's anything special about hacker news itself, it would have to be a breakdown of YC itself. yc has a strong story, it knows who it wants to appeal to. I do like the original yc site which lays out that story very clearly. waybackmachine it. Most sites would do better if they started off with a manifesto on a plain html page, rather than a design template with 50 features, but nothing to really say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> tenable.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Corporate sites like this are interesting. I don't know these guys, but a lot of companies like this have a sales force that does all the heavy lifting, the website does nothing more than act like an old school brochure.

There's a lot of jargon, and stock photography, but they are doing some important things...

\- focusing on social proof. they are highlighting being featured in credible 3rd party reports. they are highlighting how many fortune 500 co's they work with. and they have video case studies with credible clients.

If I were a startup trying to beat a site like this, I would focus on the appearance of more human connection to the community. I would create my site with the goal of having zero stock photos, but 10x more photos / videos of real people in the business.

I'd probably use interviews about security issues to justify those images/videos. And you could probably create enough photos/videos from a few days at a single security expo somewhere, maybe without even having to pay for a booth. Just take someone with a camera and interview as many people as possible about their hopes/fears in this space.

You end up with the ability to show and name a bunch of industry people, on your site, and talk to them about security, without them being clients. But you're still creating the perception of a deep connection and trust, in the community/industry. And of course, your get some contact with potential clients in the process.

I'm not sure the site has enough general appeal, or lessons for me to break it down any deeper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> bubble.is

outsystems.com

<comment><AUTHOR> i'm guessing these guys are competitors? their sites are non offensive but they aren't doing anything special (worth modelling) you have lots of opportunity to beat them on that front. tap into one set of values, and get more personal (less corporate). good way to start is think about which type of people you most like helping, then dig down until you understand their soul. we're all driven to achieve more control and predictability, all that differs is how we go about that. Pick a group you like and go all in on talking directly to them, in the language they use.

<comment><AUTHOR> i might break down the other 2 sites a little more on here, later today.

<comment><AUTHOR> bubble.io points of interest... \- basic value proposition is clear. \- level of simplicity is emphasized. if you're selling tech to a less technical audience, you want to make it clear this is easy ala "drag and drop, one click hosting, full control" \- almost all consumer btw are attempting to gain more control in their life through a purchase. \- Join 326,534 Bubblers today! enter email to get started. So not only are they providing social proof of their popularity, but they have a business model to make that possible, with multiple free or low priced options to build that number. \- a lot of their other copy isn't that great and much of it won't be read beyond the headlines. people scan to see what they should read, when you write copy for scanning, they never read anything but the headlines. \- they also lack any kind of humanity, people buy from people, that's your opportunity to compete with them. showcase real humans and real human projects way more upfront. \- I think their pricing and ease of getting started is a key point, everyone is comfortable with the idea of starting free and paying more as you scale. \- they also name the various groups their customers fall into, so people can think "yes, this is for me". \- combine the above points, and its enough for someone to sign-up and start the process. How far they get depends on the app itself.

So your opportunity to compete is (as is often the case with tech sites) to lead with a more human approach. Show yourself, show your customers, show real projects. Just connect as humans, with the humans reading your page. You could also replace 90% of that copy with a dozen, longer, more carefully thought out headlines that deliver a more complete pitch. They are selling their tool - but they aren't selling themselves, and they aren't selling the dream. What is it that people wanting to build their own apps are really trying to achieve? I'd go all in on one of those groups - startups or education/students or businesses. Then you can really talk their language, develop a personality and a community around the pursuit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> pornhub

<comment><AUTHOR> pornhub is just youtube.

even though you're likely not after a serious breakdown, our primary drives, to gain control and be able to predict the future (through resources, social status etc) are all so that we can stay alive and stay safe - so that we can procreate and continue gene replication, and raise our offspring.

Our unconscious is running the show, driven by those aims. Our conscious, cortex, tries to predict the future and make plans that will achieve those drives "what if..." and also tries to make sense of everything it notices (including our own unconscious behavior) "why did that happen?"

A LOT of what we consciously think is inaccurate or plain untrue. What we say and what we do are miles apart. When building a site to sell anything, ignore what people say, study only what they do. And have those core, unconscious drives in mind, not the bullshit of the day people are talking about.

we are currently in an age where there's an overload of sex, but very little sexiness. the 80's and 90's were waaay sexier. now it's all political correctness and sjw angriness or generic appeals to everyone. that won't last through the next decade. sex sells. sexiness sells more.

what was the question again? :)

<comment><USER9> That was a good breakdown I give you that. Would be interesting to see how it changes in the next decade indeed.</comment></comment></comment>


Microwave-Powered Rocket Ascends without Fuel  - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25701/

<comment><USER2> They're covering this like it's a new thing... At least at the end they mention this:

> _The rocket traveled 1.2 meters into the air - the world record for such a > craft is 72 meters and 12.7 seconds of flight, accomplished in 2001._

ie, 9 years since a massively more successful demonstration. Slow science news day?

edit: the ones I've seen before were essentially two cones, one upside down and inside the other. It was spun, and lasers / masers were shot at the bottom, creating a bit of plasma near the joint of the two cones.

          /\
         /  \
        /    \
       / \  / \
        ^ \/ ^
        │    │
        └────┴── plasma

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm confused - I thought the idea was to use "light pressure" to propel rockets from the ground - not gas expansion. Light pressure would work all the way to space - in fact could propel a Mars mission from a stationary/orbital laser.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not only no on-board fuel, but no on-board propellant, either. There goes everything I learned about rockets from Heinlein. Slick!

</comment><comment><USER5> Why don't we investigate this more? It sounds very promising. What are the primary obstacles?

<comment><USER6> Some would include that it super heats the air to gain thrust, as you get higher the air gets thinner meaning less thrust. Also there are limits to how narrow you can keep a laser beam through air and atmospheric absorption and diffusion.

All these things combine to make it more difficult to get energy to the craft as it get's further away.

<comment><USER5> Would adaptive optics help? and/or Could the rocket carry its own propellant but get power from the beam? E.g., carry its own air.

<comment><USER6> I don't know what you mean when you say adaptive optics sorry, but yes it could carry it's own air, I'm not sure of the practicalities but it's possible.

Also there are hard physical limits on how finely you can converge a point of light, MinimumDiameter = (2.44 _wavelength_ frequency)/LenseDiameter This is called the minimum spot size.

<comment><USER5> Adaptive optics lets telescopes compensate for atmospheric distortions to get similar performance to telescopes in space. It's also used for lasers. I don't know how it works but it sounds like it would be applicable here.

Your minimum diameter formula doesn't sound too restrictive.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


John Nash's Nobel Prize-winning one-pager - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/cantors-paradise/the-beautiful-life-of-john-forbes-nash-jr-8931a4781ce5#c415 <comment><USER2> His Nobel was for all four equilibrium papers...</comment>


Python's Iterators are a Bad Implementation of Laziness - <AUTHOR> http://sandersn.com/blog/index.php?title=python_s_iterators_are_a_bad_implementat&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

<comment><USER2> I can understand the frustration caused by this kind of bug, but it's actually pretty easy to fix:

        generator = (x * x for x in xrange(10)) # A generator
        my_list = list(generator) # Build a list, reusable

That's the Python way of doing things: trust the programmer, & let him make mistakes.

Also how does C# implement this kind of "smart" laziness? It seems to me there will be other more obscure problems: what happen if the Enumerable have side effect? Is the side effect repeated or is the result cached? Python's generator are implementation is simple: there's no tricks, magic, & layers of abstraction.

<comment><USER3> In C#, it's basically just idiomatic to produce enumerables that don't have side effects as you enumerate them. There's nothing strictly enforcing it.

Like in your Python example, one is expected to put the results of an enumerable into a real data structure if you need it more than once and you suspect that the enumeration might be expensive or involve side effects.

Both ways "let the programmer make mistakes" -- in C#, you might accidentally enumerate something more than once without realizing it, which may be inefficient or cause subtle bugs. In Python, you might accidentally screw something up the way the fellow writing the post above did. One might think that the C# behavior is overly clever, and it's best to fail fast, but it's convenient in practice when you know that cycling again won't cause problems (the majority of the time.) I'm not sure which I prefer. One thing to note is that having static types a la C# does make it clear at all points whether you are dealing with an enumerable or a real list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I observe that when reading this code, there is nothing to show when the parameter is a list versus a generator. Modern programming is all about abstracting away detail to allow the programmer to concentrate on the structure and other stuff that matters, but it seems to me (and I may be wrong) that increasingly we find things that look the same, get used the same, generally behave the same, and then are different in a corner case.

It seems that allowing lists and generators to be used in identical ways generally makes things easier to create and easier to use, but the differences in the corner cases suddenly mean you have to know about the detail. Then it becomes hard.

The problem isn't that it's easy to fix. We all know how to fix these sorts of things. The problem is that details you need to know are being hidden, because you shouldn't need to know about them.

When I write a routine should I always "assert" that its parameter is a list and not a generator? Do I have to write the code to use a slower technique just in case the parameter is a generator? Do I "ungenerate" the generator out into a list?

That can't be right ...

<comment><USER5> _Modern programming is all about abstracting away detail to allow the programmer to concentrate on the structure and other stuff that matters, but it seems to me (and I may be wrong) that increasingly we find things that look the same, get used the same, generally behave the same, and then are different in a corner case._

I agree. I would paraphrase this as: Leaky abstractions cause bugs, and unfortunately all abstractions turn out to leak at some point (I think someone else said it this way before, but I can't remember who right now). EDIT: Found it - [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html)

This doesn't mean we shouldn't use abstractions of course - it just means each abstraction comes with a cost.

<comment><USER6> Yes, but the cost in this case is the need to write meanigful variable names. <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Wrong.html>

<comment><USER7> The use of strongly typed languages would resolve all those problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So. The problem is: Someone used an aggressive language (aggresive in the sense: The language does not defend the programmer from his own stupidness, but also does not hinder his freedom), used a certain feature of this language and fell on his face. Thus, the feature is bad. Uhm. I guess, in this logic, everything of C, C++, Python (at least) is bad, because you can easily fall on your face with the more efficient idioms. Certainly, you cannot iterate over the generator twice and you cannot iterate over an iterator twice (remember: a list can return multiple iterators, one at every time it is asked), but if you know a certain functions requires multiple iterations, well, pass it a list or a set or whatever is capable of generating an arbitrary amount of iterators (or even do things like itertools.repeat(generator) :) ). The point remains: This is a feature of an aggressive language, and you need to know your code slightly better (meaning: more documentation, or more code immersion) in order to reach maximum efficiency. This point holds with pointers, with templates and with generators. But it also holds, that well-used pointers, well-used templates and well-used generators can speed up code magnificiently :)

So, overall, I don't really see the point of this article, besides someone who should go and use some defensive language.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes, the non-repeating nature of generators is a little unintuitive to start with, especially when you are familiar with the way lists work. But, they are no more unintuitive that floating point rounding errors (1.1 + 2.2 != 3.3). Simply learn the type and move on.

And if you need to repeat the generator, use itertools.cycle.

</comment><comment><USER10> "I thought laziness was the New Python 3.0 Way, but apparently the New Python Way is susceptible to hairy non-local bugs."

You're using "laziness" in a language with mutation. What do you expect?

</comment><comment><USER11> _The use-case is: I create a generator somewhere, then return, pass it around a lot, and finally use the generator twice somewhere else entirely._

This is just silly. You can't use a generator twice, just like you can't keep reading from a file. When you've reached EOF, you're done. What does this guy expect, code that magically determines that when you ask for 'next()', you mean 'restart_at_the_beginning()'?

I also fail to see what this has to do with laziness: the generator lazily generates it's elements. However, at some points it's still done generating elements. That's not a failure of laziness or whatever, it's a failure of using the generator.

<comment><USER12> I thought he was saying that if you think it's a list you might write the code to iterate across it twice. Then you happen to have a generator and you might think that "it'll be just like a list" if you pass it instead.

Doesn't seem quite so silly to me.

<comment><USER13> It's also a fundamental issue with dynamic languages. Lots of code fails silently if you make faulty assumptions about the types of parameters.</comment></comment></comment>


Jetpack Compose Alpha is released - <AUTHOR> https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2020/08/announcing-jetpack-compose-alpha.html <comment><USER2> As an Android dev, I'm confident this will become as popular as Kotlin did vs Java once it becomes stable.

The preview looks great, it feels like it will make a breeze out of building composable small views, which in turn will mean many small libraries will be released, and on goes the virtuous cycle.

As a fan of React and SwiftUI, I'm excited!

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm going to be that commenter. Given Google's history I want to mark this date so we can start the countdown clock.

<comment><USER4> Compose is very necessary to remain competitive in the mobile apps landscape. Google is also behind here by about a year, so I expect to see continued strong investment in this area.

<comment><USER5> Compose, and Flutter, and their regular SDK, ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those looking for a summary: this is a SwiftUI clone for Android. SwiftUI itself is heavily inspired by React and older Functional-Reactive-Programming frameworks.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, Google has had Flutter since well before SwiftUI was released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How similar Jetpack Compose is to SwiftUI?

<comment><USER9> They look and feel quite similar. Both use a declarative approach to UI development. I think there are fundamental changes under the hood, though. For example, SwiftUI uses structs(value types) to build views but Kotlin only has classes which are reference types.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I presume apps built with Jetpack Compose will be smaller than ones built with Flutter?

<comment><USER11> I'm also curious about what will happen with Flutter in the long term.

I mean, Flutter is an SDK, and the other is an UI toolkit, but I don't see how Flutter UI will remain relevant, specially since Jetpack might take over.

<comment><USER12> Flutter will stay relevant exactly as long as Google believes it is relevant. I'd say the jury is still out on it but IMHO things are looking increasingly like they don't have a winner on their hands in terms of developer adoption. I've yet to encounter a single Flutter app in the wild. I'm not aware of anything mainstream using it.

You can tell a lot by what Google is talking about and what they are not talking about or actively avoiding talking about. Right now they are not talking a lot about Flutter (and even less about Fuchsia). Given the timing, you'd expect them to be full on shipping Flutter everything with the upcoming Android. Not a thing. Not happening at all. What ever they are doing with it, eating their own dog food is not it this year.

They just unceremoniously killed Duo after it was long clear to world + dog that that was the only sensible thing to do after that clearly failed to bring in a lot of new users from more fashionable things like Skype, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, Zoom, or Google's own Meets. Duo never came close to being in the same league. Same thing with Flutter. It's not happening and probably never will. It's a dead horse, they've flogged it for a while, it's not going anywhere. The next logical move is to shelf it.

Jetpack Compose on the other hand looks like it will be the main thing to do Android with this time next year. They are shooting for a release in 2021. 2021 Android will hit Beta probably in Spring. I'd say Jetpack Compse is well on track to release along with that around the same time.

I played with Jetpack Compose a few weeks ago; it's great. It might actually interest me in doing some proper mobile development. The old android SDKs with it's mess of XML, lots of java legacy, convoluted build tooling etc. is not very compelling to me. Jetpack compose does away with pretty much all of that. Good riddance.

<comment><USER13> According to [1], there are more than 90,000 Flutter apps on the play store, growing at over 10,000 per month. Now to be fair many of these are low quality throw away apps, but there some significant apps including Hamilton, and Google Stadia.

In addition, flutter runs in a whole bunch of places, including native desktop apps and of course Fuschia.

I am coming to the opposite conclusion. Flutter is a massive hit - and I think Google is smart enough to know they have a a winner on their hands. Flutter isn't going anywhere.

[1] [https://medium.com/flutter/announcing- flutter-1-20-2aaf68c89...](https://medium.com/flutter/announcing- flutter-1-20-2aaf68c89c75)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was just upgrading my side project from dev14 - dev17 I had no idea the alpha would be out so soon.

</comment><comment><USER15> Name collision? [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Jetpack](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Jetpack)

<comment><USER16> Jetpack is used for a lot of different things.

Just today i found out about an upcoming Laravel package called Laravel Jetpack.</comment></comment>